Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I just wanted to share my thoughts and experiences with GW1 and GW2 PVP. I played guild wars one for about 5 years while spending most of that doing PVP about 80% of the time. When I picked up GW2 it took me a while to get used to the new changes but here is what I noticed.

So far I’ve enjoyed the PVE side of the game the most and that’s where GW2 shines through the brightest. It provides a non linear experience and that’s what the previous game had too much of some times but it still followed a good story which I see has continued into this game and that is good.

PVP wise I don’t see myself getting into this game. While PVP in GW1 meaty with endless options to customize and build your characters so that no 2 were every really the same unless you wanted them to be, I found GW2’s PVP to be extremely linear. Mostly it’s the same skill set with the option to change it slightly by picking a selection of few different skills that might be useful, and then opening up a larger but still limited pallet by changing your weapons that are also limited to your class.

The system really is a major kickdown to how open it used to be and feels extremely linear. You typically use the same 4 main skills over and over again and it becomes dull and redundant very fast. The lack of being able to change and tweak your character (skill wise and not point wise) makes every match just feel the same. Now I know people from other MMO’s are used to dealing with the same skill set so they wouldn’t understand but people that came here from GW1 know what I mean when I say “linear skill set”.

I also found the same problem with GW1 in GW2 and that’s that the spell casting classes have the upper hand in the game still over melee or weapon using classes. The area damage these classes do is still massive and puts them at a major advantage over non casting classes. The biggest disappointment so far was seeing how the Ranger class was reduced in PVP useability significantly. They lack everything that made them worthwhile in GW1. No ability to improve their armor, blind enemies, cripple enemies, lethally poison enemies, burn enemies, trap enemies etc. etc. All those things are truly missing and it makes their class feel extremely weak. Arrows or more of just a nuisance and do very little battle worthy damage. As you can no longer take an opponent down simply by shooting them to death like in the previous game. Now, I do know that some of the abilities I mentioned have been updated and transferred to GW2 but, they perform nothing as they did in GW1 and are no way on the same level. There is no longer such thing as a Trapper, Interrupt,or Burning arrow ranger. The skills are to weak now to be the main focus of a build. Things like not having “throw dirt” as a way to blind melee attackers so you can focus on your target really make Rangers a very open and “squishy target”.

That also leads me into another problem I wanted to address and that’s the armor for rangers. Since they have such a reduced damage level now they take on more damage with fewer defensive skills. They are at times somewhat like a punching bag and go down very quickly. Even if they are using melee abilities they are susceptible to taking heavy damage from attackers as they are a ranged class with very thin armor.

Pets also used to play a major role in the strength of a ranger but they are now almost meaningless and are better used as a decoy to hope your enemy attacks your pet instead of you.

These changes to the PVP aspect of GW2 aren’t just limited to the Ranger class but other classes as well but Rangers stick out the most. The curve on this game really sticks out in the direction of the spell casting classes just as the original game did which is what I hoped would be fixed.

I also find the PVP games in GW2 to be tightly structured maps that all feel the same. There really isn’t enough running room or space to make it feel like a real battle field. It’s more like rushing to find a seat on Bus. Everything is so compacted that a lot of times it’s just mobbing the other team. Guild Wars 1 had large open battlefields like JQ and AB that make battles open and spread out. There is Wvs.W in Gw2 with a huge map but for shorter simple games it defeats the purpose.

Overall as far as it goes with me and PVP in GW2 I don’t intend to rely on this game to fulfilled that need. I see PVE as the strong point of GW2 and will play it for that aspect only. PVP leaves much to be desired and I don’t think I’d spend another 5 years playing PVP the way it is now. GW1 pvp wasn’t perfect balance wise but it was challenging in a good way as it made you think and learn to build your character by using a large variety of skills that tied into the game by using those “signets of capture” to get them from bosses. It compelled you to play the game but all of that is completely gone now. The gaps in each class vary but they are very large gaps to fill. With being forced to stay in your lane and not have the option of mixing and matching other class abilities into yours like making a Mesmer/necro or Warrior/necro and interesting builds like that, a lot of the fun of the game has been taken away.

So overall those are just my thoughts on PVP in GW2 from a GW1 veteran. I don’t know what changes could possibly be made to the game to make PVP as much fun as it used to be without overhauling everything but for now I see this as a PVE only game for me. When it came to PVP for me it’s “fun” above anything else. The “fun” has been replaced with “simplicity” and PVP now feels extremely watered down and less challenging.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts.

Yes I agree, why they made a mix of AB/TA [alliance battles/Team arenas] the ONLY game mode is beyond me. Capture points is boring period [and boring to watch as well]. HA and GvG were awesome very unique and very tactics driven it was like a game of chess.

Also, they have cheapened the titles in GW2, in GW1 titles meant something because you had to WIN to get points, in HA you gained points in increments adding more points to every consecutive win, until you reached the Hall of Hero’s where it was a 1v1v1 and a rotation of 3 game modes and if you won your guild or the leader of the party was broadcasting in pve and pvp and you had to fight to stay the champion of the halls of hero’s! There were many ganking’s the germans would gank the koreans out then the americans would gank the germans ect. ect. ect very competitive and FUN!

And in GvG you had to get to champ range rating [1500 in the start of gw then they lowered it to 1200] and after you got to champ range you had to face another guild of champ range to get ONE point.

