Guild Wars 2

Okay, I’ll be blunt here because I’m pretty sure everyone has the same general point of view here.
PvP is dying. Can’t you guys feel it? AT’s don’t seem as fun anymore, Ranked is a joke and the majority of the community are toxic kittens. What the hell happened to this game? I remember when Ranked queues were fun and competitive, now it’s just carrying awful players and praying the enemy pugs are worse. I remember when the legend ranked sorta meant something. I remember when Match Manipulators weren’t ruining the matchmaking and making it horribly unfair for people just solo queueing. What happened to the days when the game was FUN? I don’t even know anymore..

This portion of the thread is to ArenaNet:
Please, if you guys are reading. Fix your game before it kisses the grave.

Even this forum is dead.

I hope they are doing a big thing for the new expansion and that explains their silence. When i mean a big thing i mean gvg’s as we used to know them and gw1-like pvp, maybe monks. If not, pvp will be doneso and won’t be a comeback.

A lot of things happened, which were BAD changes:

- power creep introduced by HoT (never remedied, instead they added even more power creep)
- deletion of way too many amulets and thus valid builds
- lack of variety in builds (because of above mentioned reasons)
- match making has been horrible (leading to totally lopsided games)
- newly designed Hall of Memories lobby area is simply confusing, not to attract any newbies
- generally the spvp in Guild Wars 2 is not newbie nor spectator friendly (essential for growing player base)
- Arenanet developers have been listening to the wrong audience: elite players and falsely thinking this game could be esports

Scheraz.8132:

Okay, I’ll be blunt here because I’m pretty sure everyone has the same general point of view here.
PvP is dying. Can’t you guys feel it? AT’s don’t seem as fun anymore, Ranked is a joke and the majority of the community are toxic kittens. What the hell happened to this game? I remember when Ranked queues were fun and competitive, now it’s just carrying awful players and praying the enemy pugs are worse. I remember when the legend ranked sorta meant something. I remember when Match Manipulators weren’t ruining the matchmaking and making it horribly unfair for people just solo queueing. What happened to the days when the game was FUN? I don’t even know anymore..

This portion of the thread is to ArenaNet:
Please, if you guys are reading. Fix your game before it kisses the grave.

seasons were bad since start
this game stopped to be fun in spvp some moths before hot when ppl stopped to play cos they like pvp but started to play cos pve reward, achievement , mini lama and stuff.

pelle ossa.9705:

seasons were bad since start
this game stopped to be fun in spvp some moths before hot when ppl stopped to play cos they like pvp but started to play cos pve reward, achievement , mini lama and stuff.

^ This. The most fun i had in pvp was before HOT when it seemed people (myself included) did pvp for the fun of trying to kill other players. When the only rewards were track progress it didnt feel like anyone was match manipulating.

welcome to the pvp community, full of increasing disappointment and decreasing population for the past 5 years!

How is spvp dying if it is already dead? The ranking system and the rewards were the promotions to attract pve heroes before spvp was fully dead, and this ranking system gave it a final blow. Without talking about the rotation or the match ups, you do not see people stacking boons at the beginning, and you see most thieves cap home, I really thought they were trolling when I saw it the first few times. These things were common sense…

PvP isn’t “dead”. Dead would be 0 people in HotM, and eternal Ranked queues.

Dying yes, but it could be a cycle. Season 5 had an influx of players, but with the deletion of PvE rewards in S6 all those players decided to leave.

The next xpac could be interesting for the PvP scene, since there’s more potential synergy between the HoT and papaya elite specs.

yup it sure is, but we shall see what happens

Scheraz.8132:

Okay, I’ll be blunt here because I’m pretty sure everyone has the same general point of view here.
PvP is dying. Can’t you guys feel it? AT’s don’t seem as fun anymore, Ranked is a joke and the majority of the community are toxic kittens. What the hell happened to this game? I remember when Ranked queues were fun and competitive, now it’s just carrying awful players and praying the enemy pugs are worse. I remember when the legend ranked sorta meant something. I remember when Match Manipulators weren’t ruining the matchmaking and making it horribly unfair for people just solo queueing. What happened to the days when the game was FUN? I don’t even know anymore..

