Guild Wars 2

PvP since HoT has been in decline. League seasons 1 and 2 were pretty much a bust according to the majority of people with bad ladders/matchmaking systems and the elite traits are vastly superior to the core traits creating such an unbalancing game mode. With that said, the balance is inching in the right direction. However, emphasis on inching. It’s an extremely slow pace.

Getting to the point, I worry about the future of pvp. WvW has been getting decent improvements, a reward track, a server merge PLUS the alpine/snow borderlands just came back! Will WvW take away from PvP? I do admit, the WvW grass looks a lot greener. PvP needs more substantial improvements. I don’t think players will take a third PvP season bust.

Imagine that…. If the class you enjoy isn’t the FOTM then current balance is a bust. If you can’t make it to legendary in the ladder then its the matchmaking fault…. theres absoluetly zero chance that players aren’t even remotely as good as they dream themselves as being….

yeah wvw grass looking greener because they took eight steps backwards with server merges ( what they should of done at game launch) and reverting maps back ( what they shouldn’t of changed to begin with)

echo.2053:

Imagine that…. If the class you enjoy isn’t the FOTM then current balance is a bust. If you can’t make it to legendary in the ladder then its the matchmaking fault…. theres absoluetly zero chance that players aren’t even remotely as good as they dream themselves as being….

yeah wvw grass looking greener because they took eight steps backwards with server merges ( what they should of done at game launch) and reverting maps back ( what they shouldn’t of changed to begin with)

To be fair, matchmaking is a known problem. Stop it with that elitism mentality.

StickerHappy.8052:

echo.2053:

Imagine that…. If the class you enjoy isn’t the FOTM then current balance is a bust. If you can’t make it to legendary in the ladder then its the matchmaking fault…. theres absoluetly zero chance that players aren’t even remotely as good as they dream themselves as being….

yeah wvw grass looking greener because they took eight steps backwards with server merges ( what they should of done at game launch) and reverting maps back ( what they shouldn’t of changed to begin with)

To be fair, matchmaking is a known problem. Stop it with that elitism mentality.

I believe that you are both right:

Yes, there are definitely issues with matchmaking.

Yes, players quite often blame issues on outside forces rather than their own inability.

echo.2053:

Imagine that…. If the class you enjoy isn’t the FOTM then current balance is a bust. If you can’t make it to legendary in the ladder then its the matchmaking fault…. theres absoluetly zero chance that players aren’t even remotely as good as they dream themselves as being….

yeah wvw grass looking greener because they took eight steps backwards with server merges ( what they should of done at game launch) and reverting maps back ( what they shouldn’t of changed to begin with)

Apparently one can’t be impartial about this. I play warr. Warr got buffs. We were in the gutter the last 6 months. Now, guard is in the same gutter we were. Go to any profession forum, sometimes there will be a few threads calling their own class op and pointing out said skill and effects and calling for nerfs(ex: reaper and chill). Contesting game balance cuts both ways.

Two, matchmaking IS a bust because of the same results and experience of a majority of players for two seasons in a row. Constant blowout matches and being overmatched with people way above your skill level is not fun for anyone, winner OR loser.

Three, wvw bottom tiers weren’t active in any substantial way since the release! One could argue that wvw released with TOO MANY servers. The mergers gave life to the bottom servers. Plus, they can be re-instated if too many are merged and they become full. It’s more flexible of a system. I will say Desert BLs were a bust though. They were untested among the players and should not have been put out so suddenly in place of the alpine/snow we’ve known for 3 years. This is why I say I worry about PvP. PvP needs more substantial improvements, both in infrastructure and balance.

JTGuevara.9018:

Apparently one can’t be impartial about this. I play warr. Warr got buffs. We were in the gutter the last 6 months. Now, guard is in the same gutter we were. Go to any profession forum, sometimes there will be a few threads calling their own class op and pointing out said skill and effects and calling for nerfs(ex: reaper and chill). Contesting game balance cuts both ways.

