Guild Wars 2

As kind of a response to watching the PAX qualifiers and whatnot:
It’s my opinion so take it for what it is…

The general strats and whatnot were nifty, the casters talked a fair deal about who was going where and why, which was cool.

But the combat was extremely convoluted to follow.
The casters generally couldn’t even keep up with what was happening in combat!!! That’s an outright TERRIBLE situation for a game to be in…

Half the time in an encounter all I see is the casters getting into a good cams trying to get a decent viewpoint… just to realize that the action passed or some unknown abilities went off killing someone else, leaving all they can say is ‘so someone died..’ not how… not because of what abilities or what spec or how they screwed up or got taken advantage of… just ‘so someone died’… maybe a blanket statement like ‘they killed him quickly’ or ‘the one team did not have enough dmg’ to cover the fallowing awkward silence…

I can’t even get close to into watching the tournies.. I’m a rank 45 player so its not like anything they do is news to me… but the shear amount of badly telegraphed, passive and chaotic skills, azuras, bad camera angles and the inability to at-a-glance tell classes apart… it just bogs the game down to the point it really isn’t enjoyable to watch…

GW2 has to compete with MOBAs and I’ve watched MOBA streams of games I haven’t even played and sat at the edge of my seat , OMFG-beaming at all the clutch plays scattered across the battlefield… the difference between that and GW2 is just outrageous. In GW2 the casters seem lucky to even notice a single ‘OMFG’ play in an entire match…

Wheres the stream?

http://www.twitch.tv/mistleague/b/436734274

I agree. I’ve been saying that the it’s impossible for the Shoutcasters to say anything of substance about the flow of combat in this game because there is so much passive proc nonsense going on, so many untelegraphed moves that deal way too much damage for being next to impossible to dodge… It’s actually quite embarrassing.

I tried watching the tournament but had a similar experience. Just wasn’t entertaining to watch.

Jzaku.9765:

I agree. I’ve been saying that the it’s impossible for the Shoutcasters to say anything of substance about the flow of combat in this game because there is so much passive proc nonsense going on, so many untelegraphed moves that deal way too much damage for being next to impossible to dodge… It’s actually quite embarrassing.

I liked it. Not bc of the Shoutcasters, but it would be kind of strange w/o them. That is kind of a problem with shoutcasting in general. How is the guy watching supposed to say anything of substance while watching any sport? Things will always be moving too fast and be too chaotic.

It’s definitely an issue of way too much animation happening at one time. Not telegraphing either, just colors and flashes and effects all over the place.

And when you mix that with the sheer amount of passive procs that can go off, that with such a fast paced combat, it really leaves you wondering what exactly just happened.

Forget the UI clutter argument, if people have skills that can proc passively, then just as the ones that are constantly active in (like constant +150 power/precision/etc), there should be an indicator that it is active and ready to be procced, and should disappear when procced to indicate that it occurred and is on ICD, then “reapply” coming off of ICD.

A combined effort between a reduced mess of effects and passives (particularly things that can proc, or occur on an ICD) being added to the UI, and you end up with a much more watchable game from a spectators PoV.

I’ve said this before but I’ll restate it here, GW2’s pacing is too fast for an esport. GW1 was slow enough to the point where you always knew what was going on, combat wasn’t as cool but the activation bar meant you were never in the dark about that was happening. Hard hitting magic users had long cast times and Classes like Ranger/Mesmer/and warrior were adept at interrupting them. The long cast times made Hammer on warrior Viable because if they wanted to deal any damage them has to insure they wouldn’t be knocked down.

For both better gameplay and better shoutcasting (the casters themselves are fine it’s not their fault it’s impossible to speak as fast as the action happens on screen) there needs to be longer casting time on spells (at least in PvP) and a activation bar so that it is easy to see what skill is being used. Make it moveable like GW1 so it can be placed right towards the middle of the users screen so they can focus both on dodges and what skills they’re using. I get that animating a unique animation for every spell is difficult, but for skills like Marks there’s no way to tell what mark is being used and as such which one you should be dodging.

Because adding a activation bar would make dodging skills easier, as a tradeoff the default recharge rate of endurance should be increased so that you can dodge less often. Vigor should make you recharge at the current unmodified rate, maybe even a bit less. This would force players to choose WHICH skills they think are the most important to dodge.