In [GW2] you get points for killing people, killing npc’s, and …. standing in circles? Right ive seen people bot to rank 60+ already just making quick macros to stand on point and off point w/ 2 accounts….simply ridiculous.

Also lessened the rewards for participating in PvP as a whole. HA gave you a chest at the end where you could potentially get a ghostly hero [worth 100’s of millions of gold i got 10 stacks of ecto when i sold mine] or possible a crystalline sword [also worth a pretty penny] and in GvG we you could sell the guilds for hundreds of millions of gold if they won gold cape or even champ range you could get aloooot of in game gold with it.

In gw2 what do we get….some crappy skins? Yep thats it !

+1 for you Suzu

h/t to the guy who created GW1 PvP! HE IS A LEGEND!!!!

i mean you know where am going with this…

GW1 had HA. Said enough.
HA was a perfect PvP format that no game will ever have, but they just threw it away, it’s quite sad.

guild wars 2 pve is amazing, now gw2 pvp is a tragedy, that’s why is dead, can’t even find a match in tpvp. Is boring, repetitive, and AB style pvp yuck.

I have to disagree with you on the availability of different builds very strongly.

The trait, rune, amulet and sigil-system gives you hundreds of different ways to play Chars, some or minor tweaks, some make the chars play out completely different.

I have spent hours upon hours coming up with new builds for pretty much every class that worked really well and I’ve been playing a Mesmer-build (shatter with valk-amu and lots of condi-remove and reg) and an Ele-build (Valk-Amu, three cantrips, eagle-runes) very successfully on high-level paid-tournaments for a long time that pretty much no1 else runs. Ppl. are just sticking to their few builds they know and are afraid to try out sth. new, thats why some ppl think that there aren’t enough new and vastly different builds out there, but thats just not the case at all.

- Ever seen a Trap-Ranger with icetrap and Rune of the Elementalist, being able to chill several targets basically 80% of the time?
- Ever seen a Ranger with greatsword/Longbow and tons of healing as an alternative to a Bunker-Guard?
- Ever seen a Rifle-Engi with tons of knockbacks and Immobilize with the sole purpose of decapping points that have 1 holding-char deffing them?
- Ever seen a shatter-mesmer that doesn’t run Zerker-Amu and 20/20/0/0/30?
- Ever seen a team running a 2-3 PowerRanger-Spike?
- Ever seen a team with no Holding/Bunker-Char whatsoever?
- Ever seen a Char-spec that is build in a way that he can switch from glasscannon to holding-char with the switch of an Amulet?

I have played and tested all these Chars and tons of other builds and they all work perfectly fine – ppl just don’t test out new stuff and that creates the Illusion that the game is stagnant.

Just w8 until the game gets more competitive and the Really good guilds that win everything atm will have to come up with new stuff and rethink their builds, because it just doesn’t work anymore. Until now, the ppl that are on Top, that stream all day and therefore largely form our Metagame didn’t have to change anything in their builds, because it worked. Atm. I see teams getting more creative, mostly because they are bored I think, but If new teams rise up to challenge the metagame, or certain balance-changes forces the meta to change, we will see tons of new builds that work, jsut because there are so many options in creating your Char.

Really, the availability of different specs that are viable in PvP for the different classes is like 20 times higher than in GW1 and pretty much any other MMO or MOBA out there.

gw1 pvp >>>> gw2 pvp.

GW1 had thousands and thousands builds available while GW2 only has a few. FACT

from those thousands builds maybe 50 were viable at the same time. build variety is pretty much the same

It’s funny because I think in the blurb they say the Ranger is the true master of ranged combat. Yet what other classes can a ranger master in ranged combat.

Rezz.8019:

GW1 had thousands and thousands builds available while GW2 only has a few. FACT

teambuilds or individual builds?

Cuz yeah; 8 Man-teams will give you more Build-options than 5v5.

But on Individual builds, GW2 has much more viable options, so you might have to put a little “*” after “FACT” and not talk things you have no Idea about. I’ve played GW1 on the highest possible level for years and I play tons of GW2 on a very high level and the amount of builds that work or at least have potential in certain roles is huge.

Simple math will tell you that having a 2ndary profession system allowed for much more builds vs weapon system that gives us 5 new skills that are 5 SET skills..

Real talk going on here. Shouts out to the original gw1 devs that made the pvp foundations of guild wars last 10+ years, mad props and respect on that.

As a gw1 & 2 pvp veteran I must say that the gw2 devs are really disappointing the community, myself and many of my friends- all of this seems to be mainly caused by greed. A few storyline quests are bugged and arenanet stated that it’s not important to fix them & they’d rather work on gem shop content, enough said there.

GW2 pvp is no where near as good or comparable to GW1 pvp, I’ve been telling myself I shouldn’t compare GW1 to GW2. There is much less freedom of choice and diversity and much more simplicity, in a bad way. The mechanics are not complex enough and skill oriented(both individual player skill and skill mechanics), it feels like the devs are working too hard on simple stuff when complex stuff is actually easier to work on and more challenging to the players, I’m not sayin they aren’t well thought but theres quite alot of stuff out there missing that little something special that makes all the difference in gameplay/class styles.

