Guild Wars 2

Just an off-season reminder to Anet:

Tournament of Groucharoo (along with the last ToL) was probably the best gw2 pvp event that ever happened because of the format and shoutcasters who actually commented the game (Felt like the first commentated tournament to me).

Views were insanely good for gw2 (2.5k) and pvp community actually hyped again.

From that event, one thing was repeated over and over by the community: We want automated tournaments (not ESL or big cash rewards…just tournaments).

I don’t feel like it’s hard to implemant (i.e: One automated tournament at the end of every league season for example, which would counter the fact that gw2 pvp completly dies after each season). Someone even suggested to associate automated tournaments with a betting system for the viewers like in gw1

S5 was way better than the old system ever was: Good.

But a large portion of the pvp community wants to be able to practice with a team and compete against other teams. They want collective challenges other than pve dungeons or raids…It renews/refreshes the player base and it encourages twitch activity/shoutcasting.

PS: Pointless post since i’m guessing this has been requested before (probably as much as spectator mode…) but i had a minute to waste.

Not a pointless post at all. This should definitely happen, and should be brought up again and again until it does.

I don’t think your post was pointless.

And yes Tournament of Groucharoo was great, even I watched it and I am not a big “watch pvp tournaments” person. So anything to promote those activities would be welcome. Whether in between seasons or at start to “build hype for the new season” would be great.

I hope to see more of them. Sindrener get some done on the NA side!!!!

Yes it would be amazing and yes it has been suggested every single month from release until now.

If Anet didn’t care for more than 4 years we should all just come to terms with Ats not happening, ever.

If there isn’t going to be sponsored tournaments anymore, there needs to be automated tournaments.

witcher.3197:

Yes it would be amazing and yes it has been suggested every single month from release until now.

If Anet didn’t care for more than 4 years we should all just come to terms with Ats not happening, ever.

Engineer hobosacks were a thing for years despite players constantly wanting the ability to hide them. That finally changed, so I say keep at it and maybe someday it could happen.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

It appears that both the players and the devs liked automated tournaments. So what exactly is stopping them from coming back? Don’t have the time to implement it? Don’t have permission to do so?

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

I mean the authorized shoutcaster thing is cool, but wouldn’t it be better to actually add a global delay to the spectator mode.

For example, if player A enters a match as a spectator, have the match start go on for 3-5 minutes before they get given access to the spectator mode. Then have the AI repeat all the actions from the X minute queue/cache based on the data the server was already sent once.

I am not saying it would be easy, however, if you think about both the incoming network data for the match and the out going responses can in theory be cached and repeated on a delay to any client that is just an observer (ie. spectator).

I mean the authorized shoutcaster thing is good, but if you think about the 1:1 live spectating only has added value in LAN style events where the teams can be seen playing the game in real time. In those settings any delay is detrimental but in most others it is basically required if you want to have easy access to shoutcasting without the problems that come with streaming a live match.

I guess it comes down to how you could justify the implementation and upkeep cost of such an addition.

OriOri.8724:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

It appears that both the players and the devs liked automated tournaments. So what exactly is stopping them from coming back? Don’t have the time to implement it? Don’t have permission to do so?

Resources is probably the issue, since most of dev resources are probably tied to the expansion.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

You should also add an interface to spectate ranked/unranked/automated tourney matches so players can watch other players in-game.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

What about the good ol’ GW system?

I miss my GW PvP TV! :’(

OriOri.8724:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

It appears that both the players and the devs liked automated tournaments. So what exactly is stopping them from coming back? Don’t have the time to implement it? Don’t have permission to do so?

He didn’t say they aren’t, and his comment implies that some thought has been put into it.

My guess is that it’s a “We are working on it but it’s not set in stone so we don’t want to tell the customers yet”

Can’t we have observer mode (like in gw1) with it? Asking much here but it would be the perfect duo. Twitch won’t hurt because of it.

just bring back go4 ^^, enough good reasons to do so imo

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

Whatever happened to that “forum mvp” thing. If we can use the same system to identify people willing/able to be part of the shoutcaster program wouldn’t that solve most of your problems in getting the content out to users? And just make it a rotational thing where they need to enroll each year to be the authorized shoutcasters.

