Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking about the way Guild Wars 2 handles matchmaking, and match options for a while now. As for myself, I initially bought this game for the PvE and ended up getting hooked on PvP instead because I didn’t find the PvE engaging/challenging enough. I’ve been ranked in the top 50 of both solo queue and team queue but I’ve never considered myself a ‘competitive’ player. I enjoy playing the game (sometimes) and watching streamed tournaments/matches. In short, I consider myself the kind of player that Arenanet needs if they want the PvP scene to grow

The problem I have currently is that options available for casual/noncompetitive players who just want to have fun learning different classes and fighting conquest in a less stressful environment are really lacking.

Team Queue: Team Queue is great but after I get home every day I don’t necessarily feel like trying to find another four players to join with me.

Solo Queue: This mode is a step in the right direction but is actually probably the most toxic aspect of PvP. I see almost everyone running builds like Decap Engineer or Minion Necro or bunker warrior, and the imbalanced maps Spirit Watch and Skyhammer are frustrating to anyone who wants to play a specific class.

Hotjoin: No one plays hotjoin to try and learn the conquest game mode. It is a disorganized deathmatch with rampant team stacking.
———————————————————————

My suggested solutions:

1. Remove the leaderboards from solo queue or create an unrated queue. This will instantly stop the majority of the complaints about Skyhammer and create a friendlier environment for new and less competitive players to enjoy playing conquest as intended.

In addition to the above reasons, I believe that removing the leaderboards from Solo Queue would increase the amount of teams being formed because there are people seeking recognition on the Solo Queue leaderboards (even though they are broken) who would now move to team queue.

2. Remove hotjoin, keep custom arenas. Why? Hotjoin is a mess and is a terrible place for new players to try and learn the game. It is not uncommon to see a full team of rank 40-50 players against eight 1-20s. The games are invariably blowouts because even if both teams have even numbers of players, you can still join the one ahead by 200 points. The new unrated queue with a hidden MMR would serve as a much better place for new players to learn the game and feel like they are participating in something meaningful.

3. At a certain point, if participation in team queue picks up, teams should be grouped together under their guild name on the leaderboards. Arenanet has not done enough to make pvping as a guild group rewarding. Winning matches with your guild should give upgrade points to your guild the same way doing guild missions or world events does.

Sorry mate but competitive and casual are 2 different things that cant be matched together

Your Game My Rules.5324:

Sorry mate but competitive and casual are 2 different things that cant be matched together

Well, if your definition of casual is ‘uncompetitive", I suppose that’s true.

However, I think of the ‘competitive casual’ as an average player who wants to improve and become good at the game, but doesn’t plan on participating in major tournaments and doesn’t always want to take the game extremely seriously. This contrasts with the plain casual players who are literally just in pvp to do dailies or goof off and don’t really care if they get better or not.

Well let’s be honest..

THIS PvP is “competitive casual” because there’s no competition at all. It’s not even close to be any competitive since it doesnt reward anything (#eSports)

As an exemple, the difference between a good and a bad guardian is fairly less important than a good and a bad prot/heal monk in GW1.

If you want an online game to be “casual competitive”, GW2 in its current state is perfect for you, considering it doesnt reward good players

Your Game My Rules.5324:

Well let’s be honest..

THIS PvP is “competitive casual” because there’s no competition at all. It’s not even close to be any competitive since it doesnt reward anything (#eSports)

As an exemple, the difference between a good and a bad guardian is fairly less important than a good and a bad prot/heal monk in GW1.

If you want an online game to be “casual competitive”, GW2 in its current state is perfect for you, considering it doesnt reward good players

Well, I came up with a better definition. Competitive casual is like people on a high school sports team: everyone there wants to win, but generally the emphasis, or the reason people join, is to have fun. Most people aren’t expecting to go to the Olympics, or the National Championship.

And yes, you are largely correct that there isn’t very much competition. This thread is about how normal fans/players of the game can enjoy playing the game more, which is very important if we are ever going to have competition.

Your Game My Rules.5324:

Well let’s be honest..

THIS PvP is “competitive casual” because there’s no competition at all. It’s not even close to be any competitive since it doesnt reward anything (#eSports)

As an exemple, the difference between a good and a bad guardian is fairly less important than a good and a bad prot/heal monk in GW1.

If you want an online game to be “casual competitive”, GW2 in its current state is perfect for you, considering it doesnt reward good players

The difference between good and bad anything is almost non-existant in this game. Too many spammable skills, passives and immunities. It takes no skill to be immune to all condis at 25% health. No skill to passively heal with AH. No skill to proc that dhuumfire passively. No skill to give aoe dhuumfire passively with sun spirit.

The game is utterly brainless. Those are the facts.

Rickster.8752:

Your Game My Rules.5324:

Well let’s be honest..

THIS PvP is “competitive casual” because there’s no competition at all. It’s not even close to be any competitive since it doesnt reward anything (#eSports)

As an exemple, the difference between a good and a bad guardian is fairly less important than a good and a bad prot/heal monk in GW1.

