Guild Wars 2

So yeah bit put out about another month without any pvp maintenance, like many long standing and supportive players.

Rather than write a long boring post about one guy on the internets spvp opinion, I’ll just deliver the facts.

Better integrating spvp into WvW and PvE (a goal which is completely justifiable for many more general reasons) will not engage your dedicated spvp players.

We don’t want to play an RPG game
We don’t want to play a siege warfare game.

Leaderboard improvements are welcomed, although as with much of the MMR system matchup quality is largely dependant on player base.

So the real question is, what’s being done to attract and maintain interest for high level players over the coming months?

Also: as a bit of constructive feedback, players would like to see healing signet shaved by the maintenance build scheduled on the 18th. This alone would cheer a lot of fans up. Could it be be made possible?

@Nettle,Silver: You’ve explained well the importance of attracting new players.

Specifically for the high-level players it sounds like balance is by far the most important feature to keep you going, which is no surprise. I can’t speak much to that as I program sPvP features and don’t deal with balance first-hand However, the balance patch is coming, so that will definitely be affecting top-tier players. Apart from that, giving feedback on the Ladder CDI would be most beneficial.

If you’re a warrior you might look forward to celebrating the 1 year birthday of the hambow era

I don’t think any warrior main enjoys playing hambow to be honest.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

I can’t wait for the patch personally. It will be close to a year since any substantial pvp changes have been made. Which essentially means there will be a complete overhaul done on many professions and their mechanics. You guys are too good to us!

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

I think that’s an excellent plan to draw more people into spvp, but I have one caveat: the game’s balance is so bad at the moment that new players that come into pvp will get chewed up, spat out, and abused by their teammates for being “nubs” and told to “go back to pve” (it always kills part of my soul when someone in map chat is being abusive to a player who’s blatantly just new, but there’s not much I can do to stop it). Only a small number of builds are viable, and some among those are massively head and shoulders above all the rest, to the point where a new player, not playing a meta build and coming across a meta thief, warrior, or necro, will be practically instagibbed.

Being destroyed and then verbally abused is not fun for anyone, so these new people will quit in short order and never touch pvp again. If you’re plan is going to work, you have to make with the balance patches BEFORE all those supposed new pvpers show up!

New ladders are good, new rewards are good, new game modes would be EXCELLENT, but what the pvp community want most of all is more frequent balance patches! Frequent, small-scale skill balances every couple of weeks, tweaking a few numbers here and there, and seeing how things go. That’s the only way to fix the balance in this game and make it ACTUALLY ENJOYABLE.

The notion that we have to wait SEVERAL MORE WEEKS for a balance patch that will only take a small, incremental step to moving us out of this atrocious meta that we’ve had to endure since summer is extremely frustrating. And the knowledge that that balance patch will come as part of a larger release in which sigils will be completely overhauled and armour runes rebalanced is absolutely flabergasting! How on earth will you be able to tell what the effects of your skill balances were if you throw the entire game in flux like that? Seriously, it’s a terrible idea!

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

No offense to the OP, but I dislike the question. The answer is basically that exact same thing found in the post from December.

Could we get an answer to any of the actual pertinent questions instead of a rehash of the exact same answer we’ve heard for a very long time? Can you guys let us know how long we’re going to be without rewards? Can you let us know anything new about the new rewards system that should be replacing the one we’ll lose in two weeks? Any ETA on a balance patch?

I’d love to see you guys try to pull out a large portion of the WvW or PvE rewards system without telling them anything except the removal date. You think this forum is bad? It’d be carnage if devs pulled this on them. I apologize for the tone of this post, but I just can not comprehend how management thought it would be a good idea to leave us in the dark two weeks prior to the removal of a massive portion of pvp rewards. There is going to be no point to the “exciting patch” when all the pvpers leave because of no rewards, no balance, and an information black out.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players?

below answer applies to all game modes…

an above average class and combat system that is backed by a game company who does not settle for mediocrity.

Please let me try to explain why some things in your, or rather, Anet plan’s is just flawed.. please don’t take this personally and i hope i’m being as respectful as i can, forgive me for any mistakes since english is not my main language.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game.

