Guild Wars 2

I have been playing since BWE 1. I hardly consider myself pro, but I think anyone playing for as long as I have will begin to notice a trend. I have over a few hundred wins across multiple professions in tournaments, and even more so in hot-join so I consider myself at least knowledgeable. This is by no means a post to bash the game, or even a complaint. I am simply posting my observations and I ask you to do the same. Tl;dr version at the bottom.

First, there is absolutely no incentive to pvp at all. Sure all the people who consider themselves to be “pro” are going at it, but with only the grindfest ranking in place, people will feel demoralized once they see the numbers rank 39+. While the blog post will be coming eventually, for now all we have is the hope that some sort of rankings will be implemented in the near future. Where is the competitive spirit?

Second, the point system. On my thief, I can hit someone once and receive the full 15 points, even if they are downed and about to be stomped. On my ele, I can hold off 3 people for a minute on any node we have and end up with 0 points. I know a solution is hard to come by, but currently there is no incentive to play any sort of defensive builds. This is commonly seen in hot-join where 95% play glass cannons.

Third, amount of bugs. I know it’s only been a month after launch, and the pve content is the main priority. But, tournaments are also becoming unplayable. The amount of teams using exploits are becoming ridiculous, especially on Foefire. I lost every match on Foefire the past day, being honorable doesn’t cut it anymore. And before you say “If your team was better, you would have won anyways” it is simply not true. When a team has a node before you even get there, you are at a huge disadvantage when all it takes is 1 guardian to keep everyone alive.

Fourth, skill level. I have played all professions, some more than most. But, the amount of effort some professions take is astounding. I can react 3 seconds slower on a guardian and still perform great. I can instagib someone as a thief pressing 4 buttons. I can kill someone as a mesmer just by summoning illusions and running around like a headless chicken.

Someone can perform almost equally with the press of 4 buttons. Think about it. What can you do better than the person standing beside you with the exact same build? Not enough to make a difference. This is a casual friendly game, with nothing to improve on as an individual. Teamwork is essential, but I would love to see some improvements to the individual skill level.

Don’t get me wrong, Guild Wars 2 is a great game. But university is upon me, and I must do what is necessary. After playing over 350 hours of pvp, I will now focus on school. After all, I can come back 3 months later and look up a build to play just as well as I do now. In Dota, the heroes are easy to play, but hard to master. In Guild Wars 2, there is no need to master anything since everything is handed to you on a silver platter. Except for crystals and slivers.

Oh and I have to say congrats for the sticky on thieves.

tl;dr
1. No incentive to pvp other than the grindfest ranking system.
2. The point system rewards glass cannons more than defensive ones.
3. Too many exploiters nowadays even in tournaments.
4. Skill level for an individual is unnecessary and only teamwork counts.

i have read only TL;DR, but…
1) yes, but you need to keep in mind that they are working on raking system, this state of SPVP isnt final
2) absolutely yes, but in tournaments its compensated a bit through win rewards at least
3) didnt noticed, no comment then
4) i dont agree in this point, both are needed imo… otherwise good player can beat two much worse players even if they play as team

OBJECTION! There is clearly a contradiction with #4 your honor. Players that are much worse cannot play as a team.

I was assuming people at least have a decent understanding of pvp. Not 2 new players that just played their first match against a good player.

I did read the post but disagree with most of it, I’ll just answer the tldr.

1) Having fun, maybe? People enjoy pvp, and some people enjoy team pvp. Some people also want to get better for the pending changes Arena net will be adding. So there’s more than just grindfest. Have fun, you know?

2) I play tpvp/spvp, and it makes no difference what you are as no 2 people sit capping a point.

3) Disagree. If you have a good enough team it doesn’t matter anyway.

4) Individual players can easily carry teams. Also, individual actions can carry teams. Perfect example would be on kylo where a roamer killing a player on treb, then killing enemy treb, taking mansion and coming back to the repaired treb to kill the player again, all whilst your treb has been trebbing away like the happy treb it is.

Hsulf.9370:

I did read the post but disagree with most of it, I’ll just answer the tldr.

1) Having fun, maybe? People enjoy pvp, and some people enjoy team pvp. Some people also want to get better for the pending changes Arena net will be adding. So there’s more than just grindfest. Have fun, you know?

2) I play tpvp/spvp, and it makes no difference what you are as no 2 people sit capping a point.

3) Disagree. If you have a good enough team it doesn’t matter anyway.

4) Individual players can easily carry teams. Also, individual actions can carry teams. Perfect example would be on kylo where a roamer killing a player on treb, then killing enemy treb, taking mansion and coming back to the repaired treb to kill the player again, all whilst your treb has been trebbing away like the happy treb it is.

It’s great getting someone from an established team giving their opinions, as I do understand why your opinion is different from mine. After all, I am just another player that substitutes for my guild whenever they need it.

