Guild Wars 2

Narcarsis.5739:

While matchmaking will help the community and possibly bring more players to the game there needs to be an additional effort into garnering a population increase. As I said in an earlier post the casual player base will continue to improve with a matchmaking, and this will benefit the game. But in order to truly grow the game’s PvP as a whole there needs to be more of these competitive players. .

Now you’re saying what i said before.

Regarding the need for more competitive players, they will come as soon as the game makes PvP profitable for players.

If PvP gave players incentives to play and stay in the PvP environment ( RANDOM STUFF : you are able to buy PvE exotics with X amount of glory or with gold/silver paid tournament chests and similars), a portion of PvE players would start to try PvP, and a portion of that portion would happen to find it rewarding for its competition and STAY in the PvP environment, making the PvP community to grow.

As i said before, there’re a lot of potential great PvP players out there, they simply are not encouraged enough to be part of the competitive scene, due to X amount of problems in the PvP setting ( mostly arguable devs decisions).

Mathcmaking will make current community to increase their skill level, but once they reach their cap, without an incoming flow of new players, the competition will stale again.

That’s why you need to make PvP rewarding for the player, and even more rewarding if you join the competitive scene.

This is currently not the case, due to issues that need to be addressed by devs ( be them profession balance, tournament system, PvP rewards, few game modes etc. etc. etc.).

At the beginning of this thread, you were blaming players for current PvP situation, when it’s really not the case.

It’s aNet fault, and it’s still up to them to fix it.

Narcarsis.5739:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Well I came to this thread a little late but I am going to comment on this.

I have seen your thread with your builds you gave, they helped me. How can they help me find a team, and decent players? A team to where I can know that they are going to show up. But I guess this thread wasn’t about any of that… it was about how MMR will only make things worse for you and the hardcore players. Gee, how every feature in this game should only effect you hardcore players. I am going to say this slowly mainly because it was already said multiple times. Currently there is no incentive for casual players to want to get better. A ladder can help that. And the teams below the top 2 teams, will only learn from their mistakes, lack of communication, (maybe) not being 100% in-sync with teammates, etc. That’s why its a ladder. The players have to climb it with rating, and with rating the players get better.

I did not articulate my point, and in hindsight I made this thread at 2am without putting much thought into it. So let me explain what’s on my mind more clearly.

The reason I believe people are not so good at PvP is not because they’re incapable or skill capped. The issue is a lack of players. The problem stems from this; there aren’t enough people to practice against, to grow from, and to improve with. As you said it’s incredibly hard to find a team because there are so few people who have correlating schedules and mindsets. While matchmaking will help the community and possibly bring more players to the game there needs to be an additional effort into garnering a population increase. As I said in an earlier post the casual player base will continue to improve with a matchmaking, and this will benefit the game. But in order to truly grow the game’s PvP as a whole there needs to be more of these competitive players. These are the people who spend time developing strategies, honing their game play, and exploring the options and limits of the game’s mechanics. People that the casual players look to for advice, or structure. Without more of them the game will stagnate and the casual player base will become capped. This is because these people don’t have the same amount of time to pour into the game and explore what it’s capable of, not because they are worse mechanically. It’s the people who live and breathe the game that help it grow, and there needs to be an effort to bring more of these to Guild Wars 2 so that it can take off and develop.

Hope that’s a little more clear.

P.S. Glad to know that forum post helped you. Seems to be lost already.

So, let me see if I am getting this right…You believe they are incapable only through the time developed into the game? Well sir, I am just going to tell you one more time, there is no incentive for myself or casuals to play. I have plenty of time in my day to study this game and get better at it if I wanted, I don’t see the point. I know what the end goal is, and I will be satisfied just watching GW2 PvP on twitch.tv in the next year or so.

There is no incentive for myself. If I could feel myself (or teammates even) getting better, I would play, I would go the lengths on this game. The moment I gave up is when I lost my first team and people started playing favorites, and I could not find a team.

One day, maybe one day.