This portion of the thread is to ArenaNet:
Please, if you guys are reading. Fix your game before it kisses the grave.

For me, it was lack of variety. I like playing tanks and heals and various hybrids and a lot of those roles and available builds got taken away, so I quit. And I am not the only one, plenty of threads about it when you look at these boards.

So the DPS folks that complained about it so much got their wish, less players, I hope they’re happy.

Then as active players declined, bots, match manipulators, AFK farmers etc. all rose to the top. I think their total amount is the same but they now make up a much larger percentage of the playerbase. On top of that, add A-Nets complete ignoring them and not doing anything about them, and now you have the results.

Deniara Devious.3948:

- Arenanet developers have been listening to the wrong audience: elite players and falsely thinking this game could be esports

Stop right there! They didn’t listen to the elite players, they listened to carebears, whiners, and those with little fortitude.

The game also has plenty of potential to move back into Esports if they mend the other points you mentioned.

A big thing would be making every game automatically record to demo files for better spectating, anti-cheating, and reduced storage space like they do with Counter-Strike and many other Esports games.

SneakyTouchy.6043:

Deniara Devious.3948:

- Arenanet developers have been listening to the wrong audience: elite players and falsely thinking this game could be esports

Stop right there! They didn’t listen to the elite players, they listened to carebears, whiners, and those with little fortitude.

The game also has plenty of potential to move back into Esports if they mend the other points you mentioned.

A big thing would be making every game automatically record to demo files for better spectating, anti-cheating, and reduced storage space like they do with Counter-Strike and many other Esports games.

Yes, actually listening to elite players was a huge mistake.

It lead to ideas like the “competitive” matchmaking system that deliberately created blowout matches for 2 seasons straight.

It lead to a culture of people copycatting a certain loudmouthed ESL player and making non-sportsmanship the norm in PvP.

Sorry, those “carebears” and “whiners” were the population that supported the queues permitting the matchmaker to work properly.

It was the people promoting the idea of “carebears” and “whiners” that trashed the scene. Those kind of ideas alienated enough people that the MM no longer works.

Here’s my most recent match. I’m the Mesmer, ( currently in Bronze because I abandoned ranked PvP for the season.)

We’re facing 3 + Legend rank players in a premade of 5. One of them whispered me after the game expressly to call me bad. One did it in game.

This, ANET, is why people don’t want to play PvP.

I’m headed back to Elona to farm Lightbringer promotion points. Hard mode is sometimes excessively hard… but I know that I have the same chance as everyone else.

Ithilwen.1529:

Here’s my most recent match. I’m the Mesmer, ( currently in Bronze because I abandoned ranked PvP for the season.)

We’re facing 3 + Legend rank players in a premade of 5. One of them whispered me after the game expressly to call me bad. One did it in game.

This, ANET, is why people don’t want to play PvP.

I’m headed back to Elona to farm Lightbringer promotion points. Hard mode is sometimes excessively hard… but I know that I have the same chance as everyone else.

Lulz complaining about ranked Mmr system(which is completely different and is in no way linked to the Unranked Mmr system) and posts a screen shot of Unranked.

Yeah ranked Matchmaking is totally to blame.

Actually, I was complaining about match quality generally. I guess I didn’t explain enough for everyone.

No you literally stated I’m in bronze facing 3+ legends which makes you initial rant related to ranked, then posted an unranked screenshot and tried using the screenshot to attempt to make a point on the ranked matchmaker

You sound like certain political figures, trying to justify things based on obscure sideline arguments.

The fact is and was that I was complaining about matchmaking generally. My point is that blowout matches and general imbalance are the root cause of many of ANET’s pvp pheadaches.

Lulz you are the one that brought in Ranked Matchmaking aka the Ranks and used Unranked to justify the the unbalance in Matchmaking . The two systems are not related in the slightest, but good on you trying your time at attempting to make insults lulz.

