Guild Wars 2

Hello and a happy Wintersday! Today I come bearing the gift of discussion. In this topic I will try and explain certain elements and concept that may pinpoint the core issues causing the not-so-great status of Guild Wars 2 sPvP. If all goes well, the ideas introduced in this topic may serve as a guide for other dissatisfied sPvPers to direct their criticisms into something more constructive. It’s the gift that will keep on giving!

To start off I will define the titular concepts of Player Calculation, Strategy and Pacing in the context of a video game. Some of you may already be familiar with these or similar terms and some of you may not. But I think that on some deep level we’re all able to feel their effects, so it’s important to put them into specific words so that we’re all on the same page.

Player Calculation

Player Calculation is one of the most rudimentary aspects of any game be it single player or multiplayer. It occurs when, given a problem (not to be confused with conflict or dilemma), a player will formulate the optimal build or course of action. It is the player knowing to jump over pits in a platformer, the combo strings in a fighting game, and the theorycrafting that produces optimal builds and party compositions for raids in an MMO. This occurs both in and out of the game, but the majority should occur outside in the forums, guides, what have you because that’s where people most easily communicate their calculations. It is really this aspect that makes RPGs so engaging for gamers because those games encourage players to formulate these calculations.

One defining aspect to remember about Player Calculation is that there is an aspect of certainty to calculations because the nature of a calculation is to examine a problem in a vacuum. For example, in earlier Mario games the best course of action for a player is to move right and avoid death. For GW2 there different“best” build for any class because it optimizes what their individual strengths in different situations. Understanding this will be crucial for this topic because it is this feature that will most differentiate Calculations from Strategies.

Strategy

Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Many players confuse calculations with strategies. A strategy does in fact involve calculations but to say that they are the same is fundamentally wrong. Take for example Build A and Build B. A counters B in every relevant situation so to pick A over B would be a calculated move. But what if there was a Build C that counters A but is in turn countered by B? It would still be a calculated move and not a strategic one because the pick after the first one is a guaranteed victory. If the pick was blind but then the pick would be completely random. Now what if A, B and C pick was blind, but the player still had enough information to make an educated guess? This is when you start seeing strategy.

For this topic, the definition strategy is the implementation of calculations in an environment of uncertainty, but not complete randomness to achieve a specific goal. This uncertainty factor can take many forms. In RTS games it is the fog of war that lets players hide their buildings. In Turn based game it is the RNG that causes characters to miss at times. In Dungeons and Dragons it is putting outcome on a set of Polyhedral die. In fighting games its waiting for an opponent to create an opening or forcing one yourself given the many possible moves available, in other words the uncertainty caused by quantity.

So why is uncertainty important? Well for one thing, without the uncertainty factor a strategy may as well be a calculation. But I think one important reason it is attractive is because it causes us to rethink our calculations and also appeals to the risk-taking nature that some of us might have. Another is that uncertainty provides a means for viewership because people are more likely to watch the same thing multiple times if there are different possible outcomes.

Pacing

Now before you read further on, google image search “dramatic arc.” This may seem like it’s coming out of nowhere but trust me, it’ll help. Now for those who aren’t familiar with the dramatic structure, it is a tool used to structure and analyze stories. Each story can have a different looking arcs but you’ll find that the most engaging and epic ones follow the same basic structure but the line itself is very wavy. This is because each individual event leading up to the climax also follows an arc in itself. Why this works I can’t say exactly but I believe dip after each event is there for the audience to reconsider the repercussion of that event and then prime them for the next.

By now you’re probably asking yourself why a writing tool a relevant to PvP. Well for starters, it will help to treat it as a tool for sequences events in an appealing manner rather than just simply a writing tool. Also it is relevant because each PvP match is not unlike a story in itself. There’s two (or more) sides that are enemies or rivals and they must engage on another in combat in order to achieve an ultimate goal. This all occurs with gameplay rather than storytelling. Games like Dota and Starcraft capitalize off of either deliberate or incidental dramatic structure. Even fighting games have a very quick and loose, but effective dramatic arc, and I’m not talking about the horrible flavor stories that they are made with.

Now to get point of this section, the pacing is the waviness of the dramatic arc. A videogame’s dramatic arc should be much more wavy than a typical story because of the sheer amount of action inputs required to achieve a goal. When many think of fighting as means of producing story they only focus on the rise of action because it’s the most obvious thing to do when thinking about combat. As with any story there is definitely a need for a rise in overall action, however, the small dips between action are just as important. That’s where pacing is accomplished. In video games this is the small break between clashes. For the player the break let them cool down and gives them a moment to rethink their strategies. For the viewers, especially ones unfamiliar with the game itself, it lets them pause and reconsider the consequences of the event and to also ask others, “what just happened?”

