Guild Wars 2

Sums it up in the title. How do you guys feel about the PvP so far? Do you miss the days without elite specs?

I think what the PvP community wants often overwhelms the PvP devs causing them to spend less and less time actively engaging PvP topics with a positive mental attitude. The forums itself gets cluttered with many threads discussing the same things over and over and no one really feels like chiming into topics that can better experiences (even if they don’t completely agree with it). Majority of the devs and players have personal, selfish, agendas with PvP and usually do not want to support any efforts to make PvP more welcoming.

Sure, you can entice PvE players to get their gear in PvP…but how does that help them stay? What kittenes them off when they are in PvP? What can be done to help PvP situations that don’t make sense to them?

I don’t entirely miss the days without Elite Specs but it seems like no one wants to bother trying to bridge the gap between Core and Elite in anyway possible. Everything requires work and apparently it’s out of everyone’s pay grade.

LUST.7241:

I think what the PvP community wants often overwhelms the PvP devs causing them to spend less and less time actively engaging PvP topics with a positive mental attitude. The forums itself gets cluttered with many threads discussing the same things over and over and no one really feels like chiming into topics that can better experiences (even if they don’t completely agree with it). Majority of the devs and players have personal, selfish, agendas with PvP and usually do not want to support any efforts to make PvP more welcoming.

Sure, you can entice PvE players to get their gear in PvP…but how does that help them stay? What kittenes them off when they are in PvP? What can be done to help PvP situations that don’t make sense to them?

I don’t entirely miss the days without Elite Specs but it seems like no one wants to bother trying to bridge the gap between Core and Elite in anyway possible. Everything requires work and apparently it’s out of everyone’s pay grade.

I agree with your first paragraph about the amount of confusion and perhaps lack of vision or direction the game mode has. Trying to bring balance with the core skills I think by now is impossible. How else would you sell your expansion to the people who play PvP right? Playing without the expansions is shooting yourself in both feet.

I’ve read your post, and here’s what I think of it:

As much as I want to play without elite specializations, dividing the player base would cause game timers to increase. I think instead of dividing core and specializations, there should be more skills that can be used to keep up with what HoT brought in. If there were a larger player base for PvP, then I would support the division between the two.

I would sit down and write more about what I think can be done to change, but as you said, there’s too many people wanting too many different things from PvP. Everyone’s talking, but no one is heard.

I guess Guild Wars 2 really is a PvE game, heart & soul.

I like the elite specs… though it seems like they are struggling to balance things.

SPVP is a good game.

But we need more players to get the critical user mass to make it really competitive and working as intended (the match-making).

There is 100 millions pvp players that like Fantasy and some RPG into them. Anet need to make what it’s need to bring half a percent into SPVP.

The spvp today totally is a passiv casual grindfest for pvelers.
Anet doesn´t care or doesn´t seem to have a problem with that.
So it will stay that way, Forever…… ;(

PvP balance is completely out of whack. But this is what we have to play with today and will just have to wait until the next expansion to see what broken elite specs are released.

phokus.8934:

PvP balance is completely out of whack. But this is what we have to play with today and will just have to wait until the next expansion to see what broken elite specs are released.

No. PvP balance is not completely out of whack or even out of whack. It is kinda balance when you compared to other seasons and years.

Recency bias, it is a thing.

PlatinumMember.5274:

phokus.8934:

PvP balance is completely out of whack. But this is what we have to play with today and will just have to wait until the next expansion to see what broken elite specs are released.

No. PvP balance is not completely out of whack or even out of whack. It is kinda balance when you compared to other seasons and years.

Recency bias, it is a thing.

You don’t need to compare current pvp to the other seasons or years to conclude that pvp balance is out of whack.

The introduction of elite specs spiraled the balance into a deep dark hole of craziness and forum posts.

PvP balance is fine as long as you don’t play a necro.

Crinn.7864:

PvP balance is fine as long as you don’t play a necro.

Necro really isn’t as bad as everyone is making it seem. I have a feeling its going to have a place this season once the builds settle down.

The issue is forum here is filled with people who have only self interest in mind.You got example with PVE to PVP what happens.

