Guild Wars 2

First of all, this was a pretty big change to the way that Solo q and Team q work, and I’d be interested to know in what parts of PvP this has been implemented, for now I’m going to presume its across the board.

Hotjoins: I feel like this just clusters the map in an 8v8 and makes it very hard to see where you can actually make an impact, in 5v5 its mostly fine and makes sense for new players to see that kind of thing.

Soloq: This has the potential to be a massive bonus by breaking down the barriers posed by limited communication to open up the possibility of better play, here to me it makes perfect sense.

Teamq: At this level, I feel like its too much pandering to the game. Communication of who and what is where is a crucial part of the team arena, and if I for instance know that the thief is at far point, I’ll quite happily come to mid as the homepoint bunker. The thief himself might be being cautious and my team mate might not even have noticed him at this point, I feel its reduced the skillcap in this area of play.

Now for my gripe: I went into my first Solo queue game since the patch and I was rushing far on Forest. I looked to see what was happening across the rest of the map, and I couldnt tell at all what was happening on mid. Considering I had 2 people with me on far, I swore I could see at least 5 people at mid, which really confused me. Turns out that mesmer illusions showed up on my map as separate entities, hence me thinking there were about 4 on their team when in fact it was only one.

I’m not sure if this is working as intended, but if so it clouds and already hectic UI tool that you no longer even can zoom in to reduce the clutter, making it much harder to discern where the enemy are, but more importantly where your team mates are if they are fighting across all points.

I feel it was in a better place when you knew exactly where your team mates were personally, than this confusion, but it would be good to get some feedback on this!

I dont think mesmer illusions are suposed to show up since the class icon is big enough for you to not be able to tell between real mesmer and clones(it takes like whole freacking point also you should know by enenmy team roster if they got 4 mesmer jsut saying :P edit:unless they actualy had 4 mesmer then that was clusterkitten))

Well thats my point exactly, I joined the game late and forgot to check the team, and I did realise there werent 4 mesmers fairly quickly when I was being hit on by a ranger and thief hah. I just don’t understand why they would have taken this decision, I assume this is the way everyone else is seeing it?

This can’t be real…

can comfirm illusions do appear on the minimap… PLEASE FIX

5x memser = woo WvW ZERG lvl

Do ranger pets show up as a ranger icon? How about spirit?

I can see how this would maybe be desirable for solo queues, maybe. As long as only player characters are shown and stealthed characters are not. However, adding a quickchat menu would have been easier and much better. That would also remove an entry barrier for casual teams (i.e. the voip requirement to have a chance even in mid-level teamqueues).

I figure its a bug, and that’s absolutely fine, I completely accept that these things happen. I’d just like to know whether or not its intended or it would be nice to have confirmation its a bug

I really like this change, it was really hard for me to read the numbers of the enemy team especially in solo queue where communication was lacking a bit. Make’s it alot easier for backpoint defenders.

As for the mesmer clones… isn’t that kind of the point though? I mean, they are meant to confuse you of the location of the real mesmer. I’m okay with mesmer peripherals being shown on the map, but like others in this thread it would, certainly, be rather alarming if Necromancer minions and Ranger spirits counted as red dots on the mini-map…

DiamondMeteor.8345:

As for the mesmer clones… isn’t that kind of the point though? I mean, they are meant to confuse you of the location of the real mesmer. I’m okay with mesmer peripherals being shown on the map, but like others in this thread it would, certainly, be rather alarming if Necromancer minions and Ranger spirits counted as red dots on the mini-map…

This 100% agree.

This is just an example of further watering down and dumbing down the game. In my opinion this is an absolutely terrible change. Intelligent backcaps are gone, any necessity for coordination… a thing of the past. Hey just flood the gamer with loads of information so they don’t have to use their brains or mouth (or god forbid draw on the map). I am normally not this negative, I have dealt with the steadily raising of the skill floor and lowering of the skill cap. I have stayed quiet and positive for the most part. This though just absolutely depresses me and I really don’t know why this was snuck in the game.

