Guild Wars 2

People can’t understand it.

TDM would be better, conquest is too complicated since most can’t understand how to rotate in order to create and avoid mismatches. They can’t stop tunneling the first thing they see, this makes bunkers overpowered. Tunnel vision usually ends up with them all on point in a nice big clump, so aoe should be nerfed. Using active defenses is much more difficult than passive stats, conditions should also be nerfed. Timing your long cooldowns requires you to pay too much attention, evasion needs a nerf.

I’m serious. The game is too complex. I’m really bad, but after playing solo queue this last week, I realised that most people just don’t understand anything about this game at all. If it was simpler, there would be a lot less complaining all round.

Not sure if troll or serious, I kittenin loled none the less

With a sig like that he’s gotta be trolling.

I’m serious man. Do some solo queue games when you get a chance. You can get to quite high rank and still be utterly clueless about how to win. There are so many people who do fine in a 1v1 situation yet have not one bit of understanding of positioning or rotation. People are failing to grasp the basics of the game. It needs to be made easier for them to understand.

Or maybe there could be like an ‘advanced tutorial’, with stuff like big red circles for you to not stand in, and a bit where an NPC puts bleed stacks on you so you have to use condition removal when they get too high, but if you use it too early it will be on cooldown when they get high again. The stuff that people are really struggling with right now. Then another bit where you have a team of NPCs and you choose a point to go to, but as soon as you create a mismatch for your team you lose.

Mammoth.1975:

I’m serious man. Do some solo queue games when you get a chance. You can get to quite high rank and still be utterly clueless about how to win. There are so many people who do fine in a 1v1 situation yet have not one bit of understanding of positioning or rotation. People are failing to grasp the basics of the game. It needs to be made easier for them to understand.

Or maybe there could be like an ‘advanced tutorial’, with stuff like big red circles for you to not stand in, and a bit where an NPC puts bleed stacks on you so you have to use condition removal when they get too high, but if you use it too early it will be on cooldown when they get high again. The stuff that people are really struggling with right now. Then another bit where you have a team of NPCs and you choose a point to go to, but as soon as you create a mismatch for your team you lose.

We need a training room like in fighting games. Have the settings like:

-Apply the following conditions _________ @ condi dmg _______
-No cd on weapons
-Downed state
-Computer status (evade, attack, stand, etc.)
-Apply the following computer stats ________
-Other customization stuff

It’d help theory crafters come up with something other than spirit rangers. And normal people get experience w/o having to get discourage by tpvp and/or confused by hotjoin.

To get used to conquest, Anet should make smart AIs that you can play against such as in Dota2.

Excellent job, OP. +1

I totally agree, Mammoth.

They should have team deathmatch and some other fun game types for the average, casual player, and the current conquest matchs for more serious gamers.

That’s why hotjoin is perennially populated: it’s team dodgeball for points. A simple game.

Oh I just thought about the AoE tutorial a bit more, you could have a 2v2 fight on one control node, where you get a ‘bunker NPC’ and they get a bunker NPC and a ‘grenadier NPC’. The grenadier has like 1000 health and does 3000 aoe dps, the bunker has like 200000 health but does 100 dps. The grenadier just spams attacks on the point. The idea is that you have to work out how you can cap the point. Then you could ramp up the difficulty with a second stage where it’s the same thing but you only have a melee weapon. In the third stage, if the grenadier dies, it respawns after 25 seconds.

It’s because of hotjoin and no proper tutorial for pvp.

The Zaishen PvP training islands from Guild Wars would really fit well here…

You could do it differently, where you get a team of NPCs spread around an area and a 240 radius aoe lands directly on one of them every 5 seconds. It does zero damage to them but instagibs you. The idea is that you just have to survive all the aoe spam for 1 minute.

And the split thing, you could have it so they always send one to their home point and 4 to mid. Your NPCs send 1 to home and 3 to mid. You have to work out where to go so that you don’t create a mismatch for your team. You could also have them send 2 to home and 3 to mid sometimes. Or 1 home and 4 mid but one from mid will go home if there’s anything there. That would have to be an advanced stage though.

