I realize resources are limited, but I feel like the PvP side of the game is still an unfinished mess. My specific grievances
- No good spectate mode. Spectate is limited to live private server events and live hot-join matches only. We need the ability to spectate spectate/replay the last few guild team matches after game. IMO this is critical to the e-sports manifesto as with any pro (non E) sport teams review games to see what went wrong. Without this it’s all blind speculation unless every member records a stream, puts it up on youtube and the team painstaking re-watches the match from every perspective. Without this feature feature players can misinterpret what’s going on and give bad information to team post game. The ability to improve one’s “game” based on detailed understanding of what the team did right and right is critical to any sport and as implemented in GW2 spectate mode is grossly inadequate for this purpose. As implemented it’s just a fun side feature
- No history of previous matches. Once we exit the game the score card goes away. How hard would it be to achieve this information and make it available to us? It would be nice to have a record over the past few weeks (if not perm) of who we played against and who we were teamed with, outcomes, etc.. As implemented the score card is ripped up immediately. In ranked matches this design shows no respect at all for the hard work the two teams just put into it
- Build save/restore feature. Everyone is asking for this, not just the pvp crowd. Is it really that difficult to implement? I suspect other motives are at play (e.g. concern about character slot sales declining)
A few other things
- Unless it is the developers intent is for Necromancers/Reapers to confuse the other team with the number of minions being controlled, I believe minions of any kind (pets, undead, spirit weapons, etc..) should be marked as a restrictive color when “Team colors” option is enabled. I suggest yellow. As it stands part of the minion Reaper’s mechanic is simply making it difficult for a player to call how many of the opposing team are on point. Yes, I know Mesmers sort of do the same thing, but the difference is Mesmer’s redundancy is easy to spot the decoy. So I don’t think mesmers should be impacted.
- The PvP meta has been reduced to all Elite Specialization builds. PvP Meta is the result of community voting and observation of pro team play.The bottom line is PvP is now all about the Elite Specializations and many are crying that PvP is now “pay to win” in that HoT is a pre-req to one being able to be competitive. Will also say reducing serious PvP to a half dozen core meta builds is very sad. While it’s so much fun that it won’t send me away, a good many are quitting because Warrior is no longer viable or their old Guardian build is now superseded by a ranged trapper they are expected to play. We didn’t see major balance patch to the core game pvp meta builds which just means the Elite Specializations in meta all are collectively OP over core game meta. This is no surprise as it helps sell HoT, but it is disappointing.
- Remove the ridiculous unbalanced maps from the game. Spirit Watch and Skyhammer are problematic maps due to the mechanics (Namely Skyhammer) these maps are fun for light-hearted play, but can not be taken seriously as they feature mechanics that deviate too much from mechanic of Conquest. The secondary mechanic of Spirit Watch (the better of the two questionable maps) often reduces the game to “death match near orb”. Skyhammer tosses hydro-lifts, “trap doors” and the possibility of being knocked to your death. While I can see the designer of Skyhammer thinking it would be a lot of fun to make the map so busy, the problem is all the additional mechanics going on deflate too much from Conquest. For consistency sake it is a horrible map with unforgivable design that will never see ranked play. For unranked rotation, Courtyard should be brought back in as a check box option like Stronghold but make the Courtyard checkbox label “Deathmatch”. Remove skyhammer from rotation, add Courtyard (when checked)
- Revamp the Heart of the Mist. Give us an area to duel with PvP builds (GH arena allows duels with PvE gear so it doesn’t compete), Include ability to fight your doppleganger, re-introduce Heros Ascent
- We need guild team leaderboards by division. Would like to see where we place inside our respective league division. This is not only a reasonable thing for the community to request, in a big way Leagues make no sense without this feature. We all want to know where we stand. You say “but wait Leagues patch isn’t even available yet”. True, but it’s clear where priority level of PvP stands with ArenaNet. Recent Guild Chat video on this subject even implied the Guild Team leaderboard feature (across all divisions) has been scrapped. If that’s true don’t even bother releasing Leagues. We must have division level break down to make progression fun. If this isn’t coming, please hire someone for PvP side of development that understands the basics of competitive sports and the psychology behind what draws fans and competitive players in. It’s clear there has been a disconnect.
- Provide season end league division tournaments for top three tiers below Legendary (since Legendary tier top teams advance to Guild Challenge league they don’t need a tournament, theirs is the BIG one). If this is too much work, consider providing ANet sponsored tournament for top eight guild teams in League division right below Legendary.
Thanks all
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)