Guild Wars 2

Football. Archery. Chess. Poker.
All tournament worthy.
Their differences show you what doesn’t matter.
Their similarities show you what do matter.

I’m going to tell you why Guild Wars 2 is not tournament worthy and how to change.
More specifically, how you need to think so you can change.

Archery is possibly the greatest example because you can clearly see how simple it is.
You can argue many concepts, like the archers paradox. I know.
However it’s awesome to see and truly comprehend why it’s tournament worthy.

In GW2, everyone and no one is equal, but in the bad way of both spectrums.
Everyone can choose any profession or build.
In choosing any profession or build you must do it preemptively.
It is a blind folded and soundless game of poker with only one round.
No one… Wants to play a blind folded, soundless, single round of poker.
Beyond a certain skill level, it is merely build vs build. Not player vs player.
Confronting a build where it is impossible to kill them.
Confronting a build where they can make 10 mistakes but you only maybe make 1.

In GW2, the skill ceiling is very reachable at low skill.
In all other tournament worthy games the skill ceiling is near infinite.
I’m not talking about player level.
I’m talking how far an individuals skill gets them.
The peak of which, on a single build.
In this game is very reachable at low skill.
…Assuming proper understanding exists.

In GW2, the separation between the skilled and those lesser is almost nonexistent.
The difference between a good player, and a ever so slightly better player…
If they are of different professions, unless the skill gap is extreme…
No one knows who’s better.

So how do you make a tournament worthy game?
Well… You may not like the answer.

Tell me what to do kitten!
Don’t you realize every first person shooter has been tournament worthy?!
Every single one… and with that, every single character was truly equal.
They don’t need to be visually the same or exactly the same mechanics.
…but they do need the exact same end potential in all aspects when against each other.
That is what truly makes something tournament worthy.
Again, they don’t need to be exactly the same. They can be their own little snowflake.
However you can’t, make one a screw driver and the other held together by screws.
You also can’t make one a screw driver and another a hammer.
Stop trying to make professions unrecognizably different.

I know every other MMORPG in the history of forever has done this…
…but if you want to be tournament worthy you cannot.
It’s why no other MMORPG has ever been tournament worthy.
You can’t force a game to be tournament worthy with hype.
It has to exist as.

Now to raise the skill bar you need more player on demand mechanics.
For example, get rid of the kitten 180CD 120CD 60CD we don’t have many skills!
Yes we have timings for them but half is in a combo with a very obvious timing!
I’m not saying to do the following but for you to understand…
Imagine a block with a recharging bar.
Hold down your key and it will deplete in 1 second.
Recharges slowly and get to full by like 20 seconds or whatever… Everyone has it.
This creates a highly skill based mechanic players can deeply benefit from by flicking.
Hitting it at exactly the right time before the damage lands. Let go immediately.
In the hands of the right player they can do crazy awesome stuff with it.
Rapid fires can be dealt with by interrupts.
These are just examples, I pulled these idea’s out my kitten.
Obviously many mechanics would need changed for this to be viable.(like 180CDs)
Of course actually implementing it isn’t my point either.
My point was to give an example of a skill based mechanic with a high ceiling.

Or…
Why do ranged attacks do the same damage as melee attacks?
Why do so many AOE attacks do more single target damage than single target attacks?
Why can a purely melee in full glass do less damage than all ranged with healing stats?
This is common sense stuff!!!!!
Doesn’t GW2 want to be tournament worthy?!
I’m deeply under the impression from all I’ve heard and been told that you do.

Deeply heed what I’ve said if you wish to be tournament worthy GW2 Developers.

Ask yourself what core, fundamental, mechanic based differences do you have from all other tournament games? What is ruining you?

1] The skill ceiling for everything is overly low.
2] Each profession/build has drastically different skill ceilings.
3] You’re a blindfolded soundless single round of poker on your builds vs builds.
4] Skill between players is not linear, it’s twisty and fluctuating and no one see’s it.

good points.
this game is built for the lowest common denominator, not for the highest. its not gonna change man.