If you want an online game to be “casual competitive”, GW2 in its current state is perfect for you, considering it doesnt reward good players

The difference between good and bad anything is almost non-existant in this game. Too many spammable skills, passives and immunities. It takes no skill to be immune to all condis at 25% health. No skill to passively heal with AH. No skill to proc that dhuumfire passively. No skill to give aoe dhuumfire passively with sun spirit.

The game is utterly brainless. Those are the facts.

Please stay on topic on this thread, if you’d like to comment on specific builds and such, I’ll refer you to my other thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Are-you-kidding-me-specs/first#post3760934

Let me see if I got you right OP

You are saying that this game is BOTH casual friendly and competitve, but for the wrong reasons.

It’s competitive because you have to choose certain builds and have a certain mindset in order to win. And other players demand you that.

It’s casual friendly because the builds require almost nothing from players.

While it should be like this:

The game should be competitive because it requires you to improve, know your class, understand the flow of a fight and turn it in your favor, actively work to make your build work.

The game should be casual friendly by offering a relaxed environment where players can have fun by actually playing the game and improving at it. That is, playing the game should make you a better gamer, without the need of obsessive practice.

If you wanted to say that, I agree 100%

John Corpening.9847:

Thanks for the post infantrydiv. Your take on the situation is incredibly insightful and well thought out. I really appreciate your constructive feedback on where the game is and where it should go to accomodate players at all levels.

Do you feel that Solo Arena has any benefit to a player for learning how to play as a team?

Solo Arena does not, I have learned a few things about team play and rotations in SoloQ, but it wasn’t from the game, it was from the other players. This is where the game falls short, it doesn’t teach anything.

And with the objectives so singular, it is harder for a team to actually play together, since the gamemode currently defines having everyone split apart.

The most important thing for a team right now in GW2 sPvP is communication, where players are moving, where help is needed. It outshines actual teamwork, and players cohesively working together in-game and with eachothers classes.

Having all 5 players playing as their own solo entities and being good at that singular role is what works well in soloq, not teamwork.

A decap eng, bunker guardian or a single roamer pushing onto points changes the battle. You just have to know where on the map to outnumber your opponent and move there quickly. (and there are only 3 points on the map that needs to happen [see: conquest])

This is what makes it so much less competitive than let’s say: League of Legends.

Each person has to play their role, then each of those roles are combined into a team.

Currently in GW2 there are no roles needed by the game other than “hold a capture point”

Whereas in LoL, that is how the start of the game is, but each tower is a point, the dragon is a point, baron is a point, both red buffs are points, both blue buffs are points, every part of the map is utilized, and moving around as a team without vision is vital.

It is very hard to say what would need to be added to make sPvP competitive, but in its current state, it definitely falls under “Casual”

You don’t need to know anything about sPvP when jumping in, you see points, that’s it. You learn about playing your class, as well as fighting others while playing sPvP, it feels more like a mini-training ground to the basics of combat, rather than a competitive environment.

And this is especially true in HotJoin, where most people play for kills and combat, rather than playing the objective in the first place.

John,

The biggest problem (aside the 4v5’s and the wide disparity between new players and veteran players) with Solo que is the severe lack of communication.

People are able to play minion mancers because they hope that there is a person on the opposing team that will try and 1v1 the mancer at their home node all match. You see a prevalent amount of warriors in Solo que because it’s the class that requires the least amount of teamwork to get stuff done.

It doesn’t help much that hotjoin is a terrible place of learning. There is a huge gap between hotjoin and soloque. People try to 1v1 on far with a minion mancer BECAUSE they have no clue on what pushing far all the time on the map does, since hotjoin doesn’t provide good learning feedback.

A lot of these problems in solo que could be solved by simple communication. However players (ether knowingly or not) will exploit the fact that solo que has poor communication to the best of their ability. They see minion mancers winning games in soloque, so they play minionmancer and sit afk at home all match. If they tried the same thing in a team que match (where there is better communication) against a competent team, the minion mancer team will get crushed into the ground.

I absolutely love your suggestions, especially nr 2 and 3

infantrydiv.1620:

Remove the leaderboards from solo queue or create an unrated queue. This will instantly stop the majority of the complaints about Skyhammer.

I dont see how removing meaningless leaderboards make anyone like the map.

In addition to the above reasons, I believe that removing the leaderboards from Solo Queue would increase the amount of teams being formed because there are people seeking recognition on the Solo Queue leaderboards (even though they are broken) who would now move to team queue.

On EU a lot of people play Team Queue solo instead of Solo Queue , so again this barely solves anything.

John Corpening.9847:

Thanks for the post infantrydiv. Your take on the situation is incredibly insightful and well thought out. I really appreciate your constructive feedback on where the game is and where it should go to accomodate players at all levels.

Do you feel that Solo Arena has any benefit to a player for learning how to play as a team?

If I can throw my 2 cents in here.

My best experience with Solo queue was when we totally stomped a team one day, so I said in Team chat, just before the game ended, “Hey, you guys wanna do team queue?”, all 5 of us did. We did another like 8 games in Team Queue and won 7 of them, it was great, I friended them, and it was literally my best experience with sPvP to date.

