Guild Wars 2

http://strawpoll.me/3535928

Stronghold – TLDR – It seems to me that there will be way too much pve oriented elements involved for it to be a “competitive” gametype, and personally that’s fine with me as a casual game mode.

Conquest – TLDR – 5v5 point capture, some pve elements involved depending on the map, the only “competitive” game mode in gw2 by default.

2v2 3v3 Arena – TLDR – A gametype specifically made for 1 round deathmatch, no respawn. Wins by default, why? I’ll explain below

First lets start this debate with numbers shall we? For the example lets say we have a playerbase of 1000 people.

Conquest = 5 people per team = 200 Teams – Low team count, stagnant competition
3v3 DM = 3 people per team = ~ 333 Teams – Med team count, decent competition
2v2 DM = 2 people per team = 500 Teams – High team count, most competition

I’m going to assume that stronghold is going to have 5 people or more, so it’s pointless putting it on the list at this point. The point is, the smaller the team size, the more teams you will have overall with the same amount of people.

So despite having a more competitive community with more teams, lets look at the possible questions I’ll probably get after I post this thread, such as.

Q – Won’t it fragment the playerbase and make conquest matchmaking even worse?

A – With the expansion of heart of thorns, there will more than likely be a huge increase of new players who want to try out the new content and new game modes, therefore leaving the existing community game types already in place unaffected. Not to mention when you want to be competitive the best choice in my eyes is always the most convenient one. Why try to gather 4 players when you can settle with 1 or 2 to be competitive? Not to mention the argument of the more players involved, the more roles that are needed in order to have a successful composition. Less people = less work and less hoops to go through to start playing.
———————————————————————————

Q – What happens if all bunkers want to que for 2v2 or 3v3?

Answer 1 – This is a simple answer of adding rules to arena that prohibits having multiple amulets in 2’s and 3’s. For example : You cannot have a team with 2 cele amulets, or any mix and match of amulets that arena net has deemed as a “bunker”.

Answer 2 – Another possible alternative would be to my first answer would be to incorporate a debuff that increases all damage taken by both teams if nobody in the match has died within a certain time limit. Therefore preventing arena from drawing out.

Q – What happens if players run builds that incorporate alout of stealth, preventing combat all together?

Answer 1 – In arena it could be set that if you are in stealth for a long period of time then you get a debuff and you are auto revealed for a duration, preventing you from going back in stealth until the debuff has expired. This will prevent people from running perma stealth builds purely for the sake of trolling, and or prolonging the match for no reason.

Answer 2 – You could incorporate buffs that you capture in the arena that give you increased stealth detection for a short time while the buff is active. Therefore giving side objectives, take the buff in order to give my team mate a solid opener, and or to get the opposing team out of stealth. Something along those lines.

Q – What happens if the “competitive scene” leaves say conquest for example and plays 2v2 arena instead with launch of the expansion?

Answer – Would you honestly complain if you had the existing community not to mention all of the new players consolidated into a smaller game type therefore making more teams and a better competitive scene that guild wars 2 has ever seen?

If I had to choose the lesser of two evils, it would be that the 5 player or more game types would become casual status, so the 3 man or under game types could flourish.

There is no point in gathering more people for a competitive scene just because the game type dictates it to play, let alone competitively

Hopefully this gets the point across, feel free to ask questions concerning anything. And don’t forget to vote.

Countless

I think 2v2 and 3v3 DM could be fun but I’d prefer them to not be default single death elimination. I actually liked Wildstar’s system where each team got an allotment of respawns. I can’t remember the exact number but I believe it was between 3-5 per team for 2v2.

I don’t think Stronghold should be on there because it’s not like we’re going to change it coming into the game. And personally I actually like the idea of Stronghold.
What we can affect is the introduction of 2v2s and 3v3s.

Israel.7056:

I think 2v2 and 3v3 DM could be fun but I’d prefer them to not be default single elimination. I actually liked Wildstar’s system where each team got an allotment of respawns.

Having respawns promotes unnecessary snowballing and it prolongs the match. The idea behind no respawn dm is that it’s quick, it’s fast, and it promotes more thinking than “Lets zerg this guy and if we fail, lets try something else”. If you kill your opponents once you are rewarded with a win, and you move on with your life.

Countless

Trigr.6481:

Stronghold – TLDR – It seems to me that there will be way too much pve oriented elements involved for it to be a “competitive” gametype, and personally that’s fine with me as a casual game mode.

Have you played some mobas at all? You know, the biggest esports titles?

