Guild Wars 2

GW2 was always meant to be innovative and regarding that it’s a success, no doubt. But not everything that sounds good in theory works when you carry it out – this post is about my personal feedback on PvP to the devs.

In my opinion everything that’s wrong with PvP is caused by a simple thing: devs want to force FPS element into a MMO. And in case of the combat, the result was an extremely fun and reponsive combat system – but experimenting with combat and doing the same with the structure of Pvp are 2 different things.

FPS browser – Hotjoin
When it was announced, I was pretty hyped for it so I understood what the devs were trying to do. “So I can just join whenever I want to and play? Also, new players won’t be farmed by veterans who prevent them from earning PvP ranks (main issue with GW1’s HA), great! I can rank up there and learn the game!” – this idea was really excellent.

But this never worked. Hotjoin is supposed to be a place where new players learn the basics of the gamemode and the combat, but currently it’s the worst thing a newcomer can do. Matches are never even (I’m talking about the number of players on the sides, not their skill), the entire place is about autobalance abusing and zerging for achievement points. A new player won’t know what’s happening and why, they will just simply learn what they see.

In an FPS it’s fine, because you will learn how to kill other players and that’s what matters, but there are more factors than that in an MMO – pve players, players who don’t care about the objectives because they are just farming, players who are busing autobalancing. There is no PvP in hotjoin.

There is no place for new players to learn the game, hotjoin is a place where they will master the exact opposite of how the game should be played. This place corrupts newcomers – people who think they know enough based on their hotjoin experiences will ruin every rated match they play, and they will have to learn how to play again – which means they must forget everything they currently know about the gamemode. No wonder many of them don’t bother and just leave the game’s pvp side.

We will never have a healthy PvP as long as hotjoin exists.

FPS elements in map design
Cough Skyhammer Cough. You never see a single post about players asking for the removal of Foefire or Temple, but Skyhammer-hate is a thing since the day it was added. Devs claim that it’s a map heavily influenced by Quake – but again, GW2 is an MMO, and this map is as close to adding headshot as a game mechanic as it can be. Except the fact you don’t even have to aim.

Side note: even if you think it’s the minority who dislikes this map, you, as developers, should stay objective and ask the question – “Is it suitable for rated play? A map where you can kill 5 people by pressing a single button, out of combat? A map, where you can kill other players with 1 skill even if the other was winning the duel with max hp?” – with such a random factor, how are we supposed to have a decent matchmaking, ever? Just because you can press 2 buttons doesn’t mean you can actually play the game. Playing the game, using the combat system as intended is actually a disadvantage on this map. Skyhammer is as suitable for rated play as Keg Brawl. It’s basically just another PvP minigame.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this game, I just want to say, stop pursing FPS games, because everything that’s wrong with PvP comes from this intention.

Pick any 2 styles and they can work together in the right game.

data.4093:

Pick any 2 styles and they can work together in the right game.

MMO and RTS…

hmmmm

World of Starcraft!!!!

Pros:

• Epic pew pew weapons.
• TANKS.
• Many options for professions, even class advancement (Marine → Ghost → Raynor, so epic).
• You start with enough resources to last you for half the playing time, no need to grind anymore!! (well unless you’re rushed).

Cons:

• You have to start your character again every time you win.
• You have to start your character again every time you lose.
• Arenas are based on the number of players, not on the arena types.
• Backdoor thieves are still present (Dark templars), expect 50k posts of whining about their perma-cloaking.
• To create gear you need to wait 20+ minutes per piece, don’t get me started with upgrading it to level 3.

ghost.3208:

data.4093:

Pick any 2 styles and they can work together in the right game.

MMO and RTS…

hmmmm

World of Starcraft!!!!

Pros:

• Epic pew pew weapons.
• TANKS.
• Many options for professions, even class advancement (Marine -> Ghost -> Raynor, so epic).
• You start with enough resources to last you for half the playing time, no need to grind anymore!! (well unless you’re rushed).

Cons:

• You have to start your character again every time you win.
• You have to start your character again every time you lose.
• Arenas are based on the number of players, not on the arena types.
• Backdoor thieves are still present (Dark templars), expect 50k posts of whining about their perma-cloaking.
• To create gear you need to wait 20+ minutes per piece, don’t get me started with upgrading it to level 3.

atlantica online

character progression is mmo
fighting is rts

I think WvWvW is arena nets attempt at mmo/rts

The game may be still in early development but…. http://www.tentonhammer.com/preview/skyforge-pvp-system-preview

I agree and disagree on some points though.

I agree the PvP in this Game NEEDS a tutorial, badly! https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/No-changes-for-PvP-Tutorial/first#post4373500 (anyone wanna bump this? ;P)

I agree and disagree about the FPS map design. Having terrain you can use to your advantage is a pinnacle point for FPS game map design, and that is where it falls off in GW2 (see: WvW). Skyhammer has a good theory, but the map should never kill you…it just shouldn’t unless it was YOUR fault, not exploited by your enemies.

I also disagree about the forcing FPS elements from FPS games though. Most FPS games that I play online, usually have the conquest mode (aside for Battlefield) as the least popular gamemode. Titanfall, CoD, even TF2 (maybe not LEAST popular for TF2) etc. people prefer alternates. The only one that has made it work is BF due to the vast ways of approaching points (infantry, air, vehicle).

The link I posted lists what I was originally hoping for when I hear about good PvP in MMOs, as well as FPS (I play Tribes, Global Agenda, TF2, etc….these gamemodes are universal, they simply work…)

There are far better parallels to Mobas, than there are to FPS.