Ok. So first of all, how are you planning to do this? I believe you’re trying to get the rewards closer to each other so that sPvP players can enjoy all the “fat lewt” PvE players can easily access to.
Now there is a small mistake there… simply because sPvP players’s main reward from the bottom of their hearts are completely unrelated to shinny PvE stuff. What we really want is:

Skilled and active gameplay;
Promote single target skills instead of AoE;
Good match making system;
Steadily balance patches in a decent period of time;
Different game modes;
Monthly/weekly company hosted tournaments with rewards;
Detailed combat log;
Detailed leaderboards display;
Steadly bug fixes;
In-game built voice comn option;
Option to choose which map/gameplay you want to queue for;
Custom arenas to be as much customized as possible;
PvP-only rewards (skins, finishers…);
Highlight of the best teams/players both in-game and on the website;
The removal of hotjoins;
Build diversity, each being as good as the next;

Now what i’m trying to say with all of the above is that PvE players, in their vast majority do not like or want some of the points mentioned above:

Passive gameplay instead of active gameplay;
Steadily balance patches in a decent period of time;
Promote single target skills instead of AoE;
PvP only rewards;
Removal of hotjoins;
Build diversity, each being as good as the next;

And on top of that, they also want some of the same things sPvP players want such as:
Different game modes;
Custom arenas to be as much customized as possible;

And what i’m trying to say with this is that… if these people really arrive to sPvP… they will push or keep changes that goes against what most PvP players want, simply pushing those farther off the game (just look at all the competitive teams who already left) and nor will see at the features they want implemented (which PvP players also want) and they will just treat sPvP as a side-game not really playing actively nor playing it competitive or serious not really creating the “niche” PvP community that it is required…

Evan Lesh.3295:

This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Most of the PvE/WvW players i know only play hotjoins when they are waiting to raid in WvW or a dungeon. This is not solving queue times or increasing the true sPvP community playerbase at all.
Due the time they wasted in hotjoins they actually have no idea how to play in a tournament queue… no idea of rotations/roles/regroups/capping & decapping strategy or anything… in the end they are bashed by other players and hate the conquest mode which most of the sPvP players are starting to get sick of it as well…

Please consider removing hotjoins altogether, give a “testing ground” map so that people can test their builds and so on, but with zero reward so that they have to play tournaments and understand how the function. Perhaps adding videos or tutorials of the conquest mode will probably also help.

You have to understand that if you try to extend what we call sPvP to PvE players then you’re simply making sPvP being hotjoins, just a side game for players who feel like taking a break from their farm. This is no form helping tournaments or any competitive gameplay.

So in the end, i honestly don’t see this as a short-time/medium-time or long-time solution. You have to understand that PvP players are different from PvE players. Hardcore players are different from casual players. Now if you want to have both you have to work on the points mentioned above… if you just want the casuals to play then you will not have a PvP community.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Please look at the points i mentioned before.
Even if you give me a legendary for winning a tournament match in the current balance state / conquest mode, I’ll still not comeback to play Gw2, unless you fix the fundamental issues plaguing the game.

If you care to reply to me i might try to explain better each point… what they will achieve and what they mean for us players.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players?

A few things stand out to me. Again I’ll try to cut out the subtext where possible.

Not too fussed about aesthetic rewards tbh. I see them actually more for player acquisition than retention of dedicated pvpers.

We want rewarding gameplay, and lots of people to play against at our level.

This both leads to and stems from player retention, which in turn involves tackling a couple of negative statements that prey on us.

Problem statements:

“The game isn’t fun in this meta”

“The meta has been the same for months”

The first statement is probably the biggest one. The player asks himself if this is the perfect time to play. The answer is often no, and so begins the battle between brain and raw addiction (hence the “I quite” posts where players don’t actually quit). Eventually the brain wins..

Action: Watch top player streams; there are moments where builds shut them down without room for counter play. These specific matchups need to be addressed as a priority; they make people quit.

Action: Players want to think a game is constantly being balanced. Conversely many of us sit around thinking of ways to unbalance your game, hence the constant need for adjustment. We enjoy doing this.

Again I know a key objective for the balance team currently is to remove the disparity build-wise between spvp and other aspects of the game. This is a non issue for us. In fact the idea of PvE having an impact on balance is a frustrating one, as we see this as a different game entirely.

Much of this can be solved by regular tweaks to the % damage/healing on skills in spvp. We’re talking in the order of 4-12%. Many of us see such changes as sPvP maintenance.

What falls out of this is the message that the game is actively being balanced, and also shows the game is changing. Players want to know that when Joe Blogs beat them with his cheesy hambow last week, this week his sustain has taken a hit and the matchup will be different. It’s an example of a small % tweak which is much more exciting for a competitive player than say, a buff to shouts.

Of course we want other stuff. Game-modes are a big one, as you guys are well aware. But I think one of the biggest changes that needs to happen first and foremost is a change in the way pvp balance is perceived. It’s not development.. or a feature. It’s maintenance. And just about every player in the mists is looking for new ways to vandalise it.

