Guild Wars 2

I’m just touching on one issue that I think prevents GW2 from being taken seriously as a competitive game in the eSports world.

I don’t understand why sPVP locks players into one class per character.

Other popular eSports allows for players to choose different loadouts/heros/classes prior to the start and sometimes during a match depending on what is needed and based on what the opponent is doing. I understand you can do this by logging in another character but I just don’t think that’s the best UX for an eSport.

I feel like match making could be more dynamic is lineups were chosen based on which teams were facing which teams. Dota even allows teams to ban heros based on how well the team they’re facing plays that hero. Obviously the lack of classes in GW2 compared to heros in Dota would make this difficult but I just feel like locking players into 1 class in sPVP is limiting.

If this sPVP in GW2 is going to become an “esport” then all aspects of it need to be competitive not just the game play. Team lineup, class composition, itemization and spec should all be something players have the opportunity to choose during competitive play. It can’t just be bunker to 500 and win.

There’s no drama in that and if Arenanet wants 50,000 – 100,000 viewers on Twitch then they need to figure out how to make the spectator game more dramatic and all aspects of the game competitive.

What? This is Spvp you’re talking about right?

Everyone gets access to at least 5 of the classes (at max level) available with the same gear as everyone else. People can also retrait and get a new build going in a few minutes in sPvP. You are not restricted to one class. Changing to a different class simply requires you to go to character select.

I think GW2 has many problems in becoming a Esport but I don’t really think this is one of them. Not as much choice as Dota or LoL but the each class offers a few differents specs to play.

(P.S I wasn’t entirely sure what you meant by one class per character so if you meant something else sorry about the misunderstanding)

Yes but you have to log in and out and it’s not chosen on the fly, which does not make for exciting spectating. Watching a guy log out and log in to a new character is boring from a spectator’s point of view. The current system doesn’t even allow for the diversity of TF2 which allows for class switching after death.

And yes you can retrait a new build and it does take a few minutes which is entirely too long for an audience to sit through. People aren’t and don’t sit through a guy changing traits between matches. It’s boring.

Why not offer loadouts for each class? Why not allow a person to go Guardian one match and offer the ability to quickly switch to Necromancer the next round? What exactly are the benefits of a more restrictive system, especially from an audience perspective?

I support this kind of thread. (y) lol

But really, it would be nice to have kind of a generic class-chosing preroll before tournaments.
Just throwing it out tho, I think its something that REALLY deserves a LOT of thought before implementing.
More than just balance, this is good out of the box thinking.

If you really believe thats the problem, then you should perhaps try playing a bit more sPvP :P

The game has some serious problems when it comes to balance.
If you allow people to have like 3 different loadouts out of these 5~8 viable builds that are ingame, does not magically make the game more fun to watch.
Games like LoL and Dota live because there so many possible starting combination of champions. When you watch something like this, you want to know how each side uses the strength and compensates for the weaknesses, and how well they do this.
In GW2 there is just a handfull of combinations which are viable.

What we need is that there is basically no useless trait ingame, and alot of these traits must be gameplay defining.
Like Grenadier defines a complete opposite playstyle from a juggernaut engi.
And all them should be viable.

From this. we are years away in my opinion, unless they completely reword every class once the expansions arrive. (which don’t seem to arrive anytime soon either)

Varonth.5830:

If you really believe thats the problem, then you should perhaps try playing a bit more sPvP :P

What? I never said it was the only problem. It’s a fairly significant problem because a game’s watchability will determine viewers and if a game is going to be an eSport, it needs viewers.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Obviously balance issues are hindering the games playability but that issues is being beaten into the ground by the players. I’m talking from a viewer perspective which both issues are not mutually exclusive.

russia.9057:

Varonth.5830:

If you really believe thats the problem, then you should perhaps try playing a bit more sPvP :P

What? I never said it was the only problem. It’s a fairly significant problem because a game’s watchability will determine viewers and if a game is going to be an eSport, it needs viewers.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Obviously balance issues are hindering the games playability but that issues is being beaten into the ground by the players. I’m talking from a viewer perspective which both issues are not mutually exclusive.

How is this at all an issue let along a significant one? GW as a game is ment to allow players to select what they want to play as with little restriction where games like LOL limit what avatar you can play as. Because of this there is no need for some overlay screen about character selection.

Beyond that, if you are watching a cast you will not see these players relog characters. If you really somehow need a pregame view of what people are playing as a caster can easily put up their own overlay and display what classes people have locked into playing. However, this is really not the point of GW2 play so really there is no need.

