Guild Wars 2

Anet Game Designer Jonathan Sharp recently appeared Guru State of the Game and outlined the future plans for GW2 sPvP.

From the perspective of a player who is considering returning, I think it is important to take a critical look at what the realistic future of spvp will look like.

The improvements that players should look forward to are:

1) Anet understands that rating and MMR is the number one thing that is needed and is shifting their focus
2) Private servers are still on the way, but are not the number 1 priority
2) The current tournament system as opposed to single ranked matches are here to stay
3) Solo queue is on the agenda, but it will still have pugs vs premades except with rating taken into account
4) Esports support like a better score card that shows actually useful information and observer mode are in the works
5) Glory changes that better connect spvp to the rest of the world are in development

The major issues that were not addressed in any significant detail include:

1) Dwindling population in Spvp and its effect on queue times and a ladder system
2) The negative effects that the tournament ticket micro-transaction scheme have had on the player base by creating monopoly teams and a giant skill gap
3) The lack of connection between sPvP and the rest of the game population
4) Unimpressive viewership levels
5) The massive challenge of fostering an esport many, many months after an MMO release date
6) Anets design philosophy of incremental change and releasing things ‘when they are ready’ has resulted in vague and unclear promises about how great things will be in the future provides little incentive for competitive players to play the present game as they are pretty much beta testers at this point.

I elaborate and offer my opinions on these subjects in the following video with the hope of giving players honest and realistic expectations for the future of spvp.

I didn’t watch your video, but I’d have to say these issues:

1) Dwindling population in Spvp and its effect on queue times and a ladder system
2) The negative effects that the tournament ticket micro-transaction scheme have had on the player base by creating monopoly teams and a giant skill gap
4) Unimpressive viewership levels

Are not actual problems, but symptoms of the issues in tPvP that Anet has outlined their direction for. The problems with paid tournaments are almost all directly attributable to insufficient progression through free tournaments. Fixing “matchmaking” in free tournaments should fix the advancement path for teams going from hotjoin to tPvP to paids. The viewership numbers are a result of poor tools (namely, no spectator mode) for viewing and indirectly because of the current sPvP population. Again, resolving the issues with tPvP should naturally resolve this.

Good video and I agree with the vast majority of its content. Another thing to point out about how meaningless it is for the current hardcore players, if the game has any hope of e-sport status there will need to be significant additions of viable builds meaning the game played for that first big tournament will be much different than what they had spent hundreds of hours practicing.

I feel like anything below $250,000 would be a bit of a joke considering their seed money is going to be a necessity to kick off the e-sport aspect. I think 1mill would attract a lot of interest but like you said that could be a large risk for how small the population currently is.

Also something that I think can not be said enough, the entire tournament system needs to be scrapped and tournaments reserved for the larger daily and monthly tournaments.

I take pvp seriously when they introduce GvG, nothing more nothing less. Capture the flag is only fun for a little while.

Great video and good points. Who knows why they released early, but it was probably because they were in production for so long and desperate for their reward.

Syeria.4812:

1) Dwindling population in Spvp and its effect on queue times and a ladder system
2) The negative effects that the tournament ticket micro-transaction scheme have had on the player base by creating monopoly teams and a giant skill gap
4) Unimpressive viewership levels

Are not actual problems, but symptoms of the issues in tPvP that Anet has outlined their direction for. The problems with paid tournaments are almost all directly attributable to insufficient progression through free tournaments. Fixing “matchmaking” in free tournaments should fix the advancement path for teams going from hotjoin to tPvP to paids. The viewership numbers are a result of poor tools (namely, no spectator mode) for viewing and indirectly because of the current sPvP population. Again, resolving the issues with tPvP should naturally resolve this.

I do agree here. The choice for new or average teams is to play against pugs, or get stomped in paids. There is no middle ground or place to build up and learn so nobody cares about streams and the like.

I still do think that design decisions like:
- ticket entry fee
- 3 game tournament system that requires 40 people to even play
- ~45 minute time commitment with a big chunk of that being downtime waiting for the next match to start

Are just way to many barriers for most people to bother with and has very much hurt the population. Its actually a challenge to just play a basic competitive match which could be easily remedied with a single match style system that EVERY OTHER competitive pvp game uses.

Seether.7285:

Good video and I agree with the vast majority of its content. Another thing to point out about how meaningless it is for the current hardcore players, if the game has any hope of e-sport status there will need to be significant additions of viable builds meaning the game played for that first big tournament will be much different than what they had spent hundreds of hours practicing.

I feel like anything below $250,000 would be a bit of a joke considering their seed money is going to be a necessity to kick off the e-sport aspect. I think 1mill would attract a lot of interest but like you said that could be a large risk for how small the population currently is.

Also something that I think can not be said enough, the entire tournament system needs to be scrapped and tournaments reserved for the larger daily and monthly tournaments.

Agree entirely. The only reason to take the game seriously right now is for some far off hope that the game will take off. If Anet actually put some money down rather than keep making vague promises about how good things will be down the line then players will have some assurance that they are not completely wasting their time by simply providing free beta testing.