^ Have to say, think that’s my best post to date XD

I personally like the way PvE rewards are implemented to sPvP. This is what made me try it again during Wintersday. I main Elementalist, currently ranked 45th in the Solo Queue Leaderboard.
I enjoy PvE, WvW, and SPvP. Having the three connected with their own specific rewards make it exciting.
PvE = The best gold farming, dps overkill
WvW roaming (because my computer is not good enough for Zerging)= PvP with the gear stat I want. Different meta, relaxing, the best place to min/max the gear.
SPvP= Getting bragging rights due to finishers, an O.K. amount of gold to compensate the time.
The three modes give me gold, that’s exactly what connect them.

It’s also important to note that Gold reward in sPvP is welcome. Every 60-80 gold, it’s possible to buy a new set in the Gem Store. That way hardcore sPvPer, who sees no use for Gold, could use it that way, imo.

please stop asking to remove hotjoin, do you know that it is a very selfish request?

not everyone wants to play on tournament 5 vs 5 format.
not everyone wants to play on custom servers with limited map rotation.

most casual players just want to play on public hotjoin servers.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

What’s the point of asking that question when no one hears the answer? Most of the high level players left and they have a long trail of posts and comments that you guys at Anet can go over and read if Anet really cared. I’ve played since launch and like most players are playing until something is either done about the state of PvP or something better comes along. I personally don’t expect balance like a lot of players are shouting about because I understand that an MMO will never achieve perfect balance. What I want out of ongoing development is transparency. Nothing has changed in the 1.5 years since launch. Players are still kept in the dark about what the devs are doing or even looking at (e.g. rewards being removed and no mention of what is going to replace it). Yeah there was a stream that showed us sketches of possible new maps, but other than that, hardly any info about ongoing development. I guess at this point there is no point in asking questions because we as a community will just end up raging at ourselves for even asking questions.

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2.

This is something I very much don’t want to see happening. There aren’t currently enough people playing the PvE side of the game (most world events are underpopulated nowawdays), and if more people shift towards the PvP side it could cause a complete colony collapse, where populations get too small to do anything, so people leave, so populations are even smaller, etc.

One thing I really loved about sPvP in the launch game was how separate it was from the PvE game. You could PvP, you could not, whatever, up to you. You couldn’t get unfair advantage in the PvE game by achieving things in the entirely separate PvP game. Now you can get gold via PvP, and the free candy keeps coming. Eventually PvP will take over and there just won’t be any point to the PvE side, and at that point I’ll have to move on. I just see this all as a step in the wrong direction.

Could you write any ideas about 8vs8 pvp? Do you think about something similar to gvg from gw1? Could you write something about it?

Evan you guys keep focusing on bring players in, but never on keeping them. You keep players with good balance and fun gameplay.

Phaeton.9582:

Action: Players want to think a game is constantly being balanced. Conversely many of us sit around thinking of ways to unbalance your game, hence the constant need for adjustment. We enjoy doing this.

Yes, thank you Phaeton, you’ve explained perfectly why regular balance patches are so important! Quoting you to say this is also a large part of what made GW1’s pvp so exciting: every time there was a balance patch, the theorycrafters would go all a-buzz, all the top players would jump into their smurf guilds, and observer mode would be awash in new, strange, gimmicky builds as people tried this out. We weren’t just playing against each other: we were playing against the developers!

I know Izzy didn’t think so back then: his theory of game balancing (at least as he expressed it publicly) was to try and reach an ideal state where the metagame would balance itself without regular patching by the developers. ie. if one build became too popular, a counterbuild would arise. When that became too popular a counter to that would arise.

In reality, however, the game never reached that state. There were a few brief periods where this was the case, and they were fun, no build was predominant and there was lots of diversity,but they’d never last: either some blatantly overpowered skill would get nerfed, and this would have knock-on effects, or one class that had been underpowered for a long time would receive a radical re-design, an expansion would get released and throw literally hundreds of new skills and 2 new professions into the mix, or even the game modes would be redesigned! I don’t think we ever made it more than 3 months without a MAJOR balance upset, and I don’t think we made it three weeks without any skill balancing at all! It was constantly engaging because the game was always subtly changing, and it kept people interested as they were constantly being given new toys to play with (even if it was jsut the old toys with different scaling), and new ways to outsmart the balancing team and find some new and broken build.
So to reiterate Phaeton’s point: the most satisfying win isn’t against other players, it’s against the devs! If you’re not up for this fight, bring Izzy back to the balancing team – I didn’t like his rather extreme approach to nerfing some overly-popular builds, but at least he had the right playfully adversarial attitude.

Much of this can be solved by regular tweaks to the % damage/healing on skills in spvp. We’re talking in the order of 4-12%. Many of us see such changes as sPvP maintenance.