6 months up must of been a hard time lol and where was your class for the year + prior to the 6 months? you remember with the nike shoes and obnoxious healing signet. welcome to anet balancing of just rotating classes…. nothing to be impartial to.

Two, matchmaking IS a bust because of the same results and experience of a majority of players for two seasons in a row. Constant blowout matches and being overmatched with people way above your skill level is not fun for anyone, winner OR loser.

The reason why blowouts isn’t to be considered match making fault is because no system could accurately determine them. Most blowouts were caused by: team giving up after dying on first contact, recognizing a deceant player on the other team, terrible rotations.

how do you know when you’ve hit the threshold of your skill? its when you no longer increase or decrease. The only flaw with the last system is that players were locked in their tier in an attempt to prevent some players from getting their feelings hurt that they were only amber or emerald tier worthy.

No future for it if it continues to alienate people. There are mmorpgs where pvp has become a private playground for a select few. We want this happening here as well ?

Take a look at some of history’s most popular games:

• Chess – match outcomes decided by wit and raw knowledge/wisdom
• Poker – match outcomes decided by bluffing, fronting and a little luck
• Baseball – match outcomes decided primarily by athletic ability
• Rock/Paper/Scissors – match outcomes decided by raw instinct
• Or in our case, any cult classic video game that is still played competitively to this day. match outcomes in video gaming usually ends up being about hand eye coordinated, reflexes, raw knowledge and rehearsal of key strokes and response to opponent’s actions and ability to think faster than the opponent

All of the above games are so different but they’re all the same.

What do these share in common?

• They all have perfect competitive balance.
• They all have solid physics that don’t change.

Due to these solid and well balanced game physics, people love these games because match outcomes are truly decided by the superior player or team. This makes a game fun to play and fun to watch. Due to the game physics being solid and never changing, this means that a player could walk away for 10 years, then come back and pick right up where they left off, without needing to relearn a new game. Both of these factors contribute to building a strong fanbase and keeping the fanbase because the game is “always present and never changes”. Whenever a game changes it’s rules or dynamic, it becomes a different game entirely which also means that it loses old fanbase and has to build new fanbase. Sometimes the older players don’t like the new game and don’t come back. It is because of a game “being solid and not changing” that allows it to accru a large fanbase.

The above is the problem with Guild Wars 2 spvp. It completely lacks every aspect mentioned that is required to build a strong game that accrues a large fan base and it is mostly because Guild Wars 2 spvp has yet to settle a solid foundation of reliable game dynamic that players can leave for a year and come back to, that is unchanged. Players will get used to some build, finally learn how to combat and rotate with it, hell they may even grow to really love playing that one spec. Then they leave for 6 months, come back and the spvp scene is completely different and they have to relearn the game as if they just walked in to the mists for the first time, again. This is no good for keeping player base interested. If arena-net seriously wants to promote their esport, they have got to sit down and grind out a well developed foundation for a stable game balance and leave it alone for awhile so that it can settle and become a game that player’s can return to.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Take a look at some of history’s most popular games:

• Chess – match outcomes decided by wit and raw knowledge/wisdom
• Poker – match outcomes decided by bluffing, fronting and a little luck
• Baseball – match outcomes decided primarily by athletic ability
• Rock/Paper/Scissors – match outcomes decided by raw instinct
• Or in our case, any cult classic video game that is still played competitively to this day. match outcomes in video gaming usually ends up being about hand eye coordinated, reflexes, raw knowledge and rehearsal of key strokes and response to opponent’s actions and ability to think faster than the opponent

All of the above games are so different but they’re all the same.

What do these share in common?

• They all have perfect competitive balance.
• They all have solid physics that don’t change.

Due to these solid and well balanced game physics, people love these games because match outcomes are truly decided by the superior player or team. This makes a game fun to play and fun to watch. Due to the game physics being solid and never changing, this means that a player could walk away for 10 years, then come back and pick right up where they left off, without needing to relearn a new game. Both of these factors contribute to building a strong fanbase and keeping the fanbase because the game is “always present and never changes”. Whenever a game changes it’s rules or dynamic, it becomes a different game entirely which also means that it loses old fanbase and has to build new fanbase. Sometimes the older players don’t like the new game and don’t come back. It is because of a game “being solid and not changing” that allows it to accru a large fanbase.

