Guild Wars 2

Hello all. I am posting this thread to shed light on something I find to be very important: growing the game and easing new players into SPVP.

Currently, the foundation for this game is outstanding. The combat is fluid and fun and has the core to be a mainstay MMO for a long time. Having said that, there are currently a few issues that are keeping new players from grabbing hold of SPvP. You may find there are other issues in this game, but this thread is not for discussing those issues. If you feel the need to talk about OP classes or other issues not brought up in here, please instead head over to the hundreds of threads dedicated to those issues.

So, on to the concerns I have for retaining new players:

Changing the SPvP scoring system:

• Currently the scoring system does not promote winning and gives a grossly inaccurate picture of how to play conquest
• It promotes heavy burst classes and new player don’t do well against burst. In fact, burst and cheese builds are anti-new-player oriented. If you change the scoring system to actually promote conquest play and point defense it will alleviate the fact that the same 2 or 3 classes are extremely overplayed in hot-join. There will always be cheese builds, but the existence of cheese builds right now are blown out of proportion because the glory gain system promotes that type of play. In tournament play, these builds are played but good players there can handle most of them. In hot-join, if you grant minor rewards for killing, but major rewards for winning and point defense, then players 4 shotting new players will do so only for the thrill of the kill. Currently they do it because it is the best way to gain glory. (point hop, kill, point hop, kill)
• Give points for holding points (the longer you are standing on a point the more glory you get)
• Give larger bonuses for winning. This will promote team play and actually get people communicating in hot-join. Currently nobody talks in hot-join because there is no need. Shouldn’t hot-join be a place where new players meet new people and form allegiances over the taste of a well played victory, or even loss?

Point players to SPVP and teach them once they are there

• Currently, the crossing swords at the top is the only way to get to The Mist but there is nothing (that I know of) that directs new players to this.
• Suggestion: When you leave your starting area, maybe have a quest you get that tells you to go to The Mist and play 1 game. We need something that will ensure they know about it.
• Once a player gets there, do a better job of telling them about sigils, runes and spec. I am a seasoned MMO and PPV vet and even I was a little blown away with this stuff at first.
• Teach players about crafting and let them know there is certain gear obtainable at each rank level. Let them know that Slivers > Crystals > Orbs. These kinds of things will make it less chaotic when a player first joins. I think a quest that tells them to make a piece of gear and explains this would be fantastic.

Let players take something with them into other parts of the game.

• Currently SPVP is completely annexed from the rest of the game. It feels like everything you do here is in vain. Give players something to take with them. Gold, Glory spent elsewhere (which JSharp stated would happen, but by March many many Christmas players will have left), SPVP gear they can wear in the main Cities…something. I don’t have the perfect answer for this, but currently SPVP feels like a waste to many people.

Cut down on the confusion of the game types.

• I’m not 100% what the reason for having 2 vendors for SPVP and TPVP, but this is confusing to new players. Consolidate the vendors and make the options very well explained in the browser. Also, having the glory vendors scattered everywhere is odd too. Wouldn’t 1 vendor with tabs for each rank make more sense?

Make TPVP less difficult to start

• Currently you need 40 players to start one TPVP tournament. Also, the time between games is 3 minutes per round. All of this makes TPVP seem like time poorly spent for new players. Make TPVP something along the lines of 2 teams, best of 3, with the same map rotation – Khylo being used for tie breakers. If not, then reduce the time between rounds. 1.5 minutes should suffice since this is mainly PUGs in here. Keep paids the way they are. If you build the TPVP community and keep them, paids will actually pop.

All of these are my ideas and I post this out of love / need. I love this game, but it needs to get AND KEEP new players in here. Currently, the same flaws that ensured ALL of my friends left still exist today.

What are your thoughts. What do you think would help keep new people in our beloved game?

Thanks,

Felivear, a passionate fan wanting to see this game succeed.

Infrastructure. Incentive to win as a team instead of getting points. That’s so kitten important. And make EVERY map 5v5 maybe so people don’t get discouraged on zerging.

My response to one of your concerns from another thread that touched on this:

Syeria.4812:

felivear.1536:

Currently, since it’s only about personal glory gain, people leave with no care at all for the score screen. If people had a large incentive to win (big glory gain for winning or significant multiplier for winning) then people wouldn’t be so care-free about leaving. Currently, if I need 100 glory for a chest or token or whatever, I hop in a hot-join, I get my 100 and I leave. There should be a system in place that makes me think twice about that. If a leaving penalty isn’t that incentive, then a staying bonus should be.

While I think there needs to be a bit more incentive for a win in hotjoin, you do have to keep in mind there is fallout to such a change. If you make the win bonus larger, you increase the incentive for players on the losing team to abandon a match when their team falls behind.