PowerBottom.5796:

Rezz.8019:

GW1 had thousands and thousands builds available while GW2 only has a few. FACT

teambuilds or individual builds?

Cuz yeah; 8 Man-teams will give you more Build-options than 5v5.

But on Individual builds, GW2 has much more viable options, so you might have to put a little “*” after “FACT” and not talk things you have no Idea about. I’ve played GW1 on the highest possible level for years and I play tons of GW2 on a very high level and the amount of builds that work or at least have potential in certain roles is huge.

The way the skills and weapons system works right now GW2 will never have as much build variety, versatility and uniqueness gw1 had both individual and team specs wise I also doubt it will ever have as much game mode variety and excitement from them.

The pvp community is very small and is split into 2 region servers NA and EU, I do think it wouldn’t be a good idea to split people in different game modes right now but there aren’t many people out there that enjoy Conquest as it creates a pretty stressful and elitist-only environment for new players and I do think if both regions were melted together for pvp things would get much more interesting and competitive. Just look at the America vs Europe rivalry back in GW1, it was kittening awesome. This regions split in GW2 also seems to have created favoritism for one of the region and it is blatantly obvious and sad to some people. I remember back in the days when they removed TA and HB GW1 because they thought the pvp community was too spreaded around on different game modes, but this just made alot of people quit and TA never got the love it deserved and I never understood the logic behind removing those from the game as it was obvious it wouldn’t create the desired effect and as much as I don’t understand why Conquest is the only game mode right now.

From this optique, removing Conquest and Guardians from the game would bring(back) ALOT of people to pvp. Maybe removing it completely from the game would be too harsh to some people, but at least have another game mode like GvG, HA or TA but do not centralize all of your work on one single game mode and the majority doesn’t give two kittens about. All I can tell the devs that I can think on top of my head right now is this: Try to stop going with simplicity over complexity, you could be surprised how easier it actually is to get more complex and work with it to create something more special and exciting for the people that play your game than go with restrictions and simplicity. Players freedom of choice is the key.

I also have to point out that there is alot of idling in this game and there is nothing to do out of prime times for paid tournaments compared to GW1, where you could play some Hero Battles with single matchmaking queues rolling 24/7 and Daily Automated Tournaments at set times everyday when all of your friends were off or if you just wanted to show off your individual player skills, this is the perfect example of a game mode where you can accomplish amazing stuff by yourself not having to rely on other people to make everything work the way you want it to and it didn’t take a ridiculous amount of time to setup for. GW2 is missing this part.

Heads up: I have over 1,300 hours played since release all invested in pvp and an insane amount of hours in GW1 mostly invested in pvp.

Here is a guild wars pvp veterans forum that is still quite active that anyone that played the game on a competitive level has at least heard about;

http://www.teamquitter.com/

You can read over there what the GW1’s most fierce and competitive players think of GW2. Browse that forum for a couple minutes on the GW2 section and read some of what people think about it. Yep, enjoy.

Phira.3970:

Simple math will tell you that having a 2ndary profession system allowed for much more builds vs weapon system that gives us 5 new skills that are 5 SET skills..

Yeah, but GW2 has Sigils, Runes and Amulets and a much more refined trait-system.

Besides, almost no secondary class was able to drastically change the role or even playstyle of any given build.

Warriors were always Damage-Dealers, it didn’t matter if they had 1-2 or 2 different Skills that basically always tried to enhance his Damage-potential.

Monks were always Healers, it didn’t matter if they had Dark Escape or Shadow Return, the Warrior-Stances, or Mesmer-Skills or whatever, they always where either Mana-Management-oriented or gave the Monk itself more survivability.

Actually GW1 had a 4 weapon swap system which actually added a lot more flavor than it currently does IMO and took a lot of skills to utilize and was something for hardcore players.
2ndary did change a lot of things.

Example would be the dagger/hammer Warrior.
Hammer Bash -> weapon swap cancel to Dagger -> falling spider -> etc… -> Building adrenaline to Hammer bash again -> rince and repeat for infinitely long lock down.

This all had to be done with lightning fast fingers or one mistake and the combo won’t work.

Then there’s also flag runners which relied on 2ndary class a lot.

Many farm builds relied on 2ndary class a lot.

A lot of the builds I made used 2ndary class a lot except most are now nerfed.

Also unique aspects of GW1:
zealous spear to gain energy back.

adrenaline spears.

swapping between low energy sets and high energy sets strategically

Also in GW2, everything is bunker/tank orientated for holding points or exploiting the rez system. While you can build other classes to bunker, they don’t compete with the current best: ele/guardians

There isn’t much room for damage orientated builds currently. The majority of the team will be bunkers in order to compete competitively.

And in GW1, everything was more damage orientated. But hybrids and being a bit tanky were viable too if one splits from team to do other stuff.

And GW1 had a specific role just for flag runners.. which GW2 doesn’t. And there were many builds made just for this 1 role.

GW2 trait and attribute and sigils is definitely a good idea but they still need the core things that made GW1 PvP .. Guild Wars. GW2 pvp doesn’t feel like GW at all as many others are complaining also.

PowerBottom.5796:

Warriors were always Damage-Dealers, it didn’t matter if they had 1-2 or 2 different Skills that basically always tried to enhance his Damage-potential.

