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Posted by: Poledra Val.1490

Poledra Val.1490

I rarely post in these forums so I was just curious what the current crop of pvp players feel about the state of the game at the moment.

Theres four things for me that come to mind straight away:

Balance: Arguably the most balanced pvp has been in a long while, baring of course Guardian which is widely considered to be the weakest class in the current meta. Saying that I do feel the meta for lack of a better term is rather dry or dare I say a bit dull at the moment.

Build diversity: This is something I wish Arena Net would look into more, more often then not there is one solid build per profession which is used by everyone. Occasionally you may get a couple of good builds per profession but there few and far between.

Metrics/Numbers: This for me is the most worrying thing. The numbers for PvP are dwindling down somewhat. Im aware Overwatch is now in full flow and has probably taken a few numbers out of GW2 PvP. Which brings me to my final point.

Incentives: Baring the legendary PvP backpiece which I would imagine most players would have by the end of this season or next there really is nothing to incentivize players to play if they reach legendary division.

I did suggest as others have that they should maybe create a reward track exclusively for legendary division and that can only be progressed once your in legendary.

In addition the PvP Vendor has not been updated with any new items for us to spend our pvp tickets on for the last several months.

Just my two cents.

Pol

(edited by Poledra Val.1490)

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Posted by: dominik.9721

dominik.9721

Pvp is dead. Most of the tournement players don’t even log in anymore or only play one hour per week. Pvp is flooded with causals and a few wannabe-tryhards who suddenly come out of their corner since everyone good is gone and since none is playing seriously. 99% of the cool people that you already knew in 2013/2014 aren’t playing actively anymore.

It’s still a powercreeped environment with long queuetimes,without build diversity, without any competitive leaderboard and without any prospect of improvement.

Sad but true

Grimkram [sS]

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Posted by: Chaith.8256

Chaith.8256

I rarely post in these forums so I was just curious what the current crop of pvp players feel about the state of the game at the moment.

Theres four things for me that come to mind straight away:

Balance: Arguably the most balanced pvp has been in a long while, baring of course Guardian which is widely considered to be the weakest class in the current meta. Saying that I do feel the meta for lack of a better term is rather dry or dare I say a bit dull at the moment.

Build diversity: This is something I wish Arena Net would look into more, more often then not there is one solid build per profession which is used by everyone. Occasionally you may get a couple of good builds per profession but there few and far between.

Metrics/Numbers: This for me is the most worrying thing. The numbers for PvP are dwindling down somewhat. Im aware Overwatch is now in full flow and has probably taken a few numbers out of GW2 PvP. Which brings me to my final point.

Incentives: Baring the legendary PvP backpiece which I would imagine most players would have by the end of this season or next there really is nothing to incentivize players to play if they reach legendary division.

I did suggest as others have that they should maybe create a reward track exclusively for legendary division and that can only be progressed once your in legendary.

In addition the PvP Vendor has not been updated with any new items for us to spend our pvp tickets on for the last several months.

Just my two cents.

Pol

Definitely all very real points that hit home this season.

The focus of the balance team has been to finally strike a balance between the potentials of each profession in PvP, and that’s great, spot on, extremely huge for competitive, but there’s still the problem of no build diversity, an unprecedented few options in traits/utilities.

The ball has been dropped on keeping up with the League Reward Vendor, there’s simply just no rewards for playing in S3 if you’ve played through the content in S1 and S2. How is this acceptable?

The structured / casual PvP in this game is being really hurt by long average queue times, and blowout games.

Working towards something is fun, having build options are fun, getting into the action is fun – short queue times are fun, non-crushing victories and defeats are fun.

Forum Lord Chaith
Twitch.tv/chaithh
New Twitter: @chaithhh

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Posted by: ellesee.8297

ellesee.8297

Balance is meh. The meta is a bunch of hyper tanky builds that deal incredible damage and has pretty much always been this way for most classes. There’s never a sense of sacrificing defense to output higher damage or vice versa. It makes the game stale since mostly everyone has everything.