Taking PVE as example 1 thing every time a easy mode shows up ingame to earn in 20-30 minutes over 60 to 80 it gets farmed.Guys who farmed that for 3 monts depending on their time end up from 54k gold to 75k or more.Then they call for nerf why?Cause they can then increase account selling value.You have dedicated people to milk money out of the game with making new accs and hoarding leg on them.Cause god forbid if gold is easy made to get ingame their acc value drops at 10 dolars.

http://imgur.com/cnOxlPU

Here example of 1 acc what barely has playtime and has 12 legendaries and its on sale on one of the pages i took a look. The guy selling acc for 45 euro….

When it comes to pvp its almost the same people dedicated to argue and so on.We had over the past 5 years such awesome suggestions who got buried, either spammed either got deleted or removed from moderators.People dedicated to derailing topics you can even see clear when discussion starts.The guy replying not even reading full post of said person just get provoked by 3 line of words and starts to write.Then their reply is always in their Limited view perception of things.Discussions then end up not productive,people forcing their view on others and try to validate their view arguing.

Thats the whole summary of GW2 situation and call it the Twilight Zone where sane people lose their mind.

NeXeD.3042:

Crinn.7864:

PvP balance is fine as long as you don’t play a necro.

Necro really isn’t as bad as everyone is making it seem. I have a feeling its going to have a place this season once the builds settle down.

Trying to solo queue on one is still cancer though. It’s not so much a viability issue as it is a “this really sucks to play as”

Crinn.7864:

NeXeD.3042:

Crinn.7864:

PvP balance is fine as long as you don’t play a necro.

Necro really isn’t as bad as everyone is making it seem. I have a feeling its going to have a place this season once the builds settle down.

Trying to solo queue on one is still cancer though. It’s not so much a viability issue as it is a “this really sucks to play as”

I guess…. i only play one on solo q and i usually do ok

How I think pvp is overall on a scale of 1 to 10: A 7.

Good things

>Balance is actually decent. all classes aside from dragonhunter and are used at the highest level of play. All classes are used in community run tournmanets and all level of solo q.

Bad things

>Some classes have too much of a difference in terms overal effiency when they opt for a different role. A power druid vastly underperforms in compairison to an bunker druid, An fresh air vastly underperforms in compairsion to an auramancer. heck u could even argue that auramancer flat out wrecks the supposed dps build. We need more versatility like guardians who can run medi trapper, symbolic menders symbolic and variations of core burn guard without vastly bieng outmatched..

>Matchmaking: matchmaking in the first weeks of ranked is volatile way too long. i can understand a few days, or weaks, but honestly even after two weeks it felt as if I still had players who got Lucky on placement matches, at the same time they’re have been multiple threads made about how high plat players or legendaries get matched with mid to high gold players

>No tutorial mode still. players need to be encouraged to change thier way of thinking. Since this game is incredibly complex, u cannot have them learn how to play the game the moment they realise the equivelant of silver, that’s way too late, because the moment they reach gold they are atleast expected to know the basics. at platinum u are expected to master it and go for more advanced tricks, at legend u tango with the pro leagues. So far it seems as if Bronze-Silver is it’s own tier, then gold is it’s own tier on it’s own. There needs to be a better transition.

>Not much for guild teams. If running automated tournaments is much of a trouble to run. community run tournaments will not simply suffice. But if it’s still impossible due to the small amount of serious pvp guilds. then atleast create a new system that makes it easier for players to run tournmants. For example allow for players to set up a price pool in the form of gems. make an tournmant brackets, allow for players to spectate, make it easier to stream, heck offer even an ingame spectating service, chats etc, more advetisment.

MiGFiD.1760:

LUST.7241:

I think what the PvP community wants often overwhelms the PvP devs causing them to spend less and less time actively engaging PvP topics with a positive mental attitude. The forums itself gets cluttered with many threads discussing the same things over and over and no one really feels like chiming into topics that can better experiences (even if they don’t completely agree with it). Majority of the devs and players have personal, selfish, agendas with PvP and usually do not want to support any efforts to make PvP more welcoming.

Sure, you can entice PvE players to get their gear in PvP…but how does that help them stay? What kittenes them off when they are in PvP? What can be done to help PvP situations that don’t make sense to them?

