Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

Thought I’d open a discussion about the state of sPvP.

From what I’m seeing, the sPvP community is dying rapidly. I’m seeing the well known teams logging in and playing paids less and less, paid queues often aren’t popping at all, hot join players are getting sick of Mesmer/Thief wars and even Desolation (an sPvP hot spot) is starting to look a little less busy in the mists (although it’s probably holding a lot stronger than the other servers).

The issues are pretty wide spread. Balance is actually less of an issue than a lot of people think; the issue for hot join is the fact that roaming and killing quickly is rewarded most – which has lead to the Thief and Mesmer problem. If people were rewarded more for actually holding onto the points and winning then we would see much less Thieves and Mesmers and more Guardians, Engineers, Necromancers, Elementalists etc in hot join.

The problems in competitive PvP are pretty huge as well. First of all; no ranking and matchmaking system has lead to mid level teams getting sick of stomping in free tournaments and getting stomped by Super Squad, Chieftan Ninjas and Team Paradigm in paids. Another issue (in my opinion) is the fact you need 8 teams to queue at once to get a paid tournament up and running. That’s 40 people that need to be online and queued at once for a tournament to pop. As you can imagine, paid tournaments are only popping at peak times. If paid tournaments were just between 2 teams then you would only need 10 people on at a time. Long paid queues has lead to some people not even bothering to queue which has had a snowball effect leading to less and less people queuing.

Fundamentally, the game is great. The class synergy and strategies are really fun but the population is waning and I know many of us are growing tired of it. I’ve been playing Planetside 2 and other games a lot more as I’m not really enjoying waiting around for queues to pop or having to sign on and play between 7pm and 9pm if I want a challenge (paid tournaments). It’s a real shame as the combat is the best I’ve ever seen in an MMO but the PvP has been screwed up big time. If the issues can be resolved before the end of the year they may have a chance to save it. Time really is of the essence we want PvPers to stick around.

What are everyone else’s thoughts on the matter?

I ahve been saying for a while:

1. Make it so kills DONT count for a teams points earned
2. Make winning worthwhile, at the moment its like an added maybe 50 or something Glory

They should half all the Glory you earn from killing people and up it for taking/defending locations. They need to take the obsession away from zerging players and make it about taking and holding points

They also need to add more maps and modes, it gets VERY boring after a while playing the same maps over and over again dong the same thing over and over

okay i am going to put my 2 cents in here i guess. i came to GW2 to learn the awesome pvp way. I have no exp in pvp so i would join those little quick things to start learning. But the first 3 or 4 games i joined i didnt learn much til the last game when another player explained that you have to defend as well as obtain a point. then i played again a few wks later and it was totally different no one was trying to do anything other than kill players in gang up style as i am still not good at pvp it was most likely to be me dying to 3 or 4 players at once. Is this the normal mechanic of GW -type pvp? if so why would i branch out to this type of play?

quidnunc.4239:

okay i am going to put my 2 cents in here i guess. i came to GW2 to learn the awesome pvp way. I have no exp in pvp so i would join those little quick things to start learning. But the first 3 or 4 games i joined i didnt learn much til the last game when another player explained that you have to defend as well as obtain a point. then i played again a few wks later and it was totally different no one was trying to do anything other than kill players in gang up style as i am still not good at pvp it was most likely to be me dying to 3 or 4 players at once. Is this the normal mechanic of GW -type pvp? if so why would i branch out to this type of play?

It shouldnt be, but with the evolution of burst builds thats all its become. They need to remove all points and 50% less Glory for player kills and improve points/glory earned from taking and defending points as the longer its going the more the zerg fest becomes.

Tpvp is different as it has less players so its a bit more tactical and you cant just go around zerging everyone.

Xiomaro.2563:

Hi guys,

Thought I’d open a discussion about the state of sPvP.