I am sure there are people in the same boat as I am, as with yours. I may be assuming too much, but you guys have the competitive spirit and are already duking it out with other teams to determine your own rankings. Meanwhile others like myself cannot play our best without any sort of milestone, to tell us where we are and what we need to do to improve. Fun is really subjective. I find having competition fun. What isn’t fun, is facing random pugs and stomping them. What isn’t fun, is when people need to use exploits to gain the edge.

For the sake of argument, let’s say Team Legacy (no offense) exploited on Foefire. I’m assuming heavily that your teams are equally skilled, what would you do?

Wouldn’t that determine on type of exploit? The only ones I’m aware of is the wall jump and the glitch where you start outside the gates before the game starts (which is still in the game and not fixed, happened to our necro last night). What control would TP have if middle is capped before they get there? What control would they have if a mesmer sneaked past, blinked past the gate and dropped his portal? The question doesn’t really lend itself to anything other than play to your best ability and believe in your own team’s strength to be better than your opponents to offset the exploit. i.e. Win back mid, maintain map control to see the people trying to sneak past and react accordingly.

No one likes exploits. On that note, no one from TL etc would bother as most of the guys are streaming/recording and no one wants to see themselves exploiting over the interwebs :P

If people do use dirty stuff then that’s their issue, but any known exploits now will be cleared up come tourny time so there’s not much gain doing it anyway.

That may be true for some people, but the others that play tournaments for fun will be demoralized as soon as the match begins when they see a guardian on mid and their point. Sure it will be fixed eventually, meanwhile people will have to deal with it for possibly another week.

It’s funny how they patched the dragon token exploit almost instantly while leaving ones like this in the game for quite a while.

I remember when I played video games for fun. I still do, but apparently people need to be rewarded to feel like it’s a good use of their time these days. I wonder if this can be tied to any cultural shifts.

Point systems for PvP basically always have holes that min-maxers utilize to get as many points as quickly as possible. Try thinking of ways to fix it, then look at what you did and think of ways to break it. You’ll probably find it’s more difficult than it seems, or bring your ideas here, and I’ll break them for you.

Exploits happen. It took what, a month for exploits to be found and pursued to this degree? Maybe 3 weeks? And that’s with millions of players. Fortunately, free tournaments mean nothing, so the exploits don’t lower your ranking or give anyone any fame or anything. Perhaps that’s why they haven’t released ranked PvP systems, so they could suss out all of these issues. Imagine that.

I’m completely unconvinced that anyone has mastery over his/her class yet. So what if you found something that works now. The way games evolve is the following:

1. One side figures out a way to win, and uses it to win.
2. The other side figures out how to beat that way to win, and uses the counter to win.
3. The original side sees the counter and develops a way to win again.
4. Etc.

I bet if you came back after 3 months, you’d be no better than average. Your ability to operate with a team, your knowledge of all the builds and quirks of all the other classes, and your muscle memory would all be sluggish and behind.

Perhaps one day the community will prove with finality that the game has no depth and is easy to master. I’m unconvinced that is this day. I am, however, convinced that the competitive elements will come together in time, after sufficient bugs and exploits have been ironed out. Until then, play if it’s fun. Wait if you’d rather. You aren’t paying a sub, and you don’t have to worry about a gear grind, so you can do what you want to do.

And please reward me my chests which am not getting from tournaments for the past 5 days

I agree with #4. No matter how good you are, numbers will always outdo skill.

What’s even more depressing: while I’m putting all the effort in the world by switching between toolkits, weapons, different builds, tactics, fiddling with stats etc., some classes just have to hit 2, 2, 2, 2 to win.

I Disagree with you , last night my team played 4v5 the whole tournament and eventually won it , i crashed early on in round 1 and couldnt join back till late r3 , the rest 4 in the group stomped the teams they faced , it was basically no challenge , that’s why i always say gw2 combat is deeper than anyone imagine it’s not about 1,2,3,4 its player brain vs player brain , yeah some classes perform better than other but im sure balance patches will come

nothing is really unkillable the battle couldnt turn upside down all it takes is 1 mistake and good timing on daze/stun/immobilize

the game could be good for esport let’s wait and see though

1. Fun. That should be the prime motivation. I disagree with artificial longevity through endless gear/ rank treadmills.
2. While I cannot disagree that the point system rewards aggressive play more, points should be a by product of fun. I miss the days before games rewarded you for every little thing. Winning is enough in my book.
3. I haven’t noticed an excess.
4. I disagree, as the strength of the team is directly correlated with the individuals within it.

The OP sums ups my feelings about Structured really well.

I would somewhat disagree on point four, as personal skill does very much matter on some classes – but the gap between a bad player on a fotm class and a good player on an “effort” class – at least right now and so far – is much too small.

The other massive problem I have with the game is the amount of visual clutter. We played a 2 Mes / 2 Guards / SB Ranger team today, and while those guys outplayed us with skill as well as with better team comp, team fights were a gigantic clusterkitten. Between six illusions, a ranger pet, two chaos storms and five players, targeting becomes a nightmare. Couple that with the insane amount of NPC damage and presence in PvP – high numbers of “free” automated damage that don’t require any player input.
Asura animations are impossible to read.
Spell effects need a slider.