Guild Wars 2

after playing wvw for over 1200 hrs, i finally decided to do get into pvp to improve my skills. but i am immediately disappointed and planning to stop already.
here are few reasons and need some suggestions
1. people always say how wvw is a big zerg, i am getting the same feeling in pvp, 8vs8 , there hardly and opportunity to fight even, its always 1vs2 or 2vs3 and likes
2. condi rules, it seems that only condition dmg rules, i get 10 conditions within seconds and am dead before i could even blink
3. imbalanced matches, more often than not my team has about 4 people less than lvl 10 and the opposite team has at least 4 with rank 25+, we get killed even before the match is begun.
4. always out manned, cos of the above reason, we are mostly 1 person less cos someone left midway
5. constantly fighting/matched the same people over and over again. the only way to avoid it seems to wait for few an hour or so and play again.
maybe i am doing something or judging too fast, but i find pvp to be just as imbalanced as wvw, however atleast wvw is fun for me so far.

and the most annoying thing is that guy constantly talking about updates, is there anyway to shut him up?

Don’t play 8v8 servers. In fact, don’t play servers at all, go straight for the tournaments.

It’s good to see detailed opinions of players that join PvP their first time. These are aspects that veteran-players can’t bring up into this forum, therefore it will help developers a lot, just because they see another point of view.
Good to see that you tried something new. Sad to hear that it is not fun for you, but it’s the opinion of the majority. So no surprise.

So you tried 8v8 hotjoin, and called it a day?

The current infrascturure is the cancer of SPvP, sooner or later things will begin to fall apart. And I’ve been a advocate for defending SPvP ever since launch. With time we all grow tired.

Don’t bash on him, because the first time he played pvp was in hotjoin. I think 99% of players would have done the same. Remember back your first day of PvP. I doubt you entered straight 3-round tournaments.
Besides that it’s good he experience PvP outside of tournaments. This gives him a look over all maps and how things work. It’s fatal to go straight into tournaments without any knowledge of the mode nor the maps nor the second objectives.

Goshh…

You play’d hot join and most of pvp players dont like it.
Find yourself a group(with some communication tools like TS) and get tournament a try.

3+4+5 parts , sound like tPvP to me .

Salluks.6017 , the ncp that u talked to , in order to join a PvP match was a) redhead female , or b) a dude with black hair ?

The current point system rewards kills far better and higher than capping points, awkward for a Conquest type game.

I’m in the same boat as you, was rank 11 a few weeks ago, rank 14 now. If you don’t play the game how its meant to, it’s fun. I use sPvP as a proving ground for new builds and my 1vX, 2vX skill improvement rather than trying to win.

It may seem wrong that OP is judging his first sPvP experience based on 8v8 game he experienced in hot join.

But hey. What else has Anet given to people that want to try sPvP? This has been the story since game release day. Hundreds of thousands of people tried this sPvP and the first experience they got was in hot-join. The most terrible way to start your sPvP expierience, but that IS what Anet gave them.

To me it would seem as if they don’t even want people to like their sPvP. Ever since launch I was constantly repeating myself on this forum, that they have to make a match-up system similar to what they had in GW1 with RA and TA. Didn’t happen, and great many players left GW2 sPvP for good, because their experience in hot join was so terrible.

To be honest I can’t really blame them, because Anet is to blame. And someone that is way too snowed in on his ideas of sPvP in GW2.

Yes the point of GW2 sPvP is in 5v5. But Anet never did anything to actually help a new player experience that 5v5 that way it was meant to be.

At launch even paid tournaments didn’t work for quite a while, so everyone was forced to do the joke called hot-join.

Now that thousands of players left sPvP for good, they’ve got this system, that matches a premade versus a team of soloquers… Because the system has no players to work with any more anyway.

Fail upon fail upon fail from Anet, that refused to act while there was still time. Even if one could ever understand why they made hot-join servers in the first place. It even took them months to change a few servers from 8v8 to 5v5…

I’ll say it again: Anet – look at your RA->TA system from your past game Guild Wars 1. Remeber it? Cool, copy that system, and hope it’s not to late to profit from it. Tho I think it is to late indeed.