How Calculation and Strategy Relate to GW2: A conflict of a different scope

This is the part we were all waiting for. The part where I tear apart GW2’s combat because of how bad it is for deviating from the norm, how thieves and mesmers are the meta and in whilst writing my rant I will rend my own garments out of sheer frustration… Just kidding. In all honesty I think GW2’s combat is amazing in that it takes into account quick on-thespot calculations and execution strategies; it achieves where action RPGs often fail while remaining palatable to MMO players.

However, in PvP at least, it only achieves this on a base level, that is to say the game fails to deliver an engaging experience outside of execution of combat combat. The reason relates to, you guessed it, Player Calculation and Strategy. Or rather, Player Calculation vs Strategy.

So why the “vs”? In many multiplayer games there is a direct conflict between Calculation and Strategy. This is where balance is important, and I don’t mean individual class vs class balancing. When a strategy is too obviously (take note that I used obvious) powerful and then begins to dominate the game, it is, in the players mind, a more calculated move to adopt it into their own playstyle. When this happens to an extreme, the meta is a game of using one strategy, which by then is no longer a strategy but a calculation. Before long the game will be an execution of calculation rather rather. Even with slight variations here and there, if the goal will be calculated. You know a game is imbalanced when calculation overwhelms strategy.

I’m this is beginning to sound more relevant, because this is exactly what sPvP has boiled down to; a game with more calculation than strategy. We even have an odd split between two modes. For those of you who play Hotjoin, the meta at the moment is not winning but farming because it is the best course of action given the goals Hotjoin players, because “winning” is not really winning oddly enough. For tPvP it is bunkering as efficiently as possible because that strategy is all that is required of players to win. The common theme between each of these modes is that there is only one calculation needed to achieve an ultimate goal, and are therefore both horribly imbalanced.

Pacing: The difference between a story and a slog.

This part will, humorously enough, counterbalance the other. For a game to be a successful eSport, however, balance cannot be the only emphasis. Period. Most threads in the forums are about balance issues, and many of them are valid, however the one major issues preventing GW2 from becoming successful is the one sung by a silent majority; It’s boring and not engaging. You only see a few threads posting about how sPvP is boring because most of the ones bored no longer care to post. The problem isn’t just that they’ve already left, it’s that structure of conquest mode has not engaged their attention sufficiently for them to even know why it failed them. “What’s the point” as many of them would say.

The point of any competitive game is to win. To win in fighting games you need to deplete the enemy’s health. In RTS, you need to destroy all hostile structures (or the hostile base). In Guild the goal, at least in tournament play, is to gain as many points as possible. Each condition for victory sounds just as engaging if simply spelled out like that, but the human mind doesn’t work that way when these goals are in execution. We expect the events to play out like, you guessed it again, a dramatic arc. This is where sPvP fails and the way it does it isn’t pretty.

The issue with GW2 being “boring” becomes apparent when you plot a typical tPvP match the and the events form a relatively flat line. This is, I believe, because of the poor pacing. Conquest mode does not promote much needed breaks or dips in action, and the current metagame of simply outlasting help to kink out any bumps or dips in that line. Furthermore, this line has a zero slope. There’s no sense of escalation while playing or watching; there’s no sense that they are getting closer to a goal by simply staying in one spot and fighting. The point tally at the top is a slow trickle and it doesn’t at all provide that needed sense of escalation.

You have problems, I have suggestions!

If you’ve been reading through these forums, there are plenty of thread suggesting new gameplay modes and many of them have merit. But how this suggestion: make conquest mode engaging! Totally out of the ball park, I know, but it’s definitely not impossible. It simply requires unconventional design, and if the PvE leveling system is any indicator you’ll know the designers are more than capable of being unconventional.

For starters, make conquest less of a game of standing around on a single point. Maps such as Khylo and Legacy of Foefire attempt this but their secondary mechanics are simply broken down to a calculation. Instead of gimmicky secondary mechanics, I suggest promoting strategy in the core mechanics. For example making points tally after a set amount of time will reward players for running about and completing objectives but force confrontation and strategic division of team members before deadlines are met. The time between confrontations will act as important breaks. To add a sense of escalation, maps can be redesigned to be larger to promote the feeling of position as escalation, or they can have sections that open as the game progresses in order to use scenery as escalation.