Let’s just wait, until we have more infos about how Stronghold is played and then let’s play it, and test it out.

I don’t think ArenaNet will force any gamemode to be the competetive one, but will leave it to the community.

I will play the game mode which is more fun. I don’t care how many npcs are involved.
You can play everything competitively. You can rush dungeons and stop the time. You gather people at the start of a jp and see who will be the first at the top. You can gather two zergs of 20+ people and zerg each other down.

In the end, the community decided what is more fun, and where they want to participate, and the viewers will decided, which match was more interesting to watch.

You want 2v2 or 3v3 deathmatches? Set up your private server and organize more tournaments. Maybe it will take off, who knows.

You’re too dismissive of Stronghold.

PvE Elements don’t correspond with being un-competitive.

I want 3 new pvp maps that are not conquest base.

I would like to have classic pvp like most mmos have.

Chaith.8256:

You’re too dismissive of Stronghold.

PvE Elements don’t correspond with being un-competitive.

+1
#GW1FA #GW1JQ #GW1GvG

the only thing i wish is 2v2/3v3 arenas. gw2 has a great combat system, i love it. but 5v5 cap maps are only fun for myself, no real competition. the problem here is that i dont know 5 people who wants to play competive pvp, the most of them are playing just for fun. so its quite hard to find 4 other people and meet them at times i prefer to play.

another fact is (i know, many people said this) that streams on twich are very boring, only the go4cups are sometimes nice to watch. ive told some friends from my wow-time to join gw2, telling them about the great combat-system that it is far away from healer/dd combos who dominate pvp. the first thing that most of them ask were: … (im sure u know it).
and i also dont understand arguments like “they split the player base” and “gw2 is balanced for 5v5 fights”.
to the first one: arenas are mostly for competition, i think no one would only play arenas. and another fact is that a lot of new player will join gw2, i dont think any player will leave when gw2 gets arenas.
to the second: yea, some combos maybe will be played very often, but gw2 is also good 2v2 and 3v3 balanced. look at esl games, did u ever seen a 5v5 fight? most of the time they make 2v2 or 3v3 fights and they have different professions. also look at private 2v2/3v3 arenas, they work fine.
and please stop talking about private arenas, they are always deathmatch maps. so player have to manage rules. and there is no leaderboard.
cheers

Pure DMs lack bigplays and you can’t have esport without those.

rotten.9753:

Pure DMs lack bigplays and you can’t have esport without those.

I thought that in DM when you do your bigplayz someone dies…

Trigr.6481:

Israel.7056:

I think 2v2 and 3v3 DM could be fun but I’d prefer them to not be default single elimination. I actually liked Wildstar’s system where each team got an allotment of respawns.

Having respawns promotes unnecessary snowballing and it prolongs the match. The idea behind no respawn dm is that it’s quick, it’s fast, and it promotes more thinking than “Lets zerg this guy and if we fail, lets try something else”. If you kill your opponents once you are rewarded with a win, and you move on with your life.

Countless

Yeah I get that single death would make for quicker matches but I would still personally prefer respawns.

You assume a consistent player base as an excuse to make a certain game mode.

For one, the idea is that they make a gamemode that might bring players into the competitive team thereby rendering the total numbers of players argument useless. 2v2/3v3 deathmatch game modes are by nature not very competitive. They showcase individual micro level skills and do not showcase overarching rpg elements such as strategy, planning, and teamwork.

Second point, you (and Anet) need to recognize what Arena will be the ‘competitive’ arena and balance for that arena specifically. IF you were to pick a 2v2 arena, it needs to be an all-in by anet to decide that is the competitive format and make it good. Otherwise it’ll just result to a cheesy lame gamemode no one likes to play except for those who happen to be playing the op builds at the time.

When making a competitive game in an RPG format, you need the gamemode to reflect RPG elements to be a truly good competitive game. Otherwise, it’s no better than the attempts of every other RPG.

Here: Read up a little bit.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Lost-potential/first

My thoughts on the pros and cons

Team Deathmatch/Annihilation
In the description you’ve already invalidated 2v2 and 3v3 deathmatch as a viable format: too many special rules to prevent it from stalemating. While it may be fun once in a while, it’s not good competition for the long term. In deathmatch, minor imbalances become pronounced and lead to constant complaints (worse than what we see now), and the matches will revolve around use of long, powerful cooldown skills. And deathmatch is definitely not good for “esports”. It turns into a mess of particle effects and watching life bars. Matches drag out or the pivotal moment is over before you knew it was going to happen.

