Guild Wars 2

Ok so i can stress how important these will be to a healthy pvp base

Id just like to know EXACTLY how you plan on handling this system..

if you make it a grind (it will fail to do what its trying to accomplish) ie pair like skilled players together.

so how exactly do you plan on separating these different skilled player bases together

what is the algorithm? and how will you handle soloq/team q

Imho you either have to go ALL IN on either Soloq or Teamq u cant have them separated because lets face it there arent enough players to have both in this game and its fair or fun to either player base to have to fight each other

u have to take a stand once and for all Either PROMOTE teams ONLY to play pvp or Dont at all imo

ill go ahead and guess ur ganna save all the juicy info until after you sell copies of the game so u dont kitten people off who wouldnt buy the game if they knew soloq was dead or not

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute. Nobody wants to get blown out 50 to 500 because all the matches are pugs vs premades. I used to love pvp now I just sign on to get my daily and leave. Matchmaking is a joke and it’s because there’s no solo q.

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

That logic.

“It was kitten last time because it didn’t work, don’t try it again and make it work!”

Only because anet kittened up the last implementation of soloq doesn’t mean it’s bad in general.

Ristillath.6745:

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

That logic.

“It was kitten last time because it didn’t work, don’t try it again and make it work!”

Only because anet kittened up the last implementation of soloq doesn’t mean it’s bad in general.

Yeah their arguments are pretty kittened. Uranked/ranked separation makes the queues long just like soloq/teamq separation does. Guild wars 2 is free to play and the expansion is coming out. A good soloq system is SO IMPORTANT to draw in players to PvP. The old soloq had its own problems, such as skyhammer and spirit watch. These wouldn’t be in the new rotation.

Thanks Colin for that dose of reality, much needed. Knowing how big GW1 PvP was, this part really surprised me.

ColinJohanson.2394:

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

That’s refreshing to hear.

Alright some info about leagues soon. Hopefully it will alleviate some of the issues we’re currently seeing with the info available to us.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

Great news about the free to play thing, but when 90% of people on the forums REALLY want soloq, there is no denying it

Quadox.7834:

Great news about the free to play thing, but when 90% of people on the forums REALLY want soloq, there is no denying it

Correction: 90% of the vocal minority on forums.

As it stands, there is no difference between ranked and unranked PvP regardless of whether you queue as a team or by yourself, yet people still take ranked PvP way too seriously to the point where it’s a problem that they’re being curbstomped by a group of premade teams. It WAS a problem during the test leaderboards (which was the only time ranked PvP had any purpose), and that was largely a population issue (if there were enough premade teams queuing up for ranked PvP, then it wouldn’t be a problem), since Matchmaking heavily relied on it. Hopefully, it won’t be a problem moving forward, and with Leagues matching teams up within a particular bracket, it should be a lot better. The only possibility I can think of is having a small pool of teams in the Legendary tier, which means you’d be facing the same premade team often – but if you’re going in as a premade, that shouldn’t be a huge issue as the matches would be fairly close (on average).

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

One thing about this, the Free accounts are indeed playing in pvp, many of them are most likely trying it out, 2nd account, or friends of pvp’ers

but you should honestly wait another month or 2 to see how the free accounts are doing in pvp for a few reason.
1) Pvp can make or break players from buying the game (Ive known players that almost stop playing b.c of pvp)
2) If they stop pvping and at want ranks
3) are they doing Rank/unrank or just hot joins
4) Are they 2nd accounts? Are they accounts trying to get top LB’s or even “hack”

Free accounts are very fickle when adding to data numbers.

Im only saying this b.c I ran a business for 8yrs and we did Free 1-3 months all the time, After a couple years we Completely made Free members their own numbers in our books.