“The skill ceiling for everything is overly low”, is that so? Care to show us how you’ve filled out the skill ceiling on every profession? Competitive gw2 could always use more content/guides, perhaps you could provide your footage of your gameplay? Faux Play.6104 (kudos to him) had another thread where he kindly provided footage of his gameplay. If you’ve truly reached the skill ceiling on everything, it would probably be much more healthy for the community to provide by example, then to write a paragraph on the forums.

I have not seen a single person reach any professions skill ceiling yet.

There are plenty of people at the skill ceiling who know exactly what the original poster is talking about. Even if there wasn’t, it’s irrelevant considering what the original poster said. The skill ceiling should not be reachable or limited. So this is regardless of how easily reachable it is.

It being easily reachable(which is true) is just icing on the cake.

Come on now, this game might be more skill based than other MMO’s but it’s still a pretty low ceiling.

Kayluh.1397:

There are plenty of people at the skill ceiling who know exactly what the original poster is talking about. Even if there wasn’t, it’s irrelevant considering what the original poster said. The skill ceiling should not be reachable or limited. So this is regardless of how easily reachable it is.

It being easily reachable(which is true) is just icing on the cake.

Come on now, this game might be more skill based than other MMO’s but it’s still a pretty low ceiling.

You really think anyone has even reached the skill ceiling? Naivety intensifies

All eaqual in a game like GW2 = it´s dead. Diversity is key for this game even if you sacifice 1:1 balance. This is also why its made for teamcombat not focused on 1:1 which would be useless. If you compare it to chess, a true 1:1 where both are equal then you are on a totally wrong way. Also archery. You are on your own. Sorry but those points might be true but are not aplicable in GW2.

Actually, the Op has good points, but also bad ones.
Look at other e-sports, sure CS:Go is on the top of the tournament scene, but the rest is dominated by MOBAS, what do mobas have that GW2 doesn’t A TON OF DIVERSITY.

Here’s the real problem: Guild wars 2 has neither.

The game isn’t balanced enough to put every class at the same standing (thus every player in the same standing) nor does it have enough variety to have hard counters, and thus balance the power.
Also, shooters are more mechanically intense than tactical, while MOBAs tend to balance out both components, a team of less skilled players can beat the other team through tactical thinking, again GW2 doesn’t really allow for much of this, at a reasonable level when both teams know how to rotate it’s 100% down to mechanics or simply class picks, so in this regard, GW2 is still not really here or there, especially since some cases like stacking DH is basic cheese.

Stand The Wall.6987
Thank you.

Kayluh.1397
Thank you.

Wolfric.9380
Once upon a time… GW2 had the goal of “no profession having a role in combat” and if they succeeded… Optional end potential for all aspects towards every profession would have been indirectly achieved. So you thinking that “it’s terrible if end potential is equal between professions” is irrelevant if GW2’s perspectives have not changed.
The owner and I both would disagree with you.

ReaverKane.7598
“TON OF DIVERSITY” is irrelevant to anything being tournament worthy.

Frosty.7968 // alemfi.5107
Balance is not based on the lower end.
Don’t be afraid of the game getting harder for you. It will not.
When I was calling for concepts that can allow infinite potential for the greatest of us to linearly separate ourselves from the rest it was nothing to make you upset. It was assuming GW2 still wanted a tournament worthy game.

Additionally;
Can you perform all actions optimally on your favorite character? Sounds easy right?
Everything beyond this is external and not part of a skill ceiling. Let me give examples.

Example1: Knowing what animations look like.
This is knowledge.
Example2: All the mind games we play with our opponents.
This is critical thinking/common sense.(Depending on who you are.)
Example3: Avoiding the mind games your opponent tries on you.
This is critical thinking/common sense.(Depending on who you are.)

None of these things effect the skill ceiling of a character.
These are all things that would not change if what I said was implemented.
These things exist in all games to varying degree’s.

I hope you two are getting it now because I will not explain it further.

Daunt.8239:

ReaverKane.7598
“TON OF DIVERSITY” is irrelevant to anything being tournament worthy.

