Guild Wars 2

I would like to see this thread get back on topic and on a serious discussion about how to improve GW2.

About 7 months ago, I posted an extremely long post that I want to sort of link here. In it, I went into detail about all the problems I saw in GW2, related them to GW1 and discussed how Anet could potentially fix them. I see a tremendous amount of potential in GW2, a lot of it is quite brilliant. But the follow through is lackluster at best.

GW2 brought to the table a full suite of mechanics that could have revolutionized the Guildwars franchise from something only pros knew and loved into something that the entire gaming world knew and loved. The first ever e-sport that actually required a team. That actually meant that the sum of players abilities did not equal the ability of the team (this is the case currently and is also the case in LoL, you are only as good as your best player.) In guildwars 1, the ability of your team far outweighed the ability of the players and a group of no name players could become amazing simply because of how well they played together.

Anyhow, for any of you who are interested in reading my original thoughts on how to properly fix the game (not completely, but a great start at least) here it is:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Lost-potential/first

<3 motoko

For me there are several problems with the game atm.

- Lack of a guild/team based ladder. I have no interest in my personal ELO, and I have every interest in my guilds ELO. I want to feel like a team is a team, not a random combination of 5 players who enjoy playing with each other at the time. My accomplishments should also be as a team including the rank.

- Lack of a proper observer mode. While the GW2 spectator mode is quite well done in its functionality, it is still terrible. The only things that can be spectated are scrimmed games which are then not saved in memory and if I am not mistaken, there is a cap on the number of people who can watch the match at a given moment. If you do not have access to the server you may also not spectate. As a competitive player, I want to get my team together, hit “play now” and get paired vs an equally skilled team, and afterwards have that match displayed to the rest of the GW2 population in an accessible and lasting manner. Sound familiar? Yea, that was the GW1 observer mode. Easily better than what we have here. You knew the teams competing, their rank., and could then observe it at your own leisure. Although props to Anet for introducing much better spectator features inside the match itself.

- Weak game format design. As many others state, I like to play with my team, because we are…. a team. That does not mean sending someone to bunker a point, sending someone to contest far and then having a few roamers/duelists. Sure there is team play, and at its pinnacle you may even encounter a 5v5 over mid, but very rarely do I get to fight with my whole team. By extension the combat is also not good for this, a death match is a clusterkitten of clones/rock dogs/pets/minions/thief summons and whatever other crap clutters your screen. When I play the game, what I see on my screen matters a lot to me, and when its just pure chaos of animations and multiple objects I just dont enjoy it. Team fights however do encompass skill, but it feels nothing like the skill cap of fighting 7v7 in GW1 at the flag stand. Things are over very fast and there is little room for team synergy at the same level we had in GW1.

- Tournaments. How has this not happened yet? When they put in the daily ATs and Monthly ATs back in GW1 back in 2007/8 I figured they were setting up the ground work for their sequel and that it was testing. The system worked quite well to be fair, so how exactly is this not in GW2 yet. Just a time during which there is the highest density of skilled teams playing with a high chance of systematically getting paired vs each other based on success. Then the goal of qualifying for something more which motivates people to play actively (Qualifying points, or rating back in the days of seasons). To this day I ask my Guild mates from GW1 if they wna join in for spvp on skype and the answer is “do they have a monthly tournament yet?” and when I say no, they just laugh at me. Like how is this not yet in. Honestly even if I were to spvp, I have nothing to play for atm. Some really badly designed ladder? E-fame(like what, so I can stream and have 50 or 100 players watch me? pathetic.) At least now we have some 3rd party based tournaments, but you would imagine with the cash Anet have that they could afford to do it themselves….

If anet were to just provide the above, namely the functionality of GW1 then I imagine quite a lot of players would be more active. This doesnt even begin to touch on bad map design or bad winning objectives (killing a guild lord was miles more fun than playing to 500, winning clauses cause dynamic play and strategies such as splits/lord rush/timer suicides/hard pushes, the same can be seen in LoL with nexus kills). So yes there is a lot more for me to complain about, but at least Anet have to give me a reason to want to get good at their bad game design (which is very easy to master tbh, it would take me about 3 days to a week to play any of the classes at a top 50 spvp level and I have already proved that before).

Finally, GW1 players are mad because they were a loyal fanbase which made the franchise as famous as it is now. You think without the exceptional quality of players who competed in GW1, that GW2 would be anything? I doubt pvp would even have been worth funding had those players not made it what it was. The level of competition demonstrated in GW1 is exactly what inspired the developers to try to continue with the e-sports concept. The sad part is, in their efforts to make better they only made worse. But keep in mind the game that some of you enjoy and tell us to stop complaining about, is only made possible by the GW1 fanbase. And yes, without a shadow of a doubt the top GW1 had to offer is leagues ahead of anything we see in GW2 skill wise. Comparing a team like Team Paradigm or Made in Meta to a team like Rebel Rising would just be an incredible insult to rawr.