Pretty much this: issue a balance patch tomorrow, I guarantee the active pvp population will increase 50% for the following 3-4 days. If it’s actually a good patch that upsets the metagame the increase will persist for a month. If you do this every 2 weeks, you’re golden.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Evan,

PvPers DON’T WANT more PvErs into PvP.

A good PvP game will attract PvPers, or rather people interested in playing the game in order to win, instead of bringing people who are there simply for the achievement points.

PvP right now needs a serious marketing push with rewards based on ladder position, weekly/monthly automated tournaments with real money involved ( even GEMS would be fine at start) and a huge, HUGE advertising in order to make people come back ( if there’s still a chance to do so).

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

milo.6942:

Evan you guys keep focusing on bring players in, but never on keeping them. You keep players with good balance and fun gameplay.

• This is probably the most accurate and straight to the point statement I’ve ever seen regarding the state of both the SPvP gametype as a whole, and Arenanet’s design direction towards SPvP over the past months.

• I really hope the new rewards system being designed is built on the core goal of not only attracting players to PvP, but keeping them involved and growing in the gametype. Once introduced into the gametype, a keen eye to bugs and balance is in my opinion, the most crucial aspect of retaining any new players in SPvP. Whether it be a new player or a veteran player, typically not many players have fun when a fight or matchup is seen as “unfair” in the player’s mind.

• Now, the concept of “unfair” is mostly subjective and can vary greatly between players based on their likes, dislikes, profession, skill level, etc… It’s an incredibly difficult area of balance to achieve, but I personally feel that Arenanet’s SPvP team and balance team should strive for “fairness” as the core structural pillar of skill balancing. If everyone feels like they’re having a fair fight, they are more inclined to have fun in the gametype, thus improving their opinion of the gametype and increasing their retention rate.

• If most of combat can feel fair, then nearly all players will have fun at challenging themselves to see what they can handle, how to inch out that one little edge to improve build effectiveness, and how to adapt to different situations and opponents that might have a competitive edge against the player.

• The only person who doesn’t enjoy a fair fight is a griefer/troll, who can get all the kicks they want in hot-join with outnumbered or kitten fights, or in WvW where a number of other factors are at play regarding the aspect of “fairness.” It’s sad that hot-joins should suffer from these types of people, but the design of hot-join open servers does not discourage this type of play or these types of players. Thus, it would be too difficult to strive for a continued aspect of fairness in hot-join, where the number of participants is always changing and the team sizes prevent an accurate analysis into the fairness of a given skill, profession, build, or playstyle.

• In my opinion, Fairness should be the ultimate goal for 5v5 Conquest-Style, SPvP – the core gametype which SPvP was founded on.

Best of luck, Evan and PvP team!
Malchior

Mrbig.8019:

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

A game needs those “scrub” players to thrive as much as they need a healthy population of top tier players.

Look at successful competitive games like LoL. The good majority of the large playerbase and stream viewers wouldn’t be considered high tier players, but that’s fine. Someone has to fill in the % ranks in the leaderboards, just like someone will need to fill in the lower ladder levels when that comes along.

More players = better matchmaking with more active queue options for the system = better pvp community and better support.

I’m not saying changes and balance for top tier players don’t made, because they do, but I am saying that all levels of skill should be given consideration.

Mrbig.8019:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Evan,

PvPers DON’T WANT more PvErs into PvP.

A good PvP game will attract PvPers, or rather people interested in playing the game in order to win, instead of bringing people who are there simply for the achievement points.

PvP right now needs a serious marketing push with rewards based on ladder position, weekly/monthly automated tournaments with real money involved ( even GEMS would be fine at start) and a huge, HUGE advertising in order to make people come back ( if there’s still a chance to do so).

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

Unfortunately, you don’t have a say in that matter. What you want is pointless.

People don’t suddenly become Pro Pvpers, at some point they were probably noobs and tried PvP .liked it enough to continue.

Considering they are more people pvping now that ever before, I really doubt Anet cares what the very small and insignificant number of PvP pros such as yourself think. The only thing that might suffer was the concept of esportz but that shipped has already sank faster than the titanic.

Personally, if this new focus on converting PvEers to PvP drives away certain elements, the game will become better.

Phaeton.9582:

I don’t think any warrior main enjoys playing hambow to be honest.

Almost no warriors left from the zerk days :/

#EvanLesh4CeoandPrez2014

Evan Lesh.3295:

@Nettle,Silver: You’ve explained well the importance of attracting new players.