Here’s a LIST of Highest grossing e-sports:

1. Dota 2……………………………. $37,251,051.07 …. 772 Players …. 118 Tourn.
2. CS: Global Offensive … $17,267,862.14 …. 4349 Players …. 851 Tourn.
3. League of Legends …….. $10,270,302.61 …. 1300 Players …. 122 Tourn.
4. Heroes of the Storm ……… $4,610,149.1 …. 381 Players …. 57 Tourn.
5. CoD: Black Ops III ………… $3,749,030.66 …. 322 Players …. 47 Tourn.
6. Hearthstone ……………………… 3,416,590.62 …. 531 Players …. 124 Tourn.
7. StarCraft II ……………………….. $3,141,145.30 …. 397 Players …. 619 Tourn.
8. Halo 5: Guardians …………… $3,097,974.23 …. 166 Players …. 28 Tourn.
9. Overwatch ………………………… $1,920,600.85 …. 990 Players …. 242 Tourn.
10. Smite …………………………………… $1,592,692.04 …. 302 Players …. 18 Tourn.

Of the TOP TEN only 3 conform to your “standards” of tournament-worthy. The figures are total prize pools, active “pro” players and Worldwide tournaments.
Source

Sure CS:GO is the one with the most players and tournaments, starcraft being second, i’d attribute this to the fact that both are almost 20 year old franchises where many players just rotated into the newer versions. So they’re more established as LAN tournament party pieces, while the most recent games are mostly exclusively online affairs which require a larger infrastructure to host.

But to me, tournament-worthy is more about does it have people watching? Because if you like to play a game, and there’s a chance to earn money from doing it, you’ll probably go ahead, so the number of tournaments and tournament participants is that. I mean, you claim GW2 isn’t tournament-worthy, and it has tournaments.
So i’d say Viewership is also a huge factor:

https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Newzoo_Top_10_Games_Twitch_Esports_Hours_June.png
(Sadly can’t post images here)

Again of the top 10 only 2 conform to your opinion of what is tournament worthy. There’s even Street Fighter there.

Dota pretty much has twice the e-sport hours as CS:Go, League has 11 million hours more, this on a ~16 million hours viewed for CS:GO for e-sports.

So, there’s actually more games with diverse characters/characteristics in tournaments than games where everyone is at the same base level. So diversity is an equally feasible strategy, because there you also play the meta-game.
Look at league of legends, the game doesn’t start at minute 0, it starts at minute -10, well actually earlier, but the pick/ban phase is a HUGE part of strategy. Picking counter-picks is a thing, picking or banning the other teams strongest champs is important.
Meta gaming is hugely important. Being mechanically good is really important, which is why there’s a “top player”, but there’s the team play, and strategy.

In GW we don’t have real counter picks, we don’t have in-game progression, or games with length to be disputed past the half phase. There’s no balance either, so pvp is underwhelming.

And when the world disagrees with you, maybe you should re-evaluate your mindset.

Daunt.8239:

Frosty.7968 // alemfi.5107
Balance is not based on the lower end.
Don’t be afraid of the game getting harder for you. It will not.
When I was calling for concepts that can allow infinite potential for the greatest of us to linearly separate ourselves from the rest it was nothing to make you upset. It was assuming GW2 still wanted a tournament worthy game.

My point was that you said the skill ceiling is easily reachable and that many people have reached it which is just outright not true

ReaverKane.7598:

Daunt.8239:

ReaverKane.7598
“TON OF DIVERSITY” is irrelevant to anything being tournament worthy.

So, there’s actually more games with diverse characters/characteristics in tournaments than games where everyone is at the same base level. So diversity is an equally feasible strategy, because there you also play the meta-game.

Look at league of legends, the game doesn’t start at minute 0, it starts at minute -10, well actually earlier, but the pick/ban phase is a HUGE part of strategy. Picking counter-picks is a thing, picking or banning the other teams strongest champs is important.

In GW we don’t have real counter picks, we don’t have in-game progression, or games with length to be disputed past the half phase. There’s no balance either, so pvp is underwhelming.

