Guild Wars 2

Rewards

This has been beaten to death by other posts, but I need to include it anyway. The fact that you can earn comparable rewards from queuing ranked instead is fairly ridiculous. First place should be about 25-50g in rewards.

Brackets

Most people don’t realize this, but the list of teams is already listed in bracket order, but it’s still not obvious when people are spread through multiple rounds. There needs to be something like this instead, although obviously ArenaNet’s version won’t be anywhere near as pretty.

http://i.imgur.com/QSu63vL.png

Schedule

One good way to encourage participation from some lower tier players is to make it more accessible as a guild activity. The best way to do that is to have the rotating times be at the same time each week. That way people can schedule weekly guild events around them.

Guild Teams

Building off the previous point, ideally the whole tournament doesn’t consist of pure PuGs. You want players to care about improving themselves and others to improve competition, which isn’t the case in PuGs. I suggest increasing rewards for players queued up as guild teams, something like a straight 20-50% boost to gold rewards. However, with the current system for guild teams, people can just freely swap around teams to just get the reward boost, so there needs to be some restrictions added to moving around guild teams. I don’t know if there’s a good way to do this, but maybe require a player to be part of a team for more than a week before they qualify for the bonus rewards.

Maps

This is a relatively minor thing, but I think the rules should list which map is used in which round. Something like “Round 1: Temple of the Silent Storm; Round 2: Legacy of the Foefire” right here:

http://i.imgur.com/qiWG4Wm.jpg

Competition

A lot of people are worried about the top tier players farming the tournament if the rewards are buffed too much. I suggest they have two ATs go on at once. One of them is unrestricted with higher rewards. The other is lower rewards, but with a maximum QP for participation. If people do well enough in the lower tier tournaments, they’ll be forced into the higher tier tournament for the rest of the month. The better teams will play in the higher tier tournament for the increased rewards and competition anyway.

I think bo1s are okay until the semi finals everything from there should be bo3s

Also address class stacking because it creates a unbalanced mess and undermines the whole reason you should practice with a “team” in these tourneys.

The issue with Bo3s is that it makes the tournament take longer, making them even less worthwhile. For the monthly, I could see that making sense. For dailies, I just don’t think it’s worth it.

Rewards should scale with #of participants. No point in awarding 50g to winner if they got a bye to the semis because only 5 teams signed up. At the same time getting only 5g when you had to fight your way through a bracket of 60+ people is quite simply poorly thought out.

I agree with your other points, for the most part.

Though I would suggest adding a cooldown to individual participation. If you where on the team that won the tournament, you are not allowed to play in the next scheduled AT ( in +8 hours ). This way, we see a lot less of the same people grinding away and getting easy gold.

Moving the game toward guilds and heavily organized teams is exactly what ANET should not do.

ESL didn’t get traction because there was no possibility that the vast majority of players could participate.

There is, at long last, a tournament solos can play in. Moving it back toward higher tiers and organized teams will cut any progress off at the knees.

The gold rewards should depend on how many people sign up. Otherwise the rewards become too good for the off prime time ATs where only 5-10 teams sign up at most.

for guild teams you also could add guild rewards like decorations (which are already in game)

min 15 characters

Gw2 is a great game,the community loves the game so much they’ve filled the empty void after anet quit endorsing esports with their own tournaments.We don’t need much help from anet were just asking for them to incentivize the ats to make it worth while

Automated Tournaments are nice, but it’s a just a band-aid on a fundamental flaw, which is that you can’t do ranked arena with a full team. It’s really hard to 5 people to show up at a specific time and guarantee them only one game as a team. If you can’t play together regularly, how do you ever improve as a team?

Your still missing the biggest reason all of this is struggling,

1) The meta build comps and game play suck

Boom no other listed needed so far. 2-3-4-6 issues can not be addressed because the many simply do not want to play this. Veterans with people who could put teams together, alot of them do not want to play this.

The 2nd comment from Skittledness.5106 is about balance.