Significant problem… thats hilarious.

I support this thread. This game strives to be an esport but lacks the features to become one. And judging from the amount of comments in this thread there seems to be a lack of interest from people wanting this to become an esport let alone the fact there is a general lack of interest in spvp.

Dota and LoL are successful esports that revolve around locked team compositions and team builds rather than “loadouts”.

But currently there are just many fundamental problems with the game that discourage it from becoming an esport.

Varonth.5830:

What we need is that there is basically no useless trait ingame, and alot of these traits must be gameplay defining.
Like Grenadier defines a complete opposite playstyle from a juggernaut engi.
And all them should be viable.

IF Anet was good at balancing… having gameplay defining traits would be fine… it involves a good deal of forsight and knowledge of the game since you are balancing utilities allong with traits and weapons, in a game where specs innately need answers to conditions and CC.
But they are terrible at it…

Vigor is still a flat nigh impossible to deal with 100% endurance regen bump, and look at all the high->constant low tier vigor traits floating around in a game dominated by spike dmg…

They still have condition removals remove from any kind of condition… it makes those minor conditions like vulnerability stacks, weakness, cripple mainly just cover conditions as they are impossible to rely on since get eaten up by the mass condition removal necessary to deal with bleed/burn/poison/confuse/imob setup specs.

There is pretty commonly, at least in most classes, ONE traitline that gives wonderful better than utility cleansing threw a trait or two... and next to every top tier setup that aims at anything longer than a few seconds in the thick of combat NEEDS it.

Arenat still hasn’t dealt with conquest!!!
They have lost 90~% of their population because of their pug setup (bad matchmaking, zerging, conquest), a large deal because of this one map choice and yet Anet still feels like the game is better off with ONLY this exact same capture point scheme (staggered close/mid/far) and the problem with the map only lies with the offpoint gimmicks…
GDI.

Even their main ‘esport’ related features that were delayed a dozen times longer than they should have been are of terrible quality, mediocre at best.
I would expect as much if not more from a fresh out of college grad being paid 15$ an hour.

The MMO market was just ready to throw a massive population at these guys but they didn’t seem to notice that over their hardcore at compiling a guidebook on how best to make an MMO be massively known for just how hard it failed…

I don’t understand why everyone wants this game to be like LoL or Dota.

Spectator mode just looks like an FPS point of view when it should be panned out so that the whole map can be seen. This is GW2 which is suppose to be a sequel to GW1 where large scale matches should be bird’s eye view.

Custom arenas just made things more complicated with server owners making up their own verbal rules even though the maps are the same conquest maps (e.g. “No capping points”). I don’t know what to make of all the changes, but I feel we’re not heading in the right direction with the competitive structure of this game.

SuperHaze.4210:

I don’t understand why everyone wants this game to be like LoL or Dota.

Spectator mode just looks like an FPS point of view when it should be panned out so that the whole map can be seen. This is GW2 which is suppose to be a sequel to GW1 where large scale matches should be bird’s eye view.

Custom arenas just made things more complicated with server owners making up their own verbal rules even though the maps are the same conquest maps (e.g. “No capping points”). I don’t know what to make of all the changes, but I feel we’re not heading in the right direction with the competitive structure of this game.

Arenas do not have the full set of features that they will have when they exit beta. And if you think the addition of custom arenas and spectator… even in their current limited state… is not heading in the right directions for a competitive game, then I couldnt possibly guess what you think a competitive structure is.

They should focus on working on the basics of balance and getting a more efficient match making and ranking set up. Then try and push any notion of it being an “esport”.

Fenrir.3609:

They should focus on working on the basics of balance and getting a more efficient match making and ranking set up. Then try and push any notion of it being an “esport”.

So the exact thing they said they were going to do, and then everyone threw their arms up and said “Custom arenas and spectator or no ESports”.

Come on community, make up your mind on priorities.

Would be interesting if you could switch between classes without relogging and between let’s say 3 different builds each class. They also should make it that you can play every class even if you have only 5 char slots(and let you create 3 other chars for the other classes but only let them access the Mists and if you want to play PvE or WvW you would need to pay and upgrade the char slot).

sPvP needs to be free or very cheap and the money needs to come from advertising and stuff and getting more attention to the game(and maybe then players that want to try PvE part and buy style items from the gem store).