Not sure if it breaks some rule about earning from gw2 through twitch streams/subs but that wouldn’t be a bad thing. You get to promote the game, the shoutcasters earn some money and the users enjoy the content.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Due to technical limitations, we will likely never be able to add a delayed observer mode to Gw2.

GW1 had it…………
I feel like we’re still playing catch up to a 12 years old game.

Deli.1302:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Due to technical limitations, we will likely never be able to add a delayed observer mode to Gw2.

GW1 had it…………
I feel like we’re still playing catch up to a 12 years old game.

Never underestimate the random weird constraints that a game engine can pull.

I remember a conversation I had not to long ago about a game I was making as a side project.
“look at this”
“what”
“the snowspeeder’s geometry becomes distorted when 2 lambert textures are applied”
“Can’t be that, textures shouldn’t affect geometry, it’s obviously something else”
“but if I remove the second lambert the geometry is fine”
“what”
“….”
“Is this happening to all the models?”
“No just the speeders”
“try a completely different model for the speeders and see”
“I did and it was still distorted, but when I applied the model to a different object it was fine”
“…I think it hates you”
“probably”

Evan Lesh.3295:

Due to technical limitations, we will likely never be able to add a delayed observer mode to Gw2.

time to talk to the boss and get permission to convert gw2 from dx8 to dx11. Blizzard did it with diablo 3 very easily, i think u can do it too.

Urejt.5648:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Due to technical limitations, we will likely never be able to add a delayed observer mode to Gw2.

time to talk to the boss and get permission to convert gw2 from dx8 to dx11. Blizzard did it with diablo 3 very easily, i think u can do it too.

First of all GW2 is dx9, and second… directx is graphics API. Even though I know basically nothing about the GW2 engine. The fact is that the game being dx9 or any other version should have zero bearing to whether it is feasible to add delayed observer mode or not.

If I had to guess it has to do with the networking code or other back end systems. If the renderer in use has any bearing when it comes to a hypothetical feature such as this being impossible it could only be because something that absolutely shouldn’t be tied to client side rendering is for whatever reason tied to it.

While it is possible that what you suggest could enable this feature, if it were to happen it would be by pure happenstance alone. I find it amusing how many times when technical limitations are brought up this always comes up even with issues that are extremely unlikely to be at all related to what DirectX pertains to.

Urejt.5648:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Due to technical limitations, we will likely never be able to add a delayed observer mode to Gw2.

time to talk to the boss and get permission to convert gw2 from dx8 to dx11. Blizzard did it with diablo 3 very easily, i think u can do it too.

DX is used for graphics. Its really hard to take someone seriously when they try to pin anything that isn’t pure graphics on GW2 running DX9, because it shows that they don’t really understand what they are talking about.

Just keeping this at the top of the page to bring awareness.

GW2 SPvP NEEDS automated tournaments to facilitate team competitive play. With certain controls teams can form and play a tourney maybe once or twice a week, while not impacting the current ranked seasons too much.

Encourage authorized shoutcasters who can put a delay on their streams in twitch, let’s actually work towards an actual foundation for growing GW2 as a PvP game rather than throwing money at it for an ESports level. When you gather an audience, Esports makes itself.

So Evan, this is totally happening then right?

On a side note, if finding shout casters is an issue (not sure if it is or not), would it be feasible so have certain anet employees designated as shout casters?

About the shoutcasters, i’m not sure why “allowed shoutcasters” was brought up or is even a notion. I feel like players like helseth or sind (in EU, idk in NA) would be more than happy to shoutcast on their channel when they feel like it.

Can someone please clarify why we need designated shoutcasters? If it’s about in game content twitch exploitation i’m really confused about the difference between shoutcasting and what streamers are already doing (From an intellectual property point of view).

The problem with having designated anet shoutcasters for pvp tournament is we go back to the “jebro commentating”. Let me just say straight away I have nothing against jebro, he is a great guy. But having someone who knows what is going on (apart from people dying…) is so valuable in terms of viewing quality.

Just voicing my encouragement for automated tournaments. Sounds like it might be just the thing to perk up PvP!

Classic Perception.2507:

About the shoutcasters, i’m not sure why “allowed shoutcasters” was brought up or is even a notion. I feel like players like helseth or sind (in EU, idk in NA) would be more than happy to shoutcast on their channel when they feel like it.