Diage.6451:

I would like to see this thread get back on topic and on a serious discussion about how to improve GW2.

This has been said before combo fields needs big changes .
it needs to be more powerful less spammable and more controllable one combo field will not remove the one before it.
each class will have access to one kind of combo fields.
combo fields should NOT give you the same things that you can get from skills or utility.
I think this will spice it up a little bet.
Pardon me for my English.

Hi. I am not trying to be negative or anything like that but I am REALLY curious about 1 question:

What do you expect ArenaNet to do with your suggestions? Do you expect them to redesign all the spells because the effects is confusing, for an instance?

I get the feeling that you are suggesting them to actually redesign the whole game(not literally), and I don’t ever see that happening, EVER.

What I would like is that people like garethh gathering a small team and have an actual real discussion via skype etc., THEN start to bring ideas to the table, and not argue with tons of peoples being negative and saying that this game is just bad.

Garethh and a few peoples here are just inspiring and brings up alot of good points, and they doesnt just point out what is wrong with the game, but brings alot of cool ideas!
They are somewhat realistic aswell, I mean sure, there are some problems that would take too much money/work to fix, but they need to be mentioned anyway.

Dynasti.7216:

Hi. I am not trying to be negative or anything like that but I am REALLY curious about 1 question:

What do you expect ArenaNet to do with your suggestions? Do you expect them to redesign all the spells because the effects is confusing, for an instance?

I get the feeling that you are suggesting them to actually redesign the whole game(not literally), and I don’t ever see that happening, EVER.

What I would like is that people like garethh gathering a small team and have an actual real discussion via skype etc., THEN start to bring ideas to the table, and not argue with tons of peoples being negative and saying that this game is just bad.

Garethh and a few peoples here are just inspiring and brings up alot of good points, and they doesnt just point out what is wrong with the game, but brings alot of cool ideas!
They are somewhat realistic aswell, I mean sure, there are some problems that would take too much money/work to fix, but they need to be mentioned anyway.

This is a valid point.

I think they should try giving each class their own unique buffs/debuffs and make the current boon systems something that is universal between all classes.

Its like how someone suggested that combo fields aren’t unique enough. Its true, because boons are shared among each class. So it doesn’t feel entirely unique or important.

Interestingly enough, the original guild wars had two type of debuffs: conditions and hexes. In gw2 most of the conditions remain except deep wound and disease, but hexes have been entirely removed with the exception of confusion.

They could slowly reintroduce hexes and introduce exclusive boons per class. This would begin to give classes more of a unique identity and add a layer of complexity.

Dynasti.7216:

What I would like is that people like garethh gathering a small team and have an actual real discussion via skype etc., THEN start to bring ideas to the table, and not argue with tons of peoples being negative and saying that this game is just bad.

Garethh and a few peoples here are just inspiring and brings up alot of good points, and they doesnt just point out what is wrong with the game, but brings alot of cool ideas!
They are somewhat realistic aswell, I mean sure, there are some problems that would take too much money/work to fix, but they need to be mentioned anyway.

Thnks
But yeah, this’ll take Anet’s initiative.
If they say ‘it is worth it’, I am down for trying to work out the kinks in ‘where’ and ‘how’, but short of that… with them not even addressing that problem in the game…

I don’t think going that far is worth anyone’s time and effort.

garethh.3518:

But yeah, this’ll take Anet’s initiative.

Get in contact with the SotG organizers and see if they’ll have you. Anet’s already made the initiative to have a venue where questions can be asked/concerns raised in an open forum about the state of PvP, why not use said venue to raise your concerns about PvP?

Diage.6451:

I would like to see this thread get back on topic and on a serious discussion about how to improve GW2.

Have you done the worship ritual to Grenth for more ecto? Might help.

Traps. Traps everywhere.

I do agree we need a more exciting game mode.

As far as eSports goes – have patience – big things in the works this summer =)

Particle effects is fine. A trained eye can use it offensively vs those who aren’t use to it. In real life, comparable to a flash bang or something that will confuse the eye and can be used against the enemy. To the spectator, it will take a while to get used to that (Quality tourney spectating is just weeks old). A trained shout caster should be able to describe what went on beyond the clusterkitten.

People are just used to guild wars, where all is 2005 graphics. Do you want to regress/dumb down the graphics? I don’t want.

