Guild Wars 2

Awesome ideas. With most topics I find one or two points I disagree with, but here I’m all in! Hope they’ll read this.

I also agree with everything here, for what it’s worth. I doubt we’ll see any of this realized any time soon, but I think all of these changes would promote a healthier game.

My only disagreement might be about removing hotjoin. I think hotjoin needs some serious re-structuring, but not outright removal. Having a more relaxed environment for testing builds is important, after all, but such an environment should not reward poor play. On the other hand, 8v8 does need to go entirely, since it’s not even newbie-friendly in the way that it was envisioned, and thus serves little purpose outside of glory farming. Of course, those are things that people have been saying since launch, so we’ll see if anything ever happens on that end.

I think they shouldn’t split solo queu from pre-made for several reasons.

1. You didn’t give it a single week to balance it self out. Pre-made will get higher rating then you very fast, because they obviously win more.

2. When u get high rating yourself it doesn’t really matter, your whole team will play well, so will theirs. Their only advantage is the fact that they can choose proffessions for their team.

3. Now that solo join just got here, this is YOUR perfect time to go premade. You will have the advantage over the enemies and will gain rating yourself fast.

My point is that it looks like u want to split this because you can’t/refuse to find a party. I allways join with at least 3 people to greatly improve our succes.

DDog.4350:

I think they shouldn’t split solo queu from pre-made for several reasons.

1. You didn’t give it a single week to balance it self out. Pre-made will get higher rating then you very fast, because they obviously win more.

2. When u get high rating yourself it doesn’t really matter, your whole team will play well, so will theirs. Their only advantage is the fact that they can choose proffessions for their team.

3. Now that solo join just got here, this is YOUR perfect time to go premade. You will have the advantage over the enemies and will gain rating yourself fast.

My point is that it looks like u want to split this because you can’t/refuse to find a party. I allways join with at least 3 people to greatly improve our succes.

Your first point completely defeats your whole argument.

Don’t split the que because premade a will naturally win more and gain higher rating then you?

Why not split the two so each que type gains its own rating on its own two feet? Not rating inflation for premade a due to beating solo que players.

Madness, I know.

1) and 3) (shouldn’t that be 2.5?) are very important for a better motivation.

I wouldn’t remove Hotjoin but rather remove their Glory and Rank Point Rewards completely. These points should also not be rewarded for kill farming but either for an objective-oriented playstyle or the team’s performance.
I’d also split up the ranks into a lot more tiers, there are enough armor/weapons sets available for that… currently, if you reach x0, you just forge all items that you want and that’s it with material rewards for the next weeks/months to come (or even years for casual players in higher ranks).
The reward of fighting a strong enemy and winning is more important in a true PvP game, of course, but the cosmetic rewards are a big motivational factor for many players and should be distributed more evenly regarding their playtime.

Periodic tournaments and observer mode are nice to have and should be added after the previous points are implemented, imho.

Edit: Regarding “I think they shouldn’t split solo queu from pre-made for several reasons.”:
What happens for players that want to play both in a premade and solo (which I think there would be a lot of)? Something along the lines of this:
They start with 11-1 after an evening with their team and get a high rating. The next day, some of them queue solo and get mainly premades b/c of the high rating, which then plummets down. When playing with the team again, a lot of pubstomping follows, since the rating is not that high anymore. Fun for anyone? I don’t think so… the whole idea of a mixed queue is pretty kittened up if you ask me ;-)

Valkyriez.6578:

DDog.4350:

I think they shouldn’t split solo queu from pre-made for several reasons.

1. You didn’t give it a single week to balance it self out. Pre-made will get higher rating then you very fast, because they obviously win more.

2. When u get high rating yourself it doesn’t really matter, your whole team will play well, so will theirs. Their only advantage is the fact that they can choose proffessions for their team.

3. Now that solo join just got here, this is YOUR perfect time to go premade. You will have the advantage over the enemies and will gain rating yourself fast.

My point is that it looks like u want to split this because you can’t/refuse to find a party. I allways join with at least 3 people to greatly improve our succes.

Your first point completely defeats your whole argument.

Don’t split the que because premade a will naturally win more and gain higher rating then you?

Why not split the two so each que type gains its own rating on its own two feet? Not rating inflation for premade a due to beating solo que players.

Madness, I know.

U just prove the point i tried to make. Go premade urself if u want to win more. U can ask to split them every day on the forum but we both know this will take A-net at least 6 months xD.

DDog.4350:

2. When u get high rating yourself it doesn’t really matter, your whole team will play well, so will theirs. Their only advantage is the fact that they can choose proffessions for their team.

You left out the rather huge advantage of voice communication.

Sylosi.6503:

DDog.4350:

2. When u get high rating yourself it doesn’t really matter, your whole team will play well, so will theirs. Their only advantage is the fact that they can choose proffessions for their team.

You left out the rather huge advantage of voice communication.

Good point. I have invited my “random party” to my TS several times.
Doable in the 2,5 minutes u have to w8 till match start. But i understand what u mean. I have gotten several comments like “no mic” “not talking to strangers” “just play noob, too lazy to open TS”

Hello,

Since the title was a call-out, we changed it, so it fits more to the subject discussed here.