Using the Hammer as an example again, mostly because it’s a good weapon but not overly viable in PvP due to pacing. “should I dodge this Staggering Blow or wait for the Backbreaker?” Meanwhile I as a warrior need to decide if I should dodge twice to avoid an ele’s stuns, or let myself get hit once so I can dodge the Updraft? A slower pace would not only be more skillful but would make watching skilled players much more interesting and would give commentators a chance to give a play-by-play rather than a recap after it’s all happened.

GW1 had some of the most solid PvP in terms of design and pacing, even though it always had a clear meta due to some questionable balancing decisions. Which reminds me It’s good to see more PvP types such kitten, it be nice to see game types introduced in factions such as Fort Aspenwood (in a new form of course) brought back.

When the casters don’t even go over the builds, it’s pretty stupid. Yeah the people who are up with the meta know the builds for the most part, but when one of my friends is watching (someone I’m trying to get to come back to competitive pvp) and he doesn’t even know the builds there just isn’t much for him to watch besides a bunch of characters running around damaging each other.

I actually think gw2 is almost ahead of its time in how fast and intense the combat is. Kind of like football, it would be amazing for the casters to be able to show slow motion replays of key parts of the previous match in between matches. GW2 is going to have to figure out a way to train up its potential esports viewers to the point they can follow what’s happening (casters need to be trained up too).

Suggestions:
Minimap for viewers – this should be wayyyy more clear so that viewers can readily see the movement of all players. The minimap is too detailed and has too much color, so the dots aren’t very obvious. Simplify the map, put it in grayscale, and fade it. Make character symbols (for guardian/ele/necro/etc. like when you open the map) appear on the minimap and make them large enough and bright enough to be obvious. The minimap should be faded grayscale because what viewers need is to see movement. The only relevent details of the map are the capture points and secondary objectives. The rest are just pathways to access those points. Right now the map drowns out player dots and reads like a map for someone to get an understanding of the details of the entire zone. That’s a lot of unnecessary information and it makes it hard for viewers to easily get the important information.

Builds – can we stop with the ridiculous secrecy of builds? A decision needs to be made: do we care more about expanding the viewership by letting them get into the details of the game or do we care more about protecting super secret builds from supposedly pro players. My take: players who are really pro will win out, even when builds are not secret. It’s more important to grow interest in the game by letting viewers in rather than shutting them out. Casters should ALWAYS review builds and discuss them. It’s an integral part of the game, but casters are completely mute on the subject.

Casters should have the ability to replay previous matches and show slow motion replays from various character perspectives. Teldo escaping from 3 players at mine? Hell yes, I want to see replays of that to see exactly what he did and what the other players were doing to try to catch him. There are so many key parts of these matches, rezzes miliseconds before a stomp for example. Going back to see highlights would be amazing, both for entertainment purposes and for educating viewers to better understand what’s happening during real-time matches in the future.

Anyway, GW2 as an esport is more intense, busier, and more complicated than a lot of other esports. Care needs to be taken to present all of this information to viewers and potential new players in a way that they can appreciate the timing and skill required to win a game between top players. Please give casters (and, in the future, spectator mode) these tools.

Edit: one more thing — for the big matches, ANet should consider recording the match from every players perspective and make these videos available for anyone to watch whenever. Heck, even get a Caster to voiceover what the player is doing while he’s doing it. This would be so interesting, I’d watch big matches from every player’s perspective probably multiple times. GW2 doesn’t need to slow its intense play down, it just needs to recognize that viewers are going to need additional tools to properly follow and enjoy matches. Give players these tools and watch GW2 esports get moving in the right direction.

Schlieffen.2054:

snip

+1

This is a fantastic post.

Schlieffen.2054:

When the casters don’t even go over the builds, it’s pretty stupid. Yeah the people who are up with the meta know the builds for the most part, but when one of my friends is watching (someone I’m trying to get to come back to competitive pvp) and he doesn’t even know the builds there just isn’t much for him to watch besides a bunch of characters running around damaging each other.

I actually think gw2 is almost ahead of its time in how fast and intense the combat is. Kind of like football, it would be amazing for the casters to be able to show slow motion replays of key parts of the previous match in between matches. GW2 is going to have to figure out a way to train up its potential esports viewers to the point they can follow what’s happening (casters need to be trained up too).

Suggestions:
Minimap for viewers – this should be wayyyy more clear so that viewers can readily see the movement of all players. The minimap is too detailed and has too much color, so the dots aren’t very obvious. Simplify the map, put it in grayscale, and fade it. Make character symbols (for guardian/ele/necro/etc. like when you open the map) appear on the minimap and make them large enough and bright enough to be obvious. The minimap should be faded grayscale because what viewers need is to see movement. The only relevent details of the map are the capture points and secondary objectives. The rest are just pathways to access those points. Right now the map drowns out player dots and reads like a map for someone to get an understanding of the details of the entire zone. That’s a lot of unnecessary information and it makes it hard for viewers to easily get the important information.

