Guild Wars 2

ronpierce.2760:

The Boz.2038:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

a cardgame like magic … involves balance

MBUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh good god, this one is good! Pure gold!

A little off topic, but turn 1 kills aren’t what I’d consider balanced.

^this very much XD

Completely agree with OP for a number of reasons. They need to fix the match making system. It is completely broken. They also need to drastically increase the penalty for leaving/not showing up to a match. FIVE (5) times and you get a penalty?? That is a joke. You leave a match 2 times and you are temp banned. Nuff said on that.

There are a lot of other tpvp issues that need addressing as well and to put so much attention on PAX makes no sense to me at all for a game that has such low visibility/viewers as it pertains to eSports to begin with. I understand the intent is to increase the visibility via PAX, but you are putting the carriage before the horse in this case. Get things ironed out with your game first…then promote it.

Vena.8436:

garethh.3518:

a good game.

I think its a pretty good game actually.

Opinions are whatever you want them to be and I’m glad some people are finding enjoyment out of this game…

But the steep and unrecovered loss of population says you aren’t in the majority, tragically.
If GW2 was a generally thought to be, halfway decent game, it would have had an extremely high population. There is little->no real MMO PvP competition, only waning titans (WoW, exc.) and there were so many kittening fanboys at launch, so many people were dying to love/throw-money-at this game (including me)…. it had the perfect publicity at launch, no game could realisticly ask for more…

Yet it had the population of a game 6~ years down the road, after 6~ months.

Mac Maritimus.8327:

Sad to see that GW1 is still better in every PvP aspect then GW2 is now. Really, imagine the better graphic engine GW2 has with GvG mode like in GW1. Amazing and e-sport would really be real. Not a pipe-dream like now.

No, it wouldn’t have become an e-sport because it never was one. The graphics weren’t why GW1 never became anything special on the e-sport scene.

garethh.3518:

Yet it had the population of a game 6~ years down the road, after 6~ months.

I find that statement at least a bit suspect. At the top, I would probably agree, but the middle of world where most of us normal people dwell, isn’t exactly vacant (nor am I the only one with my opinion as I am sure you’re not the only one with yours).

Moreover this game has two forms of PvP, so you can’t really discount the reality of WvW and the GvG scene there (if we’re only looking for structured combat). I spend a lot of time in WvW, more of that time is spent PvPing.

I find amusing that in this kind of thread nobody posted this yet: gonna fix it by myself.

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/86278/Rytlock_esports.gif

Issue with gw2 pvp (and game as whole) in a single image.

http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/448269164

I kinda agree with OP but at the same time, Esport is only viable with a balanced game, which means if it’s not balanced, people will quit it, so they still have to balance in the end

At this point, GVG in WVW maps shows far more promise compared to anything stPVP has to offer.

ronpierce.2760:

This whole Anet hosted E-Sports stuff has to go, we were wanting more balance updates than 1 per month (Every other bein but fixes, thus 1 every 2 months). Pax put a halt to big changes and left us in the worst meta the game has seen for longer than it should have been showcased. I’m all for pvp events, but don’t let it take away from development. There is far too much to be looked at currently for taking long development breaks just to have month+ long pvp events.

Agree and disagree. I do not want frequent class changes, but the current meta is totally broken. It is probably as unbalanced right now as it ever has been

Combat system looks fluid.
Not your typical MMO.

Skill design philosophy and balancing approach: Whack-a-mole and slooooooooooow. Not like your typical MMO.

sorrow.2364:

Agree with the OP.
There is no real reason to focus that much on e-sport and cash tournament when the game is clearly broken and people are not interested/involved into.

Get real, PAX regional Finals had 4k viewers at best over a pool of 3 million GW2 buyers at least. I think it is time for ANet to check their priorities.

People is not involved in Spvp at all for several reasons,

a) Want to play Solo Tournies? Get eady to be frustrated the matchmaking sucks balls hard, game can be either easy or imposible,

b) Want to play in hot joins? Wellcome to the mini version of WvW,

c) Want to play tournaments with 1 or 2 friends? Get ready to be paired against 5 guys in the same guild, and probably this people who spend a lot of time in Spvp,

d) Balance? What’s that?

e) Guardians running in circles and facerolling the keyboard,

e) Balance?

f) No game modes besides holding points,

Seriously, Spvp in this game is by FAR the worst and less popular part of the game and Anet balance the game towards this,

Engels.8537:

Seriously, Spvp in this game is by FAR the worst and less popular part of the game and Anet balance the game towards this,

Not really Anet is just trying to balance the game towards this. I mean it’s not like they are succeeding at that.