However, deathmatch is popular for players because the format is smaller and has a narrower focus for people who don’t like to think as much. Finding one or two good teammates isn’t as hard as finding four. The focus is smaller because you’re not watching a larger map area, don’t have to think about who goes where constantly, there are no secondary objectives, don’t have to consider stomping vs. bleeding out, etc.

Conquest
This is the ideal competitive format. Map mechanics (trebuchet, etc) and NPCs are kept to a minimum – just enough to shake things up – which keeps focus on the PvP combat. The three-node mechanic forces teams to go on the offensive instead of sitting around and stalemating. At the same time, the nodes serve as a way to break up the teams into smaller groups usually avoiding a large spell-effect laden team deathmatch. Compared to a pure deathmatch format, balance doesn’t have to be as tight; different numbers of players and available cooldowns tend to offset finer imbalances. Build variety is also higher because there are many more roles and strategies when you consider the full map. With regards to “esports” conquest is a friendly format because it offers something that a person who is less knowledgeable about GW2 can follow. The node status, score, and player positions give a high-level view of game state and momentum.

However, conquest has struggled to achieve high popularity. The deathmatch crowd – those who only want to fight other players and have nothing else involved – will be critics of any format with objectives. For the general playerbase, PvP had a poor start with a lack of rewards and infrastructure while seeming disjoint from the rest of the game. The format can be frustrating for new players as it does a poor job of teaching map-level play while masking individual weaknesses in group fights. On the “esports” front, the initial bunker-heavy team compositions led to uninteresting gameplay and at the same time, shoutcasting tended to focus on the details of fights rather than the overall map-level. All those have improved, but the initial damage may have been too much.

Stronghold
Going off the limited descriptions and the data-mined map, stronghold seems to have significant involvement of NPC and map mechanics compared to conquest. It may even go so far as to overshadow actual player vs. player combat. If the map mechanics are toned down, then it becomes a race to kill the opposing lord as fast as possible, with defense mostly ignored. Both alternatives make for a bad competitive PvP scene. However, it does have enough of a high-level strategy for the less informed player to follow.

The format has a lot of hype because it’s new and because of GW1 nostalgia. However, I doubt it will play out like GW1 GvG. ANet has added a lot of secondary mechanics to try and split up players from that big deathmatch fight in the middle. Also, the comparisons to MOBAs are stretching. Although there is a lane mechanic with an NPC, the overall playstyle has a significant difference. While it may be good for casual play, I don’t see it being competitive.

2v2/3v3- Stealth away and hide in each corner.

runeblade.7514:

2v2/3v3- Stealth away and hide in each corner.

Actually reading the thread might prove to be beneficial in your case.

Countless

Exedore.6320:

My thoughts on the pros and cons

Conquest
This is the ideal competitive format. Map mechanics (trebuchet, etc) and NPCs are kept to a minimum – just enough to shake things up – which keeps focus on the PvP combat. The three-node mechanic forces teams to go on the offensive instead of sitting around and stalemating. At the same time, the nodes serve as a way to break up the teams into smaller groups usually avoiding a large spell-effect laden team deathmatch. Compared to a pure deathmatch format, balance doesn’t have to be as tight; different numbers of players and available cooldowns tend to offset finer imbalances. Build variety is also higher because there are many more roles and strategies when you consider the full map. With regards to “esports” conquest is a friendly format because it offers something that a person who is less knowledgeable about GW2 can follow. The node status, score, and player positions give a high-level view of game state and momentum.

However, conquest has struggled to achieve high popularity. The deathmatch crowd – those who only want to fight other players and have nothing else involved – will be critics of any format with objectives. For the general playerbase, PvP had a poor start with a lack of rewards and infrastructure while seeming disjoint from the rest of the game. The format can be frustrating for new players as it does a poor job of teaching map-level play while masking individual weaknesses in group fights. On the “esports” front, the initial bunker-heavy team compositions led to uninteresting gameplay and at the same time, shoutcasting tended to focus on the details of fights rather than the overall map-level. All those have improved, but the initial damage may have been too much.

Stronghold
Going off the limited descriptions and the data-mined map, stronghold seems to have significant involvement of NPC and map mechanics compared to conquest. It may even go so far as to overshadow actual player vs. player combat. If the map mechanics are toned down, then it becomes a race to kill the opposing lord as fast as possible, with defense mostly ignored. Both alternatives make for a bad competitive PvP scene. However, it does have enough of a high-level strategy for the less informed player to follow.