Build diversity is absolutely nonexistent. The elite specs are the reason for that. They add additional features to your character that make you far stronger than a simple boost to your abilities like the other trait lines offer. Thieves get an extra dodge, Elementalists can overload their attunements, Mesmers get Continuum Split, etcetc. And you get additional weapons and skills, some of which are far stronger than the original core ones and they are unusable if you don’t run the elite specialization, which doesn’t make any sense to me. The Guardian isn’t locked out of the greatsword if he chooses not to run the Zeal trait line. The Guardian isn’t locked out of Meditations if he chooses not to run Valor. That would be insane.

Furthermore, every single class is pigeonholed into a defensive or utility tree if they hope to perform well in PvP. Engineer with Alchemy, Elementalist with Water, Thief with Trickery, etc. That’s two trait lines that every class must pick in order to remain competitive. Clearly this is makes for little to no build diversity at all for any class and makes for a worse game overall.

What’s going to happen in the future with the next expansion? Will every class have their 3 trait lines already predetermined? Oh you’re a Thief so obviously you’re going to run Daredevil for the extra dodge bar and Dash, obviously you’re going to run Trickery for the extra initiative and a superpowered Steal, and obviously you’re going to run the new trait line which will probably give the class some crazy feature that’s specifically locked to that tree. Come on now.

The numbers are low because PvP is just not fun. With the lack of build diversity, the necessity of HoT, one super boring meta after the next, the long queue times, the poor matchmaking, the lack of other fun game modes, the only word I can describe it with is ugh.

Rewards aren’t even a huge deal. I know many people who have PvP’d since the start. If you remember, there were no rewards for playing PvP except things that you could get in PvE in less than half the time and with less than half the effort. But people played for fun and that’s the mentality we should get back to. Put the fun back into the game. Stop trying to entice PvE players into PvP. They don’t even want to play PvP. They just do it for the skins/titles/achievement points and all they do is complain about being stuck in sapphire and unable to get their rewards. Get PvPers to play this game; people who want to get better at their class and the game and be competitive and enrich the scene. I believe. Maybe.

#1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!
#1 Frandliest person NA!
http://www.twitch.tv/Livskis

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Posted by: Exedore.6320

Exedore.6320

Balance and Diversity
If you define balance as every profession is played, then it’s close. But when you look deeper, it’s not a fun or enjoyable balance. Elite specs are way too powerful, which kills diversity. But not only that, the elite specs are more powerful in a way that makes them easier to play and far more forgiving of mistakes and poor play. That marginalizes player skill and leads to spam combat instead of the action-based combat with decisions that GW2 used to have.

Elite specs needs nerfed hard. Until that happens, players won’t come back to PvP.

League System, Matchmaking, and Rewards
The league system needs a major overhaul. It’s nothing but a glorified reward track. And with most people only after the backpack, there’s little incentive to keep going once you obtain it, aside from the terrible daily grind to get the ascended version.

First, the tiers and pip rewards are poorly laid-out. Practically everyone is guaranteed to climb to Ruby because Amber, Emerald, and Sapphire have fewer total pips and are more forgiving of losses. When players reach legendary, they have little incentive to keep going or even play more than the daily to get the backpack. That puts most players in ruby and diamond, which is a terrible way to show differences in skill. It also leads many players to believe they can grind to legendary because they quickly obtained ruby. The dramatic change in progression frustrates many people and turns them away from doing PvP aside from a reward.

The reward system has almost no thought put into it. A currency for crossing tiers will not keep people playing. It means they accomplish the goal and then stop until the next season. That caused the resulting boring achievement grind – not skill – which gates the highest reward.

The matchmaking system is also in shambles, due in large part to lack of forethought with the pip system. The pip system does a poor job of distributing players based on skill, so matching based on pips will lead to similarly poor matches. Season1 matching was much better for enjoyable and even matches, but ANet didn’t think about how to progress higher rated players faster.