I feel those times are pretty rare though, people don’t always take the initiative to make friends and offer to queue as teams, more often than not people will just say very little, trash talk, blame others, etc. The potential is certainly there, but I don’t feel the system in and of itself is very conducive to it unless someone is really taking some initiative.

@OP:

I disagree about removing solo queue and the associated leaderboards. For some of us, it is the ONLY reason we even PvP. Doing a solo queue into team queue isn’t fun because half the time you are facing premade teams. Hotjoin or even custom arena isn’t all that exciting either.

and skyhammer needs to be removed. Ranked or not, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t even play it in hot join.

Communication is pretty Key in GW2 pvp. It’d be nice if we had in game voip for PvP at the very least.

John Corpening.9847:

Thanks for the post infantrydiv. Your take on the situation is incredibly insightful and well thought out. I really appreciate your constructive feedback on where the game is and where it should go to accomodate players at all levels.

Do you feel that Solo Arena has any benefit to a player for learning how to play as a team?

Thanks for the response! I do think that solo queue helps players learn and have appreciation for the conquest game type, far better than hotjoin does, but also slightly less than team queue would.

From my perspective, the skill required to play this game can be broken into three parts:

1. Mechanical: Has to do with APM, keybinds, cooldown/activation time knowledge, muscle memory. This is the ‘sport’ aspect of the game, where faster reaction times lead to better performance.

2. Tactical: Knowledge about matchups, other classes skills, positioning in a fight. Examples would be: knowing how to position correctly on a necromancer, knowing how a hammer warrior attempts to CC chain, knowing what a thief heal looks like and how to interrupt it

3. Strategic: Map awareness, opening plays, splits, regrouping mid-game, knowing when it is acceptable to push far, when to lord rush, etc.

I think playing Solo Queue will clearly increase your performance both mechanically and tactically, but from a strategic standpoint it is lacking compared to team queue.

The main reason behind this is that generally with team queues you decide on a set opening split, who should be responsible for getting which buffs. If you overextend in team queues, many times your teammates will help correct your strategic knowledge. In solo queue, I see players ranked even in the top 100 who still do not understand basic splits or rotations.

One of my own experiences when I was new in solo queue was when I was learning to play thief. I picked up the thief class and thought “Ok this is the Assassin class, my job must be to assault far point all game and duel whoever is there”. Now, as many top PvPers could tell you, the role of thief is not as farpoint assaulter. Thief is supposed to roam between home and mid, cleaning up fights fast and decap far when it is empty. I probably played 200 solo queue games before I finally understood this to be the thief’s role, when just playing one team queue with good players, they probably would have told me what to do immediately (“Stop getting into fights on a capped far point!”).

I think that if we had a solo Q-like mode that was larger, there would be more room for team tactics. One of the main reasons that team tactics are so sparse in games where everyone’s not on a voice chat is because the nodes are so close.

For example: look at Arathi Basin in WoW compared to GW2 games. Since there was more time between players reaching points, there were a lot more call outs for incomings. This does happen in GW2 to some degree, but half the time you call an incoming in text chat, it’s already too late to make much of a difference.

Tl;dr Consider adding a solo q game with a larger map and larger group size to have more team coordination in chat.

I think we need a beginner league; an unrated stepping stone for soloq. Quite similar as for example in smite where you need to reach a certain level before you can enter rated games.

The current way that the ladder and its MMR works leads to frustrating matchups for everyone involved. In soloq i see a lot of guys that are pretty high ranked (on the leaderboard) but with a limited number of games played. That should not be possible, period. Its possible that those guys are just good. But its far more likely that they had a lucky streak that skyrocketed their MMR and their position on the leaderboard.

I typically take screenshots of the teams each match. And almost every game i see really weird examples like this. I had a spiritwatch game where i 1v2ed a mesmer and
an engi twice in a row at bear. 2 minutes later I see how 3 of my teammates (an engi, a warrior and a necro) lose 3v2 vs the same 2 guys at raven. One of those guys was max top 20 (and currently 60ish) even, with only a handfull of games played. All of them where pvp rank 20-40, so relatively low/unexperienced.

You shouldnt be able to get to the top of the leaderboard after 15-20 games played. Since its relatively easy to get in to a lucky streak where you get carried or get in to 5v4s etc. The only exceptions are guys with smurf accounts.

A beginner league where you need at least 50 or maybe even a 100 wins can help determine your starting MMR or league (as i would like to see it).

I think what is seriously needed is a voice comm system. It’s something this game is seriously lacking that could improve the sPvP scene drastically. Solo queue wouldn’t be as much about fending for yourselves by making builds that are centered around you since you would be able to speak to your teammates and let them know what’s going on at mid or when to push far, etc. Right now you can’t do that unless you are already traveling to a different point on the map while not in combat and you have to type it out. People also take what other people say in chat way more personal than what it really is because you can’t hear how they really say it. When you type “Come support mid” they may be thinking you are saying they are being worthless where they are or w/e and they might be more stubborn about it when really you are trying to get out quick that you really need the help. Whenever you type in chat it’s usually almost always too late to get it done such as rushing lord because everybody is questioning whether or not everybody else is going to do it and so a lot of the time you see 1-2 people rushing lord while everyone else sat where they were and then finally realize it and it’s too late.

