Guild Wars 2

This is Why i dont Spvp and is constructive feedback

1. Lack of Builds
2. Lack of game types
3. Lack of Achievement Points
4. Lack of Anet run Automated Daily/monthly Tournaments + Observing games from the mists
5. Lack of Rewards

Here is my reasons list yours

I play elementalist. I don’t like feeling useless or that I am harming my team. I am just sticking to wvw/pve for now.

So the Only reason is because you play 1 class : ele and you dont feel useful ?

I don’t spvp when it becomes filled with low-risk high-reward builds that reward effortless play.

1. Nothing to strive for.
2. People who get a kitten when they down you and want to /laugh at you.. (annoying)
3. Lack of game types.. ATTENTION ANET I DONT WANT TO CAP POINTS ANYMORE!
4. It takes ENTIRELY way WAY to long to get the gear in here when i can simply WvW same idea now after patch and have the gear i want. (PST Anet … I don’t want to spend over a year in spvp to have lvl 40 lookin CRAP!)
5. Lack of diverse builds. All i see is CC war, HS thief, use to be s ranger now its Power/trap spam 1 ranger. Or its condi… Boring!
6. and yes LACK of Achievement points.. People who PvE for a year get there head/shoulders/hand radiant/hellfire but i as SPvP do not… way to reward your dedicated SPvP base. I had to play catch up and i am STILL behind some people who have 8-10k achiev points already.

No challenge. I play warrior.

- My WVW build isn’t possible, due to a lack of gear combinations. Having to completely redesign is tedious. This may seem silly to some, but if you are used to playing in a particular way then having to change that as a game mode restricts you, it’s often easier just to avoid that mode.
- Point control is boring.
- Fighting on small points is horrible. The camera constantly does odd things. Atleast in WVW you have more open space. The top point in Kylo and Skyhammer in general is bad for this.
- Doesn’t help with PVE at all. I’m not talking about getting some massive reward, but trying to learn an alt in pvp, then having to go to PVE and level them to 80 separately for wvw is tedious. Just give us exp and a small amount of silver/karma to make it somewhat balanced.
- No deathmatch, or interesting game modes. Again, conquest in this implementation is boring.

I used to PVP, but sort of stopped… no motivation. WVW roaming and small man fights are far more interesting and punish mistakes more. Occasionally go to there to test builds, little other reason anymore.

sPvP is more about capturing and holding a point, with little emphasis on the PvP side itself.

Being forced to change your game play completely to stop an enemy from capturing a point is not enjoyable for me. (yes I know you have to adapt and fight under X circumstances) but the fact you are unable to utilize your class to its maximum potential due to this slack setup pushes me away from sPvP completely.

I prefer WvW small fights or just roaming solo. Because there are no restrictions and I am not forced to play my class the opposite way I fell it is designed.

Decrypter.1785:

So the Only reason is because you play 1 class : ele and you dont feel useful ?

I play more classes, but I find ele way more fun and it is the playstyle I enjoy more than anything. However, not being able to contribute to my team and spending more time watching from the down state than playing isn’t very fun. I don’t want to play S/D and be a poor-man’s thief (thus completely ignoring all class mechanics, and doing it worse than a thief). Playing ele in pvp is like doing super-adventure box tribulation mode. It is simply an exercise in futility and a test of patience, which I don’t find fun.

WvW is so much more fun b/c I can face challenges but still be useful for my team by being damage-support staff.

BlackBeard.2873:

I play elementalist. I don’t like feeling useless or that I am harming my team. I am just sticking to wvw/pve for now.

ele isnt bad dude. its just hard. its just that other kitten is too easy which is a huge problem in this game. d/d d/p thief, HGH engi and ele are really the only builds that require much skill

I really think Arenanet Devs can learn alot by reading this thread. So i decided to post in here as well.

1. (most annoying by far) No rewards at all. There is no way a sPvP player can earn money or Achievementpoints in this game.

2. Only one game mode.

3. No build diversity at tPvP at all

4. Too many brainless builds like Sword/Dagger Thief.

5. No observe mode for tournaments. I would like to see the Gw1 observe mode back. it is/was boss!

6. Soloqueueing takes too long till a match pops up. Out of the 19 Games i played to test, either me or my enemies ended up 17 times with a 4vs5. Horrible.

P.S What i do like:
1. The Fighting system overall.
2. The Combosystem with fields and finishers is really nice. I enjoy it alot.

Numot.3965:

I don’t spvp when it becomes filled with low-risk high-reward builds that reward effortless play.

+1

A mix of the reasons posted in OP, but manly:

It’s boring as hell.

