Guild Wars 2

Wolfey.3407:

-Zaishen Keys and Zaishen Chest
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Zaishen_Chest

Adjust the loot tables to be more GW2 aligned

By aligned, you mean just a bunch more crap loot to be salvaged ? Totally pointless. Any type of ‘box’ in GW2 is basically cancer.. just more click bait, never anything worth. At least I’ve never got anything good in the 3+ years I played.

In GW1 at least I could use anything I got out of it, but in GW2 classes are limited by weapon type, stat’s are on gear in GW2, level requirement on gear, etc.

Also we could sell zkeys in pvp in GW1 it was a great way to profit in pvp when you didn’t want to grind pve. Why would you not want them tradeable?

Rukia.9860:

Wolfey.3407:

-Zaishen Keys and Zaishen Chest
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Zaishen_Chest

Adjust the loot tables to be more GW2 aligned

By aligned, you mean just a bunch more crap loot to be salvaged ? Totally pointless. Any type of ‘box’ in GW2 is basically cancer.. just more click bait, never anything worth. At least I’ve never got anything good in the 3+ years I played.

In GW1 at least I could use anything I got out of it, but in GW2 classes are limited by weapon type, stat’s are on gear in GW2, level requirement on gear, etc.

Also we could sell zkeys in pvp in GW1 it was a great way to profit in pvp when you didn’t want to grind pve. Why would you not want them tradeable?

Obviously treats and Alcohol would not be a good reward for players in GW2… Guaranteed Exotic or Ascended tier weapon or armor would be cool. Adding in a monthly rotation of Endless Tonics would be awesome. A Mad King Thorn one for October, a Celestial Animal of said year for January, etc.

Key wise, the only reason I wouldn’t want them to be tradable or sellable is to prevent whats happening in GW1 and that’s by having people sell them for USD. Then again, anything in the game is sold for USD these days anyways so why not.

But gear… really? In pvp? How about just have random skins unlock in your wardrobe, I don’t need all these boxes to click just to click more with a salvage kit. useless, completely useless.

I’d rather a set amount of increased gold reward or a % chance to unlock random skin on victory.

Why they even bothered to move this into the PvP form instead of keeping it a general discussion is silly. Mostly players who play a variety of modes that have an opinion on it and moving it to the PvP forums again, which mind you has happened with every single topic that relates to “we don’t want to see esports before fixing your game and only if people actually want to see it”. They basically sent this topic to die and it really gives perspective to what Anet thinks of players who aren’t into their ultimately failed esports game.

Rukia.9860:

But gear… really? In pvp? How about just have random skins unlock in your wardrobe, I don’t need all these boxes to click just to click more with a salvage kit. useless, completely useless.

I’d rather a set amount of increased gold reward or a % chance to unlock random skin on victory.

Believe it or not and this may shock you, there is more to the game than just PvP… Some people (wait for it) play PvE or WvW as well.

I’ll let that sit in for a moment….

Back on track, including skins would be awesome. If they are included with a free transmutation charge. Currently. getting transmutation charges from PvP seems a little slower than before. May just be me though.

I find it hilariously mistimed that the OP brings up “This meta is boring to watch.”.

You haven’t even seen a match under this balance patch yet. I’ve only done a couple high level scrims but this patch is fun to play and watch. In season two, class stacking is prohibited in the pro league, as well, which adds to viewability further.

Also, when did ArenaNet fix the bug where high ranking players in leagues couldn’t get queue pops, and punish resulting Amber shopping? Definitely before you made this post.

We know season one wasn’t good. All valid points applicable to the last 3 months are out there.

The marketing budget that ArenaNet has is allocated towards different layers of communication. Having a Twitch presence of 3k-10k from PvP, it’s worth having in conjunction with other advertising channels.

The big flaw in ‘cut competitive funding’ threads is that if competitive GW2 dies, it’s not gonna remove development limitations on game balance or WvW.

Chaith.8256:

nailed it.

One thing is the unbalanced mess, but why are we stuck with conquest? we should get more modes so that our enjoyment isnt purely based on balance, but also from playing new content and not the same stuff all over. And add dueling cages already in heart of the dead

The marketing budget that ArenaNet has is allocated towards different layers of communication. Having a Twitch presence of 3k-10k from PvP, it’s worth having in conjunction with other advertising channels.

The big flaw in ‘cut competitive funding’ threads is that if competitive GW2 dies, it’s not gonna remove development limitations on game balance or WvW.

Marketing and development priorities are not locked in stone, they can be reallocated if priorities change. It would be foolish of them to continue throwing the same amount of money and development resources towards a defunct element of the game.

nacario.9417:

One thing is the unbalanced mess, but why are we stuck with conquest? we should get more modes so that our enjoyment isnt purely based on balance, but also from playing new content and not the same stuff all over. And add dueling cages already in heart of the dead

You nailed it that’s the reason why this game isnt esports, what’s fun about conquest nothing not even close to the fun of arathi basin.

