Guild Wars 2

For those of you who played guild wars 1 on release, I was in a guild called The Morning After. For a brief time we were rank 1 in the beginning of GvG taking down the likes of Esotaric, Frost etc. I gotta say Guild Wars 1 GvG was the most incredible gaming experience I’ve ever had, and for a competitive gamer that’s saying a lot. I know GW2 is in kind of a slump right now, but I want to get the ball rolling for a competitive scene. It’s not enough to expect Arena Net to do something about it.

A great example is League of Legends and Riot Games. Riot was a tiny company that created a MOBA that people started to enjoy. The PLAYERS started forming tournaments, leagues, ladders, etc. Solo Mid was the new place for players to go for competitive League of Legends advice, guides and tutorials. Riot saw this, saw the viewer numbers and went crazy, eventually forming league seasons, the LCS, Worlds and now sponsored salary pro-gamers. The thing that sets League of Legends apart from a normal e-sports game is the accessibility. You can download the game for free, and boom, you get to jump right in.

This is where Guild Wars 2 shines as well. Aside from the cost of the game, you get to jump RIGHT into the action in any pvp you want, and play and learn and be competitive. With Guild Wars 2 having that kind of accessibility, I see huge potential for a competitive scene. The problem I see right now is the casting of tournaments, and lack of prize pools. It takes people to step up to do this sort of thing. People don’t want to watch tournaments cast by people who don’t know spell names, or who cant use the camera properly.

On the other side of it, the way that Guild Wars 2 works is hard to cast for, so I think for future player-held tournaments, we really need point cameras on the streams, so that you can see all 3 points on the stream plus whatever action is going on. Then, the casters would have an easier time seeing whats going on and commentating as such.

I want to get the ball rolling because GW1 was such a huge step in the right direction for team-oriented competitive MMO PvP, I want to see GW2 flourish. I need a few like-minded people to get things going. High-level people who can start streaming, taking donations and using the donations to fund properly held tournaments. GW2 isn’t going to take off if the viewers aren’t as passionate about it as the players are, and you don’t get that without solid streams and casters. So if you’re interested in helping me set up what I think could be a pretty big thing let me know! Get a hold of me, reply here and lets get things started.

On the other side, lets get a discussion going. Why do you think GW2 hasn’t taken off? Give me some ideas so we can set it up the right way.

Nice read.

I think for many teams it was the Anet’s focus on PvE. PvP dev team is obviously understaffed, resulting in quite slow developement. My old team (Walk The Plank [Yarr]) left the game exactly because of this. Having Svanir Runes-invul-point capping as well as blockbug rule the meta for a month was a dealbreaker for them.

I hope the 2-week patch cycle is here to stay, not just one-time thing. It could really help bring back some faith in Anet.

The two problems that will stop this game from taking off are the Combat System and the Conquest Only map rotation.

The combat and skill system is epic fail when compared to the original game. Conquest maps should be a part of the map rotation, but not the ONLY rotation. It gets old really fast.

The ultimate bottom line is that the game simply isn’t fun enough.

Lack of diversity of play styles and skills , No guild ladder/leaderboard . That my reasons

^ Diversity of play styles isn’t in question, it has to be reactionary. You don’t get to be competitive without being essentially competitive, watching your opponents and building around what they normally run is a great way to get ahead. I’m not talking about a ladder, I’m talking about a player-run competitive scene. Arena net isn’t going to hand you a great system on a platter, they have to see the profit before they’ll do anything. Creating a system through the community will get you there a lot faster, and will mean more to the viewers than having nothing. You guys are talking about solo queuing pvp and I’m talking about a legit community based league system. Two completely different things.

Well guild pvp needs promoting somehow , i cant think of a better way than in game ladder/leaderboard tbh

I wish you the best of lucks, good initiative.

Right, but why would Arena Net pour money into something they aren’t sure will work? Casual gamers are a great way to make money, and thats what they have their hand in right now. The community has to show them that the game can be successful competitively by itself before they’ll do anything about it. Even with Starcraft 1, people had to run their own tournaments before organizations picked up. Even now, Blizzard doesn’t run any SC2 tournaments, it’s all MLG/ESL/etc. and the ladder in-game doesn’t mean anything based on those leagues and such. So why would you expect our game to be so special as to not require that same kind of work?

Tundera.7956:

^ Diversity of play styles isn’t in question, it has to be reactionary. You don’t get to be competitive without being essentially competitive, watching your opponents and building around what they normally run is a great way to get ahead. I’m not talking about a ladder, I’m talking about a player-run competitive scene. Arena net isn’t going to hand you a great system on a platter, they have to see the profit before they’ll do anything. Creating a system through the community will get you there a lot faster, and will mean more to the viewers than having nothing. You guys are talking about solo queuing pvp and I’m talking about a legit community based league system. Two completely different things.

It’s getting there. The initial problems are two fold, but there are steps being taken by several bases that will benefit the game.