And when the world disagrees with you, maybe you should re-evaluate your mindset.

Here to just drop a statement.

League isnt anywhere NEAR balanced. It never has been. It never will be. At the start of s6 last year, ADCs dominated 3-4 out of the 5 roles in the game at higher ranks. Then riot gutted a few assassins and then reworked mages. Then we get our overlord mages running up and down the rift destroying everything. They would’ve taken the limelight entirely for the second half of the season if the jungle wasn’t made stronger due to all of the early game bonuses accessible by them. All the while, champions like Jayce, Nidalee, Gragas and Kindred are either buffed into infinity in the laning phase or gutted so hard the mains struggle to play them well. Mages like Syndra walking around and pressing R to kill to any squishy foolish enough to be within half a lane’s distance of her. Then we get a series of changes in pre season 7 that create godtanks like Maokai and Poppy who can legit tank a whole team while not giving a crap and STILL carrying enough kill pressure on the squishies since the only way to reliably kill a tank is with sustained damage and thanks to all the early game bonuses junglers are given, the role DESIGNED to do sustained damage (ADCs) are never given enough time to actually hit their power spikes before their lanes are utterly destroyed.

Also, as far as diversity goes, league has about 130 or so champs and realistically only <40 are played. Top and jungle are more or less the same thing every game (you’re either a tank or you’re fiora in the top lane and the jungle is either lee sin, Elise, reksai, or khazix). Mid lane has a slightly better pool now that azir is dead and ADC (as weak as the role is) always had the most diversity because all of the champs did more or less the same thing with a slightly different twist.

Overwatch isnt much better either. On release, you have McRee flash fanning tanks from 100-0, Genji with his instant kill animation cancel combo, hero stacking double Winstons and lucios. One of the best widowmakers in the world complaining about 40m queue timers and the devs eventually finding out over half of the players in that widow’s region have the player on their avoid list because they got their kitten kicked and would not like to experience that again. Now? We have the triple tank meta, God76 eradicating any fool dumb enough to challenge him from outside of a Reinhardt shield and the entire defense class is STILL horrible past plat+.

As far as I can tell, the issue with GW2 is the fact that combat is incredibly unfriendly to watch. Too many passive procs and traits interacting with traits interacting with traits that all happen under the hood in the middle of a combo that is done in a split second. Theres no way to cast any kind of play by play that the viewers will enjoy or even understand that way. Every hero has a minimum of 10 weapon skills and 5 other healing, utility, and elite skills. Theres no way for a person without an extensive knowledge of the game could even begin to digest what the hell is happening in a team fight.

Take, for example, league. Most champs have 4 abilities and 2 summoner spells. Anything else they use will be an item active. All these champions also have keystone masteries. I’d mention runes as well, but they’re just stats and pros usually run whatever it is they want to run in an effort to accomplish their role so its usually easier to ignore them and watch the people play. Ultimates have longer cooldowns and do tons of crazy things. You can generally tell how dangerous something is based off of the animation alone and you’ll usuay be right. Did that Medusa looking woman (Cassiopeia) turn someone into stone after not doing so for a while? Must be an ultimate and we’re about to see a big play. Did the tiny, annoying as all hell midget just unleash a giant golden hammer knocking half the enemy team away? Must be an ultimate. Did the blind monk just dash to you like he’s BEEN doing for the last 15 minutes? Normal ability.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Also, as far as diversity goes, league has about 130 or so champs and realistically only <40 are played. Top and jungle are more or less the same thing every game (you’re either a tank or you’re fiora in the top lane and the jungle is either lee sin, Elise, reksai, or khazix). Mid lane has a slightly better pool now that azir is dead and ADC (as weak as the role is) always had the most diversity because all of the champs did more or less the same thing with a slightly different twist.