The above is the problem with Guild Wars 2 spvp. It completely lacks every aspect mentioned that is required to build a strong game that accrues a large fan base and it is mostly because Guild Wars 2 spvp has yet to settle a solid foundation of reliable game dynamic that players can leave for a year and come back to, that is unchanged. Players will get used to some build, finally learn how to combat and rotate with it, hell they may even grow to really love playing that one spec. Then they leave for 6 months, come back and the spvp scene is completely different and they have to relearn the game as if they just walked in to the mists for the first time, again. This is no good for keeping player base interested. If arena-net seriously wants to promote their esport, they have got to sit down and grind out a well developed foundation for a stable game balance and leave it alone for awhile so that it can settle and become a game that player’s can return to.

Approval.

Not only are they breaking raids by changing skills in favor of PVP same happens to PVP when they change skills in PVE… The matchmaking is not working… (the problems were acknowledged by anet) so less and less ppl are playing PVP which makes matchmaking even worse because it depends on the masses to find a good match… soon there will be only a very small dedicated minority which means no interest and no esports… so IMHO if current pvp staff is not replaced very soon, there is not future for PVP in gw2.

Call me pessimist but I constantly had very bad matches (read… mostly much much worse players than me in team, or far better enemy teams) for moths now and it has only gotten worse. I stopped being mad for some time now, I’m just sad…

This game has great potential to be a great PvP game, but more and more people have to admit that GW2 is a PvE game after all.

echo.2053:

Imagine that…. If the class you enjoy isn’t the FOTM then current balance is a bust. If you can’t make it to legendary in the ladder then its the matchmaking fault…. theres absoluetly zero chance that players aren’t even remotely as good as they dream themselves as being….

yeah wvw grass looking greener because they took eight steps backwards with server merges ( what they should of done at game launch) and reverting maps back ( what they shouldn’t of changed to begin with)

Given that multiple classes have no shot at getting anywhere near the ESL and the fact that according to the ESL players themselves there are a few others taken only because they cannot stack another ele/engi/rev/mes then I would say ya balance is screwed up.

On top of that numerous diamond players & ESL players have noted that several of the above classes are by far and away easier to dominate everything with & have much better cohesion then those not mentioned.

This even mentioning matchmaking, numerous glitches etc…

echo.2053:

JTGuevara.9018:

Apparently one can’t be impartial about this. I play warr. Warr got buffs. We were in the gutter the last 6 months. Now, guard is in the same gutter we were. Go to any profession forum, sometimes there will be a few threads calling their own class op and pointing out said skill and effects and calling for nerfs(ex: reaper and chill). Contesting game balance cuts both ways.

6 months up must of been a hard time lol and where was your class for the year + prior to the 6 months? you remember with the nike shoes and obnoxious healing signet. welcome to anet balancing of just rotating classes…. nothing to be impartial to.

Two, matchmaking IS a bust because of the same results and experience of a majority of players for two seasons in a row. Constant blowout matches and being overmatched with people way above your skill level is not fun for anyone, winner OR loser.

The reason why blowouts isn’t to be considered match making fault is because no system could accurately determine them. Most blowouts were caused by: team giving up after dying on first contact, recognizing a deceant player on the other team, terrible rotations.

how do you know when you’ve hit the threshold of your skill? its when you no longer increase or decrease. The only flaw with the last system is that players were locked in their tier in an attempt to prevent some players from getting their feelings hurt that they were only amber or emerald tier worthy.

I mean to be impartial in criticizing the balance whether you personally benefit from or suffer from it. Second, of course blowouts cant be determined but we can help PREVENT them. I still cant believe that people think leagueshave any sort of merit after TWO fails. Lol

Pretty soon, as someone else mentioned, pvp will merely be reduced to a private playground for the tryhards and pros if leagues keep failing like this.