It s nice to see some ppl are trying out to change games type, it s a pity they don’t like it :/
so here s my advice to you :
1. Try 5v5, or tournaments with other guys, but hot join 5v5 are the best way to learn when you re new. 8v8 are known to be land of farming for high lvl pvp players.
2. I don’t know what class you re playing but try not avoiding aoe and some condi cleanse, you shouldn’t get so much bothered by condi.
3. a big hot join problem, but as i said 8v8 is farming land, and high lvl player usually group up to kill little noobs (no harm intended), the only solution is to try to get to their team or just kill them if you re skilled enough
4. see number3
5. try changing server, but playing against same ppl is good as you get to know their builds and counter it.

Anyway, try not to give up so early, pvp is great, i wish you luck and maybe we will encounter on the battlefield (if we do you won’t spend a minute alive srry :p ).

Poplolita.2638:

So you tried 8v8 hotjoin, and called it a day?

its my first time i tried, i clicked on the guy standing with X on his head and joined.

what did u expectme to do, read thru 1000 pages of documents before going in

8v8 sPvP is a zergfest, it’s unavoidable salluks.6017. A suggestion is to use a build with teleports/mobility so that you can disengage whenever.
In WvW you can build rather defensive and use high attrition specs like a 0/0/30/25/15 P/D thief spec to win single target fights, but in an 8v8 it’s all about AoE cleave damage. It’s a glory farm. It’s about who can tag the most targets to get the most points while staying alive.

Rank doesn’t matter too much if you are an avid small group WvW’er or someone who is accustomed to competitive PvP. You must know your enemy, what moves will he use in a certain setup, what utilities he will carry, and how he will setup large bursts. PvP is all about countering your enemy, whether your role is to stall, or burst down a target. However rank is an indication of how much time a player has spent in sPvP, and high rankers really are only ahead of you in terms of experience and developed reflexes. We all have the same stats and gear, just different builds and approaches to situations.

I’ll try to address your concerns:
1. in 8v8, please take note of where your teammates are on the map, and check their hp bars. If they are wiping on a point, don’t feed them. Try back capping. When you get 1v2 or 2v3, stall or look for a way out. Be mindful of surroundings and leg it if you’re about to get ganked.

2. Condi spam can be due to necro/engi and they are almost always aimed at a crowd/on point. They can be countered by condi removal or not getting hit at all. Grenades can be dodged, staff marks can be rolled through, and you can CC/blind the caster. You can also gain higher ground/stealth/blink to stay out of the way. Put pressure on the condi caster so he will worry more about keeping himself alive than killing you. Count his skills, what he has used, what to look for. Keep track of damaging conditions like burning and bleeding stacks and remove as soon as they try to burst stack a ton on you.

3. With experience you will be able to hold your own 1v1. Don’t sweat outnumbered since you are likely to die anyway. Play more, rank up, and you will get a feel for countering players. I constantly ask myself what could I have done better.

4. In 8v8 people constantly enter and exit. They farm points and leave whenever they want (like a shopping centre). Just switch teams to balance and always run with the crowd. Not in it, but off side so you can pick targets/react to attacks directed at you.

5. Switch to another 8v8 server; there are lots. Try 5v5 ones too. When you have a solid build and play style and have worked out your 5v5 role (Bunker-Support/Pressure DPS/Burst), try tournaments. They offer a better challenge.

If you mean the update yellow text, there is no way to turn it off. You can however, exit game and restart immediately when it says “new build available. your game will restart in 3 minutes”.

If you need pointers on how to deal with a specific class/ refine your style in a certain profession, you can ask in the related forums. From your description, condis fly everywhere, but do you know what skills cause condi application? Who did what? That takes practice to spot.

I’ve said before that those 8v8 hotjoins are the bane of growing this pvp community, new players don’t want to queue for rated tournaments, of course they don’t, you’re just learning how to play something for the first time. So they hot join, usually those 8v8s and yeah it’s a mess, no one cares about actually playing it’s just zerging, as soon as one side is getting farmed people start leaving which makes it worse… I mean it’s a TERRIBLE introduction to spvp but, where else are they going to go? It may be even worse if they queue up for a tournament with how the matchmaking is now and the risk of getting a premade, I mean if you’re a new player, queue up for the first tournament and go against a full or mostly full (3-4) premade of rank 30+ and get utterly farmed, what do you think are the chances that player will queue again?

Solution: custom maps should all be 5v5 players tops, 8v8 maps are just used for mindless glory farming, I don’t understand why they are in the game in the first place they hurt the community and confuse the hell out of new players because they don’t even resemble tournament settings.