Faux.1937:

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

One thing about this, the Free accounts are indeed playing in pvp, many of them are most likely trying it out, 2nd account, or friends of pvp’ers

but you should honestly wait another month or 2 to see how the free accounts are doing in pvp for a few reason.
1) Pvp can make or break players from buying the game (Ive known players that almost stop playing b.c of pvp)
2) If they stop pvping and at want ranks
3) are they doing Rank/unrank or just hot joins
4) Are they 2nd accounts? Are they accounts trying to get top LB’s or even “hack”

Free accounts are very fickle when adding to data numbers.

Im only saying this b.c I ran a business for 8yrs and we did Free 1-3 months all the time, After a couple years we Completely made Free members their own numbers in our books.

Except for you, I doubt anybody here did not already realize your comments about free to play increasing pvp pop. Secondly, it doesn’t really invalidate the other points about pvp growing before free to play. Lastly, it is impossible to provide data about a the future. All Colin has is present data and it indicates pvp growing before free to play.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

Great, I’m happy for you. Now bring back Soloqueue please.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

So wait.. Population is booming, yet solo queue was taken away because of low numbers? Hmm me thinks someone somewhere gave us false information.

Why? as a business means return on investment… not much invested and return is probably fine… so overall perfect for Anet

skcamow.3527:

Thanks Colin for that dose of reality, much needed. Knowing how big GW1 PvP was, this part really surprised me.

ColinJohanson.2394:

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

Those are awesome news to hear Colin! It’s always good to hear this kind of facts .
On another note:

Ristillath.6745:

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

That logic.

“It was kitten last time because it didn’t work, don’t try it again and make it work!”

Only because anet kittened up the last implementation of soloq doesn’t mean it’s bad in general.

Reading him I don’t think he was implying at any moment that SoloQ in general is bad, it is in other games, we all know that. I’d rather say that he was pointing out that some people is just plain obsessed witht he idea SoloQ>Current System .

He said SoloQ back then wasn’t good, a lot of people agree with him (as well as many people don’t!) and we could say he was trying to point out that SoloQ wasn’t as “perfect” as many people in these forums try to worship.

By your logic as well, the current system, as it is right now, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, it may just need some tweaks to work better (in case you consider this system is horrible).

Drennon.7190:

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

So wait.. Population is booming, yet solo queue was taken away because of low numbers? Hmm me thinks someone somewhere gave us false information.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Drennon.7190:

So wait.. Population is booming, yet solo queue was taken away because of low numbers? Hmm me thinks someone somewhere gave us false information.

The two important points:
- PvP population has been steadily increasing for a year.
- PvP population sky-rocketed when the game went free-to-play (~2 weeks ago).

The third relevant piece of info:
- Solo/TeamQ was removed in December 2014 (~9-10 months ago).

The important thing to take away is that PvP population is booming RIGHT NOW, not when Solo/TeamQ was removed.

Faux.1937:

4) Are they 2nd accounts? Are they accounts trying to get top LB’s or even “hack”

You do realize this point is meaningless right? Leaderboard rankings are frozen. Winning matches in Ranked arena holds little meaning right now.

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

Try again now that you heard Colin’s response. There are more players now. Just because YOU chose to queue into team queue doesn’t mean others want to do the same.

Kraljevo.2801:

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

Great, I’m happy for you. Now bring back Soloqueue please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0

^^this

Poliator.7021:

Those are awesome news to hear Colin! It’s always good to hear this kind of facts .
On another note:

Ristillath.6745:

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

That logic.

“It was kitten last time because it didn’t work, don’t try it again and make it work!”

Only because anet kittened up the last implementation of soloq doesn’t mean it’s bad in general.

Reading him I don’t think he was implying at any moment that SoloQ in general is bad, it is in other games, we all know that. I’d rather say that he was pointing out that some people is just plain obsessed witht he idea SoloQ>Current System .

He said SoloQ back then wasn’t good, a lot of people agree with him (as well as many people don’t!) and we could say he was trying to point out that SoloQ wasn’t as “perfect” as many people in these forums try to worship.

By your logic as well, the current system, as it is right now, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, it may just need some tweaks to work better (in case you consider this system is horrible).