I think you pretty much sumarized all the important issues while still being objective. In fact i see that everyvhere and even Ring of Fire as a strong sPvP server is less and less populated in MISTs..

shame, the game has potencial but failed as many others to one thing. Players no longer tolerate development of key features after relase. They still accept lot of small issues, but not key elements.

Biggest problem is game-type.

Capture the point/node is pretty bland after awhile tbh. The new map is garbage too, way too gimmicky.

Recently.1043:

Biggest problem is game-type.

Capture the point/node is pretty bland after awhile tbh. The new map is garbage too, way too gimmicky.

This is another big issue – It gets VERY boring very fast and even the CTP idea doesnt work when most of the team its just a zerg fest.

The game needs at least 2-3 more game modes that work with the current maps as well as some more maps.

The fundamental issue with sPvP is that it is built to be a very populated e-sport and it lacks the essential features to be able to do that. With their current PvP population it should be a no brainer to ArenaNet that achieving their desired e-sport status is a long way away.

They need to stop trying to make the game e-sport worthy because you need a large number of players interested in the game to be a successful e-sport. If there are 10 great teams that are exciting to watch but no one else even plays PvP they could have amazing tournaments but no one will watch them. They need to give the masses better PvP to play in to build up their PvP community and let it evolve into an e-sport as their popularity grows and they implement the proper features.

Hotjoins have been a lot more fun since they introduced 5v5 from my experience but there are definitely still issues there. One big thing I think would fix this is getting rid of your option to join specific servers and make you simply join 8v8 or 5v5 and it will put you in the next open slot.

You will need to implement a way for players to que together and maybe even for one person to que specifically for a friends server they are already in. This will put everyone into full servers and keep the games more balanced rather than having half your servers half full. This system would also allow you to put in some sort of matchmaking in the hotjoins. If I have to join a que to get in a better match made game I would be fine with that because I would be much happier waiting 2 minuets and getting into a great balanced game than my options now.

If they really want to build the pvp population they should have a mode where people in PvE gear can play each other on these maps in addition to sPvP. This would let more people experience the actual pvp in this game (WvW is not pvp). Then they could have the tournaments be just for sPvP for balance but let hotjoin be PvE gear.

they should start by balancing out the thief and ranger. one is broken OP, other has been next to useless in pvp since release. bringing 2 out of 8 profs in line would attract a lot of people back.

sPvP failed because they started this bad idea of trying to organize it like some kind of FPS. The plain fact is that MMORPG is not FPS and does not play like one. It is bound to fail.
sPvP formats have to be completely overhauled. Just copy paste what LOL has would be a easy solution. The problem right now is that they don’t want to admit the failure and still trying to save the dead horse.

^ i disagree. they had a good thing going. main reasons why spvp has gone downhill so hard is due to horrible imbalances, gimmicky high-level specs (min-maxing), and lack of ELO-type matching not being addressed. the former two needed to be fixed months ago. players’ morale is so low now that they need to do way more at this point to bring everyone back, whereas it could have been fixed easier earlier.

As a would-be competitive player the lack of Elo rating is one of the main reasons I’m playing less and less. The population is making me not want to sign on at all. For the first time ever I signed on today to see no one on my friends list online at 8pm (peak time). I have around 70-80 people on my friends list and not a single one was online.

I don’t care about hot join but I know a lot of people do; and a good general player base is key to having a good competitive scene. So for that reason I’d like to see hot join sorted out. If the Thief style of play wasn’t so well rewarded in hot join then not as many people would play it. The class itself is actually pretty balanced. The issue is: if I do play hot join I will play as Thief as the only reason I’ll play hot join is to farm glory. Thief is one of the easiest classes to do this with. If I could sit on a point with a Guardian and get just as many points, then I’d do that sometimes. In a similar way to how medics in Planetside 2 can get just as much experience as someone who’s killing enemies; different play styles need to be better rewarded in hot join.