Agreed, why can’t the the community just get more balance patches, while the “pros” play their Spirit Ranger meta at PAX?

ESPORTS do not have to stop.

Game Balance Should NOT be dictated by Esports Events.
You either run a Lan with an Older version of the build or you make the Prozzzz Adapt.

Just the other day, I was watching some streams with GW2 and I found a tournament taking place and decided to watch it with my flatmate and have some beer along with it. We were going to watch LoL (since we both play it), but we miscalculated and ended up with beer and stream up 2 hours early. So, we decided to watch this GW2 hype about esports.

I have played GW2 from the very start and the first 3 or so months, we were top 5 or something guild on our server, as I was told, and we had a 85% win rate in tournaments (until 4 Mesmer and 3 Guardian teams showed up) with around 300 games.

As we watch GW2, my flatmate said “this is a huge clusterkitten of everything”. Mind to you, he played WoW for 3-4 years, so he knows what kind of a clusterkitten that game is.

I started explaining the combo fields and everything else, but he was just puzzled with the amount of Mesmer illusions and Ranger pets that are around that he couldn’t tell who’s a player a what’s an NPC. Of course, that’s what Mesmers do. Now, the abilities are too shiny and we are all aware of this. Too many effects for an esport. After the first game, the second game was all Asura team… Do I need to tell you how frustrating it is to watch the little hamsters run around and do flashy things? Even I couldn’t tell what the hell someone is doing. This is actually a problem in game as well, dodge system is there so that you can dodge something with your reactions, instead of relying on RNG to block/dodge/parry that attack. But if you cannot see the animations on the little buggers, what’s the point of having such a system in the first place? I’d go to lengths to say that an individual can set the models in game to appear as he wants them to appear, and give spectators to do the same, as right now. It’s just a mish-mash of random flashy things and someone just randomly gets downed, for god knows what reason. We couldn’t see!

Second of all, entire community shouldn’t suffer from bad balance because of a tournament, that’s why you should be able to make older versions for the tournament setting to make them be played in their rightful patch. I have no problem with this. ANet starts to remind me of Blizzard (I do not want to start the bashing war) in terms of poor balance, this is just not acceptable for a game that needs to have a playerbase in order to succeed as an esport, meaning, you need a lot of players if you intend to make this an esport, since the actual players are mainly your viewers, not a random person who happened to venture on twitch.

I am not sure if you have this, although I doubt you do, is that the actual “famous, good, whatever” players can be your class team leaders. Not leaders in its actual sense, but they can volunteer (you should be able to pick some names from the esport scene) who can actually make contributions as to report what each class needs. Sure, this can be biased, hence why it’s a nice job to have, plus, you promote certain players in community. You can have class leaders for every aspect of your game, but the main one should be focused on sPvP or tPvP, since that’s what Guild Wars 2 is about. You can reward them with in-game items and voila, you have a nice setting going.

There are many things to be done with this game, and many players (top PvPers from DAoC and WoW) still cannot forgive ANet for abandoning their game at the start and being super-slow with patches. Remember, it took you almost 2 months to fix Frenzy+Heartseeker or Frenzy+100b. I hope some ANet dev does read these posts, and as every poster here, I hope you do read my post and conduct massive changes needed for this game.

Thank you for reading

Darnis.4056:

ESPORTS do not have to stop.

Game Balance Should NOT be dictated by Esports Events.
You either run a Lan with an Older version of the build or you make the Prozzzz Adapt.

Esports has to stop so Esports can begin.

Ooooh deep.

Considering their track record so far, and that these triple A pvp devs didnt even have the foresight to percieve any problems with tiny Asura models during years of development, i’d say any attempt at producing an enjoyable and watchable E-sport match/game comes from either lack of perception or the perception that this is as shiny as the kitten gets for a long time.

GankSinatra.2653:

these triple A pvp devs didnt even have the foresight to percieve any problems with tiny Asura models during years of development

They are terrible.
Just played a lil of a ‘moba that shall not be named’, and god the difference…
Well made combat in every way I can think of, polished UI and relevant PvP rewards, an entire meta that doesn’t flop around with patch notes…
kitten.

