Guild Wars 2

For me, there are 3 totally different segments in this game in which one can be considered “good” :

- Dungeons/FoTM : pvE endgame
- PvP
- Leading in WvW (Roaming, dueling or following the commander is similar to playing PvP but leading is way different and way harder)

You need to practice a lot to become good in one of these 3 segments and if you become good in one of the 3 in general you are not so good in the other 2 (I said in general, I know that there are superheroes out there who can be good in everything but that’s not the majority of players).

When I say “good” I mean reaaaally good. Being able to do FoTM 50 on a daily basis doesn’t mean anything. You could very well play warrior with full PVT armor and longbow/rifle as weapons and still finish FoTM 50 every day (it would take you a very long time but it’s feasible). I’m not going to define what “good” means to me because it’s not the point of this post.

Speaking of point, I’m getting to it don’t worry : Every PvP player knows who are the best PvP players and every WvW player knows who are the best commanders in WvW (in their server at least) but my point is : most of hardcore PvE players are unknown by the other PvE players.

Some of them are known because they post tons of videos on youtube and reddit but I’m sure that there are other very good PvE players that we don’t hear about because they don’t want to record themselves playing (and I understand them).

I know that ANet talked about a leaderboard for FoTM but it would only show who reached the lvl 50 of FoTM first, which wouldn’t mean anything except that they played all day long for 2 or 3 days after the update.

So what could ANet do in order to change this? Well the idea came to me when I saw the advertisement for The Tournament of Legends. Very good thing ANet by the way. I’m happy for the PvP community.
But why not organizing a tournament for PvE players? it would be very easy actually. It could for instance consist in finishing a FoTM 50 predetermined (I’ll explain what I mean by “predetermined”) in the minimum amount of time. When I say “predetermined” I mean that each team would have the exact same run. For example :
- 1st fractal : Water
- 2nd fractal : Colossus
- 3rd fractal : Dredge
- Boss : May Trin

I’m sure that devs can do that and it would only be right. I mean why would fame be reserved to the WvW community and the PvP community?

Please don’t talk to me about Achievement points, this is bullkitten and everybody knows it.

Tell me what you think about this.

Sorry if I made mistakes I’m not english.

If ArenaNet controlled which fractals, it would be.

1) Dredge
2) Dredge
3) Dredge
4) Dredge with more protection.

^^^^ lolz.

If you want recognition as a pve player, start recording yourself….

So you want a DPS contest to feed your internets boss syndrome?

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

So you want a DPS contest to feed your internets boss syndrome?

What do you mean by “internets boss syndrome”?

Could we have a dev opinion about this maybe?

seriously? Didnt get much feedback (and what you did get is negative) so “please dev, please listen to me”.

So…the best Zerker player award is what you’re suggesting? Which is essentially the best dodger award? Being the best at dodging in Zerker gear and burning mobs down/skipping content does not constitute (in my mind) the best players. Best players would be the ones that can coordinate fields properly, clear conditions/boons properly. Not who can stack in a corner, and max DPS bosses.

EDIT: If they could have dungeon runs where there could be Anet spectators/judges where players were NOT allowed to stack or skip ANY content, then I might consider it a worthwhile award. Actually having to fight the bosses as intended rather than cheesy tactics, that would help separate good players versus DPS stack speedrunners.

Recognized PvE players in the old days were the ones that did the most for the community, by hosting events, recording dev statements on fan sites etc. – but that was back then when Anet was a different company.
How? Some people got immortalized by adding them as NPCs to the game or using their input to name a boss (e.g. Molotov Rocktail IIRC was one of them).
I don’t want any leader boards for speed clears or maxed damage. PvE should be about playing together and not against numbers.

Taygus.4571:

seriously? Didnt get much feedback (and what you did get is negative) so “please dev, please listen to me”.

Very constructive comment Taygus. What I did get wasn’t negative, it was no feedback at all. And yes I’d like devs to consider my idea.

Draknar.5748:

So…the best Zerker player award is what you’re suggesting? Which is essentially the best dodger award? Being the best at dodging in Zerker gear and burning mobs down/skipping content does not constitute (in my mind) the best players. Best players would be the ones that can coordinate fields properly, clear conditions/boons properly. Not who can stack in a corner, and max DPS bosses.

EDIT: If they could have dungeon runs where there could be Anet spectators/judges where players were NOT allowed to stack or skip ANY content, then I might consider it a worthwhile award. Actually having to fight the bosses as intended rather than cheesy tactics, that would help separate good players versus DPS stack speedrunners.