However we are looking forward reading more about this.

I agree with all points more or less. I am unsure about the last few with QP. I would encourage just to sign up for weekly tournaments and winners or top spots get into monthly. Monthly winner get into yearly. Just have to find a good reason to invite 4 more teams to yearly ones, e.g. ladder.
Also about point 2: We still have to take care of newer players. Default builds seem pokay but can be better. I would still do a bit more on helping newer players. Maybe even community-work. Let newer players know that experienced players do not mind to help. Does not happen ingame and not so many people check forums.
So a good solution would be from my point of view to make frees with rating and without. Or just erase the 8vs8 servers, not many people play hotjoin either to fill in all servers.
And number 5 realls has to happen. Especially since the Eles were not really nerfed and the meta has been stagnant for months. It forces the team composition to be built around taking care of the Ele, especially if there is more than 1; top teams may only have a few issues ( and only sometimes ) but probably most other teams.

1) Once custom servers they actually dated for this patch or one before are out, the competitive scene will flourish.
2) Eles have to be nerfed to allow more diversity in the meta. All classes are viable at the moment, though a few are mandatory.
3) Transparency from Arenanet has to be improved, issue right now is the broken trust. Many people hoped for big changes this patch.
4) Maps have to be randomized. Also allows us to go back to the mists but lock character swap. ( Cause lock on leaving back to mists encourages switching character )
5) Glory system is still no incentive and probably won’t be if it is kept cause the armors and weapons do not look so good on lower ranks.
6) Rating has to be visible.
7) Seperate Solo and Duo brackets from the others, eventually seperate the higher brackets even more. Premades should mostly face premades, so keeping 3-man and 4-man brackets also seperate from the other 2 groups would be sweet.

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

And number 5 realls has to happen. Especially since the Eles were not really nerfed and the meta has been stagnant for months. It forces the team composition to be built around taking care of the Ele, especially if there is more than 1; top teams may only have a few issues ( and only sometimes ) but probably most other teams.

Point 5) wouldn’t increase the quality or quantity of bugfixes or balance changes, that’s illusional

100% agree with this especialy the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly tournaments. I think they would do wonders for the competitive community and also for casuals who would probably love to watch and see the best teams playing eachother. Really hope we get this sometime in the not so distant future.

Socram.6587:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

And number 5 realls has to happen. Especially since the Eles were not really nerfed and the meta has been stagnant for months. It forces the team composition to be built around taking care of the Ele, especially if there is more than 1; top teams may only have a few issues ( and only sometimes ) but probably most other teams.

Point 5) wouldn’t increase the quality or quantity of bugfixes or balance changes, that’s illusional

Let us say it would at least help a bit. Like they used to implement patch for the broken clones/phantasms last year in a short time.

o ok let me post my balacen solotun here k

ele – nerf aoe, nerf healing, remove armor of earth, make 2 points of power reduce armor by 1, nerf knockbacks, make elemental summon on par with spirit summons.

then let’s give mesmers more defensive abilities

revert nerfs on thief

make mesmers and thieves immune to each other

nerf warrior condition removal

increase gaurdian base hp by 6000

reduce engineers base hp by 5000, remove tool kit, net shot to 20 sec cooldown

increase trap initial damage by 200% for rangers (scaling with condi damage opposed to power)

necros now immune to conditions, auto attack removes 2x boons, no longer has damaging abilities, increase base hp by 10,000

there, balance

so basically GW1?

Davinci.8027:

4.) PvE/Gem/Gold rewards for winning tournaments

6.) A daily 8/16/32-team tournament with substantial rewards

—> Re-introduce QPs and reward 1 for each round won in the daily tournament.

7.) A WEEKLY 8/16/32-team tournament which requires 3 QP to enter. The prizes should be even more substantial.]

8.) A MONTHLY 8-team tournament which would include the winners and runner-ups of the 4 weekly tournaments.

please, just this, there wouldnt even need to be a ladder to keep this competitive.
-just a daily tournament with top 8/16 teams of the day with a global broadcast of winner;
-followed by a 8/18 top teams of EU or NA weekly tournament, again with global broadcast for recognition;****
-followed by a monthly tournament between top teams of NA/EU with a proper reward.

This would, maybe, put people watching streams of players from their servers and from their region, cheering and rooting for them, and give teams someone to compete with for an important goal, maybe create rivalries between teams etc —--> e sport.

just my humble opinion.

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

Socram.6587:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

And number 5 realls has to happen. Especially since the Eles were not really nerfed and the meta has been stagnant for months. It forces the team composition to be built around taking care of the Ele, especially if there is more than 1; top teams may only have a few issues ( and only sometimes ) but probably most other teams.

Point 5) wouldn’t increase the quality or quantity of bugfixes or balance changes, that’s illusional

Let us say it would at least help a bit. Like they used to implement patch for the broken clones/phantasms last year in a short time.

Hotfixes can be deployed at any time, you don’t have to change your regular patch cycle for that.