1). Arenanet mistakenly stated they were going to be an Esports game, but did not have the tools in place to be one on release. This infuriated a large portion of the competitive NA scene. Months later we have leaderboards, but they are in such a state, no one cares about them. This leads to custom arenas, and spectator mode which just launched.

2). Custom Arenas are still in beta, they are buggy, have weird camera angles, and the camera is quite touchy for the shoutcasters. This can lead to weird gameplay footage.

3). Because Grouch for the longest time was alone in his fight to keep the esports conversation alive most of the NA community delved into solo queuers who began to bicker like little school girls amongst themselves. I have a lot of good friends in the tournament scene, and if any of them disagree on this I will smack them. It’s like dealing with grade school girls trying to form a team. It’s ridiculous some of the petty little squabbles that go on.

So what can we do to fix it.

1). The SOAC Profession Touranment and king of the custom Beta shows there is a desire for esports.

2). We need practice for the shoutcasters, and more highly organized tournaments. This scrim when you want and get me the record of the game won’t work if you want things to work. Your point about bad shoutcasting is ridiculous at this point. GW2 just got spectating, how do you expect people to figure everything out already. Please leave the shoutcasters alone for a few months.

3). We need to stop having every tom, richard, and harry creating tournaments. There are so many people trying to create tournaments that it will splinter the very small community. We are all trying to get a piece of the pie when the pie hasn’t been made yet. We need to get together and work together.

SOACGaming has no interest in dividing the community. It’s why we are in constant contact with Grouch, Blu, towerdivetv, and Arenanet about what we are doing, and to make sure that we aren’t battling with each other, but rather working together. We have offered to host weekday fun tournaments to help shoutcasters. We are working with Grouch on the Esports scene. We are working with Blu, Android, and towerdive.tv on helping shoutcasters get the experience needed.

This is our goal. If we work together it can happen. If we don’t, than it will fail.

Tundera.7956:

It’s not enough to expect Arena Net to do something.

The ball is in Anet’s court and, as you know, it could stay there for a long… long… long… time.
The problem isn’t that the players aren’t forming leagues and tournies, that there aren’t esports tools and allot of shoutcasters, but quite simply, that Anet made a bad game.

ALLOT OF PEOPLE wanted to see GW2 flourish, but then they played it.

It may sound cruel and I’m sorry…
But this game had the population, this isn’t some off the charts hit looking to make a name for itself, GW2 had a kittening EXTREME population at launch and had and still does have no MMO competition when it comes to PvP. GW2 had dozens of hardcore Esports teams lining up to play it… people who praised the predecessor as a godsend of PvP gaming… but lost them all… to nothing…

That isn’t something that can be fixed with shoutcasting and player run tournies.
It’s a weeeeeee bit bigger :’(

Well. First off the reason GW2 has not taken off yet, is because spectator mode and CA’s were only introduced like 14 days ago (and are still in beta).
But already we have seen great initiative from Grouch(Guru)/Vonethil/Blu and others, and there is an upcoming EU tournaments with a 500$ price pool.
It’s all about keeping it alive from here.
A lot of people will try to bring the game down by spamming forums with: “lol. game iz dead yo” and “broken meta, broken game. qq anet”
So it’s important that we show people that Gw2 can be fun to play and watch.
At the moment many people are getting bored because the IG tournaments rarely shift map. This means that you’ll play Battle Of Kyhlo 30 times a day, which gets boring fast.
This however is a problem that we cannot do anything about, except host our own tournaments. But CA’s are currently in Beta so limited people have access.

What can we / you do?
The competitive scene needs more dedicated teams. Atm we have very few teams that are actually practicing compositions, and Team Paradigm is basically winning everything.
We need more competition, we need more teams that can push eachother and the game. Right now, the meta is whatever TP is running. So what we need is for 5 brave men to sit down a whole week doing nothing but practice different strats and synergies.
Tournaments are fine, but they will never be competitive if there is no competition.

^^^ totally agree Anet needs to run tournies , monthlies etc with rewards/prizes etc . Also there is no Guild pvp atm . Just implementing a guild ladder would help a lot to make it flourish …

I think we can expect some pretty great things to happen for the GW2 Esports scene this summer, it’s not just about players competing right now, there’s already a sort of race between community members and smaller scale organisations to see who can rely capture the viewer demographic and set themselves up to do the whole “esports” thing long term.

The community funded/smaller scale tournies are great right now, and I think contrary to what Bas stated, everyone interested in helping the game get off its feet should be trying to set these up. Smaller scale tournies are going to give the shoutcasters and players alike more practice and slowly build up a viewerbase for the bigger tournaments that will come this summer.

What it is ultimately going to come down to is who can throw the tournies with the biggest prize pools, and there are only 2 organisations interested in GW2 esports right now that are negotiating with large scale companies (not going to name who) for sponsored tournies. Ijs, the first people to throw a 10k, 20k, 30k tourney this summer are going to be the ones that rely turn this game into an accepted esport.

