Guild Wars 2

So, we know that game manifesto was all about “play what you want” and breaking away from the trinity. While I agree that such philosophy did wonders for some aspects of the game, I think it was the very cause of PvP downfall (well, one of).

Yes, it is true that you can play any class the way you want, but reality is that there will always be some classes better at something than some other classes. While this works in open world content and dungeons (unless you wanna do speed-farming), when you raise skill and challenge level, it is natural that everyone must seek for optimal solutions. This is obvious when you look at raids and even fractals and I would add competitive PvP to this list.

If you want to be successful at challenging content, then you can’t actually screw around and play some ineffective or less effective builds, just because you like it. I mean, you can. but you will not be successful at that content.

This is exactly the issue that in my opinion damaged PvP significantly. Every class can play in theory many builds and be anything from tanky to support to damage dealer. Also, you can combine and be a little bit of everything and even deal 2 kinds of damage. So, if you look at some other PvP games (since I am focusing on PvP in this thread), characters there also have some diversity, but their roles are more or less pre-definded, which is what Anet tried to avoid in GW2. However, I think it backfired because it created overly-complicated matching system, where there are just too many variables to be taken into account in order to create balanced matches.

I know that someone might say “Well, but you have meta builds and majority plays meta builds, which reduces variables a lot”. I agree, but I think matchmaking does not take into account which builds are meta for some class at the moment…

Also, another important thing is that balance is revolving around rock-paper-scissors system. I saw that many people requested introduction of more game modes for PvP (1v1, 2v2, 3v3…) but since we have this kind of system, then 1v1, for example, would be just about which class you get as opponent. If you get your own heavy counter, then GG, if you get the class to which you are heavy counter then again GG. It removes significantly skill influence (assuming both players are at similar skill level) and goes down to luck (if you are rock, will you get paper or scissors).

Someone will say that this does not prevent introduction of 2v2 and 3v3 or Capture the flag or Deathmatch…and again I agree, but the issue here is that population is so small, that we cannot have balanced matches in 1 game mode. Imagine splitting population across multiple game modes…

Sorry for the wall of text, but I think this is a very complex issue and based on how Anet tackles this will depend if this game mode is truly dead or it can have any kind of future. But I am worried that the very game design is preventing further development of competitive PvP or PvP game mode in general.

I don’t know what can be the solution. Maybe completely separating traits and skills from other game modes, increasing rewards (I know it draws PvE players, but PvP needs to renew the player base somehow) and then introduce tournaments and new game modes.

What do you guys think?

i think the ways to draws more ppl to the pvp area are
1. longer tutorials on rotations, skills, cc, support and targeting and focus fire
2. rewards that benefit a good move or contribution to the score (tricky but doable)
3. fun maps and tournament maps
4. larger pool of builds to choose from and not only 1 meta. counter builds for example.
5. more balance matchmaking (it always be tricky)
6. each player choose his role and will rewarded for it.

I dont think that is that complex to see that Anet murdered their pvp gamemodes with their “noobspam pve mentality”, the pvp dev’s could not do anything even if they wanted, there were a few teams blocking their progress for sure, and no matter what modes u would end adding to pvp it would not mate at the end r, the balance would be always very gimmickly unbalanced due Anet preference on not adjusting classes to pve and pvp, since it would means change the pve things and that is forbiden.

Anet pve mentality and game lack of game adjusting (the persons who do the game balance are most at fault to this state of gw2) killed the pvp.

I think the three biggest opponents to PvP in the game are..

1. Players have access to too much in every build. The game is suffering from a bloat of abilities/function in PvP. Builds have too much crowd-control, too many boons, disengage, survivability, stability, passive effects, trait bonuses, etc. In order to convince new players to participate the low-end should be simple enough, but with the current system, there are so many variables at play that it becomes hard to track what an opponent has. Everything ends up feeling unfair because the player simply can’t understand the full scope of what their enemy has available.

2. Too few game types, which sadly is almost impossible to resolve at this point. It’s not simply a discussion about introducing new game types and maps, it’s a problem with population. Each new game-type is likely to divide the population unless they always get added to a baseline PvP queue. Even this creates problems, however, as not every player will enjoy every game mode.