Socram.6587:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

Socram.6587:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

And number 5 realls has to happen. Especially since the Eles were not really nerfed and the meta has been stagnant for months. It forces the team composition to be built around taking care of the Ele, especially if there is more than 1; top teams may only have a few issues ( and only sometimes ) but probably most other teams.

Point 5) wouldn’t increase the quality or quantity of bugfixes or balance changes, that’s illusional

Let us say it would at least help a bit. Like they used to implement patch for the broken clones/phantasms last year in a short time.

Hotfixes can be deployed at any time, you don’t have to change your regular patch cycle for that.

Yeah, but the actual changes are still too slow. It may also bring up more issues if you implement them earlier.

rating/duels/remove hotjoints/add glory vendors with legendary weps for cost of 2,5mln glory

1.Visible personal rating
-to keep individuall players motivated and able to track their progress.
2. Visible guild rating
-This is crucial, as a guild leader it`s really hard to maintain members in a pvp only guild, unless those are real-world friends. Guild rating and global ladder position will develop strong competitive landscape, will promote team-play, stronger pvp community and finally we will see new guilds coming to pvp scene.
3. Daily/Weekly/Monthly system similar to gw1
I’d suggest to implement unique armor with both pvp and pve skin that has the guild emblem on it given to monthly winners, again gw1 gold/silver/bronze cape analogy.

I view the pvp as the ultimate endgame content, unlike many people here who claim to understand how markets work and spread nonsense like: “if you can`t make money of of pvp it`s not worth investing development.” People do forget that even glorious gw1 did not ship with all it`s pvp features out of the box – far from it.
PvPers will invest money in new content, something like in form of expansion packs, just like any other player will, gw1 analogy again.
Developing strong pvp platform for the game is necessarily to maintain your player-base in a long run.
like in any other game pve can be completed all achievements unlocked, all gear farmed all titles earned as opposed to strong pvp where the true living world constantly engaged in competition, those people are unlikely to quit the game soon, if a strong pvp structure is in place.
Thank you for your time,
Volted.

I only see a problem with your post is..
4.) PvE/Gem/Gold rewards for winning tournaments

The problem with giving pve rewards in sPVP is there are no gold sinks in pvp.. You don’t need to upgrade your gear you don’t need to repair, you don’t need to warp, you don’t need to craft, you don’t need to do any of these things…
So the rewards have to be

a)Risky, either by adding things you have to buy with gold to try to get the gold. Like tournament tickets.

b)Balanced, they might have to introduce unrelated gold sinks to PVP to make sure they don’t crash the economy otherwise gold’s just going to build up like glory(A Failed attempt at a currency which you can only spend on getting dyes realistically).

c)Limited, you can’t introduce gold rewards to hotjoin so bobby thief#434849 can’t farm, all day and get better rewards then people farming in pve. Otherwise why pve? You can’t introduce Large farmable rewards, maybe daily or monthly stuff you’d have to work for.

Why not just revamp the glory system? Make it worth something?
1-2million per legendary w/ Qps

Make Some skin unlocks expensive like the new 6-10 skins they introduced could have been put up for 130-150k glory a piece, and Rotated, like you can only buy some skins during some months.. allow that glory to be sold to players for gold(Gems?:D).

But at the same time I totally agree with adding incentives to pvp for Pve and pve+ players to bring them in for a taste.

If you remove hot join you will destroy the new player experience.

You won’t retain any new blood from players that try to test out sPvP if they are sent straight into a tournament with a build they have never tried, on a map they have never played where they don’t know what to do and where they will be expected to know what to do by their team mates and ultimately cursed at and ridiculed because they are a noob
(we know that will happen because that’s what many PvPers act like to new players).

Remove hot join and people will head to WvW instead, you won’t continue to get new players so the sPvP community won’t be able to grow, only shrink.

This isn’t 2005, players have different expectations now, and most of GW2s player base didn’t buy the game just for PvP, very much unlike GW1.

The hot join format needs to be reduced down, streamlined for new players to give them a better experience, and place them on restricted servers with ranks 1-9 only.

When players get to a certain rank, around 10-15 they should be encouraged to try Solo Queuing for a Tournament by the UI.

Ideally before this they can speak to an NPC that will explain a tournament and basic current strategies, things like bunkers that hold points, roamers etc to them, a short video would do wonders here – like the short videos in Aion that explained the concepts of PvP there.

Ezrael.6859:

If you remove hot join you will destroy the new player experience.

You won’t retain any new blood from players that try to test out sPvP if they are sent straight into a tournament with a build they have never tried, on a map they have never played where they don’t know what to do and where they will be expected to know what to do by their team mates and ultimately cursed at and ridiculed because they are a noob
(we know that will happen because that’s what many PvPers act like to new players).

Remove hot join and people will head to WvW instead, you won’t continue to get new players so the sPvP community won’t be able to grow, only shrink.

This isn’t 2005, players have different expectations now, and most of GW2s player base didn’t buy the game just for PvP, very much unlike GW1.

