Guild Wars 2

Just at the start I wanted to say that I speak from a perspective of a player who don’t venture above gold tier and mailnly plays from solo queue.

I used to have fun while playing sPvP in GW2. And I am playing it quire regularly since beta. But I really don’t like the direction in which this game mode is heading. I think that PvE is fine and WvW suffers mostly from population issues which is a completly different matter.

My main problem (and what I mean by “one-sided”) is that I feel that modern GW2 sPvP evolve around “dodge or explode” philosophy. This creates situation where most people run builds capable of absolutly destroying anyone within seconds while also loaded with some form of invulnerable mechanics to avoid such spikes. This is coupled with exclusive use of conquest mode which forces everyone into a tiny box and further destroys build diversity. Most of the time when I fight someone, I either nuke him down fast because he was stunned and/or didnt had his defensive cooldown ready. Or this happens to me. Either way most fights ends with a feeling that I either completly destroyed someone or that he completly destroyed me. I can 100->0 some guy who I encounter in the field and in the next fight he can 100->0 me just as easily. All that was needed is that I had my crucial defensive ability on cooldown.

And dont even start with team fights where you have 6 people running in the 10 square meter box among all the wells, traps and CC effects. Each of them more than capable to insta-gib a person. Trying to dodge/block/whatever something in such environment feels like a dice roll and I think it feels like that for most players below Legendary tier.

From what I can observe on the MMO market (current and former) this is a philosophy that gameplay designers try to avoid. And GW2 team seems to be deliberately drifting into this direction.

Few years ago I had my fair share of fun with sPvP. Right now I feel I play mostly the “stomp or get stomped” slot machine and this is just not fun. This makes collecting some exclusive items/tracks my ONLY motivation to keep playing this mode. But as soon as that is done I will quickly abandon it and dont look back until something changes. This is in contrast with older sPvP where I often joined sPvP just for fun. People toyed with more builds and fights had more linear outcomes. Right now it’s mostly same overused set of copy-pasta from meta websites and same trap cards (pun to DH semi-intended) activated over and over again.

I’m a solo Gold-tier casual who plays for the daily.

The combat system is just overtuned, with a very short TTK compared to other MMOs (it feels more like a MOBA in terms of pace). It seems very difficult to balance to me.

Right now we are in a meta where survival is based on CDs and good dodging, which does require more skill than previous bunker metas where the defensive boon spamming and tank amulets can carry you more. Bunker meta bores players and this is why we are having a faster paced meta now.

Frankly I feel spike damage has been toned down noticibly, and is a lot more manageable. With the amulet changes though, the top end of tankiness has of course decreased.

Elite specs are just overall better specs and not a sidegrade, which limits the build diversity you can build for while still competing with other elite specs. We have given up and settled for overall representation/viability of a class over diversity.

For teamfights, the game has evolved to the point where cleave is immense and node-sitting simply isn’t an option a lot of the time. Along with amulet changes, this means more than ever defensive CD usage (or rather, conserving by positioning) is key.

I’ll admit the CDs are carrying me a bit (a lot), but I find the current meta ok – a bit fast for my taste, but nothing unplayable.

If you’re 100-0’ing and getting 100-0’d in turn, you would have to be playing something all-in like Power Mes. Getting +1’d without CDs up is another matter, and even then you’ll know what killed you.

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My main problem (and what I mean by “one-sided”) is that I feel that modern GW2 sPvP evolve around “dodge or explode” philosophy.

Pretty much yes. The game is balanced around temporary invulnerabilities, call them dodge, reflect, block what ever have you.

Thus the ever present balance train wreck this game has been.

The whole match making is broken due to duo queue and an algorithm that would be more suitable for a chess game than 5vs5 gw2 pvp with multiple classes/builds.

Whenever I take a short or long break and then come back to playing I feel this way, but then after getting demolished an embarrassingly large number of times it finally dawns on me I need to better utilize movement, positioning, and kiting techniques to help pad defenses and cooldowns. It is conquest, and it is easy to get too focused on staying on point for as long as possible, but this is often an unintuitive trap. Keeping this in mind may or may not help you to adapt.