Communication in sPvP is EVERYTHING. It really is. It’s the only way to play competitively and if there was a voice comm system in the game for groups/teams you are in than I think it would drastically improve the sPvP scene. And not only would it improve the sPvP scene but also the WvW and PvE scene as well, I just think it would be more focused on improving sPvP and roaming since it’s smaller and what groups are allowed in unless Anet made a system for servers to use for WvW zerging.

Just my 2cents but this could be one of the biggest game changers in my opinion.

tl;dr: Adding a voice comm system would improve sPvP and other aspects of the game more so than anything else because to be competitive and act as a team communication is a necessity and the most important aspect of the game and map chat is too unreliable

infantrydiv.1620:

2. Remove hotjoin, keep custom arenas. Why? Hotjoin is a mess and is a terrible place for new players to try and learn the game. It is not uncommon to see a full team of rank 40-50 players against eight 1-20s. The games are invariably blowouts because even if both teams have even numbers of players, you can still join the one ahead by 200 points. The new unrated queue with a hidden MMR would serve as a much better place for new players to learn the game and feel like they are participating in something meaningful.

Nope. Sometimes I just want to come back home, do my daily and kitten around with the build I want. I couldn’t do this in SoloQ, because even with your modifications there would still be a “competitive” aspect on it. I’d still have to take the FotM build in order to be competitive, and I would still be forced to focus on the game.
There are times in which I just want to fully go casual, and hot join is the perfect place for those times.

Instead of removing it, consider modifying it in a 5v5, from the infamous zergish 8v8.

Attention and rewards for casuals is what destroyed gw2 pvp..just saying…

infantrydiv.1620:

1. Remove the leaderboards from solo queue or create an unrated queue. This will instantly stop the majority of the complaints about Skyhammer and create a friendlier environment for new and less competitive players to enjoy playing conquest as intended.

In addition to the above reasons, I believe that removing the leaderboards from Solo Queue would increase the amount of teams being formed because there are people seeking recognition on the Solo Queue leaderboards (even though they are broken) who would now move to team queue.

- Skyhammer doesnt become a better map when its unrated.
- Removing leaderboards will do the direct opposite of playing conquest as intended. People will play it like they play it in hotjoins now. Cap points with 4 since they need their daily achs and farm kills the rest of the game.
- Yes the number of teams might increase. But my situation would be similar as my situation in wow. Where i had to wait a week (or sometimes two or three weeks) for my teammates to logg on again. And good luck finding new teammates at 2400 MMR midway through a season.

Soloq is a great past time and a way to play semi competetively without the need for a set team. And sure its for a big part about luck, 4v5s, the MMR is broken and its quite toxic at times. But isnt it better to fix those things and make soloq as good and competetive as possible instead of turning it in to hotjoin V2.

What we could do however (as you stated aswell) is keep it and create an unrated queue/beginner league (that does have a hidden MMR). After lets say a 100 wins people get the option to play rated games instead.

Dahkeus.8243:

For example: look at Arathi Basin in WoW compared to GW2 games. Since there was more time between players reaching points, there were a lot more call outs for incomings. This does happen in GW2 to some degree, but half the time you call an incoming in text chat, it’s already too late to make much of a difference.

Tl;dr Consider adding a solo q game with a larger map and larger group size to have more team coordination in chat.

Nah.

Wows RBGs required a lot less communication and rotation than GW2s conquest. AB was for a big part about fighting in long zergy stalemates at BS. There was almost no rotation involved even at the very top of the ladder. And ive been at the top of the ladder during every season i played it: http://i.imgur.com/b6ud71T.jpg. http://i.imgur.com/2U7rhSQ.jpg

The longer travel time meant we could jump the stable defenders from stealth and get CC chains off before teammates got close enough to help. The only option was to have a roamer close enough.

I dont think GW2s pvp combat in a competetive environment is suited for larger scale fights.

Locuz.2651:

Dahkeus.8243:

For example: look at Arathi Basin in WoW compared to GW2 games. Since there was more time between players reaching points, there were a lot more call outs for incomings. This does happen in GW2 to some degree, but half the time you call an incoming in text chat, it’s already too late to make much of a difference.

Tl;dr Consider adding a solo q game with a larger map and larger group size to have more team coordination in chat.

Nah.

Wows RBGs required a lot less communication and rotation than GW2s conquest. AB was for a big part about fighting in long zergy stalemates at BS. There was almost no rotation involved even at the very top of the ladder. And ive been at the top of the ladder during every season i played it: http://i.imgur.com/b6ud71T.jpg. http://i.imgur.com/2U7rhSQ.jpg

The longer travel time meant we could jump the stable defenders from stealth and get CC chains off before teammates got close enough to help. The only option was to have a roamer close enough.