Ohoni.6057:

The marketing budget that ArenaNet has is allocated towards different layers of communication. Having a Twitch presence of 3k-10k from PvP, it’s worth having in conjunction with other advertising channels.

The big flaw in ‘cut competitive funding’ threads is that if competitive GW2 dies, it’s not gonna remove development limitations on game balance or WvW.

Marketing and development priorities are not locked in stone, they can be reallocated if priorities change. It would be foolish of them to continue throwing the same amount of money and development resources towards a defunct element of the game.

What metric are you observing to get the conclusion that PvP is not functioning?

What metric are you observing to get the conclusion that PvP is not functioning?

I’m not necessarily saying that it’s not, currently, I was buying into your hypothetical of “what if competitive dies,” well if it does, then they shift priorities to other parts of the game. You seemed to imply that even if it died that they would be beholden to supporting it to the same degree indefinitely like some conjoined twin, which is nonsense.

If competitive PvP dies, it’s not something as simple as shifting priorities. These ‘euthanize PvP’ mentalities & threads don’t take into account the fact that having functional PvP is staple feature of the MMO genre.

Cynics think that the competitive PvP scene’s size is a joke, but few realize that an MMO having a scene and then dumpstering it absolutely reeks of ‘dead game’. It’d be a huge blow to GW2’s image.

Obviously, ArenaNet is either making enough returns, from the marketing expenses, or it’d cause more damage than good to cut competitive funding now, or they’d have cut funding already, or not have doubled the marketing budget from last year. That’s why these topics are more a whine: “I hate pvp” than an actual suggestion.

Sometimes, investments are made like this: 20% in product quality, 80% in marketing and advertising.

In my opinion, Anet should take back those money announced in prizes, to invest in design and balance.

On long term it is much better to have daily competitions for small prizes (like 2000 gems) than large competitions with thousands of dollars, and no polished product to promote.

Chaith.8256:

We know season one wasn’t good. All valid points applicable to the last 3 months are out there.

The marketing budget that ArenaNet has is allocated towards different layers of communication. Having a Twitch presence of 3k-10k from PvP, it’s worth having in conjunction with other advertising channels.

The big flaw in ‘cut competitive funding’ threads is that if competitive GW2 dies, it’s not gonna remove development limitations on game balance or WvW.

Except it isn’t really a flaw with their argument. The thing is, NOBODY wants to remove pvp from the game. By all means have your PvP. What people are saying is that the game is not yet well suited nor supported by the playerbase for it to be a viable esport.

You’re saying that viewership is 3-10k for GW2 tournaments. Do you know how pitifully low that is? Not to mention that you can pretty much 100% say that not even one fourth of those players are new players who will get into the game, much less spend money on it because they play PvP and not PvE/WvW. They have zero incentive to play PvE and WvW if they joined for PvP and much less incentive to even buy anything off the gemstore besides Heart of Thorns. Problem with that is…it is pay to win. At best most or all of those players already play the game and are into PvP. Nothing wrong with that, except it does nothing to increase the game’s popularity and size. And it obviously doesn’t help their bottom line. You’re allowed to spend on other avenues as well but right now Esports is the worst way to spend their marketing money.

Let me list off a few reasons why this game will never be an esport as it stands:
1) It is an MMO, you have three game modes which players like to play in with some overlap. The problem is…The game simply does not have seperate balance for each game mode as it should. PvP functions off of an entirely different system than PvE and WvW where gear doesn’t matter and stat amulets do, the problem with this is that by balancing around PvP and thus these PvP amulets you ignore things and change things specifically for PvP. What this tells the players of PvE and WvW is that they DON’T MATTER because esports. If you were to take it in the opposite way where a change is made for PvE, now you have the groups of WvW and PvP scratching their heads asking why something even needed to be changed because it wasn’t strong there. This is compounded with the fact that Anet doesn’t exactly “balance” they remove or nerf till nonviable then switch balance every time just to “flip the meta on its head”. Popular Esport games do not do this, if a balance change comes through they are generally levelheaded without going to extremes. And if they do go to extremes? They generally rework the mechanics so that the play style is both effective and not un-counterable.

2) The game is stuck in the same “stand on the point” gamemode because that is what existed from the start. The game has not been built from the ground up due to player support and company support for esports. The company is the sole reason why this is being promoted as an esport. You really need the support of the majority if not a supermajority of the players in order for a game to make the transition into an Esport. The bottom line is player support, not company support. I recognize stronghold exists but it clearly isn’t catching on with the playerbase, you need players to play an esport. The problem with stand on the point mechanics is that it is a game mode with not a lot of strategy besides “stand on the point”, little to no map objectives and the mode has a heavy bias towards Bunker builds or the very least the build that can stay on the point the longest.