There’s like 10 different groups trying to set up leagues and ladders and competitive sites ect, I think mist league will ultimately be the dominant site for this. But we rely won’t know till October or so. If you’re interested in setting up a league or community stream or something like that, it would be better to get in touch with a group that’s already doing it, as it will create a stronger product and a stronger scene in the long run.

-the OP was talking about a sort of community stream, I believe scarjarbinx/gasmask/grouch were talking about something similar awhile ago. Hit them up and see what they’ve got before starting a whole new project. Pretty sure their’s was going to be on the Anet twitch channel (kind of like HighRez smite stream).

KrisHQ.4719:

We need more competition, we need more teams that can push eachother and the game.

They all left because the game was bad.
I’m not being derogatory or saying it just to rain on your parade.

I’m not joking.
I am trying to help.

If you want GW2 to thrive, push the devs.
Focus in on the games serious shortcomings, like these, and push the devs to make changes.
Make them setup posts about what changes they are focusing on so the community (especially ‘competitive’ players) can help them come up with the necessary solutions (especially around base map mechanics) to get GW2 into a workable place. Get them to make, or comment on community made, charts of where each profession is at in each role, what synergies there are, and where those things should be at. It’d open up the game’s progress and invite real change that would not just balance, but deepen/better GW2’s gameplay helping make it into what people at launch were dying to see.

But please don’t start pushing for an Esport now…
Pushing a game to be an esport before it is at all ready will only burn out anyone with an ounce of hope in GW2 and dry up any possible people willing to give it a second shot.

The best thing right now that anyone could do for GW2 is help the game play better, not a rush for esports.

If you don’t think so, fair enough, I can’t tell you the future, only my thought process.

League of Legends doesn’t have much diversity either. For every position and hero there are only one or two optimal builds with minor deviations for different situations. Nobody plays Dominion and the only competitive gamemode has always been Summoner’s Rift. That said, a game can be successful without much diversity of playstyles and gamemodes.

The problem with GuildWars2’s sPvP from an esport perspective is, that the matches are not fun to watch.

1.) Too many combat effects: Even with few players fighting on a node, it’s impossible for a spectator to spot the smart and decisive actions. It’s exactly the opposite of “this well-placed Amumu ult just won the teamfight”.

2.) Linear score accumulation: Just recall all the desperate tries of the shoutcasters in the Tournament yesterday to keep the match interesting, even though it has already been over. After few minutes you can declare a winner, if the score difference is high enough. Comebacks are impossible.

FirstBlood.7359:

League of Legends doesn’t have much diversity either. For every position and hero there are only one or two optimal builds with minor deviations for different situations. Nobody plays Dominion and the only competitive gamemode has always been Summoner’s Rift. That said, a game can be successful without much diversity of playstyles and gamemodes.

The problem with GuildWars2’s sPvP from an esport perspective is, that the matches are not fun to watch.

1.) Too many combat effects: Even with few players fighting on a node, it’s impossible for a spectator to spot the smart and decisive actions. It’s exactly the opposite of “this well-placed Amumu ult just won the teamfight”.

2.) Linear score accumulation: Just recall all the desperate tries of the shoutcasters in the Tournament yesterday to keep the match interesting, even though it has already been over. After few minutes you can declare a winner, if the score difference is high enough. Comebacks are impossible.

Agree with this.

I didn’t feel how cluttered GW2 was until I tried watching the past few streams that have been going on as of late. So much information felt lost.

The scoring system is my biggest issue with Conquest. Slow tick is boring as hell to watch, and tbh it’s the least exciting aspect of Conquest when you play it. It lacks any climactic impact of it’s own accord. Adrenaline coming in really when a score is close and decided via boss-kill/player-kill/orb cap or maybe very rarily a buff cap (which will usually not be exciting to see). Rarely you’ll comeback with a lord rush which can often not be a practical option which is relatively unrewarding to go for but simultaneously feels undeveloped if defending.

Only further enhanced by map design where clocktower for instance has “walk all the way around” ledges on a crazy small circle or lack of practical cover-fire options at Windmill. Outside of that little joke of a hut so far removed from the point since all the good stuff blows up after a sneeze and never respawns.

FirstBlood.7359:

Comebacks are impossible.

This. Conquests points in GW2 need to be more like Victory Points in Company of Heroes.

That is to say when Red holds one point, Blue holds one point, and no one holds the third point, the score doesn’t tick.

This will drag out matches a bit more, and the game becomes a push/shove rather bunker up.

It’d be nice if the underdog team could stop the score ticker and make a comeback, something that Company of Heroes did extremely well.

Comebacks are possible, but rare. See the SOAC tourney Saturday… my first match we were up by like 100 but ended up losing by like 30. The thief/guardian match went 500-499 and came down to a last second stomp. Those were exciting to watch.

