Guild Wars 2

felivear.1536:

Jacobin.8509:

Yes GW2 is slightly easier to return to than other MMOs. The point is that if there is no competitive community with a big player base, you can’t expect an esport to just magically appear once changes are added 2-4 or whatever months from now.

As has been pointed out in this thread and others, rating and MMR won’t work if there is a tiny population. Its still long queues and miss-matches which will not give people who come back a good experience.

Forget this argument: “No sub-fee MMOs are so much different and players come back sooo easy”. I don’t buy it at all. If that were the case, then pay to play MMOs that go free to play should, in theory, get the same return rate or new player rate. Guess what, they don’t.

Look at the numerous examples of failed MMOs that went to the free-to-play model with no barrier to return. Can you give me an example of one that is flourishing?

Jacobin, you are dead on with your assessment and worries. This game is hemorrhaging. In an MMO, the fun of the players requires other players. The major concern for this game should be obtaining and retaining players. All of you other people that are so quick to say “this has no sub fee, they will come back!”….I’m very sad to tell you that one day, you will find out how incorrect that statement is.

That’s not the case at all. Outside of games designed to be free to play (such as GW, SC2, DOTA2, etc) the free to play model doesn’t really end up working how people seem to think it does. In fact, with SWTOR I’m not even sure if free to play users can even enter PvP.

The best parallel for GW2 is the original GW. Outside of that, the parallels are with non-MMO games such as SC2, DOTA 2, and LoL.

Syeria.4812:

felivear.1536:

Jacobin.8509:

Yes GW2 is slightly easier to return to than other MMOs. The point is that if there is no competitive community with a big player base, you can’t expect an esport to just magically appear once changes are added 2-4 or whatever months from now.

As has been pointed out in this thread and others, rating and MMR won’t work if there is a tiny population. Its still long queues and miss-matches which will not give people who come back a good experience.

Forget this argument: “No sub-fee MMOs are so much different and players come back sooo easy”. I don’t buy it at all. If that were the case, then pay to play MMOs that go free to play should, in theory, get the same return rate or new player rate. Guess what, they don’t.

Look at the numerous examples of failed MMOs that went to the free-to-play model with no barrier to return. Can you give me an example of one that is flourishing?

Jacobin, you are dead on with your assessment and worries. This game is hemorrhaging. In an MMO, the fun of the players requires other players. The major concern for this game should be obtaining and retaining players. All of you other people that are so quick to say “this has no sub fee, they will come back!”….I’m very sad to tell you that one day, you will find out how incorrect that statement is.

That’s not the case at all. Outside of games designed to be free to play (such as GW, SC2, DOTA2, etc) the free to play model doesn’t really end up working how people seem to think it does. In fact, with SWTOR I’m not even sure if free to play users can even enter PvP.

The best parallel for GW2 is the original GW. Outside of that, the parallels are with non-MMO games such as SC2, DOTA 2, and LoL.

GW maybe the only true parallel and I am not qualified to speak to that since I am not sure how the original state of the game was. But, hopefully you can help me there. I did not know many people that played GW1 but I understood it had a healthy community. I want to know, did they game feel this incomplete at launch (serious question). Also, keep in mind that this game had a HUGE hill to climb at the start because it was branded the WoW killer, esport, and the greatest thing since Mario Brothers (which is all the more reason it HAD to ship with features other games currently have) This isn’t like that unknown game where a player tries it and decided “this isn’t for me” then later hears about some major changes and says “i’ll give it another try”. This game was one of the most love and hated games ever before release. Many of the players that loved it so much and touted as the game they will spend the next 5 years playing are very disappointed because some were made to look like a fool. The other half that hated the game and still tried it walked away with a sense of “i told you so”.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know my friends were pretty much divided in those two camps. All of them are gone, and I honestly don’t know of any of them that will return for any reason.

Jacobin.8509:

Yes GW2 is slightly easier to return to than other MMOs. The point is that if there is no competitive community with a big player base, you can’t expect an esport to just magically appear once changes are added 2-4 or whatever months from now.

As has been pointed out in this thread and others, rating and MMR won’t work if there is a tiny population. Its still long queues and miss-matches which will not give people who come back a good experience.

The thing is that there isn’t actually a tiny population. There’s a tiny population doing paids, but there are plenty of people doing free. There’s a problem of how to get enough of those players to move to paids for matchmaking to keep the ones who aren’t ready from facing the top teams, but it’s not impossible, especially if Arenanet realizes that it’s a problem and makes changes to try to fix it.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all.

Just wanted to thank Grouch/Frozire and all the players for being involved in this. Sorry if some of the questions felt “soft” to you guys, but we’ll try to do more of these in the future. I thought the players asked great questions and voiced legitimate concerns. I know there are many other concerns out there, and we’ll just have to get to them in due time.

Thanks for listening, and thanks to everyone involved for getting it set up!

J

Just a quick question if you are still monitoring this thread. Do you agree that the scoring system in hot-joins is not conducive to team play and actually causes it to be the main reason you see so many theives and mesmers? Because they are very well suited for that type of play (i.e. Kill, quick hopping between points, cap and leave).

Also, are you completely set in stone on the no solo queue option? Many people including myself do not have the time or have an odd schedule to form teams and play at set times, we want to be able to queue in tournaments with people who also want the same thing. That would by far be the most popular type of SPVP played if that was added.

Edit: are there any plans to make hot-join keep parties of at least 2 people together? With Christmas rush I plan on seeing a few new friends joining and I would like to stay on the same team in hot-join.

Thanks for your time, we do appreciate what you guys do.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all.

Just wanted to thank Grouch/Frozire and all the players for being involved in this. Sorry if some of the questions felt “soft” to you guys, but we’ll try to do more of these in the future. I thought the players asked great questions and voiced legitimate concerns. I know there are many other concerns out there, and we’ll just have to get to them in due time.

Thanks for listening, and thanks to everyone involved for getting it set up!

J

Thank you for taking the time to provide this information to everyone. While there is always going to be some criticism of any action you guys take it was a great improvement over the previous level of communication and I hope it becomes a more common occurrence.

While I was happy to hear about the overall direction the game is headed with matchmaking, the one part I think everyone would love to hear more about is about increasing the diversity of team comps. The players in the interview were all pretty happy with balance overall, but I think they were looking it through a very narrow context. There aren’t really any extreme powerhouse professions that can not be countered, but with that said I would say most professions have only a couple viable builds with vast numbers of traits and utility skills remaining completely untouched in tournament play.

I think it would be great to hear what arenanet has in mind for making other builds and team comps viable out of the Pt holder guardian + Portal mesmer + 2 roamer dps + 1 pick’em meta.

felivear.1536:

Look at the numerous examples of failed MMOs that went to the free-to-play model with no barrier to return. Can you give me an example of one that is flourishing?

Not sure what you mean by this comment, but there have been multiple PR from Turbine and Sony talking about player increases from their games that switched to F2P. I don’t know about flourishing, but the games haven’t been shut down either.

Visiroth.5914:

felivear.1536:

Look at the numerous examples of failed MMOs that went to the free-to-play model with no barrier to return. Can you give me an example of one that is flourishing?

Not sure what you mean by this comment, but there have been multiple PR from Turbine and Sony talking about player increases from their games that switched to F2P. I don’t know about flourishing, but the games haven’t been shut down either.

I mean flourishing. And of course the numbers increased, the reason they went F2P is because the numbers were darn near dead. So, going from 30,000 players to 43,000 players is definitely more players, but still a dead game.