I do not think pvp is declining at all, I always see plenty of players in HotM and leagues are what got me interested in pvp. Before leagues I hardly ever played pvp and I was not interested in the game type at all, I just did it to get AP and titles but now leagues have started, pvp is pretty much all I play in gw2. I play pvp for maybe 3-4 hours a day now and I play pve maybe for a few hours a week if that. Having the incentive to play really got me interested in the incredibly fun game mode of pvp. When I started doing leagues in the first place I just did it for the new AP, but after a while I started to really enjoy it and for the first time ever, pve or pvp, I actually care about improving as a player. I don’t believe that I am the only one who feels this way and I think that leagues encouraged a lot of people to start playing pvp even if it did cause some to quit.

As long as there are pvp leagues and a new title for getting to legendary, I will probably never stop playing pvp as my main game mode in gw2 now.

Future, imo, doesn’t look the brightest. Balance really has been lifting one class up that had been down and tearing another class down that had been up. Leagues are a good idea, but have yet to be executed well mainly because of matchmaking.

GW2 does a lot better with pve content. See raids or even the short events they just released. They need to put some serious focus into building a foundation of what pvp is and making sure all classes have more than just one viable build. They need to look at traits again and think about the passive procs and move toward a more active defense.

Pvp is probably at its strongest based on numbers, but this is definitely the least happy the community has been with pvp in a while. I think this perception of a decline of pvp is false and based on peoples negative views of a non-changing meta that anet refuses to change because it won’t make them money.

JTGuevara.9018:

Second, of course blowouts cant be determined but we can help PREVENT them. I still cant believe that people think leagueshave any sort of merit after TWO fails. Lol

……just what??? By all means please explain how you prevent something that you can’t predict. Thats some horoscope palm reading kitten right there. If there is no merit for leagues why bother writing this espically with 2/2 fails?

JTGuevara.9018:

Pretty soon, as someone else mentioned, pvp will merely be reduced to a private playground for the tryhards and pros if leagues keep failing like this.

Case and point – you recognize a decent player on the other team and automatically go into a match loss mindset that results in a blowout. Your more than welcome to blame matchmaking, heck Anet will agree with you because they WILL NEVER tell you that you aren’t a good player regardless if you were two capping uncontested points the entire game. Keep in mind though if you require an x amount of decent players on your team to have a good game…. more than likely you don’t fit in that catergory and should be happy that you can’t fall back divisions

There is no future for gw2 pvp at all if they continue nerfing core skills/traits due to broken elite specs.

It isn’t a perception, it’s a fact that pvp is declining and this much is viewable if you were a guild leader that has paid attention to players joining/leaving the game within the past year and what they say to you before they leave.

Quick summary:

Pre HoT and pre 6/23/2015 traits in to specialization patch ~ spvp was at it’s most balanced. Three years of work towards balancing the game up to that point. The game had a more solid feel. 2-3 builds were at least viable on each class and people liked playing those builds because those were the builds that had always been being played and people were used to this. People enjoyed pvp then more than they do now. So much to the point that I could get my girlfriend, our friend Keri and Keri’s mom to play spvp with me. Along with a list of numerous other players that I can’t even get to touch the game now after HoT release and S1.

HoT release and S1 ~ Many casual frequenters of spvp, wvw and even pve left the game about a week or two after the HoT release. The initial hype was interesting to many of them at first but then the realization set in of “now they need to grind to get gold to pay for new gear, again” “now they need to relearn and adapt to some new build structure, again”. Here are actual quotes from some of the people I know in real life who left this game:

• Amanda my gf: It’s too demanding now. I feel like I can’t get anywhere in this game. It took me a long time to learn how to keep up in pvp with you guys but every time I catch up, the game changes. I think I’m done with this hun.
• Keri our friend: I liked my old cele/rifle engi. I do not like how scrapper plays and I don’t like how other classes play in pvp either.
• Keri’s mom: I just don’t know what the hell is going on at all anymore. <- She has currently been playing RTS games because she says it’s something she can learn that doesn’t change.
• My friend Brandon: Why’s a-net gotta keep stirring the bucket? I prefer games that make me feel like my time invested, matters.
• Various in-game buddies who were much more hardcore than the above players: Mostly claiming that they have had enough with imbalance issues and have had enough with bad match making.