GW2 as it currently stands has great potential for competitive play; compelling combat; diverse professions to choose from; easy to pick up game type; gear parity; easy to understand objectives for both players and viewers.

however ANet STILL need to work on balance (Necros/Warriors mainly atm), bugs (profession/map/features), adding more needed features to make tPvP competitive (solo/team queues/ratings and a more fleshed out MMR in-game system) and ANet supporting the game through marketing (bring back old players and entice new players to try out tPvP) and supporting the PvP scene (taking feedback, supporting tourneys, hosting tourneys of their own) but ALL in a timely manner and then i would say we would be in a great place for competitive MMO PvP

personally when it comes to game modes i am not a fan of Deathmatch, it actually comes last as any addition i would make to tPvP; it’s boring to watch and play and leads to FAR fewer possibilities for comebacks and great plays especially in a game like GW2 where going 1vX is VERY difficult at a competitive level. Capture the flag has potential to be a fun game mode but at competitive levels could lead to “turtle” games which become really depressing to both watch and play. Attack/Defend is one that i really like as long as the parameters are set so that progression is possible and only bleeding edge teamwork can prevent progression through the defend portion. i cannot really see it as a competitive game mode but it can be a fun change in pace.

alcopaul.2156:

Particle effects is fine. A trained eye can use it offensively vs those who aren’t use to it. In real life, comparable to a flash bang or something that will confuse the eye and can be used against the enemy. To the spectator, it will take a while to get used to that (Quality tourney spectating is just weeks old). A trained shout caster should be able to describe what went on beyond the clusterkitten.

People are just used to guild wars, where all is 2005 graphics. Do you want to regress/dumb down the graphics? I don’t want.

What do flashbangs have to do with sports competition???

http://i50.tinypic.com/ri98xs.png

Aza.2105:

alcopaul.2156:

Particle effects is fine. A trained eye can use it offensively vs those who aren’t use to it. In real life, comparable to a flash bang or something that will confuse the eye and can be used against the enemy. To the spectator, it will take a while to get used to that (Quality tourney spectating is just weeks old). A trained shout caster should be able to describe what went on beyond the clusterkitten.

People are just used to guild wars, where all is 2005 graphics. Do you want to regress/dumb down the graphics? I don’t want.

What do flashbangs have to do with sports competition???

http://i50.tinypic.com/ri98xs.png

i said comparable. Where are flashbangs used? in combat. why? to disable the visuals of the enemy.

In video game e-sports, pixel cluttering can be used tactically. With a trained eye, a player can use this as an advantage. GW2 is a combat game. Connect the dots.

this is a video game, action game to be exact. so there are explosions and visual spells, right? video involve graphics, right? recognizing and discerning from cluster pixels should be a “skill”. Pixels could be used as an advantage vs your enemy who got an untrained eye.

I bet one of the minor reasons why fighting teldo is a pain because of all the particle effects that his character makes.

And it’s just 6 persons at most skirmishing in team fights at most doing those flashy pixels man. And you complain? . Can you imagine this in WvWvW? No one’s complaining in WvWvW.

You want to dumb down the graphics of the game. No thanks. Thank you.

This is why you have to move on Beyond Guild Wars 1 man. You’re used to this old stuffs that you think that are hard. Graphics is antiquated, gameplay is old. Watching it now adays is boring since the competition is stale. If you watched quality competition back in the day, you will be disappointed if you watch now. And the great experience of playing and observing GW1 won’t ever be replicated any time soon.

alcopaul.2156:

Aza.2105:

alcopaul.2156:

Particle effects is fine. A trained eye can use it offensively vs those who aren’t use to it. In real life, comparable to a flash bang or something that will confuse the eye and can be used against the enemy. To the spectator, it will take a while to get used to that (Quality tourney spectating is just weeks old). A trained shout caster should be able to describe what went on beyond the clusterkitten.

People are just used to guild wars, where all is 2005 graphics. Do you want to regress/dumb down the graphics? I don’t want.

What do flashbangs have to do with sports competition???

http://i50.tinypic.com/ri98xs.png

i said comparable. Where are flashbangs used? in combat. why? to disable the visuals of the enemy.

In video game e-sports, pixel cluttering can be used tactically. With a trained eye, a player can use this as an advantage. GW2 is a combat game. Connect the dots.

this is a video game, action game to be exact. so there are explosions and visual spells, right? video involve graphics, right? recognizing and discerning from cluster pixels should be a “skill”. Pixels could be used as an advantage vs your enemy who got an untrained eye.

And it’s just 3 persons at most doing those flashy pixels man. And you complain? . Can you imagine this in WvWvW? No one’s complaining in WvWvW.

You want to dumb down the graphics of the game. No thanks. Thank you.

This is why you have to move on Beyond Guild Wars 1 man. You’re used to this old stuffs that you think that are hard.

So better graphics = more particle effects? Got you.

I’ll save you some trouble and just quote what else I said about particles:

“It would be great if they gave players a slider to control the amount of particles drawn on the screen at once.”

alcopaul.2156:

this is a video game, action game to be exact. so there are explosions and visual spells, right? video involve graphics, right? recognizing and discerning from cluster pixels should be a skill.

You want to dumb down the graphics of the game. No thanks. Thank you.

Needless complications are… needless.

Yes throwing more things to keep track of in a game makes it involve more practice to know what is happening.
No that isn’t a good thing.

Aza.2105:

So better graphics = more particle effects? Got you.

