Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen a lot of pretty toxic posts circulating around here about the state of the game’s balance and the perceptions leagues have created. And if you are a solo-queuer getting pummeled by premades in ruby, understand something: this season began only ten days ago.

The vast majority of the PvP player base is still in emerald and sapphire, and you can see this evident in the Heart of the Mists. Many of them will remain emerald and sapphire for the entirety of the season because that’s where they belong, but there are plenty of skilled players that haven’t reached ruby and beyond simply because they haven’t put in the time.

By grinding out the pips as quickly as you did you made the conscious decision of making things more difficult for yourself. This season will persist until the end of January, which is over 40 days away. I find it exceptionally hard to believe that division populations could be defined so soon, so don’t go and assume that how things are right now is how they’ll be at the end of the season, or even at the end of December.

There have also been a great deal of posts surrounding ArenaNet’s “silence” over leagues and their MMR/division/pip distributions and whether they’re satisfied/dissatisfied, but again: ten days is not a particularly large sample size, especially when dealing with seasons that will persist for nearly two full months.

If losing streaks are frustrating you, I get that. If fighting pro-level premades is frustrating you, I get that. If fighting 2x rev 2x chrono comps with a warrior on your team is frustrating you, I also get that. But understand that this season isn’t ending tomorrow, and that no one will be crafting their legendary back item in one season anyway.

I am sure ArenaNet is taking notes and evaluating the season’s progress, but any changes made will be done after taking a sweeping view of the season’s entirety, making an analysis of leagues and their accuracy in full summation—not just how things have gone in the first ten days.

Forget pro-level, what about people queuing as warrior that wind up on your team when you’re 4 pips away from the next tier and the only teams that make a comeback are always someone else’s team?

And to think, a majority of the problems could have been solved before Leagues started.

Nova Stiker.8396:

And to think, a majority of the problems could have been solved before Leagues started.

How? By resetting everyone’s MMR?

We’d still have the same situation we have right now. Pro League teams would still be farming ruby and diamond solo-queue players. This is just something that won’t be resolved until more people progress up the ranks.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Nova Stiker.8396:

And to think, a majority of the problems could have been solved before Leagues started.

How? By resetting everyone’s MMR?

We’d still have the same situation we have right now. Pro League teams would still be farming ruby and diamond solo-queue players. This is just something that won’t be resolved until more people progress up the ranks.

Balance, bug fixes, a split for soloQ

So no… We wouldn’t be in the same situation. PvP was not ready for Leagues.

I have a list of things from HoT as a daily reminder on the Thief forums. I think Anet did a great job launching, planning, and making HoT. I just wish our balance patch pre-season wasn’t a skill fact change and list of new elite specs. I’d gladly start in the year 2016 if that meant they’d have fixed things at least a little more. Can’t speak to others, but I’d love to know what the plan is towards my main clkittene being given the silent treatment. Makes me mad.

@OP:

Matchmaking was broken before leagues started. What exactly do you think will happen if people wait 15 or 30 or even 60 days? Matchmaking will still be broken.

ANET also really messed up by thinking that launching elite specs and new amulets was a “balance patch”. It was a new feature release and then they forgot to balance it after the fact. I sometimes really wonder if those who lead ANET even think ahead of time.

It’s not 10 days, it’s been 1 year of bullkitten balance and matchmaking since solo q was removed.

Guild Wars 2 has effectively killed any Esport potential it had. This meta is just gross and boring to play and watch.

All of it could have been avoided if ArenaNet just listened.

We want balance, we want bug fixes and we want fair match ups. The only things leagues done was highlight the massive issues.

The last balance patch was much longer than 10 days ago.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Nova Stiker.8396:

And to think, a majority of the problems could have been solved before Leagues started.

How? By resetting everyone’s MMR?

We’d still have the same situation we have right now. Pro League teams would still be farming ruby and diamond solo-queue players. This is just something that won’t be resolved until more people progress up the ranks.

MMR reset followed by calibration would have worked.

style.6173:

@OP:

Matchmaking was broken before leagues started. What exactly do you think will happen if people wait 15 or 30 or even 60 days? Matchmaking will still be broken.

ANET also really messed up by thinking that launching elite specs and new amulets was a “balance patch”. It was a new feature release and then they forgot to balance it after the fact. I sometimes really wonder if those who lead ANET even think ahead of time.

I don’t disagree with any of this. As an engineer main I find scrapper completely broken. There is no reason to ever use a rifle or p/p build ever again. You just mindlessly Rocket Charge off cooldown into an Elixir Shell or Healing Turret and can outsustain 1v2 match-ups unless it’s double rev or something.

The only thing the build is missing is a knockback. I miss P/P HGH, and I miss Soldier Rifle. They weren’t harder to play or anything, but at least we had variety.

10 days is more than enough to see the many flaws the current league system, matchmaking and the boring meta have.

Considering ESL pro league is above legendary division, I dont think the average pvp player in saphir is ranked too high.