I say snuck because to my knowledge no discussion has been had with the community to even gauge if this was a good idea. Just another surprise change that absolutely hurts the game. Today is a sad day for GW2.

This change was not listed on the patch notes, so I’m going to assume for the moment it is a bug.

Please good god let it be a bug…

Not fond of enemy nodes appearing on mini map, showing contested cap points are enough for me imo. Too squished, hectic and cluttered now on the mini map _

I think it’s a bug.

But for soloqueue i dunno if would be a bad idea.

It’s very bad for team queue instead.

bad change for all modes imo.

enemy locs should be observed. also shows inconsistency with vision, re: focus on gameplay, not UI elements. map & situational awareness is a part of the gameplay.

it could exist as a custom server toggle, anything beyond that seems off.

Too much clutter in game, and now they invade the mini-map?

Although I do appreciate the devs effort for some QoL, this new feature is a bit irritating and frustrating especially with mesmers if it really is intended. The icons are too big they cover a whole cap point for crying out loud. It also defeats the purpose of team coordination and communication and promotes UI dependence as what faeral guy said.

Please give us an option to go back to the original mini-map where I can’t see enemy players.

This feature totally sucks.

Please remove this new feature. It is unrequired!

I absolutely love this feature. I don’t see how it dumbs down the game, at least in solo queue. It does the opposite to me. It raises the level of depth in an uncoordenated game closer to the level expected in a coordenated game.

Coordenation and comunication are core to winning a game in Conquest Mode. Okay, that’s important across any game mode, but Conquest is all about being in the right place at the right time. However, in solo queue, this is nearly impossible to acchieve because teams can’t properly communicate with each other. Thankfully, the UI now compensates for that.

Exclusively from a solo queuer point of view, saying that this change dumbs down the game is like, to me, saying that team queue is more dumbed down than solo queue just because there exists better means of communication. It isn’t, but the opposite instead.

More communication = Better Conquest matches.

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

I really like the feature to be honest. It helps you to decide where you can be the most use without the need for some kind of com system (voice or otherwise). Backcaps should be fine since it only shows your icon to the enemy if one of them can see you. Which would hurt your backcap anyway right?

It’s similar to a fog of war type thing, it’s a really smart addition. More of these please. Cool change is cool.

Great feature for solo que, but please take this out of team que if it’s there (haven’t been able to check yet)

Ok, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be. You can only see players when they are in combat and within a certain range of you or your teammates. Kind of nice actually.

This change is good; very unexpected though..
It’s on sight combat information; very good in the right hands; now my guard doesnt have to scramble to tell me he has eyes on two thieves off point having a tea party.

Bug fix the mesmer clones, probably an oversight as clones appear as green dots on the map most of the time.

Reread the patch notes. They stated clearly that they added them there.

It also only works off of line-of-sight. If you don’t see the guy about to gank you, your teammates won’t know until too late either. You still have to pan your camera around or scout.

Right now, this is godly for Hotjoins (especially the 5v5 ones) and Solo Queue. You can actually reinforce people and not let them get ganked alone by 2-3 guys.

A game without voice chat included in the box needs to have something that facilitates coordination like this without using text chat.

Gorni.1764:

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

Then remove the real mesmer from the minimap for enemy players.

Minimap should not be used as a tool to figure out where the non clone mesmer is.
Hence clones show on minimap.

Void.4239:

Gorni.1764:

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

Then remove the real mesmer from the minimap for enemy players.

Minimap should not be used as a tool to figure out where the non clone mesmer is.
Hence clones show on minimap.

Good Joke, if you can pick out the real mesmer using the minimap you deserve to kill him every time.

Darnis.4056:

Void.4239:

Gorni.1764:

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

Then remove the real mesmer from the minimap for enemy players.

