Guild Wars 2

5k+ MMR Dota2 player here (top 0.5%)….so I’d think I understand a bit about PvP and esport mechanics.

The simple fact of facing premades, duo/triple queues as a solo queue player is ridiculous. In DotA2, queuing even as 2 puts you in the team MMR bracket, which makes the solo queue environment much more enjoyable.

Right now, as a solo queue in GW2 I’m facing teams that have three people porting in to contest caps, and people who are port swapping to sustain a point contest in case someone runs low. This type of organization should NOT be something you see from solo queue matches.

Furthermore, I’ve noticed there are a few builds with high DPS that have ridiculous sustain (such as Tempests, Reapers, DH, etc.) The game mechanics here are grossly imabalanced in terms of skill cap required to play a few roles. DotA2 has had its fair share of imbalance (heroes such as Storm Spirit, Bloodseeker, Terrorblade, etc….all of which were subject to nerfs), but the skill discrepancy between builds here is noticeably worse than anything I’ve seen in DotA2.

I usually play GW2 casually in between other games (have over 1000 games played), and have gone from a 60% solo queue win percent to 55.5% within the span of two days because of this ridiculous matchmaking. Getting stomped 200-500 against organized teams every game is not fun….and the games I do win I’m barely winning 500-490.

TLDR: GW2 PvP is not an enjoyable experience because it in no way feels fair…especially to the Solo Queue player.

different games, different level of programming ability, pretty much all there is to it.

I wouldn’t worry about it. In the long run, GW2 has literally a zero percent chance to become a legitimate esport. Even WoW struggled with esports when it had massively more support, development, and far superior balance.

Compared to actual competitive games like LoL, DotA, CSGO, GW2 is basically just a joke. The $200k investment into the league is basically just a $200k advertisement once the tournament comes around. It’s not hard to see the viewers that DotA pulls in during the International because of the huge prize pools – ANet just wants in on the publicity. Funny thing is that huge prize pools are meaningless when there’s limited support for the game (especially sPvP, which is largely ignored in favor of PvE), and even if they manage decent viewership, nobody will understand what’s going on because of the awful watchability of GW2, how difficult it is to follow, and how deep the combat is at first. Even someone that isn’t even playing can be overwhelmed.

WoW was at least fortunate enough to have easy-to-see visual cues for abilities in combination with cast bars and a level of predictability. GW2 offers literally nothing to the viewer to help them understand and make out what’s happening in game. GW2 is not prepared for esports in literally any aspect whatsoever. A large prize pool doesn’t mean kitten when there’s less than 6 teams in the entire world that are competitive at a top level, and a massive percentage of people that are even playing the same game don’t give a kitten. Why should a random viewer care when pretty much nobody else that’s actually playing the game does?

They wont.

I Love GW2 combat and PVP, but i dont like the SPVP arena/mode itself. Tahts why i just run WvW as roamer to get some fightts/fun;

Look at how many players are in DOTA2 and how many are in GW2 ranked PvP, how long you think that a team exclusive queue would be, even worse, imagine same scenario in non prime hours?

Belzebu.3912:

Look at how many players are in DOTA2 and how many are in GW2 ranked PvP, how long you think that a team exclusive queue would be, even worse, imagine same scenario in non prime hours?

So the solution is to frustrate more and more soloqueuers putting them against duo+ queuers up to the point of making them quit completely the game?

Seems legit.

The problem with GW2 PvP has always been a complete lack of distinct roles when it comes to builds. Every single time the meta game becomes cluttered with self sufficient builds.

Now we have builds that are mobile, tanky, sustainable and do damage.

Chokolata.1870:

Now we have builds that are mobile, tanky, sustainable and do damage.

This is loosely related to esports, but it’s absolutely true and ridiculous. The meta is less than half of all classes, and of those, only builds that have everything – tanky dps with utility. It would be nice to see elite specs get nerfed back down to warrior/thief level.

Fortunately, people are not as strict about the meta as they are in LoL.

Belzebu.3912:

Look at how many players are in DOTA2 and how many are in GW2 ranked PvP, how long you think that a team exclusive queue would be, even worse, imagine same scenario in non prime hours?

Both queues would be very long. Many people play in small teams or duo. If all these where in team queue solo queue would be very long too.

The majority of our players are solo queued, that much is obvious. The queues weren’t that slow in the past when we had Solo Queue, for those that used that. Those using Group Queue (e.g., the e-sport puppies that ArenaNet wants to please and cater to), they had horrible queue times (and still do granted, unless they cheese it and bring in someone with low MMR and Division), so they took Solo Queue away to please them, pretty much. And in doing so, disregarding that they can have their few pro players as much as they want, and they can try to make them happy, but it won’t go anywhere without the casual average players being pleased and interested in actually watching. The larger majority has no aspirations or interest in playing in tournaments. Simple fact. I am frequently too kittened off to be interested in watching anything that has to do with Guild Wars 2, even less a tournament of the game mode that is kittening me off.

You are making people NOT play sPvP, by not separating the Solo- and Group Queue, or at the very least only match up 4+1, 3+2 and 5 player teams with one another. People get frustrated and stop playing, because there is absolutely no fun in facing premades as a person who dominantly queue solo. They get frustrated and angry, and will in no way be interested in watching streams of Guild Wars 2 PvP, which means the e-sports community remains overall very small, instead of increasingly growing. Solo mixed with Group is just not fair. It’s not balanced (the horrible class balance currently aside). It also doesn’t help that the matchmaking creates absolutely horrible comps on one side, very often, while the other side gets a good comp. That’s not fun either. I also swear that on one character, I get far more capable players, while on another I recently switched to for Ranked, I get complete.. well.. not so good players. I thought profession-based MMR wasn’t used? Or is it? Otherwise my other char must be carrying the matches insanely well, as I have far more wins when I play that, because the team actually plays well.. which.. doesn’t make sense.. because, then I can’t be carrying.. my head hurts.