No one is saying it was perfect. People are saying that as a PUG they don’t want to face premades or even those grouping as 3,4, or 5. If a PUG wants to fight against that, they can solo into team queue.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

After 3 years and you guys killing off WvW you finally see success…..

While I’m happy to see PvP become popular I do miss WvW.

style.6173:

Poliator.7021:

Those are awesome news to hear Colin! It’s always good to hear this kind of facts .
On another note:

Ristillath.6745:

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

That logic.

“It was kitten last time because it didn’t work, don’t try it again and make it work!”

Only because anet kittened up the last implementation of soloq doesn’t mean it’s bad in general.

Reading him I don’t think he was implying at any moment that SoloQ in general is bad, it is in other games, we all know that. I’d rather say that he was pointing out that some people is just plain obsessed witht he idea SoloQ>Current System .

He said SoloQ back then wasn’t good, a lot of people agree with him (as well as many people don’t!) and we could say he was trying to point out that SoloQ wasn’t as “perfect” as many people in these forums try to worship.

By your logic as well, the current system, as it is right now, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, it may just need some tweaks to work better (in case you consider this system is horrible).

No one is saying it was perfect. People are saying that as a PUG they don’t want to face premades or even those grouping as 3,4, or 5. If a PUG wants to fight against that, they can solo into team queue.

That is a valid argument that I always have respected, hell I’m even in “favor” of Solo Queue now. What I refer more exactly (I apologize if there was a missunderstanding) is that some people claim that with the older system, Solo Arena had better and more equal match-ups than we have now.

Some people will say they were, some won’t. Most of my Solo Arena games (it’s not either a big games played pool) had a much lower quality than Team Arena (from a perspective of an average player, not even near to high MMR), so I’m on the “won’t say” side. A fair match is much more than “full PUG vs full PUG” team.

This is what I was actually refering to. I could also talk about people’s bias with the current system and other things, but it doesn’t fit here. I hope that I have explained myself better this time.

official.7362:

Ok so i can stress how important these will be to a healthy pvp base

Id just like to know EXACTLY how you plan on handling this system..

if you make it a grind (it will fail to do what its trying to accomplish) ie pair like skilled players together.

so how exactly do you plan on separating these different skilled player bases together

what is the algorithm? and how will you handle soloq/team q

Imho you either have to go ALL IN on either Soloq or Teamq u cant have them separated because lets face it there arent enough players to have both in this game and its fair or fun to either player base to have to fight each other

u have to take a stand once and for all Either PROMOTE teams ONLY to play pvp or Dont at all imo

ill go ahead and guess ur ganna save all the juicy info until after you sell copies of the game so u dont kitten people off who wouldnt buy the game if they knew soloq was dead or not

I agree 100% with what you have said "Imho you either have to go ALL IN on either Soloq or Teamq u "

The question is do players belong to leagues or does the team itself belong to a league? If it is a team then how is that team qualified for the league they are placed in? That’s what I would like to now. ArenaNet has said they will be introducing sPvP Guild Leaderboards with Leagues. That makes me believe all team members representing a guild will be bound to the Guilds league, but wait… What if I’m in several guilds? Will I be in minor League with guild A and a major league with guild B? What we a guild has 15 members that PvP at varying skill levels and time commitments? Will the guild be placed in league based on the merits of the collective or the most active players in the guild? Will we have Leaderboards for each league (if they don’t do this then leagues are pointless)? Will we have an end of season tournament for each league? I think all leagues should have their own Leaderboards and their own end of season tournament.

ArenaNet please give us answers.

ColinJohanson.2394:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now.

Steadily grown after losing how many players from launch/first few months, steadily grown by how much, 2% a month is steadily growing, but doesn’t mean much if you had previously lost 70% of your PvP playerbase.

Also where are these players going, after all matchmaking is not going to be helped by PvE players basically playing PvE in the 9 rankfarms that occupy the top 9 spots in the hotjoin server list (EU) as I write this, do these players count as part of “PvP playerbase”?

