Guild Wars 2

So, going to skip straight to a few things, just so you understand what might be within this topic, the title doesn’t quite help all that much huh?

- Metas.
- Matchmaking.
- GW2 Esport.

That’s all that is in here. If you were looking for another Dragonhunter is OP thread, we got enough of those.

That being said, I want to more or less have a discourse with all of you on the three points above, because they are important to just about everything SPvP related. Let’s get to it, I would like to get this all in one or two posts.

Metas: We know them, we want to love to hate them. We dream of a truly balanced meta that everyone can play mostly whatever they want in SPvP, maybe a few builds don’t quite work all that well but for just about everyone, everything is viable!

…Hate to be the guy who breaks it for you and I hope this is just a refresher but there will never be a perfect meta like that. Not a single game out there has created the perfect Meta, it cannot exist. There will always be a group getting a Charrzooka in the nethers, and we have to accept it. What actually matters in a Meta, what truly makes serious metas a reality, has nothing to do with the actual balance of, in this case, professions/sigils/runes. What a healthy Meta needs to foster good quality SPvP is two things, it is effective in skilled hands, and if it is fun to play As and Against. That’s it, nothing else matters in a Meta as everything even balance ties into those two factors.

The first point, effective in skilled hands, essentially amounts to the skill curve of one player versus another playing the same exact setup. It is what we all adore in those tourney ‘BIGGEST PLAYS’, versus the unusual hotjoin shenanigans. When there is always something more to improve, given a certain ‘meta’ build, you can have allowances for players of different skill levels come together to form teams and actually duke it out. Obviously, builds matter, however when the ‘effective in skilled hands’ is balanced, even hard counters can be beaten sometimes…sometimes.

That kind of ties into my second point, entertainment value for and against. Assuming the first point, we now have to ensure that all players are kept invested in fighting uneven matchups. I doubt any of us are fighting our clones as the other team so naturally every matchup is uneven in some regard. What keeps the competition healthy is if the competition between teams or players was entertaining enough to continue down that path. Even if you have extremely effective meta builds, if said meta builds are not fostered in a healthy, fun PvP environment both for and against said build, PvP will FAIL. We are competing in a game, or a hobby or something more, yet even the most hardcore SPvPer will cry out against a ‘toxic’ meta that fosters no entertainment! There has to be a higher level balance in check to ensure that nothing like this happens when numbers, abilities, well literally anything changes as especially in GW2 changes alter relative power. You nerf one build, a counter build becomes less useful and gets played less, some other builds become powerful, etc. It’s a bumpy ride to say the least.

Matchmaking: …Is the mic on? Ok, this will be fast, ahem…

Matchmaking might be a bit unfair and I bet everyone even Arenanet knows, but do not blame every single loss you have at your last pip before crossing a tier or division on it. Get better, we are all tired of hearing about how you almost reached Ruby. GW2 is not the first game to have matchmaking pit players unfairly against statistically stronger players, it just means you are being TESTED to see if you are better than the odds, pass the test and stop making threads about it. Thank you.

GW2 Esport: Uh…That’s not happening for a while. I agree with everyone who thinks it is very doubtful, there is A LOT OF THINGS that need to happen before it becomes considered. To be blunt, up until Heart of Thorns we shouldn’t even accept the prospect of GW2 SPvP being a thing. What I mean to say is, Heart of Thorns is a fresh slate, the beginning of beginnings, it is a ‘start-over’ on making GW2 Esport a thing.

We cannot advertise it as something ‘long lasting’ as it has always been in flux and never looked at realistically until recently. Might as well pretend the past 3 years of SPvP on a ‘global scale’ were…uh…Beta. Sure. Let’s start anew, give it a chance.

- Work on in-game/stream spectator systems for ease of understanding the gameplay. We are already seeing this being worked on both positively and negatively…Ugh Auras.
- Work on communicating with the LEAST knowledgeable spectators. Just assume everyone watching the stream doesn’t know how a sword works or what numbers mean. SPEND TIME DURING BREAKS SHOWING VISUAL CUES AND TALK ABOUT ELEMENTS IN THE GAME! This is why players who play GW2 actually understand and stick around watching ESL streams versus ambient spectators who see flashy effects and wonder if they are on some sort of drug.
- DO ALL OF THIS SLOWLY. Take time to get the systems correct, get Metas right, correct any ‘kinks’ in Matchmaking.

…Alright that’s all I wanted to say.

“So, you actually had three things for a healthy meta if you split playing for and against…”

Don’t care, you got the point.

“Match-making is still awful though! What about those ‘rank exploiters’ messing with the matchups?”

What matters here is that we all acknowledge it. We should expect countermeasures to be in place in the future if Arenanet truly wants GW2 to be treated seriously as an Esport. Deal with it, go beat Toker at Thief- OK yea that’s not going to happen but you can dream.

“You don’t seem like a nice person.”

Welcome to Player Versus Player, enjoy your stay and thank you for reading!