Jacobin.8509:

7 People was too many when an actual dev was on who had big announcements.

The problem with having the host be from a fan site, and wannabe e-sport heroes as guests, is that they threw a lot of softballs to Anet and glossed over or didn’t address the most important issues for players who might be considering coming back.

As people here have pointed out, MMR won’t work with the present population since with so few teams newer people will still get matched against vets which defeats the purpose. The population issue MUST be addressed before anything else.

It also makes no sense in the present tournament system since a noob bracket tournament would be getting the same qualifier points reward that a vet bracket receives.

One of the things that might bring people back is a legitimate solo queue, but we got the answer that this isn’t going to happen.

Also people want single ranked matches, not tournaments that require 40 people and 45 mins with a lot of downtime just to take part in a basic competitive game. He said this was being considered, but was very vague when this is probably one of the most important changes that need to be made.

They didn’t even talk about the ticket entry fee barrier monetization scheme, probably because the monopoly teams that were represented don’t care, but it is hurting the population.

From an Esport’s perspective, until Anet puts up some money rather than making vague promises, there is no reason to take this game seriously and be a free-labor beta tester for some far off hope that the game will take off.

The overall message was pretty much that there is really no reason to play the game presently. We are better off letting the guys on the show test these proposed features then maybe return once a legitimate competitive system is actually implemented.

The problem is that 3-6 months down the line the game will be so far from release that it will be a major challenge to get people to come back even with the perfect system. And like it or not, its the masses that make a game successful, not the ‘pros’.

I saw this post and I felt like I just had to comment on how disgusting I find it to be; you start by insulting everyone that took the time of day to bring you this podcast, grouch is one of the nicest people you could have the pleasure of meeting and I see no problem in him hosting the event and all those wanna-be esport heroes probably care more about the game than you do, so show a little respect, that was completely unnecessary, and really illustrates whats wrong with the competitive community.

You question why it is that we don’t ask all the hard questions ?
Well simply said the event was only going to be 1 hour long, there were 7 people at the event its self, so if we were to ask any of the hard questions we would find ourselves pressed for time, so it was decided that those questions would be avoided and that we would ask questions that could fit into the time parameter, instead of having a podcast that accomplishes nothing.

All in all, I really don’t care what you think, just don’t take a personal stab at the people that worked really hard to bring this to you and the rest of the community, it only helps to discredit you as a person.

Let me put my 2 cents in…

First, let me thank Jonathan Sharp on the interview.

I’ll be perfectly honest, I am not an avid PvP’er. I dabble in WvW a bit, and I have found sPvP to be fun when I played it in beta. With that said, I doubt what I have to say will carry any weight with the PVP community at large, or devos.

However, I felt that the “State of the game” interview with Jonathan Sharp(Thanks for participating by the way), made me realize, or at least influence, my opinion on game development and direction. You had those top-dog PVP players asking you questions. Many times, they inferred that they know whats best for PvP(and often time Jonathan agreed with them) and the rest of the casual/semi hardcore playerbase just simply rant and whine. Even Jonathan Sharp alluded to this, that most of what people say on the forums, and rightfully so at times, is not well-informed. I felt that Jonathan, while defending the interests of casuals, ultimatley sides with the pro players in hopes of creating a huge eSport game.

While it was neat to see a dev talk about his game and give some insight into his thought process, but in doing so it also left a nasty taste in my mouth. I now feel that since I am not a Pro player like those guys on the panel, that I would be holding this game back from its true potential, or holding it back from where it should go in terms of development, gameplay, and class design. I feel that guys and gals like me are “noob”, as Jonathan put it, that we do not know the game we are playing or the classes we play. I feel that inviting pro-only players to a discussion like this really segregated the playerbase, put themselves in the spotlight, and thus shunned the rest of us. The 90% of the pvp player base is not pro like those guys, which is why Jonathan Sharp said that he needs to keep those non-pro players in mind, however in doing so I feel like we hold the game back. The pro players know whats best, right? They know whats best for the game, and its because of the casual PVP player, the semi-hardcore PVP player that the class balance changes that they deem are NEEDED, ultimately do not get implimented. Or those changes are delayed to “allow us to learn the game”.

To put it simply, I felt the interview was mildly insulting because it contrasted too much the needs/wants/abilities/interests of Pro players vs everyone else.

To add to my post:

I used to participate in live gaming tournaments / LAN tournaments for cash and prize way back in the Quake 1/2/3 days. I’ve won a few items, pretty modest stuff. Now, being married with a kid, I cannot dedicate the time to do this stuff anymore like these guys.

With that said, I’ll also add that the pro-players will always be catered to a bit more, listened to a bit more, and pampered a bit more because apparently they are what make games, or at least player vs player games, large. This happened in Quake 1/2/3, it happens in MMOs even in PVE… Back during the TBC, and WOTLK days of WoW, when they released new huge content patches that would crash the servers, ironically a lot of the time the servers that had some of the top guilds, never went down or had less issues. Sure, they had their disconnects as well Id imagine. But I’d bet that if their servers went down, they were the first to come up so they can rush back to World Firsts with boss kills. There was a lot of talk in those days about Blizzard taking care of those servers first.

My point is that, and again this is just my personal opinion so please do not attack my personal opinion, I feel that the small pro-player base is catered to and propped up whenever possible.

Would Jonathan Sharp invite the common player to the next interview?

@Cesmode: Common players (a.k.a. noobs/casuals) should have no say in intricate and interconnected areas such as combat mechanics and class balance. They should, however, be listened in all other areas for player retention and all that jazz. It disgusts me to see clueless people whine about X profession day in and day out; doubt my stomach can handle them in an interview or podcast.

Actually, I have always found the problem with only listening to top players is that they will start to take advantage of that situation and influence the game to be balanced around their playstyles and favored builds. They also get stuck inside a bubble of thought that causes the game to get stale. GW1 ended up suffering from this problem down the road.

You need disruptive thought in regards to balance as well as “top players” feedback.

@onearmedbandit: I agree and disagree, both contradictory.
-I agree that these “noobs” and casuals might not know the fine detail mechanics of certain things and thus their input should be taken with a grain of salt.
-I disagree that their concerns should not discarded completely, even concerning structured PvP. They paid as much for the game as you or I, maybe even more!

If you alienate these people, you no longer have a game. Period. Time and time again, statistic after statistic, it is shown that there are WAY more casuals, noobs, semi-hardcores than there are the “world first”, top 1% or 2% of PvP players. Im sorry you, as well as others might even disagree with this statement, but I believe it to be true.

Casuals out number pros. It is a wise business model to not alienate these folks and make them feel unwanted. I believe Jonathan Sharp pointed this out and I do not believe he intended to send a message that casuals don’t know how to play the game, however, that is the message that I perceived.

You look around the forum and you see a small percentage of the greater community. Take the ascended gear debacle: I was part of that small community of people that is against the small treadmill they created. Avidly disguisted at first, though Ive since made my peace. The forums were anarchy for that week or two. But when you logged into the game, nobody cared. You hardly saw people in map chat talking about it.

Its a sad truth, because I would love nothing more than a revolution of the playerbase against ascended gear and fractal levels. But it just wont happen because the casuals, semi hardcores that do not frequent the forums as much as you or I, outnumber the pro players.

etiolate.9185:

Actually, I have always found the problem with only listening to top players is that they will start to take advantage of that situation and influence the game to be balanced around their playstyles and favored builds. They also get stuck inside a bubble of thought that causes the game to get stale. GW1 ended up suffering from this problem down the road.

You need disruptive thought in regards to balance as well as “top players” feedback.