Again, if your team is ever outnumbered on any point, you lose instantly.

From an individual standpoint it’s kinda easy. You cap points and try to kill. Your build will always do dmg and you’ll always be able to heal yourself.
From a team standpoint there’s more depth, agreed. But dumbing the entire game down to team deathmatch wouldn’t work. Most games have extra objectives.

In gw1 both the individual and team skill floor were pretty high. Though that game still managed to get a pretty decent sized community.

butch.8136:

From an individual standpoint it’s kinda easy. You cap points and try to kill. Your build will always do dmg and you’ll always be able to heal yourself.
From a team standpoint there’s more depth, agreed. But dumbing the entire game down to team deathmatch wouldn’t work. Most games have extra objectives.

In gw1 both the individual and team skill floor were pretty high. Though that game still managed to get a pretty decent sized community.

I think the concept is easy. Cap & kill & defend. However, it’s the small things people never learn that make it more complex such as identifying a build immediately. Knowing when to cc someone (watch for stability boon), knowing when to disengage, becoming more proactively aware of possible condition aoes coming your way, etc. Players don’t learn this kind of stuff until they get into the big leagues and that’s only if they haven’t been discouraged before that point. I think having some sort of personal simulation with decent AIs would help new players learn things much faster.

+1

That’s something i’ve also said ( and correlete with) in the past

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/In-Gw2-you-can-t-tell-if-you-re-improving/first#post2558894

Unless you’re “magically pro”, this game gives no clue about how it should be played, or how to get better.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

butch.8136:

From an individual standpoint it’s kinda easy. You cap points and try to kill. Your build will always do dmg and you’ll always be able to heal yourself.
From a team standpoint there’s more depth, agreed. But dumbing the entire game down to team deathmatch wouldn’t work. Most games have extra objectives.

In gw1 both the individual and team skill floor were pretty high. Though that game still managed to get a pretty decent sized community.

I think the concept is easy. Cap & kill & defend. However, it’s the small things people never learn that make it more complex such as identifying a build immediately. Knowing when to cc someone (watch for stability boon), knowing when to disengage, becoming more proactively aware of possible condition aoes coming your way, etc. Players don’t learn this kind of stuff until they get into the big leagues and that’s only if they haven’t been discouraged before that point. I think having some sort of personal simulation with decent AIs would help new players learn things much faster.

Really, that’s what’s bothering you? People not learning the smallest thing as in extremely advanced stuff such as immediately identifying a build? I’d be a hell of a lot happier if people wouldn’t chase after opponents as a zerg while neglecting every single kitten point. Or if they wouldn’t all try to finish a downed player while the rest of the enemy team is still alive and kicking, which renders them completely useless for a few seconds and they usually end up dying giving the opponent an opportunity to rally.
There’s a buff at 8:30 in some kind of temple?! WTH?! Yes, there is! And you can’t claim it telepathically, big news!
So many players fail to understand – as the OP mentioned – the most basic aspects of this game, that I don’t give a kitten about details such as when to CC or whatnot. Basic teamplay and button mashing would already benefit teams a lot.

I think one thing that may be confusing players is the idea that a kill, or sidecap, doesn’t necessarily help the team. I’ve been watching the DOTA 2 championships this week, and I was struck by a couple of things:

1) Going for a kill isn’t always advantageous. Just because you CAN gank someone doesn’t mean you SHOULD gank someone. Sometimes you’re needed elsewhere, and sometimes the time it takes to solo someone is time that could be spent somewhere better for the team.