The hot join format needs to be reduced down, streamlined for new players to give them a better experience, and place them on restricted servers with ranks 1-9 only.

When players get to a certain rank, around 10-15 they should be encouraged to try Solo Queuing for a Tournament by the UI.

Ideally before this they can speak to an NPC that will explain a tournament and basic current strategies, things like bunkers that hold points, roamers etc to them, a short video would do wonders here – like the short videos in Aion that explained the concepts of PvP there.

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

Davinci.8027:

Hi,

5.) Weekly bug fixes/patches instead of monthly ones.

If we we’re ranking this list from most to least important, this should be top ^^

Waiting ~30 days for fixes on things that are broken NOW, isn’t working and the mists are noticing this. I see a lot of people right now in the mists, probably checking out how the new pvp patch is playing out but I bet in a week or so this number will diminish to a few pve ppl dancing on our graves :/

Even if it slightly skews the meta, they need to be adjusting things constantly until it works because looking at it on paper doesn’t seem to be doin much, it needs to be tested by the community (public test realm perhaps?) The small step fixes are imo better but they take ~30 days to come and its driving a stake into the mists.

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

Ezrael.6859:

If you remove hot join you will destroy the new player experience.

You won’t retain any new blood from players that try to test out sPvP if they are sent straight into a tournament with a build they have never tried, on a map they have never played where they don’t know what to do and where they will be expected to know what to do by their team mates and ultimately cursed at and ridiculed because they are a noob
(we know that will happen because that’s what many PvPers act like to new players).

Remove hot join and people will head to WvW instead, you won’t continue to get new players so the sPvP community won’t be able to grow, only shrink.

This isn’t 2005, players have different expectations now, and most of GW2s player base didn’t buy the game just for PvP, very much unlike GW1.

The hot join format needs to be reduced down, streamlined for new players to give them a better experience, and place them on restricted servers with ranks 1-9 only.

When players get to a certain rank, around 10-15 they should be encouraged to try Solo Queuing for a Tournament by the UI.

Ideally before this they can speak to an NPC that will explain a tournament and basic current strategies, things like bunkers that hold points, roamers etc to them, a short video would do wonders here – like the short videos in Aion that explained the concepts of PvP there.

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

I completly agree. The leveling for the Ranks should be used to enable you to do rank matches. Yes its hard to level but during that time frame you can be bettering your skills and learning how to work as a team. I would like to see a fixed system that LOL / Dota has be placed for GW2.

To me hot join is a mess. People go in to learn how to play their character against people ( 1v1 ) and others are in that WoW mantally and just for pks. To me if you want to do that go to WvW. If they do keep the Hot Join build up something for the more competitive players. Ranks, leagues, brackets, and tournaments that will keep the more competitive players around. I stop doing the PVE stuff recently to try out the pvp system ( since i was famillier with gw1 pvp ) and its like there is no since of accomplishment there.

Grind to get your gear skins and kill people till you get to Dragon…. seriously thats all. Come on now. Im not whining nor am I QQ’ing. Just offering some suggestions for a game i wish to successed like its previous game. it has so much potental…. dont let it go to waste please….

Sections 1-4 are obligatory. One more thing: remove matchmaking based on ranking/rating. It will reduce queues greatly and increase fun.

By the way, if u cannot or do not want for some reason make separate queue for premade groups you can always make it like in WoT where matchmaking system creates teams with the premade groups of the same size. For instance, if one team consists of 2 solo players and a group of 3, than opposite team always have the same combination (2 solo players, 1 group). I would be REALLY just.

Why do people keep comparing GW2 to MOBA’s like LoL, HoN or Dota.
GW2 is nothing like that. And i hope, deep inside, that it will never get close to 1 of those games. I have never seen such Toxic community’s as HoN and LoL.

There needs to be a non-ranked solo queue as well, imo. But hotjoin needs to go because it doesn’t teach players how to tPvP. People leave hotjoin and start doing tournaments with 0 idea of what to do (rotations, focus fire, peeling, etc)

Another proposition could be a guide for each class to which a few top players could contribute their builds and suggestions and help new players integrate into the system more easily.

Davinci.8027:

There needs to be a non-ranked solo queue as well, imo. But hotjoin needs to go because it doesn’t teach players how to tPvP. People leave hotjoin and start doing tournaments with 0 idea of what to do (rotations, focus fire, peeling, etc)

Another proposition could be a guide for each class to which a few top players could contribute their builds and suggestions and help new players integrate into the system more easily.

I think it should at least be a notification ingame which leads to either a website ( like this official one ) where the basics are teached by top players or you have a notification with the contact information of the top players to directly ask them ingame. Like implementing the list we have here in one of the sticky-posts.
Orrrr you have a tutorial server someone professional can supervise, even someone from Arenanet.

Finally a thread that isn’t just bashing the Devs…

I really think you’ve got a nice list going there, Davinci, you’ve essentially laid out a nice diagram of where the game needs to go, and I really think that from this patch, we can begin moving in that direction.

