Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet…
PvP is a bit of a mess, and it has been since the begininng, because I’ve been playing since 2013, I’ve done all the tournaments, and I do not remember things ever being actually good.
Most of the reward content is pretty good, and I like the concept of the tournament, but the implementation, I feel, is not really satisfying to anybody.
Now maybe, and I certainly hope so, the incoming automated tournament will address some of this things, but since it still is a 5v5 competition, the basic problems are probably going to persist.
So here are a few suggestions I think are reasonably easy to implement, and could make a difference.

As have been said before by a lot of people, teams are too much relevant in the overall performance of a game, for them to be balanced so badly. They really make or brake you game, independently of one’s individual ability, which is really frustrating, of course assuming the player is not a complete punching bag.
Are you teammates mostly good? You win. Are they really good? You win 500-100 or less. And the reverse is true if they are bad. Yes, in some cases a good player can carry a team, but mostly that isn’t the case.
And it is not the point of what PvP should be about. Playing a roulette is not a measure of ability. Is just a measure of luck.

- Make good player play among themselves, and the same for noob or bad players.
Give every account a numerical ranking system that endures even after a single tournament has ended, and that depends not only on their victories/losses, but also on them playing PvP consistently when tournaments are not on, of course doing all the tournaments and so on.
Losing ranked tournament games because of some new or inexperienced player, that plays completely off the meta, and doesn’t know where and when to move about the map is not enjoyable or rewarding for anyone.
Vets get salty, noobs get insulted, everybody gets nervous and dissatisfied.

- I’ve noticed that the amount of points rewarded/subtracted for win/losses diminishes with time. I guess this was intended as a way of reducing sudden fluctuations in player’s ranks. But it also means that games at the end of a season has less relevance than those at the beginning, and that the first 10 placement games are a game changer… That can be very frustrating.
Why, instead, after having implemented an account ranking (as pointed above), you don’t then implement a system that takes into consideration for reward/subtraction of points for win/losses the average ranking of the two teams, and their respective performance in the single game?

For example: team A (x average ranking), team B (y average ranking) with x>y.
Points rewarded/subtracted increase as x and y approach each other, and decreases if they are further apart.
If they are too much apart, don’t make the two teams fight each other of reshuffle the players.

Game 1: A 500 – B 440, team B put up a good fight even if they are overall weaker, subtract just a small amount to B, and A gets standard amount of points.

Game 2: A 440 – B 500, team B won against the odds, team A, despite being stronger, lost but not by much, A loses more than B in game 1, and B is rewarded with more points than A in game 1.

Game 3: A 500 – B 100, team A, as expected, has won, and by a lot, so something was not right in team B, team A receives a little bump (the game was easy) and team B is subtracted more than usual but not something too dramatic.
Game 4: A 100 – B 500, team A got steamrolled, even though they are stronger, so they lose a LOT of points, and conversely team B gains a lot.

Since the winning score is 500, and around 300 is an average expected score for the losing team, the effective amount of points to be rewarded/subtracted could be calculated starting from 300 for the expected losing team, and from 500 for the expected winning team.
(e. g. +/- 10p per 50 score delta, +/- modifiers coming from respective team ranking).

- I understand you want to make PvP attractive to people, but I don’t think that high rewards for everyone is the way to go. In fact, given the current way MM works, it floods ranked with inexperienced players attracted by the “shinies” and… see point 1.
Why instead you don’t make the reward chests (cerulean-amaranth-byzantium and so on) available as repeatable reward tracks, with higher tier ones available only once the player manage to reach a certain rank, so that everybody gets something (even the legendary backpack eventually) but skill is just rewarded more, which is kinda the point of PvP?

- Please make MM more precise, even if it takes longer, good games are better than fast games.
Max 2 of the same profession in every team, and that only if the other team also has 2 of the same.

- Condi are kinda of out of control. Either we need more cleansing capability in most of the classes or condi have to be nerfed. Cannot have 6-8 different condies, 5-10 stack each, in just a couple of seconds, and be able to cleanse just 2-4. Interrupt, stuns and unblockable are especially out of control, since they completely remove the possibility for a good player to counteract them, and having 4-6 of them in a row is just too much. I’m watching myself dye, instead of playing.

- And, for the love of God, don’t make me play with people I have blocked, since it is obvious that we are not going to get along, and team performance will be diminished by it.

I hope this may be of some use in making things better!

Do even understand what you are asking for? You are asking for meaningful PvP in a MMORPG. That’s based around highly casual and passive play. I mean I doubt ANet even has a time slot for PvP development. It more then likely only looked at in their spare time.

And no high profile stat wise PvE gear reward. Is absolutely the worst way to promote PvP. Also the non existent in game moderation. Horrorable ways to promote a decent PvP environment. However the aim here is not quality but rather quantity. There for asking for better sPvP in this game is more like, asking a billionaire to just give you all of his money and holdings.

My suggestions for a better PvP. Is to just go where there is better PvP. GW2 will never have decent PvP. When comparing to PvP in say dedicated PvP games that are fully built around PvP. To expect anything else is just a silly pipe dream.

I will be preaching this over and over and over again until it finally sinks it (hopefully).
- rank gain/loss should NOT be based on player mmr vs avg enemy mmr. It should be based on avg player team vs avg enemy team otherwise you get punished for being put on team of low ranks vs team of higher ranks FOR NO GOOD REASON and it happens a lot due to next point.
- MM should not put players out of completely different divisions in the same match for the sake for fast queue. Silver player will never in their life win vs team of legends. But such matches occurs constantly where low ranks are forced to face higher ranks giving higher ranks easy points and creating really bad experience for lower ranks and the unlucky high ranks that end up with them on the same team. It also introduces window of exploiting as well as you can just queue later at night and farm bronzies for easy points.
- matchmaking should really consider class stacking (or rather prevent it) as well as stacking of double duoqs vs full team of solos. I have seen same double duoq of top 20 players every match being on same team farming low ranks. What part of it is working matchmaking?
- remove crafting tokens for ascended gear, make it like before except you get ascended shards only for wins and not losses so it would prevent players for afking.
- rank loss should also consider close games. If score is 499-500, should you be really losing 3 matches worth of points?
- STARTS BANNING PEOPLE FOR AFKING/GRIEFING. By not doing it, you just support bullying in game.

Because of things like this people barely play anymore or quit pvp all together.