Hello everyone,
I’m pretty new to GW2 and tried sPvP only a few rounds. And actually, I have almost no incentive to continue playing it except having fun for a short time like playing Minesweeper, but not to invest time to really improbe skills and so on.
In the past I played games like CS, WC3, LoL, GW1. All of them are/were pretty successful in Esports. So I was thinking about it and I came to some thoughts and ideas which I want to share and get some feedback.
First of all, I read through some threads and the roadmap for the development of GW2 (especially PvP). In my opinion, the development goes in a wrong direction, because it is focusing too much on rewards and stuff. But to be honest? The games I mentioned above had barely rewards, but still they were incredebly successfull.
So what I think, which made the games successful in the Esports scene, is that they promoted top teams/players/guilds a lot through tournaments or leagues. I think, every Esport (and normal sport) need stars, where beginner or just casual player admire such high level plays and try to copy. And on the other hand, if there are such promotions, many player also try to be a top player, because a simple reason…. You can show that you are a “great” player. It is all about fame…
I have read that Anet is trying to implement the league system like in LoL or SC2, and I think this is a great step. But to continue this, Anet show build a really good observer mode like in GW1, where all people can watch the top league teams playing against each other. I remember times, where I watched in GW1 teams like War Machine or The Last Pride for hours. And so did a lot of other people. I think, for top player it is rewarding enough, if thousands other player watch you playing instead of getting just some gold and other loot….
Another point are the Queue Modes. So far, there are Hotjoins, SoloQ and TeamQ.
Hotjoins: Please kick it out. Better do unranked 5vs5 matches to practise for the ranked matches. ANd then give people the ability to create custom games. So all in all, same like in LoL
SoloQ/TeamQ: I would rather split it up in Solo/Team-Queue (one mode) and kind of Guild-Queue. The first mode should be done same as in LoL. So teams get mixed up by Solo-players and team-players, but the opponent should be matched in the same way. So if one team has 3 solo-players and 2 team players, the opponent should be mixed up the same. For Guild-Queues my idea is just that GW2 is a MMO, and people are much more related to their guilds. This would incent people to create more and better PvP-Guilds trying to going up the ladders for fame. And similar to GW1, the observer-mode should definetely show the games of top 50 or top 100 guilds.
These are just my thoughts about the competitive part of GW2. I know, GW2 needs also better PvP-Modes, but I can understand that this takes much more time. I think, my ideas are faster to implement and at least a step in a more competitive community. I think there are a huge amount of gamers waiting for a competitive PvP-mode in a MMO style. So this goes hand in hand with the revenues, which NCSoft seeks for. An idea to increase earnings in PvP is maybe to do PvP-only skins, which you can buy for real money (for a reasonable price like 5€ per weapon or 8€ per armor set). I think, many people would buy some skins, if the PvP community is big and professional enough. And last but not least, do more frequently but smaller balance fixes. Look at other games like Low, how they do this
What do you think about it? I really like the mechanics of GW2 because it is more focused on skill and I would love if GW2 gets more attention by the Esports scene.
I hope for some feedback.