I dont think GW2s pvp combat in a competetive environment is suited for larger scale fights.

It actually seems like BG’s required more tactics in vanilla wow depending on which server you were on, on kazzak/daggerspine pre cross server bgs the competition was fierce as the top pvp premades were made up by the top raiding guilds who happened to also be the top raiding guilds in EU/World(Forte, synergy, LR etc). It was A LOT about out maneuvering the enemy team and doing fake pushes, back capping with rogues/druids etc. especially for us on horde side since fighting those overgeared paladins……
Like we used to split up the 3x 5man grps into 5x 3man groups to be able to rotate them around as smaller cells easier.
Sure we had zerg fights at BS vs some teams but vs Forte(who were one of the best alliance guilds world) it was pretty impossible since they never died
AB was basically like Legacy but with 4 capture points, 4 respawn areas and 3 times the people and no ez mode lord.

Sure communications weren’t as fast as in a 5v5 conquest in GW2 and the top premade on horde got by using CAPSLOCK while alliance tended to use Vent/TS.

In my opinion, a lot of problems already might get solved just by removing the ability to join sides in Hot Join and to fix the abuse of forced autobalance.

8 vs. 8 Hot Join is usually a mess.

However, at least in 5 vs 5 games I had the feeling it isn’t that bad.
I remember, it was a big deal when 5 vs 5 Hot Join was introduced, as players were able to “practice” for the arenas.

Making some kind of MM for Hot Join, at least so that the system decides which side you are playing on and not yourself, migth solve a lot of problems.

And again, this is also a very old issue, in my opinon, there should be at least some kind of “warning” for new players who want to jump into solo or team que.
If you are absolutly new to pvp. the Serverbrowser for Hot Join might seem at the “first view” a little bit confusing for new players.
Just compare it to solo and team que. Those only have “one big button” to press on, while the server browser seems more complex.
This is probably a reason why occaisonally some absolute new players get accidently into solo Q, so this should be adressed.

TLDR:

-Don’t let players choose sides in Hot Join
-Deal with forced autobalance
-“Warning Sign”, mentioning that Solo & Team Q are (more) competitive, if a new player wants to join them
-Hint to 5 vs. 5 Hotjoin Servers

John Corpening.9847:

Thanks for the post infantrydiv. Your take on the situation is incredibly insightful and well thought out. I really appreciate your constructive feedback on where the game is and where it should go to accomodate players at all levels.

Do you feel that Solo Arena has any benefit to a player for learning how to play as a team?

John, I think you can learn the basics of rotations and of course get familiar with the maps you’ll encounter in team queue (esp. if you move spirit and sky to their own individual queues), but one thing that has always been the case with solo queue (and RA in GW1) is that it doesn’t seem to work as a feeder for team queue.

If you want to look at preparing players for conquest mode, then i think an NPC based training grounds is in order. I wouldn’t be surprised if several top players would be happy to volunteer to create different scenarios w/ the devs that new players would have to work through. These scenarios would help teach them both the basic mechanics of conquest as well as some situational decision making regarding rotations.

You could even institute a rank requirement to solo or team queue (say 20ish) but allow players who have worked through all the tutorials to queue even if they aren’t yet rank 20. Make the tutorials accomplishments you can achieve. Additionally, new players to solo and team queue need to have their starting MMR reduced.

Getting rid of the solo queue leaderboard is long over-due. I think solo queue will be a much better place to learn if players aren’t worried about their record or ranking. And it might help with team queue population as well… might encourage more people to form teams.

Archaon.6245:

Attention and rewards for casuals is what destroyed gw2 pvp..just saying…

I disagree. No sense of urgency in fixing broken specs and a penchant for creating easy specs that are far too effective is what is destroying gw2.

A healthy and large base of casual players is necessary for any pvp to survive. Do you suppose the 32m yearly LoL players are all pros? The millions of concurrent viewership for championships is all sponsored players?

If GW2 wants to be esports it needs 2 things.
1. Large, healthy population of people who will tune in to watch tournies (this is why you need a large casual player base, pro teams only have so many grandmas who will tune it)

2. Frequent balance updates to ensure certain specs and classes aren’t out of line with others.

The rewards updates are steps in the right direction for #1. It’s #2 that’s currently lacking.

edited for clarity

Dahkeus.8243:

I think that if we had a solo Q-like mode that was larger, there would be more room for team tactics.

Plz, think that through.

There would be more room for tactics?
Most people already ignore what tactics are in this game…. this isn’t LoL, the playerbase is much too casual… forcing the game to be more tactical will only make it even more detached from the playerbase the game can support.

If Anet just focuses on strategy, if they just make the game more team-fight based (not just ‘force team-fights’ but ‘tweak the game to better promote random pug players being able to really work together, not just attack the same target…’)

Anyways, I’m not saying ‘be a copy of other games’, but instead ‘focus on 3v3s’ balance around 3v3s. Make game modes that largely cause 3v3s, force team-related skills onto weapons and into traits. The heal skill has the most room for this, if you guys upped the CD to be stronger but on 50+ second CDs and tweaked them to be more aoe.. like ranger healing spring, it healed everyone nearby one second after it’s activated and 5 seconds after… that’d create play and counter-play you can aoe heal allot of allies, but you are clumping up allies at an obvious time.

