Guild Wars 2

Like many here I’ve had my problems with bad comps (matchmaking), mmr hell, toxicity and all other things in the GW2 PvP over the last seasons. I wanted to share some ideas and thoughts and see what others think about it.

First, I want to say GW2 PvP is a hard thing to “balance”. Class balance, matchmaking, mmr, etc… Honestly, I don’t think I have “the ultimate solution” to the problem, and if you think you do, you are probably biased. But there is definitely room for improvement, an we all can agree on that.

Second, the point here is not class balance. Its about the (ranked) pvp systems. mmr, matchmaking, rewards, incentive, seasons, etc.

Third, I’m not making direct suggestions to the devs, but I’d like to see how the community sees a few issues and possible options to them. And I think it’s good for the devs to see this, instead of the usual “mmr sucks!” or “do this one thing and pvp will be betest ever”. So let’s try to keep the discussion polite and constructive (one can only hope).

The main things I want to talk are:
– Leader and tutorials
– Do you think we need tutorials? should they be (or should there be any) barrier to entry on ranked games?
– Unranked, Ranked, Seasons
– Should there be a ranked 5man q and should season rewards be only obtainable on that? Would that remove matchmaking problems from season games and improve community by forcing group-play?
- Rewards
– Should the PvP mode have PvE rewards?
– Maps and mechanics
– What would you like to see more?

– Leader and tutorials
A lot of new people on the pvp have no idea what to do.
Where to go, when, how. What to do, when, how.
Do you think we need more tutorials? Or people should learn in unranked by themselves?
Should there be tutorials on LoS, Map mechanics (treb, lords, Sky hammer, creatures, buffs) maybe on tutorial version of each instance, map awareness (see the map and go to where your team needs you). I think those would help a lot of people (specially the map one, so many people go to a cp that is already being capped, just to turn around and go to the actual fight), but would they be required to join ranked?

Should there be a lower limit of rank, or games played/won, to join ranked games?
Do we need a ladder inside PvP, or would that limit players too much?

I can see it working in a way where you start only able to play unranked and can move to ranked after a certain rank or certain achievements. But that would really limit the access of people to ranked and season, specially alt accounts.

– Unranked, Ranked, Seasons
IMO the matchmaking has improved a lot latelly, Ive had fewer stacked games and although get paired with other divisions above and below, this is probably due to low pop as I see a lot of the same people game after game.

I love the solo q and play only solo, but I also think it has been bad for the game to have pvp seasons with solo q. I know, its probably not a popular opinion, but I think season games (that give season rewards) should be only groups of 5.
There should still be a ranked solo q, and that should still counts towards mmr and have its own achievements and tittles, but I think the community would grow more if we needed to group up and learn how to work with other to achieve the best rewards on the game-mode. Maybe then our friend list would be full of good people to group instead of people to avoid due to toxicity.

Do you think the community would improve if season games required a full group to join?
It would make playing season games for season rewards harder (need to find a group), but it would require people to cooperate and understand their roles strategy better, in order to consistently get groups. But at the same time, it could be hard to find groups at certain times, and locking people into groups could make certain tiers very stale (only a few groups playing).

This would make people look for groups that fit their role and strats, so if you like to go far and run a fringe build, you can find a group that is happy with that. But it also might create a scenario of “play meta or gtfo”.

So maybe we would have unranked as it is, ranked solo q (and duo?), where you can play (as it is now) and increase your mmr, and group ranked q, with this (group ranked) being the only mode that you get season rewards during seasons. Solo/duo q would still get the extra rewards buff (for tracks) during seasons.

- Rewards
People need incentive to play pvp, or at least start playing it. These are the rewards.
Some argue that the only reward should be to play pvp, kitten to keep “noob pvers” out. But that is not really healthy for the game mode. In a game like GW2, a lot of people split their time between game modes, and if one is not rewarding to their end-goals (legendaries, ascended, w/e) they will leave it and that game mode slowly dies.
On the other hand, you don’t want people to be “farming” the mode for rewards to other game modes (aka “free ascended armor” or achievements) as this leads to win trading or just bad play (as in afk in matches just for the 3 pip on lost – what also relates to rewards on loosing matches that I’ll talk later).

