Guild Wars 2

Let’s talk PvP.

To start of, this is not another topic where complaining and trash talking will be the main focus, this is about the state of PvP and how to actually improve.

My friend and I, who spend alot of time both in GW1 & GW2 PvP, spoke about Guild Wars 2 PvP and where it’s at right now we decided to sum up some very important points.

What do we need?

More game modes
-Jade Quarry style, capping points, killing players, rushing any sort of carrier, and all of it for points.
-Random Arena style, killing players in a X versus X style.
-Heroes Ascent style, killing, communication, teamplay at it’s best.
-Allience Battles style, capping points, rushing, teamwork and killing.
-GvG, no style. Just bring us GvG.. we want it, we need it. Stronghold is nothing like it, and it can’t be achieved properly through Guild Halls or WvW.
-Fort Aspenwood style, attacking side, defending side, walls, base… you name it.
-Templates, for the sake of being able to play whatever it is that you want to play.
-Guild Capes, bronze, silver, gold for the TEAMS that qualify for those trims. Normal capes for the rest of the guilds. PLEASE.. We have been asking for this SO LONG.

More frequent balance patches
Sadly it takes to long between each patch to figure out what’s out of balance for Anet, I won’t point fingers here, but this is an important thing when you look at the build diversity.

Different rewards
We need rewards like we had before, the PvP locker & rank you had to actually work for.

No free rank80’s, but with each game mode a new sort of reward that goes along with it. Something to show what you have achieved in that very mode.

We need more /ranks, just like in Guild Wars 1. /hero /guild.. it showed something.
NOT THROUGH GEMSTORE.

If you have any additions and/or extra’s I’d like to hear about it.

Please bring some love to this post for the sake of PvP and it’s current state.

Regards,

BBQ & Sâmbuca

Sambuca is a bit sweet for my taste… but to the subject.

A new game mode, Stronghold, was tried. Unfortunately it was exploited heavily. It was removed from the ranked rotation as a result.

Before a new mode is going to work, I propose that we need a culture change. We need people to play for the sake of the game. Exploiting and snarking ultimately hurt the game. To wit: last season’s leaderboard.

If they just released a rework like they did back with June 23, people would probably again gain a lot of interest for the PvP side of the game as finally being able to use new and crazy things would attract back lots of players. Plus it would help the balance issue.

Ya, no.

Game Modes
We’ve had two alternate games modes (Courtyard and Stronghold). Both fell flat. If gameplay is interesting, lack of variety is acceptable. If gameplay is stale – like it is with HoT – then no amount of mode variety will make it interesting; new modes will just be a new toy that everyone abandons after a few weeks.

Anyone holding up GW1 GvG as the pinnacle of PvP needs to take off their rose-colored glasses. GW1 GvG had numerous flaws and would have even more when translating it to GW2.

Balance Patches
Frequency isn’t the problem. The problem with the balance patches is the scope. HoT elites have been way too strong and faceroll for over a year, yet they’ve barely been scratched.

Rewards
The current reward system is infinitely better than the old locker system. With ranked rewards, we have PvP-exclusive items. As long as ANet continues to add more PvP-exclusive items, we’ll be fine.

Here’s how you really improve PvP

Nerf HoT elite specs
The brain-dead strength of HoT elite specs has been the biggest detriment to PvP. We have thieves killing people by spamming dodges and evades. You have dragonhunters which do crazy damage while sitting behind massive heals and blocks. You have warriors which are immune to damage and CC while butting out high damage and CC. Everything is throwing damage and CC around with no consequences for playing poorly. Maybe the very top can deal with them, but for the majority of the playerbase, this is not fun.

No, you can’t buff core up to elite level. Elite specs go with two core specs and this will just exacerbate the power creep. Nor does it address the overly forgiving gameplay. The biggest thing which needs to be addressed is the ability to deal heavy sustained damage while being immune to damage or CC or strong effects which are virtually guaranteed to land.

Team Competition
Competitions for organized teams need to return.

Solo queue is a joke; it removes the element of teamwork and coordination for no benefit, while increasing hatred between players. All solo queue does it let 1v1 champions and far pushers thump their chest.

some things:
- no prof switch at beginning of round
- next season they are upping the games needed to get on the ladderboard to 40, imo might not be high enough do 100
- no prof stacking
- make mmr gain/loss bigger the higher you climb
- make it so you cant lose more then double (maybe triple for t3 legend and above) what you gain
- give extra pips for top stats (someone elses idea), measure per match not per team
- double or triple amount of games needed to get rid of decay to discourage alts taking places in the ladderboard
- rewards get bigger the higher you climb, unranked gives less rewards and less mmr gain/loss
- cant get titles in unranked
- significantly lower rating max change
- make unranked min rank 20 ranked min rank 40. seriously lol why are complete noobs allowed into league seasons. raise the bar a bit pls.
- allow duos but add 10% to higher mmr and place them there
- disable dailies in both ranked and unranked
- new idea give more pip loss to lowest match stats, measure per match not per team
- show kdr and adr on scoreboard
- just kick dc’ers, rq’ers, and match throwers and make a separate q to replace them as soon as they leave
- give dishonor to afks (make sure they cant get around it by holding a button down, maybe measure their average dps/mitigated per minute idk)
- buff all useless traits and skills, none of this “one build per season” game of whack a mole, game is stale fights are boring and predictable and you wonder why gw2 pvp sucks
- self sustain nerf damage buff, make it so it requires at least two people to bunker a point

Exedore.6320:

Ya, no.