Builds – can we stop with the ridiculous secrecy of builds? A decision needs to be made: do we care more about expanding the viewership by letting them get into the details of the game or do we care more about protecting super secret builds from supposedly pro players. My take: players who are really pro will win out, even when builds are not secret. It’s more important to grow interest in the game by letting viewers in rather than shutting them out. Casters should ALWAYS review builds and discuss them. It’s an integral part of the game, but casters are completely mute on the subject.

Casters should have the ability to replay previous matches and show slow motion replays from various character perspectives. Teldo escaping from 3 players at mine? Hell yes, I want to see replays of that to see exactly what he did and what the other players were doing to try to catch him. There are so many key parts of these matches, rezzes miliseconds before a stomp for example. Going back to see highlights would be amazing, both for entertainment purposes and for educating viewers to better understand what’s happening during real-time matches in the future.

Anyway, GW2 as an esport is more intense, busier, and more complicated than a lot of other esports. Care needs to be taken to present all of this information to viewers and potential new players in a way that they can appreciate the timing and skill required to win a game between top players. Please give casters (and, in the future, spectator mode) these tools.

Edit: one more thing — for the big matches, ANet should consider recording the match from every players perspective and make these videos available for anyone to watch whenever. Heck, even get a Caster to voiceover what the player is doing while he’s doing it. This would be so interesting, I’d watch big matches from every player’s perspective probably multiple times. GW2 doesn’t need to slow its intense play down, it just needs to recognize that viewers are going to need additional tools to properly follow and enjoy matches. Give players these tools and watch GW2 esports get moving in the right direction.

I’d like to +1 this too.

I agree with everything said, and think it needs to be reiterated. Especially; IF the UI isn’t going to be changed to show passive traits and procs from traits that can be activated, then it is all the more reason to go over the build at the beginning to explain the potential of things that can occur at one time.

Spectators shouldn’t really ever be entirely lost, which, when having no indicator for passive procs and no build reviews, is an easily foreseeable occurrence.

its not only watching the games, its playing gw2-pvp too
1v1 or 1v2 on a node is ok but more ppl just tooo much and you cant see whats going on
i cant count how often i got killed in a “teamfight” from some random shatters behind me or aoe coming from …. ye where it came from^^

Even the UI with Boons and condition on enemy at top and boons + conditions on me at bottom is so bad and you cant see both every time – this should be changed. I need my target on bottom too or my boons + conditions on top

just too much + tooo fast and not enough info for the player/watcher

It dont work to have to look at enemy animations to get the info you need and make the combat so fast. Bring Icons in nameplate what enemy is casting or castbars.
Most Problems we have atm in SPVP come from this, even the aoe problem.

thx

I agree especially with the builds being secret. Because its so hectic and fast paced, the only way to get anything out of watching gw2 combat is to know what to look for.

I honestly don’t know what a person who was not totally caught up on the meta would take away from watching this. Probably just a big blur of partial effects. Going through the builds will tell viewers what to look for – how we might expect the players to act and react. Having a sense in your mind of what should play out goes a long way to interpreting that mass of particles clustered on the node.

It’s been 2 years now, if not more, that people have been complaining about the fast pace and the visual mess of the game:p :p :p

At least the devs finally reckoned- months ago- that the particles effects were a real issue rather than a mere learn to play curve…

As for the fast pace, I just hope they realise there’s a balance to be found between an action rpg and a fps, and that gw2 has always leaned more toward the latter.

Dynamic combat is great but not at the expense of understanding team fights and thus team play.

Hopefully this tournament and its exposition will speed up the “fix”…

An option to turn all the players into default human models would be nice. Would alleviate the tiny asura hidden in particle effects issue.

I agree with everything said here.

Frankly within a span of 10 minutes i went from scratching my head to being bored. Now im a guy who can sit down and watch LCS, DotA even CS for extended periods of time even though i dont play them. How unfortunate is it that the one game i play and truely enjoy cant even keep my attention for the length of a match…

I personally believe this all comes down to bad game design:

• Paced too fast: Pace of an FPS with the complexity of an MMO. FPS are simple, point gun and shoot, therefore the fast pace is fine; you dont need to process a lot of information. MMO combat is too complex, there are boons, conditions, spell triggers, traps, weapons ranges etc. the list goes on and Anet some how expects us to process all this information in the span of mere seconds. I implore you, slow it down a little, give us more time to see whats actually happening.

