Guild Wars 2

As we all know, the game is suffering from many issues. One of the topics that I have pretty much never heard spoken about is the lack of information a player and his teammates have after a game is completed and how this directly affects the ability of players to improve.

Picture this scenario and put yourself in the shoes of this player, who we will call Fred.

Fred is a rank 20 player in spvp. He plays mostly PVE and WWW and dabbles a bit in spvp. He has tried out a few different classes, and engineer is his favorite. Fred doesn’t have many friends or contacts in spvp, so he is very excited about the release of solo queue to get some tournament experience. He has mostly gained his ranks in hotjoins.

Fred plays 5 games and has the following result:
500-100 His team wins
500-480 His team wins
420-500 His team loses
180-500 His team loses
90-500 His team loses

Here is the twist: Fred scored 50 points in every single game. So, from his perspective, he may feel he did consistent, proper plays and rotations in each game because that is what his score is displaying. Yet, the team score shows otherwise.At the end of each of these games, Fred is shown a scoreboard that displays the total score of a team and individual points that a player scored.

Arenanet, I ask you this:

How does Fred analyze his play? How does Fred know what he did correctly in the games they won (or even lost) and reinforce this type of behavior? How does Fred identify bad plays he made and make efforts to stop this? How can he properly learn when to push a point and when to disengage from a fight? Where to position himself? How to make optimal decisions in scenarios where you have a teammate downed of a certain class type with 40% health and an enemy downed of another class type who has 70%? Do you stomp, rez, or dps?

Now, let me step away from Fred and give you a perspective from myself. I have a lot of tournament experience. I played exclusively in spvp (with the overwhelming majority of that time in tournaments) for the first 8 months of this game being released. I learned to play this game by playing a lot of games with a lot of the same people using voice communication. We learned TOGETHER while discussing and learning the game, and adapting as metas changed.

When I play with a group of players and we lose a game, it almost impossible to identify why we lost. We start asking questions “Were you there? Why didn’t you come? Why was that point capped? What happened over there?” There is no transparency or communication of information about what happened after a game is over. The scores on the scoreboard communicate NOTHING to the players at the end about whether or not they were actually effective and responsible for that outcome. If I can’t identify what went wrong, how can I possibly fix it on the individual level and on the group level? If it’s hard for me to figure it out, imagine what it must feel like to Fred.

Now, it takes many games of practice and feedback from other players to learn these skills, so it is very tough for this type of information to come firsthand from Arenanet about how to play conquest. But, what Arenanet CAN do is the following.

Please release a proper post-game scoreboard that displays the following things:

A) How many seconds was each point held by Red, Blue, or neutral?
B) How many neutralizes or caps by each player
C) Total damage and received done by each player
D) Damage done to downstate players
E) Total healing done and received by each player
F) Conditions applied/removed/cleansed
G) Boons applied/removed
H) How many stomps, revives, and deaths by each player
I) Special map mechanics: Treb shots fired, orbs ran, npc kills, etc.
J) Whatever else you can think of or other players can

This alone won’t make Fred a top notch player, but at least it will give him some insight into what actually went on in the game and get him thinking about the effectiveness of his build and play. Furthermore, It can allow actual groups of players to actually have some metrics to better figure out what went wrong in losses.

Thank you.

This thread a thousand times over. I was just discussing my problems with this game and I was saying this exactly. What would also be flippin brilliant would be that your tournament games would be recorded from all players perspective sort of like the ability to spectate and have the ability to fast forward pause and play. However I do think that this is far beyond the capability of the developers.

Absolutely this! I have a friend I’ve been trying to get into GW2 for a long time. He tells me every time he plays he gets wrecked and doesn’t understand what to do to improve, so he continually gives up.

That being said, I’d also be a fan of having a more in-depth death recap so that players can more accurately understand how they lost a fight. This was brought up in another thread, but seeing bleeding and burning as the main source of incoming damage really doesn’t help someone improve.

