Guild Wars 2

This is probably going to be a moot point, but someone needs to put up the basis.

In this game, there’s really no way to understand if you’re improving, if you’re getting better, if your build is good and if you’re doing something useful for the team.

End game stats don’t show if you really contributed to the team, there’s no way to discern if it was “better” to stay in team fight or going far taking the point as a freecap then fighting 1vs1 to hold the node contested ( meanwhile your team could lose the team fight at mid).

This game is basically all about communication, and as it is now, there’s very little room for the player to improve ( or understanding if he’s doing something wrong).

How can an engi player understand ( accounting he’s close point defender) to go mid for a push ? what if going to mid allows you to win the team fight BUT let the opponent thief get close, still ending in a 2 vs 1 cap ?

The learning curve is very steep, and this game provides little to no info ( and little to no help, neither a guide) to learn how to play your class, and learn rotations with it.

A newbie will easily be unsatisfied, and leave.

I still see tons of “rank 40-50” doing bad, running with bad/unoptimized builds losing time in scrims outside the point following an opponent just to get stomped by their ally who came off their point, not following targeted enemy ( maybe believing they’re "distracting their teammates allowing you to dps him) and leaving combat where they really should stay, most of the time just to go neuting another point ( meanwhile opposing teams win the team fight, stomped you all, got 10-15 points from stomps PLUS the point capped, then going to the neuted point facerolling the one who was fighting 1vs1 and taking that point too ).

This needs to stop, and sadly we can’t even say “L2P” because there’s really no way to learn the game properly, if you’re alone.

If the only way to learn the game is to get a team and get facerolled 200 times by better teams till you realize what is wrong, don’t question if tPvP has such a small playerbase.

soloq will fix this, if it pops often and the teams are balanced

Most games worth learning are actually very difficult to learn properly. What sort of competitive game are you thinking of that’s easy to learn how to do properly that also has a high player base?

Rerroll.9083:

soloq will fix this, if it pops often and the teams are balanced

I fear solo q will just teach bad habits again, like they’re doing with hotjoin.

Without communication you can’t really understand what went wrong, you have really no idea if you contributed to the team ( stuff like " hey i was decapping their point so many times, why are we losing" = thief went far staying there 1vs1 the engi the whole match, removing mobility and instagibs+ poison, instead of going only when the team fight was already in your favour OR when you know your mates can last till you go back).

This happens EVEN in team with TeamSpeak: people believing they’re doing something useful while they’re just being detrimental.

This goes beyond learning to play, this is a problem about the system: this game is VERY complicated, and without a way to learn which fights you should join, when to disangage and stuff, it’s very difficult for a newcomer to understand if he’s doing well.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Most games worth learning are actually very difficult to learn properly. What sort of competitive game are you thinking of that’s easy to learn how to do properly that also has a high player base?

i’m not against hard games, i’m just saying the “game itself” gives you no advice about what you should do and what not.

Deathmatch games ( for example) are much simplier and there’re ways to tell if you’re doing wrong ( if you’re going down too fast, if you’re not doing enough damage, if your healing is bad, if your healer is not able to endure the pressure etc. etc.) .

In gw2 this is simply not the case.

Will be easier when replays come out. It’s hard to analyze yourself. You could video tape your play but you won’t be seeing the other side of the picture, what happened when you weren’t there, what they did, etc.

I do agree with the original poster. I, too, have felt the same way. There’s no “feedback information loop” to let you know when you are “off course” with a build or a strategy you always use. As a new PvP player you never know exactly what is was that you did not do that really caused your team to lose the match.

Or what you did that really helped win the match.

You might think your big 1v1 fight that you won out in the road was helping, when you actually should never have been there, but should have been at mid supporting the cap.

I really want to know examples of games where you really get good information. Amount of damage/healing done, KDR, etc. don’t necessarily tell you whether or not you’ve done your job. KD/KDA formulas can often differ from game to game (person with the most damage done to the target or last hit on the target? Do heals on a person who did damage to a target count for Assists, or just damage to the target? etc.), and you can do a million damage but not get any kills because you’re doing poor damage on a bad target that’s easily getting outhealed.

I really think it just boils down to whether or not a player wants to get better. If you have the motivation to improve, you’ll actively try to analyze your own play, and talk to others about strategy. Often, there aren’t straight-forward answers to whether or not you did something well, or if something was a good idea. Replays are probably the best answer, but otherwise it comes down to you, the player, analyzing your data properly.

I really think the onus here should always be on the player. Are we really at a point in gamer society where we cannot handle working on getting better at a game without becoming frustrated and just quitting? If so, that’s really, really sad. Considering the popularity of games like DOTA 2 though, I don’t really think that’s the case.

If anything, a game needs to be designed in such a way that the players can blame each other for failure instead of the game itself. I’m just not exactly sure how to create that sort of situation. I think the game needs more mechanics than just an arena-based fight to achieve such a thing.

As long as the game is conquest only for tpvp, there is no way for a player to get a measure of his improvement / performance, since everything is tied to team communication, decision making, target calling, support and positioning.

It is also very difficult with the current UI to see the boons / condi on players you have not targeted – which cuts from awareness – so many times things are miss or hit.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I really think the onus here should always be on the player. Are we really at a point in gamer society where we cannot handle working on getting better at a game without becoming frustrated and just quitting? If so, that’s really, really sad. Considering the popularity of games like DOTA 2 though, I don’t really think that’s the case.

If anything, a game needs to be designed in such a way that the players can blame each other for failure instead of the game itself. I’m just not exactly sure how to create that sort of situation. I think the game needs more mechanics than just an arena-based fight to achieve such a thing.

Dota games ( LoL is a very good example) show you how to play.

They recreate fake games with bots at the beginning in order to make you understand the basis of what do to do, they have a cohomprensive guide to show you how to build your character etc. etc.

Game strategies can be settled in game due to a much slower pace, and very commonly the very character you pick already has a prefixed role it’s very difficult to play distantly from.

In GW2 you most of the time have no idea what to do, especially with hybrid classes ( tanky engies, rangers, necros) since you don’t really know what fight you should join, since it’s difficult to evaluate a win/lose situation ( join the 1vs1 at mid where both guardians are fighting OR join close fight where you’re 2vs3 and you don’t know if they’ll be still alive till you come in ? winning close fight could be game changing, but you could also be stomped hard ).

There’re are no cues about this, evaluation is very difficult in this game, and its extremely fast pace complicates everything too much.

They should really find a way to teach players IN GAME, and we need a system rework in order to do this.

Mrbig.8019:

Dota games ( LoL is a very good example) show you how to play.

i heard about this ‘feature’ so many times, so i had to try it out.
i downloaded and installed LoL yesterday and have to say that the ‘new-player-experience’ is really amazing!

i really think something similar would be possible in gw2 too, even the bots are already implemented (mists training ground)