You were supposed to be amazing GW2… what the kitten went wrong?!!??

garethh.3518:

You were supposed to be amazing GW2… what the kitten went wrong?!!??

lots of design fails, basically, eg:

• no resource system (rewards spamming, simplified combat)
• shallow build system (fixed weapon skills, huge trait & skill imbalances, strongly linked systems, general lack of choice)
• single, uninteresting pvp mode
• downed state (not fun, numerous problems/imbalances)
• AOE cap of 5 (rewards zerging)
• slloooooowwww balancing (which turned out to be whack-a-mole anyway)
• excessive particle effects (game looks like a mess to casual observers)
• huge level of divergence from previous game
• unwillingness to incorporate feedback, generally contemptuous attitude to players

Rytlock does it best.

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/86278/Rytlock_esports.gif

imo ranger/necro imba and pax limbo has gravely damaged gw2. there is only so much patience and good will.
too bad.

Hmmm interesting.

SoPP.7034:

Hmmm interesting.

Haha, interesting indeed.

What is with the thread necro. This needs to stop.

Ryan.9387:

This needs to stop.

No, you more.

thread necro doessnt matter – cause its is still relevant

and i think too fun > e-sport

Ryan.9387:

What is with the thread necro. This needs to stop.

Yes it does. The forums are for some reason obsessed with “esports” and seem to think saying that word every other post shames the devs into going back in time and delaying release by a few months to fix the launch issues. The devs are not obsessed with esports and apart from a few minor invitationals have not pushed e-sports at all.

So two things need to stop: outdated necros of threads that were marginally relevant when posted, and the forum’s obsession with esports.

NevirSayDie.6235:

forum’s obsession with esports.

The forums obsession? lol

Idc about e-sports but at least the ANet troll at a GvG match and Sacrx’ NDA leak made ANet look at themselves a little closer. I actually like were the game is going as a result.

PvP however doesn’t get as much love as a result.

SoPP.7034:

NevirSayDie.6235:

forum’s obsession with esports.

The forums obsession? lol

Idc about e-sports but at least the ANet troll at a GvG match and Sacrx’ NDA leak made ANet look at themselves a little closer. I actually like were the game is going as a result.

PvP however doesn’t get as much love as a result.

It’s a non sequitur fallacy to believe that Anet was “holding back” GvG because they were obsessed with esports. There’s simply no correlation between the two. It’s the same fallacy to believe that PvP is getting fewer resources because of the new jumping puzzle fight club place thingy.

The forums are obsessed with esports. WvW/GvG/PvP threads are constantly using it. The devs, on the other hand, say things like: “We want to keep working on mechanic X,” or, when pressed really hard to talk about esports, “We want to keep improving the game and see it become better and better.”

I challenge you to find a dev post or blog that uses the word “esports” in the last 5 months. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any for at least a year, but it’s possible that it happened before the Pax tourney, I’m not sure.

It can’t stop if it never started. GW2 and E-Sports is just a joke. There’s nothing appealing or enjoyable about watching GW2 PvP.

Honestly. Was I the only one who knew that GW2 would fail as an E-Sport during the first BETA?

I agree with the topic, the push for E-Sports isn’t possible. ANet doesn’t have the full backing of NCSoft they’re working on their 2 new big games and sending money that way. E-Sports is too huge now and the only way we can compete with SC2 or League Of Legends is only if NCSoft is willing to throw billions of dollars at GW2 like tencent did for LoL.

This “Push for E-Sports” has hardcore veterans disgusted. You’re using away old GW1 players (probably lost them all by now) with this new generation concept of “E-Sports”. GW1 achieved greatness in E-Sports it was way beyond it’s time but during it’s time it was the only real competitive E-Sports around (besides CS 1.6). However GW1 never set out with the idea of making “PvP great” it was just an add on feature at the original release and never planned to be great. It was us the player and the community and our culture that made GW1 PvP great. There is no other game that would immediately /gkick somebody for disconnecting in a middle of a GvG match. The culture was extremely harsh and it was made by us players. However you’ve betrayed the players ANet, make a survey see what GW1 PvP veterians think see how many you have left.

And lets not joke around you’ll never become an ESports, if you’re never planning on making a feature were a team can watch and review old matches then you won’t even have the first building block of making an E-Sports. Your core system is outdated I will admit that taking a system 15+ years old and making GW2 out of it was really well done but you’re pushing the system to it’s limits future innovation seems impossible. You took a short cut, sure you made it worked but it’s coming to bite you in your kitten .

relax, all is working well as planned.

once enough players migrated from PvE / WvW and settled down into sPvP, and when the sPvP is even more casual friendly, then e-sports will finally happen.

that might take a few years time though.

ya anet…

your game is not an esport

its so bad you cant even make it an esport by throwing money at prize pools

fix your game and make it fun, then resume esport a,bitions. really, just set them aside for a few years while you start over in square 1 and say:

our gameplay sucks.