Nicely put and I agree, which is why I suggested mixing the next interview with two or three top players, and then randomly selected 2 or 3 players. If those randomly selected players happen to be pretty hardcore, then so be it. If they are the type that log in a few times a week for a few hours a week, then so be it. Id be willing to be that if they were selected and choose to attend, that they have some idea of what they are doing in game, and not a player that is completely new to an MMO or PVP.

Just to clarify, I didn’t mean to shun the casual PvPers who, in fact, form the majority of GW2’s PvP community. Their opinions and feedback should obviously be listened and catered to for a more accessible, progressive (casual>semi hardcore>hardcore>pro) and fun PvP experience which in the long run will translate into more stream views, TP purchases etc. However, there are certain areas of the game (as Jonathan Sharp so frankly put) such as class and meta balance where this can become problematic because, let’s admit it, a casual finds it easier to whine on forums about X being broken rather than watching how the top players handle said situation or doing a bit of research to discover/formulate counter-strategies, build optimisation, adjustment etc.

As a player from a mid-tier tPvP team (10 QP), I have full confidence in top players representing my concerns, suggestions etc.

cesmode.4257:

Nicely put and I agree, which is why I suggested mixing the next interview with two or three top players, and then randomly selected 2 or 3 players.

When bringing on experienced players it is most often also the most community-present players, these players care and want the best for the game. Not only is this shown by them spending multiple hours every day but it is also in their willingness to appear on shows like this.

Why bring these players?
When a new “meta” develops or when a new strong build appear it is most often due to the resources or analysis of these players. When the top-tier players comes up with new tactics, new ways to utilize abilities/traits then the general player base learns about this, through streams, videos or forum posts from mentioned players.

That is why focusing on these players is valuable as a lot of their information gets picked up and used by the less experienced players. As they start playing these new builds, they start getting more common and counter-builds are invented, forcing new builds to be made again. This is essential what ‘meta-game’ is all about.

Not to mention the discussion with in-experienced players would often be an elaboration of mechanics rather than a genuine discussion. A lot of the concerns or beliefs of the in-experienced player is often caused by lack of understanding/knowledge about certain mechanics or personal abilities/utilities.

But rest assured, we are certainly taking all this feedback in and will definitively take it up for re-evaluation whatever or not we should have less experienced players appear on this show in the future.

-
GW2Guru
Frozire

OneArmedBandit.7936:

Just to clarify, I didn’t mean to shun the casual PvPers who, in fact, form the majority of GW2’s PvP community. Their opinions and feedback should obviously be listened and catered to for a more accessible, progressive (casual>semi hardcore>hardcore>pro) and fun PvP experience which in the long run will translate into more stream views, TP purchases etc. However, there are certain areas of the game (as Jonathan Sharp so frankly put) such as class and meta balance where this can become problematic because, let’s admit it, a casual finds it easier to whine on forums about X being broken rather than watching how the top players handle said situation or doing a bit of research to discover/formulate counter-strategies, build optimisation, adjustment etc.

As a player from a mid-tier tPvP team (10 QP), I have full confidence in top players representing my concerns, suggestions etc.

True, and I agree. But the same can be said for the pro players. You don’t think that during these streams, that these guys will be pushing for fixes to OP class mechanics that they cannot handle themselves?

If one of them was a necro, and a thief catches them by surprises with a massive backstab-crit build…you don’t think that the pro-necro wouldn’t be pushing to nerf this?

In my view, its all the same complaints no matter who it is coming from. The only difference is, these guys are 100x better than most everyone else, and they are deemed all the wiser for it.

As for my own possible bias, as some might make it seem: I have no dog in this fight. I don’t sPvP. Im neither casual or pro. Im a guy that players 3-4 hours per night weekday, 5+ on weekends, but knows his sh-t. I just choose not to be all pro-y about it. Honestly, I accept whatever changes Arenanet will make to the game, because it all changes eventually. I usually dont fret about class balances and changes unless it actually changes how I play the game…ie.. If as a thief, I am unable to move in and out of the frey/stealth with relative ease. Thats a core niché of the class that should be handled delicately. I really could care less if they toned down the damage of a backstab, or heartseeker.

The core statement I was trying to get across is that the entire interview could have been mildly insulting to the non-pro sPvP player. Jonathan sharp even referred to casuals as “noob”. Even though this term is frequently used, it still has negative conotations attached. He did say that they keep the casual comments in mind when making balance changes, but by and large it really sounded like they want to illicit the help from those top players. The rest of the community is just noise really. On top of all of this, the entire conversation gave me a feeling that just because I do not play for 10 hours a day, my lack of skill is what is holding the game back from being what the top players envision it. The casual lack of skill prevents changes from happening, to the detriment of the pro-playerbase. That is the one stinging feeling I was left with all of that.

For lack of better words:
-It was said that developers keep the casuals in mind, but want to really garner information from the top players and the “meta”.
-It was said that most of the playerbase learns more slowly than the pros, so they need to keep this in mind as well. Its almost like saying “Pro players: We know that we need to change XYZ, but the rest of the playerbase just won’t catch on that quickly. Please be patient with THEM while they are still learning how to handle each class”. This type of developer attitude is probably present in any MMO, but hearing a developer say stuff like this really put things into prespective for me.

cesmode.4257:

Jonathan sharp even referred to casuals as “noob”.

This is the second or third time I see you making this statement. And I just have to clarify following to you, since you don’t seem to know it: Noob is a player that is generally “bad” at a specific game or overall. While Newb is a player that is new and henceforth “bad” simply because he is new.

You have, as I’ve mentioned, used as a statement against Sharp that he called causals noobs, which is just wrong. He used the term newb and casuals to describe the less experienced/skilled/newer players. So where you see an insult there actually is none. And if my memory serves me right he actually clarifies this atleast one time in the interview. He goes like “the newbs, I mean the more casual players” or “the newbs and the casual players” etc.

Oh and by the way, just want to point out that I (as a mid-tier player) would much more prefer Arena Net to balance/tweak the game from the professionals point of view/feedback. Because that is where the trustworthy analysis’s will come from.

Want examples? Just go to any successful e-sports out there, like SC2. When the SC2 HotS beta came out every single sc2 pro gamer got a key. And it is not because of some dark, ominous reason. It’s simply because Blizzard knows that the pro’s feedback is near invaluable, and the more they can get the better.

Xeph.4513:

I saw this post and I felt like I just had to comment on how disgusting I find it to be; you start by insulting everyone that took the time of day to bring you this podcast, grouch is one of the nicest people you could have the pleasure of meeting and I see no problem in him hosting the event and all those wanna-be esport heroes probably care more about the game than you do, so show a little respect, that was completely unnecessary, and really illustrates whats wrong with the competitive community.

You question why it is that we don’t ask all the hard questions ?
Well simply said the event was only going to be 1 hour long, there were 7 people at the event its self, so if we were to ask any of the hard questions we would find ourselves pressed for time, so it was decided that those questions would be avoided and that we would ask questions that could fit into the time parameter, instead of having a podcast that accomplishes nothing.

All in all, I really don’t care what you think, just don’t take a personal stab at the people that worked really hard to bring this to you and the rest of the community, it only helps to discredit you as a person.

I didn’t insult anybody, you said yourself on the show what your ‘endgame’ plan is. I am sure you are all great people, but you still all have a vested interest in having a cozy relationship with the devs, especially Guru.

I heard a lot of talk about who should be balancing the game, Anet’s design challenges during the holiday season and in general, minor bugs and EU internet service providers yet pressing topics like solo queue and single rated matches were hardly touched. The ticket monetization scheme which currently punishes new teams was also not even addressed.