Hotjoin is an absolute mess, but not much because of zerging anymore. It exists, but it will exist because this is newbie territory and people will mindlessly engage in a 3v1. Or, for a more prevalent reason, uneven teams. It’s a mess because of the autobalance and uneven teams – virtually always. As you pointed out. Anet should be putting their best foot forward for these people, but since day 1 they’ve had some huge issues.

Skyhammer sucks for all the reasons you posted. It turns pvp into a point-and-click adventure game.

This is a really strange post because this stuff you’re blaming here is not core to a FPS. I could just as easy blame skyhammer on huttball, for example. Whatever, that’s kinda nitpicking.

Hotjoin is, and has always been a place to practice your mechanics, not for strategy or evaluating build strength. That’s OK, I like having a place like that. The problem is the rampant team stacking and spectator gaming ruining even that. It could be improved simply imo: a player that switches to spectator may not rejoin a team for the remainder of the match.

Huttball has been discussed ad naseum. It really just boils down to not having easy access map kills, it’s just too much. I

Spectator locking may work to reduce Autobalance Wars, but I fear all that will do is make players ragequit instead of spectating, leaving the losing team in the same boat anyway.

Perhaps something like a “Random Team” bonus where if you choose to join a random team at the start, you get double the final reward (up to the winner’s maximum reward)? That would encourage people to stay even if they end up on the losing team, since between “time played” and the “random bonus”, they could end up getting the same (or better) reward at the end if the match goes on for more than 10 mins.

Removing the ability to pick your team from spectator mode and automatically putting the new player on the LOSING team so long as the losing team doesn’t already have one man more than the winning team would solve all the hotjoin issues.

If someone tries to team swap from the losing side they’d just get put back on the losing team, and the winning side could never have more than equal the number of players on it’s side since the team randomizer will always favor putting you on the losing side until the losing side already has a numbers edge.

Sure, rage quitters might leave and make it a 5v4 for a while. But usually another person will be brought in to replace that person eventually. It’s not as big of a problem as people purposely bogging down one side and abusing the auto balance to leave the losing side and join the winning side.

In the case of a rage quitter something they could do is make an entirely voluntary auto balance after the side with a numbers edge has a 100 point lead, and anyone on the winning side can jump to the losing side for double rewards. This would give incentive to jump to the losing team even if the losing team isn’t down by two people yet.

ghost.3208:

data.4093:

Pick any 2 styles and they can work together in the right game.

MMO and RTS…

hmmmm

World of Starcraft!!!!

Pros:

• Epic pew pew weapons.
• TANKS.
• Many options for professions, even class advancement (Marine -> Ghost -> Raynor, so epic).
• You start with enough resources to last you for half the playing time, no need to grind anymore!! (well unless you’re rushed).

Cons:

• You have to start your character again every time you win.
• You have to start your character again every time you lose.
• Arenas are based on the number of players, not on the arena types.
• Backdoor thieves are still present (Dark templars), expect 50k posts of whining about their perma-cloaking.
• To create gear you need to wait 20+ minutes per piece, don’t get me started with upgrading it to level 3.

I dare to say, but isn’t Dawn of War 2 a close thing to an MMO-RTS?

You got a Commander and troops which you can level – this results in them being more tanky and doing more damage
Your Commander in turn can unlock wargear (granted, gated by upgrading the base), enabling many options for Commander Builds which can turn around the tide of battle…

Here is a video

GoogleBrandon.5073:

I dare to say, but isn’t Dawn of War 2 a close thing to an MMO-RTS?

You got a Commander and troops which you can level – this results in them being more tanky and doing more damage
Your Commander in turn can unlock wargear (granted, gated by upgrading the base), enabling many options for Commander Builds which can turn around the tide of battle…

Maybe an RPG RTS.

Though among RPG style RTS games I think Warlords Battlecry was the truest hybrid. You had a hero that you created exactly like any RPG. You chose a race, a name, and a class. You then did battles, either in the campaign or in randomly generated maps, and could level up.

Best part was you could carry over your hero to new random maps, so every game you played was like another chapter in the character’s story. As your hero progressed you could choose a sub-class and invest points in a fairly large talent tree to improve commanding skills to make troops stronger, your hero’s personal combat stats, learn spells, or get special economic advantages to make improving your towns easier on new maps.

Even the units got experience, and after each game you played certain units that had accumulated the most experience without dying was given a randomly generated name and offered to join your retinue, meaning you could carry that unit over to future games and continue to level it up alongside your hero so long as you never allowed it to get killed.

Your hero could even seek out quests as side objectives to complete during the maps to get better gear to improve their stats.

Everything else about the game was pretty straight forward RTS mechanics similar to the likes of Warcraft or Age of Empires in terms of gameplay, but the level of RPG elements was unrivaled. Your hero carrying over from game to game was just a fantastic design point and really let you feel like you WERE that commander there fighting alongside the armies you raised.

I probably should explain my post above because the triangle was uninformative. I was trying to point out that a game can have elements from multiple types, and generalized fps, mmo, rts. Guild wars 2 at it’s core is an MMO but contains elements of shooters(importance of twitch play) and strategy games(enormous map awareness/coverage and the idea of counter comping). Some people have already mentioned other things that lean more towards the shooters and strategy games than general MMOs in GW2.

Now when you try and throw these elements together you end up with a mess. People looking for basic MMO PVP end up in conquest(or as someone noted WvW which is just zerg trains unless you’re running with a focused group) with no map/composition awareness and can’t comprehend any of the skills being thrown at them. In a very short time they quit.