3. This is more a personal gripe, but I still strongly believe the downstate is an example of unhealthy design for PvP. It works well enough in PvE, but accomplishes nothing in PvP while having a massive impact on the game-flow and build choices. I suppose it’s not the biggest issue, but it’s representative of an issue in PvP – a lot of systems/abilities/choices simply weren’t tailored to PvP and it shows. A massive rebalance needs to occur, not just of abilities/professions, but also of systems which support PvP.

AngryBear.8741:

This is exactly the issue that in my opinion damaged PvP significantly. Every class can play in theory many builds and be anything from tanky to support to damage dealer. Also, you can combine and be a little bit of everything and even deal 2 kinds of damage. So, if you look at some other PvP games (since I am focusing on PvP in this thread), characters there also have some diversity, but their roles are more or less pre-definded, which is what Anet tried to avoid in GW2. However, I think it backfired because it created overly-complicated matching system, where there are just too many variables to be taken into account in order to create balanced matches.

You’re entirely accurate in my opinion. A role system helps PvP as roles imply a system of trade-offs. You might be a glass cannon by default or have limited crowd-control, but you can do damage that no other profession is capable of.

The idea that every role is viable for every profession destroys the system of trade-offs which is healthy for balance.

HoT expansion (elite specs) made pvp more chaotic than before. game become so random and chaotic with condition buff and huge aoe effects. new players dont understand whats going on. even i quit pvp. maybe im bad player but i was enjoying pvp before HoT. in my opinion; problem is elite specs. thats it.

I think the problem is balancing. People eventually quit, when balancing isnt there and it prevents new players from joining. Pretty much if you are not part of the meta build, then you barely stand a chance, so why bother?

Example…. Guardians.

I see that we all agree on balance thing, but I was asking question why is balancing things so hard for devs? Are they neglecting PvP or, like I stated in initial post, problem is game design itself. Manifesto killed PvP because even though there were great ideas there, they can’t be applied everywhere. And if that is the case, then I am scared if PvP can ever recover since this is game’s core design we’re talking about.

AngryBear.8741, because pve is what is wrong (its the true cancer of the game), and this mmo is for pople who dont like mmo’s…

If Pve its fine for Anet, any other of the game modes suffer if they have something broken that is being carried from pve.. patience just try to have fun or leech as much u can, cause ANet dont change stuff that comes from pve, as in the pve class desig plus the awfull balance decision.

Anet made classes with low effort design with pve gameplay only in mind, so they dont fit in a clever/decent pvp game, reason they prefered to remove trinkets than actually change the classes/build that could be better at pve and better at pvp, w/o being ot much, Anet love skilless metas, its their compromission of what its fun.
Its their game deisgn and decisions that made the game reach a lvl where everything looks ugly to fight being in spvp or wvw, even pve is horrible to watch, and that dont atrack players, since Anet wanted to make a easy game with strong gimmicks to carry its players.
They failled alot of stuff, i think they didnt even understand their initial manifesto.

At the end gw2 is a only pve game, where players would playit like if u buy a volume to contiue the history, where pvp was just added because gw1 had pvp…and a online game w/o pvp nowadays its nothing.

Btw metas here are placebos mostly.. but ill leave that for players to find out.

Seriously?

The entire game’s combat system is and was designed around PvP. Do you really think that PvE is why we have active dodge mechanics, downstate, stunbreak and mobility skills?

Like seriously half the traits and 4/5ths of the utility skills are literally pointless in PvE and are only used in PvP.

Crinn.7864:

Seriously?

The entire game’s combat system is and was designed around PvP. Do you really think that PvE is why we have active dodge mechanics, downstate, stunbreak and mobility skills?

Like seriously half the traits and 4/5ths of the utility skills are literally pointless in PvE and are only used in PvP.