Imo for a player to get better at the game there needs be the range of players from newbie to very good for them to play to get to that level. I would consider myself a mid-range skill level player and would gladly put in the time with my team to get better but, every time we step in all that happens is we crush newbies until we slammed by literally Qt or other. Not many new players are sticking with structured to create that midrange on top of a lot of the wasted time playing people way out of you skill level.

How I got to midrange level play? By learning from MUCH better players and online research. I think we can’t expect every player to do this so, there needs to be a way for players to learn from their own mistakes and progress incrementally in roughly even battles . AKA MATCHMAKING.

I could be wrong though as Power has spoken.

8 team queues ruined NA tbh. 98% winrate teams in every tourny leaving no room for anyone else. #frontrunnersyndrome

I’ve played GW2 Xcore since launch. A couple of months ago I got into the spvp scene. It began with a bunch of hot-joins which honestly is loads of fun. I know a lot of people complain about zergs, but really a good counter is to just back-cap the team and avoid the large group of killbots!

Anyway, recently I got into tournaments. At first I hot joined free tournaments which was an absolute nightmare. It became clear that the majority of the teams I was facing were practiced or at least had a method worked out. After a while I got to know a few good players and was fortunate enough to team with them for some matches.

The matches were a toss up, but it was nice to see a win every once and again. Eventually, I met some people who were serious about getting a good team going so that we can actually compete on a higher level. This soon failed because the leader was kitten mad at how much we were losing even though we had a strategy/vent|teamspeak/ and good players.

I tried to explain that the majority of the teams we were going up against are practiced and have been doing tournies for a lot longer than we have, but it resulted in the leader dis-banning the team/guild and everything. It really sucked, tbh. :\

I was really looking forward to getting into the more competitive scene of spvp but like many have stated the barrier was just too big. People aren’t making things seem bad by saying most people rage quit because, honestly, they do. And just to add, all the players were experienced pvpers from gw1 and 2.

So, basically I’m a super hardcore pvper and I can say that there are no teams because the time it takes to get good just isn’t worth it. Most people aren’t willing to practice for X amount of hours for practically nothing but worthless bragging rights – bragging rights to an ever shrinking pvp community><!

Honestly, if I could get my guildmates who pretty much only pve and have not touched pvp at all, to get in there and do as many matches/touneies as we have done dungeons— I know we would be a pretty mean team. But alas rewards for pvp are purely cosmetic and unfortunately limited to pvp therefore I’m left to group with a gang of guys who do tournies every so often and do alright but eventually run into a group where I am greeted as a “friend” and then get smashed because my team is not practiced enough and we just can’t keep up with the rotations.

Just to add a possible solution… I think there needs to be more incentive of course. But really trying to attract casual players is not going to do much. Those who pve are going to continue to pve and those who pvp will continue to pvp. What aNET should do is actually make PvP fun and interesting for those already involved in the pvp community. Surely they can do this without denying prospective PvPers, but when it comes down to it pvp will always be a veteran game. However, if they do a good job of building their pvp system they’ll find people will be willing to spend time getting good. They can do this by doing simple things like adding more variety for possible profession class builds(it’s really a shame with all the available traits/skills to professions that there are on average 1 or 2 good weapon/build sets that run well in sPvP), more simple pvp features already implemented in many other MMOs including GW1, and add more modes for pete’s sake, and of course being aggressive about balance issues. Right now, PvP is just plain boring after a while. Same meta, same mode, same mocha idk. Do something aNet and don’t be like other MMOs and throw the PvP community a bone while the PvE community gets 99.9% of the new content.

Sorry for writing a novel. o.o

The whole idea of expecting 8 teams to queue throughout the day at all times of the day is a bad system to implement in the first place as it requires many teams to work. The fact that top, middle, and casual tier players saw that there existed very little incentive to play the game basically hurt this game’s community from the get-go. I did NOT play any of the betas for this game, but all I can say is this game had an excellent chance to retain its good pvp player base FROM THE START if only there was a better pvp system involved that rewarded you in a way that would matter and did not force 8 teams to queue at once. Ranking/ladder is definitely one way to give people incentive to play competitively. Simply having things like more attainable titles per tourney win or win % is another idea. Better gear only accesible after x amount of tournies played/won…things like that. They sure dont matter that much to me, but to another person it might. Now…sadly the competitive side of the game is too small to successfully implement MMR imo. In order for it to work properly anet has to market the pvp side well enough to attract a larger base of players from lets say PvE or WvW to come sPvP. Then you’ll seen these new teams starting to form and when people see incentive to play the game as hardcore as you wantto see it then they will. Until then the game has pretty much put itself on hold because of the way the pvp system works. QPs are almost meaningless.