Monks were always Healers, it didn’t matter if they had Dark Escape or Shadow Return, the Warrior-Stances, or Mesmer-Skills or whatever, they always where either Mana-Management-oriented or gave the Monk itself more survivability.

There was time with backline hammer warrior – way less focused on dealing damage and much more stoping spikes and appply pressure on enemy frontline.

There was time when ppl run 3rd smiter monk – he did not heal, serverd as condition/hex removal + dmg.

Gw2 have few viable builds for each class but the main problem is that most of the skills are very flat and uninstresting. GW1 was all about making builds and finding synergy between skills – often creating stuff that even developers did not predict while creating game.

In GW2 there is no surprise or real choice – there are templates and u just play what they tell you. For some ppl its enough, but most competitive games are about creating interesting combinations – i honestly doubt gw2 got enough player choice to rly make the difference. We’ll see – so far its going down the hill to oblivion.

Shukran.4851:

gw1 pvp >>>> gw2 pvp.

QFT +10 don’t think its needs to be broken down farther than this.

Jarlaxe.4607:

PowerBottom.5796:

Warriors were always Damage-Dealers, it didn’t matter if they had 1-2 or 2 different Skills that basically always tried to enhance his Damage-potential.

Monks were always Healers, it didn’t matter if they had Dark Escape or Shadow Return, the Warrior-Stances, or Mesmer-Skills or whatever, they always where either Mana-Management-oriented or gave the Monk itself more survivability.

There was time with backline hammer warrior – way less focused on dealing damage and much more stoping spikes and appply pressure on enemy frontline.

There was time when ppl run 3rd smiter monk – he did not heal, serverd as condition/hex removal + dmg.

Gw2 have few viable builds for each class but the main problem is that most of the skills are very flat and uninstresting. GW1 was all about making builds and finding synergy between skills – often creating stuff that even developers did not predict while creating game.

In GW2 there is no surprise or real choice – there are templates and u just play what they tell you. For some ppl its enough, but most competitive games are about creating interesting combinations – i honestly doubt gw2 got enough player choice to rly make the difference. We’ll see – so far its going down the hill to oblivion.

As if I don’t know what a Backliner or a smiter is, I’ve played GW1 competetively in Top-20 Guilds for years…. -.-°

GW2 of course lacks in game-modes and features, but those will come eventually, but the core-system of how you build a character is just extremely deep and is heavily underestimated by 95% of players. Even top-players don’t necessarily have a clue about what possibilities the different chars have, what specs are viable, they don’t even know all the runes/sigils properly and how they interact with different skills.

There are both runes and Sigils in the game, that make a bigger difference on how a character is played or should be played, then many, if not most, Skills you could have from your second class. The Trait-System changes builds drastically and GW1’s attribute-system was basically the pure stat-part of the trait-system and offers much less versatility than GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOOOOVE GW1, I played it like crazy and I still think it’s unmatched in terms of a competetive team-based MMO, but I think GW2 has the potential to be just as good and in terms of versatility of chars and how different a char can be built, it surpasses GW1 even in this early stage of the game.

I mean: I’ve played Monk in GvG and sometimes Ascent for 3-4 years and where in Ascent you had 2-3 Monks with quite different roles, you had 2 Monks in GvG with a bit of a different role, but not as big of a difference as in Ascent, cuz you had to split often and a Protter without healing that was only good if you have a fullhealer/Infuser near you, wasn’t very viable in GvG. But there really were like 3 defensive builds that only changed a few skills over time or had a few interchangable options you could choose from based on the Metagame and there were maybe 1-2 other Monk-builds (Flagrunner, smiter etc.)

In GW2, there are vastly different Guardian-builds (and Guardian is one of the classes that is the least versatile IMHO), you have Holder that rely on toughness vita, that play out quite differently from those that rely on healing power. You have POint/def-Roamers with lots of Teleports and good DPS, you have Support-Guards that lie somewhere in the Middle etc. You can play a DPS-Guard with Zerker-Amu and get insane burst DPS (on the standard Oppa-Pointholder build with Meditations and Sword/Fokus and Scepter/Shield), or you can go for Soldiers Amu and be quite tanky; only this little switch of an Amu changes drastically how you have to play the Guard…

I strongly feel that you can make a good DPS, support or Bunker-build with pretty much every class and you can go for either conditions or Power and in terms of DPS, you can go either full glass-cannon or “half-tanky” – I really do believe that with very few exceptions. And those are only the rough Roles, each has like 2+ specs that makes them play out rather differently – theres no way GW1 can come anywhere near that amount of depth in creating an individual build. And I haven’t even talked about teambuilds, where combofields and finishers and synergies between the builds play a huge role.

It’s gonna be hard to get as much depth in teambuilds though, simply because it’s 5v5 and not 8v8 and because there are no real Healers, but hey – maybe we’ll even get an 8v8-mode…

Btw. don’t misinterpret my passion for GW2 build versatility as being PO’d or not taking other opinions seriously, I just love trying out new stuff in GW2 and feel that ppl that think GW2 is stagnant and only has a few good builds, are just afraid to try out new builds.