Want to know what the main issue with GW2 PvP and Matchmaking overall? It’s the next to nonexistent Pvp population that is it, if the Pvp population was at healthy levels the matchmaker would work fine, but alas that is not the case, and the lack of population is due to gross negligence on the part of a certain company for so long and taking action a couple years too late to correct their issues of catering to the Yolo Queue casuals.

Again try not to mix up tw vastly different Matchmaking systems that have no bearing on the other to try and make a point on general Matchmaking.

Lulz

If it’s not one thing it’s another 6 seasons have clearly painted a picture of these posts both in game and on forums.

Ithilwen.1529:

Here’s my most recent match. I’m the Mesmer, ( currently in Bronze because I abandoned ranked PvP for the season.)

We’re facing 3 + Legend rank players in a premade of 5. One of them whispered me after the game expressly to call me bad. One did it in game.

This, ANET, is why people don’t want to play PvP.

I’m headed back to Elona to farm Lightbringer promotion points. Hard mode is sometimes excessively hard… but I know that I have the same chance as everyone else.

I understand your frustration. We were practicing for the upcoming AT. It was not a premade team whatsoever.

Also, we only had one legend on our team, not three. The rest were in gold/plat.

I could easily point out the other side of the argument (why we badmouthed you in the first place) but that would either give us a warning/ban or risk closing this thread.

Multiple people on your team were wearing Legend titles. You were “less than civil” in game and after.

You have no reason whatever to complain of “the other side of the argument” inasmuch as you started the conflict.

In the AT that followed, you specifically targeted me. Saying in map chat that you intended to do so.

Also I might point out that despite your 3v1 targeting… I topped my team on defense and ( if I’m not mistaken ) points.

I think you may be confusing me with somebody else. Only things I said were “gg” and “hi mes”, nothing else. My apologies if someone on my team started it.

I might have thrown a statement during AT but that was after all the whispers to our team. I never whispered you in the first place so it was probably someone else. :/

GW2 PvP is sadly beyond redemption.

When it first started, there wasn’t any reward in it, only prestige through PvP armor/ weapon skins. I find it more enjoyable that time, it was purely skill sparring with genuine pvp players.

Then something changed, these PvP players demanded rewards, for instance “i want to get legendary weapons through my favorite PvP game mode, i want to farm gold to get PvE items.” Thats when hell break loose; Arena decided to give in.

The matches are now composed of 90% reward farmers and 10% genuine PvP players, which ultimately ruined the gaming experience. That is why you got blowout matches 500-20. The process of getting Wing of Ascension is so excruciating, eventually i got it, and like most of my veteran pvp friends, will never ever enter pvp again, other than a quick teleport to restock my mining tools and banking.

IMO, providing rewards to PvP seems like dooming the competitive gaming experience. Arena shouldnt listen to the players sometimes.

I play PvP also in SWTOR and WoW. You do not know how well we have it here. No stupid gear differences, raising to maximum level, no premades, the balance is better (yes, it is not optimal). Etc., etc.

Magira.6390:

I play PvP also in SWTOR and WoW. You do not know how well we have it here. No stupid gear differences, raising to maximum level, no premades, the balance is better (yes, it is not optimal). Etc., etc.

In wow you don’t face 2200+ ranked players while you are in 1200 range. In GW2 you do.

Cynz.9437:

Magira.6390:

I play PvP also in SWTOR and WoW. You do not know how well we have it here. No stupid gear differences, raising to maximum level, no premades, the balance is better (yes, it is not optimal). Etc., etc.

In wow you don’t face 2200+ ranked players while you are in 1200 range. In GW2 you do.

Maybe. But WoW Rated (2vs2, 3vs3 Arena) is so bad, i play only Battlegrounds.

Many stopped playing cause same meta for about…I don’t know 2 years?

Population will change when new expansion will be out.

For example if after new expansion I WON’T BE FORCED to play healbot to compete in ranked gold+ I am coming back to play pvp ele.