Game Modes
We’ve had two alternate games modes (Courtyard and Stronghold). Both fell flat. If gameplay is interesting, lack of variety is acceptable. If gameplay is stale – like it is with HoT – then no amount of mode variety will make it interesting; new modes will just be a new toy that everyone abandons after a few weeks.

Courtyard wasn’t even a proper game mode it was just a new map made for pugs. Something like WoW arenas I would consider a proper game mode and not 5v5 but 2v2 and 3v3.

Stronghold was indeed a new game mode and failed hard.

courtyard – implement rounds, when your team wipes you restart. roster can be in custom arenas shuffled around each restart, but not in unranked/ranked. can spectate teammates when dead. first to (?) wins.

stronghold – instead of running supply, which imo ruins the game mode, you can summon 1 archer and 2 bombers on a 1min timer. both gain more hp and armor vs players. since supply is gone and the middle is sorta empty, add a mortar thing that spawns every couple of minutes that does low damage but has some other effect.
my idea for the mortar is it dazes for 3sec, heals npcs for 1k, and creates a 5sec lightning field that does 500 non critable damage.

Stand The Wall.6987:

courtyard – implement rounds, when your team wipes you restart. roster can be in custom arenas shuffled around each restart, but not in unranked/ranked. can spectate teammates when dead. first to (?) wins.

stronghold – instead of running supply, which imo ruins the game mode, you can summon 1 archer and 2 bombers on a 1min timer. both gain more hp and armor vs players. since supply is gone and the middle is sorta empty, add a mortar thing that spawns every couple of minutes that does low damage but has some other effect.
my idea for the mortar is it dazes for 3sec, heals npcs for 1k, and creates a 5sec lightning field that does 500 non critable damage.

Or just make it to where the mist champions are summoned from where the supply is now instead of on the side close to either team’s spawn.

I have to disagree,

1- More game modes
No, GW2 is conquest style PvP. Simply put we need better class diversity and 5 legit maps. I dont even count kylo really since at higher levels you just ignore the treb. For me forest, temple, foefire are great maps. Add 2 more and make it so each class has 2-3 different ways they can play.

2- More frequent balance patches
No, we just need 2-3 really good patches that gives class and build diversity.Im pretty sure rev mains would like to use more then glint and shiro. Thieves might want to use sword and eles might want to do more then follow the squishy’s to heal them.

3- More rewards
Dwayna please!!!!!!!! I ask every season for more rewards for guild halls or unique anything. ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!! (no anet the shard glory vendor where i have to sit there and play with garbage in my inventory is not rewards)

So i guess i can agree with 1 thing

I’m going to try to explain something here, and it may or may not make sense…

The reason people are noticing the flaws in pvp is because the mechanics aren’t fun and most skills do basically the same thing. For example…

Warrior Greatsword 3 and 5. Both are gap closers and do damage. The only difference is one is an evade. Another example is Guardian Greatsword 3 and Sword 2. Both close distance and blind. Sword 2 gives fury and residual AoE, but thats it. They both do damage period, but thats just a bunch of fancy numbers.

Lets look at the similarity between ranger longbow and dh longbow. The strategy is the same, stay away from the center of combat and auto until you see the need for another skill.

Now going to take a look at another game, Overwatch. If I have any given 2 characters, their mechanics are notably different, and this makes the game more interesting. Because of that, people don’t pay as much attention to the faults.

In order to make pvp enjoyable again, we would need a mass revision between all the skills in the game.

This isn’t likely to happen but if it did the game would be better as a whole.

I hope that made sense.

Now if we’re being realistic, we need to address all the mechanics that make players mad and frustrated.

For example, teleporting out of DH’s Test of faith and still taking damage. It doesn’t make sense and causes players to leave the game (not that one scenario specifically, but an accumulation of similar scenarios).

Another one is perma evade condi or vault spam thief. If you’re playing a necro (not promoting necro to the most or least skillful class), you can’t land crap even though you’re trying a bajillion times harder than the thief.

Adding new modes and maps aren’t the answer to improving pvp. We’ve seen Return of the Capricorn and Coliseum, but they haven’t made pvp any better by a notable margin. New modes would just divide the community and increase que times beyond what they already are.

More frequent balance patches is a must-have. Not this once every 3 month crap they have going on now. If more devs played pvp (which they need to) then this wouldn’t be an issue.

Sorry for the wall of text and I hope that made sense