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

That doesn’t seem very relevant to his point though, these new players have been playing at most about 3 weeks, and the state of the current system good or bad, has had no bearing on this influx of players.

Thanks for the information Mr.Collinjohanson !

Could we have more reports like this on what’s going on in the community , etc.
This realy is refreshing news and i think more interaction with devs (not especialy through forums) is something players realy wan’t. Knowing what’s going on , why you did that change, Even just say “Hello , i’m reading this”, etc … =)

@ColinJohanson:

If PvP is the fastest growing area of the game and in such a good place, why doesn’t it get more content?

In the last 3 years we only got 4 new maps added to the only 4 we got at launch. With one of the original 4 getting removed. 1 of the new added maps is an imbalanced deathmatch and 2 other maps are not played in tournaments for various reasons. Leaving only one of the added maps to see some play and success.

The content that we did get for PvP is via mechanics, such as better matchmaking (from my experience), reward tracks and a better UI. We didn’t get actual new content which is maps. Even the League system, which looks amazing and I’m excited for it, isn’t “new” content. But an extension to old content. We will still play in the same maps we have for years now. The only true new content we will get in 3 years is Stronghold. A game type with only one map.

Another issue is HoTM. We can’t duel before matches now but we got nothing else to do in return. Even though the waiting time was higher before, it feels as long now, since we have almost nothing to do in the meantime. As a side note, LA which is a much larger and complicated map, but it still got some very massive and impressive updates. LA is a popular city where many PvErs chill, HoTM is where ALL PvPers chill/wait to play.

To be clear, I’ve played since GW1s beta. I will never leave. I love this game, this franchise. Even saying that GW is a franchise makes me happy. I just don’t get why we don’t get more maps.

TLDR: Read the first and last paragraphs.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

Collin IMHO u misinterpret the reason why ppl start playing more and more pvp. But anyhow gz. U may consider to hire some people from the forums. So far GW2 do everything what was suggested by the forum only with 2 years delay.

ps

u look very fit, do u work out ? looking good

zinkz.7045:

Also where are these players going, after all matchmaking is not going to be helped by PvE players basically playing PvE in the 9 rankfarms that occupy the top 9 spots in the hotjoin server list (EU) as I write this, do these players count as part of “PvP playerbase”?

This. Remember when they counted the PvE famers in EotM as part of WvW? From past history, they’re doing the same here.

“u have to take a stand once and for all Either PROMOTE teams ONLY to play pvp or Dont at all imo”

one of the worst ideas I have ever hard (ever)

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

skcamow.3527:

Thanks Colin for that dose of reality, much needed. Knowing how big GW1 PvP was, this part really surprised me.

lol “dose of reality”.

The reality is that they added reward tracks and achievement points to PvP and so all the PvE and WvWers flock to do hotjoins and unranked “arenas” who don’t actually care about PvP or getting better, just their AP and wallet. Sorry but I don’t consider inflating PvP with useless people growth. I define growth as adding and attracting people who actually contribute to the scene, people who want to get better and join the competitive side of things, people that don’t just play PvP for the rewards but because it’s fun and they enjoy it. The reality is that many names of good PvPers that I saw early on in the game are no longer playing replaced by anonymous names triple capping points and not contributing to anything whatsoever (though that’s also an issue with the awful matchmaking) and the competitive scene right now is just a handful of people. Talk about false population data to support points!

If PvP really was a success for Anet as a business this whole time, then why has growth been so slow? Why are balance patches so awful and so far between? Why has there only been one game mode for 3 years? Why is the only game mode that’s coming out in the expansion so bad? Why is matchmaking so bad? Why are the leaderboards so bad? Why is it so hard to get new actual PvPers to play this game? Actually I know the answer to that one. It’s conquest. Actually come to think of it, conquest answers most of those questions and yet if we want to PvP with any semblance of progression, we are forced to play this awful, awful game mode.