But seriously, this is a great thread – looking forward to reading more responses. +1

This would definitely help people identify on how they can get better as well as figure out how to improve from a loss. It helps those find weaknesses in their skill as well as gameplay mechanics of each map. This is something that should definitely be considered.

I agree with this entire post. I would only add a few things:

Adding something like this would greatly boost PvP’s replayability. In other games, a big reason to do PvP is to improve the score. Trying to top damage, kills, caps or healing is fun. It’s even more fun if a badge system is attached to it, which could provide a better avenue for glory.

Even if someone is OK with the limited information of the current scoreboard, it’s organized terribly. I wouldn’t be surprised if most players failed to realize that the bottom part of the scoreboard exists at all.

Coming from other games, this seems like a really basic feature to miss. WildStar is going to have scoreboards for its dynamic events. It’s crazy to think that Guild Wars 2 won’t have scoreboards for its PvP before WildStar has it for its dynamic events.

I agree with this completely. I’ve wanted this for A LONG time. It’s pretty crazy to think this isn’t already in the game. Generally players will have a much better experience when they are playing with people of equal skill level. Teams of players on equal skill level tend to stick around longer as well.

Anet said on a early SOTG that they wanted to do this and it was “in the works”. I think this would greatly enhance the pvp experience of ALL players. Thanks for making this post Zzod.

Fred can look at “Top stat scorer.” Info given to them at the end of the match. They can also listen for, “The blue team has scored.” “The chieftain has appeared.” Fred can also look at how they got five points when Fred foolishly rushed a point with 3 defenders on it. Fred can also listen to, “You’ve lost the keep.”

From all of these prompts Fred can see how no one harassed orb runners. Not enough people are neutralizing nodes etc. Fred can tell when a quick 25 points can be grabbed from events and Fred can learn not to throw away 5 points attacking a node they were very unlikely to take. Fred can then deepen their knowledge by not dueling outside of node area’s or by focusing on roaming back cappers.

Everything Fred needs is there. Fred just needs to pay attention to it and remember it is a team environment and not a solo performance. When Fred figures out that being purposeful and doing things that matter wins games more than roaming with 4 others ganking single players, that’s when Fred gets better.

oh ye was my problem very often

and best for this would be a replay how adam said in second post. And i dont think this would be hard for Arenanet to make. The basis for this they have already with spectating they just need to make it save the data on the players harddisk and done.
they dont need to save this on their servers – just let us save the game while playing ( maby last 20 games?)

This is one of only many kinds of information that we’re lacking. Tooltips could be better, more consistent, and more precise (and actually have numbers where it needs them).

I’m not sure we ever have any idea what stacks with what and what things are on what cooldowns.

I know that’s not what this thread is talking about, but there’s a widespread lack of information across the board, even on subjects as basic as, well, the basics, much less the stuff mentioned here.

Didn’t I play against a Zzod in Rift?

Would be nice to have replay game recordings. Not talking about video streams, but actual game replay files you can spectate and explore back. But probably too much to ask of Anet to make happen.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Fred can look at “Top stat scorer.” Info given to them at the end of the match. They can also listen for, “The blue team has scored.” “The chieftain has appeared.” Fred can also look at how they got five points when Fred foolishly rushed a point with 3 defenders on it. Fred can also listen to, “You’ve lost the keep.”

From all of these prompts Fred can see how no one harassed orb runners. Not enough people are neutralizing nodes etc. Fred can tell when a quick 25 points can be grabbed from events and Fred can learn not to throw away 5 points attacking a node they were very unlikely to take. Fred can then deepen their knowledge by not dueling outside of node area’s or by focusing on roaming back cappers.

Everything Fred needs is there. Fred just needs to pay attention to it and remember it is a team environment and not a solo performance. When Fred figures out that being purposeful and doing things that matter wins games more than roaming with 4 others ganking single players, that’s when Fred gets better.

This is my point. Those “signals” are obscured with white noise and aren’t clear enough to actually be able to deconstruct and understand.