Unfortunately it doesn’t happen enough.

Mackdose.6504:

FirstBlood.7359:

Comebacks are impossible.

This. Conquests points in GW2 need to be more like Victory Points in Company of Heroes.

That is to say when Red holds one point, Blue holds one point, and no one holds the third point, the score doesn’t tick.

This will drag out matches a bit more, and the game becomes a push/shove rather bunker up.

It’d be nice if the underdog team could stop the score ticker and make a comeback, something that Company of Heroes did extremely well.

I totally agree and actually mentioned this way back during the beta weekends. Adjust the total score to win, and only give point ticks to the team with more caps. The amount of points could be the margin of caps… ie triple capped is 3 points still, but a 2-1 cap is 1 point a second for the team with the 2 cap.

Adjust points for kills and objectives (forest bosses, watch orb, etc). Comebacks would become more feasible and a team would feel like they had a shot all the way to the very end.

Not every LoL game is a split second decision either. The recent LCS games in the promotion series have had plenty of stomps where one team just absolutely pooped on the other team, and the majority of ranked/normal games are surrendered at 20 minutes or soon after. We can’t really expect a lot of exciting games right now because let’s face it, the team competition isn’t really there. You need teams with similar skill to really push each other to close games, and with so few players and questionable queueing systems, that isn’t common right now.

Some maps have systems in place for really good comebacks (Lord rush, stealing forest buffs, orb, and the one thing on the frozen map I always forget), the key is having them develop these maps so that they are really as competitive and playable at a high level.

GW1 pvp took off since beta. In GW2, it just kept going downhill after beta. Reason = the community? No. Stop blaming the community. The community will only be excited about PvP if only it was worth it.

The PvP in gw2 isn’t nearly as strategic as it was in gw1. The dev’s philosophy of “catering to casual players” dumbed gw2’s combat system down. It’s a real flat and boring combat system consisting of 1 spams (because of no mana pool). Blame the devs. for this.

My Solution (biased probably) = give sPvP a sense of progression (at least add better rewards). Then add more complexities, more skills, more weapons, take out weapon swap recharge, add a mana pool, add a “quickness” stat so players can control how fast they attack, add a new trait tree to complement the new quickness stat, etc… And if complexity doesn’t do it, new features such as any I mentioned gives more customization option to players which is always a good thing.

Top 5 reasons why Guild Wars 2 hasn’t taken off:
1. Lack of Build diversity
2.Lack of Rewards/Incentive
3. No Separate queues/ Horribly designed Tournament system that failed
4. 1 game mode
5. Horribly designed leader board

My top 2 are lack of reward/incentive and seperated queues/tourny system. You can just tell there is a huge lack of funding in Guild Wars 2 pvp. Comparing the content from pvp and pve it seems so unfair.

…anyway good luck trying to revive this mess

When did you say your guild made it to top 1?

Anyway, I think it would be better if the devs focused on improvements to the gameplay rather than making the game easier to cast.

Having fun playing a game > any e-sport crap

Rewards/incentive, and the separation of PvP/PvE.

Yes, separate the balance part, but that should have been it.

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

Top 5 reasons why Guild Wars 2 hasn’t taken off:
1. Lack of Build diversity
2.Lack of Rewards/Incentive
3. No Separate queues/ Horribly designed Tournament system that failed
4. 1 game mode
5. Horribly designed leader board

My top 2 are lack of reward/incentive and seperated queues/tourny system. You can just tell there is a huge lack of funding in Guild Wars 2 pvp. Comparing the content from pvp and pve it seems so unfair.

…anyway good luck trying to revive this mess

Adding to that list, the god awful hot-join system. The basics of competitive play, teams must start with equal players per side. This is the first reason new players never return to PvP. Which in turn causes population stagnation and decline.

Part of why GW1 PvP succeeded was due to it’s basic infrastructure to keep matches competitive. GW2 has its hot-join servers mirroring an FPS game format. Maybe that’s were the dev line of “PvP for the sake of just killing” came from?

Also really miss the /resign command, to end non-competitive matches.

A lot of teams failed to adapt. Stomping all over my heroes from gw1 was a pretty depressing experience.

It is purely about the skills sets (and to some extent, the animations associated) and general game design.

Guild Wars 2 is horribly kitey, and there is literally not a single kit on any character in the entire game that has anything like the tightness and personality of even a mediocre League of Legends champion.

Tying skills to weapons sets to make it impossible to customise builds (other than which set of compulsory 30+ second cooldowns you want) AND relying on so many ‘big circle on the ground’ combos were both SPECTACULARLY bad moves from any point of view, PvP or PvE. You literally cannot show someone a Guild Wars 2 PvP video and see something that makes sense and looks graphical impressive.

It’s just a bunch of people jumping around circles quickly with the occasional ludicrously fast weapon animation going off, for not very much effect.

