Q:
Fellow players and ANet,
A few weeks ago I started dabbling in some PvP and I found the whole experience somewhat problematic. Now with the Winterfest event these problems seem even worse. So I go to the Heart of the Mist or to the Festival Lionsguard and get thrown with some random people into a map. The start up time is very short, and during this start up time the map resets once or twice: on my necromancer I’ve just summoned all my pets, and then they’re gone again. In Winterfest I’ve just selected my role, and suddenly I’m a different role again.
During the fight too teams get reset constantly. One moment you’re in a fairly balanced 8v8, the next you’re overpowering a single blue or red person 4v1, the next moment you find yourself alone or with just 1 teammate opposing a force of six people. I try my best to stick with a group, Ctrl+Target, do some cc etc. but with very little communication it is just a mess. Winning or losing in sPvP seems more a matter of random chance then strategy or skill.
As a casual player who enjoys PvE, WvW and some PvP I am not in a guild dedicated to sPvP, in fact most hate it. Asking around in Lions Arch for a group to PvP with so that at least some form of strategy or coordination is possible, or at the very least group size won’t change from minute to minute, yields no responses.
So my question to the community and/or the company that makes this (otherwise wonderful) game is: How is a casual player to play sPvP (esp the Christmas event)? Do I stand at the Queue-person spamming /s and /m with my request for fellow group players, is there some magical way to stop the continuous map and group resets, do other players have a procedure done that gives them four hands: two to PvP with, two to chat to their team, and is there some magical way to make these teammates then reply and follow some sort of plan?
I used to play “that other MMO”, and I am fully aware that there is a league of difference between the random zerg groups and the “pro hardcore” PvP ers. I certainly don’t expect to find that last style of play with random people, but even in a random AV, AB, WSG, EoS, SoA, IoC, BoG, TP someone would /bg a strategy that others could follow. In WvW this seems to work as well. But in sPvP there seems no time to do this and when I try, my ever changing group of teammates can’t or won’t reply, suggest or follow any plan.
I’ve done my PvP dailies a couple of times now and while some matches were enjoyable and I do like the "sportscast’-style of sPvP I’m always glad when I see that chest and know that it is done. Most days I don’t bother because it just seems like a horrible waste of time and I’m not even really learning anything because of the randomness and quickness of it all.
TL/DR: How do I make sPvP an enjoyable, strategy over random chance, learning experience instead of just running around with or without an endlessly changing group against an endlessly changing group?