1. Spam 2 win gameplay
2. AIs
3. the meta

After hitting rank 45 I decided to stop playing PvP and enjoy PvE+WvW instead. I’ll check back in about a month to see if it’s improved. If not the oh well, back to PvE/WvW where at least I get to enjoy fresher and more updated content.

Bored of conquest, no skill or thought in the pvp atm.

I just kitten around in hotjoin deathmatch once in a while with a cheese build.

I dont play to save myself from being banned cause i rage alot last 1-2 months bout all this cheese.

too much hardcounters in a gamen ot designed to have hardcounters
warriors counter spirit ranger engi necro
s/d thief facerolls necro engi
engi facerolls guardians + everything on a node with no stabi
necro facerolls complete enemy team on a node (or just everything^^)
ranger is ranger^^

and so on

this balance team goes always the easy way to balance something and make this game even more worse

IT IS NOT A GOOD THING to give a not so good class a HARDcounter vs something whats op – this makes game only anoying

just nerf the op crap first

thx

I stopped playing the game for a few months because I got bored of the capture the node game.
I also didn’t like that after playing nearly everyday in spvp since launch the only thing I had to show for it was some bags.

I tried WvW after that, but WvW is basically zerg until you can lvl and gear up, so soon left in search of other games. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything with as good balance and gameplay except for MOBAs so its back to standing on the node.

• it’s not fun at all

because:

• downed state, ruins combat flow and breaks PVP norms
• game mode and maps are pretty pedestrian, doesn’t suit the combat
• standing in a circle is not a compelling objective
• overall it’s not at all innovative, we’ve seen it/played it all before, other games do battleground-based much better
• solo roaming/GVG in WVW is a lot more varied, competitive and fun

1. ArenaNet took too long making solo queue, so I’ve slowly come to like WvW more
2: I can’t take my WvW armor over to sPvP, so I look like a noob
3. There’s not enough build diversity in tPvP, so it’s not really worth it for me to practice playing sPvP

spvp hotjoin with random teammates is totally random and zergy. like 1 good game in 10. as i have no team tpvp is just the same, though being smaller scale i feel like i can make a difference there and might actually play it. its just conquest mode that bores the hell out of me, pvp should be about killing people, not control points on the map thats totally distracting from good fights and changes the game into map control and not who is the better fighter.

but with death matches im surely going to be there because thats exactly the kind of glory im looking for. just please no gimmick mechanics, pure death match. i also generally like the balance in spvp, it doesnt have those totally broken builds you find in wvw because of rune and food restrictions and limited stat combinations.

Too many things…. List would go on forever…..

So all of you crying about conquest.If they implement dm and king of the hill will you play spvp? Or you ll still prefer wvw. Are the lack of pve related rewards the issue?
What im trying to understand is how much of your dislike of spvp has to do with the absence of gear grinding and stat difference and how much is about the game mode,stat combination etc
Cause i actually know a lot of people from many games that they get their fun in pvp by actually creating uneven battles through numbers or level/gear difference
I am playing spvp cause i can find fair battles faster and easer than what ive tried in wvw and because i like fair play where only thing that matters is skill.
Point is that wvw doesnt have to compete with spvp at all.You dont have to a wvw player or spvp player..you can be both since they offer different things.
It feels like wvwers look down to spvp as a failed project and think the focus should be turned completely on to their game mode..as it seems lately

In no particular order.

1. Lack of balance.
2. Lack of build diversity.
3. Lack of alternative game modes.
4. An ever worsening meta.
5. An ever worsening gameplay experience.
6. The sheer amount of low skill based cheese play.
7. Too much AI clutter.
8. Subpar targeting system.
9. Non normalized character size models.
10. Subpar matchmaking and ranking.
11. Lack of seasonal leagues/tournaments.
12. Lack of direction and/or ability on the part of the developer team. Might be harsh, maybe they have their hands tied, same net result though.
13. Kitten poor PR/comments.
14. Car crash forum moderation and terrible communication.

Unless I’m on a team with voice coms and lots of spvp practice, I seem to always lose. I don’t feel like I take a lot away from a loss. I usually don’t learn anything and there’s a lot of yelling and posturing amongst the kids: finger pointing, ect. And, unless you’re on a good team, you face these big losses a lot. Especially if you’re new to spvp, you will be amazed at how useless what you learn in pve/wvw already is without skill splits even. Rabbit? Only a few hundred hours play in gw2? Don’t read forums every day to keep up with meta? GG dude you’re going to get blowed up sky high. There’s so much to learn in terms of animations and skills that you need far above and beyond in wvw, even gvg (sorry gvg’ers, that’s my opinion feel free to disagree) that it’s not surprising with no training mode besides hotjoin, no one does it.