Add to that the even more ridiculous stuff, like perma-stealth (not even WoW suffered from something so dumb) and the fun killing zerginess of WvW and it’s clear that Anet needs to completely clear out its design team and start over with people who have even the faintest clue what they’re really trying to build.

Thanks for the kind words, guys. Remember though – this isn’t about just me or any one person taking the initiative and getting things going – it’s going to take all of us.

Last Sunday’s King of the Beta tournament turn-out was awesome, and this is just the beginning. I’m really looking forward to where ArenaNet and the community can take this game.

-Grouch

Nice, constructive thread.

Almost everything has been said. I think the biggest change from guild wars 1 to guild wars 2 was team comp diversity and build diversity.

This game lacks the build diversity for classes to be able to directly hard counter other classes, which is made worse by there being only one game mode. People have already figured out the scoring process and the strategy to maintain the largest score gain possible (which is literally holding a point as long as possible, while teams attrition each other over control of the points).

If this is to remain the only game mode (it shouldn’t) the linear scoring has to go, or killing other players has to be valued at higher than 5 points, so that damage specs have more value.

I think this game still has a chance to be more competitive then, idk, Gears of War Judgement? (Similar situation; started out poorly competitive, slowly got better, but no community left for it to matter).

The first thing is balance AND build diversity. We can not approach a competitive scene without every class having at least 3 viable builds (offense, defense, balanced), and there has to be hard counters and niche roles, so that people are forced to have to make a wise decision about team comp.

Curious, as a player who played in some top guilds from the release of guild wars 1 I haven’t heard of any of those guilds you mentioned. That being said at the top end aside from the very best guilds like iQ and the korean guilds the rest often split and reformed several times. Myself being in Sissy Boys, Ivy League, and iQ for a very short time.

Guildwars 2 is back on the path. Yesterday we saw Team Legacy playing. It’s good to see old competitive Teams coming back to GW2.
Also our shoutcasters do a really great job. It’s not easy at all to comment a match, as so many important stuff is going on at the same time. Very appreciated!

I’d say they should go further with the secondaries. Give more ways to come back/win. Clutch play is fun to watch.

i don’t know the discontent but when i watch teams like team paradigm on a shoutcast, my heart melts from the inside and turns into beer that goes through my bloodstream and making me think on my chair, “kitten YEAH!”

and i log on gw1 and watch observer mode and i can’t even stand 5 minutes.

Guys, the main problem(for Esports especially) is the amount of people playing PvP. In GW1 PvP scene was luxury, people wanted to play PvP to get “closer to stars”.

I totally understand your point, Tundera. But the work should be done in both ways. right now PvP lacks 2 huge things:
a) there is no cross server lfg ingame(like it was in GW1). This automatically leads to lack of teams, lack of players actually playing solo que(cuz u dont wanna get stomped 100 times, thanks to afkers, bad players etc.)
b) ArenaNet has to give people some reason to play PvP, like extra titles, which are not like “i ve played 1000 hrs at hot join”, but something meaning kitten(i.e. read “champion”, “hero”, “gladiator” titles like in GW1)

These 2 factors make PvP scene outnumbered and bad.

I honestly believe, that if Anet will announce a huge tourney(that will be held in half year for example) with semi-decent prize pool AND will fix some game breaking bugs, there will be so many people playing PvP, that will automatically increase their sales(profit for Anet), cuz more people will want to try this game out and actually stay in it(which somehow leads to higher gem store revenues).

Again, i understand, that players can return this game to some decent level. Still PvP will not get competitive, if in whole EU region only 8-14 teams are playing.

P.S.: For shoutcasters: srsly, reread twice(or more if needed), what Tundera has written about cameras and spells. Srsly, i ve been playing PvP for more than 1000hrs and even i cant understand whats goin on, when most of u r shoutcasting

Dinster.7063:

I honestly believe, that if Anet will announce a huge tourney(that will be held in half year for example) with semi-decent prize pool AND will fix some game breaking bugs, there will be so many people playing PvP, that will automatically increase their sales(profit for Anet), cuz more people will want to try this game out and actually stay in it(which somehow leads to higher gem store revenues).

Again, i understand, that players can return this game to some decent level. Still PvP will not get competitive, if in whole EU region only 8-14 teams are playing.

P.S.: For shoutcasters: srsly, reread twice(or more if needed), what Tundera has written about cameras and spells. Srsly, i ve been playing PvP for more than 1000hrs and even i cant understand whats goin on, when most of u r shoutcasting

GDI.
Do people even read threads or just throw out the first opinion that comes to mind?!?!?

So GW2 needs more players to be good…. then what happened to that massive population GW2 had at launch???

Seriously, where did they go?
Why aren’t they coming back and staying in the B2P game?
It is completely free.

There aren’t outrageous bugs and balance (its no worse than say, WAR)… yet the vast majority of the playerbase straight up left without keeping tabs on it or coming back… yet pretty much every competitive team left without even bothering to keep in any sort of practice for the game or play for competitions sake (a game with good competitive play will keep a crowd without tournies).