Last, but not least of all, find ways to add in more meaningful strategies for players to use, and not just build counters. Those often end up as a balancing nightmare or simply become calculations. Having many strategies available will only extend the life of a videogame. Look at chess for example!

Final Words

I’m at my limit so I’ll stop here. I hope you all enjoy this wonderful gift of discussion and if you can, please contribute to the gift with a response below!

tl;dr copious amounts of high brow criticisms

Nothing I can disagree with, and the suggestions are rather intriguing. I approve this post

I actually read through the whole thing and it was full of rubbish.

The author’s focus is spread all over the place making the entire thing messy and difficult to read. Furthermore, the attempt to link preparation, execution and pacing is weak. The difference between strategy and tactics not explained well, and pacing is thrown in as an afterthought.

The meta is stale because bunkers are too strong making the game boring to watch, so everyone uses the same strategy.

In one sentence I have managed to summarize the unnecessarily tedious “essay”. Hardly an original idea to lay claim to either.

Worst of all, the suggestions lack important specifics. I hardly have any idea what would not count as “gimmicky secondary mechanics” if people decide that not fighting for 2/3 of the time is a good idea, nor do I have any information what “sense of escalation” means. Poorly articulated and overly wordy.

Surely you have outside knowledge on key words (ie tactics, strategy) and if not it’s relatively easy for a reader to use their friend Google these days. He links subjects together well enough for them to be cohesive and understood by the reader.

While I agree with you that he didn’t articulate his point extremely efficiently you could hardly say it takes anything more than common sense to understand what he was getting at.

The suggestions merely add depth to the game. He wants to shift focus off of purely point holding by adding more objectives and putting a lockout on capping points after they’ve recently been capped. This would drive another aspect into the game which would add strategy, tactics, complexity and make the game more fun in general.

P.S. 2 people can kill a bunker in less than 15 seconds.

@Narcarsis

Thanks. I actually have a lot more to say on the subject, and much of it helps to link together these subjects. The failure of sPvP is caused to a myriad of overlapping issues and to avoid writing an essay I boiled it down to these concepts. That, and I was really at my limit after three pages, especially since it’s the holidays.

@Kid Taylor

Heh, if you think this is Essay you may want to expand your scope outside of grade school.

None of this stuff is new or groundbreaking, but it’s important to contextualize it in such a way that it can promote more useful criticisms. And surely my post says more than “Bunker is too strong.”

Also even I though I didn’t link it directly pacing is just as important an issue as balance because it’s really what helps project strategic play.

To be honest the game is extremely balanced for being out for only 3 months. Finer issues take time to work out and well it may seem frustrating as a player the Devs don’t get as much credit as should be given. People expect things to be perfect upon release but games like this take time to tweak. While I agree that the game mode seems stale and I like your suggestions I also believe that people are still learning the game and what can be done.

The meta changes every 2 weeks or so as teams come up with counters for others. While a few classes tend to dominate the general meta they are all balanced fairly well (Ele, Mesmer on the stronger side/Warrior, Engi on the weaker). Most of the complaints we hear about are from a more casual players who are getting killed by classes that punish poor positioning and timing (ie thieves/mesmers). While it’s good to listen to the general population it’s not healthy for them to balance the game around it.

Let the game take its course for a little longer, things take time and 3 months means the game is still in infancy. People expect too much far too quickly – Be patient.

I agree that the game’s combat balance is actually very good right now especially if you consider this game’s age, but as I previously state the overall balance of point capture revolves around a single strategy and that hurts it a great deal. In my opinion, they should have released GW2 with arena based combat, because of how engaging that one aspect of the game is, and then build something more thought-out than the current conquest mode later on. Forcing players into point capture from the start was a bad move.

And I agree that people should be more patient but ANet hyping up the game and then disappointing players could be a nail in the coffin for sPvP as an eSport. You had certain players who were looking for a competitive environment and were then let down. These are a very specific group who devote themselves to the game, and instead of being having the benefit of impressing and hooking these players the developers will have to deal with their disappointment and the overall reputation it entails for PvP. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that they’ve set themselves back and will now need to work even harder.

Well I for one enjoyed your take on s/tPVP and think you’ve identified a unique approach to the situation. Hopefully your post will receive the attention it deserves and we see fundamentals applied to all aspects of pvp in the game.

Thanks for taking the time to write this “essay” :P