Guild Wars 2

Hello,
I don’t want this thread to turn into a “beat up the devs thread”. I want to give some constructive reasons to why (imo) pvp is failing.
I personally have enjoyed guild wars 2 from day one. The pvp is untouched by any other game…and after almost a year of playing I find the game to still be fun. But heres a couple things that I see from the outside as to why people are so angry with Anet right now.

1. Transparency- There is none. If you are going to patch something…how about giving us some patch notes? People will QQ no matter what you do so lets be real, we NEED to know what is coming out before you patch it so you can atleast get some community feedback before you implement it. It is ridiculous that we have no idea what is going on.
2. Development- This one is going to take a little longer. Its not that I don’t think you guys care about this game (devs), because I know you do. But I cannot accept the fact that everytime you have patched something into pvp it is broken. We had no leaderboards (which I expected at release) for a large part of the game, but when they were patched in they were broken and also REMAIN broken to this day. Another example would be the random map generator. Patched in, broken. Not only once, but twice. First day of the game, anet recognized AOE was a problem, still not fixed. The fixes are coming in to slow which then causes people to quit. PLEASE ATLEAST GIVE US DATES!
3. Resources- It is pretty obvious that the resources are being funneled into other parts of the game besides PvP. I understand that you can’t have everyone working on PvP, but if you cant even get a random map generator ( which has been around since ATARI) to work correctly after 6 months of development, it is obvious your developers are being pushed by more pressing problems. The quality of your patches as of late, compared to other games, is VERY lacking. These bugs and glitches should not be happening in a AAA rated fastest selling MMO.
   So in summary:
   We need more transparency. Give us patch notes, fill us in. No more vague " some time soon", " we’re working on it". That doesn’t fly anymore. More and more people don’t believe you everytime you say that. They feel you are hiding something!!!
   Your development needs to improve, no more MAJOR bugs at patch release. I can forgive you for being slow and I can forgive you for being a little “hush hush” about somethings, but I cant forgive you when you give me broken content that I’ve waited 6 months for. ( which is basic, games over 10 years old have map generators) You need to pull more resources to PvP because the money is there, but you are not making any content that brings anyone to watch it or participate in it. PvE players come and go, PvPers generally will stick around for a lot longer. I hope that some devs read this. I want to be clear I am not saying you are incompetent or you don’t care, but it is unacceptable to me for these problems to exist at the magnitude that we see today.

DanzelOPP.5068:

1. Transparency- There is none. If you are going to patch something…how about giving us some patch notes? People will QQ no matter what you do so lets be real, we NEED to know what is coming out before you patch it so you can atleast get some community feedback before you implement it. It is ridiculous that we have no idea what is going on.

The preview of the October 15th balance patch has been in the general forum for a couple weeks now. The reason they rarely give specific dates (i.e. they originally slated the balance changes for Oct 1st) is because every time they’re off by a few days, people start flaming.

DanzelOPP.5068:

1. Development- This one is going to take a little longer. Its not that I don’t think you guys care about this game (devs), because I know you do. But I cannot accept the fact that everytime you have patched something into pvp it is broken. We had no leaderboards (which I expected at release) for a large part of the game, but when they were patched in they were broken and also REMAIN broken to this day. Another example would be the random map generator. Patched in, broken. Not only once, but twice. First day of the game, anet recognized AOE was a problem, still not fixed. The fixes are coming in to slow which then causes people to quit. PLEASE ATLEAST GIVE US DATES!

Again, the community has shown them what we’ll do every time they give us dates. I agree that the game launched a bit too early for the PvP side, and that some key features hadn’t been made yet. I highly doubt that was their decision.

DanzelOPP.5068:

1. Resources- It is pretty obvious that the resources are being funneled into other parts of the game besides PvP. I understand that you can’t have everyone working on PvP, but if you cant even get a random map generator ( which has been around since ATARI) to work correctly after 6 months of development, it is obvious your developers are being pushed by more pressing problems. The quality of your patches as of late, compared to other games, is VERY lacking. These bugs and glitches should not be happening in a AAA rated fastest selling MMO.

Compared to which other games? Because most RPG games that launched in the last three years that I can think of have been abysmal failures. Bugs happen.

