Guild Wars 2

Thought experiment – will you still play if this happens?

Remove all rewards from PvP. Players have full access to all armor and weapons. Remove all progression – everyone has equal rank forever. We will still have tournaments with one team winning and one team losing. But no rewards, and no match chest. At the most we can have an internal ladder so that equally skilled teams meet with more or less the same skill level.

I keep hearing people say they want to play “just for fun” and that the joy lies solely in the challenge and that rank etc don’t matter to them.

I want to know if these people are in the majority or the minority.

Disclosure: Rewards are the primary reason I play. I get “fun” out of progression, better armor to show off etc. It may sound lame, but I need a “carrot” dangled in front of me to take effort over anything and I get fun and joy out of obtaining bigger and tastier carrots.

Are you like this also?

Sure, I played WAR for well over a year at max rank with no other reward than seeing my enemies die before me in droves. I still play BF3 even though I have all unlocks and all the assignments I want are complete. So long as the pvp is fun that is enough reward in and of itself.

Vayra.3290:

Sure, I played WAR for well over a year at max rank with no other reward than seeing my enemies die before me in droves. I still play BF3 even though I have all unlocks and all the assignments I want are complete. So long as the pvp is fun that is enough reward in and of itself.

But did others know you were max rank and were they able to see your unlocks? Would you still play if everyone was the same rank as you and had free access to all equipment?

In other words, would you still play if you can’t show off?

bhagwad.4281:

Vayra.3290:

Sure, I played WAR for well over a year at max rank with no other reward than seeing my enemies die before me in droves. I still play BF3 even though I have all unlocks and all the assignments I want are complete. So long as the pvp is fun that is enough reward in and of itself.

But did others know you were max rank and were they able to see your unlocks? Would you still play if everyone was the same rank as you and had free access to all equipment?

In other words, would you still play if you can’t show off?

So long as they can see my name it’s fine. In BF3 everyone can see my rank (though it’s not max rank, I stopped caring about that the moment I got my final weapon unlock). In WAR it was the name of my guild and character that was the thing people recognised. I suppose people would recognise my gear as being max rank if they paid attention and my pvp title, but that didn’t matter to me. If you were close enough to see that you were most likely dead. Super happy fun times with bomb groups in RvR (WvW equivalent).
As level a playing field as possible is the best. As the people who then dominate are the most skilled instead of just the best geared.

I don’t care of rank or reward chests. I’ve been playing for fun all along. All that is just bonus to keep me entertained while waiting for the match queue to pop.

Every 1 have a different carrot
I used to play a lot more , in order to maximize my chance to get revenge from a long hair demon :P
Now with the Leaderboards ……. ehhhhhhh …….. back to painting or watching animes

well since we’ll have all of the armors and weapons unlocked, yeah, i’d still have fun

For most people and casual pvp players I think playing for fun as long as the game is fun is all they ask for – anything like skins/rank/leaderboards is just a bonus. There’s nothing more fun then playing with friends just to muck around, maybe try things and hopefully get better in the process. It is just a game after all.

For others, the hardcore and those wanting to be good/recognised players, its all about the glory. They have fun too of course, as long as they are winning. Every mmo that has pvp has these two types of groups, and every player that plays pvp for a long time tends to go back and forth between being hardcore and casual.

Personally I play for fun, don’t care so much about my position on leaderboard but I enjoy winning games with random pugs in solo-q. I also like to do premades occasionally but its either the team never communicates, or people rage quit after one lost that keeps me away from sticking to premades permanently because in the end, solo-qing is just alot more fun – win or lose.

At the end of the day people need to remember its just a game. When I quit playing and maybe think about GW2 in about 5 years time I rather remember how much fun I had actually playing the game then meaningless number/statistics such as leaderboard position/rank. People get too caught up reaching in what is in reality a meaningless destination they forget to enjoy the journey.

Today’s Most Glorious! : Whoever earns the most glory in a given 0000-2400 period earns their name engraved the following day on a special plaque in the mists.

Do fun stuff like this for most kills in a day(Deadliest Hero!), most points captured in a day (Hail the Conquering Hero!), most people revived in a day (Field Medic Hero!) and other things of that nature.

The next day, someone else’s name is engraved.

that’s a good question, bhagwad. i think i would definitely still play! though at the same time, i do find joy in working towards new ranks, new skins, new titles, etc. so if i had everything from the get go, i would love that and have a ton of fun. but would it be less rewarding to play? perhaps.

in the end, though, if they were to do away with leaderboards, titles, etc, i would still play a heckload i think. and the fact that everyone has “end-game” items to choose from, that’s where personality can come in then i suppose.

when i play for fun, i find a 8 vs 8 (16 player room) and find fun in it.

the current system is somewhat okay.

people need some form of progression.