PowerBottom.5796:

It’s gonna be hard to get as much depth in teambuilds though, simply because it’s 5v5 and not 8v8 and because there are no real Healers, but hey – maybe we’ll even get an 8v8-mode…

Btw. don’t misinterpret my passion for GW2 build versatility as being PO’d or not taking other opinions seriously, I just love trying out new stuff in GW2 and feel that ppl that think GW2 is stagnant and only has a few good builds, are just afraid to try out new builds.

5v5 is fine, but 5v5 based on skirmishing over BOs…
Now that is just a kick in the pants for allot of the possible synergy…
You basically have to work in the bunker/roamer mold with a man or 2 based on group fighting/stalling… its a bit of a tough spot to be in for a meta.
Team fights provide so much depth to them, positioning becomes extremely important, situational awareness skyrockets in usefullness, working with others becomes a the centerpiece of the game… which kills me when I see that Anet’s 1 style of play, the style they seem unbreakably intent on, generally avoids it…

I would try new builds if there was a decent game mode worth building them for.

Currently? Build as tanky as possible and get insta-rez.

Guild wars 1 PvP structure 10000000x better than gw2 with so many different game modes. Anet dropped the ball big time on pvp this time around. We got suckered into thinking it was more profound than we initially thought. I honestly think it might be to late to salvage pvp with so many few people left. The ones that have left were so infuriated by the lack of pvp they don’t want to come even if they fixed it. Anet could have done a much better job period!

PvP:GW1>WoW>Rift>Aion>Swtor>AoC>WaR>GW2 .
Its sad but true

There are many potentially good builds in the gw2 system.Perhaps more than what you ll ever need.The only thing that prevents them from reaching the surface is…the game mode

I totally agree. I miss Guildwars1 GvG.

What??

Gw2 pvp has SO much more potential.
It’s actual skill and proper timing.

You feel much more in control, it’s more fluid, and action-oriented.

The only reason why I say potential, and not FLAT OUT better than GW1, is because of the many bugs and balances that should be fixed/applied.

Guild Wars 1 had Guild Wars. This is Guild Wars 2 and it has… oh wait? random capture the point?

Gw2 PvP is big kick in da nutts.. How can you turn the best ever PvP game into worst pvp-wise game ?

Screw all the capture the point stuff, this is not CoD . 4×4 team deathmatch,hoh and gvg made guildwars what it was.Amazing game.

its a shame, i spend more than 5 years of playing GW1.. im pretty sure i will end up with GW2 within one year….

GW1 PvP was the best for me and can´t be compared in any way to what i have seen anywhere else (warhammer, lol aion, lol swotor). It was designed so nicely to promote teamwork and strategy. build diversity (even at the end everyone runned balance metagame).

I had so many great moments playing GW1 PvP. So many great fights ! Never ever will i forget how we worked with my team to get into top 50.

In GW2 PvP.. im having fun, but only 1-2 games in evening. The game has its potencial, but it will never be so complex and so team oriented.

You know what? ArenaNet decided to make the game simplier in order to attract more players. Well, PvP players like the complexity. We dont like being simple.. we like to think and use our brains.
Is SC2 simple? no… no way. you can play it.. but same like any other game, you will get stomped by players who know more about the game and know advanced tactic and builds. In order to go there.. and grow up.. you need to spend monhts by training.. to get for example platinum league… MONTHS ! thats not simple.

Yezhik.2071:

What??

Gw2 pvp has SO much more potential.
It’s actual skill and proper timing.

You feel much more in control, it’s more fluid, and action-oriented.

All true, but everything is so much more limited in GW2 than GW1 because of inflexible weapon skills and the WOW-style talent tree system.

Even something basic like removing the requirement to equip an elite skill in the elite slot would be a good start, but what I’d really like is for each weapon to have a pool of skills that you can choose from, not this fixed 1-2-3-4-5 stuff.

Playing GW2 I don’t feel like I have any real choice in building the way I want – everything is too constrained.

Yezhik.2071:

What??

Gw2 pvp has SO much more potential.
It’s actual skill and proper timing.

You feel much more in control, it’s more fluid, and action-oriented.

The only reason why I say potential, and not FLAT OUT better than GW1, is because of the many bugs and balances that should be fixed/applied.

“you feel much more in control” I will have to disagree with anything you have to say if you think you have control in gw2, in team fights its just a cluster of random aoe cc’s, aoe pulls, aoe daze, aoe stun, blow back and its just plain and simple chaos. [i will say small scale fights 2v2 and 3v3 are AMAZING in this game though]

GW1 on the other hand you had control if your ENTIRE TEAM was coordinated, Omega spike, R-spike, Bala, even Blood spike lmao, there were hundreds of team comps some pressure through condis/hexes some through pure spike, but that was the point the entire team had to be in sync, not so much in GW2, its so independent that your team could carry 1-2 bad players.

Even in Splits in GvG your little infiltration team [Split team] had to work insanely well together to kill the base defender that came back and the main team had to communicate when the enemy sent more reinforcements into the enemy base. THAT was control over the game.

Also, you could tell when the enemy team was spiking, prot monks and infuse monks always had to be on their toes, mesmer’s rupt vital spike skills, rangers the same, even warriors could mitigate spike damage by interrupting essential skills or just line backing the other front lines. Midline ele’s could blind, slow, every one had a role and knew what to do. Nowwe look at gw2.

GW2 most skills and spells are instant no time to really rupt them or coordinate what to do really, its all twitch play [even though they said they wanted to eliminate that type of play].