I’m sorry to break it to you, but that has nothing to do with titles, and little to do with group making…
The game’s gameplay is bad.

The whole reason why Starcraft / LoL work is because people want to learn from top players to improve their own ability to climb the ladder.

GW2 has no real ladder, just hardcore pre-mades stomping pugs all day and occasionally playing against each other.

Observer mode is really only useful for people who like to watch pretty particle effects and graphics. Its not very useful for people who want to actually learn how to play.

The main reason why the recent tournies have gotten decent viewership is because people have been waiting for this for 8 months. Once the novelty wears off we’ll see how it goes.

I doubt people will want to continue volunteering huge amounts of their time to a ship that has already sailed.

People are coming back though. I personally know of a couple good teams from launch that are practicing again, and I would not be surprised if there were more that I did not know of. There’s also a very real emergence of new teams in NA that has kicked off over the last week. We actually have legit scrimmages popping up on NA now, where before we were just a mash-up of super pug queuing.

Anet has finally given us the beginnings of some tools to start up a pvp scene, and from what I can tell they plan on taking it seriously and improving what they’ve provided. On top of that, we have several members of the community really giving a lot to help kick things off… from casting to organizing tourneys.

Personally, I’m excited to see how far this goes. Now that we have some tools to work with, it just needs a little time.

garethh.3518:

The game’s gameplay is bad.

This is your opinion, actually i’m playing this game exactly for the gameplay, i love how dynamic it is, and i could never go back to more static “old style” gameplays.

About build diversity, some classes have many options but its true some others dont, this is surely something that can be improved but i dont think its the main problem.

About class balance, this is probably the most delicate problem, its getting a little better, but still its not good enough for all classes, but i belive it will get fine.

About no chances for a comeback in a match….. not true. Thats not easy but its definitely possible, it happened 4 or 5 times to me that my team was 150 points behind…. and ended up winning the match.
Most epic one was 2 days ago, half of the match score was around 120 – 300, final score was 496 – 495, such an intense fight, it was so cool.

About the game not being fun to watch…. again i have to really disagree, i loved to see BLU and grouch shoutcasting recent tournaments, i watched many of them, and i watched many matches between top ranked teams, caus ei find really interesting to see how they set up strategies, how they react to difficult situations.

In conclusion, i think this game can be really competitive, even if it wont be tomorrow, some few class fixes are needed first, and definitely a decent ladder, then it will be the right time for some big tournaments with interesting prizes.

@cuge.5398

Sure, it is my opinion, but what’s your point?
We are talking about a subject based on opinion… and the opinion I talk of is a largely held one…
so…
??

When it comes to these specifics you brought up… you should read my other posts in this thread.

Anyways.
The class balance and build diversity isn’t gamebreaking.
Conquest, it is a mediocre competitive map and straight up bad pug one.
It’s a downside when it comes to spectating (low suspense, scattered/tough to fallow map control) only at all carried by the combat itself.

The issue with gameplay is a lack of group dynamic with nothing to replace it.
GW2 cuts out the heart of the MMO genre, and the majority of the teamwork/positioning that innately come from it and the skill cap that fallows.

Sure, that’s fine, innovation… new ideas to take over the old… but the thing is they didn’t really do anything to replace the loss, in allot of people’s eyes the “replacement” (rezzing) is actually a complete downside!!!!
A game can’t survive on a good base combat concept or two (dodge rolling, a few class mechanics, some boons, and a few other specific things)… surrounded by bad->mediocres (majority of weapons, heals, most utilities, cleansing, stunbreaks, combo fields, traits, map, F1-4, rezzing, teamwork, positioning, bunker/spike)…
That’s in terms of gameplay, not just balance.

@garethh.3518,
bro u havent understood my point, kinda needed to make it more clear.
Those ppl who LEFT the game from pvp did it for several reasons:
a) those you ve listed
b) didnt like conquest, game mechanics, etc.

Some people will not return to the game, even if u fix those bugs, etc.
All im saying, that i think we should focus on ppl who actually LIKE the game and PLAY it.

Dinster.7063:

@garethh.3518,
bro u havent understood my point, kinda needed to make it more clear.
Those ppl who LEFT the game from pvp did it for several reasons:
a) those you ve listed
b) didnt like conquest, game mechanics, etc.

Some people will not return to the game, even if u fix those bugs, etc.
All im saying, that i think we should focus on ppl who actually LIKE the game and PLAY it.

Are you sure?
Are your post wasn’t entirely based on something like… “if Anet made a large tourney with a good prize and fixed a few bugs, then there will be a large PvP population again and that will fix the game’s largest problem”
???

I mean, if that’s not what you meant by pretty much those verbatum words… whatever…

Catering to people who already like that game…. the PvP will never be more than an even milder sidenote that it already is when it comes to GW2… if that’s what happens.
Few people want to see that.