It’s 4am and im typing on my phone. Excuse the grammatical errors bros!

Bhawb.7408:

PvP will grow with time. League of Legends has probably the best system currently for eSports, a fair number of people are truly professional league players, its what they do. It also took LoL a few years to get to that stage (3 years I think?) so we really do need to realize that GW2 won’t become a huge esport with amazing competition right away, they need some time to work.

league started out small. gw2 sold millions of boxes and has barely any pvp population and those that left aren’t coming back.

Narcarsis.5739:

People suck at PvP.

because PvP sux in this game…

I am a multi-season Gladiator in WoW, I’ve played in amateur HoN and DotA2 leagues and tournaments, and done well. I preface this post with that not to brag or show that my opinion is worth more, but instead to give perspective. I have been a hardcore, small-scale PvP’er in many different games for the past 6 or more years.

I have done sPvP in this game for all of 10 ranks, which is much more than the incredibly vast majority of anyone playing this game has done, but in reality it’s barely anything. I came to GW2 at launch with a group of 10-20 friends who wanted something just as competitive as the WoW arena scene, and I know of PvP guilds from WoW who numbered in the hundreds of players that moved to GW2 expecting competitive small-scale PvP, and all of them apart from myself and 1 other have gone back to WoW.

I’ll also say that it was basically unanimous among that group that GW2 is a much more fun game, the mechanics more interesting, and skill was a bigger factor. These are all good things, and I know a lot of those players ask me at least twice a week how GW2 is doing. They always ask the same things: Are there visible ratings yet? Are there more game types? Is there a visible ladder? Is there matchmaking? And the biggest statement I always get back from them: if GW2 had arenas, or some sort of 3v3 system on smaller maps, then I would play the kitten out of that game.

I think most people in here so far are on track with making success more visible and promoting competitive play through matchmaking and ladders. But those that say that there isn’t any money in it and thats why competitive players arent here are completely wrong. Look at every competitive game; from DotA, HoN, LoL and even WoW. Millions of people play those games, and there are maybe 50 players in the world getting paid. Having a big esports scene is great in promoting the game, but its not whats stopping the masses from coming to try. The problem is that the majority of those players have already bought the game, and looked forward to “guild vs guild” type things for many months before release. But then they played it. Most lasted a week.

Secondly, those arguing that everyone plays for fun are correct. However the type of people that need to be playing sPvP and promoting it amongst their own circles are those that think competitive play is fun. Those that enjoy looking amongst their peers and seeing who the best is, and garnering recognition from that. Maybe thats shallow, and we all know it means nothing, but that is whats “fun” for those millions of players, and GW2 doesnt have that. For advertising the PvP aspect of the game so much, it really fell short with the competitive scene, and not because of mechanics or class balance.

People are correct. There is absolutely no reason to get good at sPvP in this game. Again, my group of friends plays exclusively competitively in every game. They don’t half kitten a game, they either put in the time or they don’t play. Every single one of those guys wants to play GW2, but see’s no reason. These people could care less about gear, rewards for them are in numbers associated with their proven skill.

What needs to happen is:
-a visible ladder and ranking system accompanied by visible matchmaking.
-something smaller scale than 5v5. I know that 5v5 is still small scale PvP, but the logistics of getting a tight-knit team of 5 people on all the time is hard to do. 3v3 has been the sweet spot in gaming for years.
-static teams, with team recognition.
-numerous different game types, but the biggest one I hear is a deathmatch or team deathmatch type. I understand that objectives tie in to the lore. But let’s be honest, us PvPers do not give a rats kitten about lore. We want to beat people, not environment.
-In general, more support given to the sPvP community. Team-finding websites or an in-game tool. Even though I had a large group to start with and finding teams was easy, it’s now myself and 1 other good friend, and finding people of similar skill level has been our largest barrier for playing paid tournaments seriously.