3) “balance patches” come once every 3 to 4 MONTHS. And often times miss the mark or clearly show that they don’t know how to balance their own game. Look at Diamond skin, instead of making it a soft counter and not a hard counter they just made it useless. Or lets look at Thief and Necro, is buffing them up so much really necessary? Or did they just not know what to do with the game so they decided to make the underused classes top tier and make the most used classes bottom tier? Exchanging the extremes is NOT balancing the game, it is simply flipping the meta on its head because you can. No other Esport does this, most other esports try to be fair and leave the strong classes at least good while making sure they don’t go overboard with buffs and nerfs. If they do they will PROMPTLY fix it.

In conclusion, nobody is saying remove PvP they are just asking that the budget for Esports prizepools be used in something more productive. This will NOT cause the death of competitive GW2 because if players support a competitive mode then the game will never die competitively. I’ll use the example of Super Smash Brothers Melee, that game had absolutely ZERO support from the company that made the game but against all odds the community is the one who propped up the game to become one of the most successful fighting game esports games ever, as long as PLAYERS support the competitive scene it will never die.

So here are some things they could spend the budget on: More ads for the game or promotions in the form of events that are more generally appealing, more developers to work on fixing the issues in ALL game modes by communicating with the community and applying their knowledge (PvP, PvE, WvW), or even just fix some longstanding bugs or issues. I think everybody can agree that we don’t need to funnel 200-400k into a tournament for a small subset of players who are good at PvP instead of providing something tangible for the rest of the players. And yes, I’m including fixing PvP’s issues as well as PvE’s and WvW’s.

AGAIN, NOBODY IS CALLING TO KILL PVP/REMOVE IT FROM THE GAME. THEY ARE ASKING THAT LESS MONEY BE SPENT ON ESPORTS AND MORE SPENT TO FIXING BASIC PROBLEMS. If I have to say this again it is clear that you guys aren’t listening. Heck, just on one point the complete splitting of PvP and PvE balance will be a good thing for everybody involved because PvP will have no reason to care about PvE and PvE will have no reason to care about PvP as they are entirely separate games.

^ this. I could not have said it better myself.

tico.9814:

nacario.9417:

One thing is the unbalanced mess, but why are we stuck with conquest? we should get more modes so that our enjoyment isnt purely based on balance, but also from playing new content and not the same stuff all over. And add dueling cages already in heart of the dead

You nailed it that’s the reason why this game isnt esports, what’s fun about conquest nothing not even close to the fun of arathi basin.

Which was a conquest map…

Senario.2038:

Blergh

Devs have stated multiple times that the Marketing budget related to esports either can’t or won’t be allocated to another division, like QA.

Chaith.8256:

Senario.2038:

Blergh

Devs have stated multiple times that the Marketing budget related to esports either can’t or won’t be allocated to another division, like QA.

Great, you didn’t address any of my arguments. You just said “well the devs said nothing can change or improve so I’ll take their word for it”. Not to mention I did say other forms of advertising is fine like ads.

If competitive PvP dies, it’s not something as simple as shifting priorities. These ‘euthanize PvP’ mentalities & threads don’t take into account the fact that having functional PvP is staple feature of the MMO genre.

It’s not important to GW2 though, most of the players are primary PvE, and could easily live without PvP. It’s a non-factor.

Obviously, ArenaNet is either making enough returns, from the marketing expenses, or it’d cause more damage than good to cut competitive funding now, or they’d have cut funding already, or not have doubled the marketing budget from last year. That’s why these topics are more a whine: “I hate pvp” than an actual suggestion.

They WANT PvP esports to be a big thing, that much is clear, but whether it makes good business sense, we don’t have enough details to know either way. From the outside, it seems like more of a pet project, something that certain devs in positions of authority really really want to happen regardless of player interest, but there’s really no way to know for sure.

On long term it is much better to have daily competitions for small prizes (like 2000 gems) than large competitions with thousands of dollars, and no polished product to promote.

And more importantly, don’t make it “competition” at all, just make it something you can earn through normal gameplay. If you make it “competitive” then the vast majority of players give up even trying because they know they’ll never be the best of the best.

Fanboys like caith ignore the fact that esports in the game is a disaster and so is PVP. If it was such a success we wouldn’t be having the discussion and there wouldn’t be an issue.

Balance patches for PVP are in 3 month intervals so it is safe to say ESPORTS and PVP balancing of this game is not a company priority nor is the funding there for it if it was PVP and balancing wouldn’t be a disaster.

