Guild Wars 2

Its a great game, I love it, you love it.

Yet, the inherent flaw in its spammable status effects, most not reliant on skill shots, and instantly land-able, ruin a great deal of higher level play that is not mostly skill based, but stat/status/build based.

Worse is the increasing arms race needed to combat the status/auto hit ability spam or outright huge burst abilities without having a dedicated healing class. A perfect example of this is the Warrior’s Endure Pain, and Berserker Stance abilities which need to be used on cool down to effectively fight blind spamming rogues, or condition spamming classes.

Its too much ArenaNet, its over the top. You can’t expect to first have no healing class, yet not tone down the amount of damage to allow skilled fights which rely more on consistent skilled gameplay to outplay your opponents, and you can’t add so many status effects not reliant on skill shots to say that your pvp combat is nothing more than landing quick combos which are incredibly easy to master and execute, and require less skill.

Then you have auto block, auto evade mechanics, which don’t even require skilled activation, they simply activate automatically as either a passive mechanic, or a secondary mechanic to an offensive skill.

This sadly makes the success of your PvP based solely on build, not skill based play; or if I should rephrase it, your build is ultimately much more important than you being a skilled player and mastering the fundamentals of your class.

I love this game, I want to see its potential, but as long as you keep making spammable blanket status effects, auto blocking/evading mechanics, incredibly high burst damage, and blanket immunities to counter these effects, you’ll never be considered a top competitive Esport.

Which is a kitten shame, because I really enjoy the fundamentals of the mechanics in this game. A kitten shame.

Eventually another game is going to come along and push this one out, and I don’t want to see that happen, I really don’t. This game is too much of a fundamentally groundbreaking masterpiece to allow it to happen.

Inb4ragefestsayingimwrongorgetgood.

PvP is only good for reward tracks and dailies.

Agree on the spammable skills. All you see are a bunch of light effects and explosions that clutter the screen and make it confusing for outsider to view.

In highly popular/competitive esports, there are far fewer skills and most of them have longer cooldowns. For example, Dota 2 (world’s top esport) has only 4 skills for the vast majority of the heroes you can play.

This allows you to focus more on movement, teamplay, and makes viewing for the casual observer a LOT smoother.

The other thing holding GW2 back is that PvP and PvE share the same skill set. If PvP and PvE were separated and balanced separately, then GW2 would have a more serious shot at being truly competitive.

I wonder if people like the OP would be less upset if GW2 never tried to market itself as an e-sport. The game isn’t balanced by any means but the example given – Warrior stances – are a staple mechanic of PvP in MMORPGs and the skill comes in knowing when and how to use them.

GW2 sort of hybridizes “twitch” style gaming and traditional MMORPG combat… but most of the emphasis despite the dodging and certain class mechanics such as the Mesmer (a very “visual” class to fight against) are on traditional MMORPG combat mechanics which include reaction time, procs, passives, CC, managing cool downs, and being aware of other classes’ mechanics and cool downs.

The average person can’t watch it, it’s like one big flashy blur. It’s stupid. I said this when the game first came out. Dota is so easy to watch in comparison and dota has grown as has cs:go, both have 1mil+ viewers on their major games.

They needed a simple particle effects mode from the word go that had very basic but distinct looking particles, so people can clearly see what’s going on.

You make a really good point on lack of healers ruining a big aspect of pvp, you either go full damage and burst someone down in seconds, or go full sustain and win due to attrition; there’s no middle ground. Dedicated healers are there to keep both these issues in check.

I also agree with @raxx.8914 wholeheartedly, there’sa lot of room for improvement regarding clarity.

Daharahj.1325:

You make a really good point on lack of healers ruining a big aspect of pvp, you either go full damage and burst someone down in seconds, or go full sustain and win due to attrition; there’s no middle ground. Dedicated healers are there to keep both these issues in check.

I also agree with @raxx.8914 wholeheartedly, there’sa lot of room for improvement regarding clarity.

Wut?

Your “healers” are shout guards, signet necros, heck, even shout wars. Preventing large amounts of damages occuring to yout team is basically the same thing as your trinity “healer” class.

The middle class is anything Cele, 2 support trees (or 1 support and 1 utility tree) and anything that’s a non tank amulet.