Very very very few people enjoyed S1 of PvP with all that Bunker spam and now its the complete opposite. Its crazy i know but guess what it has the same effect even though game play is fast and blah blah blah.

No matter how you want to cut it. If i gold player has a guild team with other golds and 1 mains warrior and another mains thief. Then 2 others are forced into the necro- ele combo this team will suck and they know it especially if they run into a bunch of plat players goofing around with 3-4 DH builds.

You have to make a game people want to play alot to get tournaments really going.

Exedore.6320:

Automated Tournaments are nice, but it’s a just a band-aid on a fundamental flaw, which is that you can’t do ranked arena with a full team. It’s really hard to 5 people to show up at a specific time and guarantee them only one game as a team. If you can’t play together regularly, how do you ever improve as a team?

Teams are the major problem. They are often used as a tool to exploit and troll. It would be different if teams competed with teams exclusively.

The problem is that the aforementioned exploiting and trolling has reduced population to below the point where a team queue is sustainable.

Automated Tournaments (ATs) have continued the trend of trash talk. More importantly: they’ve been organized in a way that gives high rated teams an easy pass. The low rated teams are virtually guaranteed to be stomped in the initial rounds.
This pretty much ensures that ATs will never gain significant popularity.

Like raids, the ATs will be a niche. I suppose they are good in that sense, they divert some elitism.

Skittledness.5106:

Gw2 is a great game,the community loves the game so much they’ve filled the empty void after anet quit endorsing esports with their own tournaments.We don’t need much help from anet were just asking for them to incentivize the ats to make it worth while

GW2 if a great community but you said in your own post Anet quit on Esports.

Im with you but your like the guy asking for a peanut butter sandwich in a Pho which only serves soup and dont have peanut butter.

Ithilwen.1529:

Automated Tournaments (ATs) have continued the trend of trash talk. More importantly: they’ve been organized in a way that gives high rated teams an easy pass. The low rated teams are virtually guaranteed to be stomped in the initial rounds.
This pretty much ensures that ATs will never gain significant popularity.

are you seriously complaining that high skill teams beat low skill teams in a tournament environment.

are you for real?

like… do you know what a tournament is?
do you know what the goal is?

choovanski.5462:

Ithilwen.1529:

Automated Tournaments (ATs) have continued the trend of trash talk. More importantly: they’ve been organized in a way that gives high rated teams an easy pass. The low rated teams are virtually guaranteed to be stomped in the initial rounds.
This pretty much ensures that ATs will never gain significant popularity.

are you seriously complaining that high skill teams beat low skill teams in a tournament environment.

are you for real?

like… do you know what a tournament is?
do you know what the goal is?

No, I’m complaining that high level teams are matched against low in the first rounds. This virtually ensures that low level teams have no chance to advance , even a little. It gives more-or-less free wins ( and therefore locked in rewards ) to high level teams.

The better and fairer option would be to set #1 vs #2 in the first round. #3 vs #4 etc.

Then again, perhaps this is anet’s plan; divert some of the “former” ESL people into ATs and in the process take some of the exploiting pressure off ranked/unranked. Here’s hoping they remove duo from ranked.

Ithilwen.1529:

choovanski.5462:

Ithilwen.1529:

Automated Tournaments (ATs) have continued the trend of trash talk. More importantly: they’ve been organized in a way that gives high rated teams an easy pass. The low rated teams are virtually guaranteed to be stomped in the initial rounds.
This pretty much ensures that ATs will never gain significant popularity.

are you seriously complaining that high skill teams beat low skill teams in a tournament environment.

are you for real?

like… do you know what a tournament is?
do you know what the goal is?

No, I’m complaining that high level teams are matched against low in the first rounds. This virtually ensures that low level teams have no chance to advance , even a little. It gives more-or-less free wins ( and therefore locked in rewards ) to high level teams.

The better and fairer option would be to set #1 vs #2 in the first round. #3 vs #4 etc.

