Guild Wars 2

Here are questions regarding the current state of PvP, MMR, Season 2 and onwards.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/

Get your tea and biscuits ready.

Has Arenanet taken the dissatisfaction of players with the PvP season 2 matchmaking under advisement and looking to revise it for season 3?

ANet_Erik 29 points 2 days ago
We are definitely aware that there are some frustrating match-ups being made during this Season’s initial kick off period and we are actively working to improve this for Season 3.

Intigo[TA] youtube.com/Intigo/ 13 points 2 days ago
When can we expect the sPvP Leaderboard to return? And will it be not terrible this time?

Anet_Hugh 7 points 2 days ago
The old iteration of the leaderboard will not be returning, but we do have the Legendary Division Leaderboard which highlights our top Ranked Arena players as well as the Guild Challenger League which highlights our top guild teams.

[–]MirelesMireles Lore.5942 [XHSA] Yaks Bend 3 points 1 day ago
What is the current consensus of the matchmaking sPvP Leagues Season 2?
It seems vastly different from Season 1 both matchmaking and progression wise.
Are we in an experimentation phase as far as Leagues go, or is Season 2 represent a place you want leagues to be?

No answer to the above question.
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[–]Galandil 3 points 1 day ago
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: PvP season 2 matchmaking.
Will you fix it, removing the stacking algorithm, or change it in some significant way?
Any PvP loving player wants nice matches, not pre-determined stacked matches just for the sake of grinding/climbing useless ladders (like the divisions).
Will you ever bring back a much more fair system like the one in GW1 GvG?

[–]Anet_Hugh 3 points 1 day ago
We have gotten a lot of data on the first 2 weeks of the season and plan on making some changes to address some of the matchmaking pain points you are describing in season 3. We also are looking into improving the initial starting period of league seasons with regards to match quality.

[–]Aggadan 2 points 1 day ago
About sPvP, how do you feel about the balance and the impact of engineer/ele/rev still being able to bunker, while the necro do a crazy amount of damage, the warrior can’t be competitive nor the thief or the mesmer? How do you consider the power creep? Is there a team working actively on balance ? How do you feel about the impossibility to play ranked between the pvp season? On a sidenote how do you consider the matchmaking for ranked, are you considering improvement to stop successive lose streak due to high spread of mmr between players in a same team?

[–]JohnCorpening 1 point 1 day ago
The team has been evaluating what to do in the off season. We don’t have a firm plan yet but it is something that is being discussed.
Regarding ranked play, it is our highly competitive mode. While everyone can participate in it, you do need to think of it more like a tournament. That said, we are looking at ways to get higher tier players to where they need to be faster. In S2 we added win streaks which our data has shown has helped a lot to achieve this. Again, no solid plans yet but this is something that the team is keeping a close eye on.

[–]Unixas 2 points 1 day ago
Any plans for simple 1v1, 2v2 pvp queues where you just fight other players with no pve, point capturing stuff?

[–]ANet_Erik 3 points 1 day ago
It’s something we’ve discussed, but there are currently no plans for 1v1 or 2v2 PvP gamemodes at the moment.

[–]Oakenkeg 2 points 1 day ago
Don’t you think that waiting to balance the game’s PvP only 4 times a year leads to stagnation? The bi-weekly updates kept the game fresh, both in PvP and out. How do you justify moving away from that?

[–]ANet_Erik 4 points 1 day ago*
We believe that having distinct meta periods is healthy for the state of PvP, but keeping the meta constantly in flux was frustrating for most players, because things that were effective one day were ineffective the next week.
As we have shown, we’re willing to make changes to improve the health of the meta mid-season, but we also don’t wish to constantly change the meta during PvP League Seasons in general.

[–]Copperbolt 1 point 2 days ago
I feel that pvp has changed to a somewhat more stressful environment. i think before HoT, there was alot more counterplay involved. nowadays, there is so much point blank AoE CC that its extremely frustrating to play without access to mass stability.this whole situation feels alot like other MMos for me: stunlock the support/heal/carry, burst him to oblivion, and repeat. before HoT, i could pack two stun breaks and be prepared against most cc-heavy classes/specs. now? not even close. i hate that model, and i really hope going forward that you could turn down the aoe cc a notch. nothing skillful about it, extremely frustrating to play against, and is the main culprit for “messy” teamfights.

No response to the above comment
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[–]MC_Celestia 1 point 1 day ago
What are the chances on bringing Courtyard PvP map back to the unranked selection list? If you already answered it I apologize as there was wayyyyy too much to read haha.

[–]ANet_Erik 2 points 1 day ago
Our currently supported gamemodes are Conquest and Stronghold. Courtyard still has a place in custom arenas, but it won’t be returning to Unranked or Ranked arena.