Avead.5760:

So all of you crying about conquest.If they implement dm and king of the hill will you play spvp?

KotH + DM, more build variety and better rewards…then there could be a chance.

On top of what other people said (balance, diversity, modes, …), I don’t PvP (not PvE for two weeks now) because I miss “skill=reward” too much from other games.

In pvp everyone can just jump in and spam (face roll) skills and do pretty good, in PvE there’s no challenging content with proper rewards.

I do my daily and that’s it. 4 matches is faster than the pve daily.

Primarily the new condition meta is unpleasant.

I just want MMR to be fixed. I’m not playing (other than to get my dailies) until the players that I play against and with are not PvErs with 0 SPvP experience. I also want the leaderboards to be fixed so I can use it as an accurate gauge of where I stand against the rest of the community.

A lot of the other QoL things would be nice, but as a solo player, those 2 things are critical and their absence is the reason I am staying away for now.

If I was to take a 1 second GiF of every skill in game, I would be interested to see if players and developers alike could accurately call each skill. In a game model which wants to be visual based, this is a problem.

There is no true interrupt style. An aspect I miss of gw1 is that good interrupters didn’t just interrupt any old skill, they targeted specific skills. They knew their cool downs and they studied/anticipated when it was going to get used. It dramatically affected entire teams effectiveness.

When I see your profession and I see your weapon, I already know exactly what your gonna do more or less. Warrior+Hammer+Mace+shield=I know what is about to happen. Thief+sword+dagger=I know what is about to happen. Mesmer+greatsword+pistol+sword=I know what is about to happen.
This is a personal issue for me, maybe for others, but with weapons all having assigned skills, it takes away from the random arena experience of not ever truly knowing what was about to be thrown at you until it happened.

At the end of the match we all play each other again. The guy on my side who stuck pretty closely to mid,..next match they are on their side and sticking again pretty close to mid. The pistol whip thief from last match is still a pistol whip thief this match. Rinse-repeat.

No camaraderie. In gw1 if a player went down you’d see 60% of the team fire rez signet knowing one would get through. In Gw2 they walk over me because rezzing takes too long and they know I will respawn shortly. All the revive skills in game are buggy which makes an even stronger incentive to not use them.

Gimmick builds I don’t mind so much. Generally a strong gimmick only gets excellently played by 5%. The other 95% are ppl giving it a go and not executing it just right. The forums then light up about nerf this or that. Currently it is stunlocking warrior. I’ve only been caught by it twice where I couldn’t do a thing. The rest of the time they haven’t pulled it off quite right and eventually they go back to their older and more preferred builds. Too many buffs and nerfs are based on the 95% temporary influx, rather than buffs and nerfs that take the game play to the next level.

I don’t play often because I don’t have a team. I play with my brother, but it’s a hassle to get both of us on the same team half the time. Worse still is they’ve chosen a game mode that isn’t the least bit fun or tactical. And the icing on the cake is until you have a team to play with, all PvP turns into in this game is roaming zergs running from point to point.

And this doesn’t even get into the glaring balance issues, the fact that so many classes barely have a single spec to play, and I prefer the Ranger which is one of the most boring classes to play as it is. Not to mention I prefer to play as a Power Ranger and the only thing worse than being called a Power Ranger is how awful they perform in this game.

Really the only time I pvp anymore is to kinda get a feel for new builds. I say kinda because of course it can never be the same as in wvw.

Other than that I have no more interest in it. I think I’m lvl 34 or something. For all the reasons mentioned above and the running to and frow away from fights which sacrx mentioned annoys me. Just jumping into a hotjoin is annoying as hell. 8 people all moving together. Last match I played, I just watched what people were doing. Enemy groups running past one another to cap control points like their real lives depended on it. Just shaking my head.

To be honest I think pvp in its current form is dead. Besides, I already play a game mode which gives me nothing but repair and food costs with little return; wvw.

sPvP was my favorite thing when the game was released. However, after a year of trying to look past problems I’ve had to give up on the game (at least for a while).

1. Atrocious balance. Condition meta is probably the worst we’ve ever seen. Brainless passive play and cheap builds are created just to survive in this insanity. Mindless AoE spam, mindless AoE condition spam, little animation tells on important skills. Luck and spam, I’m tired of it.