Till then i stay in BDO…game where wizards are not healbots….and can make people explode.

Magira.6390:

I play PvP also in SWTOR and WoW. You do not know how well we have it here. No stupid gear differences, raising to maximum level, no premades, the balance is better (yes, it is not optimal). Etc., etc.

That is a poor way to say things are ok.

Things that you said killed Archage ( another NCSoft game) and that game had serious potential too.

Huge problem with what you said is PvP for GW2 was great prior to HOT. Alot of people stayed in hope that the game play would get better and honestly any changes made would be better then S1 had to offer.

But here we are 2 years later, the best players in the game have no real interest in the game. You have 4 real teams competing in these AT, otherwise me you and 3 other people could go in coms and do pretty well.

Next you have the average veteran players quiting the game. This is where the game has truly died in PvP. When you get plat 2- 3 and Legendary players playing with gold 2 players and lower the skill differences are just to much.

You get 1 legendary player with 4 gold 1-2 players and then you get 2 Plat 2-3 players with 2 gold 1/2 players and a high silver player. Guess what the 2 plat players can hang with the Legendary player and then the other plat player can now farm weaker players.

Do put into food, GW2 was a great steak house. They made great steaks, HOT comes along and now GW2 cuts 1/2 the steak options in half and replace them with pastas.

The player base wasnt eating GW2 for pasta, they came for steak. You compare WoW and SWTOR and the reason you cant is because they dont server steak.

They are different games with different settings with there own customer base. GW2 catered to PvE players and created raids.

So you saying we dont know how good we got it is only with in the contexts that you dont like the PvP in those other games which does not fix the problems in this one.

Abelisk.4527:

PvP isn’t “dead”. Dead would be 0 people in HotM, and eternal Ranked queues.

Dying yes, but it could be a cycle. Season 5 had an influx of players, but with the deletion of PvE rewards in S6 all those players decided to leave.

The next xpac could be interesting for the PvP scene, since there’s more potential synergy between the HoT and papaya elite specs.

At this point and time. I personally do not and can never see. sPvP being more entertaining then roaming in WvW with the huge influx of people now playing WvW.

Roaming in WvW has highly increased my fun status far as PvP is concerned in this game. If I truly want small scale structured PvP, there are other games which will fully entertain me even in Bronze tier.

Sorry guys I just think sPvP in GW2 is a train that has long sense left the station. And is not coming back ever. However I hope I am completely wrong. However I will not hold my breath for that train to come back.

Sly.9518:

Lulz you are the one that brought in Ranked Matchmaking aka the Ranks and used Unranked to justify the the unbalance in Matchmaking . The two systems are not related in the slightest, but good on you trying your time at attempting to make insults lulz.

Want to know what the main issue with GW2 PvP and Matchmaking overall? It’s the next to nonexistent Pvp population that is it, if the Pvp population was at healthy levels the matchmaker would work fine, but alas that is not the case, and the lack of population is due to gross negligence on the part of a certain company for so long and taking action a couple years too late to correct their issues of catering to the Yolo Queue casuals.

Again try not to mix up tw vastly different Matchmaking systems that have no bearing on the other to try and make a point on general Matchmaking.

Lulz

If it’s not one thing it’s another 6 seasons have clearly painted a picture of these posts both in game and on forums.

We need more people like you so this kitten can die even faster and be completely devoid of anyone doing anything other then bots, afk farmers and PMs trying to farm them. No seriously, bring moar ! LULZ

Reaper Alim.4176:

Abelisk.4527:

PvP isn’t “dead”. Dead would be 0 people in HotM, and eternal Ranked queues.

Dying yes, but it could be a cycle. Season 5 had an influx of players, but with the deletion of PvE rewards in S6 all those players decided to leave.

The next xpac could be interesting for the PvP scene, since there’s more potential synergy between the HoT and papaya elite specs.

At this point and time. I personally do not and can never see. sPvP being more entertaining then roaming in WvW with the huge influx of people now playing WvW.

