Guild Wars 2

And the Perception of tPvP

I applaud ANet’s (Chaplan’s especially) recent community-facing posts in addressing current PvP issues in a more upfront manner. PvP is a competitive activity; tensions and emotions can quickly escalate. Simple corrections in the perception of your product/service can avert increasing discontent in the community. Chaplan’s posts especially acknowledged the community voice, identified the points with due effort, and responded about how they are addressing them. Relatively, what he did was a simple fix to the perception of the product.

Below, I wanted to present what my gaming session looks like and list the common frustration points. Then below that, I suggest a few simple fixes that could address these points and imo, help the daily perception of the product.
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My daily gaming tPvP session looks something like this:

- I log on, go to HotM and apply a PvP booster. Many of my friends are not on at the time (or no longer play) and well… meeting players through forums/chat is a hassle and hit&miss. No pre-mades for now.
Hurdle #1: Finding Pre-Made Players

- I jump in YoloQ instead. While waiting, I open up the leaderboards. Hmm… so many of those Spirit Rangers at the top haven’t played since they got nerfed. What’s worse the same 14-3 or 11-2 guys ranked in the top 50.
Minor annoyance #2: Leaderboard Rating Decay

- I’m looking at the leaderboard and half the guys never play or have played under 30 games. How am I supposed to get an accurate perception of my ability from a leaderboard like this? Whatever. Queue pop.
Annoyance #3: Leaderboard Effectiveness and Minimum Games.

- I random’ed Skyhammer. I don’t mind the map, but kitten , I have to switch chars or do the two minute hustle to change my build. I’d actually change builds according to each map, but I usually don’t bother.
Annoyance #4: Build Swap

- I play a few matches but WTH!! A guy on my team left in this match when the score was 80-180. Do meditation and youtube “cute kitten plays piano” to relax.
Major frustration #5: Dishonour and Uneven Matches

- While waiting for next queue pop, I think I’ll make some dyes from the winner chests as it’s my only reward for PvPing. If I want AP, I have to hop outside HotM. My fingers start to go numb from the amount of clicking and I stop.
#6: Simple Easy Rewards

- In the next match, a guy disconnects again. Looking at the Leaderboards, I’ve actually managed to lose some ranking even though I’ve won more matches today. I log off.
#7: More of #5

- I head to the forums so that I may take comfort in the tears of my fellow PvPers. Chaplan has posted some good bandaid threads – a major plus. But how come it seems there’s always only bandaids and no Open Alpha?
#8: Prevention is Less Costly and More Efficient than Bandaids
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By the end of the gaming session, I’m probably a bit frustrated and doubting ANet’s claim towards the tPvP scene. I reckon this cycle describes a good percentage of tPvP’ers.

Let’s quickly address them, with what I think are the easiest and most important on top.

#8: What happened to Open Alpha?
This is one of the most basic tenets and popular concepts in software engineering. We always hear, “we’re planning on giving necros a type of burning next patch” or “we’re going to be shaving the beards of necros next.” How about, “We’re considering adding a trait called Dhuumfire, 100% chance to inflict burning for 4 seconds on critical hits (2 in PvP) that is a GM trait in the Spite line. It’s basically the equivalent of Engineer’s Incendiary Powder as a GM trait. We’ve also provided a sandbox server for you guys to come and test it and give us feedback before we launch it.”

Clearly the focus groups have been hit and miss thus far.

A healthy lifestyle is less expensive than doctor visits. Investing in insulation will save you money compared to utility costs. This is the most cost-efficient, patch time-saving thing you can do for yourself and your players. If it is ANet policy not to reveal, you should go to your bosses and argue with them and show them this post. When software companies don’t do this, it boggles my mind as it is easily one of the most time-effective development resources (and it’s not like you have some IP or content privacy needed here).

#2, #3: Leaderboard Effectiveness, Decay, and Min Games
As is the theme of this entire post, how things are perceived are key. As it is, a player questions the value of the Leaderboard and has to use a fine comb to analyze it. Make decay occur at a faster, accelerating rate and increase the number of Min Games to 30 or higher. Both are fixes that can be done fast and will not affect the base rating algorithm.