200k is a drop in the bucket for a company this large its literally nothing. The company spends way more money on other parts of this game than they have in PVP. Thats the fact, and thats why PVP is terrible and will always be terrible because its never been the main focous of ANET to make it great and it never will be.

Despite what you think that the game is balanced around PVP its not totally balanced around PVP. If it was than PVE viability and WvW viability would never be taken into consideration at all when attempting to balance skills.

Chaith.8256:

I find it hilariously mistimed that the OP brings up “This meta is boring to watch.”.

You haven’t even seen a match under this balance patch yet. I’ve only done a couple high level scrims but this patch is fun to play and watch. In season two, class stacking is prohibited in the pro league, as well, which adds to viewability further.

Also, when did ArenaNet fix the bug where high ranking players in leagues couldn’t get queue pops, and punish resulting Amber shopping? Definitely before you made this post.

We know season one wasn’t good. All valid points applicable to the last 3 months are out there.

The marketing budget that ArenaNet has is allocated towards different layers of communication. Having a Twitch presence of 3k-10k from PvP, it’s worth having in conjunction with other advertising channels.

The big flaw in ‘cut competitive funding’ threads is that if competitive GW2 dies, it’s not gonna remove development limitations on game balance or WvW.

Personally I don’t care you earn your money from, League of Legends wanna be, GW2 e-sports.

What I care because players of e-sports does not have to balls to come together and stop abusing some builds and amulets, the element choice disappearing more and more from GW2 PVP.

While e-sports players could not stop to abuse 2x bunker Mesmer 2xRevenant compositions, because 30 players who could potentially earn 200 000$ for normal people we have 4 less amulets, 100 less variations over the professions.

I don’t care about GW2 e-sport and I am sick and tired of the effects that it has over normal pvp players.

posthumecaver.6473:

What I care because players of e-sports does not have to balls to come together and stop abusing some builds and amulets, the element choice disappearing more and more from GW2 PVP.

While e-sports players could not stop to abuse 2x bunker Mesmer 2xRevenant compositions, because 30 players who could potentially earn 200 000$ for normal people we have 4 less amulets, 100 less variations over the professions.

I don’t care about GW2 e-sport and I am sick and tired of the effects that it has over normal pvp players.

Forming an agreement amongst the Pro League teams to not play the last meta’s Bunker Mesmer, every player would have to be on board, or it would dissolve. The inability of pro players to go and do this wasn’t the reason that ArenaNet made changes.

Taking the game to the highest level does put imbalance under a magnifying glass. No internal testing or developer theorycrafting can be as strong as what the Pro League can discover.

It’s better to know what’s broken then to have it fly under the radar. Blame the players who discovered OP combinations, or blame the state of balance? Don’t hate the player, change the game, kinda deal, bro.

Also, ArenaNet removed 4 Amulets and added 4 Amulets, you do the math man. . Class balance is much more fun now, in my opinion. It’s bad that Mesmer, Ele, & War are in a terrible spot now (warrior still??), but better than 80% of slots going to Mes/Rev representation in any organized group.

I’m just surprised you think it’s a downgrade. To each their own, no balance patch can please everyone.

I don’t believe in words, I believe in facts. If the investment is worth it and the RoI is as good as they claim, then Anet will increase their investment at every opportunity to increase their profits.

If on the other hand the prize pool (marketing investment) is not getting a steady increase or even decrease, we know it can’t be as good as we keep hearing.

Chaith.8256:

posthumecaver.6473:

What I care because players of e-sports does not have to balls to come together and stop abusing some builds and amulets, the element choice disappearing more and more from GW2 PVP.

While e-sports players could not stop to abuse 2x bunker Mesmer 2xRevenant compositions, because 30 players who could potentially earn 200 000$ for normal people we have 4 less amulets, 100 less variations over the professions.

I don’t care about GW2 e-sport and I am sick and tired of the effects that it has over normal pvp players.

Forming an agreement amongst the Pro League teams to not play the last meta’s Bunker Mesmer, every player would have to be on board, or it would dissolve. The inability of pro players to go and do this wasn’t the reason that ArenaNet made changes.

Taking the game to the highest level does put imbalance under a magnifying glass. No internal testing or developer theorycrafting can be as strong as what the Pro League can discover.

It’s better to know what’s broken then to have it fly under the radar. Blame the players who discovered OP combinations, or blame the state of balance? Don’t hate the player, change the game, kinda deal, bro.

Also, ArenaNet removed 4 Amulets and added 4 Amulets, you do the math man. . Class balance is much more fun now, in my opinion. It’s bad that Mesmer, Ele, & War are in a terrible spot now (warrior still??), but better than 80% of slots going to Mes/Rev representation in any organized group.

I’m just surprised you think it’s a downgrade. To each their own, no balance patch can please everyone.