I don’t entirely miss the days without Elite Specs but it seems like no one wants to bother trying to bridge the gap between Core and Elite in anyway possible. Everything requires work and apparently it’s out of everyone’s pay grade.

I agree with your first paragraph about the amount of confusion and perhaps lack of vision or direction the game mode has. Trying to bring balance with the core skills I think by now is impossible. How else would you sell your expansion to the people who play PvP right? Playing without the expansions is shooting yourself in both feet.

I’ve read your post, and here’s what I think of it:

As much as I want to play without elite specializations, dividing the player base would cause game timers to increase. I think instead of dividing core and specializations, there should be more skills that can be used to keep up with what HoT brought in. If there were a larger player base for PvP, then I would support the division between the two.

I would sit down and write more about what I think can be done to change, but as you said, there’s too many people wanting too many different things from PvP. Everyone’s talking, but no one is heard.

I guess Guild Wars 2 really is a PvE game, heart & soul.

If bridging the gap between core/elite results in the same old powercreep then what is the point? The games will be ridiculously fast-paced since every profession is going to hit like a truck. We need to slash elite specs.

To be fair, I think you’ll get your wish anyway if and when the next expansion drops. I know for a fact that ANet is going to break pvp AGAIN and powercreep it to oblivion.

The game has become too spammy with power creep. I think the fact that most classes dont have to manage a secondary resource like in many other mmos has since the games release gotten some criticism for making the game spammy (minimal incentive to not use most good skills on cd). At the very least, cc and stun breaks, evades and invulns were carefully considered in pvp. with across the board cd reductions on very powerful defensive skills, even these elements require minimal consideration these days.

The game needs to slow down and become more deliberate. dmg has to be rebalanced so that it is more bursty with significantly lower dps. sustain in the form of heals, invulns and blocks need to be nerfed very hard. timing these defensive skills to counter an opponents burst should be much more important than it currently is.

Too much reward for the amount of effort put into each skill. And pulsing boons are one of the biggest offenders in this regard.

I stopped playing a few weeks before season 5 ended. so that’s my answer. Though i check the forum now and then to see upcoming balance changes, what they added / removed last time is not enough to get me to log on.

The old quote “same kitten, different day” seems to fit here perfectly. Gw2 is to far gone now, they can’t even attempt to fix it because of raids. They are too cheap for a proper rotation of balance patchs, so this games pvp is just going to keep declining. (this is the one thing pvp players will not tolerate)

It was a good run while it lasted.

PVP feels very fun an decently balanced. I’m loving all the maps but miss old Kyhlo. Warrior could use a small damage reduction and Rev could used a defense buff on the Ventari healing spec. I would rework the toughness trait for points of upkeep.

I asserted that toons should be allowed to dual class. I should have added that I meant core classes. GW1 featured this system.

This would tend to bring core professions roughly to the level of HoT classes. That’s the only practical method I see for making the two equivalent.

As to PvP generally; (without disrespect) My impression is that ANET has followed a kind of Social Darwinist idea. This concept is neatly summed up in the “l2p” culture. Basically, “if you’re having trouble it is because you are lazy and/or lack skill.”

Social Darwinism was popular among the social elite of the late 1800’s. It was not particularly successful. I do not think it will be successful in the context of GW2.

Paprikaspice.8462:

The game has become too spammy with power creep. I think the fact that most classes dont have to manage a secondary resource like in many other mmos has since the games release gotten some criticism for making the game spammy (minimal incentive to not use most good skills on cd). At the very least, cc and stun breaks, evades and invulns were carefully considered in pvp. with across the board cd reductions on very powerful defensive skills, even these elements require minimal consideration these days.

The game needs to slow down and become more deliberate. dmg has to be rebalanced so that it is more bursty with significantly lower dps. sustain in the form of heals, invulns and blocks need to be nerfed very hard. timing these defensive skills to counter an opponents burst should be much more important than it currently is.

As I understand it, when City of Heroes ( another NCsoft game ) tried to slow down it’s pvp… it was one of the last straws that broke the game. ( I was a PvE player/Raider ) Perhaps the devs are trying to avoid that.