• Graphics: Just because you can do it doesnt mean you should. I remember writing a short story in year 4, i used every little tool Word 98 had to make it look cool. in hindsight it looked like kitten. Yes GW2 is akin to my year 4 project, so much decoration that you actually cant see whats going on.

• Characters: They just look too similar. In small 1v1’s or 2v2’s its fine, but in anything larger it becomes just too confusing to follow. Was that a ranger or thief who dodge rolled?

• Camera: We need a free roaming camera. I saw so many bad angles during the games that i watches. Now im not sure whether that was due to the camera mans inexperience or due to the poorly placed cameras around the map.

I’m pretty sure builds are not being shown to avoid wasting time, if you spend 30s on each player, that’s 5 minutes spent on builds each time…
If you’re curious you could just ask the players after the match, although builds are pretty much the same since 1999 (with the few new-meta exception ofc)

As for the other stuff, yeah someone who doesn’t play GW2 has no chance to understand anything about the game by watching these events.

Shar.3402:

I’m pretty sure builds are not being shown to avoid wasting time, if you spend 30s on each player, that’s 5 minutes spent on builds each time…
If you’re curious you could just ask the players after the match, although builds are pretty much the same since 1999 (with the few new-meta exception ofc)

As for the other stuff, yeah someone who doesn’t play GW2 has no chance to understand anything about the game by watching these events.

“wasting time”? I’d think that build discussion would be quite interesting. The real problem is that since this is streamed during play, the enemy team can watch and see exactly what their opponents are using and doing. That’s why we can only spectate hotjoins and not tournies.

There were a lot of other spectators in that match whenever Grouch opened up the team roster. Who were all of those? Not to mention you can also get a lot of information on splits and player positioning from what the minimap shows in the stream.

Jzaku.9765:

There were a lot of other spectators in that match whenever Grouch opened up the team roster. Who were all of those? Not to mention you can also get a lot of information on splits and player positioning from what the minimap shows in the stream.

Other streamers, tournament was being casted in like 4-5 languages or something like that

Totally agree with the build compositions [skillbar] showing.

Since any “professional” player should be able to beat non-pro’s using the non-pro’s build. (it’s the only way to distinguish tbh.)
So yeah, no secrets except maybe runes and trinklets since traits can be discovered during play..

As for watching the opponent, twitch has a stream delay option.

IMO what you describe is a problem with the casting(style) and not with the game itself, sure it could be better here or there, but there is much more potential for casting even in the games current state.

Schlieffen.2054:

I actually think gw2 is almost ahead of its time in how fast and intense the combat is. Kind of like football, it would be amazing for the casters to be able to show slow motion replays of key parts of the previous match in between matches. GW2 is going to have to figure out a way to train up its potential esports viewers to the point they can follow what’s happening (casters need to be trained up too).

Great post, nicely written and whatnot

A lil critique on this part though…
Having swarms of passive procs, only burst/bunker/condi and badly telegraphed skills is not really innovative…
The whole dodge rolling, chaosy intertwined team (like everyone is scattered everywhere in a teamfight) combat are definitely new concepts, not really sure if the chaos part is good or not, but its definitely new.

I will admit that the casters usually don’t do that great of a job. I mean i’ve seen them miss lordpushes more often then actually notice them. That said they’re there doing this for free for the community. Who else wants to volunteer so much time?

It’s not that bad and it’s better than nothing.

Godofallu.2935:

I will admit that the casters usually don’t do that great of a job. I mean i’ve seen them miss lordpushes more often then actually notice them. That said they’re there doing this for free for the community. Who else wants to volunteer so much time?

It’s not that bad and it’s better than nothing.

I don’t blame the casters at all personally. In most cases, I blame the overbearing amount of graphical effects that are occurring on the screen at one time, and the lack of visual indicators to show spectators when passive effects are taking effect or being procced.

Just an overall issue of “combat clutter.”

Schlieffen.2054:

Casters should have the ability to replay previous matches and show slow motion replays from various character perspectives. Teldo escaping from 3 players at mine? Hell yes, I want to see replays of that to see exactly what he did and what the other players were doing to try to catch him. There are so many key parts of these matches, rezzes miliseconds before a stomp for example. Going back to see highlights would be amazing, both for entertainment purposes and for educating viewers to better understand what’s happening during real-time matches in the future.

Idea of the decade, please make this happen A-Net!