Your first argument is soo wrong because playing full zerk doesn’t mean that you “only” have to dodge, you also need to be VERY VERY coordinate and clear conditions… Maybe you should try it one day to see that dodging is not enough.

You second argument is completely out of scope because I’m talking about FoTM and you almost don’t skip anything in FoTM.

As I recall on gw1, there were certain challenge missions that had Records held for fastest time or most points.

A record of best speedclearing for dungeons/fotm for each month would be a nice thing to have imo.

I like your idea.This reminds me of WoW’s challenge mode dungeons.There they have leader board.Something similar here can work for Fractals too.

Yeah, it would turn into a DPS/Zerker/speed fest. It wouldn’t reflect on anything, other than that group copied the meta well enough to do it. That doesn’t really mean anything, because any noob can get full zerker gear, trait accordingly and still maximize DPS. If you wanted PvE recognition you’d had to have an arena type setup where one would SOLO all the hardest dungeon/FotM bosses back to back with no breaks on a continous random rotation. And then your name goes up on a leader board for number of bosses killed.

pdavis.8031:

Yeah, it would turn into a DPS/Zerker/speed fest. It wouldn’t reflect on anything, other than that group copied the meta well enough to do it. That doesn’t really mean anything, because any noob can get full zerker gear, trait accordingly and still maximize DPS.

You, as well as too many people, don’t realize that the most skilled players are the players who know how to play zerk. You seem to think that playing zerk is the easiest way of playing and it makes me think that you have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about. Playing zerk is, by definition, being THE MOST EXPOSED to the damage your character gets (your gear gives you no vitality bonus, no toughness bonus, no reduction of condition duration, no condition cleaning, NOTHING) so it is clear that you need to compensate by a good dodging skill, by extreme coordination with your team (knowing when to put Aegis, when to attack, when to put a time warp etc) and it allows almost NO MISTAKE. Especially in FoTM lvl 50. So how could you say that “any noob can get full zerker gear, trait accordingly and still maximize DPS.” This is insanely wrong.

I think we already have recognized figure in PvE, ever heard of TTS and/or Dulfy?

Go look at Brazil, he’s renown for tinkering around with builds simply in PvE and showing huge DPS and monster solos.

Have you forgotten what PvE and PvP mean? Player vs Environment is not Plaver vs Player and trying the make Player vs Environment vs Player vs Environment isn’t going to catch on.

If you really want a PvE test of player insight, organization, gear, builds, etc. then you are really looking at the raiding provided by other games. These require large amounts of time effort to succeed and Anet don’t want to necessitate that time commitment from its players. Although the OP wants high skill to predominate, any contest would ultimately be test of a time commitment, organization, and maybe gear grind.

That depends on what you define as “skilled players”. To me, skilled doesn’t mean pulling a meta zerker build off the forums, dodging out of red circles, and out of the way of heavily telegraphed attacks, and speed running through a dungeon. yes it does require coordination, just like EVERY OTHER BUILD in a group. Theres a reason zerkers run in zerker only groups. Not because the other builds aren’t complatible, because it means that the zerker has to do something other than faceroll the boss. They aren’t built for it. The idea is to kill the boss fast before it can do damage to you. It doesn’t take a genious to build for maximum amount of damage, anyone can do that. It doesn’t take a genious, or much skill, to hit hard and fast, and fall back when you take too much damage.

A skilled player, in my mind, is one who can adapt to any situation with ANY group regardless of party makeup. I’ve seen too many zerkers lying dead in dungeon runs, and whining that it was the groups fault because they tried a faceroll and failed because the group wasn’t built for it.

So yeah, just because you are zerk, doesn’t mean you are a skilled player, like drakner said, being the best at dodging, and burning down mobs doesn’t nesseccarily equal skill. It’s difficult to define what is skilled in PvE anyway. I would say I’m fairly skilled in PvE, and guess what? I play a non zerk warrior. So by your definition, I am not skilled at all, because only skilled players run zerk.

Simon.7823:

Maybe you should try it one day to see that dodging is not enough.

You second argument is completely out of scope because I’m talking about FoTM and you almost don’t skip anything in FoTM.

Are you telling me people don’t skip content/mobs in Dredge and Ascalon? That they don’t exploit the final seals in Cliffside by leaving one guy alive on the first seal so that mobs don’t spawn on that side? And don’t stack for the Cliffside boss for example or Champ Rabsovich encounter?

Those are things that I know all "good"players in FoTM do because it is simply easier. My point was that those things should not be allowed to be considered a good PvE player. You should have to full clear the dungeon and fight all bosses and encounters without stacking anywhere, ever.