I like this game. I think the graphics are beautiful, the combat is the best in the genre, and I’ve been a GW franchise supporter for a long time. And for $60, the game was absolutely well worth it. I have no regrets. But now you want me to pay an extra $50 for what? A new class and one weapon and traitline for every class? For a game in this state? Funniest thing I’ve heard all year!

Lord Kuru.3685:

zinkz.7045:

Also where are these players going, after all matchmaking is not going to be helped by PvE players basically playing PvE in the 9 rankfarms that occupy the top 9 spots in the hotjoin server list (EU) as I write this, do these players count as part of “PvP playerbase”?

This. Remember when they counted the PvE famers in EotM as part of WvW? From past history, they’re doing the same here.

I’d say this is a separate thing. Maybe I’m mistaken, but there is a limited numbers of “hotjoin” servers. I don’t think that newer players are buying custom arenas and replenishing them with other new players, so the number that hotjoin base servers may have gotten is really limited.

On the side of EotM, it is different as there can be multiple EotM maps of 300~ players in each, as oposed as 20 maximum players on a hotjoin server.

All of this, refering to your quoted comment, Colin was refering exactly to the “false” affirmations another post made, saying sPvP playerbase has been decreasing, while it has been increasing since long time ago. In this context, what was the initial GW2 playerbase, doesn’t matter, as I said, in this context.

Also, while this is conected to the sky-rocket Colin talks about, he does tell that this coming week will be the best week Gw2 has had in their life compared even with launch. (“We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.”).

official.7362:

Ok so i can stress how important these will be to a healthy pvp base

Id just like to know EXACTLY how you plan on handling this system..

if you make it a grind (it will fail to do what its trying to accomplish) ie pair like skilled players together.

so how exactly do you plan on separating these different skilled player bases together

what is the algorithm? and how will you handle soloq/team q

Imho you either have to go ALL IN on either Soloq or Teamq u cant have them separated because lets face it there arent enough players to have both in this game and its fair or fun to either player base to have to fight each other

u have to take a stand once and for all Either PROMOTE teams ONLY to play pvp or Dont at all imo

ill go ahead and guess ur ganna save all the juicy info until after you sell copies of the game so u dont kitten people off who wouldnt buy the game if they knew soloq was dead or not

By the way, you are assuming the recent long queue times are because of a “LACK” of population but I think you are misunderstanding. Currently in the pvp zones there are multiple megaservers packed with people all complaining about queue times. Why would this be the case if it was low population. The current reason the queues are slow is because of OVER population. The growth from free to play and the added popularity of pvp has caused the pvp servers to have to struggle to keep up. They have already said they are working on it.

Lord Kuru.3685:

zinkz.7045:

Also where are these players going, after all matchmaking is not going to be helped by PvE players basically playing PvE in the 9 rankfarms that occupy the top 9 spots in the hotjoin server list (EU) as I write this, do these players count as part of “PvP playerbase”?

This. Remember when they counted the PvE famers in EotM as part of WvW? From past history, they’re doing the same here.

This is the exact same thing i was thinking too. Is Colin referring to PvP in general? Do the people that just go there to farm chests/dailies, counts?

I find this interesting that Arena net believe that just because the game went free: pvp is “successful”. What is even interesting is: Arena net refuse to recognize the problems and will continue to repeat the same mistakes when Guild Wars 2 release.

Isn’t it obvious, Arena net is using the same deceptive practice that made Guild Wars 2 pvp successful when it was released? in the beginning?

Isn’t it obvious, it is exactly the same same deceptive practice they are using to the new players to make them believe that pvp is competitive, challenging and fun ?

Couple days ago, my guild invited me to do pvp with them. As usual we were prepared and serious about it. When we got to the Arena: we were wining by huge numbers. It was so bad that: after about 30+ minutes, we all decided to leave for wvw.

Before we left: we were criticized and insulted “for not playing fair” and “cheating”.

Were they telling the truth? Obviously! Yes! All of us were memsers.

Are mesmers a challenging, competitive, risk-reward and fun profession to play against? No!

