Hello all!
First of all, I want to say it’s been interesting reading the sPvP forum for the last month or so. To be honest, I havent logged in in a month or so purely because I lost interest and I wanted to chime in on the solo que debate.
I have a link here, its a bit old, but is a dev post from Arena Net specifically from Evan Leash. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/SPvP-mode-question/first#post1172235
This post isnt exactly interesting, what is interesting is that Evan has obviously heard of Smite and this post was the reason I stopped logging into GW2. This post directed me to a game I am currently playing. Some of you might have heard about it, if you have, thats great. If you havent, then maybe you might learn something from this.
Gameplay differences aside, this game has some excellent systems working in the background and like GW2, is probably on par population wise (it’s still in open beta, expect the population to boom at release though).
I would love for Arena-net to consider the queing and segregation system from Smite. How it works is that you have ranked and unranked games or termed “Casual and Competitive”. The casual options include the standard conquest que (lets assume this is the que for GW2’s conquest mode). This que system, and all like it are on a timer of sorts. Every 4 minutes the que pops and it places all players that are que’d into a match. This is such a good way to do it IMO because it allows the most players to be in the matchmaking pool at the time of matchmaking instead of a “first in first served” system where its very possible to que into the same people all day long.
The “casual” que does the same matchmaking algorithm’s that Arena net is currently considering for thier ranked system. If you que solo, it tries to match solo players with you on both your team and enemy teams. Same for duo, trio and above players. It attempts to match them with likeminded premade groups.
The competitive scene is a bit different. The game mode is on a 10 minute timer, but Smite games are a bit longer so its possible that Arena Net could bring that timer down to 5 minutes and adjust as appropriate. The “Conquest” has 2 ways of queing, “Solo” and “Team”. There are seperate ladders for both. I know I am just repeating what has been mentioned already by plenty of you, but this system really works well, especially with the set times for matchmaking. Sure, some players may miss out at the matchmaking, but the system makes you a priority to match in the next matchmaking.
You could easily substitute the Hotjoin system for the Casual que, and Paid system for the Competitive que. With ladders for both Solo players and Team players, its a great way to find teams, and top solo players alike. Smite also has a “Custom” feature for Jousting (1v1, which isnt really applicable for GW2 unless it was to become a casual dueling feature) and also custom team games. You simply que as a team, then invite another team and both teams start a game and bob’s ya uncle, skirmishes donw. If these type of systems were brought in, and accessible from the UI without having to be in the Mists (like, solo queing and doing WvW or PvE etc whilst in the 10 min wait time) then it would be much more accessible for everyone.
You can already que into a WvW area from anywhere in the game, so the tech is there Arena-net. You have it in your hot little hands. This wouldnt split the playerbase, this would increase it exponentially.
On a last note, I do think the competitive que could accommodate upto a maximum of Duo queing in addition to the Solo que.
Monetization can come from Skins, glory boosters etc.
Ive attached screenis of what I’m talking about. I really, really like GW2 and want to play it again. But until I can play with little to no fuss and be competitive with a ladder without having to wait for 5 people to be online all the time, or que solo into a premade like you do now, I will stick to Smite. I would love to see what a big developer like A-net could do with a system like this and expand on it.
Thoughts.
