Guild Wars 2

This isn’t going to be an extra long post but just wanted to lay out a couple clear reasons why I believe Anet is struggling in the Esport scene

1. No “big plays”

Do a search for “guild wars 2 pvp big (or best) plays” and see what comes up. Not a whole lot. I think only one person has made a “best plays” series on GW2 and most of the submissions are not even structured pvp.

The fault lay in the mechanics of combat and how the game revolves around spammable skills that rarely ever feel make an impact on the fight.

Possible Solutions:

- Create more non-targetable projectile skills. Allow players to determine whether their attack actually hit the opponent or not. Players (and viewers) need to see real accuracy and timing being important making those instances a more rewarding experience.

- Create more threatening Elite skills. Aside from maybe lich form and moa, there are not real threatening elites that I can think of that could completely change the outcome of a fight.

- Add more counter-play. Aside from dodges and the occasional active defense such as blocking, invuln or stealth, there are no real instances where a player can actively out-play another enemy; it usually is determined by build.

2. Too much passive play

Minions, turrets, random aegis, piling on conditions, stealth; all these things in excess.

Possible Solutions:

- see above.

- Reduce the duration of conditions and increase their effectiveness.

- Make turrets and minions more responsive to the owners actions.

That’s all I got really. Just let me know what ya think.

Next you are going to tell me water is wet? Very few think guild wars 2 is currently an esport, it could be, but few or none think it is.

TheDevice.2751:

1. No “big plays”

Do a search for “guild wars 2 pvp big (or best) plays” and see what comes up. Not a whole lot.

But Esports Rocket!!!

I agree on this and also, supply crate is an elite that will chance the outcome of a fight. Despite that, it doesnt feel very active. (Neither does moa or lich form). None of the elites (that i can think of) have a “wow” factor such as a precice skillshot that does incredible damage.

I think it’s an esport in its infancy. Whether it emerges or fails to become a full fledged #esport really depends on whether or not if there’s a massive influx of players via the expansion coming into the spvp scene and making it truly competitive.

The gameplay itself has its own “big plays” as you call it already. Look at some of the portaling top tier mesmers do in the ESLs or how team fights can turn around quickly.

I think the bigger issue is that fighting is happening non-stop, so the drama of an impending engagement is missing and the outcome is more fluid than discrete. One person will go down, someone else will stay up for a while, the person might come back, help might arrive, and it never feels like there’s a break in the action.

Sure there can be big plays and turn-arounds and what-have-you, but I really feel they need other objectives and time for players to not just be slamming against each other. There needs to be down time, so when a clash happens, it’s more exciting. You can watch it develop, then watch it resolve.

Skirmishes aren’t a bad thing, and smaller engagements happening over smaller objectives can still be exciting. I just never really feel a sense of any drama when watching GW2, so as much as I like the game, it doesn’t spectate as well as something like DotA.

And really, if you want to be an eSport, spectate-ability should be big on the list. Usually if I watch a streamer, I watch a WvW roamer, because there’s time between fights that make the fights feel more interesting/important.

I don’t really think the game needs more high-impact moves considering dodging is a thing. I think the game mode more than anything is going to dictate how conducive the game will be to watching.

Going to somewhat disagree with #1. Big plays create excitement, but they don’t always have to happen. Watching a match between closely skilled teams is pretty exciting. A lot of the big swings in momentum are at the map level and reflect whether key fights were won or lost – not necessarily how. If Temple of the Silent Storm was used more often (apparently there’s a bug), it would have a bit more excitement since the buffs break up plays.

On #2, it would be better for players, but has no effect on viewers. When you watch a GW2 PvP match, it’s hard to tell when a player used a single big skill let alone set up a powerful chain of skills.

The biggest detractor for competitive GW2 PvP is lack of a large player base. That has a myriad of reasons, such as:

• Lack of infrastructure (working leaderboard, limited spectator mode)
• PvP didn’t feel rewarding initially
• Slow to balance, especially for a new game where balance issues abound.
• New players easily frustrated when overwhelmed.

Other games get far more viewers simply because there’s a larger player base.

These aren’t the reasons why the game isn’t an esport lol. Its not a gameplay issue its COMPLETELY on Arenanet. They balance every 6 months, they release pvp content every 6 months, they don’t get rid of bad content such as the new LB, most of the devs don’t seem to even care about the game, esports….LOL

This game is not an esport because of game play. Period.
There are more things wrong with what arena net did to GW2 than right, you can make a huge list of everything they did to mess up their possibility of making anything other than a casual friendly game. The list of things they did right.. I can’t really thing of any off the top of my head.

The complexity of this game is not high. Don’t think for a second the problem is people can’t get into it. People simply aren’t motivated to get into it. I tried playing the other day after not having played since release. Had no idea what my skills did. Got kitten D twice, then after that I killed everyone who came to my point. This is NOT a complex game. It may LOOK complex due to a large number or particles, but the game play is far from it. In fact, I would argue the lack in skill cap is a larger detriment to it’s success.