…cont

… cont

#5, #7: Dishonour and Uneven Matches
he tPvP scene is for your competitive players and dishonor is the single most frustrating thing in soloQ. My estimate is that 1 in 4 of my tPvP matches involve a person leaving early as a lower bound. A single player is able to leave at the rate of one match per 15 hours. A single disconnection incorrectly affects the rating of 9 players. Consider that for a second and the variance. Are you expecting each player to average over many hundreds of matches so that regression towards the mean kicks in? Make Dishonor penalties harsher and more aggressive at at least 3 penalties, over 1 week.

#6: A Simple Easy Reward
I’d personally be satisfied with rewards if it was just easy to make dyes… seriously. As it is, I can’t even be bothered to make them. This won’t satisfy everyone of course, but I hope the point gets across: there isn’t even a simple and easy reward right now. While we’re waiting for the new, shiny reward system, even money making dyes would appease a large portion of the playerbase.

#1: Finding Players, #4: Build Swap I don’t want to get into these as they get away from the theme of the post. However, I do believe other than gameplay/balancing, these two will tremendously help the growth rate of tPvP.

Ok, my post has gone on for way too long. I’ve purposely left out gameplay issues or larger systems as I think they’re not simple fixes. Although the content isn’t new, I hope I’ve presented it in a different manner and reinforced some of its importance. Please take time to consider implementing some simple, faster changes, much like how you shaving is your new lingo for balance. Likewise, if you have a larger, complex system or powerful dhuumfart planned, maybe you could talk to your community openly about it.

Thanks for your time,
Sokal Voral

^Clap clap man , pretty much same here xD expept to relax i listen to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQMVbpwfJuc&list=FLvJ_U5HuovZXxN0uDDohNZw

Very nice read but very sad story indeed.

I would not mind leaver at all if the loss didnt count as one on the leaderboards. I personally dont care for dyes anylonger. The RNG system is so bad, I just get the flu wasting my glory points and time for some copper.

Ditto

15 etc ccc

Good post. I don’t understand why they decided to re-invent their ladder system for GW2 when they hard a perfectly functional and fair Elo system in GW1

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ladder

Every player starts at 1200 rating and your rating change after each match is a shift weighted for your (and your opponents ratings). Ladder rank is determined by rating (highest rating at the top of the ladder).

Very simple system that works very well for Chess + GW1, and should work GREAT in GW2. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it =\

The thing about the leaderboard is that the algorithm is decently functional right now but you have to do your own analysis to determine its value. Ultimately, that means it’s non-functional for the community at large. The suggested fixes I listed would not impact the base algorithm, only how results are shown. Games I’m sure have timestamps; have a more aggressive filter as to which historic games are calculated in the algorithm (ie decay), and require more minimum games to rank. The leaderboards will instantly have more value.

The entire purpose of my post was to present a post that doesn’t have as much “noise” (whining or abstract interpretations), present it in the form of an actual daily gaming cycle, identify the pain points (non-gameplay), and then suggest simple fixes (come on monthly agile scrum schedule). Thanks for all the nice posts above (keep this thread bumped or +1’ed if you believe in its value) and I hope a dev recognizes + responds to this thread.

puggernaut.5348:

The thing about the leaderboard is that the algorithm is decently functional right now but you have to do your own analysis to determine its value. Ultimately, that means it’s non-functional for the community at large. The suggested fixes I listed would not impact the base algorithm, only how results are shown. Games I’m sure have timestamps; have a more aggressive filter as to which historic games are calculated in the algorithm (ie decay), and require more minimum games to rank. The leaderboards will instantly have more value.

The entire purpose of my post was to present a post that doesn’t have as much “noise” (whining or abstract interpretations), present it in the form of an actual daily gaming cycle, identify the pain points (non-gameplay), and then suggest simple fixes (come on monthly agile scrum schedule). Thanks for all the nice posts above (keep this thread bumped or +1’ed if you believe in its value) and I hope a dev recognizes + responds to this thread.

And to me, above all else, this is what is the most frustrating thing about Anet.

Adding faster leaderboard decay and a higher games played requirement would fix so many issues with leaderboards

1- We know it would have a huge impact on adding to the value of leaderboards
2- it would be super duper easy, an intern could do it

Yet….it doesn’t get done…

felivear.1536:

And to me, above all else, this is what is the most frustrating thing about Anet.