Specifically for the high-level players it sounds like balance is by far the most important feature to keep you going, which is no surprise. I can’t speak much to that as I program sPvP features and don’t deal with balance first-hand However, the balance patch is coming, so that will definitely be affecting top-tier players. Apart from that, giving feedback on the Ladder CDI would be most beneficial.

This is a longshot but here it goes;

When you say balance patch, would it be possible for your just to answer whether the balance changes go beyond the scope of the announced changes such as 8% healing signet reduction/revamp of sigils? Are those announced changes representing the majority of the changes coming or are they the tip of the iceberg? Have they gone through any further iterations internally?

A response would be good, I know you guys don’t want to talk about tentative dates but I think I’d be understanding the situation more if there were absolutely huge groundbreaking changes coming rather than waiting so long for the minor changes that have been announced.

Evan Lesh.3295:

@Nettle,Silver: You’ve explained well the importance of attracting new players.

Specifically for the high-level players it sounds like balance is by far the most important feature to keep you going, which is no surprise. I can’t speak much to that as I program sPvP features and don’t deal with balance first-hand However, the balance patch is coming, so that will definitely be affecting top-tier players. Apart from that, giving feedback on the Ladder CDI would be most beneficial.

I understand the balance team is in an unusual place with the sigil/rune overhaul. However what I was writing about (and showing it to anyone in balance would be awesome), is a change in approach to balance going forward.

Simply put, large drawn out balance patches don’t work in a competitive environment. It’s been the biggest weakness of spvp since launch, misconstrued as players simply clamouring for new content (which is certainly the case in other areas).

The phrase “The game isn’t fun in this meta” was actually something polyphi said to me, shortly before 55 hpm got fully underway. For some reason it stuck, probably because it best highlights how competitive players have felt this last year.

Ty Evan anyway; I’ll check out the CDI tomorrow..

Mrbig.8019:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Evan,

PvPers DON’T WANT more PvErs into PvP.

A good PvP game will attract PvPers, or rather people interested in playing the game in order to win, instead of bringing people who are there simply for the achievement points.

PvP right now needs a serious marketing push with rewards based on ladder position, weekly/monthly automated tournaments with real money involved ( even GEMS would be fine at start) and a huge, HUGE advertising in order to make people come back ( if there’s still a chance to do so).

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

its attitude like these that drives new players away do you know?

There might be hidden diamonds in the PvE world. Lets get them into sPvP and discover their power to scratch glass.

Mrbig.8019:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Evan,

PvPers DON’T WANT more PvErs into PvP.

A good PvP game will attract PvPers, or rather people interested in playing the game in order to win, instead of bringing people who are there simply for the achievement points.

PvP right now needs a serious marketing push with rewards based on ladder position, weekly/monthly automated tournaments with real money involved ( even GEMS would be fine at start) and a huge, HUGE advertising in order to make people come back ( if there’s still a chance to do so).

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

You are completely wrong. We want as many new players in PvP as possible. You must play at the lower end of a queue, but if you were higher, you’d understand… the higher you get in the ladder, the better the quality of players. Who cares if more new players come in? They will be playing at the bottom of the ladder, and I’ll never see them. Should some of them get better, then I’ll have a chance to face them. More players is a good thing.

style.6173:

Mrbig.8019:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Evan,

PvPers DON’T WANT more PvErs into PvP.

A good PvP game will attract PvPers, or rather people interested in playing the game in order to win, instead of bringing people who are there simply for the achievement points.

PvP right now needs a serious marketing push with rewards based on ladder position, weekly/monthly automated tournaments with real money involved ( even GEMS would be fine at start) and a huge, HUGE advertising in order to make people come back ( if there’s still a chance to do so).

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

You are completely wrong. We want as many new players in PvP as possible. You must play at the lower end of a queue, but if you were higher, you’d understand… the higher you get in the ladder, the better the quality of players. Who cares if more new players come in? They will be playing at the bottom of the ladder, and I’ll never see them. Should some of them get better, then I’ll have a chance to face them. More players is a good thing.

This comment is absolutely ignorant and proves that you play very little PvP if not at all.

Team q is the new solo q

Solo q is totally random, the system puts high ranked people with total noobs in order to even teams ( sad part this is a team game so a top 100 guy with 4 scrubs won’t be able to carry them all, and this happens TONS of times, one of the biggest reasons why people afk on their high positions).

I’ve been top 100 eu for months till people kept on playing, now you see always the same people in the queues and only quite late at night ( sizer, collero, skoa,lisey and very few other ones ) while the rest are totally random nabs that became even more nabs thanks to this skill-less meta.

Don’t say stuff you’ve no idea about.

I’m currently around 700-800, quite enjoying staff zerk ele, still i get matched with top 100 people.

here it is your " at the high end, matchmaking is better".