Xeph I will give you credit for actually asking some real questions in the last 10 minutes of the show. Most notably about queue times and population. It was a little concerning that other members on the show didn’t seem to see this as a massive problem, since it will have a major impact on esports potential, which I assume you all care about.

Finally, you started this thread to discuss the show. If a little criticism is ‘disgusting’ to you, ‘shows whats wrong with the community’ and ‘discredits me as a person’ all I can say is I am sorry for being honest and not just simply accepting your and Anet’s words as the gospel.

I may not spend 40 hours a week in paids farming a fancy collection of QP badges. Nevertheless, I actually do think the combat mechanics in this game are very good and worth keeping around which is why I make posts like these in an attempt to pressure Anet to put spvp development up the agenda since it has been at to bottom since release.

Jacobin.8509:

Xeph.4513:

I saw this post and I felt like I just had to comment on how disgusting I find it to be; you start by insulting everyone that took the time of day to bring you this podcast, grouch is one of the nicest people you could have the pleasure of meeting and I see no problem in him hosting the event and all those wanna-be esport heroes probably care more about the game than you do, so show a little respect, that was completely unnecessary, and really illustrates whats wrong with the competitive community.

You question why it is that we don’t ask all the hard questions ?
Well simply said the event was only going to be 1 hour long, there were 7 people at the event its self, so if we were to ask any of the hard questions we would find ourselves pressed for time, so it was decided that those questions would be avoided and that we would ask questions that could fit into the time parameter, instead of having a podcast that accomplishes nothing.

All in all, I really don’t care what you think, just don’t take a personal stab at the people that worked really hard to bring this to you and the rest of the community, it only helps to discredit you as a person.

I didn’t insult anybody, you said yourself on the show what your ‘endgame’ plan is. I am sure you are all great people, but you still all have a vested interest in having a cozy relationship with the devs, especially Guru.

I heard a lot of talk about who should be balancing the game, Anet’s design challenges during the holiday season and in general, minor bugs and EU internet service providers yet pressing topics like solo queue and single rated matches were hardly touched. The ticket monetization scheme which currently punishes new teams was also not even addressed.

Xeph I will give you credit for actually asking some real questions in the last 10 minutes of the show. Most notably about queue times and population. It was a little concerning that other members on the show didn’t seem to see this as a massive problem, since it will have a major impact on esports potential, which I assume you all care about.

Finally, you started this thread to discuss the show. If a little criticism is ‘disgusting’ to you, ‘shows whats wrong with the community’ and ‘discredits me as a person’ all I can say is I am sorry for being honest and not just simply accepting your and Anet’s words as the gospel.

I may not spend 40 hours a week in paids farming a fancy collection of QP badges. Nevertheless, I actually do think the combat mechanics in this game are very good and worth keeping around which is why I make posts like these in an attempt to pressure Anet to put spvp development up the agenda.

In your orginal posted you said “that this is the problem with having a host from a fansite and wanna-be esports heroes”, I am sorry if I fail to see how this isn’t insulting to the people on the receiving end, because I found it insulting to myself.

I asked people to discuss the video, not take personal stabs at the people participating, if you wanted to you could’ve avoided that exact wording and said it differently, and thats what I found “disgusting” was the fact that you choose to put the host and the people who took time out of their day to bring you that show in a bad light and for no reason, apart from the fact that they didn’t ask the questions that you wanted.

@Xeph, I’ve a huge respect for you, but i’ve to say that you only said HALF the turth, and we both know i’m right. You can’t espect people not to be mad after how Anet treated us, the fact that the community unleash their rage on whoever appears on the screen is unfortunate but predictable.

I don’t have the balls to be a whistleblower, so i’ll just say what is already well known but most people still don’t realize.

a) The game was not supposed to be released so early, that’s why the pvp is unfinished.

b) Anet is in denial, they crippled themselves with the tournament system, and they can’t/won’t admit it.

c) The game will be good, trust me. Anet being in denial is just slowing down the process, but it will be good eventually.

I don’t want to make this a wall of text, but if you want to know why the game is not working, and what should’ve been, you can read my quote from another topic:

Ace of Spades.6325:

Sorry for my Engrish.

No, and we will not be for a long time. They went for this tournament system for the sake of being different, crippling down the game for the next 5 months at least.

The concept is not bad, the problem is that the devs working on pvp are just mere humans, they can’t code faster.

This system requires many things to be finished:

Hot Join
Free Tournaments
Paid Tournaments
Monthly Tournaments
Ranked System
Private Servers
Spectator Mode

It’s very complicated to code and project something like this. But they could’ve worked on something standard, and at this point we would prolly have twice the player base, and most the features needed to start an eSport.

Example:

Unranked Q, both solo and premade. (1 match, random map)
Solo Q ranked, solo or 2 man premade. (1 match, random map)
Ranked Q, premade only. (1 match, random map) <—— no need for 8 teams to be online.
Private servers.
Spectator mode.

With a system like this, both casuals and hardcorers would be able to play at anytime of the day, instead Anet decided to be hipsters, being different for the sake of being different, and now casuals can’t play at all (without getting stomped), and hardcorers can only at specific hours.

If i was in charge, i would put the effort into bringing a ranked solo q in the game as fast as possible, that’s the main thing that keeps the average/hardcorish player playing the game. Some people simply don’t have the time to find 4 good players, but they still want to play competitive, also i could name at least 10 friends who stopped playing cuz ‘’i don’t play unranked games’’. I strongly belive that if we had a system like the one i suggested (and most big games have it) we would’ve a much healtier game.

Ace of Spades.6325:

@Xeph, I’ve a huge respect for you, but i’ve to say that you only said HALF the turth, and we both know i’m right. You can’t espect people not to be mad after how Anet treated us, the fact that the community unleash their rage on whoever appears on the screen is unfortunate but predictable.

I don’t have the balls to be a whistleblower, so i’ll just say what is already well known but most people still don’t realize.

a) The game was not supposed to be released so early, that’s why the pvp is unfinished.

b) Anet is in denial, they crippled themselves with the tournament system, and they can’t/won’t admit it.

c) The game will be good, trust me. Anet being in denial is just slowing down the process, but it will be good eventually.

I don’t want to make this a wall of text, but if you want to know why the game is not working, and what should’ve been, you can read my quote from another topic:

Ace of Spades.6325:

Sorry for my Engrish.

No, and we will not be for a long time. They went for this tournament system for the sake of being different, crippling down the game for the next 5 months at least.

The concept is not bad, the problem is that the devs working on pvp are just mere humans, they can’t code faster.

This system requires many things to be finished:

Hot Join
Free Tournaments
Paid Tournaments
Monthly Tournaments
Ranked System
Private Servers
Spectator Mode

It’s very complicated to code and project something like this. But they could’ve worked on something standard, and at this point we would prolly have twice the player base, and most the features needed to start an eSport.

Example:

Unranked Q, both solo and premade. (1 match, random map)
Solo Q ranked, solo or 2 man premade. (1 match, random map)
Ranked Q, premade only. (1 match, random map) <—— no need for 8 teams to be online.
Private servers.
Spectator mode.

With a system like this, both casuals and hardcorers would be able to play at anytime of the day, instead Anet decided to be hipsters, being different for the sake of being different, and now casuals can’t play at all (without getting stomped), and hardcorers can only at specific hours.