Roaming in WvW has highly increased my fun status far as PvP is concerned in this game. If I truly want small scale structured PvP, there are other games which will fully entertain me even in Bronze tier.

Sorry guys I just think sPvP in GW2 is a train that has long sense left the station. And is not coming back ever. However I hope I am completely wrong. However I will not hold my breath for that train to come back.

You realise WvW is basically in the same situation as PvP, that most of the actual WvW players/guilds left the game, and that they are now bribing PvE players in with shiny things in the same way they did with PvP.

WvW is basically a pale shadow of what it was, the train left the station long ago.

Mr Godlike.6098:

Many stopped playing cause same meta for about…I don’t know 2 years?

Population will change when new expansion will be out.

For example if after new expansion I WON’T BE FORCED to play healbot to compete in ranked gold+ I am coming back to play pvp ele.

Till then i stay in BDO…game where wizards are not healbots…. and can make people explode.

I love this haha. I always thought ele should feel more like gw1 when it was a offensive toon. I mean i know they didn’t really add a healer to gw2 so they kinda forced ele into holding that spot but seriously… its gotta stop we need to have better choices or at least more!

I’ve seen some leaked specs for the next expansion and they look awesome but i bet we will still be limited to just 3 trait lines…. its going to be bland again once everyone finds one spammy build for each class. Either we need 4 trait line selection with only 1 newer spec allowed or we need dual classes. Gw1 had epic build combos with no spammy issue because no real build was the same. People would use a copy paste build but then there were 100 ways to modify it from there.

New spec eh… it will just be bland after no more then a few months after the hype is over with the specs we get to play with.

They are disconnected from their playerbase. Existence of stronghold and desert borderlands is proof of that. They are trying to fix that but it is a few years too late.

A year from now: “sPvP is dead!”

Game is 5 years old. Of course there will be a slow attrition of players. I get frustrated with matchmaking at times as well but shrinking player base likely contributes.

PvP slowly died ever since the trait merge patch which removed most of the fun from the game and just made it mindless spam. OFC this spam was ok for the first few months, but ever since then the population has crashed.

The power creep introduced with HOT was there but it was minor in comparison to the trait merge patch. That made all classes many times more powerful. Now you get 9 traits which are all merged version of about 20 traits before the patch.

They also hurt build diversity by removing all the amulets in an attempt to make their failed esports more fun to watch. This didnt work and we still have no amulets for those who would like to play a tankier build on some classes.

There is no coming back from the trait merge patch. It is over. This game will never be popular again because the core gameplay is not fun. Who has fun fighting perma invuln mesmers or thieves with 1000 dodges? Nobody.

They cannot reverse the trait merge patch now so its over. GW2’s sales from pvp will continue to trend towards 0.

For example meditation guardians used to have to take 3 traits for monk’s focus. Now they get it all in a single trait. So they can take 2 other traits to complement it. The result is classes which can do everything, both survive and damage. But everyone is doing this. So everyone has shorter cds, harder hitting skills, more defence and more damage mitigation. This resulted in the most optimal strategy being spam. This game should be a case study for how to ruin a great game at release.

Lordrosicky.5813:

PvP slowly died ever since the trait merge patch which removed most of the fun from the game and just made it mindless spam. OFC this spam was ok for the first few months, but ever since then the population has crashed.

100% agree the June 2015 patch was IMO the beginning of the real decline in PvP. It got worse in Oct 2015 with HOT power creep. It accelerated further with the start of Seasons.

I diagree. PvP is thriving now. Pros are playing more in AT so lesser players can learn a lot. There might not be that many players but it is natural for 20 years old dx9 game.

kdaddy.5431:

Magira.6390:

I play PvP also in SWTOR and WoW. You do not know how well we have it here. No stupid gear differences, raising to maximum level, no premades, the balance is better (yes, it is not optimal). Etc., etc.

Next you have the average veteran players quiting the game. This is where the game has truly died in PvP. When you get plat 2- 3 and Legendary players playing with gold 2 players and lower the skill differences are just to much.