redo all weapon skills for pvp, balanced around pvp… probably put a lot more skillshots in there, maybe turn cripple into a stacking 1% debuff and put it on auto attacks for certain weapons and stuff, lowering their damage. maybe make the heal debuff of poison work like that too, and vulnerability is already there… make conditions filo. now youve created depth of strategy around dodging and condi removal. get rid of all gap closers / openers and add them back slowly as needed, consider making them elite skills with appropriately long cooldowns.

you know, fix your game

then come back to esport

Even though I spend 95% of playtime in hotjoin spvp, I still have little clue what’s going on SPECTATING players. Things just happen too fast and half the time there’s little to no animation to clue you in (necro anyone?). Hell, spectating my own class with the same weapon (ele staff) requires all my attention focused on his skill bar to see what he casted. Now imagine watching more than 1 guy in 3rd person view where you can’t see his toolbar. Then imagine someone new or a casual to gw2 trying to make sense of it all.

Sorry Anet but it simply isn’t watchable as an esports. I watched a clip of some great moments in tournaments this year and all I can see is people getting downed, stuff blowing up, and commentators going “oh my god _ is going down” with the occasional mention of a skill being used. I can tell the commentators are trying and talking fast, but to explain a fight in real time is just impossible to analyze.

Take something like starcraft which I find entertaining but only with a good commentator. A bit slow like chess where you can see strategic play and movement, but still fast enough pace where the players are usually doing something worth explaining. GW2 simply has too much going on at once and you can do an entire commentary on just a duel to explain each and every move. Otherwise as it is, it’s like watching Smash Brothers (hell, that game is easier to make sense of if you’ve played it). Another analogy is watching a basketball game in 16x – you just see ppl getting downed/scored but can’t see the play.

All is vain. /15 chars.

milo.6942:

really it’s funny because at first blush, the pvp in this game seems amazing. lots of dodge rolls and blinks and bursts and general fast pace. they may even think it takes some kind of skill to win in this game but it is just an illusion easily dispelled by playing a fotm build for a little bit.

^^ so much this

i joined gw2 because they seemed to focus on pvp and i thought for once i can play mmorpg where pvp is not a joke due to huge imbalance between classes

videos and trailers looked amazing too

so i started to play gw2…. i was rather surprised to find out how raw/undeveloped pvp system is in this game as well as how silly class imbalance is atm

i think recent changes to pvp system were good but they should have happend long ago imo

NevirSayDie.6235:

There’s simply no correlation between the two.

The only way you would believe that is if you feel that decisions that have been made are down to gross incompetence time after time. It just doesn’t make sense.

The introduction of bloodlust stacks was NEVER WANTED by the WvW community. It makes a winning server with greater coverage do it all even better. There’s absolutely no logical reason to implement it UNLESS you want to make WvW unbalanced even more so, concurrently breaking GvG, forcing people who want (a degree of) balance into ANet’s PvP.

That’s just one example.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I challenge you to find a dev post or blog that uses the word “esports”

Oh there out there all right (See I can do it too).

Does anyone even watch the e-sport tournaments?

more people watch diablo 3, the fail sequel of the gaming industry, than watch gw2 pvp.

yup.

@milo, blinks do not, good pvp, make.

regarding the trend of bad decisions about pvp… im not quite willing to say they’re incompetent, but they made some really big mistakes in the very beginning of the pvp game design, and it doesnt seem like theyre willing to accept the price tag of fixing those mistakes… so theyre just trying to duct tape the thing together…

I do admit, sometimes they seem to opt towards paper machet instead of duct tape… but tbh the idea of ‘fixing’ pvp problems w/o addressing rallying, for example, is so ridiculous i cant even make myself pretend to care.

at this point, WvW (Obsid Sanctum GvG) is the best choice for a E-sport.
Huge participation
Huge interest
A lot more strategy and coordination on a larger and more complex scale
The posibility to run death-matches, but also (If Anet bothered) to host closed, separate tourneys for WvW E-sports (3 separate servers, equal player cap to prevent stacking, equal map cap, X number of GUILDs on each server).

PvP is too loopsided and too “weak”. And by “Weak” i do not refer to skill level, but rather the power output.
Current PvP gear/weapons are something like 10-15% weaker then exotics in stats. With the current power creep of ascended, PvP is 20-25% weaker in pure stats then other game modes. While this may seem trivial, it is no joke, saying that certain builds have certain “magic numbers” that make them achieve a perfect balance between tanking, DPS and utility. This is hard to achieve in PvP as not only is the stats lower (and some skills are nerfed) but it is also different in some cases.