Can someone please clarify why we need designated shoutcasters? If it’s about in game content twitch exploitation i’m really confused about the difference between shoutcasting and what streamers are already doing (From an intellectual property point of view).

The problem with having designated anet shoutcasters for pvp tournament is we go back to the “jebro commentating”. Let me just say straight away I have nothing against jebro, he is a great guy. But having someone who knows what is going on (apart from people dying…) is so valuable in terms of viewing quality.

I think that “authorized shoutcasters” are a logical step if they were to let anyone spectate the game. If you look up the latest Evan post here, he mentions that Guild Wars 2 may (probably) never get delayed spectator mode.

Thing is, if you can only spectate the match live as it occurs, that means “cheating” would be insanely easy. So yeah, if you they chose shoutcasters, they are placing their trust upon that person to only commentate the gameplay and spread it and never do any kind of cheating. Which may happen anyways, but they can track it down and punish that person + repeat the games.

So yeah, it is a logical step to overcome the technical limitation, in my opinion. It sucks, but it’s what we’ve got.

There’s so many potential candidates for shoutcasters. Both from the community and I bet Anet internally too.

PvP Devs, what do you need to get this running? Written proposal, project plan, shoutcaster volunteer list?

I think as a whole the sPVP players are willing to do their part to make this happen.

On my opinion of automated tournaments, I think it’s an excellent idea to fill the off-season month!

Though, I wonder which kind of tournaments people would like. Should they run a big tournament that keeps teams invested throughout the whole month? Or should they do smaller tournaments, like one tournament each week? Maybe what players want back are the automated tournaments we had at launch?

To be fair, anything that encourages Team Play is highly welcome. We now have a really good Ranked system and we are just missing the Team portion of the general competitive view. It can serve to build hype, to bring people competitive games to look for and learn from them.

@Evan: I wonder, is there a technical limitation as well to add a feature that allows recording an sPvP match? Could it be made so at least the tournament games can be saved and then we can download the match and watch it in any PoV we want? It’d be so sweet!

Just want to throw my two cents in: automated tournaments could be what keeps GW2 PVP alive in this post-Esports era. Right now, there’s simply not a reason to put in the work to build a team. I think a weekly tournament would be ideal, bi-weekly would be… acceptable, anything less than that you aren’t going to have teams staying together for. Unless the prizes are seriously increased.

My two cents:

I agree. I support automated tournaments. At the very least, this gives 5-man teams a reason to even play pvp. You know? Since their existence isn’t COMPLETELY pointless?
This is a team game, you know.

You can have the current ranked league system for solo players. Just take out duo.

Also, more importantly. In addition to automated tournaments, I support an implementation of a system of tournament rules. You can have “core specs only” or “elite specs only”, for example. This could be a work-around if ANet doesn’t have the resources to truly rework and balance pvp.

If ANet implements automated tournaments correctly, I will personally come back to pvp.

I hope Anet realizes now that they have posted in this thread, we are never gonna let it die. ;-)

I think that automated tournaments are definitely a thing that should happen for the sake of this game. Not a lot of stuff going on at all.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

Which Kickstarter program do we sign up to get this ball rolling?

Saiyan.1704:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

Which Kickstarter program do we sign up to get this ball rolling?

Saiyan.1704:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

Which Kickstarter program do we sign up to get this ball rolling?

I’m in.

Not having ground level tournaments is the reason why ESports evaporated. You can confirm from any actual sports team that a working junior organization is the key to success. When you can build and support your players from the ground up, you have what it takes.

Always start with the basics I guess. First you need a good amount of competitive teams and the viewership to back you up, before you can go and mess with paid tournaments.

Imo AT should be:

- Always active, not an off-season filler. We are talking about promoting team-creation, 1 month every 3 will not be useful.
- Small and short tournament formats for daily AT, maybe 4-8 teams competing in a single elimination format,
- If we can also have a team ladder (as a result from the AT results) and we have enough teams maybe we can have daily AT for different levels with different rewards, so new teams are not facing the stronger teams in their tournaments.
- Daily AT can give us Qualification points for monthly or weekly AT (thus being streamed if there is enough interest). The monthly and weekly AT can have a swiss-system format allowing the participation of a bigger number of teams (I’m being optimistic maybe with the number of teams)

As an add will be very useful for the teams progression to have some tools to track their own performance, such as statistics, offline replay of the games, etc. But I know this is mos t a dream than a possibility.