I have no problem if a few Elistists leave the game. The greater the fun for the 95% casuals.

Mr Godlike.6098:

Many stopped playing cause same meta for about…I don’t know 2 years?

Population will change when new expansion will be out.

For example if after new expansion I WON’T BE FORCED to play healbot to compete in ranked gold+ I am coming back to play pvp ele.

Till then i stay in BDO…game where wizards are not healbots….and can make people explode.

^this hate healbot

SneakyTouchy.6043:

Deniara Devious.3948:

- Arenanet developers have been listening to the wrong audience: elite players and falsely thinking this game could be esports

Stop right there! They didn’t listen to the elite players, they listened to carebears, whiners, and those with little fortitude.

The game also has plenty of potential to move back into Esports if they mend the other points you mentioned.

A big thing would be making every game automatically record to demo files for better spectating, anti-cheating, and reduced storage space like they do with Counter-Strike and many other Esports games.

Sorry. This is not how most people operate once you have been betrayed and ignored.

Any game who wants to have a healthy pvp player base, needs to cater those normals, which you call with derogatory names. It also needs to be beginner friendly. Despite having put about 5000 h to this game, I consider myself as normal and casual when it comes to spvp. The match making was so utterly bad for 2 seasons, catering the elite and giving many players totally lopsided games. Lopsided wins or losses (100-500 etc) are NOT fun. If the vast majority of the matches end up totally lopsided, why to play at all?

The game also needs to be spectator and community friendly. Look at the lack of communication of Arenanet in these forums. I know reading and writing replies is a lot of work. I am myself administering couple of popular social media groups and I also have a fairly popular YouTube channel with millions of views and 20K views/day average. Despite having a full time job + family with kids and a small baby, I still have time to reply dozens of questions per day + write online articles, explaining things. I also myself sometimes have to ban people, but I generally do that only for repeated use of extremely foul language or death threats towards people. Here you can get infractions for breaking the rules, which often don’t make sense e.g. in WvWvW subforums you are not allowed to talk about the matches (makes sense, right? ). Catering a good vibrant community means tolerance also towards those who sometimes have heated opinions and discussions. I have several times myself allowed this to happen and afterwards some come back to me and regret: “sorry, I was telling bad things about you and your channel before”. Yes, they come back, can become fans and the community grows. Here the policies cause the opposite to happen.

Rightfully a lot of players felt betrayed and frustrated. Some feel that Arenanet doesn’t want to include them as players nor as forum users. There is really no easy way to bring them back. Even if Arenanet would fix all the above mistakes, the harm is already done and the vast majority will not come back.

Sorry for all the possible language mistakes I made. English is not my native language.

Urejt.5648:

I diagree. PvP is thriving now. Pros are playing more in AT so lesser players can learn a lot. There might not be that many players but it is natural for 20 years old dx9 game.

I have been trounced in the first round of every tourney I’ve entered so far. Less “learning” and more fun please.

Oh my goodness.

“I remember when legendary rank meant something.” “I remember when Ranked queues were fun and competitive.” “I remember when Match Manipulators weren’t ruining the matchmaking and making it horribly unfair for people just solo queueing.”

You’ve clearly not played ranked before, and not in other seasons for sure. Legendary has only mattered in the last few seasons and it was literally worthless before.

Urejt.5648:

I diagree. PvP is thriving now. Pros are playing more in AT so lesser players can learn a lot. There might not be that many players but it is natural for 20 years old dx9 game.

Reeaaally wish this darn game wasn’t so cpu dependant… 1080card yet my frames are dependant on my i56600 cpu :/

Spartacus.3192:

Lordrosicky.5813:

PvP slowly died ever since the trait merge patch which removed most of the fun from the game and just made it mindless spam. OFC this spam was ok for the first few months, but ever since then the population has crashed.

100% agree the June 2015 patch was IMO the beginning of the real decline in PvP. It got worse in Oct 2015 with HOT power creep. It accelerated further with the start of Seasons.