I like defeating enemies and I don`t like my failure to do so to be public record.
As some of you may have realized by now, solo queuing is over for me. I get moderate enjoyment from hotjoin since it plays roughly the same as solo queuing, as far as team dynamics are concerned.

Wait, people play this pvp for rewards? Adorable.

Given how they killed what little fun there was left when they merged solo with premade without any real alternatives, I’d say it’s virtually impossible to ‘play for fun’, unless hotjoin zerg or stomping solo queuers from a premade qualify for one’s definition of fun.

For me, I just want to hop on to pvp sometimes solo or with my friends and have fun in that moment without thinking too much on progression, ranks, etc… So yea if you throw in all the armors and weapons and take out rank, I can still enjoy it.

But as things are rite now, it’s feeling very stale, so i’m hoping that custom arenas will let us turn off capture nodes to try different modes

I PvP to kill people and then dance over their dead bodies.. #ThugLife

I would play even more… if somehow there was a system(ranking but nowhere shown) that tried to make somewhat balanced matches(every now and then some stronger guys also are fine to learn or for the lulz to get pwned… but should not be too often).

Also regarding “for fun”: Game needs us let to choose the map we want to play.

Atm it is not really fun because hotjoin you can join a match where your favorite map is played… likely you’ll join mid game(need to know the exact map rotation and join the map before and wait until your ma kitten tarting but then a “good” match is not guaranteed because of hotjoin you know… lots of players leaving and joining).

Tournament does not have the problems hotjoin has but there is only 1 map to play(fixed map rotation every few days set by ArenaNet)…

There should be something like “ranked matches” and “unranked matches”… since a 1 match tournament is not a real tournament they should it call something like that.

Ranked matches just like the tournaments now affecting the rating… but with the possibility just to choose the map you want to play(even if it takes a bit more time to find players also playing that map I’m sure even in the evening or night of EU there are then players from US to play with if the system also matches with US because they have afternoon then… if is only matching EU to EU and US to US it should be changed).

Unranked matches just the same like explained above but not affecting the rank – INSTEAD OF HOTJOIN. Do not the games like “League of Legends” that are played by millions of players have some similar system? I don’t remember having them something like hotjoin.

And of course if you really want only “for fun” you don’t need something like ranked matches(or make it only ranked but don’t tell or show the rank and only use it to balance teams).

The hotjoin browser exclusively used by Custom Arenas then – to display them.

Edit: And if you are only playing because of the reward then the game is bad and probably boring and you should seek another game. Reward is okay for PvE part of the game but PvP it should be good enough to have fun fighting other players. Also in real sports(not e sports) I heard of a lof ot people that claim they were doing the sports only for fun and not because they want a prize at some tournament.

And remember old games like Counterstrike and stuff like that. Never played that… but did not the stuff with unlocks and levels and ranks only get introduced with later shooter games and wasn’t counter strike without such stuff and only about fun? And I heard a tons of players played it and still are playing it.

I did buy a video game, right?

Ketharius.9018:

I did buy a video game, right?

esport*
Or at least that’s what I was told when I bought the game.
Maybe if I didn’t buy into that lie I’d be playing in the LCS right now. :/
(Maybe not, but at least taking home a couple ESL victories)

This game is a lot of fun. I don’t care for certain aspects… like PvE. I don’t care enough about winning not to run silly builds and try cheap tricks. It’s one of the few games where I can get the kids in bed, grab a vino, log on and smash faces for 15 mins or 3 hours. It’s instant gratification and I like it.

The thoughts behind an MMO is to have the feeling of a progression. That keeps the player motivated.

bhagwad.4281:

Thought experiment – will you still play if this happens?

Remove all rewards from PvP.

Lol. What rewards? Glory that you don’t have anything to buy with? Skins for weaps and armor? Rank that is no indication of anything (certainly not skill) other than that you have played a lot?

No. The reward for sPvP is the competition. No matter how pretty and witty and ____ the skins are there is no reason to engage in the game mode that I see other than to have fun competing.

Competitively I come from a fighting game and RTS background, so I’m quite used to playing without progression-style rewards.

I like singleplayer RPGs too, which usually have quite manageable reward structures (ie. get pretty much everything in 60 hours or so.)