One issue, however, is the removal of hotjoin. Hotjoin is something that is very welcoming to new players, and, with the possible addition of new game modes in the future, can be used to get a random mix of game types. If we simply leave it up to the solo queue to help new players, there are some small issues that could arise, such as players spike joining, to get on the same team. While it may seem counter productive, it’s sadly something that can happen.

As for things I think could improve the pvp scene, it’s well known that Guild Wars 1 had a incredible pvp scene. One such area of that scene, and my personal favorite, was Heroes Ascent, a mixture of different game types, leading to a final map where up to three teams would compete, at one of a few game types. I would love to see a similar thing implemented into GW2, even something as simple as a three-way match. But enough of my reminiscing, back towards the topic at hand…

I think, personally, that this patch, while not THE big pvp patch we hoped for, has laid some nice ground work for them to build off of in the future. Such as removing the easy to obtain QP’s, which allows them to be introduced again, in a different way, even such as you have described above. Another feature, the fact that we matchmaking is in the game, can lay groundwork for a ladder to be built upon this. The new map, is also very much the most fun I’ve had in PvP since I began playing in beta… It adds a whole new element to capture points, and it makes for incredibly close and fun games, something I personally think would be fun to watch, in an esports type setting.

P.S. Davinci, your numbers are wrong in the OP… It bugs me.. 2.5 comes before 3.

I mean no disrespect for the OP. You pretty much nailed it in everything you said, and I gave your post a +. But the fact is, so many of us have been crying out for very same things ever since the game was released. I remember I probably posted and read a topic like this every day since August to December. Not much has changed in that period, except that Anet proved to me that they don’t care much about sPvP. So I lost all hope.

Even if everything you said was suddenly implemented into the game, I wonder if sPvP would ever come back to life… sPvP is one thing that does not exist for me in this game anymore… And neither does it exist for Anet game designers. It never did…

samo.1054:

I mean no disrespect for the OP. You pretty much nailed it in everything you said, and I gave your post a +. But the fact is, so many of us have been crying out for very same things ever since the game was released. I remember I probably posted and read a topic like this every day since August to December. Not much has changed in that period, except that Anet proved to me that they don’t care much about sPvP. So I lost all hope.

Even if everything you said was suddenly implemented into the game, I wonder if sPvP would ever come back to life… sPvP is one thing that does not exist for me in this game anymore… And neither does it exist for Anet game designers. It never did…

If all of these features were immediately implemented, I think alot of the old players would come back, and the competition would attract new players.

+1

This should be the plan of 2013 for A-Nets PvP-Team. I mean the community bring up so much things with much potential. Just pick some ideas up and implement them. I don’t know why you are breaking your legs with new patches, when everything is allrdy said and explained. Start to profit!

samo.1054:

I mean no disrespect for the OP. You pretty much nailed it in everything you said, and I gave your post a +. But the fact is, so many of us have been crying out for very same things ever since the game was released. I remember I probably posted and read a topic like this every day since August to December. Not much has changed in that period, except that Anet proved to me that they don’t care much about sPvP. So I lost all hope.

Even if everything you said was suddenly implemented into the game, I wonder if sPvP would ever come back to life… sPvP is one thing that does not exist for me in this game anymore… And neither does it exist for Anet game designers. It never did…

I don’t think it has been said in a succinct enough manner. Hopefully the devs will read this and know exactly what is needed. It’s not like any of these features would be hard to implement.

Agree with everything. Point 5 won’t happen though. Unless it’s gamebreaking. Let’s hope for some good news on SOTG.

+1 he bring the right points

Davinci.8027:

There needs to be a non-ranked solo queue as well, imo. But hotjoin needs to go because it doesn’t teach players how to tPvP. People leave hotjoin and start doing tournaments with 0 idea of what to do (rotations, focus fire, peeling, etc)

Another proposition could be a guide for each class to which a few top players could contribute their builds and suggestions and help new players integrate into the system more easily.

I disagree for a few reasons:
1) Hot join is a good solution for new players that need to learn the combat system in pvp
2) Hot join is a good place for players to test out new builds and learn rotations and muscle memory
3) People who want to learn tpvp strategy will still learn something from hot join – they will not get the same experience as actual tpvp but it is not completely wasted.
4) Some people are casual players and want to jump in and fight and not worry so much about the strategy – you could argue that this mentality is wrong and that those players should find another game – not sure if I’d agree with that…

Forcing hot-join casual players out of it and into a solo queue is a bad idea (solo queue doesn’t even work properly yet). In the end you will have people testing builds out in solo queue and it just becomes a jumbled mess, with longer and more frustrating waiting times. I know I would go there to test builds, not particularly contributing with anything solid, because I would be testing out new possible perks of a build and only learning, making it a nuisance for fellow players, who then likely would complain and decrease the entertainment value of the particular SPvP aspect of the game for all involved (yes, people will be more inclined to complain, if there is more at stake. For instance new fancy gem/gold whatever rewards OP suggested).