Minimap should not be used as a tool to figure out where the non clone mesmer is.
Hence clones show on minimap.

Good Joke, if you can pick out the real mesmer using the minimap you deserve to kill him every time.

:D
If they cant figure out that 4 mesmers at 1 point is actually 1 mesmer , he deserves to confuse the enemy players.

Its still too much clutter. 90% of mesmers move around like kittenes anyway so its easy to spot them. No one would use the minimap to spot a mesmer.

clint.5681:

Its still too much clutter. 90% of mesmers move around like kittenes anyway so its easy to spot them. No one would use the minimap to spot a mesmer.

Did this yesterday.

If the icons were a bit smaller, this might be useful - but at present, I can’t see which of my allies is at any one point due to the clutter (only exacerbated by mesmer clones).

I can deal pretty well with just watching the party info for who was taking damage (and how they were holding up to it) and knowing where everyone was so I could run to support an appropriate area - if someone really needs help they can ping the map.
While in organised team matches, communication is usually good enough that I’m still aware where folks are, this increased communication tends to give me much more useful info on enemy movements than the map possibly can with red and blue blobs all meshed together.
In solo queue... urgh. Over the day I’ve rarely had any idea who was fighting at each point, or even which foes were there despite their indicators.

Some people might really like this feature, but I’d ask for both much smaller profession icons on the map, and a toggle to only disply ally icons as before. Definitely more of a hindrance than a help right now.

Anet make minimap fair;
Gives spirits/minions Icons too.

Void.4239:

Darnis.4056:

Void.4239:

Gorni.1764:

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

Then remove the real mesmer from the minimap for enemy players.

Minimap should not be used as a tool to figure out where the non clone mesmer is.
Hence clones show on minimap.

Good Joke, if you can pick out the real mesmer using the minimap you deserve to kill him every time.

:D
If they cant figure out that 4 mesmers at 1 point is actually 1 mesmer , he deserves to confuse the enemy players.

the problem is that I only see mesmer-symbols and nothing else because of the cluttering. Sometimes I can’t even see if there are friendly players or let’s say how many.

Gorni.1764:

Void.4239:

Darnis.4056:

Void.4239:

Gorni.1764:

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

Then remove the real mesmer from the minimap for enemy players.

Minimap should not be used as a tool to figure out where the non clone mesmer is.
Hence clones show on minimap.

Good Joke, if you can pick out the real mesmer using the minimap you deserve to kill him every time.

:D
If they cant figure out that 4 mesmers at 1 point is actually 1 mesmer , he deserves to confuse the enemy players.

the problem is that I only see mesmer-symbols and nothing else because of the cluttering. Sometimes I can’t even see if there are friendly players or let’s say how many.

So the mesmer confused you before you even got to the fight ? Isnt the point of a mesmer to confuse enemy players ?

btw you got 5 teamm8’s , if you can see 2 on your map away from the fight and another 1 is respawning( dead ) then its a fairly good chance that there is only 1 teamm8 left fighting the mesmer.

people can still count to 5 cant they ?

Mesmer clones should definitely not be showing up on the minimap. Just far too much clutter. In terms of gameplay, the only issue i can see this being an “issue” is if the player uses something like “decoy”, it becomes obvious that they are stealthed and the thing is a clone, because their icon is gone from minimap, but even then, it should be obvious if you are on the target and lose your target from stealth/ by observing behavior.

Overall a nice addition, although it might be harder to sneak away from a crazy mid fight to back cap a point.

Void.4239:

Gorni.1764:

Void.4239:

Darnis.4056:

Void.4239:

Gorni.1764:

remove mesmer clones and dead players from the minimap pls … it’s extremely annoying

Then remove the real mesmer from the minimap for enemy players.

Minimap should not be used as a tool to figure out where the non clone mesmer is.
Hence clones show on minimap.

Good Joke, if you can pick out the real mesmer using the minimap you deserve to kill him every time.