I’m still waiting/wishing for an MMO that combines these genres into a nice package – combat like a FG, tactics like an RTS, and a PVE campaign/story like an offline RPG. Throw in massively multiplayer and that’s the game I want.

GW2 is not quite there but it’s closer than most others.

But yes, back to the topic, I’m fine if the PVP part of the game was like a FG or RTS, back in the old days where we didn’t have online and thus no progression, ladders, or anything. Although ladders/spectator mode are a good thing.

me

I play PvP for fun.

There’s a lot of titles to unlock, aiming for Champion Paragon at the moment.

I pretty much only do spvp for fun for a few hours here and there. I mostly stick to the hot joins so I can play around with different classes, builds, etc and find the hot hoin community to be a lot more fun to be around than the tpvp. Hot join is just so unpredictable, if you get bummed that someone 1 upped you for the kill you can just throw the objectives out the window and hunt him down for a rematch, sometimes it even turns into a mini blob war! The few times I dabbled in tpvp it was just littered with whining, qqing and rage, was a very cranky group of peeps lol.

Not me personally. I do find it fun, but to me when i play it, i get into a competition mind set.

I think in most mmos, in this one in particular far more than in others, it is the pve aspect which is done just for fun and giggles.

I would still play, but not as much.

If the PvP is enjoyable, that’s enough for me.
I played warhammer online for a good deal of time without a thought of gear.
Didn’t buy the expansion for ages and I never got past rank 76~ so I was consistently undergeared, but I played one of the best zealots on server when I was on allot oh and a pretty solid rank 55~ choppa on the side.

Good cosmetics are always nice though, keeps me entertained during the down time, and feeling pride at how my toon looks is always a nice bonus.

The only items that mean anything to me are pve items since I own a pve-mega guild so there really isn’t any pvp incentive for me, nor has their ever been. I’m rank 43 atm and I pvp because I love it. Sure it could use some improvements but the game play reminds me of a mix between PSO and Super Smash Bros and I find it entertaining and competitive.

My carrot is to win and be as good as i can, though i have a small carrot in cosmetic stuff and make my character of choice look as good as possible(in my eyes atleast..) and right now i’m kinda sad cause i really want the cultural gear but that won’t happen anytime soon… >_<

Hammerheart.1426:

Today’s Most Glorious! : Whoever earns the most glory in a given 0000-2400 period earns their name engraved the following day on a special plaque in the mists.

Do fun stuff like this for most kills in a day(Deadliest Hero!), most points captured in a day (Hail the Conquering Hero!), most people revived in a day (Field Medic Hero!) and other things of that nature.

The next day, someone else’s name is engraved.

Sounds like that would only compound the issue of people playing for personal glory rather than their team’s ability to win. We have enough “hotjoin heroes” already.

it’s an mmo not a fps, there is supposed to be progression and currently spvp lacks it.

This thread is precious or at least the the ammount of people claiming they would play the same ammount if there was no real progression. Most people need carrots of some sort to continue playing whether the pvp is fun or not. It doesn’t really matter skins, ranks, titles. leaderboards I like all that stuff. Kudos to the people willing admit they need something which I am certanly among.

Sprawl.3891:

it’s an mmo not a fps, there is supposed to be progression and currently spvp lacks it.

The sPvP part is not that “massive”. You don’t have that huge maps with hundreds of players running around. I think you can compare it to a shooter – a different gameplay but the for example the server browser is a bit similar to shooters that are played on different servers. And I don’t think they are “massively” even if some claim to be “MMOFPS”.

Only maybe the Mist area where lots of players are is massivele multiplayer but that is only to train and make your builds.

Kwll.1468:

This thread is precious or at least the the ammount of people claiming they would play the same ammount if there was no real progression. Most people need carrots of some sort to continue playing whether the pvp is fun or not. It doesn’t really matter skins, ranks, titles. leaderboards I like all that stuff. Kudos to the people willing admit they need something which I am certanly among.

There are people that only play for fun. Believe it or not. Just because you only do stuff because you get rewards doesn’t mean everyone is like this. For example I still play a almost “dead” game online that is only played by about 100 players. If I wanted rewards I certainly would play some other game. That game does not offer stuff to unlock… only some account “level” that shows the time you played(a bit similar to the glory rank here in Guild Wars 2) and some ranking showing the skill which nobody cares about since there are only a few players… if you wanted to show how good and pro you are you would play a game played by millions of players and get to the top of the ranking to show everyone.