I agree that PvP in GW2 should have more of a chess game feel than an arcade game. GW1 feels like Chess , coming from GW2. Sadly.. I see the trend going the opposite way.

Ithilwen.1529:

I asserted that toons should be allowed to dual class. I should have added that I meant core classes. GW1 featured this system.

This would tend to bring core professions roughly to the level of HoT classes. That’s the only practical method I see for making the two equivalent.

As to PvP generally; (without disrespect) My impression is that ANET has followed a kind of Social Darwinist idea. This concept is neatly summed up in the “l2p” culture. Basically, “if you’re having trouble it is because you are lazy and/or lack skill.”

Social Darwinism was popular among the social elite of the late 1800’s. It was not particularly successful. I do not think it will be successful in the context of GW2.

Nah I believe is quite the opposite. I mean just look at the PvP game play. Compared to other PvP game play. The excuse of “GW2 is MMORPG and not a PvP MOBA” is a lazy excuse that goes against what you call “Social Darwinism”.

You want to talk about Social Darwinism. Then you need to look towards games like DoTA, LoL, Smite, CS:GO, and even Overwatch. Those games have Social Darwinism. GW2 has the opposite of that. And thus because of that fact. We had/have a lot of upper tier’ed and some middle tier’ed level PvP players leaving in mass. Leaving only the casual PvPers [Which now I myself fits into this bracket since Season 3] , and the rewards hungry PvEers.

Nothing about GW2 promote competitive, exciting PvP. As a result people don’t get excited enoth to watch it or sponsor it, or play it competitively for that matter.[Hence all of the exploiting and sleazy “Paying Gold to Win” happening in Season 5.] HoT was the another nail in the coffin. The devs. broken match maker, was pretty much a deal breaker. The disregard for decent class balance completely separate from PvE, was the final call to start the mass exodus.

This is no where close to the signs of “Social Darwinism.” This the direct signs of a dev team who either, can not manage a competitive PvP stage, or a dev team who just don’t care much about PvP to groom it into a eSports for all to watch and play. Or the devs just simply do not have the budget or resources to put forward to make major improvements to PvP in GW2. My bets are on the latter.

As I prepare to go into Season 6. I go into season 6 expecting to play 15 to 25 matches get fed up. Then leaving the PvP scene in GW2 again to play PvP in other games, that are exciting, fun, and competitive. And give GW2’s PvP another try in Season 7, just to repeat last. It this point for what ever the case is. This game’s PvP and WvW game modes have gone to the ultra casuals. It is more so of a arcade game then of a sports venue. But again I now must digress.

It’s like that grandparent that smells a bit, has lost their marbles and does weird embarrassing things but you have fun fond memories of.

Still only good for reward tracks and dailies.

Reaper Alim.4176:

Ithilwen.1529:

I asserted that toons should be allowed to dual class. I should have added that I meant core classes. GW1 featured this system.

This would tend to bring core professions roughly to the level of HoT classes. That’s the only practical method I see for making the two equivalent.

As to PvP generally; (without disrespect) My impression is that ANET has followed a kind of Social Darwinist idea. This concept is neatly summed up in the “l2p” culture. Basically, “if you’re having trouble it is because you are lazy and/or lack skill.”

Social Darwinism was popular among the social elite of the late 1800’s. It was not particularly successful. I do not think it will be successful in the context of GW2.

Nah I believe is quite the opposite. I mean just look at the PvP game play. Compared to other PvP game play. The excuse of “GW2 is MMORPG and not a PvP MOBA” is a lazy excuse that goes against what you call “Social Darwinism”.

You want to talk about Social Darwinism. Then you need to look towards games like DoTA, LoL, Smite, CS:GO, and even Overwatch. Those games have Social Darwinism. GW2 has the opposite of that. And thus because of that fact. We had/have a lot of upper tier’ed and some middle tier’ed level PvP players leaving in mass. Leaving only the casual PvPers [Which now I myself fits into this bracket since Season 3] , and the rewards hungry PvEers.

snipped for brevity

If that is the case, then we have a big chance here. Some of the more egregious “l2p” types have moved on. That means the next generation has room to grow.

We have a chance to grow a new community from those that are here.

The richness of GW2 is kinda lost when it’s all about muscle memory and reaction time. We would be better served with a strategic game.