:D
If they cant figure out that 4 mesmers at 1 point is actually 1 mesmer , he deserves to confuse the enemy players.

the problem is that I only see mesmer-symbols and nothing else because of the cluttering. Sometimes I can’t even see if there are friendly players or let’s say how many.

So the mesmer confused you before you even got to the fight ? Isnt the point of a mesmer to confuse enemy players ?

btw you got 5 teamm8’s , if you can see 2 on your map away from the fight and another 1 is respawning( dead ) then its a fairly good chance that there is only 1 teamm8 left fighting the mesmer.

people can still count to 5 cant they ?

same goes for the amount of enemies … it’s just fail. If you’re not going to get rid of those mesmer-symbols or at least make symbols smaller I want an option to turn it off completely. This way I can see where my team-mates are with one quick look and incs should be announced anyways so I wouldn’t miss this new “feature”. As it is now it bugs me more than it helps.

I vote for just removing the feature at its entirety :P.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Mesmer’s initially just showed on the mini-map as the Mesmer himself. I felt this was unfair to them exclusively because their class mechanics rely on deception. It made it so you basically ALWAYS knew which one was the real Mesmer because you just had to simply look at the map.

If you guys can provide a reasonable and better solution in terms of what we could do for Mesmer’s feel free to lay it on the table and we will consider it. Clutter is definitely an issue in itself; one we haven’t really solved in other areas of the game either.

My question is why show enemy players on the map at all… part of being a good team is communicating the other teams numbers and positions. If you miscount you may lose a fight… This just dumbs it down.

Speaking of deception, what about thieves’ shadow arts, stealth, and deception utilities. How is this fair to thieves that rely on stealth to survive when you can pin point their location after stealth?

Change the icons to small dots of the opponent team’s color. (Much like in WvW)
It would be nice knowing what class the opponent is, but there is already a LOT of clutter on the mini-map.

This way you can make a dot for each mesmer clone.

One thing is for sure though, if you want to keep the icons, you need to make them a LOT smaller.

Mash Hog.5672:

Change the icons to small dots of the opponent team’s color. (Much like in WvW)
It would be nice knowing what class the opponent is, but there is already a LOT of clutter on the mini-map.

This way you can make a dot for each mesmer clone.

One thing is for sure though, if you want to keep the icons, you need to make them a LOT smaller.

this sounds reasonable but it would be misleading when you see 3+ dots on a point and think that there are 3 players but in fact it’s only one mesmer.

A point cluttered with mesmer-symbols is the same as before where I just saw the crossed swords to see that a point is under attack. So I know that there are enemies anyways but without the cluttering I can at least instantly see if and how many team-mates are in the area.

And as already stated please remove symbols of downed players.

Gorni.1764:

Mash Hog.5672:

Change the icons to small dots of the opponent team’s color. (Much like in WvW)
It would be nice knowing what class the opponent is, but there is already a LOT of clutter on the mini-map.

This way you can make a dot for each mesmer clone.

One thing is for sure though, if you want to keep the icons, you need to make them a LOT smaller.

this sounds reasonable but it would be misleading when you see 3+ dots on a point and think that there are 3 players but in fact it’s only one mesmer.

I thought of that, maybe we can have miniaturized dots with each color being a different class.
Purple: Mesmer
Blue: Guard
Green: Necro
Brown: Ranger
Ect…

This way we can have multiple purple dots for mesmers and clones and still not have them get mixed up with other classes.

Mash Hog.5672:

Gorni.1764:

Mash Hog.5672:

Change the icons to small dots of the opponent team’s color. (Much like in WvW)
It would be nice knowing what class the opponent is, but there is already a LOT of clutter on the mini-map.

This way you can make a dot for each mesmer clone.

One thing is for sure though, if you want to keep the icons, you need to make them a LOT smaller.

this sounds reasonable but it would be misleading when you see 3+ dots on a point and think that there are 3 players but in fact it’s only one mesmer.

