Guild Wars 2

There are many more questions related to automated tournaments that have not been addressed. Vague notice of upcoming reward structure is nice for those so motivated, but the recent information releases stop short of providing key information on the underlying mechanisms of the system.

1) What times of day will the daily tournaments play? When will the monthlies play?

2) Do players register as teams or guilds? Are players rewarded qualifying points as a team roster, as a guild, or as individuals?

3) Are players allowed to switch professions before a match? Is there anything in place to prevent multiples of the same profession?

4) After the registration window, how are teams matched? Is it based on registration time, current qualifying points, truly randomised, or what? How are they matched for the monthly?

5) Is there a limit to qualifying points that can be won in a day or week?

6) Is there a free agent mechanism or full 5 member teams only?

Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I haven’t found this sort of information anywhere. I am sure there are many more, non-reward questions others have too.

With the talk of giving an outlet to teams (not just pro or former pro) and players who want to play with their friends, I am surprised to have not seen these questions asked or answered.

These are very good questions and hopefully we can get answers to at least some of them.

Ben is on a roll with answering questions this week.

“Currently, the swapping rules are no different than ranked. We are not preventing class stacking, though it’s something we may change in the future.”

Can’t even believe this part, class stacking is bad and should not exist in AT’s

bluri.2653:

“Currently, the swapping rules are no different than ranked. We are not preventing class stacking, though it’s something we may change in the future.”

Can’t even believe this part, no class stacking will be a fokken disaster

He said you can class stack. Your reflexive knee jerk negative posts are repetitive, annoying, and boring.

steelheart.7386:

bluri.2653:

“Currently, the swapping rules are no different than ranked. We are not preventing class stacking, though it’s something we may change in the future.”

Can’t even believe this part, no class stacking will be a fokken disaster

He said you can class stack. Your reflexive knee jerk negative posts are repetitive, annoying, and boring.

Yeah and class stacking is a disaster and will be terrible to see in AT’s exactly why it’s disabled in any tournament that has been played since forever. And there has been plenty of people telling how bad it is since forever ago in ranked as well, but i don’t expect much from someone who probably don’t even PvP.

I’ll edit my first post for you

Oh i see, you are one of those necros. That explains it

Meta seems to be in a place where stacking any class just results in a sub par comp, so not really worried about it.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Thank you for responding. I have some additional follow up questions.

1) Is there a cap to how many teams may enter a single daily tournament and is there a cap to how many games a player must play for any single one of those?

2) Do only the winning players receive qualifying points, or do lower places receive them as well in diminished amounts?

3) Because players are awarded qualifying points individually, it sounds as though players may enter individual, different tournaments with a different team. This also suggests monthly teams competing may not be those that were played with over the month, but rather an assembly of the highest QP folks you can find. Is this intended?

4) Without some kind of cap, it sounds as though QP can be grinded to some degree by those with greater availability, not necessarily indicative of highest skill, pushing out players with less availability but potentially higher skill. Is this intended?

ArthurDent.9538:

Meta seems to be in a place where stacking any class just results in a sub par comp, so not really worried about it.

I feel this, for the most part, is a pretty accurate assessment, but hasn’t really been put to the test publicly by organised teams. There is a reason class stacking was banned in tournament play and, in the end, I think those same reasons are just as valid here to provide the best, most competitive and enjoyable experience possible to those players participating or viewing via streams or the monthly.

Is there any kind of calculation for the QPs that take into account who you beat to get to your respective place in that daily tournment?

For example, if a team happens to have the same availability as Rank 55 and queues in the same daily tournaments as them but always gets 2nd, will they systemically be seeded lower than a team that queues at exact opposite times with worse competition but wins every time?

It obviously can’t only be base on who you beat because then the top teams could in theory just queue once (repeat issues of S5 ranked solo/duo with no min games), but there should be some kind of variability to in such that who you beat/lose to matters.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Thank you for responding. I have some additional follow up questions.

1) Is there a cap to how many teams may enter a single daily tournament and is there a cap to how many games a player must play for any single one of those?

We’re starting with a cap of 100 teams for now. It’s likely we will be able to raise that number. I’m not quite sure what you’re asking for the second part of your question.

4) Without some kind of cap, it sounds as though QP can be grinded to some degree by those with greater availability, not necessarily indicative of highest skill, pushing out players with less availability but potentially higher skill. Is this intended?

QP can be grinded. It will get you higher seeding, but unless we hit the tournament team cap, you can’t knock someone else out of the tournament.

I apologize for the lack of clarity. The factors of 100 team limit and single elimination address the concern that generated the second part of the first question and so was addressed.