It is downgrade because it dictates what I should play, not what I want to play, for a thing that %95 of the population does not care.

GW2 e-sports is ANet agenda not player base, considering this is a B2P and not a F2P, in my opinion publisher can’t do anything he wants just to deal with that %5.

Chaith.8256:

posthumecaver.6473:

What I care because players of e-sports does not have to balls to come together and stop abusing some builds and amulets, the element choice disappearing more and more from GW2 PVP.

While e-sports players could not stop to abuse 2x bunker Mesmer 2xRevenant compositions, because 30 players who could potentially earn 200 000$ for normal people we have 4 less amulets, 100 less variations over the professions.

I don’t care about GW2 e-sport and I am sick and tired of the effects that it has over normal pvp players.

Forming an agreement amongst the Pro League teams to not play the last meta’s Bunker Mesmer, every player would have to be on board, or it would dissolve. The inability of pro players to go and do this wasn’t the reason that ArenaNet made changes.

Taking the game to the highest level does put imbalance under a magnifying glass. No internal testing or developer theorycrafting can be as strong as what the Pro League can discover.

It’s better to know what’s broken then to have it fly under the radar. Blame the players who discovered OP combinations, or blame the state of balance? Don’t hate the player, change the game, kinda deal, bro.

Also, ArenaNet removed 4 Amulets and added 4 Amulets, you do the math man. . Class balance is much more fun now, in my opinion. It’s bad that Mesmer, Ele, & War are in a terrible spot now (warrior still??), but better than 80% of slots going to Mes/Rev representation in any organized group.

I’m just surprised you think it’s a downgrade. To each their own, no balance patch can please everyone.

I just want to say…If players have to make “gentleman’s agreements” concerning options that are available to everybody and not random then the game is likely not a good candidate for any type of Esport involvement.

If there was a rule from the beginning you couldn’t pick more than one of each type of class that would’ve been fine but saying “well even though an amulet like celestial exists we should have a gentleman’s agreement not to use it” simply invalidates any sense that you could make an effective esport out of it considering they are not random elements and available to all players.

Having a fun and balanced game extends past ‘esports’, profession & amulet balance is objectively better than pre-patch.

ArenaNet caters balance for all skill levels, too. Not just ‘esports’. They nerfed Tempest hard, and Dragonhunter a little bit because they’re dominant at lower divisions. PvP Profession & Amulet balance isn’t perfect, but objectively better than pre patch. If you’re very upset about how your stat options are limited, remember that’s the way PvP’s always been

@Senario.2038

Class stacking is prohibited in upcoming seasons of pro league, but in less organized environments such as casual unranked & ranked play, it will remain, I assume.

And agreed, no gentleman’s agreements should have to be made between players to ensure fun and viewable games occur.

Chaith.8256:

Having a fun and balanced game extends past ‘esports’, profession & amulet balance is objectively better than pre-patch.

ArenaNet caters balance for all skill levels, too. Not just ‘esports’. They nerfed Tempest hard, and Dragonhunter a little bit because they’re dominant at lower divisions. PvP Profession & Amulet balance isn’t perfect, but objectively better than pre patch. If you’re very upset about how your stat options are limited, remember that’s the way PvP’s always been

I wouldn’t say it is OBJECTIVELY better. Unless you consider just making the classes that were meta before nerfed into the ground and getting classes that were maybe not meta and buffing them to top tier as “better”. That isn’t better, that is flipping who you use.

The problem is that PvP balance affects every other mode and it shouldn’t, PvP balance in an MMO should NEVER infringe on other game modes because the systems are entirely different. The problem with this view is that a PvP player may see it as “fun” to get things balanced in their favor but anybody who is in WvW and PvE can recognize that changes made to classes due to PvP are terrible for their “fun” in the game. This isn’t a game that is solely about PvP, the vast majority of players clearly play PvE and WvW considering that you have several maps of dragons stand always filled up every time they are up and that alone is likely a sizable chunk of players compared to those who are into PvP. This is even more relevant now with Raids out and PvE content having something challenging to complete. Making assumptions about what I am or am not upset about is silly.

Look, read my exhaustive post above. It explains exactly what is wrong with Anet’s Esports and even suggests how to fix some issues. And yes, I know that there is a class limit now; However that should have been in there FROM THE BEGINNING. Because it wasn’t we saw things like teams of Elementalists which promptly got the class nerfed pre HoT.

My reasoning for saying balance is objectively better is because we will see more varied playstyles and builds.

If there was a rule from the beginning you couldn’t pick more than one of each type of class that would’ve been fine but saying “well even though an amulet like celestial exists we should have a gentleman’s agreement not to use it” simply invalidates any sense that you could make an effective esport out of it considering they are not random elements and available to all players.