I’ll save you some trouble and just quote what else I said about particles:

“It would be great if they gave players a slider to control the amount of particles drawn on the screen at once.”

Just let it be. It’s part of the package. Sure there will be people who will be confused because of the particles. And there will be “visually skilled” people who will be at advantage. It could be that one of the skills that a GW2 top player should have is to successfully discern from all the particles that is being made. Or what not.

I say that leave it as is. That’s my opinion.

And this is to appeal to the spectator. You know watching an action film is fun when there are many exploding cars, helicopters, building and kitten.

the only thing complicated about the games particle effects is that they are all primarily white, off white, and blue white, with a smattering of red blue and orange here and there…they are all the same.

being able to distinguish two different players water fields is nigh impossible while spectating, unless you watched the player cast it. there is no “ownership” once it is in play.

makes it difficult to spectate and commentate.

nakoda.4213:

the only thing complicated about the games particle effects is that they are all primarily white, off white, and blue white, with a smattering of red blue and orange here and there…they are all the same.

being able to distinguish two different players water fields is nigh impossible while spectating, unless you watched the player cast it. there is no “ownership” once it is in play.

makes it difficult to spectate and commentate.

hmm, one way to solve this is to have a color scheme to emphasize ownership of all the effects between two teams.. say if you’re team red, you have a set color scheme that differs from team blue, vice versa.

still varied of course. for if not, it will be not visually appealing (to the spectators!).

IDK why people are countering Follidus or even have the balls to try to negate his opinion. He’s spot on. Moreover, he’s the top 3 in the NA ladder. He knows what he’s talking about.

alcopaul.2156:

IDK why people are countering Follidus or even have the balls to try to negate his opinion. He’s spot on. Moreover, he’s the top 3 in the NA ladder. He knows what he’s talking about.

Being good at a dead game with no competition does not validate one’s opinion.

Motoko.2875:

alcopaul.2156:

IDK why people are countering Follidus or even have the balls to try to negate his opinion. He’s spot on. Moreover, he’s the top 3 in the NA ladder. He knows what he’s talking about.

Being good at a dead game with no competition does not validate one’s opinion.

a dead game when the rank 153 of a ladder has 1000 rating.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/ladder/

391st -Looking For Freedom [free] Europe 204 2932 3195

capped at 391. where’s the competition, Motoko?

i could log on guild wars 1 and get 7 RAers and lose one GvG and you’ll see Your Math Teacher[MATH] in the ladder again at rank 160s. But it’s hard to get 7 RAers, because the game is dead, obviously. But i might do it, ill get PvErs in kamadan instead.

EDIT: Oh henchies that is. So 3 players more!

alcopaul.2156:

nakoda.4213:

the only thing complicated about the games particle effects is that they are all primarily white, off white, and blue white, with a smattering of red blue and orange here and there…they are all the same.

being able to distinguish two different players water fields is nigh impossible while spectating, unless you watched the player cast it. there is no “ownership” once it is in play.

makes it difficult to spectate and commentate.

hmm, one way to solve this is to have a color scheme to emphasize ownership of all the effects between two teams.. say if you’re team red, you have a set color scheme that differs from team blue, vice versa.

still varied of course. for if not, it will be not visually appealing (to the spectators!).

it would only matter in spectator mode, aoe rings can be computed by team (red or blue, hues such that they remain visible), and the aoe circle can be filled by a low opacity colour matching the field type (white/light, blue/water, orange/fire, etc, so viewers could readily see “ooh, blue has a water field down in that chaos” or whatever.

for players in game, no change would be needed.

alcopaul.2156:

Motoko.2875:

alcopaul.2156:

IDK why people are countering Follidus or even have the balls to try to negate his opinion. He’s spot on. Moreover, he’s the top 3 in the NA ladder. He knows what he’s talking about.

Being good at a dead game with no competition does not validate one’s opinion.

a dead game when the rank 153 of a ladder has 1000 rating.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/ladder/

391st -Looking For Freedom [free] Europe 204 2932 3195

capped at 391. where’s the competition, Motoko?

i could log on guild wars 1 and get 7 RAers and lose one GvG and you’ll see Your Math Teacher[MATH] in the ladder again at rank 160s. But it’s hard to get 7 RAers, because the game is dead, obviously. But i might do it, ill get PvErs in kamadan instead.

EDIT: Oh henchies that is. So 3 players more!

Changing the subject does not help your case. We are not arguing that GW1 PvP is the most active thing on this planet.

I am merely pointing out that GW2 PvP is void of any real competition and is just as dead if not more dead than GW1 PvP.

Motoko.2875:

I am merely pointing out that GW2 PvP is void of any real competition and is just as dead if not more dead than GW1 PvP.

which is what we are telling you is incorrect.

GW2 pvp is infantile, not dead.

Competition hasn’t started yet.