LEL

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

its attitude like these that drives new players away do you know?

There are elitist PvP’ers in literally every online PvP game.
If a new player feels hurt by some random forum person acting the part and doesn’t want to play the game because of it… they are going to have hell finding a PvP game for them.

Mrbig.8019:

Solo q is totally random, the system puts high ranked people with total noobs in order to even teams ( sad part this is a team game so a top 100 guy with 4 scrubs won’t be able to carry them all, and this happens TONS of times, one of the biggest reasons why people afk on their high positions).

I’ve been top 100 eu for months till people kept on playing, now you see always the same people in the queues and only quite late at night ( sizer, collero, skoa,lisey and very few other ones ) while the rest are totally random nabs that became even more nabs thanks to this skill-less meta.

That’s due to low population, not bad matchmaking. The fact that you keep running into the same people should’ve given you a hint.

Mrbig.8019:

style.6173:

Mrbig.8019:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Evan,

PvPers DON’T WANT more PvErs into PvP.

A good PvP game will attract PvPers, or rather people interested in playing the game in order to win, instead of bringing people who are there simply for the achievement points.

PvP right now needs a serious marketing push with rewards based on ladder position, weekly/monthly automated tournaments with real money involved ( even GEMS would be fine at start) and a huge, HUGE advertising in order to make people come back ( if there’s still a chance to do so).

I don’t want to sound rude, but PvE players majority of times are scrubs in PvP.

Same for WvW players.

We need PvPers, not scrubs.

You are completely wrong. We want as many new players in PvP as possible. You must play at the lower end of a queue, but if you were higher, you’d understand… the higher you get in the ladder, the better the quality of players. Who cares if more new players come in? They will be playing at the bottom of the ladder, and I’ll never see them. Should some of them get better, then I’ll have a chance to face them. More players is a good thing.

This comment is absolutely ignorant and proves that you play very little PvP if not at all.

Team q is the new solo q

Solo q is totally random, the system puts high ranked people with total noobs in order to even teams ( sad part this is a team game so a top 100 guy with 4 scrubs won’t be able to carry them all, and this happens TONS of times, one of the biggest reasons why people afk on their high positions).

I’ve been top 100 eu for months till people kept on playing, now you see always the same people in the queues and only quite late at night ( sizer, collero, skoa,lisey and very few other ones ) while the rest are totally random nabs that became even more nabs thanks to this skill-less meta.

Don’t say stuff you’ve no idea about.

I’m currently around 700-800, quite enjoying staff zerk ele, still i get matched with top 100 people.

here it is your " at the high end, matchmaking is better".

LEL

You are still wrong. Stop talking if you don’t understand what you are talking about. It makes you look silly. Solo queue is NOT completely random. You will play against people at a similar level. You will NOT play against some new random person who loses every match unless you lose every match yourself. A remember again is that your original point was that PvP doesn’t need new people coming into it. You are wrong. Just move along.

And just think before writing.

Please, Evan, explain to me why on earth we’d like players from the other parts of the game into spvp? Will they make the scene more compatitive? Will they teach us sth new? Will they make the difference for us to stay?

You are going the wrong way, we dont need them. We need the skilled players to come back! We need more teams competing. More players teaching other players. Need better pvp enviromment.

If u r going to release some pve crap that you think players will hype on, you r beyond doomed to fail. Mark my words.

Your community is very fragile atm. A mistake will ruin it for good.

^ This.
I don’t have issues with PvE players and if some of them get actually EXCITED about spvp (so not just farm it for some stuff), it would be nice.

However, I don’t think, this will increase the competition that much.
Just imagine if you would put a big amount of illiterates into a college class for litrature.
It will increase the size of the class, but not the competition between the students.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regard PvP players better or worse than PvE players, I only want to say, everybody already playing pvp probably has more experience than a PvE player, so there wont be a big increase in the competition.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

Metaphor time, guys hang on its gonna be a long one LOL

Say your trying to sell an old used 90’s sedan with 100,000 miles on it. You spend a bunch of time and $ doing body work, painting, and making the car look amazing. You even offer free oil changes every 5,000 miles if you buy the car. You then advertise over the interwebs. Your probably gonna get a pretty good turn out of people coming to see the car. It looks good and people are drawn to it. One problem, when they test drive it, it drives like a 90’s sedan. People are drawn to the car because of the looks but no one wants to drive that car everyday.

Now scenario #2. You take said car and you sink all your time and money into dropping a beastly engine in the thing. I mean this car will drive like a dream. You advertise the car, but guess what? No one comes to check it out. It can drive like a Lambo but no one wants to drive around in what looks to be something a scrap yard would offer.