2) Kills don’t really count towards anything significant in regards to winning the game. When you kill a player in DOTA 2, you get gold, but no “points”. Being a capture and destroy game, this makes sense. GW2 could benefit, I think, from having player kills grant either very few points (1-2), or even no points at all. This way, a team that wipes trying to cap mid doesn’t automatically have not ONLY a cap deficit, but a 15-ish point deficit from wiping. This would also encourage better teamplay in hot-join/solo Queue as well, since you don’t get points by zerging. In fact, it COULD be counterproductive if you aren’t actually able to keep points captured.

3) Team synergy is vital. Being able to keep your teammates alive, or make them even better, by calling targets and bringing group-oriented abilities should be something that is expected. With all the solo-oriented classes in the current popular meta, I’m surprised something like this hasn’t been made more common. I can’t tell you the number of times my shout heals + condi removal have saved a crucial team member during a team fight, or that the extra power my allies got from combo finishers and traits took us over the edge and nabbed a small victory. We should see more emphasis when it comes to coordinated assaults, rather than solo skirmishes happening in the same general area.

butch.8136:

It’s because of hotjoin and no proper tutorial for pvp.

+1

Hotjoin only teaches bad habits to new players and Conquest is never explained in the slightest.

Builds too are at the core of SPvP! Most players either simply copy them without understanding them or make their own without the proper knowledge to do so: hidden cooldowns on sigils, etc.

We require:
- non-rated arena’s that are inviting for groups of friends to learn the tournament meta game.
- standard templates that can be updated each patch with simple descriptions of their role.

Didnt read whole post.
If you saing ‘the game is too hard’ I have to think about PvE, where you can fall asleep while farming.
About PvP:
Every game ( that wants to be) in Esport is/should hard!
Look at other games and tell me they are simpler! NO thay are much much much harder then GW2. Here all you have to know is few classes, few maps, boons and conitions. That is pretty simple if you compare it to other games.

I wouldn’t say this game is hard per se. It looks easy when you watch pros play; just like other MOBA games.

I agree the learning curve for rotations is big. I have trouble catching myself on the wrong node. I end up getting tunnel vision for the kill for that particular cap point instead of going after the person taking my home node.

Gotta catch myself doing that :-P

The best way to learn is to play in the big boys league. I’m talking about TPVP. When there was no solo que, you went and did your best against pre-made teams. In the process of getting your kitten kicked, you would also learn how to control the map with your teammates.
Personally I took my time reading guides and following people more experienced than I am. In the process of learning you won’t only learn about your own class, you also learn the basic patterns of other classes.

nice satire OP.

The game’s too hard indeed but certainly not because of conquest.

The learning curve is atrociously steep because:
- the build system is too complex
- you don’t know why you die

To make a good build you need to find good synergies between your skills, optimise the game mechanics your build is based on via traits and reach thresholds with your stats.

To understand why you die you need to recognise every animation from every profession and identify the ones that hit you.

Now, having said that, good luck to every beginner:p :p :p :p

There is 0 in game tutorial, 0 tip tool on CC and stun break, 0 combat log, 0 indication on minimum stats, 0 training area. All has to be done by the community but I have yet to find a comprehensive guide for beginners!

Let alone the fast pace of the game!

Any MOBA/RTS game is more complex than GW2 conquest, yet are incredibly successful. Sorry, but the problem with GW2 isn’t dumb players, nor is it the “complexity” of conquest.

The game mode isn’t as intuitive as the combat is.

Hot join is the problem here 8v8 to be more specific where you can get more points zerging then you can playing the game as intended. This is the first thing spvper are exposed to after the stomp instructions and is what is killing the player base. They should make it so you don’t get any points in hot join unless you win then everyone would learn to play so they could get there next finisher. Really with the “meta” the way it is though hot join is not to far off from tpvp anyway.

Thesilentflute.8761:

Hot join is the problem here 8v8 to be more specific where you can get more points zerging then you can playing the game as intended. This is the first thing spvper are exposed to after the stomp instructions and is what is killing the player base. They should make it so you don’t get any points in hot join unless you win then everyone would learn to play so they could get there next finisher. Really with the “meta” the way it is though hot join is not to far off from tpvp anyway.