What do you think should be the rewards for pvp, and should there be rewards for loosing games?
I think PvP rewards should not be the top tier pve gear (even more as you don’t need said gear for PvP). Reward tracks should help you achieve that, by acquiring mats and gold, but not give you a full set of ascended gear or an Legendary backpack.
Access to unique skins and pve skins (dungeon armor) is fair, and maybe PvP should be the best way to get more skins. Maybe dungeon reward tracks and zone reward tracks should reward the (more) skins of items instead of exotics.

– Maps and mechanics

We need more maps.
4 years and mostly the same maps all the time. Other tries at different modes (death-match and stronghold) didn’t work so well, but I think they could be improved upon instead of ditched completely.

Maybe stronghold could use less npcs/pve
Players need to carry the bombs to the gate, and other players can take them out. Bombs explode after a certain timer and deal dmg in an area around them to players and structures.
Instead of a lord, a cp that regens to the team base if unattended and needs to be fully decaped and caped by the invading team.
No guards, but gates and trebs can be repaired by supply.
Buffs provide benefits to the team instead of champions: faster movement with bombs and/or supply, faster cap/decap, stronger bombs, or gate repair…

death-match could be turn based so the game goes to best of 3 turns of 5 min max each. Team that have the most teamates alive on the end of each turn (or that wipes the other team) wins. Respawn only on the start of the turn. On third turn, in case of a tie, the maps start to apply debuffs to all in the area… instant death (no downed), revealed, agony, traps, etc…

more mechanics
Come back mechanics. Raid of the Capricorn is bit of a snowball (as in pts increase for each successful bell capture). It would be nice to see a different one, where you get extra points for capping an objective after your opponent captured it previously.
Temporary caps. A map with more than 3 caps, where capture points become active on a (maybe random) pattern across the map. Making players decide if its best to help a group fight on a cap or move to the next one to become active…

Gawd, I can talk about the need for tutorials til the cows come home. I think one of the major issues with the lack of tutorials is also the UI is not very good for SPvP. The minimap for example: complete lack of consistency across all maps, some have too much detail, some are zoomed in weird and even after they updated the minimap ping they gave them all these useless icons.

Look at Dota2. You ping an enemy tower and it gets a sword icon on the minimap. You ping your own tower, you get a shield icon. Simple messages for attack and defend.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Player_versus_Player

Anet needs to revisit their roots…because the sapling they are trying to grow has almost completely withered away.

My suggestion for a basic tutorial (which I have revisited probably 10 times in the past 5 years, completely ignored)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/again-TUTORIAL-please/first#post6546315

Zietlogik.6208:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Player_versus_Player

Anet needs to revisit their roots…because the sapling they are trying to grow has almost completely withered away.

My suggestion for a basic tutorial (which I have revisited probably 10 times in the past 5 years, completely ignored)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/again-TUTORIAL-please/first#post6546315

In GW1, at the end of the tutorial you get thrown into a pvp match for a taste of pvp. They needed that here.

Ramoth.9064:

Zietlogik.6208:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Player_versus_Player

Anet needs to revisit their roots…because the sapling they are trying to grow has almost completely withered away.

My suggestion for a basic tutorial (which I have revisited probably 10 times in the past 5 years, completely ignored)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/again-TUTORIAL-please/first#post6546315

In GW1, at the end of the tutorial you get thrown into a pvp match for a taste of pvp. They needed that here.

True, even if it was only for Prophecies, and even then, when there wasn’t a full group to fight against, it placed you against bots, which are non-existent in GW2

A solo-queue-only leaderboard.
Automated tournaments with special reward for 5-man premade.

Reduce passives, low-cd skill spam. They have a good first-step with the sigil update.
The game currently has too much skill spam and can get very confusing for new players.

Open up build diversity. They have been focusing on balancing the meta specs. But the meta has been similar for a year. Players are bored. Their balance patch has been too infrequent and too cautious in terms of opening up new options. They are too scared to break balance again because how long the patch cycle is.