Yeah i think so too. Big part of my friend list stopped playing this game with june patch/HoT.

zinkz.7045:

Reaper Alim.4176:

Abelisk.4527:

PvP isn’t “dead”. Dead would be 0 people in HotM, and eternal Ranked queues.

Dying yes, but it could be a cycle. Season 5 had an influx of players, but with the deletion of PvE rewards in S6 all those players decided to leave.

The next xpac could be interesting for the PvP scene, since there’s more potential synergy between the HoT and papaya elite specs.

At this point and time. I personally do not and can never see. sPvP being more entertaining then roaming in WvW with the huge influx of people now playing WvW.

Roaming in WvW has highly increased my fun status far as PvP is concerned in this game. If I truly want small scale structured PvP, there are other games which will fully entertain me even in Bronze tier.

Sorry guys I just think sPvP in GW2 is a train that has long sense left the station. And is not coming back ever. However I hope I am completely wrong. However I will not hold my breath for that train to come back.

You realise WvW is basically in the same situation as PvP, that most of the actual WvW players/guilds left the game, and that they are now bribing PvE players in with shiny things in the same way they did with PvP.

WvW is basically a pale shadow of what it was, the train left the station long ago.

WvW is a pale shadow of what it was…. True.

However from a PvP oriented player prospective. WvW currently hands out more fun fights as a solo roamer then sPvP. Plus I don’t have to worry about afkers, bots, or people throwing the fight, to keep me from winning and progressing. Like I do in more then half of my sPvP rated matches.

So all and all I’ll still stand by with what I’ve said. If you still don’t believe me then go try both Smite and Paragon.

Some food for thought to follow…….

-Paragon which is a complete upgrade from Smite in all categories, except match quality. Peeked above Smite for a small window then has completely pulled a GW2. Now Paragon can never hold a candle to Smite. Because Epic Games decided to go the GW2 route and go for match quantity over match quality. ANd is now focusing it’s efforts in Paragon on pulling suckers towards buying waifu skins and overpower aim for you characters. And has completely focused on their new game Fortnite.

Scheraz.8132:

I remember when Ranked queues were fun and competitive, now it’s just carrying awful players and praying the enemy pugs are worse. I remember when the legend ranked sorta meant something. I remember when Match Manipulators weren’t ruining the matchmaking and making it horribly unfair for people just solo queueing. What happened to the days when the game was FUN? I don’t even know anymore.

I remember in the early seasons, when solo-queuing and maintaining a >55% win rate was incredibly difficult because you’d run into partial team queues often, if not face full team queues on a team full of solos. I also remember in the early seasons, where legendary/diamond players would intentionally queue with emerald/sapphire players to lower their team’s MMR and face lesser skilled players. I also remember in the early seasons, where players would team queue into Stronghold at 3 AM to farm pips with alt accounts simultaneously queuing. I also remember in the early seasons where every match went the full fifteen minutes because of bunker chronomancer, making pushing beyond diamond an absolute grind; most players that reached legendary that first season were forced to treat the game like a full-time job.

There never was a point in time, for me, where ranked PvP was truthfully all that fun—and players have pretty much always used and abused any mechanic possible to give themselves an edge. Remember when the “guild team” system was introduced, with rewards, and Pro League teams just filled up the leaderboard with duplicate rosters? What the Abjured is doing in 2017 isn’t really any different from what they were doing in 2014; and while Chaith and Phantaram had a lot more tact and respect for the game mode than the current Abjured roster, at times you just have to call a spade a spade.

I played a lot of season one and some of season two when it was incredibly fresh and new, but when the above tactics and strategies revealed themselves, I ended up quitting the game to prepare for ArcheAge 2.0 instead. I then went on to play BDO and WoW Legion, returning for season five … but most of these issues have only exacerbated themselves further, culminating players gaming decay rating volatility to catapult their rating far higher than others playing normally and the rampant match manipulation of buying wins and queuing on alts that continues to exist today.