Then again, perhaps this is anet’s plan; divert some of the “former” ESL people into ATs and in the process take some of the exploiting pressure off ranked/unranked. Here’s hoping they remove duo from ranked.

do you have actual proof that the best players are matched w the worst? or is this just another one of your conspiracy theories?

or, are you just complaining that the team you are matched with is always significantly better? because if that’s the case, im not sure what to tell you dude. the only phrase that pops into my mind is ‘you are the weakest link’, because homes- you’ve been complaining about your poor performance for 3 years, & the gameplay i’ve seen of you is not hot. so i’m pretty doubtful that there is a team that competes in these tournaments that isn’t going to farm you. like, as far as i know you’re still playing core PU.

I’m searching for a direct reference. I’m basing it on what Olrun posted;

“That doesn’t disagree with what I said. In an 8 team bracket, the matches go 1v8, 2v7, 3v6, and 4v5. In a 16 team bracket, they go 1v16, 2v15, 3v14, 4v13, 5v12, 6v11, 7v10, and 8v9.” ( Sorry I’m not sure how to link a remote thread. )

and my experience with drag racing brackets.

Placing the top team against the bottom team gives the top team a basically free pass. It also ensures they’ll get higher rewards. ( because rewards increase as you advance in the rounds ) The whole setup caters to the top end.

The notion of making it highly probable that higher ranked teams will get higher rewards… It’s reminiscent of “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

That’s one way of thinking. The issue is that this is a game. People come to enjoy. Being trounced and trolled is hardly a formula for enjoyment. ANET’s course here is likely to reduce population still further.

@Ithilwen

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

The bracket is set up before the first match even starts, based on QP. If QP is equal, then it’s random.

Winning quickly has no bearing on your next match.

so placement is determined based on performance in previous tournaments. that seems fair. so assuming Olrun is right, & maybe he is- brackets are based off previous AT performance, & work placing the best team vs the worst.

As you’ve pointed out, this seems unfair. I understand how you can see it this way. However, it is the best way for the brackets to be arranged. I just read a thesis, & a bunch of other articles so, I’ll explain why.

In an AT rewards are aranged from first to eighth place. We also expect a tense final match. Now, the only way to actually get both of these things happening in an AT is to have the teams arranged who Olrun specified.

This is because if we have the second best seed eliminated in the first round, because they have to face the strongest team- not only will we not get a good final match, but we have other issues too. Firstly, the second best team does not end up placing second (which is the place they deserve) so they do not get appropriate rewards. Secondly, each game for the strongest team is easier than the first game they played. This is not how a tournament is supposed to work, the games are supposed to get harder, not easier.

So, it can be seen that the bracket arrangemnt Olrun specifies is the best way to have a tournament set up. As it gives the best indication of actual skill, & gives teams harder games as they move up the ladder.

Now, this does make it hard for the worst seed to win the tournament, but that was never going to happen anyway, they are after all the worst seed. Sure, it seems mean to struture the tournamnet around the higher seeded teams if you are a low seeded team, but the whole point of the tournament is to have compition for the higher seeds.

So, thats why having seed one vs seed two is not a good idea, & why seed one vs seed eight is much better. Because having the first method does not give an accurate representation of skill, which is the whole point.

Sure, double elimination with a losers bracket would be nicer, but i dont think we have time for that.

Now i understand that you would like the tournament to cater to the low end, not the high end. This is called having a bad attitude. If you had a good attitude, the kind competitive tournaments call for, you would not think this way. This is because you would see being in the low end as being temporary, because you would be aspiring to get better & move into the high end. If you dont feel this way, i would question why you are even entering the tournements at all (it’s not for fun, seeing how much you complain about them).

Now, to stop you before you contest that a low seed cant rise due to being matched w better teams. There are muliple tournaments a day. Getting 8th place can be done without winning any games depending on how many teams enter, & awards 10 QP. You raise your seed by getting more QP. So playing a lot of tournaments is going to both give you practice to get better at the game, & more QP provided that you can place at least 8th.