I think it would help especially in random tournaments a lot if you could switch between classes and builds… if you are good at playing different classes and builds and you play class A and have already too many other players playing class A(which are not good at playing other classes and want to stay class A) then you could switch.

Of course premades won’t have that problem. But premades are only a small part of the playerbase.

Or are the millions of players in other games like LoL all playing as premade teams? I’m sure most is random.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Fenrir.3609:

They should focus on working on the basics of balance and getting a more efficient match making and ranking set up. Then try and push any notion of it being an “esport”.

So the exact thing they said they were going to do, and then everyone threw their arms up and said “Custom arenas and spectator or no ESports”.

Come on community, make up your mind on priorities.

Well in fairness I’m not speaking for “the community” :p

Personally I can’t quite understand why anyone would prioritize watching spvp combat over and above actually making that spvp combat good.

Parisalchuk.9230:

SuperHaze.4210:

I don’t understand why everyone wants this game to be like LoL or Dota.

Spectator mode just looks like an FPS point of view when it should be panned out so that the whole map can be seen. This is GW2 which is suppose to be a sequel to GW1 where large scale matches should be bird’s eye view.

Custom arenas just made things more complicated with server owners making up their own verbal rules even though the maps are the same conquest maps (e.g. “No capping points”). I don’t know what to make of all the changes, but I feel we’re not heading in the right direction with the competitive structure of this game.

Arenas do not have the full set of features that they will have when they exit beta. And if you think the addition of custom arenas and spectator… even in their current limited state… is not heading in the right directions for a competitive game, then I couldnt possibly guess what you think a competitive structure is.

I’m not saying that an esport game doesn’t need spectator mode and custom maps. The way these features were implemented I feel are wrong. Spectating should be done the same way a sports game is watched, which is from a bird’s eye view. In relation to LoL and Dota, matches may have 5 players on each side, but when you add in minions, npc’s, and towers, it becomes something like a giant chess match. People have been asking for GvG as do myself because that can be watched similarly to LoL and Dota, but instead of minions, you can have more players. Throw in some walls, lords, maybe a flag, and you have a full on game of chess where decisions of priority need to be made for the entire team in order to win the match.

Luthan.5236:

sPvP needs to be free or very cheap and the money needs to come from advertising and stuff and getting more attention to the game(and maybe then players that want to try PvE part and buy style items from the gem store).

Of course premades won’t have that problem. But premades are only a small part of the playerbase.

Or are the millions of players in other games like LoL all playing as premade teams? I’m sure most is random.

This ^^^

1. Solo Que
2. Balance
3. Allow warriors to play competitive tPvP (i think we need to nerf other professions not to buff warrior in order to slow down game).
4. F2P HOTM

Interesting complaint. However the game doesn’t have any of the founding principles that a competitive environment is built on. So this problem isn’t really a legitimate issue.

Complaining about something that “hurts spectating” in GW2 – is like looking at short, hairy, fat ugly woman and complaining about the color of her choice of clothing.

This game has much deeper and serious issues right now.

orfeoulis.4325:

Interesting complaint, however the game is doesn’t have any of the founding principles that a competitive environment is build on.

So complaining about something that “hurts spectating” is like looking at short, hairy, fat ugly woman and complaining about the color of her choice of clothing.

Some people currently enjoy watching GW2 in the state that its in? I was watching BLU’s shout casts the past 2 days where he reached 300+ and 180+ viewers. Obviously Im not alone.

That short, hairy, fat ugly woman starts to look awfully nice when she is the only woman around.

Parisalchuk.9230:

orfeoulis.4325:

Interesting complaint, however the game is doesn’t have any of the founding principles that a competitive environment is build on.

So complaining about something that “hurts spectating” is like looking at short, hairy, fat ugly woman and complaining about the color of her choice of clothing.

Some people currently enjoy watching GW2 in the state that its in? I was watching BLU’s shout casts the past 2 days where he reached 300+ and 180+ viewers. Obviously Im not alone.

That short, hairy, fat ugly woman starts to look awfully nice when she is the only woman around.

Rofl, nice reply.
I watched Blu’s cast too and I really liked it. I’m just worried that it won’t last and that the “custom arena pvp patch hype will fade”. And to be honest, I don’t think it brought back pvpers who’ve left the game. It’s just the thirsty die-hard fans and remnants of the sPVP community who will appreciate any bone thrown at them.

I could literally get ten of my friends to come back and play if ladder was introduced. GW2 is one of my favorite games and I want to see it be much more because I know it can