Well I just think they messed up.

The whole MMR and League system combined just doesn’t work how they did it.

Lets say they did a good job with the MMR calibration you end up 50/50 which will cause a lot of frustration because you can’t really rank up only if you have a winning streak. You can see this clearly because even the pro teams are abusing their system so they can rank up properly.

In my opinon they can keep their MMR but make it rank specific. So basicaly you make a player pool for every rank there is.
So if you are emerald you fight emerald players who have about the same MMR.
+If you are a team the rank of the highest player choses the player pool
+If you fight players from a rank below yours you can only gain 1 pip/lose 3 pips if you lose
+People who fight higher ranks can’t lose any pips, you shoudn’t lose progress in a lower rank than the enemy currently has (Would be funny if a heavy weight boxer beats a mid weight champion and gains his title…cound’t come up with a better example) gain 3 pips if you win

That way the rank says way more about how good of a player you are then it does now. Because now it’s all about match farming, hoping for a winning streak or abusing the system with low rank players.

Ten days? I played since launch and this game still a joke when it comes to PvP. Want to play competitively guess what you need to purchase HoT lol nice f2p model.

10 days? you mean 3 years?

tico.9814:

Ten days? I played since launch and this game still a joke when it comes to PvP. Want to play competitively guess what you need to purchase HoT lol nice f2p model.

I’ve seen a lot of posts like this.

I too have been playing since launch, and PvP has certainly had its ups and downs. And helping manage a very large and active PvX guild, I will admit I’ve had the luxury of dipping my toe back into PvE and WvW whenever a certain meta is unfavorable for the engineer or if I simply dislike the way the game type is played. I know not everyone has that option or even the interest, so the mishandling of certain PvP updates hits people more than others.

This season has made me make similar thoughts, and with the fractal update next week I am considering leaving my progress at Ruby and washing my hands of this season. The purpose of this post is not to deny the mistakes ArenaNet has made. I find this meta incredibly boring to play and, as an engineer, incredibly unfavorable to my play style. I never thought I’d say this but I really would rather mainhand the grenade kit another three years than ever see this scrapper build again. I also think things like quickness resurrections and stomps, the amounts of evades, and the ever encroaching fatigue of more and more spell effects have made PvP a complete and utter mess. I don’t know if ArenaNet is capable of scaling things back without completely destroying all of the elite professions, but I am patient enough to wait and see rather than demand answers less than two weeks into the season.

Since it appears you’ve been disgruntled for almost the entirety of this game’s existence, I wonder if maybe it’d be a better use of your time to simply uninstall the game and play something else.

Phineas Poe.3018:

tico.9814:

Ten days? I played since launch and this game still a joke when it comes to PvP. Want to play competitively guess what you need to purchase HoT lol nice f2p model.

I’ve seen a lot of posts like this.

I too have been playing since launch, and PvP has certainly had its ups and downs. And helping manage a very large and active PvX guild, I will admit I’ve had the luxury of dipping my toe back into PvE and WvW whenever a certain meta is unfavorable for the engineer or if I simply dislike the way the game type is played. I know not everyone has that option or even the interest, so the mishandling of certain PvP updates hits people more than others.

This season has made me make similar thoughts, and with the fractal update next week I am considering leaving my progress at Ruby and washing my hands of this season. The purpose of this post is not to deny the mistakes ArenaNet has made. I find this meta incredibly boring to play and, as an engineer, incredibly unfavorable to my play style. I never thought I’d say this but I really would rather mainhand the grenade kit another three years than ever see this scrapper build again. I also think things like quickness resurrections and stomps, the amounts of evades, and the ever encroaching fatigue of more and more spell effects have made PvP a complete and utter mess. I don’t know if ArenaNet is capable of scaling things back without completely destroying all of the elite professions, but I am patient enough to wait and see rather than demand answers less than two weeks into the season.

Since it appears you’ve been disgruntled for almost the entirety of this game’s existence, I wonder if maybe it’d be a better use of your time to simply uninstall the game and play something else.

Maybe everybody should go and play something else so you can enjoy the game all by yourself

Supreme.3164:

Phineas Poe.3018:

tico.9814:

Ten days? I played since launch and this game still a joke when it comes to PvP. Want to play competitively guess what you need to purchase HoT lol nice f2p model.

I’ve seen a lot of posts like this.

I too have been playing since launch, and PvP has certainly had its ups and downs. And helping manage a very large and active PvX guild, I will admit I’ve had the luxury of dipping my toe back into PvE and WvW whenever a certain meta is unfavorable for the engineer or if I simply dislike the way the game type is played. I know not everyone has that option or even the interest, so the mishandling of certain PvP updates hits people more than others.