So there.

So you want to know what the deceptive practice are?

“Competitive play in Guild Wars 2 is easy to learn, but offers challenges for new players and hardcore PvPers alike”

That is not true at all. They already complaining in the forums and will increase their complains: like how we were once before.

“New and casual players can easily hop into an ongoing match and start playing right away without worrying about setting up a team ".

There are already evidence of 4 ele’s in a team wining top matches, 4 Ele’s wining ESL

That is also not true at all.

" All characters are on even footing in both kinds of competitive play ".

Oh really?

“Players use their regular characters, but everyone is adjusted to the maximum so that all characters are roughly equal in power " .

Cele, Burn, D/D Ele, Everything Mesmer, Everything Thief etc.. ?

" Roughly Equal in Power "

So we are “roughly equal in power” like cele-ele and d/d ele?

Is this a joke?

My Favorite Part, “We’ve designed a PvP experience that’s fun and easy for all players, regardless of experience” .

We all not new players already know that is a lie.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

Conclusion:

This is what i see is happening (opinion)

1. Arena net only cares about Numbers: Profit,
2. Arena net is using the same deceptive practice they had used in the past to keep new numbers growing.

Tactics

A. Making the game “free to play”
B. Intentionally creating un-balance specialization to keep their numbers growing.
*More Un-Balance= More increase of ’White Knights"= Increase of numbers.
C. Leagues, Raids = Repeat A-C
C. New Expansion= Refresh Profit increase

All of this will happen while Nothing will be done to make the game competitive and fun .

All of this cycle will continue and repeat with the same empty words, with the same false promise, with the same false hope as long it increases their profits

The new players will replace newer players and newer players will replace newest players and so on.

We will leave the game when we embrace the truth, the next players will replace us, they will leave when they embrace the truth, they will replace by newer players and so on.

It’s all about increasing their profits folks, It’s all about keeping their profits refresh

We are only being used as commodity to their practices

It was never about their players-us.

It Was Never Was, It Will Never Be

What a tragedy!

Just for the record, people used to solo in Team q only because Team q had higher rewards and better maps. I know I did.

If Anet implements solo Q, it had better have the same rewards for team and solo. Otherwise, I will obviously go where the rewards are higher. Why should teams get higher rewards than soloers?

Poliator.7021:

Lord Kuru.3685:

zinkz.7045:

Also where are these players going, after all matchmaking is not going to be helped by PvE players basically playing PvE in the 9 rankfarms that occupy the top 9 spots in the hotjoin server list (EU) as I write this, do these players count as part of “PvP playerbase”?

This. Remember when they counted the PvE famers in EotM as part of WvW? From past history, they’re doing the same here.

I’d say this is a separate thing. Maybe I’m mistaken, but there is a limited numbers of “hotjoin” servers. I don’t think that newer players are buying custom arenas and replenishing them with other new players, so the number that hotjoin base servers may have gotten is really limited.

On the side of EotM, it is different as there can be multiple EotM maps of 300~ players in each, as oposed as 20 maximum players on a hotjoin server.

All of this, refering to your quoted comment, Colin was refering exactly to the “false” affirmations another post made, saying sPvP playerbase has been decreasing, while it has been increasing since long time ago. In this context, what was the initial GW2 playerbase, doesn’t matter, as I said, in this context.

Also, while this is conected to the sky-rocket Colin talks about, he does tell that this coming week will be the best week Gw2 has had in their life compared even with launch. (“We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.”).

“Best week”… what does that even mean? Do you know what measure he’s using?

Fact is that they’ve tried in the past to mislead players with stats. So without seeing the raw numbers, It’d be wise to take anything they say with a big grain of salt… especially since the view from the ground is that PvP is not doing very well.

official.7362:

go ALL IN on either Soloq or Teamq

bad idea. I like the current systems for teams, this way I can queue up with 1 or 2 friends or all 5 team members. However I think that there should be a solo queue as well.