Overwatch isnt much better either. On release, you have McRee flash fanning tanks from 100-0, Genji with his instant kill animation cancel combo, hero stacking double Winstons and lucios. One of the best widowmakers in the world complaining about 40m queue timers and the devs eventually finding out over half of the players in that widow’s region have the player on their avoid list because they got their kitten kicked and would not like to experience that again. Now? We have the triple tank meta, God76 eradicating any fool dumb enough to challenge him from outside of a Reinhardt shield and the entire defense class is STILL horrible past plat+.

As far as I can tell, the issue with GW2 is the fact that combat is incredibly unfriendly to watch. Too many passive procs and traits interacting with traits interacting with traits that all happen under the hood in the middle of a combo that is done in a split second. Theres no way to cast any kind of play by play that the viewers will enjoy or even understand that way. Every hero has a minimum of 10 weapon skills and 5 other healing, utility, and elite skills. Theres no way for a person without an extensive knowledge of the game could even begin to digest what the hell is happening in a team fight.

Take, for example, league. Most champs have 4 abilities and 2 summoner spells. Anything else they use will be an item active. All these champions also have keystone masteries. I’d mention runes as well, but they’re just stats and pros usually run whatever it is they want to run in an effort to accomplish their role so its usually easier to ignore them and watch the people play. Ultimates have longer cooldowns and do tons of crazy things. You can generally tell how dangerous something is based off of the animation alone and you’ll usuay be right. Did that Medusa looking woman (Cassiopeia) turn someone into stone after not doing so for a while? Must be an ultimate and we’re about to see a big play. Did the tiny, annoying as all hell midget just unleash a giant golden hammer knocking half the enemy team away? Must be an ultimate. Did the blind monk just dash to you like he’s BEEN doing for the last 15 minutes? Normal ability.

I find LoL as horrible to watch as GW2, understanding a teamfight in LoL without the pause button is kitten hard. If you look at the groucharoo tourney, the commentary were focused on rotations and where to +1 and assist teammates. That was great and the perspective was one step higher than how he used skill #1 then skill #2. Of course it’s great to see mechanical play. But it’s not what conquest is about

i love these posts. they always include a number of elements.

1. OP makes claims about the game taking no to little skill while having no presence in the competitive scene.

2. OP makes confusing comments abouts builds ‘Why can a purely melee in full glass do less damage than all ranged with healing stats?’ (errr what?)

3. OP uses many sentence fragments, & is fond of confusing phrases. for example, what does this even mean?
‘I’m going to tell you why Guild Wars 2 is not tournament worthy and how to change.
More specifically, how you need to think so you can change.,
i feel like OP is trying to change me as a human being, trying to change my way of thinking so that guild wars 2 can be tournament worthy? uh, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, i thought he wanted guild wars to change, not my mindset?

4. OP has a balance philosophy that is vauge & describes a completely different game. from what i can gather no class should be made of screws, cooldowns need to be lower & all classes should have a block so they can react actively. now, the block part confuses me because all classes have dodge rolls that you can use as an iframe to evade an ability. it seems like the reactive play OP wants is already here, but hey, maybe he hasn’t dodged before who am i to know?

====

so in totality, we have here a confusing vauge post with wild claims by someone with no presence in the competitive scene. awesome. yeah, let’s totally take the advice of somone who thinks the skill ceiling is so low anyone can reach it, because all fights are decided by what builds are being played. yeah, he seems like a fountain of pvp knowledge to be sure.

SlayerSixx.5763:

ReaverKane.7598:

Daunt.8239:

ReaverKane.7598
“TON OF DIVERSITY” is irrelevant to anything being tournament worthy.

Here to just drop a statement.

League isnt anywhere NEAR balanced. It never has been. It never will be.

Depends on what you consider balanced. If you consider Balance as what the OP does, everyone being equal, then no, it isn’t.
If you consider it as every champion (minus a few exceptions that usually either get fixed or are old champions needing a rework) having the ability to be used competitively depending on strategic considerations, then it IS pretty balanced.

If you look at league, no matter how OP a champion is, there’s usually a counter, and if there isn’t one that champion ends up nerfed or rebalanced after a couple patches (which happen weekly).

Sure there’s always a shifting meta, but that’s usually more so that the game doesn’t get stagnant (hello GuildWars 2) than for real balance issues.