Adding faster leaderboard decay and a higher games played requirement would fix so many issues with leaderboards

1- We know it would have a huge impact on adding to the value of leaderboards
2- it would be super duper easy, an intern could do it

Yet….it doesn’t get done…

Using a bonus pool system would give both leaderboard decay and higher games played requirement simultaneously. They could have started season with 10 win requirement a month ago and be up to 30 wins of bonus pool by now (so most ppl would high on leaderboards would have ~45-50 games played).

A really nice read there.
Some things reflect on the state of my frustration, e.g. unauthentic leader-boards and simpler and more satisfying rewards.
I think there should be a gradually higher decay on leader-boards the longer your inactivity is. And you should not get your initial rating back but stay in an area around your rating if you play again.
A league system which has been mentioned on the forums before will help much more though, I think. MMR, for example, is much better as you only play in your own league. Additionally, TeamQ needs an overhaul too, cause there are no teams but single players on it.
The rewards right now are just not as satisfying as when a PvE-/WvW-Player comes into sPvP, they can easily get their daily and monthly done to have more benefits for their own types. If we step out of sPvP, we have a char presumably at level 2, some laurels maybe and very few gold if at all. Dyes are just a gamble and it isn’t fun to click on a lot of stuff just for a chance on a few gold. So gem rewards or a glory -> gem conversion would be darn nice.
Regarding dishonor, the punishment is very forgiving. It should be much less time if somebody is afk to kick and punish. (It will benefit rated and unrated SoloQ the most)

Oh and we get a LFG-Tool soon.

Leaderboard not working is what is actually killing PvP the most.

I’ve been posting it tons of times, losing 100 + ranks for a loss simply because you’re matched with full unranked randoms ( 9/10 unranked and ONLY YOU ranked as a 100-300 in leaderboard) is totally unrewarding and frustrating.

In the little time i had to play solo Q ( team queue has been dead for a long time, especially after meeting , as a pug group, altough all ranked around 500, top teams like NN )my experience has been terrible.

Totally broken matchmaking, mostly due to the fact that people above me had no reason to play ( and in fact, they were not playing) and i was matched with players not even in the leaderboard.

Rewards are horrible, there’s no incentive to play since you keep your ranking by not playing.

Competition is dead, and this is N.1 reason.

Disregarding gameplay and maps, these listed items represent basic pain/frustration points in a competitive PvPer’s daily gaming cycle. They’re simple fixes that I wish would get attention before lateral changes like map improvements. Also, could a Dev possibly reply to ANet’s stance on discussing upcoming PvP changes more directly or providing a sandbox for testing before they happen?

good to know. So the upcoming futures will be released when? 2015? Perfect!

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

good to know. So the upcoming futures will be released when? 2015? Perfect!

Hyperbole don’t get you anywhere relevant, according to an earlier post.

This is one of the best posts ever. Anybody that does a lot of solo q knows how broken all this stuff is and how random a lot of stuff feels. The match quality is so bad too it seems like I win by 500-200 or lose by 500-200 the majority of the time. I don’t even look at my leaderboard rating because one minute im ranked and then another I’m not over and over again. I play a good bit and then I look at the top 100 and see all these people with less then 30 games. All you have to do is keep the searchable leaderboard open and do some quick searches after a match to see how bad and random match making is sometimes.

Very nice read.

And it’s all true, sad but true.

Errant Venture.9371:

Good post. I don’t understand why they decided to re-invent their ladder system for GW2 when they hard a perfectly functional and fair Elo system in GW1

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ladder

Every player starts at 1200 rating and your rating change after each match is a shift weighted for your (and your opponents ratings). Ladder rank is determined by rating (highest rating at the top of the ladder).

Very simple system that works very well for Chess + GW1, and should work GREAT in GW2. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it =\

You just explained exactly how the leaderboard works in Guild Wars 2.

Great write up. One thing I don’t understand though is why do you start the day with a pvp booster? Everything else I can relate to completely.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Thanks for the write up, it is encouraging to see this feedback as it lets us know we are headed in the right direction in the upcoming future!