Yeah, any rule that is necessary to keep the game interesting should be hard coded in, at least for PvP. For PvE they can let players have more personal responsibility in their own difficulty level.

Chaith.8256:

Having a fun and balanced game extends past ‘esports’, profession & amulet balance is objectively better than pre-patch.

ArenaNet caters balance for all skill levels, too. Not just ‘esports’. They nerfed Tempest hard, and Dragonhunter a little bit because they’re dominant at lower divisions. PvP Profession & Amulet balance isn’t perfect, but objectively better than pre patch. If you’re very upset about how your stat options are limited, remember that’s the way PvP’s always been

That is you opinion not a fact, while you are having more fun, does not mean that everybody is having more fun.

Stacking 2x bunker Mesmer 2x Revenant was clearly the problem of the ‘high end’ and ‘organized play’, in solo queue, which most of the people play, you can never guarantee that you will always land in such a setup, compared to ‘Pro League’ which everybody running that way.

I stay at my statement, according to ANet Guild Wars 2 sold what 2 mil copies? lets say 500 000 are active players and what Pro League viewer numbers they claim to have 10000-15000 (which is funny I never saw more then 3K online in twitch channel, if they count all the people just tuned in what 10 mins and bored to death and leave, well respect ).

So even there are 15K viewers that they are defining what is allowed for the rest 485 000 is sick.

Chaith.8256:

Class balance is much more fun now, in my opinion.

Yeah I know it’s just an opinion, but there will always be those who don’t share my views, who probably never face a good premade ever in PvP and experienced the frustration of last meta

Chaith.8256:

Chaith.8256:

Class balance is much more fun now, in my opinion.

Yeah I know it’s just an opinion, but there will always be those who don’t share my views, who probably never face a good premade ever in PvP and experienced the frustration of last meta

You are making assumptions about people who are saying that less funding should go into esports instead of actually addressing their argument. The issue is that esports is not big enough nor will it ever be big enough for gw2 with the way things are as I again, stated above.

What matters isn’t the types of groups people have played against in PvP, that is secondary. PvP exists and people play it and that is how it should be until a majority of the community gets behind the game mode and tries to promote it as an Esport. However; currently there is very little support from the playerbase to push it as an esport among other issues.

Senario.2038:

Chaith.8256:

Having a fun and balanced game extends past ‘esports’, profession & amulet balance is objectively better than pre-patch.

ArenaNet caters balance for all skill levels, too. Not just ‘esports’. They nerfed Tempest hard, and Dragonhunter a little bit because they’re dominant at lower divisions. PvP Profession & Amulet balance isn’t perfect, but objectively better than pre patch. If you’re very upset about how your stat options are limited, remember that’s the way PvP’s always been

I wouldn’t say it is OBJECTIVELY better. Unless you consider just making the classes that were meta before nerfed into the ground and getting classes that were maybe not meta and buffing them to top tier as “better”. That isn’t better, that is flipping who you use.

The problem is that PvP balance affects every other mode and it shouldn’t, PvP balance in an MMO should NEVER infringe on other game modes because the systems are entirely different. The problem with this view is that a PvP player may see it as “fun” to get things balanced in their favor but anybody who is in WvW and PvE can recognize that changes made to classes due to PvP are terrible for their “fun” in the game. This isn’t a game that is solely about PvP, the vast majority of players clearly play PvE and WvW considering that you have several maps of dragons stand always filled up every time they are up and that alone is likely a sizable chunk of players compared to those who are into PvP. This is even more relevant now with Raids out and PvE content having something challenging to complete. Making assumptions about what I am or am not upset about is silly.

Look, read my exhaustive post above. It explains exactly what is wrong with Anet’s Esports and even suggests how to fix some issues. And yes, I know that there is a class limit now; However that should have been in there FROM THE BEGINNING. Because it wasn’t we saw things like teams of Elementalists which promptly got the class nerfed pre HoT.

PvE balancing is trash on the mobs’ ends too. There’s an elite mordrem nuhoc mob that by himself isn’t bad but together with lots of other mobs in the Auric Basin meta means you’ll be spending lots of dodges (all while seeing through the mess) but has a whole four seconds of a knockdown in addition to an AoE pull skill. Some classes will instantly die to a four second knockdown (oh, the time gets refreshed if it happens again too) given the vast quantity of hard hitting mobs in the area. Since thief and ele have the lowest base health knockdown timers need to take those into account. The only things that should have four second knockdowns are PvE players (since it’d be too OP in PvP for the reasons stated) and certain bosses who you’d face alone or in pairs (so you could read their tells and respond accordingly) as in large groups those frogs can be obscured by even bigger mobs and you’d get knocked down without any warning.

