Guild Wars 2

I was playing today with a PuG in a tourney, and like every time, I stomped hard and won every 1v1, I stole the bosses in FoN 3 times, I capped, chased, killed and basically played flawlessly, yet my actions didn’t change the outcome at all. Everytime I find myself being in a situation where I need to kill, I do it well, heck I even strategize pretty well, but in the end, it’s all about capping dem bases.

This is a problem to me for a very simple reason, players who have played this kind of PvP before as a top team, players who are tactical and not individually skilled are the players who will end up on top in this game. This feels like a Starcraft MMORPG, or a Dota MMORPG for that matter, and I don’t like it.

Why is it like that? Well, because there are more than 2 objects in this mode, there usually are several, and it detracts individual skill and turns it into a big tactical zerg basically. What happened to the good old twitch based PvP where you could control several different players at once and basically tear up a whole team? You can’t cap 3 bases solo, but in a Death Match, you can finish 2 people solo.

I don’t know, this just isn’t my piece of the cake I guess. I know that even though I can stomp many of these top players 1v1, I’ll most likely always be behind the players who play in guilds that focused on this mode in other games, ranking wise. It really has nothing to do with my individual skill, it has to do with the fact that we are forced to play a specific build and rely too much on other players and the team leader’s decisions.

The thing that could fix this is Death Match, since Death Match in one game differs a lot from Death Match in another game, but Conquest (or something similar, anything purely based on tactics) in one game doesn’t differ from Conquest in another game.

This leaves players like me severely behind since I don’t have a strong, tactical team to play with rather than a team of old high rated DM players in other games. We who have not yet found a top guild to play with will always be behind. Far Shiverpeaks really is low on high end guilds…

To be considered good in this game, you need to theory craft and know everything about the meta, we are basically FORCED to play tournaments as an organized team to “stay in shape” and keep up with other players. There’s no other way to nurture “skill”.

What do y’all think?

I think everything you said is true, but that’s basically what the game was designed around. It’s really not very difficult to be good at duelling in this game. With the limited number of abilities, there’s really only so much you can do at any given time.

The thing that’s going to set you apart as a player and as a team is knowing how every other class works at an intimate level, and knowing what abilities to use at what times to counter them. The nice thing is that the game is set up in a way that you can attain that knowledge very easily; spend a day or two playing every class in sPvP and you’ll have the foundational knowledge you need to do well.

I think just tossing an arena style gameplay mode into GW2 would make for a really crappy gaming experience. The classes and their abilities aren’t designed for it nor are they balanced around it. They could balance around it, but that would dramatically affect balance in objective based gameplay.

The bottom line is that the game was designed for and is balanced around objective based team play. This is not objectively a good nor bad thing. Some players will like it, some players won’t. The former will stick around, the latter will probably go back to WoW arena.

mouse.1689:

I think everything you said is true, but that’s basically what the game was designed around. It’s really not very difficult to be good at duelling in this game. With the limited number of abilities, there’s really only so much you can do at any given time.

The thing that’s going to set you apart as a player and as a team is knowing how every other class works at an intimate level, and knowing what abilities to use at what times to counter them. The nice thing is that the game is set up in a way that you can attain that knowledge very easily; spend a day or two playing every class in sPvP and you’ll have the foundational knowledge you need to do well.

I think just tossing an arena style gameplay mode into GW2 would make for a really crappy gaming experience. The classes and their abilities aren’t designed for it nor are they balanced around it. They could balance around it, but that would dramatically affect balance in objective based gameplay.

The bottom line is that the game was designed for and is balanced around objective based team play. This is not objectively a good nor bad thing. Some players will like it, some players won’t. The former will stick around, the latter will probably go back to WoW arena.

Perhaps, but I do believe Death Match would work, and I think it should be balanced around Death Match. Sure, you’re right, there are only so many abilities to use situationally, but as a team of three people in a medium sized map with lots of LoS-objects, this could work out, especially if they add a best of three. One objective is the ultimate way of showing skill, and I think that players who really ARE skilled, by MMORPG standards, would enjoy this more. I think that players who lack individual skill like Conquest a lot more because they can be carried by a team of tacticians, and the outcome of the game doesn’t rely so much on them playing badly or losing lots of 1v1s, because anyone can really be benificial in Conquest, but no one can really make a huge difference.

A team of 5 skilled players will always beat a team of 5 worse players.
I don’t see your logic here.
Point capping or not, if your 5 skilled players own them at every node i don’t see how you can lose. The game mode doesn’t matter, skill will win. And skill doesn’t only rely on clicking your buttons at the proper time. Same goes for any kind of PvP, tactic and teamwork defines skill.

If you had 3 awesome duelists (1v1 combat) in an arena team in WoW (sorry for that example) that doesn’t mean you will win the 3v3 deathmatch.

perhaps you feel lackluster in this game mode because your spec is far too focused on the 1v1 combat?
None of my characters has a build focused on mashing someones face, so indeed i do get owned 1v1 at times, maybe i’ll even be called a scrub for losing the “duel”. But in the end i took the node/neutralized it/defended it for a long long time, which is my job and what makes you win. So that’s what i’m focused on. Skill isnt always about stomping someones face in 1v1 combat. Maybe i’m skilled at keeping him off the node, so my team gets points and wins?

Being a skilled player in a team game is not winning duels.

And like i said above, even if this mode is focused on holding three points, the team with the better players will always win.

You can make a humongous difference in conquest alone. I know a thief that bounces between every single node under some kind of pressure, from us or them, and immediately helps the defenders/attackers out. And it’s absolutely gamechanging.