S2 ~ Literally, my entire guild fell apart at the beginning of S2. During S1, I had a great team rolling. Even through the fire & flame of the leaving players, I was able to pull together a strong 5 man crew and we had achieved r29 on the leaderboards just before Christmas rolled around. Around Christmas time, players began getting burnt out and started disappearing. It got to the point that there were only 3 people or less online at a given time and I had to stop running the guild team tag, thus I could no longer progress our team in league due to this. Most of them would sign in once or twice a week for an hour here or there in between S1 and S2 but when S2 rolled around, they just signed out and never logged back in. Here is what some of them said:

• Tai: I think I’ll just go check out new games now <- This guy was always positive and never negative. What I can tell you that what he means by this, is that he is unsatisfied with the direction of GW2 spvp.
• “a name that I won’t mention because he streams”: I’m so tired of these issues in GW2 man. I like this game and I don’t want to leave it but maybe it’s time to take a break for awhile and see what happens.
• “another name that I won’t mention because plenty of you would know who he is”: What the bleep is arena net doing? <-a man of few words but strong ones.
• and countless others who disappeared upon S2 release, claiming complete disapproval of the balance patch that was released at that point.

So S3 approaches. With the above statements and actions trending, there won’t be much of an actual spvp community left other than new faces showing up who are only showing up to get legendary wings. They aren’t showing up for the love of a competitive scene, like the original hardcore players. No, they want rewards and if they weren’t getting rewards, they wouldn’t be interested.

Consider the difference in mindframe between the two different types of players in spvp: “players who are there because they actually like pvp” and “players who are there trudging forward through disgust to get legendary wings”. <- Players who are there trudging forward in disgust to get legendary wings are not going to stay after they get the legendary wings. All of these new faces you see, yeah they are mostly there trudging forward in disgust to get the legendary wings. This is not a healthy way to build population in a competitive scene. The players who actually love pvp are more and more dropping out and not coming back, due to finally being fed up enough to do so.

All of the above is not healthy and arena-net needs to review their priorities if they want to keep making money. You need fanbase to make money and you need a solid game to create and keep fanbase. I personally love the GW2 engine and will stay with this game but the large majority of players do not feel the same way that I do.

The #1 biggest culprit to the above problem is how LONG it takes arena-net to patch and fix this game. With their current schedule of serious patching, it’s going to take years to achieve the same level of balance in pvp that we had seen pre 6/23/2015 and that’s unfortunate.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

It isn’t a perception, it’s a fact that pvp is declining and this much is viewable if you were a guild leader that has paid attention to players joining/leaving the game within the past year and what they say to you before they leave.

Quick summary:

Pre HoT and pre 6/23/2015 traits in to specialization patch ~ spvp was at it’s most balanced. Three years of work towards balancing the game up to that point. The game had a more solid feel. 2-3 builds were at least viable on each class and people liked playing those builds because those were the builds that had always been being played and people were used to this. People enjoyed pvp then more than they do now. So much to the point that I could get my girlfriend, our friend Keri and Keri’s mom to play spvp with me. Along with a list of numerous other players that I can’t even get to touch the game now after HoT release and S1.

HoT release and S1 ~ Many casual frequenters of spvp, wvw and even pve left the game about a week or two after the HoT release. The initial hype was interesting to many of them at first but then the realization set in of “now they need to grind to get gold to pay for new gear, again” “now they need to relearn and adapt to some new build structure, again”. Here are actual quotes from some of the people I know in real life who left this game:

• Amanda my gf: It’s too demanding now. I feel like I can’t get anywhere in this game. It took me a long time to learn how to keep up in pvp with you guys but every time I catch up, the game changes. I think I’m done with this hun.
• Keri our friend: I liked my old cele/rifle engi. I do not like how scrapper plays and I don’t like how other classes play in pvp either.
• Keri’s mom: I just don’t know what the hell is going on at all anymore. <- She has currently been playing RTS games because she says it’s something she can learn that doesn’t change.
• My friend Brandon: Why’s a-net gotta keep stirring the bucket? I prefer games that make me feel like my time invested, matters.
• Various in-game buddies who were much more hardcore than the above players: Mostly claiming that they have had enough with imbalance issues and have had enough with bad match making.