Of course for PvE everything is different. PvE is crap and boring and nobody likes the grind but if you can get better items… then suddenly a lot of players like the grind because they can show to others: “Look at me, I have super rare item X, I’m pro!(meaning I played 1000 hours which everyone can do without being pro lol)”.

i’d play, but less often. Climbing up a ladder helps track progress, and I enjoy moving up or down depending on my performance.

I played UT2004 for a very long time, and the only satisfaction there is killing blows =)

Luthan.5236:

Of course for PvE everything is different. PvE is crap and boring and nobody likes the grind but if you can get better items… then suddenly a lot of players like the grind because they can show to others: “Look at me, I have super rare item X, I’m pro!(meaning I played 1000 hours which everyone can do without being pro lol)”.

I think ‘special’ is the word you are looking for.

Sprawl.3891:

it’s an mmo not a fps, there is supposed to be progression and currently spvp lacks it.

I think you missed out on all the beta/prerelease talk then…
That was one of the games main selling points when it came to PvP, only cosmetic progression, and people generally liked the idea of it.

I play hot joins for fun or duels, a pvp enviormental where I can actually run into players and just have a good time and not care.

But if I queue for a tournies I’d rather not lose do to an inept team.

I can have fun and lose with my friends much more than I can with scrubs.

garethh.3518:

Luthan.5236:

Of course for PvE everything is different. PvE is crap and boring and nobody likes the grind but if you can get better items… then suddenly a lot of players like the grind because they can show to others: “Look at me, I have super rare item X, I’m pro!(meaning I played 1000 hours which everyone can do without being pro lol)”.

I think ‘special’ is the word you are looking for.

Sprawl.3891:

it’s an mmo not a fps, there is supposed to be progression and currently spvp lacks it.

I think you missed out on all the beta/prerelease talk then…
That was one of the games main selling points when it came to PvP, only cosmetic progression, and people generally liked the idea of it.

cosmetic progression is fine. Cosmetic progression where you have to wait an eternity to hit that next “tier” and then can immediately obtain every piece of cosmetic gear for that tier due to overabundance of unused currency = fail.

you can also add cosmetic gear only obtainable with certain leaderboard rank. There’s tons of ways to doe cosmetic progression that is enjoyable. ANet just failed miserably, partially thanks to the horrid alpha testers they had who also told them paid tournaments, hot join and conquest only were good ideas.

I play for fun, but with conquest being the only game mode, it’s gotten pretty stale the last couple of months. The novelty of spirit watch is gone and players now tend to gravitate towards capturing the nodes instead of running the orb. This game seriously needs new game types that are strictly for fun.

Well , it is hard to take tpvp in GW2 seriously.
I don’t care about leaderboard at all as well as about ranks.
All is left is to play for fun.

Kwll.1468:

This thread is precious or at least the the ammount of people claiming they would play the same ammount if there was no real progression. Most people need carrots of some sort to continue playing whether the pvp is fun or not. It doesn’t really matter skins, ranks, titles. leaderboards I like all that stuff. Kudos to the people willing admit they need something which I am certanly among.

If I make you cower in fear from just seeing my name, if seeing the Black and Orange of our armour and our guild tag breaks a zerg before we even hit it, then I have done my job. That is what I play for, not rank or gear or even leaderboards, but for other players to recognise and fear my name. And I will kill you until that happens.

Vayra.3290:

Kwll.1468:

This thread is precious or at least the the ammount of people claiming they would play the same ammount if there was no real progression. Most people need carrots of some sort to continue playing whether the pvp is fun or not. It doesn’t really matter skins, ranks, titles. leaderboards I like all that stuff. Kudos to the people willing admit they need something which I am certanly among.

If I make you cower in fear from just seeing my name, if seeing the Black and Orange of our armour and our guild tag breaks a zerg before we even hit it, then I have done my job. That is what I play for, not rank or gear or even leaderboards, but for other players to recognise and fear my name. And I will kill you until that happens.

^ What he said.

Not everyone needs a carrot dangling in front of them to play. Vayra wants people to fear him and I want to see guilds like his show up and give me a challenge. I would be happy to have his guild challenge my guild and bragging rights would be more than adequate for either of our guilds.

not anymore i dont. not coming back until ranked solo queues

There are meaningful PvP rewards in this game?

Rank doesn’t mean much, and the item system is convoluted enough that it’s hard for people to tell when your armour need a high rank or not – it’s fairly hard to show off.

Aside from being able to build a reputation I never considered this game to have much rewards for this side of the game. It would be nice though if we could use our PvP armour in PvE after a certain rank, seeing as though it probably takes longer to get to rank 20~ than to farm it in PvE.