The game mode (node capture) is too single minded. All you need to do is cap 2 nodes and hold em. The other team, if too weak to push the enemy off the node, cannot win in any way. There must be added more options for victory. Perhaps the current Battlefield system of Team Deathmatch (set amount of respawns, think its 80 by default. Ofc PvP would need values as low as 30 or less).

You can then win by kills, or by points (K.O or TKO), This adds variety, opens up for different types of skill sets, and profession diversity.

Ah, GW2 PvP and Esports. Definitely was talked up in the past:

http://www.videogamer.com/pc/guild_wars_2/news/guild_wars_2_making_pvp_an_esport_is_a_primary_goal.html

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/21/guild-wars-2-paves-the-way-for-e-sports/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/21/guild-wars-2-pvp-designer-talks-e-sports-spectator-mode-and-streaming/

Nowadays, you don’t see the devs talking about esports that much, if at all.

This game will never be a valid eSport (IMO); too many issues, and too late to make massive design changes. Best we focus on making the PvP balanced, fun, and rewarding.

Esporzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Don’t worry, nobody at arenanet is pushing esports now. They realized that u cant make an esport just by saying a game is an esport and throwing a couple thousand dollars here and there.
But now they found another way to make spvp a success (sort of) that doesn’t include fixing the game, by giving rewards and stuff, and my god it worked well, know we have like 60% of players playing not for the game itself, but for the rewards (typical mmo style of doing things).

ye and nothing wrong with this

atleast it works

All cool esport heros are like forty nowdays.

SoPP.7034:

NevirSayDie.6235:

There’s simply no correlation between the two.

The only way you would believe that is if you feel that decisions that have been made are down to gross incompetence time after time. It just doesn’t make sense.

The introduction of bloodlust stacks was NEVER WANTED by the WvW community. It makes a winning server with greater coverage do it all even better. There’s absolutely no logical reason to implement it UNLESS you want to make WvW unbalanced even more so, concurrently breaking GvG, forcing people who want (a degree of) balance into ANet’s PvP.

That’s just one example.

Yeah, everyone gets upset when Facebook changes their format, too. Bloodlust was added because of feedback asking for more meaningful solo player/small group contributions for WvW.

If I read you right, you’re saying that Anet introduced bloodlust to intentionally cause imbalance in WvW to intentionally shut down the GvG scene so that players would have no choice but to go to PvP. That’s a pretty hardcore conspiracy theory. Isn’t it much more likely that they were responding to the mountains of feedback asking for small group content in WvW?

SoPP.7034:

NevirSayDie.6235:

I challenge you to find a dev post or blog that uses the word “esports”

Oh there out there all right (See I can do it too).

The “burden of proof” concept is integral to formal logic. Basically, if someone makes a claim (“Anet is obsessed with esports”) then the person making the claim is expected to be able to back it up. A second person may question the claim (“Has Anet really said or done anything related to esports in the last few months?”) So yes, you can “do it too,” it just doesn’t make any sense when you do it, because I didn’t make a claim—you did.

Edit: also, I asked if there was a post or blog in the last five months that used the word esports. There were several articles mentioning esports before and at launch, mostly third-party interviews in which the word was used.

NevirSayDie.6235:

That’s a pretty hardcore conspiracy theory. The “burden of proof” concept is integral to formal logic.

What has become clear at this point you have never watched Sacrx’s NDA leak. You perhaps heard about it, someone told you in passing of it, maybe you watched 5 minutes of it and thought “Yea I know”.

People wanted less zerging, capture nodes were a way to break that down. However, once again, NOT BLOODLUST stacks. The community NEVER wanted it.

The whole premise of your argument is ALL contextual.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I challenge you to find a dev post or blog that uses the word “esports” in the last 5 months.

There was active communication that it will be an e-sport. You saying ‘yea but not recently’ isn’t really highlighting the lack of truth to it, it’s more symbolic of the fact that ‘the writing is on the wall’.

Sacrx is world first Ultimate Dominator (250k kills) and lead of THE best guild in GvG and former alpha tester to GW2. Don’t want to accept his word about the move agianst GvG for the sake of PvP? That’s fine, but sticking your fingers in you ears going ‘lalalalalalalala’ doesn’t mean your right either.

SoPP.7034:

…

This has derailed pretty severely. Feel free to pm me if you want to continue the discussion. I’d recommend mods to close the thread down, as it was of dubious value at the start, then hardcore necro’d, then hardcore derailed.