In my opinion they took out all the defined roles that made gw1 amazing, no more midline no more back line no more front line. They just opted to make a game where all the classes could do everything, on paper that sound’s amazing, in implementation it leaves a bland feeling, because basically everyone’s doing the same crap just as different “classes”.

P.S WHY CAP POINTS ARGAHAGHGHAHAH

guild wars 1 PvP>>>>>>GW2 PvP is not even close.

ghaleon.2861:

guild wars 1 PvP>>>>>>GW2 PvP is not even close.

Without a doubt.

The sad part is that despite this probably being a unanimous decision, they won’t do anything to change the fact that GW2 PvP is stale. They will read this topic and say “yea but we just started, things you guys really want will come soon!” and their next content update will be a ingame scoreboard. No new modes, no changes to the current mode, no buffs to unviable builds, no GvG, no changes to the completely unused runes and sigils.

Franky I’ve no hope in the SPvP at this point and WvW with the guild is the only reason im still around. But we can all agree on one thing, the PvE is great. I never played GW1 PvP but it’s not very hard to surpass GW2.

ghaleon.2861:

guild wars 1 PvP>>>>>>GW2 PvP is not even close.

i wrote it before you grrr è.é

joke. gw1 best coorpg ever. nice job. now give me a time machine so i can go back to 2005 to start playing it again.

PowerBottom.5796:

GW2 of course lacks in game-modes and features, but those will come eventually, but the core-system of how you build a character is just extremely deep and is heavily underestimated by 95% of players.

THIS, this this this.

A lot of people lack the imagination to see the incredible diverse nature of building the character just because its not in traditional forms like skill slots, talent points, etc.

If you dont believe me then you prob haven’t gone through and read every single sigil and rune (6) modifier and thought about applying it for every profession.

I also think the combo/finisher system has yet to be touched by the playerbase

Also +1 for the point that this current system can even come close to a game that has been out and revised for 5 or more years, a lot of the “revision” comes from players figuring things out on their own in the same span of time.

face it, Arenanet did not just make this an expansion of GW1 for a reason, and since it is a brand new, separate, game— it needs to have the same amount of time to develop

now I wont argue that I think it is lacking in content to retain players for pvp currently. But its free so bringing players back shouldnt be too hard (look at LoL) But the core of the game is astonishingly balanced, diverse, and competitive and has a lot of potential.

Rezz.8019:

GW1 had HA. Said enough.
HA was a perfect PvP format that no game will ever have, but they just threw it away, it’s quite sad.

QFT.

GW1 had a number of great things that the current direction just…threw…away…???

Rezz.8019:

GW1 had thousands and thousands builds available while GW2 only has a few. FACT

This is the big downside to this game.

Otherwise pvp is quite fun. But there is just so few character options it makes it boring.

rmBossa.4621:

PowerBottom.5796:

GW2 of course lacks in game-modes and features, but those will come eventually, but the core-system of how you build a character is just extremely deep and is heavily underestimated by 95% of players.

THIS, this this this.

A lot of people lack the imagination to see the incredible diverse nature of building the character just because its not in traditional forms like skill slots, talent points, etc.

If you dont believe me then you prob haven’t gone through and read every single sigil and rune (6) modifier and thought about applying it for every profession.

I also think the combo/finisher system has yet to be touched by the playerbase

Also +1 for the point that this current system can even come close to a game that has been out and revised for 5 or more years, a lot of the “revision” comes from players figuring things out on their own in the same span of time.

face it, Arenanet did not just make this an expansion of GW1 for a reason, and since it is a brand new, separate, game— it needs to have the same amount of time to develop

now I wont argue that I think it is lacking in content to retain players for pvp currently. But its free so bringing players back shouldnt be too hard (look at LoL) But the core of the game is astonishingly balanced, diverse, and competitive and has a lot of potential.

Time to develop? GW2 had plenty of time 4+ years in fact.

Lets look at some facts:

- GW1 launched with 4 pvp modes HA/GvG/TA/RA [and HA had numerous game modes from conquest to death match to koth and the last map was a rotation of 3 game modes]

-GW1 Launched W/ a GvG ladder

-Skill system had millions of possible builds [gw2 you are locked into a set skill set w/ weapons]

-GW1 Launched w/ obs mode

-Gw1 launched with 20+ maps [HA alone had 11 maps]

Now lets look at GW2:

-Only one game mode [conquest]

-No obs mode

-No ladder

-Only 3 maps [tpvp]

Feels like i paid 60$ for an alpha test, “time to develop”, k well if they need to develop BASIC pvp structure AFTER they release the game…..riteee

P.S GW1 had “private servers” at launch as well, your guild hall. GW2 they are probably going to monetize “private servers” so we will have to PAY for our “private servers”.

P.P.S GW1 also didn’t have multiple servers, they had one server with multiple districts, so the pvp lobby area’s were ALWAYS populated. GW2? they separated the HOTM by server, making almost ALL the NA hotm ghost towns. Star wars made this mistake and crushed them, lets hope Anet see’s this as a problem and merges all of the HOTM’s.

GW2 has Conquest, Keg brawl (lol) and WvW (….) for pvp, and only Conquest is at the same “prestige” of gw1’s 4 formats, not that RA was exactly prestigious.