I’ll have to disagree with you and especially at top level you see champions that aren’t really Meta being picked, like Last year’s Finals, Karma was one of the top picked supports, while Champions like Kindred (one of the most picked junglers last season, and as you pointed one of the strongest ones) was picked ONCE in the finals.
That’s kind of like NO ONE using a Chronomancer during GW2 finals.

Also you see often off-meta builds becoming extremely effective, so much that they become meta builds (Jungle Graves).

And yes, you’re right, league is EASY TO FOLLOW as a viewer, and fun to watch, while GW is hard to keep up and unpalatable.
But that’s also because the game isn’t that balanced, and god-awful at times.
Imagine people spectating fights during Season 1, when you had unkillable tanks, with 2 Eles contesting a point for the whole match without neither getting a upperhand, that’d be a fun snooze, and yet it went on for the whole season pretty much.
I’ve never seen an unbeatable champion or build in LoL, i’ve never seen a 100% useless champion or build in LoL (unless you’re doing something terribly wrong like AD Syndra or something), but in GW2, most builds and champions, even ones that make sense will become incredibly sub-par, i mean just take any non-elite spec classes, and you’re already 75% more likely to lose.

Then there’s also something that lacks in GW2 which is in-game progression, you pretty much all arrive with the same power you leave the match, while in LoL, one of the strategies to counter the most powerful champions is to shut them down early so they can’t snowball into the mid-late game and crush everything. In GW2 you can’t really prevent a Elementalist from being stronger than he starts with, theoretically GW2 could have progression mechanics, like all classes starting out with what’s equivalent to lvl 1 and then progressing up to 80 during the game, unlocking their skill bar as they go, gaining more stats, rune tiers and traits as they progress. But the 15m time-limit makes it not viable.

Also i’d like to point out that even CS:GO isn’t perfectly balanced, some weapons are much stronger and viable than others, so there’s variability there, but because its more simplistic, its easier to counter.

TLDR: What lacks in GW2 is clear options for play and counter-play. There are no real counter picks for any given class, and the build diversity doesn’t really allow for it. Meta-game is more about building the pinacle build for each class, and less about strategy, there’s fewer mechanics that allow for “gaming” your opponents, which all boils down to a less than great competitive scene.
Also the lack of proper counter-play is making the game a lot less fun, which derives in many players simply “finishing” their PvP season, and leaving until the next season.

Wargameur.6950:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I find LoL as horrible to watch as GW2, understanding a teamfight in LoL without the pause button is kitten hard. If you look at the groucharoo tourney, the commentary were focused on rotations and where to +1 and assist teammates. That was great and the perspective was one step higher than how he used skill #1 then skill #2. Of course it’s great to see mechanical play. But it’s not what conquest is about

In league you don’t see people commenting much on what skills x uses, except a few cases, like for example Faker using Oriana’s Shockwave on finals. Simply because a good shockwave can win a match, so those skills, usually ultimates are relevant to the whole game.
But usually the comments are more about the tactics, of how well teams use vision control, of how the control and secure objectives, rotations and tactical picks.

In fact mechanical skills are rarely a subject of relevance in pro-tier matches because it’s a given, if those players weren’t mechanically adept they wouldn’t be sitting there.
It takes a display of phenomenal skills for that to be commented, and usually that also results in the most spectacular moments in the game, stuff that becomes legend, like inSec which is now the name of a whole variety of moves, or the Xpeke. You don’t see people dropping a teleport and shouting “Lord Helseth!!!”, but you see people doing a backdoor into the nexus and everyone going “Xpeke!!!”
That’s why league is fun to watch, and that’s why its a multi-million dollar sport.

Wargameur.6950:

I agree that conquest isnt about individual mechanics (mainly, at least), but to compare league teamfights to GW2 teamfights isnt fair.

In league, you can roughly gauge everything as its happening if you have even the most basic knowledge.

An example being:

The people hiding in the back tend to want to stay there so they dont get gibbed. These people tend to be carrying bows, guns, or shooting some sort of magic.

i.e. varus or lucian, syndra, ryze, or viktor.