I’m not trying to be a fearmongerer but this is getting pretty serious. I really can’t get over there being no one online at peak time in the evening.

I can’t help but wonder if the learning curve for players new to s(t)PvP is too steep.

I know for me personally early on it was a huge challenge to learn a brand new style of combat in addition to the maps, strategies, opposing class mechanics, capture mechanics, etc. I only bought the game because of what I had heard about the PvP, but I was so overwhelmed by having to learn everything right from the go that I found myself heading off to do solo PvE just so I could get my head around what my class actually did when it wasn’t being BBQd in a matter of seconds by players who appeared to be far more familiar with the game than I was.

These days I see people new to PvP jumping into free tourneys because they found Hotjoins so unappealing only to find out that tPvPers are a PvPnewbie’s worst nightmare. And to add insult to injury they’re getting flamed by their teammates for even thinking of jumping into a tournament que at rank 1. I typically never see those players again – and with the PvP community getting so small, recognizing teams/names is becoming rather common.

So maybe there needs to be a form of progression to PvP so that players can learn more slowly and easily, rather than the trial-by-fire they’re currently submitted to? If a player can’t feel like they’re learning, progressing, getting better within a reasonable amount of time why would they continue to try?

Tl;DR – sPvP does not cater to casual or PvP-curious players.

Anyway, just a thought I had.

Xiomaro.2563:

The issues are pretty wide spread. Balance is actually less of an issue than a lot of people think; the issue for hot join is the fact that roaming and killing quickly is rewarded most – which has lead to the Thief and Mesmer problem. If people were rewarded more for actually holding onto the points and winning then we would see much less Thieves and Mesmers and more Guardians, Engineers, Necromancers, Elementalists etc in hot join.

Why would anyone want to def a point if your attacker can come from 4 different angles and hidden by obstacles, so you see him only when he’s already standing in front of you and then you have to fight him in a 3×3m cage area where any form of tactical play is nonexistent? Defending points is suicide.

I also think balance is a gigantic issue. There are just one or two ways to play your profession successfully and so many build options, traits, utility skills, gear combos and weapons etc. are unusable or at least suboptimal, because you have to survive the totally over the top burst that’s currently plaguing the game. Some stuff is also just flat out weaker in all regards for no benefit in other areas, preventing builds from being used that could be fun and good.

Thirsty.2875:

With their current PvP population it should be a no brainer to ArenaNet that achieving their desired e-sport status is a long way away.

Agreed, it really requires a rebuild from the ground up.

Thirsty.2875:

If there are 10 great teams that are exciting to watch but no one else even plays PvP they could have amazing tournaments but no one will watch them.

No spectator mode to watch anyway, Anet dropped the ball big on this one.

Thirsty.2875:

Hotjoins have been a lot more fun since they introduced 5v5 from my experience but there are definitely still issues there. One big thing I think would fix this is getting rid of your option to join specific servers and make you simply join 8v8 or 5v5 and it will put you in the next open slot.

Hot-joins in it’s current iteration is missing features which were working in GW1, even teams at the start of match is very rare, and missing the option to /surrender to just end a lopsided match early.

For arena formats, I really wish Anet had hauled over all the old maps if they were going to be lazy about things. At least there would more than 1 game type and 20+ maps to cycle through if they included all the GvG and HA maps together.

Had to also add anet should change their name to PVEnet since there is and has been very little resources put into PvP in general.

Just do what Warhammer Online does for their scenarios..

Rewards players for all things like damage, rezzing, healing points etc..

They got pvp right there. (for scenarios, their wpvp is a mess)

hackks.3687:

I can’t help but wonder if the learning curve for players new to s(t)PvP is too steep.

Tl;DR – sPvP does not cater to casual or PvP-curious players.

I strongly disagree with the first point and strongly agree with the TL:DR. The learning curve isn’t really the issue because the time it takes to become an average or even above average pvp doesn’t take that much effort. If you compare it to other games like LoL the most successful player vs player video game on the market right now the learning curve is WAY higher.