This game has so much potential to be the esports king of the MMO market, and ANet just needs to tap that potential and let us run with it. I honestly feel that focusing all their efforts on WvW and PvE is the wrong move. Those people already have their game, and the majority of them really love it. Fixing sPvP will attract many more people to a game thats already on their radar.

Royce.6835:

leashmaygoss.2140:

he’s right unfortunately lol

he’s wrong lol. the reason there is no competition and the reason everyone seems to suck is because the pvp in the game isn’t serious. there is no ladder, no rating, no stats. just a rank that shows you’ve put 700 hours into the game.

True story lol.
We seriously desperately need an in-game ladder.

Sadly we knew this problem was coming for months. Powerr has it right, and people like myself, Pray and many others made big posts about how the ticket grind/pay 2 queue system was completely unsustainable.

The current 2 teams farmed everybody to the point where it is to expensive for average teams to bother playing in paids.

A new team isn’t going to pay time or money for tickets to lose to PZ 100 times in order to learn the game.

MMR won’t fix any of this because it won’t work if there isn’t a large player base. The hardcore teams will still get matched up against noobs. Even giant games like LOL commonly put together completely uneven matches. It will be even worse in GW2 which has so few teams.

the one thing (imo) that will fix a million population issues is more pvp formats. not just spvp, there needs to be some other forms. maybe 3v3 arenas in a fight to the death, or even bring back a classic gvg mode without the need of points. maybe in this gvg you have to capture something and bring it back to your own “home” base or something.
the problem is a lack of motivation i think because people on NA just play each other over and over again (same 30-40 people) and it gets boring fast, especially for the better players. i remember guild wars 1 had random arenas, team arenas, alliance battles, hall of heroes, hero battles, and the classic and my fav the gvg. with just 1 format its a bit dry.

Why ever would you all have issues gathering more players? I can’t possibly imagine why.

One thing that will deter more and more new people from getting into TPvP is the constant rank req increase. The majority of people will only ask for, say, 40+ or 30+ rank people, some even ask by QP’s and many will require you to play their way or no way.

This is more a mindset issue imo. It’s fair enough to want to seek out people of a similar skill level to you. Just remember that there are plenty of skilled people that simply joined the pvp side of gw2 a bit later than you did. To simply rule out anyone under rank 40 is pretty silly if you ask me. Especially when rank can be farmed easily with one other person when you just swap cap shrines. Then it becomes more a “time spent” indicator than a “skill” indicator.

It will lead to what you had in GW1 in HA where unless you played from the beginning (or had some skilled friends to take you under their wing) then it’s practically impossible to join a highly ranked team (or any team at all).

The rank req Always Rises so this is just going to get more and more pronounced as the months and years fly by.

Hardcores drove away the player base by abusing the block bug(and other exploits) and sticking with their elitist team mates to gain any edge they can, when their core is not online they just team up with other players in the top QPs because they are online ALL the time. If I’m just as good a single player as these guys, but have to play with 4 unorganized people because I can’t get into this ‘clique’ of decent players. Well yeah I’m gonna quit the game and move onto more green pastures. Hardcore players can play with themselves the whole 40 of you on NA. You guys never seem to log off or get out of your comfort zone, then complain about not enough people around to compete against?

I normally don’t go to this side of the forums since I don’t personally enjoy Spvp, but I thought I’d give my reasons here.