There are a few ways to fix this mess, but it requires major changes. The easiest is probably this: smooth out pip generation across tiers: amber, emerald, and sapphire are slower; ruby and diamond are faster. Remove divisions from Ruby and Diamond, add to Amber and Emerald (all tiers should have the same amount). Remove the safeguards from Emerald and Sapphire and lessen them in Amber. Instead of ranked currency being rewarded solely on tier crossing, make tiers give reward track bonuses or unlock new reward tracks. Players would then need to complete reward tracks for currency (with some kind of seasonal cap for people who play all day long). Achievement points will be based on crossing tier boundary and doing commonplace things in that tier (such as winning games).

Kirrena Rosenkreutz

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Posted by: Shiyo.3578

Shiyo.3578

Elite specs really killed build diversity. Vanilla had so many viable builds per class.

Trying to get pve players into pvp is never going to be a good idea. It always makes the pvp have a worse community and ruins it. Stop doing it. Let people who want to be there to pvp be there and let that be the end of it.

Matchmaking is a mess. I don’t know how to fix it but it’s the sole reason I lost all interest in pvp entirely. Please fix it ASAP.

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Posted by: Supreme.3164

Supreme.3164

I rarely post in these forums so I was just curious what the current crop of pvp players feel about the state of the game at the moment.

Theres four things for me that come to mind straight away:

Balance: Arguably the most balanced pvp has been in a long while, baring of course Guardian which is widely considered to be the weakest class in the current meta. Saying that I do feel the meta for lack of a better term is rather dry or dare I say a bit dull at the moment.

Build diversity: This is something I wish Arena Net would look into more, more often then not there is one solid build per profession which is used by everyone. Occasionally you may get a couple of good builds per profession but there few and far between.

Metrics/Numbers: This for me is the most worrying thing. The numbers for PvP are dwindling down somewhat. Im aware Overwatch is now in full flow and has probably taken a few numbers out of GW2 PvP. Which brings me to my final point.

Incentives: Baring the legendary PvP backpiece which I would imagine most players would have by the end of this season or next there really is nothing to incentivize players to play if they reach legendary division.

I did suggest as others have that they should maybe create a reward track exclusively for legendary division and that can only be progressed once your in legendary.

In addition the PvP Vendor has not been updated with any new items for us to spend our pvp tickets on for the last several months.

Just my two cents.

Pol

You first state that balance is ok..then ask for build diversity?

Current “balance” forces every profession on a specific build ..and people still ask for nerfs on a daily basis. How to have build diversity with such an environment?

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Posted by: Reaper Alim.4176

Reaper Alim.4176

I rarely post in these forums so I was just curious what the current crop of pvp players feel about the state of the game at the moment.

Theres four things for me that come to mind straight away:

Balance: Arguably the most balanced pvp has been in a long while, baring of course Guardian which is widely considered to be the weakest class in the current meta. Saying that I do feel the meta for lack of a better term is rather dry or dare I say a bit dull at the moment.

Build diversity: This is something I wish Arena Net would look into more, more often then not there is one solid build per profession which is used by everyone. Occasionally you may get a couple of good builds per profession but there few and far between.

Metrics/Numbers: This for me is the most worrying thing. The numbers for PvP are dwindling down somewhat. Im aware Overwatch is now in full flow and has probably taken a few numbers out of GW2 PvP. Which brings me to my final point.

Incentives: Baring the legendary PvP backpiece which I would imagine most players would have by the end of this season or next there really is nothing to incentivize players to play if they reach legendary division.

I did suggest as others have that they should maybe create a reward track exclusively for legendary division and that can only be progressed once your in legendary.

In addition the PvP Vendor has not been updated with any new items for us to spend our pvp tickets on for the last several months.

Just my two cents.

Pol

GW2 loses more sPvP players when Overwatch releases at the some time that other MMO call ESO that people calls kittenty has doubled it’s pvp population in the same moment. Hmmm… I don’t

I maybe a troll with class.
But at least I admit it!
PoF guys get ready for PvE joys

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Posted by: fishball.7204

fishball.7204

But think of all the Mini Llamas you can buy with your tickets.

FOR THE GREEEEEEEEEEEEN

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Posted by: Exedore.6320

Exedore.6320

Trying to get pve players into pvp is never going to be a good idea. It always makes the pvp have a worse community and ruins it. Stop doing it. Let people who want to be there to pvp be there and let that be the end of it.