I just wanted to be clear on that because judging simply on completion time doesn’t necessarily mean a group is comprised of better players. It means they are comprised of players that know ways to exploit the basic GW2 mechanics to make it easier. Admittedly these mechanics allow for players to do these things, but I certainly don’t think that’s what they intended for the encounters.

Draknar.5748:

Are you telling me people don’t skip content/mobs in Dredge and Ascalon?

For dredge people skip between 10 and 12 mobs which represent absolutely nothing and for Ascalon, you HAVE to skip the first mobs because they never stop to spawn so…

Draknar.5748:

That they don’t exploit the final seals in Cliffside by leaving one guy alive on the first seal so that mobs don’t spawn on that side?

People who do that do it because they failed to kill the boss or because they know that they will fail… these are not “good” PvE players.. They lose time compared to those who can kill the boss without this exploit so it’s a bad example, sorry.

Failed to kill the boss? what boss? If you kill both of the chanters on one side, more spawn, and continue to spawn as you kill them, endlessly. I’ve done it both ways, and leaving one is FAR easier then killing both. It would seem that making the run EASIER would be the sign of a “good” player, because it makes it faster. But speed isn’t the definition of a good player.

pdavis.8031:

So by your definition, I am not skilled at all, because only skilled players run zerk.

At least all skilled warriors run zerk so yeah.. you should face reality : you could be better

pdavis.8031:

Failed to kill the boss? what boss? If you kill both of the chanters on one side, more spawn, and continue to spawn as you kill them, endlessly. I’ve done it both ways, and leaving one is FAR easier then killing both. It would seem that making the run EASIER would be the sign of a “good” player, because it makes it faster. But speed isn’t the definition of a good player.

I’m sorry I didn’t understand you, I thought you were talking about the last sigil. My bad.

GW2 is a very casual friendly game that dreamed of becoming a PvP e-sport. That’s why they do PvP tournaments. I doubt they would want to promote speed running though, as it would only further carve out what the only viable classes are.

So, basically, your ego is screaming “I want to be well known” to the world. I see. Good luck.

Simon.7823:

pdavis.8031:

So by your definition, I am not skilled at all, because only skilled players run zerk.

At least all skilled warriors run zerk so yeah.. you should face reality : you could be better

But what makes one skilled in PvE? Is it the build? Gear set? How many titles, or AP points you have? How fast you can clear a dungeon? Nearly everything can be farmed one way or another, or bought from the TP so that doesn’t mean anything. And speed runs don’t equate skill. All a speed run shows is that you’ve chosen the best meta build, and you know the exploits.

And just because I don’t run beserker doesn’t mean I’m not good. Granted I’m terrible at PvP and WvWvW, those are not really my game styles, don’t enjoy them. But this is PvE we are talking about, it’s a completely different mechanic. And there really is no way to determine how good someone is in PvE.

I chose NOT to run beserker on purpose, yes its the meta, yes it’s the highest DPS, but I wanted to go a different route with my Warrior. That doesn’t mean I’m a bad player. It means I didn’t want to be a sheep and do what every other warrior was doing. DPS doesn’t mean much to me. I have different goals. So your inferance that I’m a bad player by not running beserker is insulting and uncalled for.

SkyShroud.2865:

So, basically, your ego is screaming “I want to be well known” to the world. I see. Good luck.

So, basically, you didn’t understand my point. Maybe you should read my post again.

If I had an ego that big, I would simply give advices and post videos of my builds et my runs just like DnT…

I just think that it would be awesome to have a PvE tournament. That’s my point. I know that I wouldn’t win it but I’d like to see what rank I could get. Perfectly human.

pdavis.8031:

Simon.7823:

pdavis.8031:

So by your definition, I am not skilled at all, because only skilled players run zerk.

At least all skilled warriors run zerk so yeah.. you should face reality : you could be better

But what makes one skilled in PvE? Is it the build? Gear set? How many titles, or AP points you have? How fast you can clear a dungeon? Nearly everything can be farmed one way or another, or bought from the TP so that doesn’t mean anything. And speed runs don’t equate skill. All a speed run shows is that you’ve chosen the best meta build, and you know the exploits.

And just because I don’t run beserker doesn’t mean I’m not good. Granted I’m terrible at PvP and WvWvW, those are not really my game styles, don’t enjoy them. But this is PvE we are talking about, it’s a completely different mechanic. And there really is no way to determine how good someone is in PvE.