DanzelOPP.5068:

…at the magnitude that we see today.

Most of your issues seem to be simple bugs that are already fixed. Could you be a bit more specific about issues that we are seeing today?

The problem with transparency is that it would take away Anet’s excuse for ignoring feedback. In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback? How many changes have been made that were the complete opposite of what the community was asking for?

If players were able to give feedback on patches before they came out, anet would still just ignore everything that was said; they’d just look worse as a result. It’s a lot easier to keep everything secret and say ‘well gee we just didn’t know people would react that way!’

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback?

Paid/free tourney redesign, solo queue, random map generator, ele nerfs, necro/warrior buffs, 5v5 hotjoin, custom arenas, spectator mode, one-click salvaging, off the top of my head for PvP. Probably quite a few others I’m forgetting.

For WvW, more significant roamer/small group contributions through bloodlust buff, culling removal, more variety in matchups, and probably a million others I don’t know about. I don’t play a ton of WvW but enough to keep track of a few of the changes that have been suggested and implemented.

Oh and new hairstyles and endgame content for PvE. Haven’t really done any of that for a year though, so I don’t know what people have been asking for.

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback? How many changes have been made that were the complete opposite of what the community was asking for?

Sad but true.

Xom.9264:

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback? How many changes have been made that were the complete opposite of what the community was asking for?

Sad but true.

See list above please.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Xom.9264:

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback? How many changes have been made that were the complete opposite of what the community was asking for?

Sad but true.

See list above please.

Nevir can you just go work for free at anet? They need you. If they already pay you, can you focus on some real dialogue instead of kissing anets kitten ? Some back and forth maybe?

tronjeremy.5820:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Xom.9264:

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback? How many changes have been made that were the complete opposite of what the community was asking for?

Sad but true.

See list above please.

Nevir can you just go work for free at anet? They need you. If they already pay you, can you focus on some real dialogue instead of kissing anets kitten ? Some back and forth maybe?

I love back and forth. Care to respond to any of my points?

NevirSayDie.6235:

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback?

Paid/free tourney redesign, solo queue, random map generator, ele nerfs, necro/warrior buffs, 5v5 hotjoin, custom arenas, spectator mode, one-click salvaging, off the top of my head for PvP. Probably quite a few others I’m forgetting.

For WvW, more significant roamer/small group contributions through bloodlust buff, culling removal, more variety in matchups, and probably a million others I don’t know about. I don’t play a ton of WvW but enough to keep track of a few of the changes that have been suggested and implemented.

Oh and new hairstyles and endgame content for PvE. Haven’t really done any of that for a year though, so I don’t know what people have been asking for.

Paid/free rework was inevitable. It was a horrible cash grab gone wrong from the start.

Was solo queue in response to the community, or in response to the fact that every other game in existence has it?

Ele nerfs? Ya, they nerfed eles alright. Sadly they completely ignored every suggestion given them for how to nerf eles while keeping them viable, and now they’re virtually nonexistent in high level play.

Necro/war buffs. Sure, they buffed them. But again, did they buff them in the ways the community was asking for? Nope. Instead we got torment, burning, and warriors turned into Irelia just so that there was at least something that could fight necros.

Custom arenas? So what? They left out the most important feature everyone was actually asking for. Until they let us turn off nodes, custom arenas are little different than old hotjoins, except that it gave them a plausible excuse to delay putting /duel into the game.

As for what you listed for wvw, are you serious, lol? Have you even read the wvw discussion board lately? No one wanted bloodlust. No one wants their kittenty league system. No one wants any of the crap Devon is shoving down our throats. The only potential one there is culling, and I don’t know if fixing a massively broken, hugely embarrassing problem that shouldn’t have made it out of beta really counts.

But ya, I guess there are a few things anet has done in response to the community. Sadly, they are dwarfed by the things they completely ignored, or just partially ignored and ended up doing completely wrong because they didn’t listen to any of the specifics players gave.

NevirSayDie.6235:

tronjeremy.5820:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Xom.9264:

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback? How many changes have been made that were the complete opposite of what the community was asking for?

Sad but true.

See list above please.