Not true at all. Getting more people into PvP makes for a healthier and more active PvP scene.

The problems occur when you just throw veterans and newbies together with awful matchmaking. Blowouts frustrate both and no one learns anything.

Kirrena Rosenkreutz

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Posted by: Dave.6819

Dave.6819

I rarely post in these forums so I was just curious what the current crop of pvp players feel about the state of the game at the moment.

Theres four things for me that come to mind straight away:

Balance: Arguably the most balanced pvp has been in a long while, baring of course Guardian which is widely considered to be the weakest class in the current meta. Saying that I do feel the meta for lack of a better term is rather dry or dare I say a bit dull at the moment.

Build diversity: This is something I wish Arena Net would look into more, more often then not there is one solid build per profession which is used by everyone. Occasionally you may get a couple of good builds per profession but there few and far between.

Metrics/Numbers: This for me is the most worrying thing. The numbers for PvP are dwindling down somewhat. Im aware Overwatch is now in full flow and has probably taken a few numbers out of GW2 PvP. Which brings me to my final point.

Incentives: Baring the legendary PvP backpiece which I would imagine most players would have by the end of this season or next there really is nothing to incentivize players to play if they reach legendary division.

I did suggest as others have that they should maybe create a reward track exclusively for legendary division and that can only be progressed once your in legendary.

In addition the PvP Vendor has not been updated with any new items for us to spend our pvp tickets on for the last several months.

Just my two cents.

Pol

GW2 loses more sPvP players when Overwatch releases at the some time that other MMO call ESO that people calls kittenty has doubled it’s pvp population in the same moment. Hmmm… I don’t

bravoooo. atlast some1 got it. its not Overwatch. it’s not some other new shiny stuff. it’s just… pvpers got bored of this crap. HoT = no build diversity and forced elite specs. i didnt even care about rewards i remember. i just wanted to have fun. anyway.. bravo cuz u just hit the spot. lots of people abandoned gw and went to ESO. i did too ^^

Thief prof. really needs your attention
#dyingbreed

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Posted by: style.6173

style.6173

The sad thing is that everyone except for the matchmaking team knew that the matchmaking system was going to be a failure this season. It’s not possible to have balanced, non-blowout games when one team is stacked to win every game.

It’s boring and why a lot of people are playing overwatch or other games.

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Posted by: JTGuevara.9018

JTGuevara.9018

The sad thing is that everyone except for the matchmaking team knew that the matchmaking system was going to be a failure this season. It’s not possible to have balanced, non-blowout games when one team is stacked to win every game.

It’s boring and why a lot of people are playing overwatch or other games.

The problem is more than the matchmaking. The problem is also the league pip system! As long as pip system exists, matchmaking will NEVER be fixed!

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Posted by: Reaper Alim.4176

Reaper Alim.4176

I rarely post in these forums so I was just curious what the current crop of pvp players feel about the state of the game at the moment.

Theres four things for me that come to mind straight away:

Balance: Arguably the most balanced pvp has been in a long while, baring of course Guardian which is widely considered to be the weakest class in the current meta. Saying that I do feel the meta for lack of a better term is rather dry or dare I say a bit dull at the moment.

Build diversity: This is something I wish Arena Net would look into more, more often then not there is one solid build per profession which is used by everyone. Occasionally you may get a couple of good builds per profession but there few and far between.

Metrics/Numbers: This for me is the most worrying thing. The numbers for PvP are dwindling down somewhat. Im aware Overwatch is now in full flow and has probably taken a few numbers out of GW2 PvP. Which brings me to my final point.

Incentives: Baring the legendary PvP backpiece which I would imagine most players would have by the end of this season or next there really is nothing to incentivize players to play if they reach legendary division.

I did suggest as others have that they should maybe create a reward track exclusively for legendary division and that can only be progressed once your in legendary.

In addition the PvP Vendor has not been updated with any new items for us to spend our pvp tickets on for the last several months.

Just my two cents.