If i was in charge, i would put the effort into bringing a ranked solo q in the game as fast as possible, that’s the main thing that keeps the average/hardcorish player playing the game. Some people simply don’t have the time to find 4 good players, but they still want to play competitive, also i could name at least 10 friends who stopped playing cuz ‘’i don’t play unranked games’’. I strongly belive that if we had a system like the one i suggested (and most big games have it) we would’ve a much healtier game.

Ace, I don’t expect people not to be angry at Arena-net I just expect them not to get angry at the host and the people participating in the event, because its unfair to those that are trying to bring something to the community; basically like the quote “don’t shoot the messenger”.
People are mad that certain questions didn’t get answered, but what people also need to realise is that we were under time restrictions in which we had to finish the show and answer pre set questions, so it wasn’t our show to run but we were there as speakers and thats all.

All I can say is that if people want things like this to keep happening to be so negative about it, because that will achieve nothing, at least we have Arenanet talking to us now, so take advantage of this and plan for the next event

If you guys were there just as speakers and only were able to ask pre-set questions then it was all for show. There is no point to those kind of interviews if you don’t get to ask the pressing questions.

Xeph.4513:

In your orginal posted you said “that this is the problem with having a host from a fansite and wanna-be esports heroes”, I am sorry if I fail to see how this isn’t insulting to the people on the receiving end, because I found it insulting to myself.

I asked people to discuss the video, not take personal stabs at the people participating, if you wanted to you could’ve avoided that exact wording and said it differently, and thats what I found “disgusting” was the fact that you choose to put the host and the people who took time out of their day to bring you that show in a bad light and for no reason, apart from the fact that they didn’t ask the questions that you wanted.

I will concede my wording was overly harsh, but please stop acting like you did this show purely out of charity for the rest of us.

As a team aspiring to become ‘pro’ and get paid to play this game you need publicity to attract sponsors, which you get from doing shows like this which devs are on. As such, you are unlikely to publicly criticize Anet when there are obviously massive problems with spvp and potentially hurt your image / privileged relationship with Anet. Its the same for Guru.

Please just stop acting like a victim here.

Rythgar.2896:

cesmode.4257:

Jonathan sharp even referred to casuals as “noob”.

This is the second or third time I see you making this statement. And I just have to clarify following to you, since you don’t seem to know it: Noob is a player that is generally “bad” at a specific game or overall. While Newb is a player that is new and henceforth “bad” simply because he is new.

You have, as I’ve mentioned, used as a statement against Sharp that he called causals noobs, which is just wrong. He used the term newb and casuals to describe the less experienced/skilled/newer players. So where you see an insult there actually is none. And if my memory serves me right he actually clarifies this atleast one time in the interview. He goes like “the newbs, I mean the more casual players” or “the newbs and the casual players” etc.

Oh and by the way, just want to point out that I (as a mid-tier player) would much more prefer Arena Net to balance/tweak the game from the professionals point of view/feedback. Because that is where the trustworthy analysis’s will come from.

Want examples? Just go to any successful e-sports out there, like SC2. When the SC2 HotS beta came out every single sc2 pro gamer got a key. And it is not because of some dark, ominous reason. It’s simply because Blizzard knows that the pro’s feedback is near invaluable, and the more they can get the better.

I guess you didn’t read everything I wrote. Thats ok, I’ll re-iterate. The term “noob”, however spelled, means the same thing. Inexperienced. However, it almost always has a negative conotation attached to it. You call someone a noob, you aren’t politely saying “Please acquire more skill”. I find it to be a bad business practice to use terminology such as this when it definately can be construed as an insult. I am sure he did not mean it that way, but it was definately poor word choice.

With that said, and while I referred to this two or three times as you pointed out, it is not the core of what I am trying to say.

It is an opinion post, my opinion, on how I feel after have watched the interview. How can I be wrong when it was my opinion?

Jacobin.8509:

Xeph.4513:

In your orginal posted you said “that this is the problem with having a host from a fansite and wanna-be esports heroes”, I am sorry if I fail to see how this isn’t insulting to the people on the receiving end, because I found it insulting to myself.

I asked people to discuss the video, not take personal stabs at the people participating, if you wanted to you could’ve avoided that exact wording and said it differently, and thats what I found “disgusting” was the fact that you choose to put the host and the people who took time out of their day to bring you that show in a bad light and for no reason, apart from the fact that they didn’t ask the questions that you wanted.

I will concede my wording was overly harsh, but please stop acting like you did this show purely out of charity for the rest of us.

As a team aspiring to become ‘pro’ and get paid to play this game you need publicity to attract sponsors, which you get from doing shows like this which devs are on. As such, you are unlikely to publicly criticize Anet when there are obviously massive problems with spvp and potentially hurt your image / privileged relationship with Anet. Its the same for Guru.

Please just stop acting like a victim here.

Your statement is incorrect, no sponsor is going to sign us just because we did a podcast that a developer happened to be on, that’s not how things work; if Arenanet manages to get this game together and has a big tournament with a large cash prize and I do well in that tournament, thats when we will got sponsoring; so yes my whole interest is in getting this game to be better for the casuals and pros alike. There was really zero self interest for me in doing that podcast, I did it so this game can improve and just be more playable.

@xeph: I am not sure if you have been reading my posts or not, in this thread. I want to be clear, I personally do not have anything against any of you that were on the podcast. Infact, I am not sure why there is such hostility in this thread toward the people that were on it…I remember the first few days of GW2, I had a quick conversation with Lowell about thieves, as he is/was on SBI at the time. Nice guy.

My issue is with the direction of the conversation, the content of it. Again, its my opinion so please don’t argue with my opinion. I felt that because they only had “the pros” on it, only the things that mean alot to you guys would be discussed. I personally feel there should have been a mixed audience there, which that Guru guy said would be considered next time around. Good.

Overall, I felt the conversation somewhat insulting…maybe insulting is the wrong word. Basically, I walked away from it feeling like I am holding YOU back because I am not on your level of “understanding” of how Gw2 combat and sPvP is meant to be. And since I feel like I am holding YOU, it discouraged me from trying sPvP. I felt this way because according to the discussion, the newer players or casuals aren’t as skilled, experienced, knowledgable as the rest of you. So, the changes that might have taken place if casuals didnt exist, do not get put in… yet. It almost felt as if the entire discussion was concieted and egotistical.

Again, nothing against you guys. Thanks for participating, it is appreciated. The content and direction of the discussion is what left a bad taste in my mouth about sPvP and esports in this day and age.

You know,im not a pro player..I never was that good in any game.I study Geology,i work right now.I return home from work,i put some sweet music and i play GW2.Just to relax,just to have some time with myself.
So i geuss i will never understand how Xeph feels.
But i have a principle that i will hold on no matter what….
I would never answer pre set questions in anyone.
If you want to talk with me you ll have the real me,not a “speaker”

Dardamaniac.1295:

You know,im not a pro player..I never was that good in any game.I study Geology,i work right now.I return home from work,i put some sweet music and i play GW2.Just to relax,just to have some time with myself.
So i geuss i will never understand how Xeph feels.
But i have a principle that i will hold on no matter what….
I would never answer pre set questions in anyone.
If you want to talk with me you ll have the real me,not a “speaker”

that’s not how public interviews work. Anytime an interview is conducted publicly the questions are posed and agreed upon ahead of time to:

a.) the information/material is OK/ready to be discussed publicly
b.) make sure there are no surprises or ambushes
c.) make sure there is enough material to fill the time slot

all of which makes the discourse more focused and relevant.