First: My friends and Guild are usually “hardcore” Pvpers in most MMOs. I also greatly enjoy PVPing. However, we rarely touch Spvp for a few reasons. These are mine :

• No Incentive
• The Mists feels too detached from my character, if that makes sense? I feel like the character I leveled and geared is my real character, and doing Structured does nothing for my “real character” other than make me look prettier when I port to the Mists. I spent a lot of time and gold on my character, so it’s disheartening to port to the Mists and see that I have to start from scratch again.
• I also find The Mists to be gloomy and too close-quarters to “hang out” in. I wish I could queue from anywhere in the world, not just The Mists.
• Hot joins are a hot mess.
• Auto balancing
• No punishment for people who leave
• Being constantly rotated with the same set of people. I wish when one map ended, it ended. That way people can leave with out screwing the group over temporarily and you’d be placed with new people.
• Too many of certain classes, also too much favoring of certain classes.
• Class Balance issues and obvious imbalance
• Too many “stand on this point” maps and “bunkers”
• Underwater combat. Boring maps with overly used objectives. No variety.
• No ladders or anything special to aim for.
• You don’t earn EXP, so people who are leveling and like to casually PVP have no reason to do Structured over WvW.

Yeah, that’s about it I think.

/EDIT
It feels like Structured is Alienated from the rest of Guild Wars 2. You’re like the unloved step child and no one wants to play with you. Devs throw new maps at you, but you have deeper and more important issues that needs attention; not just new maps. There’s no gain or incentive, it’s also not easy for new players to learn, especially if they came from a Traditional MMO and not GW1.

V Man.8512:

One thing that will deter more and more new people from getting into TPvP is the constant rank req increase. The majority of people will only ask for, say, 40+ or 30+ rank people, some even ask by QP’s and many will require you to play their way or no way.

This is more a mindset issue imo. It’s fair enough to want to seek out people of a similar skill level to you. Just remember that there are plenty of skilled people that simply joined the pvp side of gw2 a bit later than you did. To simply rule out anyone under rank 40 is pretty silly if you ask me. Especially when rank can be farmed easily with one other person when you just swap cap shrines. Then it becomes more a “time spent” indicator than a “skill” indicator.

It will lead to what you had in GW1 in HA where unless you played from the beginning (or had some skilled friends to take you under their wing) then it’s practically impossible to join a highly ranked team (or any team at all).

The rank req Always Rises so this is just going to get more and more pronounced as the months and years fly by.

Rank doesn’t mean skill, it shows time spent. As the game progresses this will become more apparent and others will either open their eyes or be surpassed by some low rank “nubs”.

Mehlkee.6804:

Hardcores drove away the player base by abusing the block bug(and other exploits) and sticking with their elitist team mates to gain any edge they can, when their core is not online they just team up with other players in the top QPs because they are online ALL the time. If I’m just as good a single player as these guys, but have to play with 4 unorganized people because I can’t get into this ‘clique’ of decent players. Well yeah I’m gonna quit the game and move onto more green pastures. Hardcore players can play with themselves the whole 40 of you on NA. You guys never seem to log off or get out of your comfort zone, then complain about not enough people around to compete against?

I play with anyone who’s personality doesn’t conflict with mine so long as they ask. Stop being shy and timid and just ask people for a game.

Casual player here:

For casual players that are half decent, the lack in game modes and lack of incentive are what’s hindering any progression or interest in spvp.

I only have time to play 3 hours or so every other day if I am lucky. But the only reason I come back to spvp is because I love the combat and the learning experience. Not everyone is as patient as me. Not everyone in a hot join bothers to play more than one class, so they may pick up their own strengths and the weaknesses of the professions they lose to. We all know how frustrating it is to jump in and discover that no one on your team can target and lock onto a mesmer or rez/stomp manage on a node. Free tournies are just as frustrating because of the down time to get into a match, on top of the low chances of being paired with a decent team, rank wise. So, 20-40 minutes for these matches where you might lose horribly, and earn little to no glory/points?

Imho, Anet should add more perks to spvp or tweak what they have, so players in the long haul can feel accomplished for spending the copious hours to be competitive and become good players.

Oh this thread got bumped (don’t know why the title was changed(again)).

However I still stick by my original post. Would be nice if the casual players that can get better and have the time to get better had some incentive to even try. Currently there isn’t. And with everyone playing the popularity contest it makes impossible to find a stable team.