Concerning the fourth question, I was referring to the monthly rather than daily tournaments. I thought the monthly was very limited in team size and could imagine a higher skilled team of players being pushed out of the competition by a team with more time available could lead to some animosity.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, I am very grateful for the level of thought and transparency. That gives me plenty to think about for now.

Sup ben. Since you’re making yourself available to answer questions (very much appreciated) I’d like to shoot some your way.

1) Will there be opportunities for shoutcasters to stream the weekly/monthly? As in, will you bring back the authorized shoutcaster program?

2) Can you share an estimation of the gold earned for a tournament win? Outside of those statues, will there be any incentive at all for a team to win more than one monthly tournament since they’ll be rewarded with the full set once they win the first one?

3) how will qualifyng points work cross region wise? Is there anything to stop an european team going to NA in order to farm QPs in a less competitive enviroment?

Thanks in advance,
Sincerely
Kittykittymeowmew
Greatest mesmer ever

What kind of rewards, titles will be available in addition to the skins for tournament winners?

Will the monthly tournaments provide decent rewards to participants other than the 1st and 2nd place winners? It seems the same couple of teams always win these things, so for those teams that don’t have a chance of ever beating the top 1-2 teams, will they have enough incentive to keep participating?

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

nothelseth.4621:

Sup ben. Since you’re making yourself available to answer questions (very much appreciated) I’d like to shoot some your way.

1) Will there be opportunities for shoutcasters to stream the weekly/monthly? As in, will you bring back the authorized shoutcaster program?

We won’t have the ability to spectate matches at launch.

2) Can you share an estimation of the gold earned for a tournament win? Outside of those statues, will there be any incentive at all for a team to win more than one monthly tournament since they’ll be rewarded with the full set once they win the first one?

First place in the monthlies gets 500 gold, 100 mystic coins, 3 ascended armor boxes, a llama box, a title, and 4 weeks of access to Champion’s Rest. My hope, is that we’ll be able to change out rewards as we get access to them.

3) how will qualifyng points work cross region wise? Is there anything to stop an european team going to NA in order to farm QPs in a less competitive enviroment?

If you switch regions and participate in a tournament, you will have your QP zeroed out.

Thanks in advance,
Sincerely
Kittykittymeowmew
Greatest mesmer ever

500 golds per team or per player ?

ArthurDent.9538:

Meta seems to be in a place where stacking any class just results in a sub par comp, so not really worried about it.

Meta looks like this because class staking was not allowed. Nobody metacrafted for …years in mind that we can stack more then one class so there are out there possible metashifts…

Simply put…meta will change because of class staking…

There were some serious reasons why this was no allowed on paid tournaments and we shouldn’t have it at AT.

Inb4 3 eles and 2 scrapper comps, simply unbeatable.

WOW! There are dev here!

Abelisk.4527:

Inb4 3 eles and 2 scrapper comps, simply unbeatable.

This. Bunker Meta. It is reality that there will be teams that run full bunker, or rough equivalents, and it will be to the detriment of those players matched against them. In the long term it hurts the game mode and overall experience. It will not be enjoyable to play against, legitimate though it may be. Preventing class stacking will not prevent some teams from trying this or experiencing success with it, but it would be a good first step or show of faith to try and limit its negative impact on the experience.

I’m willing to wait and see how tournaments play out before i consider class stacking an issue. I haven’t really felt that there’s any class worth stacking right now.

Allarius.5670:

Abelisk.4527:

Inb4 3 eles and 2 scrapper comps, simply unbeatable.

This. Bunker Meta. It is reality that there will be teams that run full bunker, or rough equivalents, and it will be to the detriment of those players matched against them. In the long term it hurts the game mode and overall experience. It will not be enjoyable to play against, legitimate though it may be. Preventing class stacking will not prevent some teams from trying this or experiencing success with it, but it would be a good first step or show of faith to try and limit its negative impact on the experience.

Do you srsly think full bunker works?

All your enemy team needs to counter is necro+support. They beat support+support easily.

Thanks Ben for explaining a bit. The blog was really light on details.

Exciton.8942:

Do you srsly think full bunker works?

All your enemy team needs to counter is necro+support. They beat support+support easily.

For the most part I agree with you. The developers/players have done due diligence and generated a counter and associated strategy. However, I do not fully agree with “easy” because “easy” is representative of an associated individual skill level.

Here is my thought process and source of general, perhaps unfounded, concern. If AT are reasonably successful, there will be teams of all caliber joining to take part in the fun. Like ranked, these teams will stratify based on their overall skill level. Part of this stratification will be build dependent, much like how we see Dragon Hunters mop the floor in lower ranks but less so the higher you go. These builds/strategies will create a blockade, defining the micro-meta for teams at that skill level and lower. At some level there will be a successful bunker strategy where a team focuses solely on support, defense, and decap potential. This will act as a gate keeper and force teams that cannot respond to get better and develop strategies that overcome it. This sort of overall behavior is a good thing and unavoidable. How “easy” it is for these teams to successfully execute the counter depends on their skill level, general balance, and how easy it is for the bunker team to efficiently and effectively compound support, defense, and decap potential.

