Guild Wars 2

With the release of PvP Leagues, players can now have an icon next to their guild tag showing their league rank. As soon as I saw this I had to cringe, because I saw it in PvE. What made me feel even worse is that these icons are not limited to sPvP and PvE, but also make an appearance in WvW. Anet, I would strongly suggest you reconsider showing these league icons outside of HotM.

First of all, lets consider what we often see floating above a player’s head: A name, a guild tag, a title, mastery level in PvE, and occasionally a commander tag. Adding yet another icon to this list made everything feel cluttered, unorganized and out of place. To me it feels like you didn’t really know where to leave the icon and just decided to paste it behind the guild tag.
Furthermore, the fact this icon has to be a solid/filled square of bright yellow color means it will become the focal point of attention. No longer are you able to read names and guild tags of players, instead your eyes are drawn to that little box. These icons will also change with league division rank. Thus soon enough we will have different colors of floating boxes, making it all even more difficult to distinguish.
At the same time, the lack of transparency means anything behind these icons is obscured. Although this may not seem like much of a problem now, as only one or two players in a group will have the icon, as time progresses we won’t be able to see anything but these icons. I fear it will become too difficult to see commander tags or player names.

Secondly, PvP leagues mean nothing outside of the sPvP community. A player’s league rank does not indicate how good they are at clearing challenging PvE content, or how many servers they have bested in WvW. There is absolutely no need to show this icon in places other than the HotM because even the bragging rights will leave PvE/WvW players cold. What completely baffled me is why you felt it was more important to show this league icon over WvW ranks in WvW zones. At least show a player’s WvW rank if you find it necessary to have additional information next to a character’s name.

Mastery level is not visible in WvW and sPvP zones because it has no meaning outside of PvE. Why not take the same approach for the PvP leagues?

I understand you are excited about sPvP and think the leagues are star spangled awesome, but not all players feel the same way. To these players leagues mean nothing.

I completly agree.
They should remove Leagues icon in PvE and WvW.
They should remove Mastery icon in PvP and WvW.

Reason being:
You can’t progress Leagues in PvE and WvW
You can’t progress Mastery in PvP and WvW

I think that I’d like to add:

+1

I think right now they’re just doing this to promote Leagues, spread awareness, get players curious about getting that icon!

I’m hopeful they will change it in the future.

Cryosia.3761:

I think right now they’re just doing this to promote Leagues, spread awareness, get players curious about getting that icon!

I’m hopeful they will change it in the future.

That may’ve worked IF they hadn’t upset a majority of players by toning down, dimming and making animations/skill near invisible.

I just posted a topic on this exact same thing. I am furious with all the nerfs to the spell/skill animations. Why can’t these changes be optional via an option in our settings?

I’m going to agree with this one. Mastery points don’t show in PvP/WvW. WvW rank doesn’t show in PvE/PvP. The PvP rank shouldn’t show in PvE/WvW. It’s visual clutter and irrelevant to PvE/WvW.

Remove the PvP League fail. It’s nothing more than VISUAL CLUTTER.

IMHO This pvp “meta” is nothing more than broken imbalance, and anyone playing pvp right now has no desire for skilled play.

I’ll be waiting for some serious balances to occur before I even set foot back into pvp.
…and when I see someone with the icon I honestly look down upon them.

(It basically means they have no problem running imba cancer…. no respect)

Its sad because I have been dying for a ladder reset (I seem to miss my chance every time to do ranked) and now that I can…. I don’t even want to.

I’m pretty sure a majority of the player base who actually cares about pvp isn’t participating either.

They are removing all combat visual clutter to make way for pvp league icon visual clutter, classic anet, classic facepalm.

Most of the decisions they are taking make no sense, they nerfed visual stuff to have less clutter but then filled the screen with icons and legendaries got a visual buff.

I play WvW, PvE and sPvP.. and I still facepalmed about this icon stuff.. there is a place for it and its the sPvP area, maybe only the lobby as I feel having icons in matches would actually lead up to toxic players harrasing lower tiers in casual or other type of matches.

Jackums.3496:

The badge should only be visible in PvP/HotM.

Nah the badge should just be hidden unless a player is targeted/moused over, same way the map completion star or mastery levels are hidden. Its a very simple fix.

Kaiser.2359:

I feel having icons in matches would actually lead up to toxic players harrasing lower tiers in casual or other type of matches.

This in a nutshell…..

Kaiser.2359:

there is a place for it and its the sPvP area, maybe only the lobby as I feel having icons in matches would actually lead up to toxic players harrasing lower tiers in casual or other type of matches.

I definitely agree with this. I do not PvP myself so I have no clue how toxic the community already is, and whether the icons are actually visible during matches, but having them visible during matches adds no value to the game. At the same time I can see how it would increase toxicity.

Yes remove it. It is annoying anyway for PvE players to see how much money can be earned by WvW matches. Money that can be spent much better to improve gameplay…

PvEs dont whant to see if they dont have rank on pvp :P

It’s pointless visual noise, cluttering up my screen. Please remove it.

Reduced visual clutter on awesome skill effects followed up with adding clutter to the sides of our names…

nmkvmbhmnjkygdfghhikgskdj;fhjigb (that is me, bashing my head against the keyboard)

Also, already seeing in map chat that “these icons separate scrubs from the rest”… Is that what they were really created for? Because just like AP, it’s now a unit of measurement related to player skill.

I like them, but agree they should be mouseover.

A world completion star, a mastery rank, a PvP rank, and a WvW rank icon would be a nice way of showing people have achieved things in a variety of modes. They just look terrible floating above everyone’s head all the time.

remove them please so annoying

If I cannot show off my WvW rank in PvE then why should I be able to see your PvP ranking?