people need to chill. it was a 1 hour discussion by a bunch of guys (not professionals) gracious enough to take the time to try to shed some light on a few things for the community. Was it meant to cover everything? Of course not. Did it give a decent view into the road ahead for GW2 PvP? Certainly. And that’s all it was meant to do.
Try to keep the criticism constructive and polite and future interviews will only get better. Maybe even steamed live! (couldn’t resist)

hackks.3687:

Dardamaniac.1295:

You know,im not a pro player..I never was that good in any game.I study Geology,i work right now.I return home from work,i put some sweet music and i play GW2.Just to relax,just to have some time with myself.
So i geuss i will never understand how Xeph feels.
But i have a principle that i will hold on no matter what….
I would never answer pre set questions in anyone.
If you want to talk with me you ll have the real me,not a “speaker”

that’s not how public interviews work. Anytime an interview is conducted publicly the questions are posed and agreed upon ahead of time to:

a.) the information/material is OK/ready to be discussed publicly
b.) make sure there are no surprises or ambushes
c.) make sure there is enough material to fill the time slot

all of which makes the discourse more focused and relevant.

people need to chill. it was a 1 hour discussion by a bunch of guys (not professionals) gracious enough to take the time to try to shed some light on a few things for the community. Was it meant to cover everything? Of course not. Did it give a decent view into the road ahead for GW2 PvP? Certainly. And that’s all it was meant to do.
Try to keep the criticism constructive and polite and future interviews will only get better. Maybe even steamed live! (couldn’t resist)

+1 hackks and much love

JonathanSharp.7094:

felivear.1536:

Just a quick question if you are still monitoring this thread. Do you agree that the scoring system in hot-joins is not conducive to team play and actually causes it to be the main reason you see so many theives and mesmers? Because they are very well suited for that type of play (i.e. Kill, quick hopping between points, cap and leave).

Also, are you completely set in stone on the no solo queue option? Many people including myself do not have the time or have an odd schedule to form teams and play at set times, we want to be able to queue in tournaments with people who also want the same thing. That would by far be the most popular type of SPVP played if that was added.

Edit: are there any plans to make hot-join keep parties of at least 2 people together? With Christmas rush I plan on seeing a few new friends joining and I would like to stay on the same team in hot-join.

• Scoring: As I said in the interview, we want to make changes to this system once other key features are finished!

• Solo queue: We want to try the system I spoke of, where individuals can join and be grouped together, and then get an aggregate rating. It’s a complicated formula, but once we’re closer to releasing it, we’ll do blog posts to explain how it will work. So we will be addressing the issue you raise.

• For hot joins, we’re going to see what happens after custom arenas go live. We think hot joins will change how people view casual games.

• To the whole newb/noob thing: I did NOT mean this to be derisive. I was simply using it as a term to describe players who are new at the game. I did not mean to deride, explicitly or implicitly, player skill. Sorry that it came off that way to some of you. I simply feel very passionately about making an E sport WHILE ALSO PROTECTING our new players with the fury of a 1,000 burning suns. If we don’t protect and teach our new players, then they can’t get into the game and learn. If we don’t bring in new players, there will be no interest in the higher levels of competitions. I think that in order to have a successful E-sport, you need players who want to watch high level players playing. You also need to bring in new blood into your game to keep the game growing (think of any sport in the world….you have high school -> college – > professional).

So I didn’t mean that to be demeaning at all, sorry if it came off that way. I tried to explain what I meant by newb/casual (new players, or those who just play casually), sorry I didn’t do a better job – I’ll work on that one.

J

Thanks for the reply. I for one don’t understand the fuss about the “noob” comment. Clearly in no way were you meaning it derogatorily. I think maybe people took it that way because the direction of the interview also seemed to be “casuals get features last” type of thing, so maybe they mixed the two? Not sure, but either way, don’t get sucked into “political correctness” because a couple of forum-goers took a benign statement and are treating it like a racial slur.

Lastly, on the point system: maybe I am completely naive here, but is it really that difficult to change(serious question)? It seems that with the Christmas rush looming, this type of change would really help with the Christmas players getting eased into SPVP. Maybe there is a large amount of coding that I am missing here, but it seems like something so simple, that clearly we both agree on, could be added without much detraction from other features?

I look at it like home improvements. If I have a small leak in my bedroom caused by a nail that has come loose on my roof causing the ceiling to drip water on the floor, but I also have my an issue where I am building an addition on my home. The small leak is a nuisance that can be dealt with but will only take 30 minutes to fix, while the addition on my home will be fantastic to complete but will take weeks. Why wait for the addition to be completed to fix the leak?

Again, I don’t want this to come out as “do your job this way” because most of us in the forums make grand assumptions about the ease of creating PvP.

JonathanSharp.7094:

felivear.1536:

Just a quick question if you are still monitoring this thread. Do you agree that the scoring system in hot-joins is not conducive to team play and actually causes it to be the main reason you see so many theives and mesmers? Because they are very well suited for that type of play (i.e. Kill, quick hopping between points, cap and leave).

Also, are you completely set in stone on the no solo queue option? Many people including myself do not have the time or have an odd schedule to form teams and play at set times, we want to be able to queue in tournaments with people who also want the same thing. That would by far be the most popular type of SPVP played if that was added.

Edit: are there any plans to make hot-join keep parties of at least 2 people together? With Christmas rush I plan on seeing a few new friends joining and I would like to stay on the same team in hot-join.

• Scoring: As I said in the interview, we want to make changes to this system once other key features are finished!

• Solo queue: We want to try the system I spoke of, where individuals can join and be grouped together, and then get an aggregate rating. It’s a complicated formula, but once we’re closer to releasing it, we’ll do blog posts to explain how it will work. So we will be addressing the issue you raise.

• For hot joins, we’re going to see what happens after custom arenas go live. We think hot joins will change how people view casual games.

• To the whole newb/noob thing: I did NOT mean this to be derisive. I was simply using it as a term to describe players who are new at the game. I did not mean to deride, explicitly or implicitly, player skill. Sorry that it came off that way to some of you. I simply feel very passionately about making an E sport WHILE ALSO PROTECTING our new players with the fury of a 1,000 burning suns. If we don’t protect and teach our new players, then they can’t get into the game and learn. If we don’t bring in new players, there will be no interest in the higher levels of competitions. I think that in order to have a successful E-sport, you need players who want to watch high level players playing. You also need to bring in new blood into your game to keep the game growing (think of any sport in the world….you have high school -> college – > professional).

So I didn’t mean that to be demeaning at all, sorry if it came off that way. I tried to explain what I meant by newb/casual (new players, or those who just play casually), sorry I didn’t do a better job – I’ll work on that one.

J

Its cool. And we’ll be “even-steven” if you push for a legendary called “Fury of 1000 burning suns” haha.

I know that when you used the term that you didnt mean it in a derogatory sense. However, I think just using it at all carries a certain “reputation” with it. Ive never heard the term “noob” used as a polite way to describe someone as new player. Its always used as a slight jab, whether playful(kidding) or serious(derogatory). I don’t think it has a place in game development…especially MMOs where we need to be coddled at times =)

But in regard to the content of the discussion, while I found it very engaging, I simply disagree that the “pro” players know what’s best for us just because they meta-play all day and because they are normally the first out with new builds. Pro players make up a small percentage of the playerbase. I find it difficult to concede that the non-pro players don’t have anything constructive to say. I am making this a point because inviting pro-only players to events like this suggests that their input weighs in more, which sounds like it is true from the interview. I simply disagree with this. Again, just my opinion and anyone, including yourself, are free to disagree with it.

