Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

This is by no means a QQ post; most of what we read here are biased, ranting, raging or one sided opinions so I thought I would offer some constructive criticism. Maybe to some this is nothing new but I don’t actually take time to read all of the posts so if this has already been treated in the past jump to the next!

I have been over the past week or so playing around with SPvP and I must say that the idea and concepts behind it are great, but the lack of incentives and content make it so we lose interest rather quickly. Now I understand that adding content is not something done easily and since it is a new game I am sure most can live with what we have for a while still…but the incentives need to kick in else SPvP in my opinion will just remain the training grounds for people trying to figure out what build to use and what class they might or might not like…unless that is what Arena Net intended SPvP for in the first place…

Now the idea of keeping players on the same level as far as level and gear goes is a great one…now why not build it up and cash on that idea allowing players to rank up and get better items, enhancements, ect. as their ranks increases, but keeping players of the same ranks together so it doesn’t affect balance…? So if I’m a new player I don’t risk running into geared up opponents that will ruin my gameplay…and by playing against players of the same rank as you, it makes it so it always remains a competitive environment…and it could even be possible for someone to buy ranks if they don’t want to put it the time, adding revenue to finance a dedicated Arena net team that actually has the means to make SPvP flourish…who cares if someone pays their way up the ranks…SPvP in GW2 doesn’t only rely on items…if you haven’t played and practiced…gear only won’t make you a better SPvPer so it will only mean easier kills for the players of actually put in the time…

Of course there is the risk that over time new players might become few and far between and it might become hard to find matches for low levels…but that shouldn’t be an issue since a business model based on no recurring fees should always focus on attracting new customers…and if we include cross server matches it should virtually be impossible to never find a match at whatever level you are in…And it reinforces the suggestion of making it possible to buy ranks to jump up the ladder and go join your friends…or an alt you don’t feel like leveling up the ranks…

It is just an idea but I think most would agree that without a reward or an objective that is actually worthwhile…people lose interest and move on. And without decent profits coming from the PvP side Arena Net won’t invest as much time into it.

In the end everyone wins…we get more content…they get more money.

I like your ideas! sPvP is getting boring pretty fast. A few matches a day and I’m done, which is quite sad, cause it got so much potential!

I’ll be happy when they stop giving us the finger and bring improvements such as class variety, maps and game modes.

Class variety? That’s dependent on you. Throwing curve balls at the meta works surprisingly well.

Imo they should reward people with xp and some small amount of money.
Obviously not for ‘spvp land’ itself. But for the overworld. Its annoying to spvp mainly and be unable to keep up with your teammates in wvww bc they are geared to the teeth and your level 10 with (obviously) no exotics.

More importantly, A TON of players who pve/wvw dont do spvp because they cant progress in it, and therefore feel its a waste of time. So allowing progression , especially experience progression (leveling up) through spvp would draw such a huge crowd.
The difficutly of course would be in how to allow that while at the same time keeping spvp free of gear and experience variables.

I agree it does need rewards. It is fun but I don’t do it much because there is not much of a point imo.

Jakkson.4076:

Now the idea of keeping players on the same level as far as level and gear goes is a great one…now why not build it up and cash on that idea allowing players to rank up and get better items, enhancements, ect. as their ranks increases, but keeping players of the same ranks together so it doesn’t affect balance…? So if I’m a new player I don’t risk running into geared up opponents that will ruin my gameplay…and by playing against players of the same rank as you, it makes it so it always remains a competitive environment…and it could even be possible for someone to buy ranks if they don’t want to put it the time, adding revenue to finance a dedicated Arena net team that actually has the means to make SPvP flourish…who cares if someone pays their way up the ranks…SPvP in GW2 doesn’t only rely on items…if you haven’t played and practiced…gear only won’t make you a better SPvPer so it will only mean easier kills for the players of actually put in the time…

What’s the point of that if you’ll still be running into opponents with the same gear? The point of a gear grind is to give you an advantage over other players who have less time to play. Might as well keep things the way they are right now then.

What they need is a ladder and some kind and match-making. Don’t touch the gear.

Eurantien.4632:

Class variety? That’s dependent on you. Throwing curve balls at the meta works surprisingly well.

yea mm and lifesteal necros can dominate bro!

The problem stems from the lack of players in SPVP to begin with. If we start running a tiered system, then we’re splitting the playerbase even thinner.

If it were this easy they would have done it already. Incentives are only good at helping new players understand the game’s mechanisms through positive feedback and giving reason for those already engaged reason to come back. If the mode is not intrinsically engaging to players they won’t do it after receiving their reward. If the reward is too tempting and the gameplay mode is too unengaging certain players may even abuse systems in order to receive those rewards faster, and this often occurs to the detriment of others. Hotjoin is a prime example of this, and I’d also argue that the current dailies fall into this trap as well.

It’s a strange phenomena really, when emphasis is put on the extrinsic rewards the actual intrinsic motivation, motivation that comes with actually wanting to do the activity itself, goes down. Studies show that paying kids to get good grades in school actually causes them to do worse later on.

What I think ANet needs to do is to make sPvP more approachable so that new players can get a foothold (ladders and queues), make the game modes more engaging (current ones are barely watchable, because they’re so boring) in order to hook those players after the novelty wears off, and then focus on reward systems in order to maintain a steady population. Rewards are important but they should never be a premise for playing.