ColinJohanson working on a Sunday. I hope the stuff you said about pvp’s growth is true and if so, please bring back solo queues and Raid on the Capricorn.

You know you miss RoC too. That map will make a lot of veteran PvPers happy and the new ones deserve to experience it, even if it’s waterless.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

I’m happy for this but people can try new stuff and after that like they can abandon the content because there are some major issues to fix.

Ofc with more free players, more people try spvp and this is an important goal for sure for you, but at the same time should be a priority “keeping” this players active on spvp.

I think the general infrastructure with league is really good but i think there are, like a said, major issues. A short list

1) Soloers vs premade.
2) It’s only possible to go in queue in HOTM
3) Balance patch frequency too slow

I’m really sure these things have a huge impact on keeping players playing pvp, there were and there are a lot of topics on forum and or reddit about it. Ofc new players have a LOT of stuff to learn and do at beginning but these majore issues are really evident and these will be major issues for new players too, after some gameplay hour.

At the same time I think pvp team can solve this issues, maybe they need some help in “resources number” to speed up the process..

I really think you can see the pvp potential in this game, but it needs a little more help from you

BTW thx for answer, it’s a good thing to see the game director on pvp forum

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

That’s great news, but the real test will be retaining the influx of new players. I feel the influx of new pvpers are based around hype and the upcoming expansion, we will have to see how many of them stay after Heart of thorns has been out for a month or two.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

I just really hope that ANET announces a matchmaking system that works. In addition:

1. The ability for PUGs to NEVER face premades
2. A balance team that fixes broken specs more often than once every 6 months.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

Let’s be honest here. PvP has grown because of the Revenant reveal. SPvP is the only way to grind ToK. You know this, and most players know this.

The twitch viewership is still very poor tho

Thx for the post Colin! So many people are statistically misinformed on so many levels.

Nebilim.5127:

Lord Kuru.3685:

zinkz.7045:

Also where are these players going, after all matchmaking is not going to be helped by PvE players basically playing PvE in the 9 rankfarms that occupy the top 9 spots in the hotjoin server list (EU) as I write this, do these players count as part of “PvP playerbase”?

This. Remember when they counted the PvE famers in EotM as part of WvW? From past history, they’re doing the same here.

This is the exact same thing i was thinking too. Is Colin referring to PvP in general? Do the people that just go there to farm chests/dailies, counts?

Does it even matter? It’s irrelevant if it’s they’re counting PvE players doing AP farming.

The PvP population is growing and has been since the beginning of the year and it’s definitely a mix of current PvE players and new players trying PvP.

Jiggawattz.2697:

official.7362:

Ok so i can stress how important these will be to a healthy pvp base

Id just like to know EXACTLY how you plan on handling this system..

if you make it a grind (it will fail to do what its trying to accomplish) ie pair like skilled players together.

so how exactly do you plan on separating these different skilled player bases together

what is the algorithm? and how will you handle soloq/team q

Imho you either have to go ALL IN on either Soloq or Teamq u cant have them separated because lets face it there arent enough players to have both in this game and its fair or fun to either player base to have to fight each other

u have to take a stand once and for all Either PROMOTE teams ONLY to play pvp or Dont at all imo

ill go ahead and guess ur ganna save all the juicy info until after you sell copies of the game so u dont kitten people off who wouldnt buy the game if they knew soloq was dead or not

By the way, you are assuming the recent long queue times are because of a “LACK” of population but I think you are misunderstanding. Currently in the pvp zones there are multiple megaservers packed with people all complaining about queue times. Why would this be the case if it was low population. The current reason the queues are slow is because of OVER population. The growth from free to play and the added popularity of pvp has caused the pvp servers to have to struggle to keep up. They have already said they are working on it.

1+
This is backed by the Stronghold weekends where players were seeing incredibly long queue times.

Saiyan.1704:

Thx for the post Colin! So many people are statistically misinformed on so many levels.

Erm he told us nothing of any real meaning in relation to the point he responded to.