Powerr, why you gots ta tease us man.

For some reason, I feel more confident hearing it from you though, so fingers crossed hope you’re right.

Sokal I must applaud you for such a well-written, brilliantly considered post – I like many others have had the same experiences and thoughts, and posted numerous times in a far more frustrated and less constructive manner – yours is clear, simple but maintaining the necessary information – truly you should be commended for it; well done.

Unfortunately, while I appreciate there is a dev response in this thread, with all due respect, it is absolutely disheartening in it’s lack of substance – especially when compared to the effort and grace put into the original post. A one-sentence reply which addresses none of the points raised, is heart-breaking for those of us feeling as the OP does….if such a well-thought out and expressed communication from the players cannot get a response of real weight and impact, then we really are all well and truly without hope.

“Right direction” and “upcoming future” are about as vague and meaningless as one can imagine. The OP, and those of us suffering this pain and frustration, those who continue to endure the pain involved in playing PvP, deserve a bit better than that. The original post made me feel good, confirmed someone knows what I am going through, and how I feel…ANet’s reply made me feel bad, underlining the fact that there is nothing of substance we can comfort ourselves with.

‘The sun will come out tomorrow’ is nice and all, but that feeling will only last till tomorrow…which is in reality only a day away.

Anthrage.2519:

“Right direction” and “upcoming future” are about as vague and meaningless as one can imagine. The OP, and those of us suffering this pain and frustration, those who continue to endure the pain involved in playing PvP, deserve a bit better than that.

I agree with vague, but I wouldn’t say Powerr’s response is meaningless. I would infer from his response that what they are currently working on will address one or more of OP’s complaints.
I would also agree that it would’ve been more helpful if Powerr (assuming he was allowed to convey such information) could’ve outlined which of OP’s issues would be addressed from what Anet is working on (even if no better time frame could be given).

Well that would be my point regarding meaningless. Obviously any changes would inherently be in the right direction and in the future…they wouldn’t intentionally make changes for the worse, and unless they have time travel…the statement was no doubt well-intentioned, but the lack of detail was itself very much in stark contrast to the spirit of the post and needs of a reply, in my opinion.

I agree with you that indicating which of the many issues mentioned will be addressed would have been preferable and indeed entirely sufficient without any time frame. Hope and patience are dependent on knowing that the issue one has will be addressed, and the reply sadly did not provide anyone with these issues with any reason to feel that the particular issues will be.

Again, I don’t want to seem to be picking on the wording of this statement too much, and any dev interaction is preferable to the opposite obviously…but substance matters, especially in the context of such a wonderful effort by the OP and the serious nature of the issues and the feelings and frustration they cause in the players.

Anthrage.2519:

The original post made me feel good, confirmed someone knows what I am going through, and how I feel…ANet’s reply made me feel bad, underlining the fact that there is nothing of substance we can comfort ourselves with.

Thanks Anthrage for the kind words.

I think everyone would love a substantial response from the Devs but I wholeheartedly recognize how busy they are. I think in particular, it would be awesome if a Dev were to address their policy on talking more detailed about upcoming changes (ie. have more of an Open Alpha stance towards changes).

Consider all these points ANet:

- Major gameplay balance seems to happen on a monthly or bi-monthly cycle historically. You guys probably have statistics regarding the loss of PvPers after a poorly received patch, over the course of a month. With such long release cycles, a “bad” patch is extremely costly. One to two months of ill-received gameplay; I’m curious as to what turnover statistics say of the current necro/warrior meta?.

- PvP content is ultimately about consensus balance and fun. There’s no IP protection, there’s no author-to-audience (PvE), the participants directly generate the content, and it requires high level players to analyze. Even PvE and Living Story release much more info about new content before launch. For what reasons do PvP changes need to be a closed discussion?

- Historically, look at the feedback from the “leaked” patch notes in July/Aug – simply a great case example. Imagine if this discussion was upfront, direct, and mutual.

- This format loses your power fans. The current format is “we decide, release, then you judge” … and this is why the forums turn out the way they do. Imagine the alternative: “here are options, let’s discuss, come to an agreement.” You will get the power fans doing your work for you and the top players arguing against “the noise” for you.