If you want a trinity system with poor combat mechanics, play any other mmorpg.

You’re the first person to touch on something that I’ve noticed quite a bit about pvp, it’s become less about skill and more about what class/build you happen to be running. Makes you wonder if maybe the least effective builds happen to be the ones with the highest skill required.

We all know this problem, the problem is ArenaNet won’t admit to it. I’ve gotten numerous infractions for stating problems with Guild Wars 2 PvP, mechanics and Esport mentality.

It feels like telling a child he’s wrong, then he runs behind a door, locks it then screams GO AWAY! Assuming that if no one says it, it’s not a problem.

It’s also frustrating how quiet they are here on the forums. We know absolutely nothing about the balance team and it gives a doom feeling. The only good PvPer on ArenaNet I know was Powerr, but it appears even he fell off the grid as I never see him.

I’m okay with some balance issues, it is understandable. What I am not okay with is exploits and bugs still a problem in PvP. How long must I keep my stow weapon key tied to my Mesmer just so I can have an edge in fights?

raxx.8914:

The average person can’t watch it, it’s like one big flashy blur. It’s stupid. I said this when the game first came out. Dota is so easy to watch in comparison and dota has grown as has cs:go, both have 1mil+ viewers on their major games.

They needed a simple particle effects mode from the word go that had very basic but distinct looking particles, so people can clearly see what’s going on.

This! I wish GW2 was easier to watch. Main reason behind Dota2 and Lol’s popularity is that you don’t have to know the rules. These games are like football (soccer), you can watch it and have fun without knowing anything except for the fact that teams need to go to the other side.
It is nothing bad to keep things simple.

OP, you are correct but this was all said on these forums 2 years ago and 1 year ago when the big balance patches moved the game into spam and made the whole game a joke. This discussion has been done to death. The game will never be competitive because of the balance direction which took a strong initial game and turned it into a frustrating spam-fest

Why does everyone want all games to play like mobas nowdays, there are already a few really good mobas out there on the market that people can play and enjoy.

Why are you here, demanding guild wars an mmo to play like that too? you want max 5 skills with such massive tells that you can l2p in moments, first of all that design wouldnt even work with the number of classes in this game, mobas rely on the high amount of heroes for balance.

I personally enjoy the amount of kitten that is going on in gw2 pvp, the amount of focus it takes to notice all the little things. This is why I play the game. I agree that it is hard for a new viewer to watch gw2 and enjoy it. But thats the way I personally enjoy it, and despite what the general belief is there are multiple of players in this game who can and are good enough to keep up with “all this random spam”, it just takes a little more then a moba mentality to get to that point.

Can we just let gw2 be an mmorpg and stop demanding for such ridiculous things, sure gw2 will probably never have the viewer esports base of the top esport games, but if that is the only reason you play a game then go play those top games with massive viewer amounts.

I honestly miss the gaming days before moba esports became such a big thing, people actually enjoyed games more and spent more time learning it then worrying if its popular enough or if it can make them popular enough as gamers.

More important things we should focus on is the pvp balance with the current game design.

Kyori.6091:

More important things we should focus on is the pvp balance with the current game design.

Funny thing about this. The reason PvP gets so few updates is that it brings in no money while very few people even care about it.

So while you are happy this game’s pvp isn’t some huge easy to watch and enjoy game. At the same time, this is why it’s neglected and allowed to be left in the state we find it in.

GW2’s combat is fine. If I wanted holy trinity I’d be playing another MMO. I respect GW2 for being different, and I happen to enjoy the action combat and active dodge mechanics in GW2 system. Sadly casting on the move, the need to active dodge and constantly move, makes this game harder to play for the casuals. I’m talking PvP specifically not PvE. It’s the hard truth, a lot of MMO players can’t get used to action combat in MMO’s.

The thing that makes this game hard to watch isn’t the action combat, it’s the way arena is designed, and the way cameras work. I’ll give a rl example to what it’s like watching GW2 tournaments. Say you subscribe to a ppv boxing event. You’re enjoying a fight, but all of a sudden the camera flashes to a different angle or point of view right before a big punch is thrown. So you miss the offensive and the counter/defensive moves. Or even worse, just as you’re getting into the exchanges between fighters, the camera switches to a completely different fight elsewhere in the arena.