Split the solo and team queue and the ladders for it. Improve the match making system. When players first arrive in the mist recommend that they solo queue to build their skill as opposed to custom maps, and the system will group them with other new players who are all also solo joiners. That’s a proper entry path to pvp.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

3+4+5 parts , sound like tPvP to me .

Salluks.6017 , the ncp that u talked to , in order to join a PvP match was a) redhead female , or b) a dude with black hair ?

i joined normal pvp, i dindt wanna join tournament as i think i will pull down others in the team,

i figure tournaments are ranked and therefore more serious?

stof.9341:

Don’t play 8v8 servers. In fact, don’t play servers at all, go straight for the tournaments.

What this guy said, since anet doesn’t want to fix hotjoins just don’t play that garbage, I know you people don’t like getting farmed and you will in hotjoins however in tournaments people might hate you because your rank 1 or 2 but at least your not getting farmed.

salluks.6017:

3. imbalanced matches, more often than not my team has about 4 people less than lvl 10 and the opposite team has at least 4 with rank 25+, we get killed even before the match is begun.

See image below? Its just high level players, even players on leaderboards and win back to back to back tournament games come to hotjoins and stack teams so they can dish out the most rank points as possible because it offers more and there’s no wait time either. I’ve already told anet how to fix it by limiting rank points to 200 whether they chose to do so or not is up to them but its not my problem, its their problem.

8v8 isn’t pvp. It is just kittened zerging and shouldn’t be in the game.

Dojo.1867:

8v8 isn’t pvp. It is just kittened zerging and shouldn’t be in the game.

This. Pure wisdom.

Ralkuth.1456:

If you mean the update yellow text, there is no way to turn it off. You can however, exit game and restart immediately when it says “new build available. your game will restart in 3 minutes”.

If you need pointers on how to deal with a specific class/ refine your style in a certain profession, you can ask in the related forums. From your description, condis fly everywhere, but do you know what skills cause condi application? Who did what? That takes practice to spot.

thanks,, i meant the guys who keeps saying,
u lose waterfall, someone killed someone, wow did u see that, and stuff like that in game. its quite annoying imo. but not really a problem.

i try to see the condi dmg, but i am dead even before i know what hit me, i dont know much about necro/mesmers which seem to be the preferred classes in here.
ill read up their skills a bit.

salluks.6017:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

3+4+5 parts , sound like tPvP to me .

Salluks.6017 , the ncp that u talked to , in order to join a PvP match was a) redhead female , or b) a dude with black hair ?

i joined normal pvp, i dindt wanna join tournament as i think i will pull down others in the team,

i figure tournaments are ranked and therefore more serious?

People see ranked games as something dead serious ! OMG, we are ranked, there’s a leaderboard ! I’ll annoy my teammates if I don’t tryhard.

WRONG! I see the ranked mode as the ideal mode for, well, for anyone short of the very very top players that might prefer organized tournaments. Ranked mode means the game has a rough idea of your skill level. It also means usually that it’ll find you a game with people of your own skill level too.

If you are someone that doesn’t really cares for the game and plays bad, you’ll get matched with similar minded people more or less so who would have a legitimate complaint about you then since they are supposed to be as “bad” as you? :p

salluks.6017:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

3+4+5 parts , sound like tPvP to me .

Salluks.6017 , the ncp that u talked to , in order to join a PvP match was a) redhead female , or b) a dude with black hair ?

i joined normal pvp, i dindt wanna join tournament as i think i will pull down others in the team,

i figure tournaments are ranked and therefore more serious?

In tournaments you build for specific roles, Bunker-support, and different types of roamers. They have experience with the specs they are using and go for specific targets and map objectives to win the match.
When you run in a group of 5 players, communication is key to winning team fights. They will often employ Teamspeak 3, Ventrilo or something similar to coordinate bursts, point defence and rezzes.

That said, try solo queuing tournaments to get a taste of what it’s like. You may not win much the first week or so, but you can observe what they do, how they do it. Join a PvP guild of some sort so they can teach you things. 1v1 Duelling servers are ok, but people tend to bring OP 1v1 Duelling specs (well duh…) with them. At the very least, you will be able to see clearly what they are doing, and you will learn to read the tells. Ask questions… they do help if you are polite/persistent. You can also spectate, and look at builds… but playing more is encouraged.

salluks.6017:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

3+4+5 parts , sound like tPvP to me .