Other games such as LoL and truely competitive games have a huge skill cap, so I always feel like I have room to improve. In GW2, I recall feeling as if i pretty well mastered my class within the 3 or 4 weeks that I played it. Having situations where the game is simply, ‘easy’ implies there lacks depth. When there lacks depth, you lose sight of any big play because well frankly, such a thing can’t exist if there isn’t anything hard to do mechanically in the game.

You also have to keep in mind the gamemode selected hurt them dramatically. Conquest cannot and will not ever be a competitive format in any game that should be revolving around heavy teamplay. It does not support a game evolution, and that evolution is what makes things fun to watch. For a matter of fact, the fact that they expect stronghold to only take 15 minutes is a HUGE negative since this is hardly enough time for the game to evolve and create drama that would make it compelling to watch or play. Anet consistently had this problem in GW1 as well where they kept thinking shorter games are what everyone wants. It’s true, we don’t want 1.5 hour long games… but really.. 15 minutes?

Oh, and passive effects are not really a detriment IF there are ways to stop them. One of the gems of GW1 was the complex layers of defense that needed to be, ‘cracked’ before you could kill a player on the enemy team. It was a fantastic concept where the concept of fighting each other wasn’t about blowing someone up in a skirmish, but working together to create and then take advantage of kitten in their heavy amount of both passive and active defenses. Passive defenses are good, so long they can be stopped. [Although, I will agree that passive damage is primarily stupid in most cases when its THE only source of damage – GW1 these types of things only server as a means of pressure, generally not the killer in its own right until Anet messed up and ruined the game.]

SobeSoul.6910:

I think it’s an esport in its infancy. Whether it emerges or fails to become a full fledged #esport really depends on whether or not if there’s a massive influx of players via the expansion coming into the spvp scene and making it truly competitive.

The gameplay itself has its own “big plays” as you call it already. Look at some of the portaling top tier mesmers do in the ESLs or how team fights can turn around quickly.

This is very true. I watched the EU WTS qualifications, and TCG made some of the more amazing moves I have ever seen in GW2. Helseth is an excellent chess player IRL, and you can tell by how he uses his portal to brutally put pressure on the other side of the battleground to shake an apparently desperate situation, much like how Capablanca plays chess. Unfortunately, particularly in NA, most teams prefer to play safer tactics.

Has Arenanet ever said they wanted to make GW2 Esports?

can’t they simply be attempting to glamorize (if only for brief moments) the competitive aspect of their game? I mean , they spend lots of time on the PVE aspect and story, too. It’s not like LoL where there’s a little splash screen lore and the whole game is pvp.

maybe they’re just proud of their PVP aspect and want to make it appealing to serious gamers.

I keep hearing this term thrown around without any confirmation that Anet actually wanted their game, at its peak, to be a pvp oriented, tournament-worthy, highly-competitive marketable sport-within-a-game.

They did say at multiple times before launch that their GOAL was esport. The keyword that everybody loves to ignore is GOAL, it doesn’t mean the same was “it is going to happen” only that it was a GOAL. Also people don’t like to admit that due to circumstance GOALS do change.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Has Arenanet ever said they wanted to make GW2 Esports?

can’t they simply be attempting to glamorize (if only for brief moments) the competitive aspect of their game? I mean , they spend lots of time on the PVE aspect and story, too. It’s not like LoL where there’s a little splash screen lore and the whole game is pvp.

maybe they’re just proud of their PVP aspect and want to make it appealing to serious gamers.

I keep hearing this term thrown around without any confirmation that Anet actually wanted their game, at its peak, to be a pvp oriented, tournament-worthy, highly-competitive marketable sport-within-a-game.

I don’t remmember ever seeing anet using the word e-sport in the website or forums. Normally they say “competitive”. I personally think the game should stay as far as possible from the moba esport thing. This game is an mmorpg.

sooo basicaly if i read the OP right he want to make this games PvP like league of legends….

HELL NO.

IMO conquest does not lend itself well to spectators. The fact that it is happening on 3 parts of the map, and that you can be winning whilst not actually doing anything does not make for a good spectacle.

Stronghold might change this dramatically, it just needs its own queue.

Sube Dai.8496:

IMO conquest does not lend itself well to spectators. The fact that it is happening on 3 parts of the map, and that you can be winning whilst not actually doing anything does not make for a good spectacle.

Stronghold might change this dramatically, it just needs its own queue.

I agree, conquest was always the bottleneck for spvp. Not that it is a bad mode perse, it just feels that conquest lacks something that i cannot point my finger on. I mean the gameplay in gw2 is amazing and ,while not perfect, the balance is okish yet spvp is not that popular.

OP is completely off.

It isn’t Esports because we don’t have 2v2, 3v3 matchmaking, an in game ESL Tournament, a working leaderboard, game replays, videos from Anet about certain PvP aspects like Stillness, roaming strategies, etc for beginners to see..
And finally, there’s no commentators after Tournaments. I’d like to see what kind of strategies top teams used to win their games. There hasn’t been a single highlight video showing this.