GW2 is missing some features that GW1 launched with, which is odd, but it’s probably from the pve focus they gave. Unfortunate to the pvp side of the game, but it’ll come and I think they’re putting greater emphasis now then they were pre-release.

I want to ask a question. Where are the guys who made GW1? Were they even a part of the developing team in GW2?

Not trying to pick on you PowerBottom but:

“Btw. don’t misinterpret my passion for GW2 build versatility as being PO’d or not taking other opinions seriously, I just love trying out new stuff in GW2 and feel that ppl that think GW2 is stagnant and only has a few good builds, are just afraid to try out new builds.”

I have tried out different builds as a Mesmer, but all builds must either be burst or bunker, and of those types there’s only the slightest difference between them.

And that’s pretty much the situation all classes find themselves in. You could figure out builds that do different things, but Cap Point makes all those other builds pointless for there is no advantage to having them on your team.

Until a new game type is introduced and traits are overhauled, the GW2 PVP is stagnant. Slight differences in bunker v burst is not interesting. Many of us GW1 pvpers bored of it back in gw2 beta. Sigils and stat variations don’t change up the meta but just recolor the same limited meta. I feel walled in by the lack of viability for variety.

And due to the limited amount of roles or purposes, all variations on a similar theme get thinned out by priority of strength. If one bunker Guardian is stronger than another bunker Guardian, the weaker bunker build fades away.

There needs to be a new game mode and they need to overhaul traits. Traits were supposed to offer the creativity and variety that GW1’s skill system did. No, stat redistributions and sigils do not offer the same livelihood. Instead of offering new ways to play, the traits and stats are offering better ways to play the same thing. Too much vertical increase and things that should be basic functionality. My pistol shoots from a further distance? My Phantasms do more damage? These aren’t game changing. More damage vs lower health foes? Betters what you are already doing, but doesn’t change what you are doing.

Traits should be offering new functionality and playstyle to existing skills. Engineer bombs healing are an example of this. This chages a bomb engy from just aoe damage and area control to also support healing. This adds functionality. Combined with other traits, this functionality’s worth is increased. (Larger bomb radius, bomb on dodge.)

The problem is that the good traits that add functionality and new role options make up a third of traits at most, while most of the traits in games are just buffs to already obvious and pre-existing class/skill functionality. If I plan to use grenades for much of my damage then adding an extra grenade to each kit skill via a trait isn’t much of a choice. It’s an obvious increase to what I’m already doing.

Things like sigils and runes don’t add functionality or new roles. The entire game isn’t doing that and the game type (Cap Point) has no room for it. The game isn’t being called stagnant for lack of trying on the populace’s part. It’s current state is objectively walled in and restricted by their design choices.

Also, a correction on what someone said earlier. GW1 did not launch with Observer mode. That took a year or two (I want to say). I also want to say that the game did not launch with all of HA, GvG, TA and RA, but I’m not sure on that.

GW1 had “Build Wars”, it’s true that there was a lot of depth in the skill system because the game was designed with Magic The Gathering as inspiration. But the base combat was very MMO-like.

I come from a background of games like Fighting Games like Street Fighter or Guilty Gear, and Action Games like Dark Souls or Devil May Cry, and MMO combat isn’t very interesting to me.

I’m glad that GW2 is moving away from MMO-combat to something a bit more actiony. However, I feel like they’re caught in the middle, which is why neither audience is truly happy at the moment.

I’m fine with the “Build Wars” system being simplified and reduced. I don’t think a group’s success or failure should be so strongly influenced by the choices they made before the match even starts.

However, the basic combat of this game, both 1v1 and team v team, could use some adjustment. I think cooldowns are too long, defensive effects are too subtle, sustained damage is too low.

The split-second choices you make in-game need to have big consequences. But similarly, you should be able to recover by making other choices immediately after.

Variety adds to depth, but other competitive games have depth even when you take away variety. A Ryu vs. Ryu mirror match in Street Fighter has the entire game’s worth of depth in there. Team Deathmatch in Quake has as much depth even though every player is identical.

So I think the key to making GW2 good is to ignore the “Build Wars” for now, and concentrate on making the basic combat mechanics fun, deep and tactical.

etiolate.9185:

Also, a correction on what someone said earlier. GW1 did not launch with Observer mode. That took a year or two (I want to say). I also want to say that the game did not launch with all of HA, GvG, TA and RA, but I’m not sure on that.

yeah obs went at least 1.5 years after release.
there was HA playing pve.
RA was playable since lvl 10 because of arenas around the maps for low levels with level restrictions.winning RA u unlocked TA.
another game, another level

www is not pvp, but geared based pvpve. pff

There just isn’t any variety in GW2.
A simple example would be a ranger. Here you have 2 options: condition damage or burst damage, or you can try bunkering but it’s not good enough.
GW1 ranger: RaO hammer, cripshot, r-spiker, R/D wounding strike, trapper, IA arrow pressure, R/W axe, oath shot
GW1 professions had WAY more completely different possibilities, while all of the GW2 professions have 2-3 similar options.

^there were so many elite skills and variety you could use and centerize the way you build your spec and basic skills on it too. Over 250 elite skills and over 1300 regular skills.