The issue with guild wars is that there is no matchmaking at all which somewhat leads to my second point. There is no place for a solo player to go and find a decent match when you solo que in a free tournament you are going to be playing with 4 other players not communicating effectively if at all usually against 5 people in voice chat that play together frequently and coordinated their profession choices.

The game is very team based you can have 5 people with much higher personal skill level not communicating and queing as their favorite profession against 5 average skill level players communicating and the average players will win 80% of the time if not more.

I may be a minority in this thread but I prefer pve. I would be more attracted to PvP if there was some reward other than PvP rewards. If I’m not mistaken there is no xp reward.

For me, this would make me want to spvp more.

Umbernont.6752:

I may be a minority in this thread but I prefer pve. I would be more attracted to PvP if there was some reward other than PvP rewards. If I’m not mistaken there is no xp reward.

For me, this would make me want to spvp more.

Giving exp for doing sPvP might encourage more people to play it but it wouldn’t make it any better of an experience. The sPvP is supposed to be a game structured closer to an FPS where you play to have fun and you are rewarded with a higher skill level. The people getting more PvE type rewards would bring in a few extra players trying to grind their levels in PvP many of which would exploit the system for ‘better’ exp which would take away from the people that are there to have fun.

PvP state is a sad sight. I haven’t logged on it weeks, not even to test the new pvp map type. My main issues are:

1) More game types, what the hell is Anet doing. It’s been months, release another dam game type already.

2) There needs to be a separation of players in hot-join. Why not make brackets with the ranking systems 1-10, 11-20 etc so at least players with relatively same experience levels in pvp are matched against each other. Rather than new players getting stomped or constantly being stomped by players who have just simply played much longer.

3) Increase the glory points for point captures/defends etc rather than just pure kills. With a point based objective game type only…..kills should not be the main glory gain.

That’s my main three, so many others but those need to be addressed before I log back on. I keep watching the forums but Arenanet isn’t even addressing the community anymore. Extremely disappointing.

MarcusKilgannon.5048:

PvP state is a sad sight. I haven’t logged on it weeks, not even to test the new pvp map type. My main issues are:

1) More game types, what the hell is Anet doing. It’s been months, release another dam game type already.

2) There needs to be a separation of players in hot-join. Why not make brackets with the ranking systems 1-10, 11-20 etc so at least players with relatively same experience levels in pvp are matched against each other. Rather than new players getting stomped or constantly being stomped by players who have just simply played much longer.

3) Increase the glory points for point captures/defends etc rather than just pure kills. With a point based objective game type only…..kills should not be the main glory gain.

That’s my main three, so many others but those need to be addressed before I log back on. I keep watching the forums but Arenanet isn’t even addressing the community anymore. Extremely disappointing.

Separating playing in hot join by rank isn’t a bad idea. It might suck for the higher ranks but a lot of them will have moved on to tournaments by then.

Seems a lot of people agree that defending should give points. ArenaNet have even said it. They said it a few months ago so I don’t know why they haven’t introduced it yet.

I disagree about the game modes. LoL has one map that is played competitively. I used to play CS 1.6 on de_dust and cs_assault only and never got bored of it :P While I’d really like new game modes, I don’t think it’s a priority.

I don’t understand this “defending should give points”. You kill a player on a node that your team controls, you get 5 points for the kill, and 10 points for objective defender. There’s points!

So what are you guys asking for? Points for sitting on an uncontested node? As in reward people for inaction?

hackks.3687:

I don’t understand this “defending should give points”. You kill a player on a node that your team controls, you get 5 points for the kill, and 10 points for objective defender. There’s points!

So what are you guys asking for? Points for sitting on an uncontested node? As in reward people for inaction?