2. No real incentive for playing sPvP.

3. Lack of public testing. I may not be a game dev, but I am a professional software dev for a different industry, and we would be in big trouble if we put out changes that directly affect our users that we told nobody but internals about. Get a public test server, and let your customers HELP you with your beta builds.

It’s kind of hilarious that they moved this thread to the PvP forum…

It’s also a little sad to see all the bad impressions have of PvP. I know this isn’t a really scientific poll, but it appears that hotjoin is one of the biggest factors that drives people away.

I think a lot of people are wrong about a lot of stuff—balance isn’t that awful and there’s quite a bit of build variety even after the “apocalypse patch” of this summer. “Condition meta” is already somewhat outdated. Still, it’s disheartening to know that most of these players will never come back.

If I were an Anet mod reading this thread, I wouldn’t be moving it to the PvP forum, I’d be forwarding it to the PvP department. Of course, it’s not possible to change very many of the problems listed, but surely putting real matches side-by-side with hotjoins wouldn’t be so hard.

Played bg’s in WoW and scenarios in Warhammer for many years(with various frustrations and due to lack of Worldpvp at times), played GW2 since beta and have had zero interest in Spvp ever because it’s not enough about killing, the objectives are boring, no interest until there’s deathmatch/something which emphasizes focus fire/killing.

I don’t find the strategy of controlling rings interesting in any way at all, I just want to go in with some friends and mow people down that are trying to mow us down.

BlackBeard.2873:

I play elementalist. I don’t like feeling useless or that I am harming my team. I am just sticking to wvw/pve for now.

Amen.

I see no reason to play PvP without being able to PvP with my elementalist.

Decrypter.1785:

This is Why i dont Spvp and just use the mists as a training area for WvW

1. Lack of Builds check
2. Lack of game types check
3. Lack of Achievement Points maybe
4. Lack of Anet run Automated Daily/monthly Tournaments + Observing games from the mists don’t really care
5. Lack of Rewards check
6. Lack of open Mist Player Dueling check
7 Lack of fun check

Another reason is that it’s very hard for a newbie to understand what’s going on when they first enter a PvP match. The tutorial in the Heart of the Mists is a joke and does nothing to prepare you for your first match. Skill effects are either way too flashy or completely non-existant, so it’s next to impossible sometimes to know what just caused you to take that 4k packet of damage. Hotjoin—which is supposed to be where new players learn to play before getting their feet wet in soloque/team areans—is filled with people zerging mindlessly, with high-rank people switching to the same team to rank farm newbies over and over till the newbies quit.

sPvE*

1. No 2v2/3v3/5v5 death match.
2. No gear combinations.
3. Boring meta game

I can get a much better PvP experience by playing WvW.

I used to do nothing but PVP, but ever since the change of the Q system I have totally abandoned and stopped playing PVP. Why?

1) The SoloQ system is unreliable. One minute you have a juggernaut of a team, the next you have a team that couldn’t find their kitten with a map and directions. You have 4v5’s, 3v5’s, and you get a loss for a match that you have no real chance of winning, thus your ranking plummets, thus you get plunged into worse and worse competition with no real means of digging yourself out. If you were one of the unlucky ones when the Q was first released and had 5 or 10 straight losses I highly doubt you have recovered enough to face solid competition.
2) The Meta. The condition spamming meta makes the PVP game brain dead. It requires little to no skill, yet it dominates the field, especially in the SoloQ.
3) Poor map selection in the SoloQ. The addition of Skyhammer and Spirit Watch to the map selection was just terrible.
4) No real reward for doing it other than your ego.
5) Lack of diversity. I feel like once 1 build is discovered the entire meta of that particular class shifts to that. Often times the build is so vastly superior to anything you ran before that if you continue along your path you are not doing yourself justice, and are nerfing yourself by playing a weaker build just to be different. The build diversity needs to be greater and on balance with each other so that there are multiple options to play a class while remaining competitively balanced.
6) Overall balance. The balance in this game at times is just a sad state of affairs. Coming from a game like Dark Age of Camelot where I understand how balance works and there are times that you simply cannot balance a certain class without nerfing them into the ground, Thergist anyone? I sympathize with the devs on this one. On the other hand though, they could do a much better job than they are currently doing, and I can only hope they will improve.

A lot of people in this thread don’t know what they are talking about.

