Guild Wars 2

The way ArenaNet has been approaching beta PvP maps is bad in so many ways, and I feel inclined to vent here for a bit, even if it’s all been said before and if no one of relevance decides to read this.

For one, pinning them to unranked selection ensures that an overwhelming amount of people will want to select the maps to farm their achievements, but there will, at any given time (but especially during a PvP league), also be a number of people who will want to play unranked to train for ranked matches or who are simply sick and tired of the same map. That will make both sides angry as one side wants to farm achievements but can’t and the other wants to train on ranked maps but can’t.

There either needs to be a separate category for map testing or people need to be allowed to do their achievements in unrated games. I don’t really see the point in forcing people to play rated matches anyway. If some players want to farm the achievements in hotjoin, why not let them? I know Anet wants to test the map for structured play, but I think the people who want to properly test the map and give feedback will do so either way. It’s just increasing the number of frustrated players.

Additionally, making the achievements connected to the new map “limited time” makes for even more angry people and general vitriol in the community as the players feel rushed to complete their achievements and are randomly paired will people of vastly different skill levels, people testing new builds, people not participating out of spite, etc.

The biggest point of contention here is obviously the 25 wins achievement. Something like 10 wins should be more than enough within the given span of time (which makes for about 20 games on the relevant map per player with an assumed 50/50 chance of winning). Making the achievement category permanent would also relieve a lot of the pressure, though that would obviously reduce the number of players populating those maps in the given time frame (then again, they’re only there to farm achievements, so I don’t think their “contribution” justifies the methodology).

The way I see it, the ideal solution would be to:

• create a new category for beta testing new maps where players can queue up for specific beta maps instead of being subjected to a roll of the die,
• potentially reduce the number of wins required for the wins achievement (having to play 50 games on average is a lot, especially during an active league),
• alternatively, make the achievement category permanent and once the beta period for the map ends, simply add the map to standard unranked selection.

I had hoped that Coliseum would be different but it seems no lessons were learned after Capricorn, so I’m sincerely hoping that the same mistakes won’t be repeated the next time a new map comes around. Some amount of bad blood is always to be expected in a PvP community, but the current state is incredibly toxic for absolutely no reason. These aren’t difficult things to fix (though I am keenly aware that new UI features require quite a bit of work), but it kinda feels like the UX guy took a vacation after Capricorn and no one bothered to give it a second look.

Now excuse me while I go back to being angry at people for choosing the “wrong” map.

pinning them to unranked selection ensures that an overwhelming amount of people will want to select the maps
Thats the point, to get as many people as possible on the map to test it
There either needs to be a separate category for map testing
right, lets add a category thats going to be used 0-2 times per year and split the small pvp population even further, although not like more than a dozen people will queue up in it
making the achievements connected to the new map “limited time”…
see point 1
The biggest point of contention here is obviously the 25 wins achievement. Something like 10 wins should be more than enough
even just doing the pvp dailies with 2-3 games per day will get you all achievements in a month, but i somewhat agree, i maxed out all the other achievements on that map before i hit got even 10 wins, which then stood out like a sore thumb

Now that we got this out of the way, let me hijack this thread to point out what is actually wron with the current beta map – the artifact placement.

ele, mesmer and thief have a huge advantage on this map because blinking up saves a whole 10 seconds compared to walking . The channel time feels much shorter than the shrines in the Temple map, so interrupting someone is almost impossible if you arrive even a second later. Plus the artifact can be safely channeled without interference form the people below apart from some ranged skills with huge AoE.

The whole artifact alcove needs to be shrunk by about 50% to the point where if two people start out at the bottom and one binks up, the other who walks instead should have enough time to interrupt the channel

Ninjablob.9321:

right, lets add a category thats going to be used 0-2 times per year and split the small pvp population even further, although not like more than a dozen people will queue up in it

Exactly the same amount of people will queue up for it as they do now. Forcing people who don’t want to queue up for a particular map to randomly play on that map and waste their precious time only makes for a lot of angry people. Not everyone is a college student with unlimited time, some of us can’t afford to waste 15 min of our life every time someone decides to click on a different map and the roll happens to go their way.

If they want us to play the beta map, we need to be allowed to play the beta map. I don’t want to queue up to maybe play that map. No one does.

Ninjablob.9321:

even just doing the pvp dailies with 2-3 games per day will get you all achievements in a month

While I completely agree with that sentiment, I have maybe a couple of hours to play GW2 on a good day. More on the weekends if I want to dedicate all my free time to GW2 (which I usually don’t, so it boils down the same amount). At the way things currently stand, only about half of the matches actually happen to be Coliseum, which means that literally half of my time is wasted on absolutely nothing or I’m the kitten that deserts the match because I can actually put that time to better use. Of course, there are also other things I want to be doing in GW2 besides hopelessly trying to carry the team for a pointlessly grindy achievement. There are other events happening at almost any given time and I’m a guild leader as well.

In essence, all that the current system amounts to is a whole lot of anger and frustration for everyone involved. I think reducing the amount of toxicity in the community should always take priority over getting what the devs want. They might have to extend the duration of the beta by a factor of 2 or 3 to get the same amount of data, but if the players are content, the likelihood of them providing constructive criticism increases exponentially. I was all for beta testing Capricorn, but by the time I finished all the achievements, I had literally nothing I wanted to say about the map, I just wanted to leave the whole experience behind me. Most of the people I’ve talked to shared that experience.

Ninjablob.9321:

The whole artifact alcove needs to be shrunk by about 50% to the point where if two people start out at the bottom and one binks up, the other who walks instead should have enough time to interrupt the channel

Agreed, the way the artifacts currently work is ridiculous. Sadly, because of the current state of the game, most of the matches I played were so horribly one-sided that the artifacts didn’t make one bit of a difference either way, so I can’t tell what kind of effect this imbalance ultimately has.

Achievement Hunter chiming here and therefore biased:

Normal Queue with all maps and voting system and a second Queue only for the Beta-Map . There done. Would be this easy.

If thats not possible just remove the Achievements linked to the map, then only PvP players will deal with the map.

They are not playing anything else but Kyhlo? Maybe fix the other maps or spent actual work on meaningful PvP changes.

Take my anger with salt because I sure am salty as hell. Today was one of the few days where I can actually spent some time PvPing. Result? I had 12 Games, 7 of them on Colosseum yet I gained nothing. Why? Because none of them where wins and only two out of seven Colosseum games were actually fun and not blow-outs because players:

- Never connected
- Left after a bad fight in mid
- Did not try
- got completely outskilled/outclassed by the opponent

Sure, L2P issues are involved because I am not great at GW2 PvP but kitten , I “only” need 14 more wins to finish this kittening achievement yet I only wasted my time.

I won the five non-colosseum games, ironically enough because of the same reasons (AFK, leavers, etc.. But these wins are just worthless to me as they did not increase the Achievement.
To add Insult to Injury? Two of these “wins” had the amazing map voting system going for the 1/10 probability for the odd map rather than the 9/10 vote for colosseum.

And you expect players to stay calm and “enjoy” this waste of ressources?

wait ur mad that they make us beta test for them for free instead of properly having a ptr like every other game in existence?
oh ya im mad about it too, shameful.