The people standing in the front, attempting to get into the backline, are usually boasting bulkier character models with bigger weapons or simply much larger health bars. These people will take noticeably more damage than the rest of their team and still be ready to take more hits.

i.e. nautilus, poppy, or maokai. Malphite is a great example here. Hes a walking boulder and when he presses R you SEE some kitten about to go down, but you notice he doesn’t do that much damage on his own.

When a fight happens in a lane, you know its because either the jungler caught someone during the laning phase. When a 5v5 happens in a lane, it usually around a tower or when the top laners are caught splitting and the other team doesn’t have vision on an important objective.

When a fight happens in the jungle, you know its either over a buff or a dragon/baron. Fights like these will extend all across the entire river.

If a hook connects, you know someone was caught. If the bug guy with claws for hands jumped on the mage, you know the mage is in for a bad time. If there is a guy purely dedicating himself to staying in between the enemy and the carries but not exactly engaging (like braum, taric, or janna) you know they’re just here to protect the backline.

Very rarely will you get fights that are a clusterkitten of special effects.

GW2 though?

Everyone is roughly the same size, all with undefining features, shooting an incredible amount of special effects all over the place. No health bars are visible unless you constantly redirect your vision AWAY from the fight, so you don’t know if a man is going down unless he legit goes down. Very few conditions are visible (cripple giving the limp, chill for the slow, immobilize with the purple chains).. Very few boons are visible (swiftness is easily readable, prot is visible but you have no idea what it does unless you’ve looked it up, etc).

You said it yourself. The casters of the last tournament only called rotations, since calling fights as they happened would be incredibly difficult. The casters in league can call out so much more than just rotations.

Daunt.8239:

…

In GW2, everyone and no one is equal, but in the bad way of both spectrums.
Everyone can choose any profession or build.
In choosing any profession or build you must do it preemptively.
It is a blind folded and soundless game of poker with only one round.
No one… Wants to play a blind folded, soundless, single round of poker.
Beyond a certain skill level, it is merely build vs build. Not player vs player.
Confronting a build where it is impossible to kill them.
Confronting a build where they can make 10 mistakes but you only maybe make 1.

So according to this, basically every sport and game ever is playing poker blind-folded. In every sport you preemptively choose something. You choose the technique, you choose your gear, you choose your training regime, you choose your trainer, you choose how you will play out, strategy, position… everything is chosen preemptively. You prepare yourself the best you can, make choices I mentioned and then with that you go and play. It’s a bit far fetched, but every sport/game ever you preemptively choose something before, just like you choose class in GW2. Hell, even in most played e-sports games you make same choices like in GW2.
Confronting a build you can’t kill just means the game is rock paper scissors to some extent, but you can still defeat scissors if you have strong paper or you got rock backing you up. This is where teamplay comes in.
Just like in football. You can’t force a striker into defensive position, because he preemptively chose to be a striker and he gave all he had to train and be the striker. He will be better striker than some defensive guy, even if he made 10 misses and misplays during game. But that means that on the same position defensive player might have 50 misses and misplays.

Daunt.8239:

In GW2, the skill ceiling is very reachable at low skill.
In all other tournament worthy games the skill ceiling is near infinite.
I’m not talking about player level.
I’m talking how far an individuals skill gets them.
The peak of which, on a single build.
In this game is very reachable at low skill.
…Assuming proper understanding exists.

Watch twitch streams. Even if you’re not very skilled player you can easily recognise how skill levels are different between top legendary players. Some have reached much higher levels even though they play same games. Recently I was watching some random guy being a total… scrub. He was in top 250, but he had absolutely zero clue what was going on in game. Top 250.
Even in yesterday’s tournament hosted by Helseth and Sindrener you could easily notice who was better skilled and outplaying other team. Sometimes it wasn’t big difference, but it was difference none the less. None of them have reached ceiling, not even close.

Daunt.8239:

In GW2, the separation between the skilled and those lesser is almost nonexistent.
The difference between a good player, and a ever so slightly better player…
If they are of different professions, unless the skill gap is extreme…
No one knows who’s better.