Or they’d quit the game lol.

GW2 tried to make MMOs intuitive. PvP is very unlike the rest of the game in that regard. Someone suggested a tutorial that explains roles, and I think that would help.

PVStar.3658:

Any MOBA/RTS game is more complex than GW2 conquest, yet are incredibly successful.

I agree. Starcraft and DoTA are far more complicated than GW2, but people are willing to learn to play them. DoTA even has an unfriendly community!

What about just making more 5vs5 Hot Join matches? Or at least switch it so 5vs5 is on the top and 8vs8 is on the bottom.

I know the point of eight people was to minimise the impact of losing a player, but it’s a challenge to try to win 4vs5 or what not.

Besides 5vs5 Hot Join matches fill up quickly – even listed after the hundred 8vs8 matches.

At least the first experience someone has with Guild Wars 2 PvP is the way its meant to be played.

ensoriki.5789:

Thesilentflute.8761:

Hot join is the problem here 8v8 to be more specific where you can get more points zerging then you can playing the game as intended. This is the first thing spvper are exposed to after the stomp instructions and is what is killing the player base. They should make it so you don’t get any points in hot join unless you win then everyone would learn to play so they could get there next finisher. Really with the “meta” the way it is though hot join is not to far off from tpvp anyway.

Or they’d quit the game lol.

Sounds like a win win to me because how does anyone expect to get new players in the ranks when the skill cap for the only reward is 0. Even worse is these players pass the torch and teach new players to be bad at the game as well.

lets be real they wouldn’t quit they would learn to play or go back to pve cause they are just there to farm points for achievements/finishers anyway.

I thought of another tutorial that could be useful. You have 4 nodes, with a big clear wall or window splitting them into 2 sets of 2. You and your NPC teammate start on one side, 2 enemy NPCs on the other. They both go and stand on their first node until it’s capped, then they both go and stand on their second node until it’s capped. Your npc does the same. You have to figure out a way to capture both your points before they capture both of theirs.

The Boz.2038:

The Zaishen PvP training islands from Guild Wars would really fit well here…

Anything from Guild Wars would fit really well here. See the problem? They tried to fix to what wasn’t broken. I dont think any of us understand why.

I don’t really run into too many people who struggle with that last example, but the split example is desperately needed. It seems otherwise intelligent people cannot count to 5 sometimes. Like, ‘If they have 1 at this node, where are the other 4? Is it possible that I should be helping my team elsewhere rather than fighting this 1v1?’

Or, ‘By fighting this 1v2, I’m taking a bit of a risk. Is it worth it? By being here, am I giving my team a numbers advantage on another node? If so, is there a less risky way to have the same effect?’

Quite good players don’t ever seem to ask themselves these questions. Actually, even some really good players will go ahead and engage a 1v2 without asking themselves if it will actually help.

If there was a tutorial that gave you a big ‘YOU HAVE FAILED’ message anytime you or one/some of your NPCs was outnumbered on a node, unless you outnumber them on a different node, that would really help people grasp the basics of conquest.

I agree, and i inserted this problem in this thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/SoloQ-Leavers-Sync-and-Conquest-experience/first#post2602758

Conquest experience is one of the three big problems of soloqueue and about tpvp in general.

Hot join doesn’t help.

Mammoth.1975:

If there was a tutorial that gave you a big ‘YOU HAVE FAILED’ message anytime you or one/some of your NPCs was outnumbered on a node, unless you outnumber them on a different node, that would really help people grasp the basics of conquest.

Still wouldn’t really accurately show how things can play out.
Most of us players play Solo or ocassional Dual/full que. It’s easier to get rotations down (and then make a habit of them) when you voice comp since your teammates more readily let you know what is going down, where they need help and if they are fine. Otherwise you just have to get a feel for it and make your own deductions and might just end up running back to assist those who are fine (wasting time).

tl;dr: Better communication tools.

ensoriki.5789:

Mammoth.1975:

If there was a tutorial that gave you a big ‘YOU HAVE FAILED’ message anytime you or one/some of your NPCs was outnumbered on a node, unless you outnumber them on a different node, that would really help people grasp the basics of conquest.