TL.DR
> 1v8 is the best method as it reflects skill
> not great for lower seeds, but all low seeds should practice to become high seeds

Ppl being scared tha good players will win tournaments. This is why we cant have nice things.

@Choovanski

While your argument is pretty enough, it misses a basic issue. Rather it tries to obfuscate a different issue.

You are trying to justify more-or-less sacrificing the majority to please the minority.
Since rewards go up each round, you are also advocating giving rewards many times better to a tiny minority.

On top of that you have attitudes like the player who told us “you’ve been farmed” after his team stomped us in the first round. He went on to tell me personally that I was “the cancer of pvp.”

AT’s are rapidly heading toward being a very small niche. I hope that at the very least, ANET removes duo from and ranked and team from unranked. Let the elitists go to ATs.

Ithilwen I’m sorry but you are the minority in this arguement. AT’s are supposed to cater to the elitests who want competition, the worst players who don’t put in the effort don’t deserve the rewards. Does your boss pay you for a 40 hour work week when you only work 10? Doubt it.

The casual playerbase isn’t asking for AT’s to be accessible, if you want to enter with 4 other pugs and basically solo queue a strictly team mode game that’s your own choice but you cant expect to do well. It’s like bringing your stock mini van to a race track and expecting to win. It’s illogical.

You’ve deleted half your posts in this thread because the community is continuously tearing you apart as you constantly make comments trying to make a competitive game mode less competitive.

@Ithilwen

you say my argument is ‘pretty enough’. how confusing. it’s not a rebuttal, nor is it an outright admission that you’re wrong. I see you move like a snake. I’d be happy to be your mongoose.

“You are trying to justify more-or-less sacrificing the majority to please the minority.” nice sentence. unfortunately it’s not actually specific so I’m going to have to make some assumptions (if you don’t like it, be less vague in the future). seeing as it’s you, I’m going to assume the majority is the lower skilled players, and the minority is the higher skilled players. going with this information, I honestly can’t understand why a tournament should cater to this low skill majority. seeing as a tournament is a measure of skill and they don’t have any.

it’s like expecting a table tennis tournament to cater to the average person who can hardly play the game. it’s inane.

furthermore, seeing as neither ranked or unranked cater to this so called minority. should the elites not get a gamemode? must everything be for the low skill casual. I’m guessing you think so.

needless to say, I doubt any of this will convince you. I’m betting you will reply saying that tournaments should be for low skill players not in teams again because like the record, you endlessly turn.

also, considering that you’re campaigning to remove all team play from PvP I can sympathize with the player who called you ‘the cancer of pvp’. now that’s not outright agreement, so put the ban hammer away, it’s just a showing of sympathy.

Personal attacks aside …

Both sides of the conversation have valid concerns and have the same common goal: improve automated tournaments and promote a healthy sPvP scene. It would help to move the conversation beyond who the tournaments should “cater to”, acknowledge the validity of contrasting concerns, and focus on what would help foster interest in automated tournaments and team formation to promote overall growth.

What is the goal for automated tournaments? That is the baseline question that needs to be answered. To me, it makes sense that automated tournaments are to (1) foster healthy competition and (2) isolate the most successful team(s) for recognition. Certainly, either of these can be argued and are open to discussion. Unfortunately, these two goals can be a bit at odds with one another.

Fostering a growing, healthy scene is at direct odds with pairing low skilled players with high skilled players in their first match. I fully acknowledge that ideally low skilled players that get blown out of the water will only be inspired to try harder. But this isn’t a perfect world. In my personal anecdotal experience, competitive spirit is fostered by difficult tasks that push ones abilities, but is deterred by those tasks outside any reasonable hope of accomplishment. This is because recognizing the areas needed for growth can be identified when the task is hard, but not impossible, but often cannot be identified in blow outs.