GW1 wasn’t the be all end all of pvp in it’s first 9 months either.

nakoda.4213:

Motoko.2875:

I am merely pointing out that GW2 PvP is void of any real competition and is just as dead if not more dead than GW1 PvP.

which is what we are telling you is incorrect.

GW2 pvp is infantile, not dead.

Competition hasn’t started yet.

GW1 wasn’t the be all end all of pvp in it’s first 9 months either.

6 Months after release, Guildwars 1 started a $100,000 dollar tournament ladder.
(http://guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/worldchampionship-rules.php)

It takes more than nine months for the same company to even start to want to be considered infantile. Makes sense.

(BTW – Official release date was April 26, 2005)

Diage.6451:

nakoda.4213:

Motoko.2875:

I am merely pointing out that GW2 PvP is void of any real competition and is just as dead if not more dead than GW1 PvP.

which is what we are telling you is incorrect.

GW2 pvp is infantile, not dead.

Competition hasn’t started yet.

GW1 wasn’t the be all end all of pvp in it’s first 9 months either.

6 Months after release, Guildwars 1 started a $100,000 dollar tournament ladder.
(http://guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/worldchampionship-rules.php)

It takes more than nine months for the same company to even start to want to be considered infantile. Makes sense.

That tournament was funded by ANet themselves. I remember because I actually played in that tournament. Tournaments cropping up now funded by third parties, which is needed if you ever want a real tournament scene to grow.

Some GW1 players seem to sooooo badly want GW2 to be GW1 v2.0, but it should’ve been apparent from the start (and stated by the devs) that they were going in a different direction. You guys just need to get over it and move on. I know I have. I enjoy GW2 for what it is. If you don’t like GW2 then just find something else to your tastes.

Whether GW2 will ever blow up and become the dreaded e-word I have no idea, but I can tell you on the top of the NA scene, which was dead by anybody’s standards a couple of months ago, is starting to pick back up, slowly but surely. A lot of good players I have not seen in a long time are resurfacing again. There is a looooooong way to go in terms of infrastructure, but at least the devs acknowledge this. If you don’t have the patience to wait, like I said, go find something else and check back in down the line.

Yea… you can all blind yourself to the reality and fanboy all you want. Fact is that GW1 did it faster and more successfully than GW2 is doing it atm. And that in a day and age where e-sports and streaming wasnt even a thing. Now that they have the experience and infrastructure, they are actually failing more to provide us what we need. You do have to wonder why this is the case, and if it really is worth trusting in such a company.

Mind you, I also want GW2 to succeed, I waited for the game for like 3 years. But I am a bit confused as to how we are in the situation we are in atm.

Diage.6451:

nakoda.4213:

Motoko.2875:

I am merely pointing out that GW2 PvP is void of any real competition and is just as dead if not more dead than GW1 PvP.

which is what we are telling you is incorrect.

GW2 pvp is infantile, not dead.

Competition hasn’t started yet.

GW1 wasn’t the be all end all of pvp in it’s first 9 months either.

6 Months after release, Guildwars 1 started a $100,000 dollar tournament ladder.
(http://guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/worldchampionship-rules.php)

It takes more than nine months for the same company to even start to want to be considered infantile. Makes sense.

(BTW – Official release date was April 26, 2005)

Jackie.1829:

Yea… you can all blind yourself to the reality and fanboy all you want. Fact is that GW1 did it faster and more successfully than GW2 is doing it atm.

GW1 began with PVP, GW2 did not.

my statement that GW2 pv kitten till infantile remains accurate.

Frankly, I think Anet’s mistake was even dropping the word “esports” before the pvp was under the spotlight.

alcopaul.2156:

IDK why people are countering Follidus or even have the balls to try to negate his opinion. He’s spot on. Moreover, he’s the top 3 in the NA ladder. He knows what he’s talking about.

To be fair the leaderboards aren’t too meaningful at the moment. They’re cool to have, and we thought it would be cool to have the top 5 spots with our tag, but there’s a good amount of players that queue solo/duo/trio and after 1 loss will fall off the first page. Tournaments like the upcoming MMORPG.com tournament, and the Curse tournament are better ways to distinguish the top players/teams.

However, that also doesn’t mean my opinion is the best and only one. What I can say is that I’ve played at the top of this game for a relatively long time, and I see a lot of improvement that can be made with teams and their teamplay. There’s a lot of things that I think contribute to why we don’t see it, but here are some more:

It’s hard to develop coordination/teamplay in this game because it has to be reinvented. In other games, where the basis is already established, it’s a lot easier to bring a new group of players together and copy/build off of what other teams have done in the past.

Adding to that, the game is drastically different. Not having healers makes baiting out cooldowns and swapping targets a lot less effective. It’s different. Also, the fact that you can dodge adds a greater amount of inconsistency to preplanned burst/cc chains.