Pixels.6532:

Archaon.6245:

Attention and rewards for casuals is what destroyed gw2 pvp..just saying…

That’s absolutely incorrect. No sense of urgency in fixing broken specs and a penchant for creating easy specs that are far too effective is what is destroying gw2.

A healthy and large base of casual players is necessary for any pvp to survive. Do you suppose the 32m yearly LoL players are all pros? The millions of concurrent viewership for championships is all sponsored players?

If GW2 wants to be esports it needs 2 things.
1. Large, healthy population of people who will tune in to watch tournies (this is why you need a large casual player base, pro teams only have so many grandmas who will tune it)

2. Frequent balance updates to ensure certain specs and classes aren’t out of line with others.

The rewards updates are steps in the right direction for #1. It’s #2 that’s currently lacking.

I absolutely agree! A large fanbase who also plays the game is what the game needs to succeed both from a gameplay aspect and from an ‘esports’ aspect.

Guys, many of you are saying that removing the leaderboard wouldn’t help solo queue and would actually make it more like hotjoin.

What I would like to see is something more a long these lines:

1. Remove hotjoin, keep custom arenas
2. Add “Unrated match” which is a queue that has all maps and a hidden MMR
3. Keep solo queue, but remove skyhammer and possibly spirit watch
4. Players under rank 20 may only compete in Unrated matches to begin with, their performance in this mode will be used to calculate their Glicko rating for when they start in solo queue.

Now, I’ve made these suggestions before and people have said “But I don’t want to have to queue, hotjoin allows me to get a quick game in and leave whenever I want”. I don’t really think this holds up, GW2 games are quite short compared to MOBA games, and the queue time + game time rarely adds up to more than 20 minutes.

infantrydiv.1620:

Guys, many of you are saying that removing the leaderboard wouldn’t help solo queue and would actually make it more like hotjoin.

What I would like to see is something more a long these lines:

1. Remove hotjoin, keep custom arenas
2. Add “Unrated match” which is a queue that has all maps and a hidden MMR
3. Keep solo queue, but remove skyhammer and possibly spirit watch
4. Players under rank 20 may only compete in Unrated matches to begin with, their performance in this mode will be used to calculate their Glicko rating for when they start in solo queue.

Now, I’ve made these suggestions before and people have said “But I don’t want to have to queue, hotjoin allows me to get a quick game in and leave whenever I want”. I don’t really think this holds up, GW2 games are quite short compared to MOBA games, and the queue time + game time rarely adds up to more than 20 minutes.

I am not sure that #1 and #2 will help drive anymore people to the game mode.

#1: Great for ANET (gems wise), but the downside is inconsistency of rules from arena to arena
#2: Agreed
#3: Agreed
#4: I don’t really agree with this one. The current problem is that it is too easy to move up the ladder. It is ridiculous that we see people with less than 20 games in the top 100. If the matchmaking was done better, you’d see people with similar skill levels playing each other. Rank does not always equal skill especially with the skyhammer farmers out there.

We do need to find ways to bring in more players though. The best ways are:
1. More of a guild focus and easier to find PvP focused guilds
2. Better rewards (and I do not mean PvE equipment)
3. A league with achievements to bring in the PvE crowd. As I mentioned above though, the matchmaking/ladders must be improved first.
4. Fast balance patches. It is wrong that we’ve been talking about these specs for a long time now and nothing has happened: hambow, decap engi, mm necro, spirit ranger, s/p thief, pu mesmer

wow i agree with the OP, leaderboard in soloQ should really be removed, so those who want leaderboard status LOL will stick to tpvp this in return will removed all the toxic tpvp players from playing soloQ who trashtalk newbies who makes them giveup on pvp hence our crappy community numbers.

hotjoin like he said should be removed! also skyhammer enough have been said bout that map. but i do like the idea of ladder system like in Starcraft2. i think this suggestions are good for saving this failed system in pvp.

i should also want to suggest if havent already to have your rating or MMR whatever u want to call it be tied to your class or profession your playing, to have a better example why is this good. i always play bunker build, but everyone knows its the most boring class but also one that carries the match since this is a conquest type pvp. one of my friend message me recently and said what happen to your leaderboard rating? i said why? he said you used to be in top 50 what happen? to which i replied i started not to care about winning and just play class i enjoy, started to play diff. builds.

TLDR: have MMR tied to each prof/class we play and there should also be unrated matches!

I think as it pertains to solo queue there is a real lack of people playing to win. Most people I see run killing builds. They often fight off point even when down 2 caps to one or triple capped. On a map like Temple of the Silent Storm for example, I have seen many players ignore Tranquility and Stillness when down caps and to no surprise, the winning team sends 2-3 players often to Stillness or Tranquility. When a team triple caps after gaining Tranquility, I often don’t see players on the losing side even heading back to cap points.