Still wouldn’t really accurately show how things can play out.
Most of us players play Solo or ocassional Dual/full que. It’s easier to get rotations down (and then make a habit of them) when you voice comp since your teammates more readily let you know what is going down, where they need help and if they are fine. Otherwise you just have to get a feel for it and make your own deductions and might just end up running back to assist those who are fine (wasting time).

tl;dr: Better communication tools.

Yeah but I’m not talking about complicated stuff or making decisions without perfect information. I’m talking about really basic stuff, like which node you should head for at the start in order to avoid getting outnumbered somewhere and then snowballed.

Like, if they 4-1, which node should you head for so that you don’t fail? Not factoring in that sometimes you can carry someone who makes the wrong decision by winning that outnumbered fight, just trying to teach people to make better decisions so you don’t have to carry them so much.

Veydar.5017:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

butch.8136:

From an individual standpoint it’s kinda easy. You cap points and try to kill. Your build will always do dmg and you’ll always be able to heal yourself.
From a team standpoint there’s more depth, agreed. But dumbing the entire game down to team deathmatch wouldn’t work. Most games have extra objectives.

In gw1 both the individual and team skill floor were pretty high. Though that game still managed to get a pretty decent sized community.

I think the concept is easy. Cap & kill & defend. However, it’s the small things people never learn that make it more complex such as identifying a build immediately. Knowing when to cc someone (watch for stability boon), knowing when to disengage, becoming more proactively aware of possible condition aoes coming your way, etc. Players don’t learn this kind of stuff until they get into the big leagues and that’s only if they haven’t been discouraged before that point. I think having some sort of personal simulation with decent AIs would help new players learn things much faster.

Really, that’s what’s bothering you? People not learning the smallest thing as in extremely advanced stuff such as immediately identifying a build? I’d be a hell of a lot happier if people wouldn’t chase after opponents as a zerg while neglecting every single kitten point. Or if they wouldn’t all try to finish a downed player while the rest of the enemy team is still alive and kicking, which renders them completely useless for a few seconds and they usually end up dying giving the opponent an opportunity to rally.
There’s a buff at 8:30 in some kind of temple?! WTH?! Yes, there is! And you can’t claim it telepathically, big news!
So many players fail to understand – as the OP mentioned – the most basic aspects of this game, that I don’t give a kitten about details such as when to CC or whatnot. Basic teamplay and button mashing would already benefit teams a lot.

I guess complex is too big of a word to use to categorize these key pieces of knowledge players should keep in mind because it is still fairly simple. When I mentioned disengaging, I assumed that included not following zergs and whatnot. Knowing things such as buff times in ToSS helps too. Although your example about finishing someone is very situational so you can’t really just say don’t finish someone off is a rule of thumb among team fights but I get your general idea. Why are you so angry lol I am for tutorials of all kinds and in particular a training room that can provide simulations that you encounter in competitive play.

it is very very difficult to judge what you should be doing besides attacking enemies. i really cannot stress this enough. you need to understand the entire game, and have a great deal of experience in order to make decisions related to “what is best for the team”. hotjoin contributes to this (even though it’s not clear exactly how much) because it appears to promote a deathmatch mentality and to get kills. then when people come to arenas it’s not immediately clear that killing everything that moves isn’t the best solution. but then, what is? in order to choose to do something besides attack nearest enemy, you have to have high level view of the match and understand the enemy’s likely moves, and have information about where your opponents are going, and know who is in trouble and what node is about to get decapped etc etc etc. it is just this continuous stream of information that is unavailable to people who are new, and even to more “experienced” players this information can’t be known without voice comms.

even with all of the information needed to make a good decision about where you should be and what you should be doing, actually knowing what you should do is still not obvious unless you have experience and know your role and your teammates roles and how things should normally go. it is a very very tough uphill battle for a new player to understand how to play this game properly.