It sucks, because none of these games ever compared to Guild Wars 2 when it was at its best, and I can’t help but think its best years are behind us. The entire Heart of Thorns content cycle has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. I can’t think of anything that has gone well, or left a lasting positive impression on the game—and it’s very likely we won’t see another solid PvP-oriented MMO on-level with Guild Wars 2’s combat depth for another 5+ years.

This week’s drama surrounding EG leaders buying a monthly tournament win off the Abjured isn’t some isolated incident—it’s just the latest plot point on a trend, the icing on the proverbial kitten cake. I just can’t be bothered to care anymore, or muster the interest to even want to care about PvP in 2017. I just live in WvW these days, and log off and play something else when I get bored of it.

Mr Godlike.6098:

Many stopped playing cause same meta for about…I don’t know 2 years?

Population will change when new expansion will be out.

For example if after new expansion I WON’T BE FORCED to play healbot to compete in ranked gold+ I am coming back to play pvp ele.

Till then i stay in BDO…game where wizards are not healbots….and can make people explode.

You arent the only one. There’s actually quite a few people from GW2 that have migrated over to BDO. I think thats where the majority of former wvw guilds ended up since i recognize alot of guild names that used to run around in gw2 back in the day in BDO now. Who would have thought that people who like pvp would actually want to play a game that focuses on pvp? /sarcasm.

I havent even logged into gw2 for several months. I just check the forums occasionally now to see if they’ve unscrewed up things. I doubt they’ll ever actually listen to the pvpers. They ignorantly think they can have esports while balancing classes around pve raids and still refuse to separate balance between the 3 modes. By the time they stop being stupid and admit they were wrong, and finally do separate balance, this game will be long dead.

They were able to get away with such incompetence in the past because there literally was no competition. But alot of new mmos have come out that do what gw2 has failed to do and people are migrating in droves now. As far as small arena fights goes, BNS has that with 1v1, 3v3, and 6v6. and GASP! they have separate balance from pve in the arena! And as far as large scale wvw sort of combat goes, BDO has that covered and what a shock! Skills are separated to work differently on players that they do on mobs! Who would have thought that having skills separated from pve would make a pvp mode in a game successful? Its not like we haven’t been asking anet to do that for the past 5 years.

Nikkinella.8254:

They were able to get away with such incompetence in the past because there literally was no competition.

There still is no competition.

Black Desert Online is so far removed from the qualities that make Guild Wars 2 great, I have no idea how anyone can maintain a lasting connection with that game. I went all in on that game. I bought the $100 pack for the four-days early access, grinded to 50 in literally a day, and then realized there’s absolutely nothing to do in that game aside from just mindlessly trashing mobs in circles.

It has a shallower end-game than Guild Wars 2 had in 2012, and the fact that you have to constantly grind to stay competitive makes it literally the antithesis to Guild Wars 2. There is very little skill involved in winning fights in BDO, and when it’s impossible to setup your combos because you’re trying to grapple someone with over 100 ping, you can’t help but admit the entire combat system is all flash but no substance. More importantly, many professions have too many mobility skills, and they just run away when they start losing a fight. If I could compare it best, it’s as if everyone was a thief or gs+s/wh warrior and just resets the second a fight goes south.

I’d rather play 3 more years of ArcheAge mageball kitten than put myself through that. BDO is a terrible game on so many levels; it’s bad enough that the only time that you can actually participate in castle sieges is on Saturday nights, so you have to choose between having a social life or forgoing experiencing the bulk of that game’s endgame.

It’s always been dying, and the player base is shrinking and shrinking. I have not played this season(Played in every season since S1) because the main game mode is both stale and not very enjoyable. Especially when you’re trying to climb the board it can get stressful and frustrating, and seeing the top exploiting, cheesing or manipulating the system for top spots kind of kills it more for other people. Granted a lot of those players do belong up there but it really hurts the integrity of competitiveness, for a competative mode when you know the same players have like three alt accounts up there and they’re queueing with others from the top to fill more of those spots.