Nothing is visually telegraphed except some warrior skills.

There are no battle lines or distinct sides in teamfights, just a cluster****.

Most skills in this game are spammable with low effects/cooldown, not only does this clutter the field with spell effects but it makes it more difficult for the spectator to get inside the competitors head and follow his decision-making process.

Compare to successful esports like DotA/LoL where each skill may have time to be used once in a teamfight, each is a bigger decision.
GW2 is like a thousand micro-decisions that spectators cannot easily follow.

NornBearPig.9814:

Nothing is visually telegraphed except some warrior skills.

Wow, then I really have some heavy delusions which turn out to be true, am I an Esper or something? O_O

One of the things I noticed today is that the camera changes a lot, which can be disorienting because the casters don’t announce it before they switch. Occasionally they’ll be late to the action so we’ll get a glimpse of a downed player, then switch immediately to some action elsewhere. Not good.

I think the mini map needs some work as well. Make it easier for spectators to see the players on the map, and indicate on the mini map which players are being spectated, so we can tell where they are quickly.

Schlieffen.2054:

When the casters don’t even go over the builds, it’s pretty stupid. Yeah the people who are up with the meta know the builds for the most part, but when one of my friends is watching (someone I’m trying to get to come back to competitive pvp) and he doesn’t even know the builds there just isn’t much for him to watch besides a bunch of characters running around damaging each other.

I actually think gw2 is almost ahead of its time in how fast and intense the combat is. Kind of like football, it would be amazing for the casters to be able to show slow motion replays of key parts of the previous match in between matches. GW2 is going to have to figure out a way to train up its potential esports viewers to the point they can follow what’s happening (casters need to be trained up too).

Suggestions:
Minimap for viewers – this should be wayyyy more clear so that viewers can readily see the movement of all players. The minimap is too detailed and has too much color, so the dots aren’t very obvious. Simplify the map, put it in grayscale, and fade it. Make character symbols (for guardian/ele/necro/etc. like when you open the map) appear on the minimap and make them large enough and bright enough to be obvious. The minimap should be faded grayscale because what viewers need is to see movement. The only relevent details of the map are the capture points and secondary objectives. The rest are just pathways to access those points. Right now the map drowns out player dots and reads like a map for someone to get an understanding of the details of the entire zone. That’s a lot of unnecessary information and it makes it hard for viewers to easily get the important information.

Builds – can we stop with the ridiculous secrecy of builds? A decision needs to be made: do we care more about expanding the viewership by letting them get into the details of the game or do we care more about protecting super secret builds from supposedly pro players. My take: players who are really pro will win out, even when builds are not secret. It’s more important to grow interest in the game by letting viewers in rather than shutting them out. Casters should ALWAYS review builds and discuss them. It’s an integral part of the game, but casters are completely mute on the subject.

Casters should have the ability to replay previous matches and show slow motion replays from various character perspectives. Teldo escaping from 3 players at mine? Hell yes, I want to see replays of that to see exactly what he did and what the other players were doing to try to catch him. There are so many key parts of these matches, rezzes miliseconds before a stomp for example. Going back to see highlights would be amazing, both for entertainment purposes and for educating viewers to better understand what’s happening during real-time matches in the future.

Anyway, GW2 as an esport is more intense, busier, and more complicated than a lot of other esports. Care needs to be taken to present all of this information to viewers and potential new players in a way that they can appreciate the timing and skill required to win a game between top players. Please give casters (and, in the future, spectator mode) these tools.

Edit: one more thing — for the big matches, ANet should consider recording the match from every players perspective and make these videos available for anyone to watch whenever. Heck, even get a Caster to voiceover what the player is doing while he’s doing it. This would be so interesting, I’d watch big matches from every player’s perspective probably multiple times. GW2 doesn’t need to slow its intense play down, it just needs to recognize that viewers are going to need additional tools to properly follow and enjoy matches. Give players these tools and watch GW2 esports get moving in the right direction.

I loved your minimap idea, heck i’d love to have it like that while playing aswell..

Don’t really see the reason to see all the brushed borders, pretty cliffs etc.
I just want to be able to see just the actual map and not all the other clutter, give it as an toggle option atleast “simple minimap”?

Cyhann.2609:

Idea of the decade, please make this happen A-Net!

It’s actually what other games do…
They start streaming the tournament at a delay and jump back for replays where need be…

Honestly these guys should stream it at an hour~ delay so they have time to watch the match beforehand and get a good grasp on everything that happens, and THEN cast it…

garethh.3518:

Cyhann.2609:

Idea of the decade, please make this happen A-Net!