It would result in a game type hardcore TPvP’ers resent, because of all the random factors that might increase your score, if it became implemented.
“So you have a high solo queue score? Pfft, who cares, you are just competing against unprepared players, just being there to try out a thing or two, not having the goal of winning clearly in mind..”. Wouldn’t that sort of make the ladder/visible ranking pointless for solo queue? And hey, people might even call it the new hot-join.

Why remove hot-join, when you have solo queue on the side now? Seems very elitist and hostile towards a certain part of the playerbase. Forcing someone to play it your way, is not necessarily the only approach. To quote Leia: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers..”.

Testing builds for TPvP won’t work in WvW, as you can’t equip all types of armor, sigils, runes etc. for free with the same stats and test it against players you know has access to the same trinkets. WvW and SPvP is just very different. Besides, not all people can just “go play WvW”, as it demands so much more of your PC.

Summed up for clarification:
There is nothing wrong with hot-join being there on the side as it hurts noone, and removing it will do more harm than good. Noone is making you play it. The mentality that everone has to eventually play TPvP is ridiculous.

@Davinci: So people who play hot-join become UNABLE to read the wiki or ask friends how TPvP works? That is a rather astounding. Pretty sure that capping and holding points is pretty easy to comprehend. The other fancy tricks and details to achieve victory will come the more you play. And people who wishes to improve their teamplay won’t play hot-join, but solo or team queue, for more goal oriented gameplay (should they be divided).

SPvP isn’t supposed to be TPvP only, you know that right? Just because you prefer it that way, you can’t and shouldn’t try to eleminate other aspects of the game to achieve more focus to the playstyle you prefer. It limits the freedom of choice that I think made GW2 so puppy amazing and attracted that many players to begin with.

There are likely people who learned to like PvP by using the casual hot-join, then went to TPvP for more competition. Starting off a game with four elitists on your team who easily become enraged or disappointed is not appealing for a player that wants to start it off slowly. One step at a time.. and hot-join is for many the first step.

+1
Good post with some good ideas. Hope it helps.

Please stop advocating the removal of hotjoin. One day, far in the future, this game will have spec diversity. People will need a low pressure place to test and gain skill in new specs. That is what Hotjoin is for. Nobody wants to have to worry about their rating every game. Private servers will not fill the void eliminating hot join would create.

Otherwise, carry on.

Would be great ANET actually listened to you though Dav.

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

You can’t compare GW2 to LoL, they are completely different games.

They have very different game play mechanics, and GW2 is much more complicated from the start with all of the possible options for your character build, the huge amount of weapon skills.

LoL you pick a character with 4 skills and 2 utilities that you unlock during play, that’s a very different system to jumping into GW2 with several weapons, each containing 5 skills, 3 heals, 16 utility skills and 3 elite’s. + Secondary mechanics on all professions.

In LoL you can also play a 5v5 as players vs computers, which is total easymode, something that doesn’t exist in GW2 sPvP and serves as LoL’s equivalent of hot join (an easy place for players to learn the maps and how to play them).

Now perhaps current hot join isn’t functioning as it should to prepare people for actual tournaments, but completely doing away with hot join is not a solution.

You will cause far too many problems for the new player experience.
+ You forget yourselves and your attitudes as PvPers, I’ve seen you in pug quick tournaments insulting the guy that joined a tournament on his first day in PvP and didn’t know what to do. You told him to leave and go to hot join !

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

AHAHHAHAHAHAHA, not my intention to troll, but REALLY. STEEPER?
I’ve been a dota player for around 7 years now, and this has got to be a joke.
Dota is hard on the newbies, but this game is LUDICROUS.
EVERY aspect of the pvp character is customizable, and even after playing for 6 months, I have NO IDEA what a meta means, neither does 80% of the community. I mean, we used to bash on trap rangers for being a HORRIBLE spec not more than 4 months ago, look where they are now.
Not to mention dota/lol are mouse left-click-movement games, with 2d overview. If you watch close enough, you can see what’s going on.
Also, I haven’t played LoL for a long time, but this game is INSANELY faster than ANYTHING CAN BECOME on that game. Dota comes closer, and sometimes it can push your reflexes a little bit more.

I’m sorry for all the emphasis on the argument, but I love this game too much to let it be underrated as a simple mmo kind of pvp.

I actually agree with most of what @OP has proposed, I just want to remember that ArenaNet’s business model is CERTAINLY an obstacle in making this game e-sport, as many other people have already mentioned.
It’s not impossible, though. This is the best pvp game I’ve played in a long, long while, maybe even comparable to my deepest loved game, a 1999 franchise I’m not sure I can mention here. And I’ve played that game for almost thirteen years now.

Ezrael.6859:

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

You can’t compare GW2 to LoL, they are completely different games.

They have very different game play mechanics, and GW2 is much more complicated from the start with all of the possible options for your character build, the huge amount of weapon skills.

LoL you pick a character with 4 skills and 2 utilities that you unlock during play, that’s a very different system to jumping into GW2 with several weapons, each containing 5 skills, 3 heals, 16 utility skills and 3 elite’s. + Secondary mechanics on all professions.

In LoL you can also play a 5v5 as players vs computers, which is total easymode, something that doesn’t exist in GW2 sPvP and serves as LoL’s equivalent of hot join (an easy place for players to learn the maps and how to play them).