[–]Sznurek066 1 point 1 day ago
You you plan some big changes on PvP unpopular maps? For example changing the orb mechanic on spirit watch etc. Do you plan to add some new PvP maps in near future?

[–]ANet_Erik 3 points 1 day ago
From John Corpening earlier in the thread:

It is definitely our intent to build new maps for PvP for both Conquest and Stronghold. Before we dig into that, we are taking a pass on making some improvements to our existing maps. We’ve had some feedback from some of our top players on how some existing maps could be adjusted to be more competitive. Expect to see some adjustments along those lines first.

[–]Unixas 1 point 1 day ago
Can you explain me why GW2 doesn’t have plain pvp where one team is fighting other team. Instead we have mods with focus on point capturing and holding?

No response
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[–]marcos19945A fractal a day keeps the mossman away 1 point 1 day ago
As a PvP player who has friends who don’t own HoT:
Don’t you feel like the elite specs bring an undesired factor into the metagame? The fact that they are decidedly better (and seemingly designed to be so) than the other specs makes the meta a bit more stale in the sense that all builds are almost obliged to run an elite spec. This also hampers non HoT owners, I don’t know if this was intended or not, but I’d like to know, what are your thoughts on this? Are changes planned?

No response so far
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You know it is such a shame that ArenaNet chooses to “communicate” outside their own forums and choose to ignore the questions here and we have to bring this communication in here for the community.

edit: editing forum bbcode or w/e its called

So basically they are admitting season2 was a desaster, but they wont change anything.

They focus on getting pro league out of reach as fast as possible and are ignoring the rest.

Wanna bet Season3 will have reduced pvp playerpool to the state it was in about 1.5 to 2 years ago? At least percentage wise compared to other game modes.

Thanks for the post

Thank you very much for your consolidation work.

I must say, I am very sad and disappointed to read, match making won’t change in season 2. That really crushed the last bit of hope I had, that there will be at least one or two weeks of enjoyable pvping.
Also nothing were sad about destroyed MMR due to extensive loss streaks.

Thanks for the post, I am so mad atm, but at least they have recognized the game or s2 is disaster. I am close to ruby, I got paired twice with teammates who ALL RUSHED FAR??? Like tf ANET.. We had a team of two ele, seriously Anet; do I really have to tell ruby ele to hold pints? ?? Instead of running around the map like IDIOTS??? RUBY this season is just trash… I had better games in emerald or saphire.

Admit it is broken. Do nothing. Queue times that are now ‘fixed’ are even longer than S1.

Par for the course.

Well, At least they are recognizing that the current system is experimental “gathered a ton of data in the first weeks that will help make improvements for season 3”

Also they are admitting that their matchmaking system simply does not work. That is a good sign.

Looks like the “win” streak is here to stay. Aka, we only care about top players, the rest of you are just there to make them look and feel better.

Cyanon.1928:

Well, At least they are recognizing that the current system is experimental “gathered a ton of data in the first weeks that will help make improvements for season 3”

Also they are admitting that their matchmaking system simply does not work. That is a good sign.

Nowhere do they say that. I guarantee you right now they will not change the fundamentals of how it works right now back to forced 50/50 and MMR averaging teams. My prediction is they will start higher MMR players in higher leagues and some other small tweaks to lessen the chance of extreme losing streaks. They have already decided how it worked in season one was bad. They are not going back to it.

You know that you’re getting older than you’d like to admit when you find that your AMA question has been answered, but you didn’t see it directly on reddit but in a copy/paste (nice) work on the official forums. :facepalm:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48o4ks/the_solution_to_s2_pvp_leagues/

Not directly related to PvP, but about skill balance:

Which teams are in charge of class balance and how does internal testing for skills work?

What do you primarily look for when discussing changes to certain classes?

If you don’t balance around Pro League or top level PvP, what do you use as a benchmark for balance?

Are there any plans to split skills between PvE and PvP?

We do have a team that works on skills. We focus on maintenance and balance of current skills, in addition to the implementation of new player skills down the road (I.E. H.O.T. Elite specializations). Internal testing is a mix of Dev/Q.A./tester Hands-on interaction, and some automation. When discussing changes for classes, we look to a variety of areas to determine what should happen. We use metrics from many areas of the game, feedback from a plethora of sources (yourselves included), along with our own spreadsheet comparisons and experiences. In addition, we have meetings with each feature team to discuss the issues in that we then investigate and come up with solutions for. We balance from many different perspectives, top tier pvp is included as well as Raids, Fractals, WvW roaming/group play, casual open world, huge map-wide encounters and a few more that I’m not thinking of at this moment. As for skill splitting, I’d suggest checking out Isaiah’s answer in this thread.