I think a description is needed at the outset of matches to tell players how to win on each map. I think even a tutorial of the maps is a super idea. Have NPCs on the cap points to show players that they need to hold these points the majority of time to actually win. In solo queue, a lot of players care more about their kill count than they do actually winning the match.

I have also noticed a correlation between times when bonus items or rank points are given out and more players than usual playing. This isn’t surprising, but what is surprising is that players treat the matches as death matches.

Just get a competitive balance, without passive kitten and unfun builds aka condi-warrior, decap-engineers or spirit-rangers. The game got totally unfun, since the dhuumfire-patch. Build a high skill-ceiling, make the game challenging instead of easy.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Just get a competitive balance, without passive kitten and unfun builds aka condi-warrior, decap-engineers or spirit-rangers. The game got totally unfun, since the dhuumfire-patch. Build a high skill-ceiling, make the game challenging instead of easy.

Yup. Game has got way worse. I hope staff ele doesn’t get buffed. It is more mindless AoE

Iason Evan.3806:

I think as it pertains to solo queue there is a real lack of people playing to win. Most people I see run killing builds. They often fight off point even when down 2 caps to one or triple capped. On a map like Temple of the Silent Storm for example, I have seen many players ignore Tranquility and Stillness when down caps and to no surprise, the winning team sends 2-3 players often to Stillness or Tranquility. When a team triple caps after gaining Tranquility, I often don’t see players on the losing side even heading back to cap points.

I think a description is needed at the outset of matches to tell players how to win on each map. I think even a tutorial of the maps is a super idea. Have NPCs on the cap points to show players that they need to hold these points the majority of time to actually win. In solo queue, a lot of players care more about their kill count than they do actually winning the match.

I have also noticed a correlation between times when bonus items or rank points are given out and more players than usual playing. This isn’t surprising, but what is surprising is that players treat the matches as death matches.

I don’t know what your MMR is, but above top 500 in solo queue there is an abundance of people playing the best builds they can find who really want to win. This sounds like a problem of not knowing basic conquest strategies which is usually found lower on the leaderboards.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Just get a competitive balance, without passive kitten and unfun builds aka condi-warrior, decap-engineers or spirit-rangers. The game got totally unfun, since the dhuumfire-patch. Build a high skill-ceiling, make the game challenging instead of easy.

Yup. Game has got way worse. I hope staff ele doesn’t get buffed. It is more mindless AoE

Again, this thread is not about your views on class balance. Staff ele is not mindless, please take your opinions to the profession balance forum.

infantrydiv.1620:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Just get a competitive balance, without passive kitten and unfun builds aka condi-warrior, decap-engineers or spirit-rangers. The game got totally unfun, since the dhuumfire-patch. Build a high skill-ceiling, make the game challenging instead of easy.

Yup. Game has got way worse. I hope staff ele doesn’t get buffed. It is more mindless AoE

Again, this thread is not about your views on class balance. Staff ele is not mindless, please take your opinions to the profession balance forum.

Yes well it is relevent to the discussion, and sometimes discussions evolve into other areas. Why should either me or Empa go to the profession balance forum. Have you seen it over there? Nobody there has a clue about pvp balance. I would rather stay here and read the occasional insightful post.

And yes staff ele is mindless. In a team fight you just spam all your 10 aoe’s on the point. Really it is the ultimate in brainless. You dont need to find targets really. You just spam on a point. Anyone could do it

infantrydiv.1620:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Just get a competitive balance, without passive kitten and unfun builds aka condi-warrior, decap-engineers or spirit-rangers. The game got totally unfun, since the dhuumfire-patch. Build a high skill-ceiling, make the game challenging instead of easy.

Yup. Game has got way worse. I hope staff ele doesn’t get buffed. It is more mindless AoE

Again, this thread is not about your views on class balance. Staff ele is not mindless, please take your opinions to the profession balance forum.

I just wanna show you, that not a new-gamemode, not a new map and not a new tournament-system will make more ppl play the game, and therefore will make the MMR any better.

My two cents.

Conquest is just too hard for competitive casual unless you already know a lot of strategy or you add voice chat. So either have another, simpler mode you can queue for (preferably unrated and with all maps like infantrydiv suggested) or figure out a way to get voice chat in.

Voice chat would also be a major, super, awesome boon to Custom Servers. Guilds could rent servers for PvP nights without having to rely on Mumble/TS shuffling for when teams get shuffled around between maps.

Really good post OP, well highlighted points.
Because I think I can be also included in “competitive casual” (unless they give me some proper ranger ) barrel, I agree with most of your arguments.

However, Hotjoin should not be erased. Instead, every conquest should’ve been 5v5 map, 8v8 – I always felt that it must be a simple Deathmatch

John Corpening.9847:

One question I have for you as a discussion topic, if the system did better at matching similar sized teams with each other, would there be a need for SA at all? We couldn’t guarantee perfect matchups all the time so let’s also say that if it was detected that the matchup wasn’t good enough that the team at a disadvantage got a bonus for trying or at the very least was not penalized for trying? Keep in mind that we are just kicking around ideas here.