Yo Anet, think we could have this in between season 6 and 7?

I’d like to add one more thing.

If tournaments are a bust,(whether free or paid) the queues MUST be separated. Separate 5v5 and solo queue. No ifs, ands or buts. Separate queues are going to be the only thing keeping pvp alive.

Xiaka.2814:

- Daily AT can give us Qualification points for monthly or weekly AT (thus being streamed if there is enough interest). The monthly and weekly AT can have a swiss-system format allowing the participation of a bigger number of teams (I’m being optimistic maybe with the number of teams)

Yes. I like the idea of a qualification for monthly AT’s. That would definitely be a good thing for the PvP community. This game needs something like that to be implemented quickly before its too late.

JTGuevara.9018:

I’d like to add one more thing.

If tournaments are a bust,(whether free or paid) the queues MUST be separated. Separate 5v5 and solo queue. No ifs, ands or buts. Separate queues are going to be the only thing keeping pvp alive.

If tournaments don’t work then that just means there aren’t enough pvp players to support the game mode anymore and this casual solo queue game mode is all pvp will ever be. Splitting the queues if the tournaments fail won’t accomplish anything.

JTGuevara.9018:

I’d like to add one more thing.

If tournaments are a bust,(whether free or paid) the queues MUST be separated. Separate 5v5 and solo queue. No ifs, ands or buts. Separate queues are going to be the only thing keeping pvp alive.

I respectfully disagree. Frequent and rewarding tournaments are going to be the future for teams of 5 players. If the tournaments get successful at some point, and there are plenty of teams competing in them, THEN can ANet start to think about re-establishing TeamQ. Currently PvP doesn’t have the population to support a full mode for teams exclusively.

One of the more important things concerning these Tournaments is that they need high visibility in the game. So much so that even the most uninterested person in the game is atleast aware of these tournaments going on. Just like the when seasons are active. They need to be posted here in the forums, and in Reddit, there needs to be a news headline in the launcher every time a tourney is announced. Also in-game notifications for people that go into the PvP lobby.

This game is a joke aslong as queues are not seperated. Everyone knows pvp is dead and that more plays soloq then teamq. Just make soloq a better experience and let the tryhards sit in teamq for hours.

Yannir.4132:

JTGuevara.9018:

I’d like to add one more thing.

If tournaments are a bust,(whether free or paid) the queues MUST be separated. Separate 5v5 and solo queue. No ifs, ands or buts. Separate queues are going to be the only thing keeping pvp alive.

I respectfully disagree. Frequent and rewarding tournaments are going to be the future for teams of 5 players. If the tournaments get successful at some point, and there are plenty of teams competing in them, THEN can ANet start to think about re-establishing TeamQ. Currently PvP doesn’t have the population to support a full mode for teams exclusively.

One of the more important things concerning these Tournaments is that they need high visibility in the game. So much so that even the most uninterested person in the game is atleast aware of these tournaments going on. Just like the when seasons are active. They need to be posted here in the forums, and in Reddit, there needs to be a news headline in the launcher every time a tourney is announced. Also in-game notifications for people that go into the PvP lobby.

Yeah, last Season I’d argue that we had a decent population, but this season that just isn’t true anymore so far. Anet has to generate interest first. Just as you said, they should implement tournaments first and if tournaments build enough interest, then they could look at adding in a separate team queue.

Shaogin.2679:

JTGuevara.9018:

I’d like to add one more thing.

If tournaments are a bust,(whether free or paid) the queues MUST be separated. Separate 5v5 and solo queue. No ifs, ands or buts. Separate queues are going to be the only thing keeping pvp alive.

If tournaments don’t work then that just means there aren’t enough pvp players to support the game mode anymore and this casual solo queue game mode is all pvp will ever be. Splitting the queues if the tournaments fail won’t accomplish anything.

Disagree.

Separate queues will keep this thing alive. It won’t even matter how many people are left at that point. As long as the option is there.

If tournaments succeed, then a team queue isn’t even necessary because…..tournaments lol.