So while I would love for some specific upcoming substance to be revealed to the players, I challenge this meta! And would like Devs to respond on why the policy seems to be to avoid being specific on upcoming changes.

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

A really nice read there.
Some things reflect on the state of my frustration, e.g. unauthentic leader-boards and simpler and more satisfying rewards.
I think there should be a gradually higher decay on leader-boards the longer your inactivity is. And you should not get your initial rating back but stay in an area around your rating if you play again.
A league system which has been mentioned on the forums before will help much more though, I think. MMR, for example, is much better as you only play in your own league. Additionally, TeamQ needs an overhaul too, cause there are no teams but single players on it.
The rewards right now are just not as satisfying as when a PvE-/WvW-Player comes into sPvP, they can easily get their daily and monthly done to have more benefits for their own types. If we step out of sPvP, we have a char presumably at level 2, some laurels maybe and very few gold if at all. Dyes are just a gamble and it isn’t fun to click on a lot of stuff just for a chance on a few gold. So gem rewards or a glory -> gem conversion would be darn nice.
Regarding dishonor, the punishment is very forgiving. It should be much less time if somebody is afk to kick and punish. (It will benefit rated and unrated SoloQ the most)

Oh and we get a LFG-Tool soon.

I agree. I would suggest the leaderboards reset monthly with champions being declared and that not playing for more than 72 hours should lead to decay which is slow at first but quickly speeds up to the point that after a week you are dropping a ton every hour

Lordrosicky.5813:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

A really nice read there.
Some things reflect on the state of my frustration, e.g. unauthentic leader-boards and simpler and more satisfying rewards.
I think there should be a gradually higher decay on leader-boards the longer your inactivity is. And you should not get your initial rating back but stay in an area around your rating if you play again.
A league system which has been mentioned on the forums before will help much more though, I think. MMR, for example, is much better as you only play in your own league. Additionally, TeamQ needs an overhaul too, cause there are no teams but single players on it.
The rewards right now are just not as satisfying as when a PvE-/WvW-Player comes into sPvP, they can easily get their daily and monthly done to have more benefits for their own types. If we step out of sPvP, we have a char presumably at level 2, some laurels maybe and very few gold if at all. Dyes are just a gamble and it isn’t fun to click on a lot of stuff just for a chance on a few gold. So gem rewards or a glory -> gem conversion would be darn nice.
Regarding dishonor, the punishment is very forgiving. It should be much less time if somebody is afk to kick and punish. (It will benefit rated and unrated SoloQ the most)

Oh and we get a LFG-Tool soon.

I agree. I would suggest the leaderboards reset monthly with champions being declared and that not playing for more than 72 hours should lead to decay which is slow at first but quickly speeds up to the point that after a week you are dropping a ton every hour

As long as you can play 1 match per day and stay ranked, we have a problem.

The system should be dynamic, and reward the more you play.

Playing in solo queue is right now just a risk, you’re basically putting on a random slot if your rank will decrease HUGELY or increase SLIGHTLY.

Obviously nobody plays.

JonathanSharp.7094:

…
Rating decay, randomizing solo Q games better (jumbling the teams better based on MMR) and rewards are all things we’re improving.

Sounds good. Glad you guys are still listening even though you get blasted with crying all of the time. These are all things that everyone wants and that make the product better and no one can dispute that.

JonathanSharp.7094:

As for the build swakitten ue, we’re dealing with that with “Templates”, which are also something we’re excited about. It will be similar to the templates we used in GW1, which allowed you guys to easily swap builds/trade builds.

Excellent. This is also a needed QoL improvement, and supposing build diversity eventually becomes a reality it will be extremely useful.

Next step – Add non-conquest maps to Team and Solo Que. Variety is the spice of life.

@ J. Sharp,

How will the build templates interact with the unlocked/ equipped skins? Will it simply replace the runes and sigils on the equipment you have on, or will it allow you to save your skins alongside it?

Thanks Jonathan, those are specific details that I know a lot of people appreciate and are very happy to hear!

Do you folks have anything up your sleeves to address the painful issues of: “Major frustration #5: Dishonour and Uneven Matches”, especially those games which start at uneven strength, which a dishonour system can’t influence?

Thank-you very much once again for the details, really awesome!