After multiple days of incredibly frustrating tournament solo join play, I felt the need to post this thread. I realize that solo queue is in a really bad spot at the moment – but that doesn’t change the fact that there are a ton of things that need to be addressed.
I personally like Conquest. I know people are interested in seeing other game types (and I would like to see how future game types are implemented) — that being said, the only really supported game type we have now is Conquest. And frankly, people have no idea how to play it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen my team trickle in one after another to a node Rambo-style, 1v3+, or sit 3 people to cap a single node, forget integral parts of a map (like Stillness on temple), so on and so forth. And before someone pipes in saying something to the effect of, “it will change at a higher level ranking” — I want to clarify that these aren’t beginning tPvP’ers (actually, lately, solo-queueing has dropped me from ~600 to 88% ranking).
Now, of course, the logical response is to get a team. That’s hands down the best way to play this game. I’ve actually played on a couple of teams now and I genuinely love it. And when playing with a team of intelligent players, the game is much smoother and legitimately interesting and fun.
But the problem still stands — the average/learning player has no idea how to play Conquest and the game provides little guidance. When playing on an organized team, GW2 is simply a different game than when pugging.
Now, I don’t really enjoy LoL and don’t play it much, but it stands as an exemplar for a competitive PvP game — ArenaNet could take some hints from them. For example, simply opening League, you’re faced with the ability to watch high-level play with a click. Obviously, this is a great teaching tool, as players learning can easily watch top players and see how they do what they do. Personally, I’ve grown a lot from watching GW2Guru’s tournaments, among other streams and videos. But I have to go out of my way to watch these games — there needs to be some sort of in-game access so players of all skill levels can be more aware.
Additionally, LoL boasts some great in-game features that really enhance team play among pugs. Simple clicks that let your team know your enemy laner is missing, or that you’re coming in for a gank allows non-voip’d teams to communicate at least at a fundamental level. Why does GW2 not have an “Incoming!” keybind?
Guild Wars 2 direly needs to implement features that teach its players how to play Conquest. Without them, pugging/solo queuing will never be fun (even when they add in a soloq bracket or system) and the gap between top level players and beginners will just continue to grow.