I would imagine allowing for multiples of the same profession may increase the ease by which teams can compound these factors, wherein the counter may or may not compound so readily. Removing the ability for multiples of the same profession at least removes this part of the equation for the developers to balance.

Playing against this kind of team and strategy is not an enjoyable experience, as we saw in early HOT release, regardless of how successful it is. Because the tournaments appear to be structured such that one loss equals immediate elimination, this sort of behavior may be partially mitigated, but I’m not fully confident in that statement.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

You’re welcome! We do plan to tweak/expand the tournament system over time, so I certainly appreciate constructive feedback and concerns. We already have a backlog of things we want to do. (I can’t talk about them yet!)

After some initial thinking, here is a concern regarding seeding daily tournaments by QP.

1) The daily tournaments do not have a qualifying requirement, using QP to seed the daily feels like a misapplication of that information.

2) What are the goals of the daily tournament? [A] Find the best team out of those registered for that isolated tournament, [B] reward qualifying points for admission/favorable seeding for the monthly tournament, and © presumedly create an enjoyable experience for the teams involved. Using QP to seed dailies also has the effect of [D] rewarding favorable seeding as the month goes on.

A and D go hand in hand, allowing A to be more true as the month goes on, compounding the ability for higher skill teams to accumulate more QP, or at least increasing the likelihood of high QP teams to accumulate more QP. This is likely to discourage low level teams from participating in daily tournaments due to immediate matching against the best, leaving no reasonable room for growth of ability without outside pursuit of scrimming. This is in conflict with C, more so as the month goes on, discouraging people to play the daily tournament unless they have been grinding QP since the beginning of the month.

The dailies become less about the thrill of competition and more about QP grinding. Using daily achievements to encourage players to participate may help alleviate some of this by always providing new low skilled players for immediate elimination, but I fail to see how that will encourage increased participation or attraction.

Random seeding for dailies removes D and weakens A, but is more likely to attract a wider spread of teams from all calibers. It creates the potential that a high skilled team may be eliminated early from any single daily tournament, but loss of QP should be addressed by increased participation in other dailies. Luck of the draw for dailies seems favorable if it leads to increased participation, enjoyment, and an overall more healthy scene rather than systematic discouragement of fresh meat.

I think the compounding element of QP is elegant, but in the long run may contribute more to killing any potential scene before it even has a chance to take off.

Allarius.5670:

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

You’re welcome! We do plan to tweak/expand the tournament system over time, so I certainly appreciate constructive feedback and concerns. We already have a backlog of things we want to do. (I can’t talk about them yet!)

After some initial thinking, here is a concern regarding seeding daily tournaments by QP.

1) The daily tournaments do not have a qualifying requirement, using QP to seed the daily feels like a misapplication of that information.

2) What are the goals of the daily tournament? [A] Find the best team out of those registered for that isolated tournament, [B] reward qualifying points for admission/favorable seeding for the monthly tournament, and © presumedly create an enjoyable experience for the teams involved. Using QP to seed dailies also has the effect of [D] rewarding favorable seeding as the month goes on.

A and D go hand in hand, allowing A to be more true as the month goes on, compounding the ability for higher skill teams to accumulate more QP, or at least increasing the likelihood of high QP teams to accumulate more QP. This is likely to discourage low level teams from participating in daily tournaments due to immediate matching against the best, leaving no reasonable room for growth of ability without outside pursuit of scrimming. This is in conflict with C, more so as the month goes on, discouraging people to play the daily tournament unless they have been grinding QP since the beginning of the month.

The dailies become less about the thrill of competition and more about QP grinding. Using daily achievements to encourage players to participate may help alleviate some of this by always providing new low skilled players for immediate elimination, but I fail to see how that will encourage increased participation or attraction.

Random seeding for dailies removes D and weakens A, but is more likely to attract a wider spread of teams from all calibers. It creates the potential that a high skilled team may be eliminated early from any single daily tournament, but loss of QP should be addressed by increased participation in other dailies. Luck of the draw for dailies seems favorable if it leads to increased participation, enjoyment, and an overall more healthy scene rather than systematic discouragement of fresh meat.

I think the compounding element of QP is elegant, but in the long run may contribute more to killing any potential scene before it even has a chance to take off.

This is a really good point. The fact that the tournaments are both seeded by and reward QP based on placement results in a situation where the top teams who play often have a compounding advantage. This could be good or bad pending your PoV, which is why I mentioned above that QP needs to be a calculation that includes who you win/lose to

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

ImdA.4701:

500 golds per team or per player ?