I was talking to a few legends a couple of days back and one thing they did point out about the last season is that there doesn’t seem to be a prominent guide to teach newer players or willing players on how to properly rotate or position.
From what they said, old elitist attitudes of “l2p” was what sort of stopped it being shown in the first place. From guildies I know from PvX guilds, almost half would automatically be turned off from the game mode like that, they did not buy GW2 to be harrassed or insulted when trying to learn. Saying that they should of done that in Unranked is BS because anyone who has played a competitive game with Ranking would know that there is a vast difference between casual fun and playing to a role.

I personally managed to hit low plat before decaying and I feel as though I could have done much better with some advice, rather than painful trial and error.
I’ve watched Helseth and Sindrener streams but predominantly they teach some rotations on Thief, mes and other roaming roles but I feel that not everyone uses twitch nor is willing to watch the 4 hour videos they place on their channels, nor do they cover other roles like supporting etc.

It’s often frustrating when someone says, “that’s probably where you belong” but for people genuinely trying to improve and climb the ranks, that’s frustrating as hell. It’s like telling entry level beginners that’s where they should stay and not even bother.

I feel as though there simply needs more to be done to the community to appeal to the larger audience much as what was discussed in terms of a spectating mode listed in previous posts.

It’s better than what it’s been in the last 4 seasons but I still see potential for the popularity to be revived.

Pretty much stopped playing PvP when they removed the celestial amulet. Came back a few times and found the new meta terribly boring and frustrating.

Apart from warrior still being a bit too strong and rev being a bit too weak, PvP is actually pretty balanced atm. Most classes have a role, they can perform pretty well….For as long as I have played, there has never been a meta, where this many classes have been viable, so I am pertty satisfied with that.

In soloQ its often more of a rotation/communication issue than a balance one. Personally id like some form of voice chat option to improve on that. Maybe even a chat-wheel option, where you can bind some genetic texts on ping. Talking about pings, PLEASE let us rebind the “Ping”-Hotkey!

Bored and unmotivated. Pre-Hot i used pvp 99% of the time, once HoT came out i actually quit game for a while due to how sad thief state was. I came back but with every season i have less and less motivation to pvp in this game. HoT specs really ruined it for me. I miss times when timing, resource management and active game play were a thing. It also didn’t help that thank to HoT and butchered seasons people i used to play with don’t log in anymore or got so obsessed with ratings that they would only play with top 10.
I actually spend more time farming legendary armor atm than pvp’ing :/

Cynz.9437:

Bored and unmotivated. Pre-Hot i used pvp 99% of the time, once HoT came out i actually quit game for a while due to how sad thief state was. I came back but with every season i have less and less motivation to pvp in this game. HoT specs really ruined it for me. I miss times when timing, resource management and active game play were a thing. It also didn’t help that thank to HoT and butchered seasons people i used to play with don’t log in anymore or got so obsessed with ratings that they would only play with top 10.
I actually spend more time farming legendary armor atm than pvp’ing :/

I know the feels. I used to be the same way. I went into Season One of HoT with easily over 20 active PvP friends. We loved PvP in GW2. Then after HoT it seemed all hope was last lost. After the start of season 3 I found my self with only 3 or so active PvP friends. All the rest stopped playing. That paired with the horrible match maker. Season 3 became the graveyard for my seriousness in GW2 PvP.

I started experimenting with other PvP games. Found myself in one. Haven’t really looked back since other then to just farm PvE items in PvP. My time through the last half of season 3 and all of season 4 playing other PvP games, and not GW2. Have taught me what PvP is all about. It taught me all the HoT took away from GW2 PvP. It also taught me the difference in quality of PvP between a PvE MMORPG and a dedicated PvP game.

Between balance patches differentials. Punishment systems. Baseline entry requirements to get into ranked matches. And then the match maker systems. Have push my competitive PvP needs completely away from GW2, to the dedicated PvP games. I actually think this to be the case for a lot of PvP players who used to play GW2 competitively. Now comparing GW2’s Ranked to the dedicated PvP game’s Ranked systems. The only true thing GW2’s Ranked mode is good for is farming reward tracks.