What if you’re holding off two people on the point for 2 minutes? You don’t kill them but they don’t get the point. You’ve just got loads of points for your team but you don’t get rewarded for it. This is something that can happen in tournaments and as a node defender Guardian you get like 50 points while your team get 150+

nerva.7940:

they should start by balancing out the thief and ranger. one is broken OP, other has been next to useless in pvp since release. bringing 2 out of 8 profs in line would attract a lot of people back.

This is completely false. Why don’t you actually try playing both a Thief and a Ranger with a decent team in Free or Paid Touraments. You’ll find that one is far from OP and that the other is far from Useless.

It really is a learn to play issue. I hate using that phrase but I’m being honest engine here. Classs balance currently isn’t the problem. The problem is that the PvP is just boring. Each class has it’s specific role and it get’s tiresome. Nobody wants to win they just want Glory and Glory is easy to farm. You lose nothing when you lose and you gain nothing when you win. Heck you even win when you lose (Paid Tournament Participation Chests).

Guild Wars 1 had amazing PvP and an amazing combat system. I don’t know why they tried to recreate such a good thing. It was never a problem finding a team of 8 players for HoH or GvG. In GW2 it’s difficult to find a group of 5 that will sign up to do Paid Tournaments. Which is why the queue’s never pop except for during peak hours.

What Guild Wars 2 needs to do is bring back the Hall of Heroes. Allow PvE’rs to play but cap out their weapons and gear to match the PvP statistics. Bring back GvG and when you introduce Cantha in a future expansion, bring back AB and FB.

Guild Wars one had a very strong PvP Community and a strong PvE community. Guild Wars 2 has neither. The PvP Community died a long time ago and the PvE Community is dying. Something has to be done and it has to be done immediately.

i have over 300 hours on my ranger alone, who’s been doing tourneys since the game launched. i also have a number of youtube vids out showing off various builds. i know the prof inside out. i also invented the evasion tank playstyle (or at least, was the first to do a tutorial on it), in addition to using various BM regen builds.

but if you look at the current QP ranks, you wont see any rangers up there. there’s a reason for that. every prof has a spec with more survivability, more utility, more tank, better condition application, or more burst than anything the ranger can offer. the ranger falls behind in every area.

thieves never were a problem in tpvp, but they ruin WvW and spvp, turning off many casuals. i dont care much for the GW comparison because i never touched that game. all i know is that balance was a joke.

Oh man, Nerva you’re not kidding. I just shake my head at my ranger. I love the “idea” but when you see them actually in action its a sad sight.

GUYYYSSS!!

Guru is holding an open-table discussion in the coming day with J. Sharp and other prominent players in the tPvP scene:
November 30th at 8 PM. GMT+1 (11 AM. PST) on the own3d.tv/gw2guru channel
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/904-guru-state-of-the-game-stream-featuring-arenanet-developer-jonathan-sharp/

Hope this yields something substantial about GW2’s PvP.

Chriswck.6490:

GUYYYSSS!!

Guru is holding an open-table discussion in the coming day with J. Sharp and other prominent players in the tPvP scene:
November 30th at 8 PM. GMT+1 (11 AM. PST) on the own3d.tv/gw2guru channel
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/904-guru-state-of-the-game-stream-featuring-arenanet-developer-jonathan-sharp/

Hope this yields something substantial about GW2’s PvP.

That’s nice and all, but I hope they read the profession forums to be updated with current status of profession pros and cons in pvp. Some might not be able to make it to their stream broadcast event. That’s why we post on the forums so they can read our feedback on what we think which profession spec needs to be looked at for pvp.

Xiomaro.2563:

As a would-be competitive player the lack of Elo rating is one of the main reasons I’m playing less and less. The population is making me not want to sign on at all. For the first time ever I signed on today to see no one on my friends list online at 8pm (peak time). I have around 70-80 people on my friends list and not a single one was online.