If you as you mentioned steal 3 bosses in R1, that alone is 75 free points and x minutes of 50 allstats. That alone is a massive difference for the team.

Ofcourse you can’t carry four people on your own, it’s a team game, but you sure as hell can make a huge difference. On my guardian i can hold a node vs 2 people, sometimes three. That makes my team play 4v3 at the rest of the map, which makes a huge difference. The list goes on.

“and I think that players who really ARE skilled, by MMORPG standards, would enjoy this more”

Skill by MMORPG standards is >teamplay<.

Very good post. I agree with some things mentioned and not others.

Disagreements:
-there is skill required in the current conquest system. This is especially true if you are fighting in tournament pvp or tpvp as it is forced 5v5. This is not as true in hot join games where the amount of players makes it too beneficial to zerg as a team. Remember that it also depends on map size.
-Along with being good at 1v1, another skillset you must cultivate is knowing when to go where and being aware of the points and whether or not they are being contested (by simply looking at the top of your screen), and acting appropriately.

Agreements:
-I agree that this game might have benefited a lot from some kind of death match gameplay. But, WoW Arena style or BLC arena style will not work with the current skills available to classes for a few reasons:
-Arena maps are too small.
-Some classes are meant to be bunkers or point defenders (like guardians/warriors). If given the option people will always focus down the squishies first and leave the tankies. But, a tank standing on a point essentially forces you to take him down.
-And, a number of other reasons probably.

If the game could have had successful arena balance, then the devs would have probably added it. I’m sure they have done testing and determined that it would not work for one reason or another. All that being said here is a possible resolution that perhaps was not considered.

FPS style arena:
-Exactly similar to Battlefield game conquest matches.
-Larger maps than sPvP maps.
-Capturing and holding points will not give you points towards winning, but will give you spawn points (or probably some other form of convenience).
-You start with 50 points (or some other number, it depends on testing and balancing) on each team. Every time one person on your team dies you lose one point. The team that reaches 0 points first loses.

This forces the game to still be essentially kill based. But, having and defending points is still an important aspect. I do not know if it will work, just an idea. Everything depends on dev testing.

I have to Agree with smack on this one. MMOs have always been about teamplay whether you realize it or not. 1 person playing properly on a 5v5 map will not beat 5 people playing as a team. If you were unlucky enough to be placed on a team with that oh lol its the same map and mechanics we can just zerg and kill and still win, then i feel sorry for you being placed on that kind of team it happens. Dust yourself off and try again, or form up a premade pug team with some kind of VOIP so you can talk strat and call out what nodes are vulnerable to assault or heavily defended. GW2 yes your player skill does matter, but in the PvP or PvE environment, player skill becomes secondary to overall team skill and tactics.

Geff.1930:

Very good post. I agree with some things mentioned and not others.

Disagreements:
-there is skill required in the current conquest system. This is especially true if you are fighting in tournament pvp or tpvp as it is forced 5v5. This is not as true in hot join games where the amount of players makes it too beneficial to zerg as a team. Remember that it also depends on map size.
-Along with being good at 1v1, another skillset you must cultivate is knowing when to go where and being aware of the points and whether or not they are being contested (by simply looking at the top of your screen), and acting appropriately.

Agreements:
-I agree that this game might have benefited a lot from some kind of death match gameplay. But, WoW Arena style or BLC arena style will not work with the current skills available to classes for a few reasons:
-Arena maps are too small.
-Some classes are meant to be bunkers or point defenders (like guardians/warriors). If given the option people will always focus down the squishies first and leave the tankies. But, a tank standing on a point essentially forces you to take him down.
-And, a number of other reasons probably.

If the game could have had successful arena balance, then the devs would have probably added it. I’m sure they have done testing and determined that it would not work for one reason or another. All that being said here is a possible resolution that perhaps was not considered.

FPS style arena:
-Exactly similar to Battlefield game conquest matches.
-Larger maps than sPvP maps.
-Capturing and holding points will not give you points towards winning, but will give you spawn points (or probably some other form of convenience).
-You start with 50 points (or some other number, it depends on testing and balancing) on each team. Every time one person on your team dies you lose one point. The team that reaches 0 points first loses.

This forces the game to still be essentially kill based. But, having and defending points is still an important aspect. I do not know if it will work, just an idea. Everything depends on dev testing.

Pretty cool idea you’ve got there. Put a detailed version in the suggestion forums (:
I also like the idea of an escort-round based type of mode i read somewhere. Much like bombrun in TF2.

Or the one which is basicly the second round map, but you cant cap whatever point you wish, you can only cap the ones next to the one you have, and you need to cap all three-then kill the lord to win. So you progress over the map towards the lord and the end of the game.

Skill in FPS’s even includes teamplay. Yes, being a good duelist is skill. Noone will take that away from you (except dum-dums but never mind them) however being able to perform well in a team setting takes just as much skill. Being able to dominate with your team will require both sets of skills which makes it more skill-based overall than just deathmatch style “BURN MAIM KILL!” ability.

Teamplay skill is a higher level of skill than solo dueling skill. 1v1 skill is absolutely something to work on and be proud of, but it’s basically the entry level skill, even in any FPS game that has any tactical edge to it at all beyond DM/TDM.

This game needs MORE objective based play and LESS things to encourage deathmatching, short of a deathmatch specific map.

GW2 would make a terrible fighting game without a complete rewrite of all the mechanics of the game. It can only shine as a tactical team game, so there’s no point wishing for a dueling-based one. Go and play Dark Souls PC for that, it’s awesome.

Football is not really about skill, I win every 1v1, get every ball and outsmart my enemys but in the end its all about making goals. Do you get what I mean?