The format has a lot of hype because it’s new and because of GW1 nostalgia. However, I doubt it will play out like GW1 GvG. ANet has added a lot of secondary mechanics to try and split up players from that big deathmatch fight in the middle. Also, the comparisons to MOBAs are stretching. Although there is a lane mechanic with an NPC, the overall playstyle has a significant difference. While it may be good for casual play, I don’t see it being competitive.

I love your comparisons and I think you’re onto something but the significant thing I can see from your post is lack of information on what Stronghold is actually like, leading to you having little to say about it.

If I was to inject some conjecture into the matter based off of what I’ve seen of the map and what we’ve been told. It seems that the Supply in the middle will act as the capture point, players may have to employ runners to run supply back and forth between mid and base (ala Jade Quarry from GW1) to spawn NPCs, whilst trying to prevent the enemy team from doing the same. These NPCs may be the only ones who can pierce the gates (this would be a good idea because it would force the protection of these NPCs and herald the use of more support builds).
Teams will obviously have to slow each other down, emphasizing the importance of damage and control builds.

If Stronghold works as I have explained above, it may require more variety in builds than Conquest but that being said, it all remains to be seen.

O man that strawpoll is ironic.

Dirame.8521:

I love your comparisons and I think you’re onto something but the significant thing I can see from your post is lack of information on what Stronghold is actually like, leading to you having little to say about it.

Hopefully we’ll get more later this month.

But I have thought about those possibilities, specifically NPCs being required to destroy gates and the use of a partial “payload” archetype. The problem with both of those is the over-reliance on NPCs which de-emphasizes the actual player-vs-player combat. Do you really want to see a “PvE specialist” role develop in a PvP format?

Exedore.6320:

The problem with both of those is the over-reliance on NPCs which de-emphasizes the actual player-vs-player combat. Do you really want to see a “PvE specialist” role develop in a PvP format?

That’s not a question I can answer for everyone. It’s up to the community on that one.

But if you are asking me personally, I’m totally okay with it. It’s part of the challenge.

Exedore.6320:

Dirame.8521:

I love your comparisons and I think you’re onto something but the significant thing I can see from your post is lack of information on what Stronghold is actually like, leading to you having little to say about it.

Hopefully we’ll get more later this month.

But I have thought about those possibilities, specifically NPCs being required to destroy gates and the use of a partial “payload” archetype. The problem with both of those is the over-reliance on NPCs which de-emphasizes the actual player-vs-player combat. Do you really want to see a “PvE specialist” role develop in a PvP format?

There is a strong misconception here. It is perfectly legitimate to have NPCs in pvp games under the right circumstances. Granted, it needs to be careful about how its done. I haven’t followed much on what the Stronghold will be like but I am deeply interested and it is the reason I even looked at these forums once more.

There really isn’t a huge precedent for NPCs in PvP gamemodes. You got the guildlord in GW1 and LoL. But there are so many possible ways to use NPCs, you simply can’t make a claim as to whether it’s viable or not. I do fully understand the gut reaction of saying npcs in my pvp is bad. But honestly, you should be a bit more open to the concept. They need to be sure that the NPCs add appropriate strategic depth to be worth their existence though.

Diage.6451:

Exedore.6320:

Dirame.8521:

I love your comparisons and I think you’re onto something but the significant thing I can see from your post is lack of information on what Stronghold is actually like, leading to you having little to say about it.

Hopefully we’ll get more later this month.

But I have thought about those possibilities, specifically NPCs being required to destroy gates and the use of a partial “payload” archetype. The problem with both of those is the over-reliance on NPCs which de-emphasizes the actual player-vs-player combat. Do you really want to see a “PvE specialist” role develop in a PvP format?

There is a strong misconception here. It is perfectly legitimate to have NPCs in pvp games under the right circumstances. Granted, it needs to be careful about how its done. I haven’t followed much on what the Stronghold will be like but I am deeply interested and it is the reason I even looked at these forums once more.

There really isn’t a huge precedent for NPCs in PvP gamemodes. You got the guildlord in GW1 and LoL. But there are so many possible ways to use NPCs, you simply can’t make a claim as to whether it’s viable or not. I do fully understand the gut reaction of saying npcs in my pvp is bad. But honestly, you should be a bit more open to the concept. They need to be sure that the NPCs add appropriate strategic depth to be worth their existence though.

I imagine you need a certain amout of NPC’s (Heros, Minions) to conquer the lord. I’m very excited to see what kind of gamemode Stronghold becomes.

Regarding 2v2
I imagine 2v2 type games will have more noticeable “micro” plays, like a post above me already stated.