With that said, please do shy away from holding “round tables” like the one you just had, just because people like myself or others might not view the content of the interview in the most positive light. I think it was a great discussion to have, and to continue having, even if I disagree with the mood of it.

hackks.3687:

Did it give a decent view into the road ahead for GW2 PvP? Certainly. And that’s all it was meant to do.
Try to keep the criticism constructive and polite and future interviews will only get better

Since release I have attempted to play with and build up 3 separate ‘competitive’ teams all of whom have quit. I was also in a guild that had 5 or 6 spvp teams that consisted of high ranked WoW and GW1 players that planned to run its own internal league, and all but a few of those players are long gone.

These were all people who wanted to take the game seriously, but just got fed up with the lack of basic pvp features: no ladder or rating, long queue times, requires farming for tickets, pugs vs premades in frees, 45 minute tournaments with downtime, inability to play a private match. I can’t even just play alone in a set 5v5 solo queue.

I am fed up with siting around and hoping Anet gets around to fixing the game they promised would have competitive potential.

Meanwhile players leave in droves and you have to wait 20-40 minutes for a match to start where you just end up getting stomped in 8 minutes if you are not a hardcore team.

While critical posts may not be nice or popular, its better than siting around and letting other people dictate to us how we should spend our time and money.

This podcast was the first time we have heard from a dev about the future of spvp in a long time, and its incredibly frustrating to people like me when critical issues are glossed over or avoided.

I, for one, am looking forward to the new content.

And hopefully they bring more viability to warriors.

I have a question here; How come Mr.Sharp was so eased on saying “we need to do a better job communicating with the players”, but he has yet to agree with the fact that having ranking/matchmaking at launch would have made the ‘state of the game’ much better than where it’s at now?

Is it because, at this point of time,he is still reluctant to believe that prioritizing matchmaking would simply have made a huge difference in the game’s PvP? Because that’s what really dissolved a lot of the players interest on the PvP side of the game – which is, the lack of features to pare up players against one and another, in competitive matches and thus would have lead everyone to work towards cooperative teamplay instead of solo zergs and all that “meaningless playstyle” (ie. if all day you stomp or get stomped by zerg fests, then what’s the point of playing?).

This is like the Tim Tebow Crysis in New York… the organization stuck with what they thought was right QB for the franchise until everything finally looks to felt apart in the end, then after 13 weeks they finally decided to start their 3rd string quaterback; a decision they should have done 6 weeks ago when they still weren’t in any hole. Likewise, imagine if GW2 had proper matchmaking/ranking during the first month of launch; this game’s PvP certainly would be much more ahead/better than where it is now.

EDIT: I bet you guys watch football Mr. Sharp (with the seahawks in the mix for the playoff), so hopefully you understand the crysis that I’m talking about.

@Xeph, you said it yourself, there was a list of thing that you COULDN’T talk about, but it wasn’t because of time, it was because Anet said ‘’we DON’T talk about this, this and this. That’s why the community is mad, and they have all the rights to be.

State of the Game Discussion with ArenaNet, was a farce, they NEVER had any intentions of answering those questions in the first place.

Anet behavior is shady at best, don’t trust people that don’t share their plans, the thing they say about ‘’not making empty promises’’ it’s fake, they sold this game as ‘’the next eSport’’ and the pvp is very far from being an eSport.

JonathanSharp.7094:

FluffyDoe.7539:

I have a question here; How come Mr.Sharp was so eased on saying “we need to do a better job communicating with the players”, but he has yet to agree with the fact that having ranking/matchmaking at launch would have made the ‘state of the game’ much better than where it’s at now?

I spoke of this on Friday, but let me reiterate.

We could have had rankings, but without tournaments or a way to get teams playing against each other in an organized fashion, they would have ranked…..nothing. Just the pub play matches. That’s why we wanted to set down a framework first, then add in the custom arenas (for practicing/developing organized matches) and rankings. Having rankings without tourneys or a matchmaking system literally wouldn’t do anything…you would just have rankings based on random pub matches where teams would be anything from 1-8 players. Seems bad to me. That’s why we made that decision.

Does that make sense?

J

No, fake. Instead of making the tournaments system, you had the time to make a simple 5v5 ranked, and a solo q ranked.

You are in denial, the whole tournament system was a bad idea, and people told you that before the bwe1, only recently you realized how important was the ranked system, that’s why you changed your priorities, that’s why we don’t have the private servers, because you are now working on rankeds.

A simple elo system with a soloq, and a q for premades was much easier to code, don’t even try to sell us the story that we could’ve rankeds but with nothing else.

You wanted to be different for the sake of being different, and it backfired.

Ace of Spades.6325:

@Xeph, you said it yourself, there was a list of thing that you COULDN’T talk about, but it wasn’t because of time, it was because Anet said ‘’we DON’T talk about this, this and this. That’s why the community is mad, and they have all the rights to be.

State of the Game Discussion with ArenaNet, was a farce, they NEVER had any intentions of answering those questions in the first place.

Anet behavior is shady at best, don’t trust people that don’t share their plans, the thing they say about ‘’not making empty promises’’ it’s fake, they sold this game as ‘’the next eSport’’ and the pvp is very far from being an eSport.

Yes, so many people feel duped.

We did everything we could short of playing 40 hours a week to make the game work – pre-ordered collector’s edition, formed spvp teams and entire guilds, played a ton of hours in the present system, heck I even bought gems for boosters and tickets.

Here we are 3 months later with barely any development beyond bug and balance fixes, and paids tournaments which are unplayable for most people.

And all we have are vague plans that don’t even seem to focus on the things players want and are obvious fixes: solo queue and single rated matches.

I can only assume its because Anet is trying to figure out how to monetize everything because the present entry-fee based system has completely failed.

Jonathan seems like a good guy, and I am sure he is doing what he can with the resources that he has. That doesn’t change the fact that spvp is barely functional right now.

Maybe if enough of us rage on the forums, in videos and yes even in podcasts we can give him ammunition which he can take to his bosses / executives to fix the freaking game.

JonathanSharp.7094:

I spoke of this on Friday, but let me reiterate.

We could have had rankings, but without tournaments or a way to get teams playing against each other in an organized fashion, they would have ranked…..nothing. Just the pub play matches. That’s why we wanted to set down a framework first, then add in the custom arenas (for practicing/developing organized matches) and rankings. Having rankings without tourneys or a matchmaking system literally wouldn’t do anything…you would just have rankings based on random pub matches where teams would be anything from 1-8 players. Seems bad to me. That’s why we made that decision.

Does that make sense?

J

I joined tournaments with an organised PvP team since day 1 only to see everyone leaving the game due to the lack of rankings.

Yes it makes perfect sense.

I’m so mad, they are openly lying on the forums, and the ‘’top players’’ who should do the interest of the community, betrayed the community to not anger Anet.

That’s why i never signed any NDA, and i didn’t partecipate at close tests and talks, i don’t let people tell me what i can do or say.

We should do a 1 hour show hosted by the community, where the community decide the questions to be asked. We do a poll on the internet and the top questions will be answered live on the show.
Do you think Anet would partecipate? NO, they would hide under a rock for the fear of being asked questions about eSport, rankeds, lan events, and other important topics.

JonathanSharp.7094:

FluffyDoe.7539:

I have a question here; How come Mr.Sharp was so eased on saying “we need to do a better job communicating with the players”, but he has yet to agree with the fact that having ranking/matchmaking at launch would have made the ‘state of the game’ much better than where it’s at now?

I spoke of this on Friday, but let me reiterate.