Then you have mobs that are a package deal, you scorpion wire one then his buddies run towards you too (but the pulled mob should be dead by then if it’s a standard) while others have too large aggro radius like the mordrem mounts. Sometimes they just won’t break aggro despite all the hints that I don’t wanna fight (when I don’t I usually do though). In PvP real players can be forgiven for a relentless pursuit but in PvE mobs lack free will so I won’t forgive them since their programming could have been more reasonable.

Senario.2038:

Chaith.8256:

Chaith.8256:

Class balance is much more fun now, in my opinion.

Yeah I know it’s just an opinion, but there will always be those who don’t share my views, who probably never face a good premade ever in PvP and experienced the frustration of last meta

You are making assumptions about people who are saying that less funding should go into esports instead of actually addressing their argument. The issue is that esports is not big enough nor will it ever be big enough for gw2 with the way things are as I again, stated above.

What matters isn’t the types of groups people have played against in PvP, that is secondary. PvP exists and people play it and that is how it should be until a majority of the community gets behind the game mode and tries to promote it as an Esport. However; currently there is very little support from the playerbase to push it as an esport among other issues.

Saying esports isn’t big enough to be worth advertising is a bit of an assumption too, mate.

As for your points that you seem to think I’m dodging, yes, you’ve raised concerns about why gw2 won’t be a tier 1 esport game. They’re just not new or particularly inspiring to individually respond to each. I’m not saying it will suddenly become the next Tier 1 name in esports either, but the point you make that Competitive PvP is already not big enough to justify the advertising you can’t possibly back up. ArenaNet is very adamant on the fact that PvP is growing with their statements, and they’ve gotten acceptable returns from the advertising. We’ll not necessarily see a budget increase further, but it’s absolutely not unreasonable to take them at their word. Who is credible, those with high level views of direct and indirect sources of income, or players who are trying to guesstimate the gemstore sales from new players…

It’s OK to think you know better on issues you can form an opinion on, such as what’s fun for the majority of people, or game balance, but all the arguments are based on the assumption that the advertising investment isn’t giving enough return are conspiracies. If the Snowden of gw2 releases data that contradicts ArenaNet’s statements, I think that’d be the time to get on board trying to change what ArenaNet advertises to generate growth, but not before.

OP forgot to mention selling out and making hot builds p2w, which seems to go against what e-sport viability stands for. Not only has class balance been horrible, but it seems to have betrayed their customers trust which I think is why i think alot of people quit the game and moved on. They don’t feel like e-sports is a priority no matter what anet claims to spend towards it, so they moved on to other games that are more viable.

p2w esports is great. Any f2p user who watchs those esports tourney will consider either paying for HoT to get in mainstream or quitting the game since realizing the fact of gw2 pvp meta.

I wouldn’t say making hot free but there should be core meta in tourney as well. otherwise people will always think game is p2w.

normalize every balance plz

Pandaman.4758:

At the end of the day, ANet’s a business. If the eSports investment really is doing that badly, then they’ll cut it; that they haven’t yet either means they’re seeing growth that justifies continued investment or it’s doing much better than you think it is.

Even people in business have blindspots. Esports may very well be one of these.

Competitive MMOs require you to buy the latest expansions to compete in, of course if you compare competitive MMOs to competitive MOBAs there’s gonna be a difference if you compare the ‘esports’ business model.

They also need to do a radical rebalancing of traits. Acro overall was a step backwards because they took away one of its only good traits, 50% more movement speed in stealth that came in handy to stay on moving targets for the tactical strike, put it in shadow arts, and put a passive in its place? What does that passive do? Gives you auto evade if you go below a certain health threshhold. It procs in situations where you should go down anyway so it masks mistakes or getting outplayed. Traits should promote active, skillful play (like vigor upon dodging, all boons from traits should have active procs like this) not crutches.

Chaith.8256:

That’s why these topics are more a whine: “I hate pvp” than an actual suggestion.

You post a lot about other people making assumptions yet you make a ton of them with no facts to back it up at all. In fact one of the first things I said was I enjoy pvp a lot. As a matter of fact the only reason I play mmos is because of pvp since the days of Ultima Online up to Darkfall until that died. Now I am playing this game for pvp. You are just wrong.

I did not create this thread because I hate pvp as you pointed out with not a single fact to go on. I created it because well numbers speak for themselves. People do not care to watch it period. Anet does not balance or take time on the balance they do put out, the intervals are just to far apart. Those are not assumptions those are facts.

I enjoy this game and want what is best for it that is why I asked how others feel about it as well. I completely understand what some of you guys are saying that it most likely makes it’s money back but just because you make more money then you spent on something that does not always mean it is what is best for the game. That can apply to many aspects of any business not just a marketing budget in a mmo.