Single Death Elimination would be detrimental to the game type.. unless they added rounds… which completely goes against the type of playstyle GW2 incorporated.
Example:
I get stomped, my partner gets downed but before doing so, he downs two other people. I respawn and come just in time to down both. Score is now 10 to 20

Strategizing appropriately after the first encounter, is the reason why respawns are needed.

masskillerxploit.2165:

O man that strawpoll is ironic.

*I think it’s quite natural for many of the people left still playing GW2 pvp to enjoy modes with pve elements, because that’s all we’ve ever had. Still, a significant portion want 2v2/3v3, and are afraid we’re just getting more of the same.

Good write up. I would say that 2v2 and 3v3 could be both more casual and competitive in that groups and games will be much easier to form, with fewer objectives, making it more straight-forward and approachable.

I might have phrased the poll question as “which game mode will have a bigger impact on population” or “…variety”. And I might have said “2v2/3v3 best of 3 rounds, no respawn”. But solid effort.

Trigr.6481:

runeblade.7514:

2v2/3v3- Stealth away and hide in each corner.

Actually reading the thread might prove to be beneficial in your case.

Countless

I don’t like the answers. I don’t want the game to screw me over because of trolls. I don’t trust a complex system from other MMORPG because their stealth system is completely different.

Answer 3: No deathmatch. Instead, King of the Hill with no respawn, the entire map is the objective. If a thief stealth forever, he loses the match because he didn’t fight. If the thief stays in combat, the bar will decay into neutral over time, while not stealthed, even if the other player isn’t stealthed. Balanced so that legit thief can fight forever while troll thief will lose the match.

Basically, It is Deathmatch but with King of the Hill as an anti-troll measure.

runeblade.7514:

Trigr.6481:

runeblade.7514:

2v2/3v3- Stealth away and hide in each corner.

Actually reading the thread might prove to be beneficial in your case.

Countless

I don’t like the answers. I don’t want the game to screw me over because of trolls. I don’t trust a complex system from other MMORPG because their stealth system is completely different.

Yeah their stealth mechanic is completely different in that they can stealth forever without traiting for it! You don’t see issues there do you! That’s because it’s a nonissue! A team that stays in stealth doesn’t win! Get good son!

But none of this matters! Anet has already stated that arenas will never be a thing! And if even they were to release arenas, it wouldn’t be for another few years because they are too goshdarn slow at doing anything! 1+ year to fix Skyhammer after an overwhelming negative response from the community! And even after the Skyhammer changes, the map still blows! #TheAnetWay!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

masskillerxploit.2165:

O man that strawpoll is ironic.

Unfortunately..

Countless

do people actually understand what is meant by competitive? how is stronghold with what sounds like a bunch of pve elements going to be competitive?

just think about it, as it is now there is barely 4-6 teams of 5 that are competitive. with stronghold its going to be like 1-3 maybe.

I have excluded Stronghold from my vote because I think we have to few information about it to take a properly informed decision.

runeblade.7514:

Trigr.6481:

runeblade.7514:

2v2/3v3- Stealth away and hide in each corner.

Actually reading the thread might prove to be beneficial in your case.

Countless

I don’t like the answers. I don’t want the game to screw me over because of trolls. I don’t trust a complex system from other MMORPG because their stealth system is completely different.

Answer 3: No deathmatch. Instead, King of the Hill with no respawn, the entire map is the objective. If a thief stealth forever, he loses the match because he didn’t fight. If the thief stays in combat, the bar will decay into neutral over time, while not stealthed, even if the other player isn’t stealthed. Balanced so that legit thief can fight forever while troll thief will lose the match.

Basically, It is Deathmatch but with King of the Hill as an anti-troll measure.

Don’t like the answers? You must not like common sense either. If you’re so bent on standing in a circle then go play conquest. Not really a point of making a “new” gametype from a conquest variant and pretending it brings innovation. It will go stale faster than the leaderboards.

Countless

I really like 2vs2 or 3vs3 (pure DM) but i think the main problem is balance. To work 2vs2 and 3vs3 need rules about composition, amulets and stealth so it’s easy to generate ESL cup with rules and admin but to do this automatically in the game anet should ban a lot of combinations.

So basically it would be a very good game mode to play and to watch but wouldn’t show the entire professions potential for every combinations.

I’m pretty sure Stronghold will have many DM phases (like conquest but not around a small circle) so in general a pure 2vs2 or 3vs3 mode would be always a good training for “major” gamemode.