Pol

GW2 loses more sPvP players when Overwatch releases at the some time that other MMO call ESO that people calls kittenty has doubled it’s pvp population in the same moment. Hmmm… I don’t

bravoooo. atlast some1 got it. its not Overwatch. it’s not some other new shiny stuff. it’s just… pvpers got bored of this crap. HoT = no build diversity and forced elite specs. i didnt even care about rewards i remember. i just wanted to have fun. anyway.. bravo cuz u just hit the spot. lots of people abandoned gw and went to ESO. i did too ^^

I know most of the campaigns in ESO are now POPlocked for most of the day by all three alliances instead of just one. Loads more fun and loads apond loads of build diversity and at least one counter for everything and every play style in the game, which then it truly comes down to player and build building skills.

Whenever I log on to GW2 these days I just mostly hear players in the lobby complain about the lack of friends still playing, and the queue wait lines between matches. I play one or two matches instantly get turned off by either getting paired with or against Yolo go die far team mates. I really do challenge so of the players that think they are “Elite” PvPers to learn other competitive games. I’ll be willing to put money down on the fact %99 of these GW2 Elite PvPers would get super farmer and then rage quit when they learn in other games there is this thing call “On the fly Counter Play.”

I maybe a troll with class.
But at least I admit it!
PoF guys get ready for PvE joys

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Posted by: Interpretor.3091

Interpretor.3091

Pvp is dead. Most of the tournement players don’t even log in anymore or only play one hour per week. Pvp is flooded with causals and a few wannabe-tryhards who suddenly come out of their corner since everyone good is gone and since none is playing seriously. 99% of the cool people that you already knew in 2013/2014 aren’t playing actively anymore.

It’s still a powercreeped environment with long queuetimes,without build diversity, without any competitive leaderboard and without any prospect of improvement.

Sad but true

^^^ this. 100% this. Hell the only pro player I see active in game or on the forums anymore in Chaith. The last time a pro player actively tried to improve the overall community was Zoose with his PvP guide and that was what, two years ago now?

That and forum posts like this aren’t responded to by Anet at all. It’s like they can only focus on one thing at a time. First Raids and now WvW (which is barely holding on even though Anet has almost all of its attention on it, even going as far as delaying all PvE content such as the new legendary weapons).
Then, whats even worse is that these posts are quickly replaced by other posts, who are mostly made by casuals complaining about the game being too hard, complicated, or how bad their MMR is.

Warrior

(edited by Interpretor.3091)

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Posted by: RoRo.8270

RoRo.8270

gw2 pvp in a nut shell. spam condi, evade, evade, evade, spam condi, block, block, block, invul, evade, moar conditions!

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Posted by: JTGuevara.9018

JTGuevara.9018

gw2 pvp in a nut shell. spam condi, evade, evade, evade, spam condi, block, block, block, invul, evade, moar conditions!

Exactly! It’s like skill just went down a notch.

This power creep is insane. I’ve just started recently playing engi for the first time since 2014 and it’s just like…whoa. I thought I had a handful managing kits/skills before, but this is ridiculous. With engi now, you have to play like freakin BEETHOVEN just to break even. It’s nuts! Engi just doesn’t feel skillful now as before, it’s just spam, spam, spam. Hell, everything is spam, spam, spam. Elite builds have good defense, too.

Everybody is running elite builds that are pretty much just bruisers on steroids!

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Posted by: Permafrost.2695

Permafrost.2695

I think Guardian still rocks. People are just playing the class incorrectly. Everything else you know I agree with ya man!

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Posted by: Yasha.5963

Yasha.5963

Balance is meh. The meta is a bunch of hyper tanky builds that deal incredible damage and has pretty much always been this way for most classes. There’s never a sense of sacrificing defense to output higher damage or vice versa. It makes the game stale since mostly everyone has everything.

Build diversity is absolutely nonexistent. The elite specs are the reason for that. They add additional features to your character that make you far stronger than a simple boost to your abilities like the other trait lines offer. Thieves get an extra dodge, Elementalists can overload their attunements, Mesmers get Continuum Split, etcetc. And you get additional weapons and skills, some of which are far stronger than the original core ones and they are unusable if you don’t run the elite specialization, which doesn’t make any sense to me. The Guardian isn’t locked out of the greatsword if he chooses not to run the Zeal trait line. The Guardian isn’t locked out of Meditations if he chooses not to run Valor. That would be insane.