I thought of that, maybe we can have miniaturized dots with each color being a different class.
Purple: Mesmer
Blue: Guard
Green: Necro
Brown: Ranger
Ect…

This way we can have multiple purple dots for mesmers and clones and still not have them get mixed up with other classes.

Seems fairly reasonable. They already have associated class colors based on the pie chart of the pvp window.

Also, thanks Tyler for keeping up with this.

I support this new feature.

Now, are enemy icons always visible, or only if there is a friendly player near them? Couple of times it felt as if it was only when someone on our side was in the vicinity (or engaged). I would not make enemy visible on the map unless they are engaged with our team.

alemfi.5107:

Mash Hog.5672:

Gorni.1764:

Mash Hog.5672:

Change the icons to small dots of the opponent team’s color. (Much like in WvW)
It would be nice knowing what class the opponent is, but there is already a LOT of clutter on the mini-map.

This way you can make a dot for each mesmer clone.

One thing is for sure though, if you want to keep the icons, you need to make them a LOT smaller.

this sounds reasonable but it would be misleading when you see 3+ dots on a point and think that there are 3 players but in fact it’s only one mesmer.

I thought of that, maybe we can have miniaturized dots with each color being a different class.
Purple: Mesmer
Blue: Guard
Green: Necro
Brown: Ranger
Ect...

This way we can have multiple purple dots for mesmers and clones and still not have them get mixed up with other classes.

Seems fairly reasonable. They already have associated class colors based on the pie chart of the pvp window.

This sounds great... but you need to be able to distinguish between teams. Maybe allies as they are now, with larger profession icons, and give foes these coloured dots? Means their mesmer clones are still relevant distraction, and we can see foes in combat, but it’s still very easy to locate allies by just glancing at the map.

With regards to stealth... the change is a bit strange, but if you’re going to be able to chase down a thief you’ll probably need direct line of sight when they come out of stealth anyway. Could become a problem if a well-organised team keeps track of enemy stealthers, but I’d rather this feature was removed for higher tier tournaments anyway.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It’s not my place to be giving design reasoning behind changes so I can try to get one of the guys to give a statement on this but the way I see it is that this change helps lessen the gap we have in player skill level. It’s an awesome quality of life improvement to team coordination and it’s going to help matches remain more competitive across the board. Team’s using voice comms will still have an upper advantage but I think that reducing the amount mal-rotations happening is a positive change.

Here’s my simple suggestion: Put a single Mesmer marker at the average position among all visible copies of the Mesmer. So, if the real Mesmer was at (1, 5), and there were 2 clones, one at (2, 7) and another at (3, 3), it would show the Mesmer marker at ([1+2+3]/3, [5+7+3]/3) = (2, 5).

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It’s not my place to be giving design reasoning behind changes so I can try to get one of the guys to give a statement on this but the way I see it is that this change helps lessen the gap we have in player skill level. It’s an awesome quality of life improvement to team coordination and it’s going to help matches remain more competitive across the board. Team’s using voice comms will still have an upper advantage but I think that reducing the amount mal-rotations happening is a positive change.

This is a horrible QoL improvement. Team coordination? That’s PART OF THE GAME that you have to communicate. You’re just making it easier for teams to NOT talk and call out numbers because you see it on the map yourself now. You’re making bad teams better from doing this and even more confusing because you see 4 mesmers on the map and can’t even see your own teammates icons on the map because of it.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It’s not my place to be giving design reasoning behind changes so I can try to get one of the guys to give a statement on this but the way I see it is that this change helps lessen the gap we have in player skill level. It’s an awesome quality of life improvement to team coordination and it’s going to help matches remain more competitive across the board. Team’s using voice comms will still have an upper advantage but I think that reducing the amount mal-rotations happening is a positive change.

Atleast make enemy icons smaller or something