I really miss GW1. GW2 doesn’t feel anything like it, and even with the strongest attraction factors I could find I’m still bored and the year isn’t even finished yet. GW1 kept me occupied a lot longer than that; the skillcap was so much higher and more rewarding in my experience.

kostbabis.8791:

There are many potentially good builds in the gw2 system.Perhaps more than what you ll ever need.The only thing that prevents them from reaching the surface is…the game mode

I agree with this sentiment. Although I still prefer GW1 pvp for many reasons, I think some serious thought needs to be put into the game modes. GW1 had many options for PvP that were all satisfying in their own regard. Between TA, 1 v 1, HA and GvG there were so many options to fit the mood of what I wanted out of PvP at any given time.

In GW2 the point capture maps or WvW just feels lacking. I find the game to be much more about zerg and run than any real thought put into the play style. The lack of healing just makes it a “my zerg party looks bigger, time to go in” mentality. You basically have the small zerg map or the big zerg map…

I really tried to like this PvP out of my fondness for GW1, but I just cant seem to get into it. I dont feel any desire the way I did in GW1 to get into the serious PvP community. I really hope the devs put some time and effort into rethinking the game modes to suit the different moods of PvP style. GW1 captured the feeling of glory and rewards out of Heores Ascent and GvG. Fun and experimentation out of TA and 1 v 1. In GW1 people cared about top teams and builds and the community was vibrant. I just dont get that feeling this time around.

I will say, I enjoy the PvE much more, but I really was hoping for more out of PvP based on this franchise.

They only care about PVE in GW2 in an effort to attract more players.
Same for zergVzergVzerg (WvW)

sPVP is something that feels tacked on. I feel lied to and totally betrayed as a complete loyal GW1 fan who convinced many people that GW2 was the way to go especially for PVP and now I feel like I lied to my friends.

They had plenty of time to incorporate more modes and not just point capture.

They could have added in many more skills.

They had GW1 to learn from and format those things to GW2.

How can their be no GvG??!! and dont give me the excuse they can do that in WvWvW…thats a joke…Im talking organized structered GvG.

Instead we get a tacked on addition to GW2 PVE.

This game should have stayed in Beta another year. All ANet has done is given other MMO developers (Like elder scrolls online, just one example.) time to see the mistakes ANet made in treating their game and fans and make sure they don’t do that in their game when it launches. So that way they will release a more complete “modern” MMO.

Why was it done like this??

GW2 has the POTENTIAL to beat or equal GW1 PvP, However, first it needs balancing and the elimination of 99% of exploitable bugs, tweaks and other classs adjustments, like trait line revisions, once these are in line, new game modes and other things need to be added for more PvP content.

Problem here is, most of you hold on to GW1 pvp so much, you want to compare the 2, you should not, give it some time for the devs to work on this aspect, yes the main focus was the PvE aspect and WvW if you watched the initial interviews, branching storylines, dynamic events, new mechanics, etc etc etc.

But my fear just is that once they get around to s/tPvP its going to be pretty much abandoned by 90% of the casual players and only for the top 10% of the PvP community. This is what I would really find dishearting.

GW2 is lazy, no one has a specific role. It’s like ymca soccer when you were 8 years old, everyone just bunches up and attacks things. Everything seems dumbed down and homogenized. When I enter a pvp match with my ele, every encounter is the same. I use scepter/dagger because it seems the most efficient to me with two blinds and two knockdowns with some damage. But it’s the same every game! I use ride the lightening, knockdown, blind, and basically am just facerolling all my skills in one attunement and switch to the other. The combat seems to be a lot better for 1v1 pvp, but they dont have that. But there is little teamwork in this game, mainly because nobody needs anybody. Everyone is made self sufficient and nobody can maximize their ability to fulfill a certain role, instead, they have gimmicky builds that use high cd utility skills, but still using the same old weapon skills making u locked to play around that build. Which is stupid, because all the weapon skills are designed to damage. So everyone is a damage dealer with slight hints of support or whatever. In gw1, I just always tried to find new strategies. Even though they ended as failures most of the time I had way more fun experimenting with stuff and when I found something that worked it was awesome. I am not a unique character in this game, I am playing with the same skills as everyone else with the same strategy and gear and everything.

The argument about having less skills but more balanced and larger variety of usable builds is bullkitten. It’s impossible to have 100% balance so there will always be a top build. So basically they just took away options and feels like a way for them to not have to deal with balancing issues to much, seems a bit lazy to me to make it so they have complete control over what builds there are. It’s like if you are babysitting a child but don’t let him do anything because you don’t feel like watching him and him hurting himself or whatever.

Another thing is the fact that the only pvp available is a point capping one. Which is awesome if you have a coordinated team, but when its just a bunch of random people/bots playing there is no communication and the only reliable way to increase your chances of winning is to zerg, in which personal skill dissapears and dps spam become more effective. Fortunately everyone has brought dps, because wait a sec… you really have no choice. “maybe I’ll run a support build, I have these three utility skills with 45sec cd that would be great! Il make it so my traits help those skills out so I can support better! But wait… I can’t make my first skills support oriented skills, so now the majority of my skills are for dps but my traits and utility skills are for supporting others. Screw this I’ll just go dps because it’s more efficient and powerful than support or tank builds.” basically my thought pattern that happens whenever I try and experiment with builds in pvp.