I chose NOT to run beserker on purpose, yes its the meta, yes it’s the highest DPS, but I wanted to go a different route with my Warrior. That doesn’t mean I’m a bad player. It means I didn’t want to be a sheep and do what every other warrior was doing. DPS doesn’t mean much to me. I have different goals. So your inferance that I’m a bad player by not running beserker is insulting and uncalled for.

Don’t try to justify your play style, I don’t care why you don’t want to play zerk. Maybe it’s because you “don’t want to be a sheep”, maybe it’s because you can’t handle zerk, maybe it’s something else it doesn’t matter. For me, a warrior exists to deal damage. When I take a warrior in my group, it’s because I need DPS, nothing else.

Regarding your question “what makes one skilled in PvE?” it’s very simple : The best PvE players are those who are the best in FoTM (which is the HL part of PvE). When you’re good in FoTM you can do everything in PvE. How to know what group is the best at FoTM? The one who finishes first. Why? Because it means that they were more efficient than others. As I said before, playing zerk requires way more skill than playing PVT or Toughness, Power, Precision or anything else.

Ye its unfortunate to see the negative comments on here, sorry about that. I have stated the same thing and gotten negativity as well. Mainly because a lot of PVE players in this game are kittens and competition would hurt their feelings. WvW and PvP both teams that you would see as recognizable for their skill.

In PVE this is not really true besides a few examples of people soloing certain fractals or certain explore paths, but even then they don’t get anything that separates them.

I think there should be a system that recognizes the more talented PVE players by rewarding them with special skins. One problem is that there currently isn’t any difficult PVE in this game, its easymode across the board. What is somewhat hard can be soloing content like I mentioned previously.

I have two suggestions. Make high level fractals have more than cheesy mistlock instabilities. Keep those there if you like, but put after a certain threshold(maybe 51+), add more mechanics and phases to each of the bosses in fractals so that they are more challenging and fun. Anet please be more creative than just giving the bosses more health and making them hit harder.

The second suggestion is put in a system that acknowledges a fractal/dungeon is being soloed, like a solo mode only. The content is the same difficulty with a few tweaks to certain dungeons/fractals that only can be 5-manned because of mechanics, but after that give the player certain rewards for doing so. Perhaps they get more fancy fractal skins or more fancy dungeon armor/weapon skins that are currently in the game. You could not cheat by bringing in an extra member to help you out with these solo instances because parties would not be allowed. Anyway something like this would be cool but anytime difficulty is added to PVE in gw2, there is a swarm of people who rush the forums to complain about the difficulty when in reality its just content too hard for them.

Simon.7823:

pdavis.8031:

Yeah, it would turn into a DPS/Zerker/speed fest. It wouldn’t reflect on anything, other than that group copied the meta well enough to do it. That doesn’t really mean anything, because any noob can get full zerker gear, trait accordingly and still maximize DPS.

You, as well as too many people, don’t realize that the most skilled players are the players who know how to play zerk. You seem to think that playing zerk is the easiest way of playing and it makes me think that you have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about. Playing zerk is, by definition, being THE MOST EXPOSED to the damage your character gets (your gear gives you no vitality bonus, no toughness bonus, no reduction of condition duration, no condition cleaning, NOTHING) so it is clear that you need to compensate by a good dodging skill, by extreme coordination with your team (knowing when to put Aegis, when to attack, when to put a time warp etc) and it allows almost NO MISTAKE. Especially in FoTM lvl 50. So how could you say that “any noob can get full zerker gear, trait accordingly and still maximize DPS.” This is insanely wrong.

Funny. I dont run zerker on my primary dungeon and fractal character. Yet I get invited all the time. We also survive in those dungeons and fractal boss fights precisely because I dont run zerker. Mossman? The more he focuses and chases me, the less he’s killing the other 4 people who are killing him. Mai Trin? I’m usually the one getting her stacks off (kitten you to hell Horrick, kitten you to hell) and keeping her off everyone else in the party while they res people that get downed/dead. Most dungeons it doesnt matter, or I’m down/dead first because I’m still not used to those bosses (like arah, 4 times there to date). Granted, it’s possible to do so on a guardian precisely because a selfish build setup (trying to push over 26k hp with it) means the guardian is more useful to the party by pulling attacks that would easily down or kill others.

Also, there’s different kinds of recognition. All those fixes and tweaks Anet’s been doing to Teq and THW? They’re influenced by large groups like TTS and TxS as they’re some of, and are, the largest communities in GW2 capable of clearing that content. If there’s anyone able to find bugs and glitches in content such as that, it’s them. Of course, there’s not going to be anything from Anet that specifically states it as much, but people can guess the truth. And that’s just one thing.