Now perhaps current hot join isn’t functioning as it should to prepare people for actual tournaments, but completely doing away with hot join is not a solution.

You will cause far too many problems for the new player experience.
+ You forget yourselves and your attitudes as PvPers, I’ve seen you in pug quick tournaments insulting the guy that joined a tournament on his first day in PvP and didn’t know what to do. You told him to leave and go to hot join !

Your description of skills in LoL shows you have never played the game. Each Player starts with 4 (or more) skills that are Champ specific, then the player get to pick two others before the match starts. You do not unlock them during play. You also get more items that you have to activate while you play.

The sad thing is that those 4+ skills makes for much more complicated plays than the 16+ in GW2. On that note Dota 2 is even more complex.

Sorry but what possible options for char builds? GW2 has very very few builds that work. There is no complexity at all. You also seem to forget that LoL has masters, rune pages, nvm item builds in the game it self. Then you have to take into account that the combat and the match it self is far more complex.

You don’t learn how to play the game in hot join. At least playing bots in LoL you are playing the same game as everyone else.

Lianon.3479:

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

AHAHHAHAHAHAHA, not my intention to troll, but REALLY. STEEPER?
I’ve been a dota player for around 7 years now, and this has got to be a joke.
Dota is hard on the newbies, but this game is LUDICROUS.
EVERY aspect of the pvp character is customizable, and even after playing for 6 months, I have NO IDEA what a meta means, neither does 80% of the community. I mean, we used to bash on trap rangers for being a HORRIBLE spec not more than 4 months ago, look where they are now.
Not to mention dota/lol are mouse left-click-movement games, with 2d overview. If you watch close enough, you can see what’s going on.
Also, I haven’t played LoL for a long time, but this game is INSANELY faster than ANYTHING CAN BECOME on that game. Dota comes closer, and sometimes it can push your reflexes a little bit more.

I’m sorry for all the emphasis on the argument, but I love this game too much to let it be underrated as a simple mmo kind of pvp.

I actually agree with most of what @OP has proposed, I just want to remember that ArenaNet’s business model is CERTAINLY an obstacle in making this game e-sport, as many other people have already mentioned.
It’s not impossible, though. This is the best pvp game I’ve played in a long, long while, maybe even comparable to my deepest loved game, a 1999 franchise I’m not sure I can mention here. And I’ve played that game for almost thirteen years now.

Fast combat =/= complex. If that is what your trying to say then FPS are the most complex games that you can play.

Sorry but you can die in GW2 and its not as punishing as dying in Dota 2, not by a long shot. Also build complexity? You can just copy the same build that is being used by all others. In dota 2 you have to change your build depending on how the match is going. You have to adapted to the match your playing.

Who is talking about the Meta? What does that have to do with anything. Setting up your skills before the match does not roll over into complex combat. That is part of the problem.

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

Your description of skills in LoL shows you have never played the game. Each Player starts with 4 (or more) skills that are Champ specific, then the player get to pick two others before the match starts. You do not unlock them during play. You also get more items that you have to activate while you play.

The sad thing is that those 4+ skills makes for much more complicated plays than the 16+ in GW2. On that note Dota 2 is even more complex.

Sorry but what possible options for char builds? GW2 has very very few builds that work. There is no complexity at all. You also seem to forget that LoL has masters, rune pages, nvm item builds in the game it self. Then you have to take into account that the combat and the match it self is far more complex.

You don’t learn how to play the game in hot join. At least playing bots in LoL you are playing the same game as everyone else.

Really, so Garen starts with Demacian Judgement at lvl 1? No wait, it’s unlocked during play by levelling up and unlocking it.
That’s a much smoother curve, to start with one skill and unlock the rest while playing in the first 10 minutes.
You are guided into buying the right items for your character by the UI, if you choose to follow it.
The 2 utilities you pick are from a very limited pool that grows a little as you play more.
Nothing like the amount of complexity in GW2.

In PvP you are presented with all skills and traits unlocked + different amulets, runes and sigils for your build right away.

The 4 skills in LoL do not make for more complicated play than the weapon skill possibilities in GW2 on an average profession, and are nothing near an Engineer or Elementalist. You’re either clueless or a hopeless fanboy for LoL if you really think it’s in any way MORE complicated than GW2.

Rune pages, ha! What about trait options in GW2, you say there are very few viable builds but how does a new player know this? They are presented with 1000’s of possible combinations, and certain traits change the entire way weapon or utility skills work.

Things that are pretty poor on their own become entirely different with traits (Necro Wells and ranger Traps for example).

Comparing LoL to GW2 is pretty pointless, though you seem very eager to do so.
GW2 is simply far more complicated, because it’s an MMO with more options and actual control of your character, not a left clicking moba.
But as you seem blind to reason, facts and other people’s opinions I’ll not continue this daft discussion with you.

Ezrael.6859:

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

Your description of skills in LoL shows you have never played the game. Each Player starts with 4 (or more) skills that are Champ specific, then the player get to pick two others before the match starts. You do not unlock them during play. You also get more items that you have to activate while you play.