1) Top stat scorer: Scoring top points doesn’t mean you necessarily even came close to optimizing your play or contributing proportionately to your score. Your own score is heavily influenced by the play of your teammates and the opposing team. There isn’t a very strong correlation that is reliable to indicate how well you are playing when compared to a score.

Examples:
A bunker can have a very low score and played excellent by staying alive for a very long amount of time versus two players (before eventually dying) on a neutral point or a point held by his team.
A roaming DPS could have played perfect and had a low score in a game where his team lost and they couldn’t secure many kills or caps.
A player can have a very high score and he double capped points with teammates, overlapped stomps with other players, and all around, was carried to a win versus a weaker team .

In all 3 examples, the final score is not reflective of the quality of play.

2) “blue team has scored” How is being notified that someone ran the orb going to improve what you are contributing towards your team in the pursuit of that objective? If are playing in a basketball game and guarding a star player who sinks a three in your face and the announcer goes “Another three from downtown by Nnumber 23!” Are you suddenly going to know how to replicate that or know what it took to achieve that?

3) Fred may not know that engaging 3 players on a point like that is necessarily foolish. He may think his teammates will be there any second to turn the fight around. Or hey its only 2 guys! Maybe I can delay them and something good will happen elsewhere! Or maybe he thinks what he is doing is actually correct and its the players around him that are not doing the right thing by not being there with him!

There are so many perceptions as to what a correct play is in this conquest mode in the different scenarios that arise. Some players don’t fully understand the concept of trickling in and overextending and they will push points that are basically suicide runs, thinking that they are making good plays because they are being aggressive and contesting points.

I am telling you my experience. I have played thousands and thousands of tournaments in this game since release. I know what needs to be done to win games.

I ,also, solo queue nearly every day. When I lose a game, I have NO idea as to what the reason is. Now there are times when I will lose a key 1 on 1 that resulted in a point getting capped that will clearly result in X amount of points being cost to my team. But the majority of the time I am in the dark as to what everyone around me is doing on other parts of the map. Literally, I have no idea what the people across the map are doing and the quality of their decisions, rotations, specs, traits, sigils, etc. When we lose a game, it is complete speculation on everyone’s part as to what went wrong.

Even in group queue games where everyone knows each other and we are playing with voice communications, it is VERY hard to isolate specific things that failed in a particular game. We need more information.

Corian.4068:

This is one of only many kinds of information that we’re lacking. Tooltips could be better, more consistent, and more precise (and actually have numbers where it needs them).

I’m not sure we ever have any idea what stacks with what and what things are on what cooldowns.

I know that’s not what this thread is talking about, but there’s a widespread lack of information across the board, even on subjects as basic as, well, the basics, much less the stuff mentioned here.

Didn’t I play against a Zzod in Rift?

Yes. I am Zzod from Rift.

Understanding the reason why you lost a game is one of the hardest, yet most important, aspects of becoming a better player.
Some games offer better ways to deal with this.
Sadly, GW2 does not provide enough information to give a player a better understading of why he lost.
In my experience (I have been playing Halo competively for 8 years), one of the best ways to learn from your mistakes is watching a video of your gameplay. If we were able to watch the whole match again, with the possibility of switching PoV anytime during the playback, it would be really useful, though a little time consuming (but believe me, nothing works better than this).
Of course, there are ways to do this, albeit through other softwares.

Speaking of post game statistics, I agree that nothing is proven by those. They should provide you with more information, and not only regarding YOUR play, but also about your teammates’.
Displaying only your kills is the best way to approach casual play, not to mention that since every kill is “shared” with you teammates, it becomes even harder to understand if you did well or poorly.

Add a Killcam

let me replay 10 seconds leading up to my death so i might have a clue what was going on.

i made a thread some time ago telling the same.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/In-Gw2-you-can-t-tell-if-you-re-improving/first#post2558894

This is definitely true, and it’s impossible to understand what is wrong and what not.