It’s actually what other games do…
They start streaming the tournament at a delay and jump back for replays where need be…

Honestly these guys should stream it at an hour~ delay so they have time to watch the match beforehand and get a good grasp on everything that happens, and THEN cast it…

And the viewers know the outcome? That would be very boring. I enjoyed the matches. They could be improved in a way so that viewers can decide for themselfs what to watch in whos point of view.

garethh.3518:

GW2 has to compete with MOBAs and I’ve watched MOBA streams of games I haven’t even played and sat at the edge of my seat , OMFG-beaming at all the clutch plays scattered across the battlefield… the difference between that and GW2 is just outrageous. In GW2 the casters seem lucky to even notice a single ‘OMFG’ play in an entire match…

oh yeah, i watched a lot of MOBAs recently because there are so many players like you stating the fantastic side of how fascinating it is to watch on stream.
so i found my self every other day watching MOBAs for 15mins and suddenly snoring away into my dreamland.
i say to myself: “concentrate!! watch it!! if they say, there has to be some truth in it!!” and i go on watching people doing last hits on minions, [aaahhhh….]and snoring away again.

on the otherhand, yesterday was an amazing to watch tournament. even my cousin who is not a single bit into gw2 has enjoyed watching this tourney and was amazed especially about the 5 last matches

…but… just my 2 cents…

Tournament Matches Being Uploaded ATM ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7oXvUHqgnY&list=PL5rUuUJretp-KXFB4NEbixbgizioJz-4D&index=1

Matches that aren’t up yet can be found here – http://www.twitch.tv/mistleague

kito.1827:

garethh.3518:

GW2 has to compete with MOBAs and I’ve watched MOBA streams of games I haven’t even played and sat at the edge of my seat , OMFG-beaming at all the clutch plays scattered across the battlefield… the difference between that and GW2 is just outrageous. In GW2 the casters seem lucky to even notice a single ‘OMFG’ play in an entire match…

oh yeah, i watched a lot of MOBAs recently because there are so many players like you stating the fantastic side of how fascinating it is to watch on stream.
so i found my self every other day watching MOBAs for 15mins and suddenly snoring away into my dreamland.
i say to myself: “concentrate!! watch it!! if they say, there has to be some truth in it!!” and i go on watching people doing last hits on minions, [aaahhhh….]and snoring away again.

on the otherhand, yesterday was an amazing to watch tournament. even my cousin who is not a single bit into gw2 has enjoyed watching this tourney and was amazed especially about the 5 last matches

…but… just my 2 cents…

You must have watched the wrong games. Most pro level games in DotA are VERY aggressive right from the first 10s :p

knyy.6427:

And the viewers know the outcome? That would be very boring. I enjoyed the matches. They could be improved in a way so that viewers can decide for themselfs what to watch in whos point of view.

The official stream of the match would be on delay, meaning that the only people who know the outcome beforehand are those who are actually watching at the tourny live…

What other games do is delay the necessary few minute~ to stop cheating, yet it also gives that chance to do replays and whatnot since the game isn’t being casting completely live.
GW2 might need a lil more of a delay since understanding what is happening seems a much tougher.

kito.1827:

garethh.3518:

GW2 has to compete with MOBAs and I’ve watched MOBA streams of games I haven’t even played and sat at the edge of my seat , OMFG-beaming at all the clutch plays scattered across the battlefield… the difference between that and GW2 is just outrageous. In GW2 the casters seem lucky to even notice a single ‘OMFG’ play in an entire match…

oh yeah, i watched a lot of MOBAs recently because there are so many players like you stating the fantastic side of how fascinating it is to watch on stream.
so i found my self every other day watching MOBAs for 15mins and suddenly snoring away into my dreamland.
i say to myself: “concentrate!! watch it!! if they say, there has to be some truth in it!!” and i go on watching people doing last hits on minions, [aaahhhh….]and snoring away again.

on the otherhand, yesterday was an amazing to watch tournament. even my cousin who is not a single bit into gw2 has enjoyed watching this tourney and was amazed especially about the 5 last matches

…but… just my 2 cents…

Not every match in every MOBA is entertaining, and MOBAs aren’t for everyone.
I fell in love with SMITE after watching a few matches (hadn’t even played it before watching, yet I still got really into the matches), LoL is up and down more a game to watch if your really into it, DOTA is actually a pretty cool game to watch, would rather play LoL or SMITE, but its a good game to watch.