They need to add some more game modes. Im sere alot of ppl in spvp understand the cap point hold ppint is best way to win, but its simply sutch booring gamemode that they simply ignore it and kill ppl as its more fun.

Capture the flag, team attack/defend, hostage, anything would be more fun than this setup. And that they try make a esport of a gamemode most ppl eather not understand or just find so boring they ignore, by pour money on it is just silly. What every (e) /sport who are sucessfull have in common is that they:

1 are fun to play/participate in

2 are fun to watch.

The current meta is neather.

/Osicat

sounds like someone has had enough of people playing dumb in solo q. lol. I actually think that an advanced tutorial is a great idea

There are so many people who do fine in a 1v1 situation yet have not one bit of understanding of positioning or rotation.

If I was interested in that type game, I would just play Chess.

The problem with players playing pvp is that in the conquest map there’s basicly two roles you can play a bunker/tank and a roamer/dps…. bunker are very defensive players with lil damage because its thier job to hold the points till the backup arrives/roamer/dps. if your a descent roamer you can kill a bunker before someone come and help him this is not impossible. bunkers are not OP. now as a roamer its up to you to judge if you see a bunker guarding an area, if you can kill him quick enough or you just going to waste your time when you could be helping other areas. same goes for bunker if they will stay guarding or help thier team by leaving their area and pray no one comes asoon as you leave. i play both roles and understand the difference in play styles.

Master of Timespace.2548:

There are so many people who do fine in a 1v1 situation yet have not one bit of understanding of positioning or rotation.

If I was interested in that type game, I would just play Chess.

The thing is, once you understand the basics of rotation, the team who can fight better will win 95% of the time. Assuming your opponents are also competent. The problem is the people who give away huge advantages because they don’t understand. They do stuff like split 4 ways and get rolled in 1v3 after 1v3 because they’re trying to control everything on the map and spending all their time dead instead of being able to easily back up their teammates. Those are the games where the players who can fight better lose anyway. The game mode is just too difficult for them to comprehend, so they end up complaining about it all day.

It’s the same with positioning. You can be great in a simple 1v1 where it’s very basic at best, completely irrelevant at worst, but if learning how to fight with a team is too challenging for you, then any team game is going to be too hard for you, not just this one.

I was playing Temple in a SoloQ and I realized the big question is always “what should I do next?” And it’s really hard to know for sure if you do not know your team and what winning strategy they are pushing to achieve at the moment. In SoloQ they can be doing all sorts of things!

I think some training for down state people would be good too. Like don’t use a teleport when you’re one tick from being revived and no one has even started a stomp yet.

I agree they should make a tutorial and be more clear. They are a lot of obvious things things that are trial by error or are not apparent and or things that are simply not working. I think there is currently a fundamental misunderstanding on how sigils work and how they work. I see a lot of people putting a lot incompatible sigils, because the game never makes it apparent enough.

Its only hard if you’re not playing either a engi,ranger,necro if you play one of those its easymode.

I agree with the OP that for people just trying to get into PvP, it can be very hard.

Either put in a simpler game mode (TDM or even a MOBA style…wouldn’t that be cool?) or advanced tutorials.

Saying it is not hard seems like bragging, to me.

It is hard. So much happens so fast, there are many animations to watch at the same time, and on top of all that, you have to be aware of team strategy and what your team members are doing (or failing to do) at the same time, and how to best help them right now.

Laserbolt.6731:

Saying it is not hard seems like bragging, to me.

It is hard. So much happens so fast, there are many animations to watch at the same time, and on top of all that, you have to be aware of team strategy and what your team members are doing (or failing to do) at the same time, and how to best help them right now.

I’m with you there. Good players are already so far ahead of players like me that it’s a little embarrassing, and there’s plenty of room for them to keep getting better. This thread is just about the difficulty people seem to have understanding the basics.