Per player.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say again:

Why does ANET keep rewarding sPvP with PvE rewards?
That speaks loudly on how bad you think your PvP is, so that you must try to give PvE rewards to a PvP activity in order to artificially boost participation.

It doesn’t make any sense. PvP should be rewarded with PvP goodies, fame and notoriety.

Since you spoke about GW1 ATs, if the best reward for winning one would have been just gold in GW1, there would have been an outcry.
Make PvP good first and true competitive PvPers will battle it out for kitten.
But since it seems even you Developers believe sPvP is so bad that you need PvE rewards….what does that say about the ever downspiral trend of sPvP?

Question to ben: Dont you think tht 500gold is kinda too little on a monthly basis considering winning the weekly esl gave 2k gems?

thanks for the quick answer

As a participant in the the pro scene for over a year I plead to youDO NOT ALLOW CLASS STACKING. That will lead to the most broken comps imaginable.Please just please dont

Skittledness.5106:

As a participant in the the pro scene for over a year I plead to youDO NOT ALLOW CLASS STACKING. That will lead to the most broken comps imaginable.Please just please dont

Like what comps? I am genuinely curious what class would be stacked right now.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

zealex.9410:

Question to ben: Dont you think tht 500gold is kinda too little on a monthly basis considering winning the weekly esl gave 2k gems?

I think what we’re offering isn’t bad. We’re at about 600g in liquid rewards, which can be turned into gems. In Ascended armor, we’re around 220g in materials if you choose the absolute cheapest pieces of gear. So usually worth more than that. Not to mention the other rewards that are a bit harder to put a price on.

That being said, we will be keeping an eye on things and can make adjustments if we feel it’s necessary.

The question puts a solid perspective on it which I don’t think was properly addressed.

Previous events: 2288g every month (2000 gems= 572g/week)

Current events: 600g every month – 150g/week

That doesn’t even bring up the fact that those events were not the most prestigious. They were the casual events run on the side while serious teams played go4s for cash prizes.

The armor set is IMO not too difficult to put a value for. Every single person who is ever going to win a monthly already has the full ascended armor+skin in the ardent hero set. On top of that, many of the people who will win the monthly already have the glorious set since it’s been thrown in as a prize for leaderboard placings and previous tournaments.

The ardent hero and glorious hero are on the exact same tier in terms of how the skin looks. It’s not like the new wvw armor.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/40/Ardent_Glorious_armor_%28light%29_human_female_front.jpg

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/3/35/Glorious_Hero%27s_armor_%28light%29_human_female_front.jpg

Winning this monthly is the single most difficult achievement in this game. The rewards don’t even come close to compensation for it in my opinion.

I also don’t think there is any incentive at all to winning more than one tournament outside of the statues. It would be much better with a ‘’reward track’’ dependant on multiple tournament placings in order to get an exclusive, new, set which will actually have prestige attached to it.

Thank you for responding to my questions.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Any rewards for the daily ones apart from QP?
Also I would like to ask you to reconsider revamping the rewards more towards unique skins and less towards llamas/gold. Perhaps legendary components or even full weapons would do better, or simply unique skin sets you can’t get elsewhere. The ascended boxes are useless tbf, and you already have the means to get some with the league rewards if you want to play some pve.

Lmao at helset… doesn’t surprise me that the players of the team, which is gonna win every single tournament, when they play, is complaining about the rewards. But tbh the rewards for real aren’t appropriate. I mean you get an exclusive title, 600g and more… this might be enough, but considering what you got in Gw1 by winning the mAT this is kinda disappointing. In Gw1 you got a gold trim for your guildcape, something I would like to see happening in Gw2 too.. something similar which is permanently and not just a title.
Also I agree why would anyone who won the tournament want to play it over and over again, when they have the title already (the actually and probably most prestige thing you can win besides the statues) and you can only get this once.. I don’t think that anyone wants to win because of the gold. Honestly nobody cares about gold. Please add something unique to get by winning the monthly tournament and not just gold… Not saying that you should lower the gold but add something special that everybody desires! I have enough titles that show I am a good player nobody cares about them though… gimme something fancy.
However I do not wanna complain whatsoever since I appreciate this concept a lot but still, I wish you would extent rewards for big deals like that.

To be honest, what kept me playing every single monthly in GW1, was the desire to get a silver trim or to even win a gold trim with my guild. I currently don’t see myself participating more than a few times in GW2 though, regarding those rewards…

I have noticed a number of threads today asking the same or related questions to those found here that have already been answered. It may be helpful to add these questions and answers to those posted in the stickied thread up top.