I once played with a team where our guardian constantly asked for help in a 2vs1 and i used to say " well, it’s a double dps against a bunker, i think i should go" then i played with another guardian who was able to fight 1vs3 for 30 seconds and more.

It’s really hard to understand who is playing badly, even when on TS, and it’s even harder to get when/where you should go to a point or another, who should go, if you need backup, if you should leave him 1vs1 etc etc.

This is indeed a problem, and not a “newbie only” one.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Add a Killcam

let me replay 10 seconds leading up to my death so i might have a clue what was going on.

All you will see is a flurry of colours and then you will be dead :p

On topic. This may seem like a minor change to some, but it really would make a massive difference to the way we approach and analyze our own game play. If we are given an opportunity to learn from our mistakes it would raise the skill level of the community as a whole.

TY zzod <3

Sometimes I just die for no apparent reason, open my combat log and see nothing that I could link with this undesirable result.

To adress this points i am planning on doing a series of pvp guides for new players on my youtube channel i will make a forum post once they are uploaded

Literally none of those stats you want will necessarily help you improve.

Kwll.1468:

Literally none of those stats you want will necessarily help you improve.

It is a tool to help figure out WHAT happened in a game. Think of it as forensics. For example, If I see that their back point was held by their their team for 3:42 and our back point was only capped by us for 1:36, I can immediately start making some reasonable conclusions about what happened in the game. I can immediately see a source of point disparity. I can see that our person who was pushing far wasn’t as effective as what the other team was imposing on our point, and therefore should probably change our rotation/split. I can that our home point holder was either losing his fights/letting his point get neutralized too early, or if they were team fights, we can try to figure out what is going WRONG at that point.

I can compare downstate cleave damage between our team members individually, or relative, to the other team. Are people actually doing what they say they are doing in helping securing stomps through assisted damage while one is stomping?

I can compare total damage done and total damage taken to figure out who is performing. If I have player A , who did more damage and also took more damage than player B, then Player A is the guy who is getting it done. Player B should probably have an easier time cranking out damage if he took less damage because he is being pressured less.

If I can see that Blue team fired off 36 treb shots during a game, but Red team only had 9, then I can start figuring out what is going wrong.

It won’t make you better in a vacuum, especially, if you don’t care to get better, but at least it gives you some ideas/numbers to start thinking about for those that do care about getting better and analyzing their games. If you can’t see the problem, how can you fix the problem?

Would you rather have the current scoreboard or something more along the lines of this?

Zzod.5791:

snip

+1, great post!

rsq.3581:

I have a friend I’ve been trying to get into GW2 for a long time. He tells me every time he plays he gets wrecked and doesn’t understand what to do to improve, so he continually gives up.

Same issue.

It is a huge barrier of entry. The community has asked for a more detailed scoreboard since beta, it would be one possible way to solve some of these issues.

I understand scoreboard can be misleading, but they at least provide some form of information. Personally, I think how players will understand the information relies completely on how the developers choose to provide it.

Take a look at the scoreboard in Bloodline Champions, for example: http://i.imgur.com/NzDSU.jpg (not my screenshot).

While it is might seem overly complex at first glance it could be a way to display meaningful stats that already exist in the game and how they relate to your overall score (top kill, points captured, …):
- time spent on friendly / enemy / contested point
- kill to death ratios
- damage done / taken
- healing done
- succesful control effects (measured in seconds)
- team points gained from secondary objectives

Zzod.5791:

Yes. I am Zzod from Rift.

You were a really tanky cleric, right? I remember you being a tough nut to crack.

Anyway, I’ll add another one that I’ve been struggling with, a lack of clear visual cues to react to. There are times where there’s so much clutter on the screen that I don’t even know what’s going on. And if there are two or three people generating mobs (mesmers, necros, rangers) I just can’t keep up with what’s going on and what I’m supposed to even hit.

There are just so, so many ways we are lacking the information we need to play the game effectively. GW2 isn’t difficult to get into game and start playing, but understanding it at any kind of real depth in real time is so difficult, even to experienced players.