At first yeah, PvE was actually challenging and then over the years it became easy as hell. There were mobs in the low level areas that would one shot and require a ton of players in order to beat certain bosses and even do events. The game wasnt made with PvP in mind but more for PvE and WvW. PvP seemed as though it was the last thing on the list but the devs wanted to be esport so bad that they bet all their cards on a mode that was destined to fail by design of the game itself. This is easily shown is a lot of skills that havent ever been in working condition for PvP.

I honestly hope the devs smarten up about the future and ditch PvP all together, SPvP should honestly get hosed for a year or 2 so they can work on more stuff and put full focus into reviving all the other aspects of the game and even introducing a ton more skills with zero regard for balance, just make skills for fun like the game should have been in the first place, limit them to PvE if you need to. So much potential wasted on such a fail mode is sad to see and I spent all my gw2 years on pvp, I myself see that PvP has really brought this game down from what it could have been.

iKeostuKen.2738:

The game wasnt made with PvP in mind but more for PvE and WvW

WvW

Thanks for the laughs best joke I’ve heard in 2017

Crinn.7864:

Seriously?

The entire game’s combat system is and was designed around PvP. Do you really think that PvE is why we have active dodge mechanics, downstate, stunbreak and mobility skills?

Like seriously half the traits and 4/5ths of the utility skills are literally pointless in PvE and are only used in PvP.

Which is the irony.

The problem is the design execution of the specs and the content of the format themselves, rather than a lack of roles.

The fact you have no-tell huge nukes, a total excess of sustain in a mode only meant to defend points, over-potency stat-wise on some stat combos and their respective synergies to certain specific builds, almost no cooldowns on a number of kits, powercreeped abilities into insanity, etc. breaks PvP. A lot of the tactical elements and resource management that determined skilled play in the past are no longer a part of the game through poor design.

It’s rotations and builds or forget it, largely. In action-based PvP, this is the penultimate mark of failure. Sadly, the PvP team had no way to control professions; all of profession design and balance is handled solely by PvE designers and no input from others matters.

fishball.7204:

iKeostuKen.2738:

The game wasnt made with PvP in mind but more for PvE and WvW

WvW

Thanks for the laughs best joke I’ve heard in 2017

If only you remember how much they hyped up their amazing “World vs World vs World experience”. SPvP was a joke ever since they changed matches to 5v5s.

Crinn.7864:

Seriously?

The entire game’s combat system is and was designed around PvP. Do you really think that PvE is why we have active dodge mechanics, downstate, stunbreak and mobility skills?

Like seriously half the traits and 4/5ths of the utility skills are literally pointless in PvE and are only used in PvP.

Absolutely, most of those mechanics are specifically tailored to PvE.

Downstate mechanic offers nothing but needless complexity to PvP. In PvE it offers an alternative to immediate death. The player screws up and should die, but is given the potential to not.

Mobility skills exist in every game, and most aren’t overly useful in PvP. On some professions, this isn’t true, but to give an example – Rocket boots, one of the Engineer’s few mobility skills, is garbage and you would never substitute a better skill for it in PvP. Mobility makes travel through the world more engaging and serves mechanic avoidance in PvE quite well. In PvP mobility alone isn’t useful enough to use a slot for (weapon abilities don’t count as they don’t have the same cost of a slot). To justify the use, it needs much more packed in utility.

Active dodge mechanics better service PvE than they do PvP in GW2. They serve as the primary mitigation tool for difficult PvE, they are the crux around PvE is designed in the absence of a concrete role system. In PvP something equivalent was certainly necessary, but iframe dodges actually serve to, again, create needless additional complexity.

Before you completely disregard this idea, hear me out. Iframe dodges extend fight length in PvP, they make it far more difficult to land big burst, they increase the importance of CC which increases the amount of CC, this increases the amount of stability, which increases the amount of boonrip, which increases the number of boons, etc. They are an important part of PvP and the game would be very different without them, but to give an example: a better implementation in PvP would be to have 1 iframe dodge on a considerable CD. This would create broad windows of opportunity for attack. As stands, they add a ton of unnecessary complexity.

Stunbreaks are a PvP designed feature, you are correct there.