On the other hand, such seeding is absolutely critical for any individual tournament to even approach properly awarding the teams by skill. However, currently, teams are not even part of the equation at upper skill levels. If streams are anything to go by, high skilled players appear to pug it themselves, forming teams based on availability rather than investment into an actual team. This might not be the case for monthlies where rewards are higher. Either way, this is decidedly against what I interpreted the intended goals of automated tournaments as the future of competitive sPvP to be. You need players to come together to form teams and strive to achieve higher skill levels together in order to even approach offering competitive play for higher skilled players sufficient enough to promote team formation for them.

One solution is to split focus for daily tournaments and monthlies. Daily tournaments could be seeded randomly, independent of QP, and treat all teams as potentially equal. Match making would be up to luck and allow players of all skill levels to experience different levels of play. Sometimes high skill teams will be knocked out early, and sometimes they won’t. Monthlies would be seeded as they currently are, focusing on recognizing those teams of the highest possible skill.

Another solution, and perhaps a much better one, is to create a “scrim” tournament that provides experience and practice without rewards (beyond normal ranked queing) that focuses solely on promoting an overall healthy sPvP environment. Maybe it could even always be recruiting and initiate once a sufficient number of teams have joined (similar to how tournaments were at GW2 launch). This might be the best of both worlds, where low skilled teams get an environment to grow, promoting long term competition, and all major tournaments (daily and monthly) focus primarily on rewarding skill.

Is ithilwen really complaining about how bad players cannot win vs good players?

And how that is somehow “unfair?”

Kokoro.8437:

Is ithilwen really complaining about how bad players cannot win vs good players?

And how that is somehow “unfair?”

What is really unfair is that AT’s don’t happen often enough and by the time they do happen i’m too drunk to play in them

Kokoro.8437:

Is ithilwen really complaining about how bad players cannot win vs good players?

And how that is somehow “unfair?”

No, I’m complaining that the bracket is deliberately pitting the best team against the worst. This creates a near certain win for the top teams.

More importantly, it discourages the relatively new people. Let’s face it, ANET is not in a good position to alienate new players.

Ithilwen.1529:

Kokoro.8437:

Is ithilwen really complaining about how bad players cannot win vs good players?

And how that is somehow “unfair?”

No, I’m complaining that the bracket is deliberately pitting the best team against the worst. This creates a near certain win for the top teams.

More importantly, it discourages the relatively new people. Let’s face it, ANET is not in a good position to alienate new players.

What does it matter if the best team faces the worst team?

The worst team will lose vs any other opponent in the tournament. It doesn’t matter if its the best team, or the second best team, or the third best team. Being the worst means that they will lose the first round, even if its just vs the second-worst team.

The top team will also win vs any other opponent in the tournament. Even vs the second best team.

Given this i’m honestly not sure what you are even trying to get at.

How would you know it discourages “relatively new people?” You’re not one of these new players given that you’ve been crying about being farmed for a few years now.

I’ve played some tournaments, and i got to say these are interesting but i share the idea Ithilwen gives. Rewards are fine, Playtimes aren’t perfect but everyone has different play times so it is fine. However, the system isn’t that great.

It isn’t really entertaining to get facerolled on the 1st round when i join a random lobby team, and not have the possibility to go on and eventually win( or do better) other rounds, like it happened in GW1. I do not mind having " worse teams " lose first rounds against " best teams " , but if you cannot continue and play against people who lost, you can imagine how it will end in a few weeks..

Also, it would be nice to have more explicit names in tournament roster. I can’t follow the team who did beat us and see at what place they end up easily.

Ithilwen.1529:

No, I’m complaining that the bracket is deliberately pitting the best team against the worst. This creates a near certain win for the top teams.

I doubt it’s intentional, but you realize this is how tournaments are supposed to work, right? The top seeded team plays against the lowest seeded team. You don’t have conference finalist teams facing off each other in the first round in sports.

Tournaments shouldn’t be pulling in or catering to new players; ATs are something for veterans to do, and it makes no difference to anybody if we only have 6 teams in the monthly.

i believe everyone should have the chance to win a tournament of skill even if they dont have any!

Nobody is going to play automated tournaments because this games pvp was ruined by power creep. Nothing else matters. It is all just pointless changes that dont address the core problems