Salluks.6017 , the ncp that u talked to , in order to join a PvP match was a) redhead female , or b) a dude with black hair ?

i joined normal pvp, i dindt wanna join tournament as i think i will pull down others in the team,

i figure tournaments are ranked and therefore more serious?

Just gathering data here :P

So u where atracted the 2 golden swords icon = that they can fix
U know where sPvP(normal pcp) and tPvP(tournament) NPC are located = so thats good (other ppl believe that newers players cannot discover things)
So <<Tournament PvP>> name is kinda intiamting to u = hmm…

Question: do u push the <<Join Now>> , or u try <<manually>> to find a server with low ppl ?

salluks.6017:

Ralkuth.1456:

If you mean the update yellow text, there is no way to turn it off. You can however, exit game and restart immediately when it says “new build available. your game will restart in 3 minutes”.

If you need pointers on how to deal with a specific class/ refine your style in a certain profession, you can ask in the related forums. From your description, condis fly everywhere, but do you know what skills cause condi application? Who did what? That takes practice to spot.

thanks,, i meant the guys who keeps saying,
u lose waterfall, someone killed someone, wow did u see that, and stuff like that in game. its quite annoying imo. but not really a problem.

i try to see the condi dmg, but i am dead even before i know what hit me, i dont know much about necro/mesmers which seem to be the preferred classes in here.
ill read up their skills a bit.

You can look up the combat log, and the after death damage listing. But to know what skill hit you, you would most likely need to check the class out yourself. Look up some specs and try the classic setups…

Condi necro 0/30/20/0/20 etc
Burst mesmer 20/20/0/0/30 etc
Look up videos on how they deliver those numbers; youtube is a good reservoir of such things.

Try to find tournament PoV of 1 class, those help, and not the montages that only show big crits… they don’t really tell you much.

Practise lots… you’ll get there. There are only so many viable standard builds and their variation, you’ll be able to understand the reasoning behind them one by one.

Dojo.1867:

8v8 isn’t pvp. It is just kittened zerging and shouldn’t be in the game.

1v1 5v5 8v8 50v50 actually is pvp, it’s just that 8v8 is revolving around the brute force you can dish with a group synergizing together rather than the “skill” of each of thoses players.

i have played 1200 hrs of wvw, u guys are acting like i bought the game today lol .

i said i tried spvp for the first time..

hotjoins are not an accurate representation of sPvP, but it has its uses. you can try out your build’s effectiveness in a myriad of scenarios, for example, including outmanned situations where two or more people come at you.

also, keep in mind that you NEED to bring some sort of reliable cleansing and stunbreak if you want to last. this isn’t WvW, your WvW builds won’t work on it. i say that because on WvW it’s common procedure to rely on people around you for stability and cleanses, but on sPvP that just won’t cut it, unless you set up a tournament team where two players are constantly glued to each other.

stof.9341:

Don’t play 8v8 servers. In fact, don’t play servers at all, go straight for the tournaments.

Not right now though.

Skyhammer is… a special map.

Funny thing is he will try solo tourney’s, he will get a nice 10 loses 1 win, with lots of condimancers and engies, plus the usual mesmer.
Some games will be 4 vs 5 too.
He will stop and go wvw again (i recommend u try roaming in wvw, it’s a way better pvp experience than spvp tournies).

Baldric.6781:

Funny thing is he will try solo tourney’s, he will get a nice 10 loses 1 win, with lots of condimancers and engies, plus the usual mesmer.
Some games will be 4 vs 5 too.
He will stop and go wvw again (i recommend u try roaming in wvw, it’s a way better pvp experience than spvp tournies).

True, I’m not sure if they touched matchmaking but I haven’t played a single premade in 10 games although I was in the 60-90% whereas in same percentile I’d face several premades. Maybe it was luck but if they changed it, most games were fair however I saw huge increase in 4v5 games again. There has to be some kind of checker. Where before a game is made it notifies everyone there has been a game found press ready to show that you are ready.

I still see 4 of the same profession on the same team though.

When I started playing it took me a few days to notice the tournament-npc. I always went to the nearest one (the hotjoin).

Solo-queueing wasn’t/isn’t very clear either. You have to make a roster and submit it. I didn’t know you could do this solo.

@OP the issue is that you tried 8v8 hotjoin which is just bad. no other way to put it, hotjoin sucks. Tournaments are SOOOOOO much fun though. I have about 1k hours put into wvw as well and for the past 3 months i have been non-stop pvping.