Lets say a full premade 5man team queues, but there are no other teams to match against. Eventually, the system will put them against an unorganized pug group. When this happen I think the premade 5man team should be given a slight handicap or something.

or if two premade 5man team queue, but there are no teams that are close to each other’s MMR. Getting Top1000 leaderboard team vs %percentile team 500-100 is rather discouraging.

Yeah, they should have a constant “crippled” debuff on themselves lollolol.

You shouldn’t be punished if you managed to assemble a nice team out your friends or guild mates. Those unorganized pugs will be punished if they choose to take a risk and play team arena instead of solo arenas. That is why both are needed.

John Corpening.9847:

What seems to have happened is that for a lot of players Solo Arena became a way to never have to think about making a team. This is in large part because a player could gain some fame from the SA leaderboard. As a result, a lot of highly competitive players did not move on to Team Arena and as teams inevitably broke apart many of those players drifted back to SA and made it their thing. So this area that was meant to be the next step for potential new hardcore players became the end goal for many existing hard core players.

Solo arena is the end goal for many players because it offers the same rewards as team arena (none) and takes 0 effort to play (you dont have to find 4 players).

Add awesome rewards (titles, finishers, skins, etc) to team arena and hardcores will move to team arena

John Corpening.9847:

The problem is that they step out of Hotjoins and enter a highly competitive SA environment or they solo queue into TA to potentially face premades. From my experiences as a player, the latter option tends to be a better choice. I have often found groups grateful to pick up a fifth, willing to offer guidance on what they want me to do given my build and accepting that I’m a pug and probably not very good anyway. The attitude I often see in SA is that if everyone in this random group of pugs isn’t top notch then RAGE!.

Yes, this is essentially one of the main problems in the nutshell: Hotjoin doesn’t do a good job preparing people for competitive play. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that PvP currently doesn’t have a huge community, meaning that there is not enough padding between people just deciding to queue for the first time and veterans who have been competing for a long time.

An unrated queue would give newbies, or more casual players a place to play the game as intended. It would also be a great place to put the less balanced maps where they are still enjoyable without people playing builds meant specifically exploit their mechanics.

There are things that can be fixed, but require a large community to accomplish.

This hit me when I saw the Ladders and Seasons thread.

Ladders (and proper player rankings to matchmake) would work wonders for putting players of similar skill level together for matches. But with so few people this would either lead to a:) an hour long queue with noone else in your bracket, or b:) combining different brackets together to lower queue times rendering the entire system pointless.

We need people to be play PvP to properly set up alot of things that would fix the issues.

People do not want to play something that has low priority on balance, no variety in gameplay, and no rewards to compensate. Right now it is just baby steps, taking those one at a time to get things into working order. Whoever thought the current state of PvP is in need of ladders and seasons is poorly informed, and possibly rather disconnected from the game and its playerbase.

The problem with trying to force competitiveness and PvP, is that it doesn’t work. If a game is well balanced, has some interesting mechanics, and fun things to do, people will find a way to make it pvp and competitive (see: Warcraft 3/DotA) and it will happen naturally, and that is the best way to nurture it.

For me, solo queue is the ultimate end game for pvp, and not team queue. And the reason for that is very simple: that’s what I personally desire. And I think anet should consider that many players are like that, and that solo queue shouldn’t (only) attempt to be a bridge for players to try team queue.

Solo queue and team queue are very different – the former is great for players to be competitive at their own pace and desire; the later demands players a team, and stricter schedules for team training and team matches. And not everyone is into that.

For this reason, competitive solo queue should be treated as end game (almost) as much as anet desires for team queue to be their pvp end game. And if someday a guild queue is added, that, too, is equally worthy to be a top end pvp queue.

For this reason, I wouldn’t ask “is solo queue good at bringing players to team queue?”, but instead make the following question “is hotjoin good to bring players to solo and team queues?” And the answer for that is: no.

Hotjoin is mindless fun. What the game needs, is a middle ground between hotjoin and the two competitive modes. Outside of competition, what does the two current queues offer that hotjoin doesn’t? Structure. And that’s the lacking middleground. Hotjoin is neither competitive nor does it have any structure. Solo and team queue have both.

What we need are unranked arena queues as the middle ground. Arenas that put players into a rigid 5v5 team setup, matchmaking (however hidden), without hotjoining and where afk and leavers are treated as seriously as the current queued arenas – all that but without leaderboards.

This middle ground is very important in two ways. In addition to better educating hotjoin players to how structured pvp works, it’s also great for experienced players to experiment with new builds or with new professions in a format that represents well the pvp game (which hotjoin doesn’t), but without the pressure of leaderboards and visible ranking.

I’m currently unable to experiment new stuff freely, because I don’t want to lose ranks because of that. However, I don’t want to go to hotjoin, because it’s just too random to me.

I also think that anet’s hotjoin servers should go away, and new players automatically be guided to unranked, structured queues. The mindless, chaotic fun from hotjoin would still exist in custom arenas specialized at that. However, instead of them being officially the “norm”, they would instead be unofficial custom stuff, and new players would accept them as such.