Guild Wars 2

I’m a casual necro player who wants to get into pvp and does not have a group/guild to run with. I’m not an amazing player but have a good history playing pvp in WoW and Rift and never did too badly. Here’s my personal experience in GW2:

1. Try hot join 8v8 —> zerg fest, I get steamrolled by burst classes en masse
2. Try hot join 5v5 --> Map is empty or 2v4 / 3v5
3. Try free tournament —> Nearly all are against premades consisting of burst and bunker builds. Resistance is futile.

Needless to say, I did not learn anything except the following:

1. Some classes are just inherently better than others which is reflected in the class distribution seen in the games I played (nearly all from the same three classes)
2. If I want to play 5v5 then tpvp is the only option
3. If I want to play 5v5 and win then I have to play a certain class with a certain build and be in an organised group
4. Point Capture games are actually quite dull even after a short time. Sorry to mention WoW, but even after all these years I think Warsong Gulch is such a great map. Can you imagine Anet’s interpretation of this map / CTF game mode? It would be awesome.

Some solutions which will help encourage players like myself to give pvp a go:

1. Splitting hot join between 8v8 and 5v5 only results in a bad experience either way. Make all hot joins 5v5 so games are always full and there is no zerg. The map was designed around 5v5; use it that way.
2. In tournaments, match pugs v pugs and premades v premades. It’s not fun for either party to match pugs v premades.
3. Address extreme ends of the balance spectrum; if you want pvp to be attractive to the casual market then you have to prevent niche builds being the only viable options
4. More game varieties (CTF etc) will help address niche builds (if point capture is the only game mode then burst/bunker will be the only “right” builds to use according to current meta I believe) and encourage more casuals to try pvp

Probably not a lot of the above is very new, but I just wanted to give my opinion as a casual player who would like to get into pvp.

im not going to tell you to l2p or anything like that, you’re obviously trying to learn how to play in each setting, but those problems do have solutions.

As for 8v8ing, you just need to learn how to avoid the zerg by understanding where it is. I can go through 5 8v8 hotjoin games without ever fighting more than one or two people at a time. of course, my glory gain rate is lower as a result, so I actively participate in the larger fights and etc. also, you need to keep in mind that hotjoin is not very nonburst glass build friendly. and clothies need extra toughness or experience/skill to stay alive. unless you’re bunker ele’ing and know how to keep your buffs rolling, you’re going to take a ton of damage, very quickly, from a lot of classes.

As for the 5v5’s…. i dunno if i want to 5v5 i just free tourny.

As for the free tourny’ing, you need to pvp more (spend more time pvp’ing) and meet the people that will be your team or possibly give/accept invites to tpvp parties. of course, its possible that they will ask you sooner rather than later, but you need a certain level of skill in order to pique their interest – without it you’ll simply be another one of the masses.

And lastly, be polite to the people you meet. if someone trash talks you or your build, just ignore it if you’re going to respond with something rude. There’s nothing more annoying than two subpar players complaining in /map about how bad the other is and how easy/cheese the others build is. as long as you’re likeable/polite, they won’t have a reason to not be interested in you – in other words you won’t end up on a potential future teammates block list because you blew your top at a computer game and inconvenienced/annoyed everyone else around you in the process.

Good luck though, I hope you stick with it.

One of my biggest problems is the tPvP. I don’t understand the logic of matching up pugs against premades, this needs to be changed.

Project Shrine Maiden.9623:

Good luck though, I hope you stick with it.

Thanks! I have been playing loads lately and it just seems like such an uphill battle at times. I guess my post was born of a little frustration. I really want to become a better player – and I can see I have improved dramatically since I first started – but at times it almost looks like Anet have gone out of their way to make it harder not easier for people who are new to the game. I don’t need – or want – hand holding, I just want mechanics, balance and a format that encourages me to play more not less.

In the meantime, if anyone is looking for a r16 necro (I have been GRINDING those free tourneys even though I get stomped by premades!) then hit me up in game. Name is Aerlim =].

My perspective is that structure PvP is a perpetual clusterkitten of leavers and 2v6 games that are not fun for any players. Anything you do to structure PvP that doesn’t address these issues is completely useless.

Edit: And team Switches.

Xae.7204:

My perspective is that structure PvP is a perpetual clusterkitten of leavers and 2v6 games that are not fun for any players. Anything you do to structure PvP that doesn’t address these issues is completely useless.

Edit: And team Switches.

That’s my perspective at the moment, I’ve done about 10 sPvP matches today and every single one was full of unbalanced teams and leavers. This is not enjoyable for either side and does nothing to promote fun games.

Not to mention the abundance of certain professions over others, especially thieves. It’s just not enjoyable.

And the team balancing thing is honestly ridiculous. I’ve been balanced from the winning team onto the losing side so many times I’ve lost count.

The irony:
- in the beginning, there should have been a MM system so that better players and newbies wouldn’t have to face each other
- most people got frustrated by this and left. And now a MM system would mean never-ending queues.

Hindsight is 20/20. No one expected that people would join tournaments for anything other than competitive playing, so tournaments weren’t supposed to need matchmaking. No one complains that paid tournaments don’t have matchmaking, because they don’t need it. It was the same for free tournaments.

Shortly after release, it became apparent that hotjoin wasn’t working out for many casual players, so free tourneys had to support both premades and pugs.

Would you have seen this coming in March/April of this year in time to plan for it? People loved hotjoin in the beta weekends.

As a necromancer to another, make sure to pick up a lot of toughness and skirmish with your enemy. You do not want a direct confrontation with the zerg. Instead, land your bleeds on a squishy cast epidemic and break LOS for a few seconds and repeat. It is not your job to kill everyone by yourself, its your job to weaken them for your bursty friends

Project Shrine Maiden.9623:

im not going to tell you to l2p or anything like that, you’re obviously trying to learn how to play in each setting, but those problems do have solutions.

As for 8v8ing, you just need to learn how to avoid the zerg by understanding where it is. I can go through 5 8v8 hotjoin games without ever fighting more than one or two people at a time. of course, my glory gain rate is lower as a result, so I actively participate in the larger fights and etc. also, you need to keep in mind that hotjoin is not very nonburst glass build friendly. and clothies need extra toughness or experience/skill to stay alive. unless you’re bunker ele’ing and know how to keep your buffs rolling, you’re going to take a ton of damage, very quickly, from a lot of classes.

As for the 5v5’s…. i dunno if i want to 5v5 i just free tourny.

As for the free tourny’ing, you need to pvp more (spend more time pvp’ing) and meet the people that will be your team or possibly give/accept invites to tpvp parties. of course, its possible that they will ask you sooner rather than later, but you need a certain level of skill in order to pique their interest – without it you’ll simply be another one of the masses.

And lastly, be polite to the people you meet. if someone trash talks you or your build, just ignore it if you’re going to respond with something rude. There’s nothing more annoying than two subpar players complaining in /map about how bad the other is and how easy/cheese the others build is. as long as you’re likeable/polite, they won’t have a reason to not be interested in you – in other words you won’t end up on a potential future teammates block list because you blew your top at a computer game and inconvenienced/annoyed everyone else around you in the process.

Good luck though, I hope you stick with it.

These are the types of responses to posts that we just don’t see enough of. Well thought out, very classy, and constructive. +1.