Greetings GW2 PvPers. It’s Sunday and I’m bored, so I’ve taken the liberty of writing another long rant, this time about the viewability of GW2 as an ESport. What better way to start off a long rant than with a long tangent?
A long tangent about complexity, Starcraft and Esports viewability
Before I go on, I should probably explain what I believe to be complexity in a videogame. Yes, this will be a tangent within a tangent. When I’m speaking about complexity I’m referring to the various factors and conditions that add up impact to gameplay. In an RPG much of this boils down to builds and statistics that create an effect; the complexities of dealing 10000 damage to an enemy exist not in the number itself, but in the conditions and statistics required for it. In the context of a viewed sport I believe it helps to look at these conditions in terms of a dramatic arc where each condition is a part of the rising action, and the payoff is the climax.
Veritable ESports games such as Starcraft and the DotA clones spoon-feed their viewers the build process from the beginning to the end of each match. It’s literally built into the game’s structure itself. In any Starcraft match, a Terran player starts off just as any other Terran player until they begin to make complex decisions that would result in a build. The same player could have completely different capabilities several minutes later into the game depending on series of decisions that occur throughout the match. In short it’s a dynamic and complex series of decisions and payoffs that build up from zero.
Much of the decision-making is actually balanced outside of the match in language and math that would likely give average people aneurysms, but Starcraft’s ability to telegraph the result of that complexity into a viewable build process is its greatest strength. It turns what would have otherwise been the game’s self-contained logic into drama that even newcomers could enjoy, while its complexity leaves room for emergent styles of play. I wouldn’t be doing the game justice if I said it was pretty darn amazing.
Because this tangent isn’t all that aimless, here’s how it relates to Guild Wars 2
If a match in Starcraft would encompass a complete dramatic arc, a match in Guild Wars 2 would spam from near the end of that arc, from somewhere right before the climax to the denouement, and then drag on somewhat. In other words, it doesn’t really start from zero and there are fewer decisions to be viewed. This is the irritating result of the MMO PvP format, where most of the decision-making happens backstage and the actual fight is mostly a matter of execution. I say mostly because maps often impose one or two mechanics that try to promote choice, but abusing those mechanics often become formulaic (Elementalist on Treb, anyone?).
Watching the execution of each build can be fun to players who are already invested in the game, but because much of the actual build process is hidden, viewership excludes everyone else. Guild Wars 2 is a game that requires viewers to understand the intricacies of the hidden profession traits and utilities chosen before the match even begins. Non-GW2 players watching a GW2 steam are not going to know that the Elemenalist who’s dodging in Earth Attunement into a lava font is actually stacking might because he’s happens to be carrying Evasive Arcana or that his Guardian friend is pounding aimlessly into the field to buff the team with more might stacks. The decisions behind those actions aren’t visible to these viewers. When you factor in the speed at which combat takes place, each fight is like the game is yelling a thick and foreign language at these viewer without first priming them; it can be incomprehensible and even disorienting.
Edit: Grammar and typos.
(edited by TwoBit.5903)