Because it’s harder, and because people want to win NOW, people will play whatever easiest, because that’s what wins now. My team, which is about 2 weeks old, is doing this too. With tournaments coming up we want to win, and trying to play something that’s hard when we don’t have a lot of time practicing it is a lot less likely to win. Does that mean it’s always going to be like this? Of course not. We’ll slowly get there, and I think it has the potential to be a lot more effective. But we won’t know until we get there.

Another reason is everyone builds selfishly. Look at backstab thieves, as an example. People built these with as much damage as possible so they can attempt to take away 80-100% of the enemy’s health in a second. This was nerfed because it was stupid. But what if you lowered this damage, and added in another person to burst with you? You would be just as effective, and you’d get to build your thief to be more survivable. But I never see this.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but because it’s not easy is why you don’t see it. Since no one is doing it, no one thinks they can. I remember reading something in this thread along the lines of “x team in GW1 played so well, and if they made 1 small mistake they would lose.” Well this is the same kitten.

But there’s this mindset that people seem to have of certain things being overpowered when it beats them. It’s stupid, and it’s all over the place. We’re at a place where individual skill is pretty good (and definitely always improving), map control is pretty good, but actual team fighting is pretty lacking. Honestly, I see more communication in counter-strike matches than I do between most gw2 teams I’ve seen. That’s not good.

People say bunkers are a problem, and that without conquest they would go away. I’m here to say that this is wrong. When you put a bunker guardian against 3-4 people that randomly use their dps rotation the bunker dies really quickly. So what happens when you take 2 people with a good amount of burst and burst at the same time? The guy dies. Most modern day bunkers run a lower health pool for more sustained survivability because this type of coordination/burst doesn’t exist between teams. The only thing anyone ever had to worry about were backstab thieves before mug got nerfed.

I think even if the gametype was 2v2/3v3/5v5 arena, you would still see at least bunker/support guardians. They’re hard to kill, yet give amazing defensive or offensive support to teammates. They’re not going away no matter what you do.

What I’m trying to say is, what happens to the game when players and teams develop this type of synergy/coordination? What happens when this becomes the norm?

This is getting long so I’m gonna stop here. I probably won’t respond to responses because I’ve been saying this for months and it gets tiring when people would rather blame their losses on overpowered builds/compositions, or the game being boring/taking no skill. Just being honest. I’m having a ton of fun with this game, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

nakoda.4213:

GW1 began with PVP, GW2 did not.

my statement that GW2 pv kitten till infantile remains accurate.

Frankly, I think Anet’s mistake was even dropping the word “esports” before the pvp was under the spotlight.

Why not though? You can consider the mistake to be that they mentioned esports. Or you can consider the mistake to be that they didnt deliver on their promise. It can be seen from two perspectives. I assure you the devs stating esports wasnt an accident by them, they truly believe that in esports and want to achieve that. So why is everything going so slowly?

the mistake was that they promoted the esports of GW2 before pvp was complete, balanced, and even ready for spectating, because GW2 was/is a PVE game with PVP in it.

GW1 was the exact opposite.

Of those three qualifiers – complete, balanced, and ready for spectating – Anet only has one of three.

The rest will come in time, don’t get me wrong, but currently that is where some of the problem lies.

nakoda.4213:

the mistake was that they promoted the esports of GW2 before pvp was complete, balanced, and even ready for spectating, because GW2 was/is a PVE game with PVP in it.

GW1 was the exact opposite.

Of those three qualifiers – complete, balanced, and ready for spectating – Anet only has one of three.

The rest will come in time, don’t get me wrong, but currently that is where some of the problem lies.

You do realize, when GW1 was made, it was made with the idea that pvp and pve would go hand in hand. It was not designed to be a pvp game, the pvp just sort of happened. The abstract concept presented by gw1 was so good in regards to pvp that a competitive pvp formed and anet went with it.

I even have the book from 2005 laying around somewhere talking about how they wanted to view pvp and pve as an integrated thing, not two separate objects. Let me tell you what, where they ended is far from where they started. And given the fact that they went so far, with the MINIMAL pvp setup at the end of ’05, they were still able to get a competitive pvp.

How is it, that as a developer, you can go literally backwards? If it were the case that Guildwars 2 was developed by someone completely different, I would grant them some time to adjust and learn. But they spent 6 years tuning guildwars 1 from something that was not intended to be pvp into something that had a good pvp core and then they want to do the same thing all over again with a worse starting design?? lolwut..

That’s like learning a whole new thing, spending years and years learning it, then when you go to apply it you just say screw what I learned ima just do what I want.

Vena.8436:

garethh.3518:

But yeah, this’ll take Anet’s initiative.

Get in contact with the SotG organizers and see if they’ll have you. Anet’s already made the initiative to have a venue where questions can be asked/concerns raised in an open forum about the state of PvP, why not use said venue to raise your concerns about PvP?