GW1 had Challenge missions with posted scores and leader boards. So why not?

…

Oh yeah… because no one actually looked at the leader boards other than to know the exact minimum number of points needed for the gold bonus. >.<

Simon.7823:

pdavis.8031:

Simon.7823:

pdavis.8031:

So by your definition, I am not skilled at all, because only skilled players run zerk.

At least all skilled warriors run zerk so yeah.. you should face reality : you could be better

But what makes one skilled in PvE? Is it the build? Gear set? How many titles, or AP points you have? How fast you can clear a dungeon? Nearly everything can be farmed one way or another, or bought from the TP so that doesn’t mean anything. And speed runs don’t equate skill. All a speed run shows is that you’ve chosen the best meta build, and you know the exploits.

And just because I don’t run beserker doesn’t mean I’m not good. Granted I’m terrible at PvP and WvWvW, those are not really my game styles, don’t enjoy them. But this is PvE we are talking about, it’s a completely different mechanic. And there really is no way to determine how good someone is in PvE.

I chose NOT to run beserker on purpose, yes its the meta, yes it’s the highest DPS, but I wanted to go a different route with my Warrior. That doesn’t mean I’m a bad player. It means I didn’t want to be a sheep and do what every other warrior was doing. DPS doesn’t mean much to me. I have different goals. So your inferance that I’m a bad player by not running beserker is insulting and uncalled for.

Don’t try to justify your play style, I don’t care why you don’t want to play zerk. Maybe it’s because you “don’t want to be a sheep”, maybe it’s because you can’t handle zerk, maybe it’s something else it doesn’t matter. For me, a warrior exists to deal damage. When I take a warrior in my group, it’s because I need DPS, nothing else.

Regarding your question “what makes one skilled in PvE?” it’s very simple : The best PvE players are those who are the best in FoTM (which is the HL part of PvE). When you’re good in FoTM you can do everything in PvE. How to know what group is the best at FoTM? The one who finishes first. Why? Because it means that they were more efficient than others. As I said before, playing zerk requires way more skill than playing PVT or Toughness, Power, Precision or anything else.

Im not trying to justify my build or Play style. Im trying to point out that speed runs and dps are not valid measures of skill. Having a tournament to see who could clear a dungeon, or bosses, or fractals or whatever the fastest doesnt equal the most skillful players. All that it would do is reinforce the zerker meta, which it appears anet is trying to move away from, and endorse skipping and exploits. Super speed runs and stacking would become the only acceptable way to play. For anyone using a different type of gear/build it would mean they become useless and obsolete and met with more ridicule then they do now.

I wouldn’t mind having something to determine skill in PvE, but there is no way to do that that wont be exploited, and result in less build diversity and more animosity between players. Im all for competition, but fractals/dungeon runs would not be a good way to determine who is the best.

Maybe something that included the various aspects of pve, jps, world bosses, timed events, exploration and discovery all in the same instance. Like a solo scavenger hunt that spanned the whole world, included world bosses and jps and events, all to be done in a time limit. Disable all but one WP in each zone while hunt is enabled. Something like that would he more of a measure of skill than fractal/dungeon zerker speed runs.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered a fractal leaderboard?

There is place for everyone.Even for the hard core of the dungeon population.I personally loved the WoW’s challenge modes.What is the problem if Anet add similar thing and also why people are so negative about it?What is the problem with the speed clears?

For me personally when i run with my pre-made it’s great.We use Ele/Thief/Warr/Guard/Ranger.Everyone knows what to do where to do it.We play together from a lot of time and the only challenge is still Arah/TA aether/FotM.

• Is it needed everyone to be zerker?Not at all.But 4 out of 5 are.
• Is it needed to be with metas?Yes
• Knowledge of the group and the dungeon is a must.

In my opinion OP’s suggestion will be great addition to the game especially for those who are more competitive.Who have pre-mades and want more challenging content.
Will this be for the average pug?I don’t know.What i know is that that the content will be not made with casuals in mind.So it will be harder.

Yeah im for something like a leaderboard or special recognition, but I dont see it working well in dungeons/fractals. Because if you want to be a contender you are forced to play a specific build and style. Thats one of the points I was trying to make, but the conversation got derailed.

PvE players are unknown because unlike PvP, PvE isn’t based on individual player skill. It is a group effort. You cannot put members of the group in order based on their skill level.

People do not care who is that one player in the group that managed to do something, but they might care about the group as a whole.

For example everyone in raiding games knows the top world first guilds, but who can name any of their members?

PvE recognition is for guilds and groups, not single players.