Senario #3. The you take the resources you have, put most of it in the engine to make the car drive really well. The rest of the time and money goes into buffing out the scratches and maybe a new paint job. People arent turned off by the looks, the turn out to sell the car isn’t as good as senario #1, but you start getting offers on the car left and right.

Woa that was a long metaphor. So in short what I am saying is don’t allocate your recources trying to satisfy one area all at once. If you spend the greater part of 4 months on nothing more than reward revamps, chances are the community is gonna be pretty salty. The car will look pretty but its gonna drive the same. The inverse is true as well. I am talking about balancing the balance. Thats right I said it, balance inception if you will.

Things that will satisfy the majority of players, both new and old, should above everything else, take the highest priority.

This means features!
game modes
build templates
ladders and seasons

Also free quick checkups on the car would be a nice feature all car owners would love. If the car sticks in 3rd gear, you should look at it for us and tell us what you think.

!http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iHvmUUAZxDa4.jpg!

I’ll share my personnal opinion. Bringing pve/wvw players by integrating spvp more with the rest or something isn’t going to give people incentive to play it. At the moment, my team and I get at least three 500-0s per evening vs randoms everytime we teamQ. There were only 2 teams that were challenging to fight and are probably decimating randoms as well when not playing against each other/us. Being a pve/wvw more casual player and getting disemboweled by long time pvpers is NOT fun. Make the pvp so unique, interesting and balanced (aka better balance, game modes, less messy particles and stuff) that it would bring new people into the game, and THOSE people, coming FOR THE PVP would actually make the effort to get destroyed at first and then improve, etc etc. Trying to salvage your playerbase by changing the reward system as a main strategy to get spvp back on track is meant to fail.

KarsaiB.9475:

I’ll share my personnal opinion. Bringing pve/wvw players by integrating spvp more with the rest or something isn’t going to give people incentive to play it. At the moment, my team and I get at least three 500-0s per evening vs randoms everytime we teamQ. There were only 2 teams that were challenging to fight and are probably decimating randoms as well when not playing against each other/us. Being a pve/wvw more casual player and getting disemboweled by long time pvpers is NOT fun. Make the pvp so unique, interesting and balanced (aka better balance, game modes, less messy particles and stuff) that it would bring new people into the game, and THOSE people, coming FOR THE PVP would actually make the effort to get destroyed at first and then improve, etc etc. Trying to salvage your playerbase by changing the reward system as a main strategy to get spvp back on track is meant to fail.

absolutely

The pve rewards will be less than what a pve farmer could get, so those that chase shinies will not stay, and those that remain will still have to deal with spvp’s main problems. It’s like advertising for a restaurant and then serving spoilt food

edit: now that I think about it, gw2 has been 200% hype all day every day so it really doesn’t surprise me

Very good point KarsaiB.

When you draw in PVE players, it is good for the game, for the player base and so on, but the retention factor of these recruits is most likely to be VERY low. In my gaming experience, most people who PvP exclusively might try PvE but thats not what they purchased the game for, so inevitably they go right back. Same for PvE players. They like the game style of PvE and they might try PvP but inevitably its not what interests them. The amount of people who play both equally are a rare breed.

Building features (more maps, game modes, build templates, map voting, etc…) and a greater attention to balance and depth will be a much greater help to PvP than any further integration of PvP into the other aspects of the game. Granted the rewards will be a nice addition (not ungrateful), it just seems like so much focus is going into something that will not support the health of PvP and its community much, if any.

garethh.3518:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

its attitude like these that drives new players away do you know?

There are elitist PvP’ers in literally every online PvP game.
If a new player feels hurt by some random forum person acting the part and doesn’t want to play the game because of it… they are going to have hell finding a PvP game for them.

That is all well and true but it does not excuse the poor attitude of the “good” player. The very best and most well respected top tier players are not only good at the game but are willing to make guides and lend a helpful tip or two to the new player to help grow the game. Calling people, “scrub” and “nub” is so played out. I want a competitive game, but leave the trash talk for the matches. Don’t bring it into the forums where we should all be treating each other as humans at the very least. Name calling is trite, petty, and no one should have any tolerance for it whatsoever.

KarsaiB.9475:

I’ll share my personnal opinion. Bringing pve/wvw players by integrating spvp more with the rest or something isn’t going to give people incentive to play it. At the moment, my team and I get at least three 500-0s per evening vs randoms everytime we teamQ. There were only 2 teams that were challenging to fight and are probably decimating randoms as well when not playing against each other/us. Being a pve/wvw more casual player and getting disemboweled by long time pvpers is NOT fun. Make the pvp so unique, interesting and balanced (aka better balance, game modes, less messy particles and stuff) that it would bring new people into the game, and THOSE people, coming FOR THE PVP would actually make the effort to get destroyed at first and then improve, etc etc. Trying to salvage your playerbase by changing the reward system as a main strategy to get spvp back on track is meant to fail.