Avead.5760:

So all of you crying about conquest.If they implement dm and king of the hill will you play spvp? Or you ll still prefer wvw. Are the lack of pve related rewards the issue?
What im trying to understand is how much of your dislike of spvp has to do with the absence of gear grinding and stat difference and how much is about the game mode,stat combination etc
Cause i actually know a lot of people from many games that they get their fun in pvp by actually creating uneven battles through numbers or level/gear difference
I am playing spvp cause i can find fair battles faster and easer than what ive tried in wvw and because i like fair play where only thing that matters is skill.
Point is that wvw doesnt have to compete with spvp at all.You dont have to a wvw player or spvp player..you can be both since they offer different things.
It feels like wvwers look down to spvp as a failed project and think the focus should be turned completely on to their game mode..as it seems lately

The thing I love most about this game is that the playing field is level and its all about skill with no gear grind.

I am crying about conquest because it is sad that such a brilliant game system has been tied to one game mode. Hell, even a MOBA like Smite has multiple game modes, and the arena type one is a lot of fun.

It would be awesome if more game modes were added, but why limit yourself to DM and king of the hill? Of course those would be great to have, but I would like to see something more ambitious like a spvp version of WvW or a MOBA type game mode. Its time for innovation and breaking new ground not half-heartedly throwing in some rehash of DM that has been floating around since pre-release.

Having said all that though, on coming back I have noticed a lot of very nice QOL features that have been added, which is great to see.

Im actually a fan of the game type, back when I was able to easily get into the intended mode of competition (team vs team 5 v 5). PPl focusing on solo q and hot join are what is making it go unappreciated.

So I guess the reason I can get out of that is the low “true” pvp population.

Reasons being:
No motivation / rewards
Specifically, no prestige rewards to shoot for (skill based titles or gear rewards)
No infrastructure to facilitate high level play (preset team, actual team ladder)

EDIT: the specific reason that I stopped was losing 3 straight matches to “Away from Keyboard” (the short version is blocked by forum???) in solo que and dropping from rank 500 to unranked. (I didnt even want a solo q leader board as I foresaw caring about it too much) This would be more of a symptom of the reasons listed above though.

The fact that we only have one game type is my ,biggest issue with spvp. I get bored with conquest. I find it funny that Anet says they want to work of the core fundamentals of spvp before they put anything flashy In, which is why we don’t have other game types
the way i see it is that a variety of game types os a fundamental aspect of any pvp area. You don’t see one game type on halo, or call of duty, or league of legends. Different game types would open up more builds for spvp as well. Since it wouldn’t focus on capture we could build for killing instead of sustain.

It’s dead. There is no PvP when there are no people playing it.

I don’t sPvP because it just flat out sucks

Because it’s stupid. Why anybody would wanna have some silly 1vs1 fight inside circle. At least they should try to get all 10 players in same place so there would be some kind of team play.

I stop Spvp because :

• Anet since 1 years do nothing in Spvp.
• Because in a MMO, the update is the life of the game, and in GW2 all updates is PvE.
• lack builds
• lack fun !!!
• Lack reward
• AND BECAUSE I HATE CONTEST MODE ! IT’S SO STUPID…

ExaFlare.1390:

A lot of people in this thread don’t know what they are talking about.

With your lack of input i would say you don’t know what you are talking about. That or you are a die hard fan boy.

ExaFlare.1390:

A lot of people in this thread don’t know what they are talking about.

Thanks for contributing so much insight. We appreciate your candor and deep thoughts and frank wisdom. What, may I ask, in God’s name are YOU talking about?

Build diversity.

In the end it comes down to this. I dont need shiny rewards or achievments if the PvP itself is fun and rewarding just by beeing a good fight.

I get this in WvW.
Winning a 1on1 with a 30/0/10/20/10 randomish geared staff ele.
Be able to help my mates. Be usefull in a team or zerg and contribute to the victory.
Small skirmishes, major battles, with any even or uneven number there is.
Sneak attacks.
Getting an entire earth 2, fire 2, 5 combo through while beeing at full might stacks unto an enemy zerg that thinks a staff ele is nothing to care about and teaching them HOW wrong they are.

Is WvW balanced? No. (mainly because of Anets focus on sPvP and esports )
But a) that can be dealt with with your PvE gear and b) that is also part of the fun in WvW.
You never know what build your up against next, what tricks your opponent might pull, what surprise waits behind the next corner, what fun there is waiting…
You need to be able to adapt on the fly.

Oh, and not forgetting its easy to get into WvW. Join map -> done!
Not worrying with what the current meta builds dictate, searching for a team, rankings, uneven teams, leavers and so on.

And, nope, even the two new modes, Deatmatch and King of the Hill that are comming to you (if what Sacrx said in his super rant is true) wont change that im afraid.

Join WvW! Have fun and get free Cookies!

Well , that are my thoughts about sPvP.

PS: the Cookies may be a lie