This season has made me make similar thoughts, and with the fractal update next week I am considering leaving my progress at Ruby and washing my hands of this season. The purpose of this post is not to deny the mistakes ArenaNet has made. I find this meta incredibly boring to play and, as an engineer, incredibly unfavorable to my play style. I never thought I’d say this but I really would rather mainhand the grenade kit another three years than ever see this scrapper build again. I also think things like quickness resurrections and stomps, the amounts of evades, and the ever encroaching fatigue of more and more spell effects have made PvP a complete and utter mess. I don’t know if ArenaNet is capable of scaling things back without completely destroying all of the elite professions, but I am patient enough to wait and see rather than demand answers less than two weeks into the season.

Since it appears you’ve been disgruntled for almost the entirety of this game’s existence, I wonder if maybe it’d be a better use of your time to simply uninstall the game and play something else.

Maybe everybody should go and play something else so you can enjoy the game all by yourself

That would certainly send a clearer message to ArenaNet than whining and still playing.

I personally dont give a flying rats kitten about some “legendary” backpack. The PvP in this game is unbalanced as hell and the meta simply isn’t fun at all with 3 to 4 bunkers on a team.

I dont think the bunker meta is a problem because of class balance, i think that will always be the meta if people are serious about conquest. Its a flaw in the map design not the fine tuning of classes. The objective is to stand on points and not die.

samzius.5809:

I dont think the bunker meta is a problem because of class balance, i think that will always be the meta if people are serious about conquest. Its a flaw in the map design not the fine tuning of classes. The objective is to stand on points and not die.

I can agree with you on this. The bottom line is that I’m not a developer. These are issues developers should be aware of and address actively. I’m a player and if something isn’t fun, I say goodbye and move onto a game that’s fun.

samzius.5809:

I dont think the bunker meta is a problem because of class balance, i think that will always be the meta if people are serious about conquest. Its a flaw in the map design not the fine tuning of classes. The objective is to stand on points and not die.

If this is a talk you want to take seriously, the underlying problem about PvP in its current state isn’t that bunkers exist. As you say, it’s simply the way Conquest is designed to encourage such builds.

The problem is that bunker builds like chronomancer, tempest, and scrapper also have tons of CC potential coupled with reliable stability access. If the Guild Wars 2 trinity truly is damage, bunker, and control, then professions should have to choose between tankiness and crowd control—not have both.

This is why historically powerful bunker specs like shout guardian are so ridiculously outclassed by the elite specializations. A chronomancer has everything they need to not only sustain against 1v1s and most 1v2s indefinitely, but to also prevent their opposition from capturing the point at the same time. Between Bountiful Disillusionment, Well of Precognition, Blurred Frenzy, and Echo of Memory, they not only have absurd evade/stability/block to stand on points almost indefinitely, Seize The Moment and the Rune of Chronomancer give them reliable access to quickness allowing them to quickly res and stomp opponents faster than anyone can ever respond to—and while invulnerable to CC at the same time.

People lambasted ArenaNet for giving guardians five seconds of quickness on such a short cooldown and then turn around and hand something significantly stronger to mesmers. It blows my mind that Robert Gee could create something so brokenly overpowered; it almost feels like there is very little global oversight toward this game’s balance, and you can see that with how quickly they handed nerfs to rangers and engineers while leaving revenants and mesmers in their place. At times it feels like class balance is handled individually by lead developers of each profession rather than by a team of individuals making concrete, sweeping changes that everyone would see are needed in the grand scheme.

One could try opting for a knockback build like the old decapper engineer, but the amount of condition damage a revenant can throw out currently would shred any engineer not taking Adaptive Armor and HGH, and it doesn’t change the fact that mesmer has so many evades and blocks to utilize that a couple knockbacks on 15 second cooldowns wouldn’t do anything.

The game is significantly out of balance, but this is temporary.

Oh i definitely think that bunker mesmer needs to be nerfed, i was just commenting on his statement that the meta isn’t fun with 3 to 4 bunkers on a team. That’s just how conquest was designed. However, a serious team would probably want 2 bunkers a support and 2 dps. But since bunker is FoTM and everyone is playing it, in solo queue u do end up with 3 or 4 bunkers sometimes.

Agemnon.4608:

the only teams that make a comeback are always someone else’s team?

Please remember that you are someone else, to someone else.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Nova Stiker.8396:

And to think, a majority of the problems could have been solved before Leagues started.

How? By resetting everyone’s MMR?

We’d still have the same situation we have right now. Pro League teams would still be farming ruby and diamond solo-queue players. This is just something that won’t be resolved until more people progress up the ranks.

Balance, bug fixes, a split for soloQ

So no… We wouldn’t be in the same situation. PvP was not ready for Leagues.

This.

Agemnon.4608:

Forget pro-level, what about people queuing as warrior that wind up on your team when you’re 4 pips away from the next tier and the only teams that make a comeback are always someone else’s team?

What I hate is queing as berserker and carrying the team hard, but like with any class you bring, sucky team mates will always drag you down and there’s nothing you can do about it

:)

I disagree about chronobunker needing a nerf. It’s very easy to counter solo or 1v2 when you use counter builds and loads of aoe cc. i more and more teams using this against it lol. just gotta use counter builds.