As mentioned above, follow various streamers competing in top 250 and very fast you will notice difference in their gameplay, awareness and commentary. The difference is so evident you could see it even if you never played PvP/WvW in GW2.

I think yesterday’s tournament showed well that GW2 tournament can be quite interesting if done properly. Even though player organised, it was much more entertainment, quality and value than the official thing.

Your block suggestion is very similar to what I pointed out in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/GW2-PvP-doesn-t-require-enough-skill-to-play/page/2#post6472763

A block that depletes endurance would fix a lot wrong with the game.

Currently, defense is largely passive. Every class has a way to build for passive defenses that automatically activate for them when trouble happens. This creates a huge problem gameplay wise, because it encourages mindless rotation spam where both players are blasting away at each other and whoever runs out of get-out-of-jail-free cards first loses.

Players of all brackets seem to agree that the game is just way too spammy. Bronze players complain about the spam. Champion players complain about the spam. An on demand block would basically serve as a universal counter to spamming skills. Hopefully this sends a message to Anet. I doubt it will, but might as well try.

ReaverKane.7598
Sorry to have confused you.

choovanski.5462
Sorry to have deeply confused you.

martin.1653
No.

Master Ketsu.4569
Thank you.

choovanski.5462:

snipples

youre playing this all wrong. the point is too agree and motivate them to the point they go out and make a game themselves.

Stand The Wall.6987:

choovanski.5462:

snipples

youre playing this all wrong. the point is too agree and motivate them to the point they go out and make a game themselves.

you’ve got to be more specific dude. you can’t snip the quote then use vague terms like ‘this’ & ‘them’. what am i playing wrong? agree with what? the point of what? motivate who?

are you trying to say i should agree with & motivate the OP so much that he makes his own game? if so, weird idea, not really sure why i would want to do that. if not, please clarify.

Well no one really reached the skill ceiling so far you see even players like helseth constantly improving and if we stay with helseth as an example you can easily see the difference between a good player and a great player if you watch him playing against other mesmers. There are alot of things about Guild Wars 2 when it comes to rotations, mindgames and the importance of reaction time that newer people to pvp (or people with a low skill level) dont understand and dont even see.

choovanski.5462:

are you trying to say i should agree with & motivate the OP so much that he makes his own game? if so, weird idea, not really sure why i would want to do that.

yes lol, it was a joke though. the point is that the person stops complaining and does something productive.

Great post, OP. I like the suggestions.

A critical element of good games is simplicity of rules and mechanics. Basketball is a good example. You take a ball, dribble and get it in the basket and prevent the other team from doing just that. That’s it! However, there is skill in dribbling, shooting and defense. FPS games….same thing. Point the cursor at the target and click the mouse to shoot. That’s it! However, again, there is skill in aiming and accuracy.

Gw2 has an inherently great combat system that allows for simplicity of rules and mechanics. A great example that the OP suggested to bring it out are doing away with cooldowns and bring on-demand skills. This would allow for more skill-based gameplay.

With pvp, I feel like I’m fighting the BUILDS instead of the PLAYERS. This is exponentially so with HoT and elite specs, which I critically believe that carry players using them.

JTGuevara.9018:

Great post, OP. I like the suggestions.

A critical element of good games is simplicity of rules and mechanics. Basketball is a good example. You take a ball, dribble and get it in the basket and prevent the other team from doing just that. That’s it! However, there is skill in dribbling, shooting and defense. FPS games….same thing. Point the cursor at the target and click the mouse to shoot. That’s it! However, again, there is skill in aiming and accuracy.

Gw2 has an inherently great combat system that allows for simplicity of rules and mechanics. A great example that the OP suggested to bring it out are doing away with cooldowns and bring on-demand skills. This would allow for more skill-based gameplay.

With pvp, I feel like I’m fighting the BUILDS instead of the PLAYERS. This is exponentially so with HoT and elite specs, which I critically believe that carry players using them.

Smart man!^