The sad thing is that those 4+ skills makes for much more complicated plays than the 16+ in GW2. On that note Dota 2 is even more complex.

Sorry but what possible options for char builds? GW2 has very very few builds that work. There is no complexity at all. You also seem to forget that LoL has masters, rune pages, nvm item builds in the game it self. Then you have to take into account that the combat and the match it self is far more complex.

You don’t learn how to play the game in hot join. At least playing bots in LoL you are playing the same game as everyone else.

Really, so Garen starts with Demacian Judgement at lvl 1? No wait, it’s unlocked during play by levelling up and unlocking it.
That’s a much smoother curve, to start with one skill and unlock the rest while playing in the first 10 minutes.
You are guided into buying the right items for your character by the UI, if you choose to follow it.
The 2 utilities you pick are from a very limited pool that grows a little as you play more.
Nothing like the amount of complexity in GW2.

In PvP you are presented with all skills and traits unlocked + different amulets, runes and sigils for your build right away.

The 4 skills in LoL do not make for more complicated play than the weapon skill possibilities in GW2 on an average profession, and are nothing near an Engineer or Elementalist. You’re either clueless or a hopeless fanboy for LoL if you really think it’s in any way MORE complicated than GW2.

Rune pages, ha! What about trait options in GW2, you say there are very few viable builds but how does a new player know this? They are presented with 1000’s of possible combinations, and certain traits change the entire way weapon or utility skills work.

Things that are pretty poor on their own become entirely different with traits (Necro Wells and ranger Traps for example).

Comparing LoL to GW2 is pretty pointless, though you seem very eager to do so.
GW2 is simply far more complicated, because it’s an MMO with more options and actual control of your character, not a left clicking moba.
But as you seem blind to reason, facts and other people’s opinions I’ll not continue this daft discussion with you.

This thread is going off – topic. Back to the point please.

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

Ezrael.6859:

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

If done right this is just not true. Dota 2/LoL has a much steeper learning curve, are much harder games and have far more complex battle systems, but new players are expected to know exactly what to do from the very beginning. Those games are doing just fine. The fact is that Hot Join does not in fact teach a player how to play Tpvp, it has nothing to do with tpvp. Having new players play a different game than what the main focus is, is a bad idea. When you play LoL do you play something different than the pro’s? How about Dota? The answer is no.

You can’t compare GW2 to LoL, they are completely different games.

They have very different game play mechanics, and GW2 is much more complicated from the start with all of the possible options for your character build, the huge amount of weapon skills.

LoL you pick a character with 4 skills and 2 utilities that you unlock during play, that’s a very different system to jumping into GW2 with several weapons, each containing 5 skills, 3 heals, 16 utility skills and 3 elite’s. + Secondary mechanics on all professions.

In LoL you can also play a 5v5 as players vs computers, which is total easymode, something that doesn’t exist in GW2 sPvP and serves as LoL’s equivalent of hot join (an easy place for players to learn the maps and how to play them).

Now perhaps current hot join isn’t functioning as it should to prepare people for actual tournaments, but completely doing away with hot join is not a solution.

You will cause far too many problems for the new player experience.
+ You forget yourselves and your attitudes as PvPers, I’ve seen you in pug quick tournaments insulting the guy that joined a tournament on his first day in PvP and didn’t know what to do. You told him to leave and go to hot join !

Your description of skills in LoL shows you have never played the game. Each Player starts with 4 (or more) skills that are Champ specific, then the player get to pick two others before the match starts. You do not unlock them during play. You also get more items that you have to activate while you play.

The sad thing is that those 4+ skills makes for much more complicated plays than the 16+ in GW2. On that note Dota 2 is even more complex.

Sorry but what possible options for char builds? GW2 has very very few builds that work. There is no complexity at all. You also seem to forget that LoL has masters, rune pages, nvm item builds in the game it self. Then you have to take into account that the combat and the match it self is far more complex.

You don’t learn how to play the game in hot join. At least playing bots in LoL you are playing the same game as everyone else.

I have been playing LoL since the day it was released, and i think it is safe to say u are wrong in every aspect.

1. LoL has 1 playable map (Summoners rift) 3v3 and dominion maps are never played.
2. Yes, champions have 4 skills. Yes, they get skills while playing the game (Flash = lvl 12) Im sure this is what he ment.
3. No, the situation are not getting more complex with 4 skills ( i laughed extremely hard ). Lets take veigar for a moment, E →W → Q → R enemy dead, no need to move. U cant dodge key skills by moving (except for skillshots).
4. lets say u get 2 kills in laning phase. what happens now is that u will have more money then the opponent and from this point it will get even easier to faceroll.

There is a lot more we can talk about, but im tired of people bringing up LoL on GW2 forums. As Ezrael mentioned this are 2 completely different games. And i hope that GW2 will never become more like LoL. Imo GW2 is unique, and harder to play then most other MMO’s. The fact that it is harder to gain kills actually makes it a better game.

Thats what i wanted to say