Nevir can you just go work for free at anet? They need you. If they already pay you, can you focus on some real dialogue instead of kissing anets kitten ? Some back and forth maybe?

I love back and forth. Care to respond to any of my points?

Send application here – > ArenaNetRecruitment@arena.net

Sorry that I went off topic. I do want to say that I agree with OP. Kudos. These are valid points. The forums seem like a lost cause with little real feedback from devs. Most of it just seems like damage control.

I strongly suggest voicing your opinions outside of the forums and to media. Where I think anet will hear it more clearly if they see our concerns in an article.

You can write to Massively here – http://massively.joystiq.com/contact/tips/

dreztina.4820:

Was solo queue in response to the community, or in response to the fact that every other game in existence has it?

Ele nerfs? Ya, they nerfed eles alright. Sadly they completely ignored every suggestion given them for how to nerf eles while keeping them viable, and now they’re virtually nonexistent in high level play.

Necro/war buffs. Sure, they buffed them. But again, did they buff them in the ways the community was asking for? Nope. Instead we got torment, burning, and warriors turned into Irelia just so that there was at least something that could fight necros.

Custom arenas? So what? They left out the most important feature everyone was actually asking for. Until they let us turn off nodes, custom arenas are little different than old hotjoins, except that it gave them a plausible excuse to delay putting /duel into the game.

As for what you listed for wvw, are you serious, lol? Have you even read the wvw discussion board lately? No one wanted bloodlust. No one wants their kittenty league system. No one wants any of the crap Devon is shoving down our throats. The only potential one there is culling, and I don’t know if fixing a massively broken, hugely embarrassing problem that shouldn’t have made it out of beta really counts.

\

Solo queue was highly demanded for several months last winter.

Ele nerf to RTL and condition cleanse and healing signet were all specifically asked for.

Buff to warrior condition resistance and healing signet were specifically asked for.

Necro burning was specifically asked for. Warrior buffs to condition resistance was not in response to necros—the complaint was that warriors were too easily kited via cripple and chill and needed a way to stay in melee.

Custom arenas are more or less what you would expect. I don’t remember people asking to be able to turn off nodes, but it could have happened, I’m not sure.

WvW changes were specifically asked for. You don’t remember the dozens of threads begging for new matchups, especially from bottom-tier servers? So Anet added RNG to matchmaking and suddenly everyone forgets. Roaming contribution and zerg breakup has also been one of the main topics, which bloodlust is an attempt to solve. I haven’t played much WvW since that patch so I don’t know how well it worked, but it was certainly in response to that. I never mentioned leagues and have no idea how they’ll work out, although they did change to 3 leagues instead of 2 in NA due to community feedback.

Nevir. Where do you think pvp is lacking and could improve? All I see is defense. I love GW2 pvp. But for it to improve we need to show some critique and have more open dialogue with the devs. They make changes as they see fit with out much back and forth. The current structure for changes keeps alot of things secret and private until it’s launched for the most part. Hence we ask for more transparency as the OP suggests.

tronjeremy.5820:

Nevir. Where do you think pvp is lacking and could improve? All I see is defense. I love GW2 pvp. But for it to improve we need to show some critique and have more open dialogue with the devs. They make changes as they see fit with out much back and forth. The current structure for changes keeps alot of things secret and private until it’s launched for the most part. Hence we ask for more transparency as the OP suggests.

There are plenty of ways that PvP can be better. I simply feel that the devs won’t really have reason to listen to the community if we continually say things that they know factually to be incorrect.

I have no problem asking for transparency. I think the preview of the Oct. 15th patch was a great step and needed. What else do you think the devs should be doing?

As for what I feel needs to be improved: I’d say rewards should be fairly high on the priority list; from what I’ve gathered we should see big improvements to that in the next couple months. I’d be in favor of switching to custom arenas and ranked matches only and removing “hotjoin,” except for custom arenas, although I have no idea what Anet’s data shows about that.

I think it generally works in other games, though, right? You have your ranked matches and you have your custom matches. Each one can be joined solo or as a team. My guess is that this system could work in GW2.