This game isn’t Esports because the PvP system is a simple byproduct of their beautiful PvE world.

Saiyan.1704:

OP is completely off.

It isn’t Esports because we don’t have 2v2, 3v3 matchmaking, an in game ESL Tournament, a working leaderboard, game replays, videos from Anet about certain PvP aspects like Stillness, roaming strategies, etc for beginners to see..
And finally, there’s no commentators after Tournaments. I’d like to see what kind of strategies top teams used to win their games. There hasn’t been a single highlight video showing this.

This game isn’t Esports because the PvP system is a simple byproduct of their beautiful PvE world.

Beautifully said. Other games like LoL have this easily, and the biggest difference between E-sport games and GW2 is that most other E-Sport games don’t have a PvE world attached to it. League, DOTA, and Starcraft don’t have a PvE world with raids/gear/etc. sure SC has a storyline but that’s different than having a full world to roam around in. Don’t get me wrong, GW2’s world is gorgeous, but partionimg attention in two directions isn’t as efficient at all.

Others have said it and I agree, we need a completely seperate game. No more of this shared business. They’re already on the right track with how much they’ve already split, but they need to just cut the dragon slaying umbilical cord for good if they want a successful E-sports game.

Diage.6451:

Other games such as LoL and truely competitive games have a huge skill cap, so I always feel like I have room to improve. In GW2, I recall feeling as if i pretty well mastered my class within the 3 or 4 weeks that I played it. Having situations where the game is simply, ‘easy’ implies there lacks depth. When there lacks depth, you lose sight of any big play because well frankly, such a thing can’t exist if there isn’t anything hard to do mechanically in the game.

I notice a huge difference between a bad and good player almost instantly, this game has the highest skill cap of any PVP MMO.

Saiyan.1704:

This game isn’t Esports because the PvP system is a simple byproduct of their beautiful PvE world.

I wouldn’t say it’s a byproduct. They were both originally intended to be important. WvW as well. PvP needs less attention than PvE, but it still didn’t get enough.

If we can all agree it’s not an esport can we Please start revolving the balance around PvE then. It’s the most played of the formats. At some point can we please get skill splits for the formats or stop balancing skills around capture point circles on the ground in a game that even the community doesn’t even think is an esport?

It’s either that or can we get a shifting meta that happens more than once a year? I would love to have GW2 be a game that changed things up every few months to keep it fresh.

It’s awful.

Thief gameplay is esport… other prefessions… mhmhmh no. xd

Gabelstabler.6905:

Thief gameplay is esport… other prefessions… mhmhmh no. xd

What? Did you watch Helseth play his mesmer? He’s a kitten jumping puzzle master! But sure, condi ranger and shout bow warrior are not exactly skill-based builds. Elementalists and engineers have more room to progress, but still. Necro requires skill in positioning I think, but I don’t play the profession so I wouldn’t know.

Saiyan.1704:

This game isn’t Esports because the PvP system is a simple byproduct of their beautiful PvE world.

Not really, it is more the other way round, PvE in this game is broken, because the combat/classes were designed and balanced around PvP and their “e-sport” dream, so in PvE mechanics like condition damage are useless, stacking in a spot is often the strongest tactic which totally goes against a game that is supposed to be movement heavy, generally a huge imbance between melee &range and so on.

This game isn’t e-sports for many reasons, it is painful to watch with all the particle effects, AI, etc, the playerbase is never going to be there because as a casual PvP format is it the least enjoyable I have ever played, in fact not just ‘casual’, as anything short of queuing with a pre-made it is simply the least fun, they only balance every 6+ months which is made worse by how cheesy the game is, and so on.

zinkz.7045:

Saiyan.1704:

This game isn’t Esports because the PvP system is a simple byproduct of their beautiful PvE world.

Not really, it is more the other way round, PvE in this game is broken, because the combat/classes were designed and balanced around PvP and their “e-sport” dream, so in PvE mechanics like condition damage are useless, stacking in a spot is often the strongest tactic which totally goes against a game that is supposed to be movement heavy, generally a huge imbance between melee &range and so on.

This game isn’t e-sports for many reasons, it is painful to watch with all the particle effects, AI, etc, the playerbase is never going to be there because as a casual PvP format is it the least enjoyable I have ever played, in fact not just ‘casual’, as anything short of queuing with a pre-made it is simply the least fun, they only balance every 6+ months which is made worse by how cheesy the game is, and so on.

Hmm.

I don’t think I agree with you on any of your reasons for why GW2 is not esports.

I don’t think it’s as convoluted as people are making it seem; There’s all this work being put into the PVE world and its lore. Saying that all that work is just to draw attention to PVP seems like putting the cart before the horse in this instance.

Even if there are changes made around pvp. It’s not like a slight damage reduction here and a mechanic change there makes PVE substantially different.