They definitely need more game modes that focus on strategies besides mobility and bunker builds. since those are the only two builds that are in the top tier of effectiveness, it really limits versatility and dynamic team builds.

Team death matches may be a bit hectic, but they can really utilize most types of builds besides mobility. They support more offensive and utility builds and create a totally different pvp environment which I believe is more addictive and/or immersing than the conquest game mode. I really loved AB in GW1, but in GW2 the map and team sizes are just too small for it and the most reliable strategy is zerging and whoever isn’t in the mob better hope they have a good bunker build.

I personally feel they shouldn’t be thinking about having an esport, and should be focusing on trying to make the pvp game more addictive and rewarding in play.

I think the downed state should be removed or something, or at least not rez if something near you dies. With how it currently is, you can have half of the other team in the downed state but if one of your team mates dies than the whole other team gets resurrected. This makes team fights way more one sided and/or never ending and it’s just an annoyance.

Traits on everything need a total rehaul for the most part. Ranger, warrior and guardian traits to me feel like the only ones you can actually choose from without having a certain trait line that trumps all the others.

Since there aren’t really many good heals outside the healing skill slot you sometimes feel forced to spec in defensice traits and traitlines. Really though, if you go anything other than defensive and take every trait that boosts your survival then you can never heal enough or do enough damage. you tear like a wet paper towel. Having a healer in the game makes it so you can go glass cannon and not completely get destroyed by auto attacks. Healers/protectors let you survive long enough to dish out enough damage to make yourself useful. But if you are unable to survive long enough you’re pidgeonhold-ed into being really defensive or mobile/untouchable. This is why the thief is such a pubstomper. It’s the only class that can build for damage and avoid it at the same time. When it comes to other classes it’s just about who can be the most defensive while also dealing enough damage to be a threat.

What I believe is without a healer, or a way to skillfully come back from the losing end of a battle, there won’t and can’t be competitive pvp. In the current set-up you will just keep losing health in a battle of attrition and you only get periodically dodges as a surefire way to avoid damage if your lucky/skillled enough to use it at the right time.

With what I just said and condtion removal being limited, this is why I believe necros will start to become flavor of the month somtime soon. With being condition heavy, one of the few classes with incredible condition defense, and massive health pool and other defenses I believe they are an unmatched class on a pvp standpoint. Maybe not with current numbers/bugs, but they definitely are the ones with the best tools for this games pvp.

These are just my thoughts on the game. Hopefully they can work a good competitive pvp without needing the trinity.

garethh.3518:

@cuge.5398

Conquest, it is a mediocre competitive map and straight up bad pug one.

I find this kind of conquest with side ojectives (bosses, trebs, buff) way far from mediocre competitive, in order to win (lets say) a “Temple of the silent storm” match you cant just run around and cap, there is way more depth of play, you gotta choose who to leave defending/roaming and who to send to buffs, cause a bad buffs management lead to a loss. Same goes for treb and so on.

I really dont see why ppl are complaining about this mode, at all.

garethh.3518:

It’s a downside when it comes to spectating (low suspense, scattered/tough to fallow map control) only at all carried by the combat itself.

i can agree on the scattered action…. not sure about the suspence…. what would you suggest ?

garethh.3518:

The issue with gameplay is a lack of group dynamic with nothing to replace it.
GW2 cuts out the heart of the MMO genre, and the majority of the teamwork/positioning that innately come from it and the skill cap that fallows.

lack of group dynamic and positioning ?
I didnt get what you mean or we arent playing the same game.

@cuge.5398
You can find conquest great, tragically that is a rarity among opinions, around these forums and out of the half dozen people I jumped into GW2 with and dozens more I played with.

It promotes a back point bunker, a terribly stale position.
It makes VoiP the main source of teamwork, for backcapping and rotating.
It makes balancing based mainly on scattered skirmishing instead of teamfights.
It makes SPvP into lobsided zergs, which is utterly terrible.

Temple… don’t say ‘depth in play’ there is like one or two viable routes to go with it… focus on getting the channel caps, or backcapping while stalling at them.

cuge.5398:

lack of group dynamic and positioning ?
I didnt get what you mean or we arent playing the same game.

I take it you haven’t played any game like… GW1 or Warhammer online?

WAR had roughly the same quality of ideas as GW2… but WAR based its combat around the trinity and team fighting.
It ended up being a FAR better game without even referencing ‘esport’.

Those staples of the genre mean that there is innately a front, mid and back line, with actions constantly focused towards the group (focus firing and the occasional CC/rez are pitiful in comparison) along with plenty of opportunities to use positioning alone to make up for a weak class.

GW2 tossed that ‘fast track to a good MMO’… which isn’t a bad thing… until you realize that it was replaced with nothing…
That is tearing at their game so very hard.