Nevir.
I agree with the Oct 15th patch projections. But I also believe that pvp is lacking in attention and resources and large changes take an extremely long time to implement. There are people exploiting the rank system and this goes unpunished but in pve they are bannable offenses that are addressed immediately. In every step the general mood in my opinion is that pvp is on the back burner aka what the devs work on when they aren’t busy with pve. I wish more resources and attention and dialogue could happen with pvp devs. I just believe they don’t have enough to meet all the needs. One guess is perhaps there isn’t enough money to be made in pvp from anets point of view.

dreztina.4820:

Paid/free rework was inevitable. It was a horrible cash grab gone wrong from the start.

Was solo queue in response to the community, or in response to the fact that every other game in existence has it?

Ele nerfs? Ya, they nerfed eles alright. Sadly they completely ignored every suggestion given them for how to nerf eles while keeping them viable, and now they’re virtually nonexistent in high level play.

Necro/war buffs. Sure, they buffed them. But again, did they buff them in the ways the community was asking for? Nope. Instead we got torment, burning, and warriors turned into Irelia just so that there was at least something that could fight necros.

Custom arenas? So what? They left out the most important feature everyone was actually asking for. Until they let us turn off nodes, custom arenas are little different than old hotjoins, except that it gave them a plausible excuse to delay putting /duel into the game.

As for what you listed for wvw, are you serious, lol? Have you even read the wvw discussion board lately? No one wanted bloodlust. No one wants their kittenty league system. No one wants any of the crap Devon is shoving down our throats. The only potential one there is culling, and I don’t know if fixing a massively broken, hugely embarrassing problem that shouldn’t have made it out of beta really counts.

But ya, I guess there are a few things anet has done in response to the community. Sadly, they are dwarfed by the things they completely ignored, or just partially ignored and ended up doing completely wrong because they didn’t listen to any of the specifics players gave.

Dude, you sound like you don’t read these forums, go read the old Necro threads there was definitely (and I bet my life on this) threads that had something to do with improving Necro damage and Warrior sustain but hey, you say no one asked for it so it must be true. And when you mention Custom arenas you say “So what?”. By saying that, you’ve just basically removed all possible perceptions that you’re here to actually give constructive feedback. It sounds more like you’re here to give constructive flaming.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Custom arenas are more or less what you would expect. I don’t remember people asking to be able to turn off nodes, but it could have happened, I’m not sure.

I asked for that but they replied in that thread saying, if I remember correctly, that they don’t have the tech yet.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Solo queue was highly demanded for several months last winter.

Ele nerf to RTL and condition cleanse and healing signet were all specifically asked for.

Buff to warrior condition resistance and healing signet were specifically asked for.

Necro burning was specifically asked for. Warrior buffs to condition resistance was not in response to necros—the complaint was that warriors were too easily kited via cripple and chill and needed a way to stay in melee.

Custom arenas are more or less what you would expect. I don’t remember people asking to be able to turn off nodes, but it could have happened, I’m not sure.

Very true. My impression is that the devs care a lot about the game, listen carefully to the community and try to implement changes (esp balance changes) in a timely manner doing their best not to swing the balance too far in any direction. Class balance is always going to be in a flux, its good that the devs do actively address these issues.

I think the devs went down the wrong track with the paid tourneys, one game mode, and lack of solo queue at the start; and certainly there is a lot of work to do to refine the systems that we now have- partly because making the wrong choices at the start (imo) set them back. I also wish the changes to core game elements and fixing rank exploits etc was quicker.

However, I do see steady change and deep commitment to the game and the community. And remember that the community has conflicting opinions of what needs to be done- for example while I share Nevir’s view on this topic I disagree that hotjoin should be removed. Quite a lot has actually been achieved considering the disparity of views within the community.

NevirSayDie.6235:

dreztina.4820:

In the over a year this game has been out, how many things can you think of that anet has done in response to community feedback?

Paid/free tourney redesign, solo queue, random map generator, ele nerfs, necro/warrior buffs, 5v5 hotjoin, custom arenas, spectator mode, one-click salvaging, off the top of my head for PvP. Probably quite a few others I’m forgetting.