Robert Devine.3087:

Chaith.8256:

That’s why these topics are more a whine: “I hate pvp” than an actual suggestion.

You post a lot about other people making assumptions yet you make a ton of them with no facts to back it up at all. In fact one of the first things I said was I enjoy pvp a lot. As a matter of fact the only reason I play mmos is because of pvp since the days of Ultima Online up to Darkfall until that died. Now I am playing this game for pvp. You are just wrong.

I did not create this thread because I hate pvp as you pointed out with not a single fact to go on. I created it because well numbers speak for themselves. People do not care to watch it period. Anet does not balance or take time on the balance they do put out, the intervals are just to far apart. Those are not assumptions those are facts.

I enjoy this game and want what is best for it that is why I asked how others feel about it as well. I completely understand what some of you guys are saying that it most likely makes it’s money back but just because you make more money then you spent on something that does not always mean it is what is best for the game. That can apply to many aspects of any business not just a marketing budget in a mmo.

I explained why I think your topic is a whine about “I hate PvP”, I didn’t just say the quote you cherry picked. I would probably edit that to: “I don’t care about the competitive PvP scene, so it should go away.”

You created this thread because numbers speak for themselves, and people do not care to watch it, period.

So when is GW2 being watched on Twitch? PvP content is not a minority of the GW2 small twitch viewership. I don’t have statistics but I would peg it at a majority. I disagree with you that ‘the numbers speak for themselves’, because I think you interpret GW2’s viewership in a really bad way.

Your reasoning for competitive GW2 marketing budget should be spent ‘elsewhere’, as if the marketing budget can just go towards game development, or dealing with in-game issues. Devs have said many times that the allocated funds are not detracting from other areas. It is the budget for building a community based around the game’s features.

What’s the likelihood of events based on competitive WvW, competitive Fractals, competitive raiding scenes and events taking off and getting lots of viewership? Perhaps the budget for creating events & viewership would be better placed in one of these options? If you made an alternative case instead of just ‘anywhere but competitive PvP’ I would be less inclined to label you as a simple hater of the competitive PvP scene, bro.

You can cite Amber shopping, and refusal of ArenaNet to harshly, and quickly ban trolls (chronic botters, AFKers), as reasons why it’s ‘failing’, but they’re absolutely not related to competitive events (leagues are casual, not even loosely ‘esports’), not to mention that methods to easy-climb leagues have been dealt with already..

These are the reasons why I think your OP was extremely non-constructive and just seeing who else wanted to whine and ridicule ArenaNet’s progress towards growing a bigger competitive scene.

anyway,

if anet do balancing every month instead of 3 and with each balance as minor balance instead of major. it will be more acceptable. i do not understand the logic of 3 months major balancing with no minor balancing in between, it is like doing a large experiment without any fine tuning. i thought anet decided to stop doing experiments.

I had a look at the current match and it has less than 4k viewers. the fact that viewers are being enticed with the possibility of winning some prizes just for watching…

It’s abysmal numbers

The fact that most gw2 players think this is a waste of time and resources, I find it hard to believe that the esport gw2 would interest people that don’t play the game at all.

Who are they trying to impress here?

Coyote Trickster.7319:

I had a look at the current match and it has less than 4k viewers. the fact that viewers are being enticed with the possibility of winning some prizes just for watching…

It’s abysmal numbers

Yeah its what they consistently draw for the pro league, its really poor if its meant to be an advertisement costing a total of $400k.

Yeah its what they consistently draw for the pro league, its really poor if its meant to be an advertisement costing a total of $400k.

Think of how much better that money could be spent. Another game recently took a $25K budget and divvied it up into five $5K cash prizes that were randomly handed out to people playing the game at the time.

ANet could do this EIGHTY TIMES with a $400K budget. How cool would that be? Finding a Precursor is great and all, but finding a ticket worth $5,000 cash money, that’s a game changer!

Why do they reward people who are really good at PvP, one of the least cared about aspects of this game, rather than reward the people who make this game what it is?

So lets get this right. They give away precursors. They promote this in game. Promote this in forums. Promote it on social media. Gw2 has sold 6 million copies or more. They give away 200k. They waste money on organising the events 2hich could easily be another 200k. And all for 3 or 4k viewers? Yeh anet suck at business

Meanwhile the base game dies due to balancing around this joke and due to new maps and game modes not being supported because 20 esports dudes dont like spirit watch or stronghold.

Yeh this game is funny

I think esports is necessary. It tells us what builds needs a nerf or not.

So many of you whine too much. PvP is in a much better place than it was 6 months ago. Be happy this isn’t WvW which does suck.

PvP just needs two things:
1. Better matchmaking
2. A better balance team (that said, the meta is a lot better than the previous bunker Mesmer one)