We could have had rankings, but without tournaments or a way to get teams playing against each other in an organized fashion, they would have ranked…..nothing. Just the pub play matches. That’s why we wanted to set down a framework first, then add in the custom arenas (for practicing/developing organized matches) and rankings. Having rankings without tourneys or a matchmaking system literally wouldn’t do anything…you would just have rankings based on random pub matches where teams would be anything from 1-8 players. Seems bad to me. That’s why we made that decision.

Does that make sense?

J

Not to sound mean Jonathan Sharp because i don’t know what situation you have at arena net.We also don’t know when you were hired or when pvp started in development. ANET started developing this game since 2007 i remember when it was announced. You guys had 5 years to create a much better foundation than what we have now. We got 4 maps based on conquest. Really 5 years to do that. Poor excuse on anets part. You guys also had amazing pvp in gw1 but none of it was implemented(HA,AB,RA,GvG,) none of it why?

You guys from the beginning intended this game to try to be a esport. Why did you not add rankings/ladders tournaments at launch. The mists is practically dead.

EDITED: Dec-04-2012 (9:26 PM)- FINAL COPY.

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JonathanSharp.7094:

FluffyDoe.7539:

I have a question here; How come Mr.Sharp was so eased on saying “we need to do a better job communicating with the players”, but he has yet to agree with the fact that having ranking/matchmaking at launch would have made the ‘state of the game’ much better than where it’s at now?

I spoke of this on Friday, but let me reiterate.

We could have had rankings, but without tournaments or a way to get teams playing against each other in an organized fashion, they would have ranked…..nothing. Just the pub play matches. That’s why we wanted to set down a framework first, then add in the custom arenas (for practicing/developing organized matches) and rankings. Having rankings without tourneys or a matchmaking system literally wouldn’t do anything…you would just have rankings based on random pub matches where teams would be anything from 1-8 players. Seems bad to me. That’s why we made that decision.

Does that make sense?

J

First of all, thank you for taking the time to respond I know y’all are very busy, so I appreciate that you’re taking extra time out of work to answer some of these questions.

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What you said, I can agree with some of it. But I think you’ve misunderstood my question; which I had asked about the concerns over ranking/matchmaking & not ranking/tournaments.

My knowledge of ranking is they’re datas telling players how good they’re doing, while match-making on the other hand is a system that acquires these types of datas (rankings, WL Streak, # of teamed up que memebers, etc. -> a whole lot of different datas) to put together the most suitable match-ups for these players. So clearly, you need to have rankings in order to have matchmaking (and so explains why I had put ranking then ‘/’ then matchmaking).

Although in response to the other part of your comments about rankings being useless without tourneys, that’s where I strongly disagree with your view. The point of having rankings (without having tourneys) is so players will play against better and better players the higher ranks they go (with the help of matchmaking of course, those two goes hand in hand), and then eventually be qualified for a world tourney of some sorts if they look forward to having that goal. But that won’t be for everyone, so let’s talk a bit about that as well here.

And in fact for the sake of most PvP players, you don’t need a tourney to have some sort of ranking right away, like in 3-6 months period. During this time when the core meta is still being learnt by the players/stabilizing through all the balances tweaks, you can just have competitive play which would really help develop the type of metas you have (players finding all sorts of strats. to win). After that, the devs and you (Mr.Sharp) would be able to tweak these builds more effectively towards how you guys feel the meta of the game wants to go.

But GW2 has been desperately needing this type of match-making system since day 1.

~~~ Deleted this next part because I felt like that long… nobody’s gonna read it anyways, and the points weren’t being carried across any better because I wrote more… ~~~

So, Tl; DR – Mr. Sharp, the point that I’m stressing about here is that match-making does – more than – just pairing evenly skilled players against each other. It also allows the meta game to get played out more as it should at the higher levels, where at that level the requirement to win will extend beyond using the same 1-2 punch each game for each class, like not just the same-old guardian bunkers for every single guardian. Players would have figured that out and other problems with the game balances much sooner if you guys had implemented matchmaking, because pros wouldn’t have to spent hours meaninglessly stomping noobs to find the competitions they need to test out their builds at a competitive level. In addition, the noobs wouldn’t have got stomped continously and left the game. It has therefore detrimented the PvP side of the game in all areas with this – no matchmaking none-sense 3 months after launch. Just ask any PvPers here or who doesn’t play GW2, and they’ll go “what?? An Esport bond game with no matchmaking system?”

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And lets also clarify, I said ranking/match-making, because there was no point if you have match-making but no ranks. Most hardcore PvPers play for either competitiveness or ranks (because those ultimately gives them he best physical reward like being entered into tourney, or emotional rewards of just being able to win or play a meaningfully intense match).

Listening to the “State of the Game” discussion, it seems to me that the Developers have good intentions, but that their priorities are off.

In a recent post, Jonathan Sharp said, “I simply feel very passionate about making an E-Sport while also protecting our new players….” In achieving this goal, in his interview he lists his priorities as

1) Matchmaking / Rankings
2) Custom Arenas
3) Leaderboards
4) Spectator Modes
5) Daily / Monthly Tournaments
6) Dueling
7) Stats / Scoring

As a casual gamer, I feel his end goal and priorities are kitten backwards. Isn’t focusing on E-Sport jumping the gun? Don’t we need to establish the basics first? It appears Jonathan’s mentality is that E-Sport will bring players in/back and thus grow the pvp community.

However, shouldn’t the developers focus on catering to the needs of the pvp community by giving regular players (newbs/noobs/casuals/etc.) what they want, which in turn will foster a prosperous pvp community from which you can then turn to E-Sport and tournament play.

I, as a casual, who plays 1-2 hours a night after the kids are asleep, could really care less about high end tournament/E-Sport play. All I want is a game that I can enjoy for the short number of hours I am on. I would venture to guess there are many players like me. We want different game modes, better glory allocation/scoring, in depth stat analysis at the end of the match, dueling in the mists, the ability to show off gear in all parts of the game, etc. You know, the basics. Jonathan mentioned you need to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. I submit to you the things I mention above are part of the crawling phase.

Once the basics are in, people will play (because this is a great game), and naturally progress to tournaments/E-Sport.

Lets not jump on jon. He took the time out of his day to give us an idea what to expect. He could have said no. Be a little grateful.

@sauncho, i am in the same boat although i dont pvp much. But they should start with the basics.

JonathanSharp.7094:

I spoke of this on Friday, but let me reiterate.

We could have had rankings, but without tournaments or a way to get teams playing against each other in an organized fashion, they would have ranked…..nothing. Just the pub play matches. That’s why we wanted to set down a framework first, then add in the custom arenas (for practicing/developing organized matches) and rankings. Having rankings without tourneys or a matchmaking system literally wouldn’t do anything…you would just have rankings based on random pub matches where teams would be anything from 1-8 players. Seems bad to me. That’s why we made that decision.

Does that make sense?

J

I wrote a post regarding this earlier in the thread.

Free tournaments were up and running on launch day, as far as I can remember. They were even up and running as far back as the beta weekends, albeit with some stability issues. Entire teams left the game because they were forced to play tournaments without rankings or matchmaking.

So… no, it doesn’t make sense when you say ranking/matchmaking wasn’t there at launch due to lack of a tournament infrastructure because that infrastructure was in place. Paids weren’t, true, but frees were, and they could have benefited greatly from day one had they been released with both a matchmaking algorithm and a ranked ladder.

If I’ve gone full kitten and am remembering something wrong, please call me out on it – otherwise, what you’re saying is completely backwards and I was really surprised that nobody called it during the podcast.