Exactly this. Even if the reward system is on par with pve, that still doesn’t change the fact that if people don’t like the pvp then they won’t stick around to play it. It makes no sense to try to attract everyone to spvp and THEN focus on making it something they like once they’ve already tried it in it’s current state and left.

It seems to me the “top tier” players want good competition. That makes sense. That requires a good match making system and a game worthy of the best gamers. Makes sense. The problem with what a lot of the top tier players are forgetting is that you have to cater to mid tier and casual gamers too. You can’t realistically expect ArenaNet to only put in features for the top 5% of the player base at the exclusion of where they actually make their money.

I will make an analogy: Some of the best musicians in the world play Jazz. If it were up to them it would be 100% jazz all the time. Does Jazz make as much money as pop music that many amazing musicians would consider 3 chord drivel? No. most Jazz musicians play it because it challenges them as artists. The reward is different for them than it is for the artist of middling talent who is good looking and makes money hand over fist. The masses like pop music. It’s where the money is. As top tier players you are the Jazz musicians. You do it for the challenge. The problem: You aren’t where the money is. The money is in the lower tiers where the masses are. The masses are on TS with their friends laughing and playing for fun because it’s a game that they don’t take seriously. If you want to continue making Jazz in this game you need the pop stars to get people interested in music. That is where the future jazz players are.

If you want this game to succeed, heck, even if you selfishly only care about being the best in this game and don’t care if it succeeds, you need the Christinas, Taylors, Kanyes, and Drakes of the world. You can go on being Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and John McLaughlin…but not at the exclusion of the pop stars. They are where the money is.

Iason Evan.3806:

…it does not excuse the poor attitude of the “good” player… The very best and most well respected top tier players… are willing to make guides and lend a helpful tip… leave the trash talk for the matches. Don’t bring it into the forums where we should all be treating each other as humans at the very least..

O.o

Excuse the attitude?
What does that matter?
It happened and is going to keep happening, whether it’s excused or not is irrelevant

And yeah, well respected players are respectful?
But, people aren’t all shooting to be respectful members of the community… if you want to see people treating each other right, the forums of a dying game with devs that don’t listen are not place to go for that.
You can seriously try to change that here, and best of luck I pray I’m wrong, but I doubt you’ll achieve anything short of carpal tunnel.

Lets not skew this argument into a casual vs. pro debate. This is not the point anyone is making (any logical person that is). Of course casuals are needed. PvP’s playerbase needs them. All things that are not under debate.

What I think most of us are saying (or atleast me), is that integrating PvP in with WvW and PvE are not going to directly help the playerbase or health of the PvP system. Those who already play the game have chosen which aspects of the game they enjoy and a reward system is not going to “convert” them. Correct me if I am wrong, but dont people from other parts of the game already come to pvp just to complete their dailys?

PvP will not retain these folks who are lured into PvP for the rewards. PvP needs people who want to PvP in the first place. It has nothing to do with the casual vs. pro crap.

tldr;
shinies != PvP support

You can’t balance a game around casual players while expecting to have a “competitive scene” at the same time, as a competitive scene is made of players able to do MORE with their class/spec than casual players.

Any casual player who pretends he should/is able to compete with a more dedicated player, in any game, is completely mistaken.
If game developers, in any game, are balancing in a way allowing casual players to compete with more dedicated players, they can’t expect to have a “competitive scene”.

Not a single casual player reasonnably expects to compete with more skilled players. In the same way, skilled players expect to outshine casual players. Casual players want challenge but not getting slaughtered, aka need for leagues matching global level t ohave a calibered challenge. More dedicated players don’t want to play vs casual players because it is too easy, or because a game is balanced in such a way that they feel like their impact on the game isn’t matching their skills and dedication. Which has been the case for a lot of gw2 players, since release.

Skilled/mainstream dedicated players are the ones that are supposed to shift the balance. In any well balanced game, any skilled player should be able to play whatever he likes best and be the most effective at it (watch starcraft broodwar balance as an example).
Which means for gw2 a dedicated ele player such as myself should be able to be the most effective by playing ele. Not warrior. Or thief. The amount of plays you can pull off in this game are restrained by the blatant balance issues and class hardcounters. Which is, for ele, nearly everything. But that’s not relevant there. Do NOT balance the game around casual players. For the 1000000th time, ask tpvp players, and listen to them. Please.