I don’t care about hot join but I know a lot of people do; and a good general player base is key to having a good competitive scene. So for that reason I’d like to see hot join sorted out. If the Thief style of play wasn’t so well rewarded in hot join then not as many people would play it. The class itself is actually pretty balanced. The issue is: if I do play hot join I will play as Thief as the only reason I’ll play hot join is to farm glory. Thief is one of the easiest classes to do this with. If I could sit on a point with a Guardian and get just as many points, then I’d do that sometimes. In a similar way to how medics in Planetside 2 can get just as much experience as someone who’s killing enemies; different play styles need to be better rewarded in hot join.

I’m not trying to be a fearmongerer but this is getting pretty serious. I really can’t get over there being no one online at peak time in the evening.

fully agree with you

btw.. with hot-join and in general roamers are better rewarded than defenders.
At this point i would just gave same ammount of glory to every member of team. For example – you can have “team glory pool” and by doing thigs like defense / killing etc.. you add points to this pool. At the end of the game you take 5 players.. and divide the glory pool in between them.
That would actually promote TEAM play instead of zerging. But i see there are also issues for hot-joins like what if you join at the end of the game? should you get full reward etc? but thats still managable. The problem is.. people get glory for playing bad instead of focusing on what is objective.

@Aragiel

I really like your idea of a team glory pool. It sounds like a very workable solution to the current perverted glory system.

Yes, currently hotjoin is too lenient of players leaving/switching teams/coming in at the end. Should at least begin with penalties for leaving, no team switching, etc.

@Chriswck

Thanks, it has its own issues too for sure, but at least people can start to realize that this is team play and the goal of playing is to WIN and not to get GLORY. Glory should be just an addition.

Aragiel.6132:

Btw.. with hot-join and in general roamers are better rewarded than defenders.
At this point i would just gave same ammount of glory to every member of team. For example – you can have “team glory pool” and by doing thigs like defense / killing etc.. you add points to this pool. At the end of the game you take 5 players.. and divide the glory pool in between them.
That would actually promote TEAM play instead of zerging. But i see there are also issues for hot-joins like what if you join at the end of the game? should you get full reward etc? but thats still managable. The problem is.. people get glory for playing bad instead of focusing on what is objective.

This idea is a couple of months old, but still as valid. Especially for people that take on the role of the less famous point holder. The roamers/point cappers get all the points. While the support/point defenders can end up getting nothing more than the initial 10 points. Hilarious way to award zerg and punish teamplay.

The state of sPVP is that it’s dead and ArenaNet develops slower than Blizzard! I thought that was impossible but I guess not.

Balance is not what killed GW2 PVP. You’re being very shortsighted if you think an individual class’s balance had anything to do with the current state of GW2 PVP.

One class was always going to be more powerful than the rest. If GW2 had the core PVP features that were promised for launch implemented, then the player base would have been willing to wait out imbalances. Hell, if we had gotten them within the first 1-2 months, it would have been ok.

Now we hear that it’s going to be 2013 before we get basic PVP features like matchmaking??? Not to mention private/custom servers, spectator mode, and more PVP game types?

That’s just pathetic. Sorry ArenaNet, you should have put more people on the PVP team if you wanted to make this an esport. And you should have put more people on that team YEARS ago, if this is how long it takes you to code.

Honestly GW2 would have been better off delaying the launch in order to move the entire company onto PVP development, then launched in October/November. Instead they colored the Mists green. Priorities!

nerva.7940:

but if you look at the current QP ranks, you wont see any rangers up there. there’s a reason for that. every prof has a spec with more survivability, more utility, more tank, better condition application, or more burst than anything the ranger can offer. the ranger falls behind in every area.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you that rangers are too weak (I actually agree, though I’m not sure by how much and I’m not especially confident in my judgment on this), but if you look at the current QP ranks, you will in fact see at least one ranger: Vyndetta from PTC is #6 NA. He plays ranger and possibly necro (that is, I know that he can play necro but not whether he ever actually does so in paids).