S2 ~ Literally, my entire guild fell apart at the beginning of S2. During S1, I had a great team rolling. Even through the fire & flame of the leaving players, I was able to pull together a strong 5 man crew and we had achieved r29 on the leaderboards just before Christmas rolled around. Around Christmas time, players began getting burnt out and started disappearing. It got to the point that there were only 3 people or less online at a given time and I had to stop running the guild team tag, thus I could no longer progress our team in league due to this. Most of them would sign in once or twice a week for an hour here or there in between S1 and S2 but when S2 rolled around, they just signed out and never logged back in. Here is what some of them said:

• Tai: I think I’ll just go check out new games now <- This guy was always positive and never negative. What I can tell you that what he means by this, is that he is unsatisfied with the direction of GW2 spvp.
• “a name that I won’t mention because he streams”: I’m so tired of these issues in GW2 man. I like this game and I don’t want to leave it but maybe it’s time to take a break for awhile and see what happens.
• “another name that I won’t mention because plenty of you would know who he is”: What the bleep is arena net doing? <-a man of few words but strong ones.
• and countless others who disappeared upon S2 release, claiming complete disapproval of the balance patch that was released at that point.

So S3 approaches. With the above statements and actions trending, there won’t be much of an actual spvp community left other than new faces showing up who are only showing up to get legendary wings. They aren’t showing up for the love of a competitive scene, like the original hardcore players. No, they want rewards and if they weren’t getting rewards, they wouldn’t be interested.

Consider the difference in mindframe between the two different types of players in spvp: “players who are there because they actually like pvp” and “players who are there trudging forward through disgust to get legendary wings”. <- Players who are there trudging forward in disgust to get legendary wings are not going to stay after they get the legendary wings. All of these new faces you see, yeah they are mostly there trudging forward in disgust to get the legendary wings. This is not a healthy way to build population in a competitive scene. The players who actually love pvp are more and more dropping out and not coming back, due to finally being fed up enough to do so.

All of the above is not healthy and arena-net needs to review their priorities if they want to keep making money. You need fanbase to make money and you need a solid game to create and keep fanbase. I personally love the GW2 engine and will stay with this game but the large majority of players do not feel the same way that I do.

The #1 biggest culprit to the above problem is how LONG it takes arena-net to patch and fix this game. With their current schedule of serious patching, it’s going to take years to achieve the same level of balance in pvp that we had seen pre 6/23/2015 and that’s unfortunate.

Well put

echo.2053:

JTGuevara.9018:

Second, of course blowouts cant be determined but we can help PREVENT them. I still cant believe that people think leagueshave any sort of merit after TWO fails. Lol

……just what??? By all means please explain how you prevent something that you can’t predict. Thats some horoscope palm reading kitten right there. If there is no merit for leagues why bother writing this espically with 2/2 fails?

JTGuevara.9018:

Pretty soon, as someone else mentioned, pvp will merely be reduced to a private playground for the tryhards and pros if leagues keep failing like this.

Case and point – you recognize a decent player on the other team and automatically go into a match loss mindset that results in a blowout. Your more than welcome to blame matchmaking, heck Anet will agree with you because they WILL NEVER tell you that you aren’t a good player regardless if you were two capping uncontested points the entire game. Keep in mind though if you require an x amount of decent players on your team to have a good game…. more than likely you don’t fit in that catergory and should be happy that you can’t fall back divisions

Stop blaming the players. Blaming the players deflect from the ACTUAL league/matchmaking problems.

@Trevor Boyer

I couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s plainly obvious as the nose on your face that PvP is the weakest link of gw2. You have bad ladder system, bad matchmaking system, hotjoin is broken and balance is still bad. Not as bad as HoT release but still needs a lot of work.