Furthermore, every single class is pigeonholed into a defensive or utility tree if they hope to perform well in PvP. Engineer with Alchemy, Elementalist with Water, Thief with Trickery, etc. That’s two trait lines that every class must pick in order to remain competitive. Clearly this is makes for little to no build diversity at all for any class and makes for a worse game overall.

What’s going to happen in the future with the next expansion? Will every class have their 3 trait lines already predetermined? Oh you’re a Thief so obviously you’re going to run Daredevil for the extra dodge bar and Dash, obviously you’re going to run Trickery for the extra initiative and a superpowered Steal, and obviously you’re going to run the new trait line which will probably give the class some crazy feature that’s specifically locked to that tree. Come on now.

The numbers are low because PvP is just not fun. With the lack of build diversity, the necessity of HoT, one super boring meta after the next, the long queue times, the poor matchmaking, the lack of other fun game modes, the only word I can describe it with is ugh.

Rewards aren’t even a huge deal. I know many people who have PvP’d since the start. If you remember, there were no rewards for playing PvP except things that you could get in PvE in less than half the time and with less than half the effort. But people played for fun and that’s the mentality we should get back to. Put the fun back into the game. Stop trying to entice PvE players into PvP. They don’t even want to play PvP. They just do it for the skins/titles/achievement points and all they do is complain about being stuck in sapphire and unable to get their rewards. Get PvPers to play this game; people who want to get better at their class and the game and be competitive and enrich the scene. I believe. Maybe.

Great post 10/10.

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Posted by: Supreme.3164

Supreme.3164

Balance is meh. The meta is a bunch of hyper tanky builds that deal incredible damage and has pretty much always been this way for most classes. .

Why just most classes?

I assume that you don’t take in consideration the typical mesmer, thief or rev, we can’t safely ignore professions that can kite/dodge/block or kite for days, stealth on demand. This type of “sustain” is not less critical that straight down healing.

Let’s not forget that some profession still can’t spec full glass and live for more than 10s during a pvp match

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Posted by: Poledra Val.1490

Poledra Val.1490

I would also like to add that in both EU and NA its pretty bad to see so many players just give up in base if the opening engagement is lost.

Whether this is in Legendary or lower division, its pretty disappointing to see people give up in this fashion.

What can be done about it? I honestly cant say.

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Posted by: Ubik.8315

Ubik.8315

Balance is okish…playerbase is non-existent though so it doesn’t matter.

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Posted by: Falan.1839

Falan.1839

The main problem at the moment is at that the playerbase playing beyong legend has collapsed to a state where the current MMR system is broken beyond belief. I mostly play after 23:00 (Paris/Berlin time) and I basically have the same, unbalanced match every night, facing the same few top players stacked in the opposing team while getting a random team (with recurring names) that isn’t even half as good, resulting in a guaranteed loss and a lack of motivation for me to even try hard, since it does not make any difference in the outcome if I win my fights. It’s a really small pool of names reccuring every night and the teams are always the same, uneven way. By making Legend so easy to reach Anet has produced a spectacular own goal, since most players don’t play beyond it and the matchmaking system does not work at all with the current playerbase. I reached legend in 2 weeks or so with ~70-75% win ratio and probably have like 30% win ratio post legend, because I keep playing the same match night after night.

Build diversity was never a huge factor in high level PvP and probably will never be, thanks to the impossibility of balancing it. The class balance otherwise atm is far from perfect (warri sustain is overtuned with the dps it has, guard is a bit too weak, nec dies too easily if focussed), but it has been far worse before, so that’s not really the factor.

Caissech / Falásya

(edited by Falan.1839)

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Posted by: gin.7158

gin.7158

“I basically have the same, unbalanced match every night, facing the same few top players stacked in the opposing team while getting a random team (with recurring names) that isn’t even half as good, resulting in a guaranteed loss and a lack of motivation for me to even try hard, since it does not make any difference in the outcome if I win my fights. "

This is so true and sad situation.