As for traits/skills/weapons, it’s true of every game type. Most of the traits/weapons/skills are pure garbage in a given mode, many are pure garbage regardless.

fishball.7204:

iKeostuKen.2738:

The game wasnt made with PvP in mind but more for PvE and WvW

WvW

Thanks for the laughs best joke I’ve heard in 2017

He’s not wrong you know. Look at the track record since launch and where we are now in terms of development focus, PVE has always been the main audience.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Crinn.7864:

Seriously?

The entire game’s combat system is and was designed around PvP. Do you really think that PvE is why we have active dodge mechanics, downstate, stunbreak and mobility skills?

Like seriously half the traits and 4/5ths of the utility skills are literally pointless in PvE and are only used in PvP.

At first yeah, PvE was actually challenging and then over the years it became easy as hell. There were mobs in the low level areas that would one shot and require a ton of players in order to beat certain bosses and even do events. The game wasnt made with PvP in mind but more for PvE and WvW. PvP seemed as though it was the last thing on the list but the devs wanted to be esport so bad that they bet all their cards on a mode that was destined to fail by design of the game itself. This is easily shown is a lot of skills that havent ever been in working condition for PvP.

I honestly hope the devs smarten up about the future and ditch PvP all together, SPvP should honestly get hosed for a year or 2 so they can work on more stuff and put full focus into reviving all the other aspects of the game and even introducing a ton more skills with zero regard for balance, just make skills for fun like the game should have been in the first place, limit them to PvE if you need to. So much potential wasted on such a fail mode is sad to see and I spent all my gw2 years on pvp, I myself see that PvP has really brought this game down from what it could have been.

PVE… challenging? When? At what point in time? The hardest content I have seen is the 100 or what ever fracs…. and even they aren’t that hard…. and before you go off on me with the “pre hot” generic reply….. I made the fortune I have been expanding via trading post via selling Arah the first 1-2 years of the games release…. this games actual content is slightly harder then launch… but its PVE is just too simple for the level of depth the combat has. A good player who understands their class running zerk can solo anything short of a raid and that hasn’t changed since the first month of the game.

That being said this game’s balance issues are being blown way out of proportion. Im still lost as to how people are calling for DH nerfs….. The class that has been hanging on by a thread since it was released….. The class is a classic noob stomper…. in no game have the ever balanced a class that is only OP at the lower level of play for the people who have issues fighting them. The class itself is hard countered by no joke half the meta…. They are only really a problem when they are stacked against uncoordinated teams and even then there is a thresh hold where their poor mobility will allow a single thief to counter their inability to rotate quick enough. 3 in solo queue sucks to fight but 1 or 4-5 is a joke.

Similar issue is there with condi. A single condi user alone isn’t OP, they can have a huge impact if they play well but their actual damage output is generally going to be lower then their power counterparts. The main issue comes from heavily stacked condi teams and a lack of understanding of how to fight condis. The result of this is people claim OP when they really just cleansed the warriors bleeds instead of saving it for the condi bomb by the necro 2 feet away.

Majority of balance issues are a L2P issue that due to the average understanding of the player gets labeled as OP. Now there are legitimate balance problems but they are no where near as bad as other PVP focused games. The real problem are core implementation issues such as class stacking and matchmaking issues.

Pvp was severely hindered by the closed skill system as opposed to the gw1 open skill system. What a close skill system does is make the player highly reliant on devs to buff or nerf skills were as a open skill system gives players the tools to create solutions to problems themselves.

In addition, since HoT many classes are able to fulfill multiple roles at once i.e being a tank, dps and having amazing sustain all at once. This is bad for pvp, because it pretty much negates potential glaring weaknesses a class may have. For example before HoT, a bunker guardian traded damage for sustain and tanking. Now a DH can do damage, sustain and tank.

Furthermore I think the 5v5 format is actually pretty bad. It leaves little room of error with team mates. If just one person isn’t very good then the team suffers greatly, making the match feel like a 4v5. If the match format was 8v8 it would feel a lot smoother. Also, I think they should consider dropping conquest in general for a hall of heroes style of pvp. 8v8v8 with different map objectives: Flag carry, King of the hill, holding points etc.