Critiques and suggestions, there’s an entire thread of them by me floating around.
I am kinda done with the game, but I threw it out there as guidelines for the only way I really see GW2 touching the expectations I, and everyone I hoped to play the game with, had for it.

Ok, i see your point, i didnt play gw1 so i cant say anything about that, but i see that there are many ppl that are still in love with their past game experiences, and cant just appreciate whats new in gw2. Probably, if i played gw1 i would feel the same, but in my gaming experience i had great moments with ppl, and moslty crappy moments with the game itself, so every time i look behind i’m glad of what i have now.

cuge.5398:

ppl that are still in love with their past game experiences, and cant just appreciate whats new in gw2.

>.<
Why do I even try…

yeh, i wonder the same lol, we both have our opinions and we wont move an inch, i like the game, you dont :p

Guild Wars 2 is meant to be a sequel. “Meant”. It isn’t a sequel in the slightest. It has the story line and characters, but nothing about it is a sequel to Guild Wars.

The sPvP scene isn’t competitive. It isn’t entertaining. Someone mentioned that GW2 sPvP made them excited and GW1 GvG bored them after 5 minutes? Are you serious?

You’re entertained by a 5v5 costume/alliance battle style match where people sit on 3 points and move back and forth and a point count to 500 is exciting to you? Honestly the style resembles too closely to that of a first person shooter game of getting points. That isn’t Guild Wars. It is sad that ANet considers it a sequel at all.

The gameplay is horrid. It caters to casual gamers to the point of not being entertaining professionally. GW2 eSport? The two don’t belong in the same sentence unless it includes the phrases “is not a” or “will never be”.

Look at the competitiveness of GW1 PvP at start and GW2 PvP. There are significant differences:
GW1 PvP was a new idea and gathered tons of players and really fostered a competitive scene worthy enough to be an eSport.
GW2 PvP had the reputation of GW1 PvP to live off of so they already had a previous playerbase to get players recruited into the game – But have only seen the GW2 PvP scene deteriorate incredibly.

It can’t simply be because GW2 PvP is better and more competitive.

Please understand the comparison between GW1 PvP and GW2 PvP is like comparing oranges to apples.

Honestly, look at Guild Wars 1 PvP. We shouldn’t have to be comparing the two when there was nothing wrong with oranges in the first place.

cuge.5398:

yeh, i wonder the same lol, we both have our opinions and we wont move an inch, i like the game, you dont :p

Your response is the complete embodiment of why this couldn’t be a reasonable discussion.
I really hope you are into trying to be ironic…

You have yet to look beyond yourself, I mean besides in the occasion gross generalization.

Motoko.2875:

The sPvP scene isn’t competitive. It isn’t entertaining. Someone mentioned that GW2 sPvP made them excited and GW1 GvG bored them after 5 minutes? Are you serious?

Yes im serious.

Watching GW1 PvP this days after 8 years, is like still using your Nokia 5110 as your cell phone this time of the year. The game mechanics is old. it is not dynamic. it’s point and click. And the CCs are archaic. They say it’s complicated but i don’t see the complication. Maybe it’s just rigid, well it’s rigid because everything is rigid. Yeah you dshotted or powerblocked infuse health. Sure your skilled. But you’re indeed skilled if you did this on a dialup connection.

I’m the one of the many (i hope) that appreciates the more dynamic and more tactical gameplay of GW2. And this is coming from someone who don’t play tPvP. I watched Team Paradigm and the shoutcasts and I appreciated their skill level and the skill level of their enemies even. it’s fast paced. unpredictable. And concise. No kittenty things such as tie breaker or killing an NPC to win. It’s easy to watch. Easy to follow. Just like every other sports but scrabble. Moreover, The game doesn’t depend on killing an NPC.

I’ve played my share of GW1 gvgs and most of the time we won even at 60 dp because we kittening killed an NPC.

But one thing that made GW1 GvG a poignant mark on my gaming memory. War Machine [WM] versus Lamer’s Ultimate Majority [LuM]. Everyother matches don’t even compare.

I don’t see how its up to the community to fix all the broken promises that ANet have made, custom arenas have only just become real, and lets be honest, they aren’t very good. Fostering a strong PVP community is very hard when they have failed to fix issues that have been in the game since launch, complained about endlessly, forgotten, re-learnt and quickly forgotten again in the avalanche of bugs.

They spoke about PVP like it was going to be a focus, when it clearly isn’t. PVP has no money making opportunities at the moment (no real ones), and ANet is mostly interested in keeping the gem store going as best they can.

GW2 PVP is much like WoW (in how its appraoched), something of an after thought now, preffering to push up the PVE, because we dont have enough PVE focussed MMOs at the moment, thats a genre thats badly in need of help.

The most kitten thing is in all of this, that their are a large number of people who want to PVP and pretty much only that. This PVP crowd is rich for the taking, and no one is really trying to take hold of the situation outside of the MOBA market, and that will crash soon enough. Just like every other fad that came before it.