That would be great, if Anet has even considered that part of the game a problem.
The best I can do right now, at least that I can see is talk to one of those organizers and try to get them to pose the question…
“Are you (Anet) at all, seriously, considering taking a year~ off the push to esports and just improving gameplay. LoL didn’t take off for a few years after launch, GW2 is in a similar position (B2P with millions sold) so after adequate change could also draw in a world of competitive nature.”

If they say no, then the gameplay will generally stay as is and nothing I say is at all revelant, I mean to boot, odds say that the topic won’t even be within the peramaters Anet will set for SoTG stuff then.

If yes, then it opens up a few doors.

Tundera.7956:

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.

Hi, firstly I just wanted you to know your the reason we decided to do a beta release. People were begging for the features and league/tournament we are going to provide and we simply needed more help as it is such a big task! We have posted the official release thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Official-Mist-League-Beta-Release and the promo video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bu37X1ZEDA . We look forward to seeing you all there!

I believe it was meant for observer mode only.

Riot seized an opportunity and did well. GW2, on the other hand, was released in the post-LoL era. If they want a successful eSport they know what needs to be done. The fact that they’re not dedicating the necessary resources speaks volumes. I think the community investing time and effort into competitive GW2 PvP at this point is naive and sends out the wrong message (“See? See what we accomplished with what little (sh*y) tools you gave us? Just imagine what we could accomplish if you, the developer, actually cared!”)

I have access to more than enough eSports content already and the icons of a dozen AAA titles waiting on my desktop for me to find the time to play them. The way I see it if ANet want me to play their PvP, if they want my time and attention, if they want me to watch their streams, care about and speak of their content and provide them with additional revenue they will have to proactively compete with the existing players in the market. Put the infrastructure in place and polish it to a shine, make proper PvP more accessible and ensure influx of players through tie-ins to PvE; create regional scenes, make the modes possible to comment (Blu also had some eye-opening commentary on reddit on how difficult it is to commentate PvP matches currently), etc.
If I’m coming off as rather unsympathetic towards the woes of ANet it’s because I am. We’ve been paying to beta test their game. It’s their turn. And they’re on a clock.

tl; dr: It’s a buyers market. I don’t think it’ our role to convince ANet GW2 as an eSport could work. It is theirs to demonstrate to us that that’s the case.

Well said, Alpha.

Seconded. I might just copy paste this whenever I see people sweet talking about how its on the community to build the esportz scene from scratch, blabla.

I want automated tournaments asap.

I may not be top 1, but I am top 150 (pre-EotN) And I personally think that this Capture point system is so inferior to an ACTUAL team based/objective based game mode.

As someone before me said, if we compare this to a successful eSport (LoL) and compare it to Guild Wars 1 GvG, you can see that, in fact, they are very similar.

Both teams have a primary objective (GW: Guild Lord, LoL: Nexus)
Both teams have obstacles they need to get past to reach that objective (LoL: Towers, GW: NPCs / Gates)
Both teams have times when they team fight, and times when they split (GW: Gank routes, LoL: Gank routes)
Both teams have secondary objectives (GW: Flag Stand [aids entire team], LoL: Dragon/Baron [aids entireteam])

The main problem with capture points is that it DOES NOT promote team play, it promotes communication, but NOT team play. Team play is the cohesion of all players to overcome their obstacles, not having them constantly seperated doing their own thing.

This works in LoL because of minions and bushes, GW has nothing to aid a lone player against a lone player, it is whoever has the better 1v1 build, or bunker build, wins.

Please bring back GvG ;_;

this post is becoming history and still no answer from Anet

Assyrian.4827:

this post is becoming history and still no answer from Anet

That is because the chances of ANET coming in here and admitting “hey we kittened up” are non-existent.

On top of that the chances of ANET coming in here and saying “hey we plan on doing _ and ______ and _ to fix it” is silly.

One of you should setup a thread that talks about where the community should stand in all this.
It’d be something like a discussion weighing out the pro’s and cons of whichever ways the community could stand when it come’s to GW2’s progress, It’d aim for an unbaised take on what’s best for GW2, since everyone here seems to want GW2 to succeed…
There are just sooo many personal opinions floating around here… and good points, but without a touch on reality (they are made, but little is said about what to do about it)

I dunno, it could be something to turn all this quibbling, where half the people want to see GW2 fail just so Anet can see their mistakes while the other half want it to strive for Esports in the next month… into actual progress…

I think it’d really help at least.

