Guild Wars 2

I have previously championed 8vs8 games saying the zerg mentality would exist regardless. I apologise I was wrong. 5vs5 or even 4vs4 really works so much better in this game. I’m not sure why. Perhaps its the size of the maps, or that there are only 3 points to capture, or the new dynamic without dedicated healers, or a combination of all this. Whatever the case, 5vs5 is just so much better that I now cringe whenever I have to play 8vs8.

Which brings me to the point of my post. It is great that we have the option of 5vs5, however, many times no one is playing the 5vs5 games, or if there is a game, when people leave new participants often don’t turn up.

You may say, well that shows there is just no demand for 5vs5 so too bad. However, I think the real issue is that the 5vs5 games are waaaay down at the bottom of the current pvp game browser list.

Could the devs please consider either moving the 5vs5 game format to the top of the list or having a 5vs5 tab and an 8vs8 tab?

What do you think about this forum goers?

agreed or dont sort it by number format

No. I actually like having 8v8 on top.

I say might as well remove 8v8s altogether.

Of course, plenty other adjustments will have to be made to make this work, e.g. fix perverse glory system, prevent team switches/leaving without penalty, etc. because 1 less player in 5v5 is much more significant drop in strength, etc.

Chriswck.6490:

I say might as well remove 8v8s altogether.

Of course, plenty other adjustments will have to be made to make this work, e.g. fix perverse glory system, prevent team switches/leaving without penalty, etc. because 1 less player in 5v5 is much more significant drop in strength, etc.

I disagree. It seems to work fine as is in spvp 5vs5, much better than 8vs8. If the games were at the top or otherwise very prominant you would get new people joining very quickly and mitigate such balance issues. Atm because 5vs5 games are essentially hidden if someone leaves you might be stuck at 5vs4 or whatever the whole match which is not so good.

I didn’t even know 5vs5 was available in normal spvp until I read a thread about it here a while ago, and it still some head scratching to finally find it in game.

So if you like 5vs5 I implore you not to complicate things but just to push nicely for the format to be in a more obvious place. That will solve many immediate issues.

Btw, if you haven’t played 5vs5, I really recommend it. It is truely amazing what a big impact having three less players per side makes.

Agreed.

I posted for this a while ago, some people think that it will be an “all or nothing” mob mentality and this will kill 8v8 as ppl would only then do 5v5.

I argue that a good amount of people will still just do 8v8 because it is better for grinding glory/rank, but with this easy change 5v5 hot joins would at least be active enough to be a viable alternative for people who just want to train

They should have separate tabs in the hotjoin menu.

djtool.8372:

They should have separate tabs in the hotjoin menu.

Yes please. 5vs5 is more kittenn anyway!

I vote for either seperate tabs, or 5v5 at the top. IMO, 5v5 feels like how pvp was meant to be played, and in general is just less of a zergy mess.

8v8 is just horrible. Not sure who thought it was a good idea to put it on top.

8v8 has no coherent strategy. The thing is also dominated with gc thiefs which will instantly kill you cause theres more than 1 of them most of the time.

I agree there needs to be a better implementation to easily join a 5v5.

Honestly, 8v8 is best for “grinding” glory which is what most people are likely interested in sPvP.

Originally I was all for 5v5 and wanted the heaviest focus put on those servers, but until we have a matchmaking system that can better garuntee full 5v5 servers, I find myself having more fun in 8v8s. (Or until the playerbase hopefully returns)

What seems to come up for me almost daily now in spvp is people saying things like “why is this so unbalanced”. I think a key element to the feeling of imbalance could be the 8vs8 format. It feels almost like which group can zerg the best rather than which group can work together the best.

If you wait near a point, you can see the whole zerg running off together to the next point, and you rarely see small groups of 2 or 3 splitting to take a different point (if so that is usually the team that gets rofl stomped).

It looks really cool, what with necro’s and their pets and all the rest, kind of like a Japanese “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons” as you may have seen in traditional Japanese paintings of youkai or in the manga Nurarihyon no mago, but gameplay wise it is a bit lacking.

If you remember back to Arathi Basin in WoW, even with pug groups you could successfully hold points with 4 players and have back-up arrive in time to defend against a zerg (among other strategies), there was a real feeling that the movement and squad based play meant something; in the gw2 8vs8 spvp I often start feeling like I’m on a merry-go-round as I rotate endlessly between points.

I haven’t had the chance to play enough 5vs5 as I would like, but when I do it feels more like one or two people can successfully hold a point, or if 2 people hit a point they can have an impact, and not just get zerged down seconds later.

Perhaps what I’m experiencing is just the nature of largely uncoordinated pug group play in general. I don’t know, but my feeling is there was somewhat more strategy in other mmo battlegrounds I’ve played.

Couldn’t agree more.