I’d suggest not only giving winners a “win bonus,” but decreasing the glory gained per kill and adding a “completion bonus.” To give an example:

Current System

Player Score = Current Reward Level
Win Bonus = 0.5 * Player Score
Completion Bonus = 0

Proposed System

Player Score = 0.67 * Current Reward Level
Win Bonus = 1 * Player Score
Completion Bonus = 0.50 * Player Score

Both teams receive the completion bonus, but only the winning teams (and auto balance players) receive the Win Bonus. Losing teams will receive the same total number of points as under the current system (0.67 + 0.67 * 0.5 = 1) while winning teams earn slightly more than before (0.67 + 0.67 + 0.67 * 0.5 = 1.67 as opposed to 1 + 1 * 0.5 = 1.5). This prevents AFKing from being a method of farming glory as it’s still percentage based. Players who leave before the end of a match receive 33% less of a reward which is enough of an incentive to make staying worthwhile but not so big a loss that a player who absolutely has to go or is DC’d would worry about the lost glory. Perhaps most importantly, that Win Bonus starts to actually look meaningful to players, and might tip the scales to the point where it’s more advantageous to try for the victory instead of just farming their own glory.

I think you have many good points. My only counterargument might be about the scoring system, and asking if you’ve considered botting / afk with changes to the glory system that reward standing on points, and also if it would affect the atmosphere of pug games for new players if everyone was really trying to win. Many people may prefer the faster paced system of zerging now. I’m not sure. It’s probably worth it to try a slight increase to win bonus so there is more incentive for teamwork, but not enough that people would get mad if they lost and treat new players badly. Really I’d like to see different ‘flavors’ of hotjoin servers that cater to casual players or players that want to play team games.

The rest of your points, in particular where tutorials and teaching players how to do things in pvp-land I think are essential.

milo.6942:

I think you have many good points. My only counterargument might be about the scoring system, and asking if you’ve considered botting / afk with changes to the glory system that reward standing on points, and also if it would affect the atmosphere of pug games for new players if everyone was really trying to win. Many people may prefer the faster paced system of zerging now. I’m not sure. It’s probably worth it to try a slight increase to win bonus so there is more incentive for teamwork, but not enough that people would get mad if they lost and treat new players badly. Really I’d like to see different ‘flavors’ of hotjoin servers that cater to casual players or players that want to play team games.

The rest of your points, in particular where tutorials and teaching players how to do things in pvp-land I think are essential.

I understand the concern in botting, but the fear of botting should not deter making a good change. Also, botting is done for gold gain. Currently, I can’t imagine too many people botting just to get cosmetic gear that they can’t take anywhere else in the game. I think the design philosophy should be to implement a change because it’s good for the game and then squash the botters with another effective system. A change should never be made or not made just because a select few will use it to gain levels or ranks.

A few additions that word count prevents me from adding in the OP:

Keep friends together in hot-join.

• I completely understand that you don’t want premades in hot-join, but 2 or 3 friends should always stay together. 2 new players going into a hot-join together and then spending that fight either killing each other or struggling to figure out how to get on the same team is not fun!

Why before Christmas?

• The Christmas season will cause an influx of new blood into SPVP. It would be an absolute waste and shame if some key features that could help to retain them were absent come December 25th.

You forgot the biggest one:

Remove downed state from PVP zones

Downed state:

• favours numbers over skill.
• detracts from the real combat.
• promotes glass cannon specs
• prevents proper balancing of time-to-kill/time-to-live.
• is farcical in that players can rally from striking a grey rabbit.
• is farcical in that players can channel rez while standing in fire and being unloaded upon
• introduces a variety of exploits/bugs/imbalances that detract time from fixes/balances to the real combat

“Forgot” implies intention to have it in the first place. So no, I don’t think the OP “forgot.”

Check this out

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/919-state-of-the-game-discussion-now-available/

Discussion last week with Jonathon Sharp and representatives from top EU sPvP teams. The only thing we might be getting before the end of the year is a matchmaking system but they do have big plans for the future and early next year (first quarter I assume) we can expect to see a large patch dedicated to sPvP and WvW.

EDIT: Downstate isn’t going to go away. It is a great mechanic that will continue to get tweaked but none of the top sPvP teams seem to be asking for them to completely ditch it and ANet doesn’t seem to have any plan to do so.

maybe i did understeand it wrong.. but i think it was said that we can expect only balance changes in December and matchmaking as next thing in new year

That is very likely, it sounded to me like matchmaking was their top priority right now and that would be the next feature we saw implemented and then there would be a big pvp patch next year. I took that as we might get matchmaking for christmas and that was their goal but didn’t want to say it because it might not be ready in time.

Aragiel.6132:

maybe i did understeand it wrong.. but i think it was said that we can expect only balance changes in December and matchmaking as next thing in new year

That’s exactly what was stated. December is only balance and contains really no game changes. I do understand that 100% of the changes I outlined can’t be implemented in the next 22 days, but to completely avoid issues that made a lot of former new players quit would be shameful.

I just find that things like the scoring system and allowing parties of 2 or 3 people who enter SPVP to stay together would be pretty small changes (time and resource wise) while adding a lot of quality to the new player experience.

Take this to town! White board Anet!

Oh god the necro

The Necro… with an amazing thread necro.