My favorite things in this thread are the sports references. Cracking me up, the comparison of Michael Jordan and Washington BULLETS. Theyve been the WIzards since 1997. Messier to Bure to Gretzky? Someone is showing their age lol. Did Bure ever even play with those 2? Maybe an all star game? Good stuff.

bure, messier, gretzky, fuhr, anderson.

city of kitten champions, home of the bioware that matters, northern most urban capital, largest interconnected protected urban park system in the world…

Edmonton represent!

back patting aside, the comparison to live professional sports is a long time coming.

in general, gamers lack:
- sportsmanship
- credibility
- exposure

and this is largely due to the enduring jock vs nerd stigmas that industry heroes like Trip Hawkins worked so hard to erase. (Hawkins founded EA and is solely responsible for the introduction of sports in to games by getting Madden to out his name on the box).

that lower case “e” should not diminish the “sport” part, but – frankly – gamers don’t really put the best foot forward as a collective entity. and that is largely due to the inability for gaming communities to generate any form of consistency or consensus.

that was a lie, we are consistently fighting within ourselves, which I think is engendered (at least in part) by the sense of entitlement that “ownership” of one’s copy of the game instill in that “end user,” a sense of entitlement that is not applicable to live sports.

nak’s reccomendation:
- “own” the game by being better than other players, which means knowing you will. never stop getting better.

(soz, a bit of spill over from the end game thread there)

garethh.3518:

I think it’d really help at least.

You’re far too optimistic of forum etiquette. I remember, during the Curse tournie stream, someone talked about the forum (this forum) being a kitten hole… I don’t think I saw a single person disagree. I wouldn’t be surprised if many, many people are simply turned off from this forum because of the caustic nature of many posters and the threads that fly around in here. Heck, I rarely post because I find this forum mostly unbearable a lot of the time and I only stop by, usually, for some info on upcoming events/streams.

Moreover, how many of the actual top players (of this game, not the paragons of GW1 who post here regularly) do we ever see posting in here? Who’s opinion are you going to tabulate?

Vena.8436:

garethh.3518:

I think it’d really help at least.

You’re far too optimistic of forum etiquette. I remember, during the Curse tournie stream, someone talked about the forum (this forum) being a kitten hole… I don’t think I saw a single person disagree. I wouldn’t be surprised if many, many people are simply turned off from this forum because of the caustic nature of many posters and the threads that fly around in here. Heck, I rarely post because I find this forum mostly unbearable a lot of the time and I only stop by, usually, for some info on upcoming events/streams.

Moreover, how many of the actual top players (of this game, not the paragons of GW1 who post here regularly) do we ever see posting in here? Who’s opinion are you going to tabulate?

Speaking of the “caustic nature of many posters” – does the fact that someone’s is or is not currently a top GW2 player invalidate their opinion on the game or eSports? Should being a top player boost the validity of your arguments on this particular topic for example? Careful with the blanket statements…

ltkAlpha.4136:

Speaking of the “caustic nature of many posters” – does the fact that someone’s is or is not currently a top GW2 player invalidate their opinion on the game or eSports? Should being a top player boost the validity of your arguments on this particular topic for example? Careful with the blanket statements…

That’s not a blanket statement, its a question with regards to common sense. One does not ask checkers masters about the state of chess, as this forum is quick to compare everything from GW2 against GW1 when they are considerably different games. Hence, I asked (to avoid blanket statements) who’s opinion we were going to tabulate? (Because, as I said, many people find this forum caustic and as such, many of the people who actually play this game don’t post here. That means that the opinion pool size of this forum is rather limited on said people, making for a very poor representation (as is true of all forums) about is actually good for the game and what some one decided was good for the game based on some other game that they wished this game was.)

forums are always the vocal minority. always.

I remember how proud Anet was telling everyone on different sites (facebook for example before launch) they had been picked up by ArenaJunkies (as in Junkies was creating a GW2 part of the site)….not even a few months in Junkies stopped caring after they saw how GW2 PVP turned out after the false hype died down and it was nothing like GW1.

Now most the forum post are how PVP in GW2 is a joke….

Jackie.1829:

Yea… you can all blind yourself to the reality and fanboy all you want. Fact is that GW1 did it faster and more successfully than GW2 is doing it atm. And that in a day and age where e-sports and streaming wasnt even a thing. Now that they have the experience and infrastructure, they are actually failing more to provide us what we need. You do have to wonder why this is the case, and if it really is worth trusting in such a company.

Mind you, I also want GW2 to succeed, I waited for the game for like 3 years. But I am a bit confused as to how we are in the situation we are in atm.

But the problem is GW1 never really did achieve any relevance outside its monolithic elitist cave that eventually cannibalized its own community. Even with the quality of its PvP system(to date the best PvP, though we shall if GW2 evolves), which catered more to deckbuilders than actually providing a watchable platform for what we deign “E-Sports”.

GW2 has failed thus far because the infrastructure still is still barely passable. I seriously want to play this game casually, but with the terrible matchmaking its hard to play outside a full blown team(rank 223 atm). I just don’t have time for that crap. Like any MMO with multiple facets its going to take time before we see great pvp options, I’d predict around the first expansion is when everything will click. Whats there is really good though. Combat is fast paced and kinetic, but still too chaotic.

Its also hilarious those who cry to bring back monks into this game. Newsflash, you know why most watchable pvp doesn’t have crazy burst healing like most MMOs have? No one wants to watch 15-20 minute of target-swapping health bar whack-a-mole.