You are also forgetting:
- Unbalanced & unfair new conquest maps
- Broken matchmaking
- Poor & broken leaderboards
- Class unbalance
- Broken leaver penalty

Only worthy addition was custom arenas, because it gives money to them.

tronjeremy.5820:

snip

It’s good for large changes to take time to implement. One of my pet peeves is when people ask for some giant re-design to everything just to fix one thing that feels annoying to them, and figure Anet should be able to make it happen by next week without affecting balance negatively at all. People have literally suggested removing all conditions, making all PvE stats available, etc.

As for the farming issue, they’ve done several changes to discourage that. No, they haven’t brought the banhammer down. What do you feel they should do?

Dirame.8521:

snip

Yup. Specifically, people asked for a brief condition immunity skill for warriors and cleansing ire.

Yasha.5963:

snip

Right. I think the game launched quite a bit early for PvP, and there were some features that just didn’t make it in at launch.

Marcos.3690:

You are also forgetting:
- Unbalanced & unfair new conquest maps
- Broken matchmaking
- Poor & broken leaderboards
- Class unbalance
- Broken leaver penalty

Only worthy addition was custom arenas, because it gives money to them.

The question was about changes the devs made in response to community feedback, not just to list things I like/don’t like about PvP.

As for this list, the new maps haven’t been amazing; matchmaking and leaderboards are working well, just seem a bit volatile; balance is relatively good and should be great after the 15th; leaver penalty definitely still needs work.

DanzelOPP.5068:

Hello,
I don’t want this thread to turn into a “beat up the devs thread”. I want to give some constructive reasons to why (imo) pvp is failing.
I personally have enjoyed guild wars 2 from day one. The pvp is untouched by any other game…and after almost a year of playing I find the game to still be fun. But heres a couple things that I see from the outside as to why people are so angry with Anet right now.

1. Transparency- There is none. If you are going to patch something…how about giving us some patch notes? People will QQ no matter what you do so lets be real, we NEED to know what is coming out before you patch it so you can atleast get some community feedback before you implement it. It is ridiculous that we have no idea what is going on.
2. Development- This one is going to take a little longer. Its not that I don’t think you guys care about this game (devs), because I know you do. But I cannot accept the fact that everytime you have patched something into pvp it is broken. We had no leaderboards (which I expected at release) for a large part of the game, but when they were patched in they were broken and also REMAIN broken to this day. Another example would be the random map generator. Patched in, broken. Not only once, but twice. First day of the game, anet recognized AOE was a problem, still not fixed. The fixes are coming in to slow which then causes people to quit. PLEASE ATLEAST GIVE US DATES!
3. Resources- It is pretty obvious that the resources are being funneled into other parts of the game besides PvP. I understand that you can’t have everyone working on PvP, but if you cant even get a random map generator ( which has been around since ATARI) to work correctly after 6 months of development, it is obvious your developers are being pushed by more pressing problems. The quality of your patches as of late, compared to other games, is VERY lacking. These bugs and glitches should not be happening in a AAA rated fastest selling MMO.
   So in summary:
   We need more transparency. Give us patch notes, fill us in. No more vague " some time soon", " we’re working on it". That doesn’t fly anymore. More and more people don’t believe you everytime you say that. They feel you are hiding something!!!
   Your development needs to improve, no more MAJOR bugs at patch release. I can forgive you for being slow and I can forgive you for being a little “hush hush” about somethings, but I cant forgive you when you give me broken content that I’ve waited 6 months for. ( which is basic, games over 10 years old have map generators) You need to pull more resources to PvP because the money is there, but you are not making any content that brings anyone to watch it or participate in it. PvE players come and go, PvPers generally will stick around for a lot longer. I hope that some devs read this. I want to be clear I am not saying you are incompetent or you don’t care, but it is unacceptable to me for these problems to exist at the magnitude that we see today.

Well, on the subject of transparency I really think it comes down to difference of opinion. I really believe these devs feel that they know so much better then the players that they really don’t need to discuss upcoming game changes with the player base at large. Maybe a few so called elite players they will talk to to bounce some ideas off. I call it pointy head theory. You get the most intelligent people(or people that think they are the most intelligent) in a room somewhere and they can solve all the world’s problems. Unfortunately it never works. What else can it be really? It has pretty much become standard in the industry to release basically full patch notes well ahead of time for the community to see and give feed back on. It seems these guys don’t think its the proper approach.