I’ll now explain why I think this. HoT is the main offender here but enoth has been said to this point. The Match Maker System in GW2 was left to rot out the PvP community. In dedicated PvP if such problems with their Ranked MM was found they’d be hotfixed right away. The lack of balance patches and then on top of it, just minor band-aid fixes within those far and few between balance patches. Actually PvP games would not tolerate such huge imbalancements for more then 2 weeks tops. They would start releasing fixes for them, while ANet will like these things go unhindered for many months before even starting the process of fixes. In GW2 it’s apparently ok for someone one who’s only been playing PvP for 5 hours to be able to gain entry and start trolling people in ranked leagues. In actual PvP these smurfs and trolls would have to put in massive time investments inorder to be able to queue for ranked in these dedicated PvP games. Oh and if evidence of you making a mockery of these dedicated PvP game’s Ranked matches was presented. You would be looking at massive first time punishment to include a accountwide ban for Rank Mode. In GW2 these people just run wild mostly unhindered even after account ban. Because it only takes less then 5 hours with a new account to troll GW2’s Ranked again. All of what i’ve said above, is my reasoning why atm and into the near foreseeable future. It’s my firmest belief that GW2’s Ranked PvP offers no meaningful skill test, it’s to just be used as another platform to farm PvE items. And if I want competitive PvP, I just logs off of GW2 and go play one of those real PvP games.

Paprikaspice.8462:

The game has become too spammy with power creep. I think the fact that most classes dont have to manage a secondary resource like in many other mmos has since the games release gotten some criticism for making the game spammy (minimal incentive to not use most good skills on cd). At the very least, cc and stun breaks, evades and invulns were carefully considered in pvp. with across the board cd reductions on very powerful defensive skills, even these elements require minimal consideration these days.

The game needs to slow down and become more deliberate. dmg has to be rebalanced so that it is more bursty with significantly lower dps. sustain in the form of heals, invulns and blocks need to be nerfed very hard. timing these defensive skills to counter an opponents burst should be much more important than it currently is.

I completely agree, word for word. If you look at my post history you’ll see. I’m extremely dissapointed with what this game has become, PvP-wise mind you, and as such, I’ll always be vocal about it.
The massive power creep we keep getting patch after patch is a testament of what you just said. Supposedly skill-shots don’t have any wheight on them anymore, dodge stopped being a strategic move a long time ago, it’s now more of a side defense skill among the uncountable defensive mechanisms and skills that have been introduced. Many of such skills function with a dual offensive/defensive purpose with other effects on low CDs, it just makes very little sense. A healthy risk-reward ratio doesn’t exist anymore, look at the meta specs, all of them supposedly glass cannons, without the glass, a friken mess. The combat became either a spammy mess or so intrinsically and mindlessly complex that it took away most of the fun it had.

One of the biggest faults of pvp is the learning curve. You essentially have to learn the game mode on your own. There is no primer and the build guides on 3rd part sites are very basic.

People can pick up a certain amount of knowledge just through repetitions but this game requires more than that. A lot of the more nuanced skills and strategies have to be taught and aren’t simply picked up by most.

Add to that a very entitled and impatient community and you’ve created a game mode that scares away new players.

Better matchmaking could improve some of that as it would group better players with each other so they won’t have to throw a temper tantrum every time someone on their team is not up to speed. But it’s hard to rate individual players in a team based game.

I agree that the lack of a tutorial is a real problem. Having the community teach players is ineffective. The game has a lot of opportunities for cognitive dissonance, which leads players to disbelieve or resent others for trying to correct them. People don’t know that having multiple people on a point doesn’t make it cap faster. People don’t know when to get side objectives. People don’t know how to rotate. People don’t know pvp roles and which classes/builds should be prioritized for them. Most of all people don’t know where to find authoritative sources for this information.

Many may disagree with me, but I also wish the game would slow down at times. Ideally you’d have good play and counter play where you strategically use skills against your opponent. But often times the fights are so quick that’s it hard to see all of what’s going down and that leads me to more skill spamming. Worse since HoT due to power creep.

PvP as game mode gets worse. There is not much fun in playing unbalanced matches which happens regularly. I guess the less people play the more one sited matches are created by the matchmaker.