That’s how I feel watching GW2 tournaments, it’s frigging annoying. It’s hard to watch a fight because camera angles keep switching around, jumping from one player to another, from one fight to another fight completely elsewhere. When you see a fight you’d like to watch to see who wins, what moves are pulled, what defensive & counter moves are done, you can’t. Because the camera would have switched 5x and moved completely to another spot on the map all within 10 seconds.

Of course part of the reasons why camera has to switch around so much is because of the way the arena and pvp gameplay is designed. There isn’t a central objective that people brawl over. And brawls are one of the funnest things to watch during the tournament. Sadly you can’t enjoy those either because camera keeps jumping around and likely would’ve switched to another node at least 3 times during a big brawl. The gameplay should get adjusted so there are some central objectives where people brawl over, where the camera can stay for longer than 5 seconds.

Another thing will help is to have 2 caster teams, like sports teams, there are play-by-play that cater to each team. This way those interested in following one specific team would watch that stream, while those interested in following more of another team would watch the other stream. This would reduce camera movement as it’ll only cycle through 5 players instead of 10. It’ll reduce the constant jumping around that messed up the viewer’s experience.

Yes there are balance issues, but in any given PvP game, there are always balance issues. Anet needs to take care of balance issues faster than they do currently. But balance issues aren’t the reasons why viewership is low.

For me, coming from WoW, the pvp gameplay in gw2 is a dream. I’m just happy that I’m not pressing keys in an extremely predictable order whilst standing still 99% of the time while others are jumping around pretending mobility matters.

I can definitely see where you’re coming from but you’ll never hear a complaint from me about PvP in this game. It’s all about perspective.

Oh yeah, someone brought up the camera control on tourney streams. I’d really like to see some more free cam so you can absorb the action. I hate when they cycle through players mid action. Kills the sequence of events

Demented Yak.6105:

For me, coming from WoW, the pvp gameplay in gw2 is a dream. I’m just happy that I’m not pressing keys in an extremely predictable order whilst standing still 99% of the time while others are jumping around pretending mobility matters.

I can definitely see where you’re coming from but you’ll never hear a complaint from me about PvP in this game. It’s all about perspective.

Yeah, same here. Played runescape long time ago (I know, shame one me, wished I would have played gw1), and it was so great to feel an active combat-gameplay. Had some trouble at the beginning though. In runescape dodging doesn´t existed and to heal I had to eat fish x)
Guild wars 2 is so much about knowing the game, if you do that you know what happends on the streams, if not, well, I tried to show it a friend —→ he had no idea what was going on. I love it that way, it feels rewarding to learn the mechanics.

No offense but Guild wars has always been and will always be oriented mostly towards PvE …it’s all about the RP and the living story …PvP in GW is simply a fun and casual way to get a break from their PvE …they simply throw players in an arena without truly caring about balance or how they get become a top esport hit… they already are a top PvE hit …That said …I mostly do PvP and I would LOVE to see changes but i,ve come to expect nothing but the truth …Arenas have become a casual activity to waste some time and get your dailies/tracks done …

" For a game to become an e-Sport, it needs to be competitive. This doesn’t just mean that players can take on one another, but that it needs to be set up in such a way that two groups can battle one another in as fair of an environment as possible (fair being everyone having equal opportunity for setups, classes, gear, etc " .)

The key words are Fair,Competitive and Equal Opportunity .

With:
Instant Kill, Anti-Roaming, Anti-Fairness, Anti-Competitive, Anti-Challenge, Anti-Risk+Reward, Anti-Fun, Ant-No Skill-Play, No Learning Curve, No Punishment for making mistakes, No Hard-Work, No Effort, Press#1= Game Over, Power-Creep, Condition Creep, Perma Stealth, 1 Traits/Build= Everything, No-;Low Cool-Down to Powerful Skills, with Stealth= Advantage

Last..

" Being that a lot of the competitive players had lost interest at that point, or weren’t aware of all the changes, yet again, nothing happened "

That is correct!

Same empty words, No serious action to make Guild Wars 2 challenging, Fun, Competitive, with Risk-Reward, Hard-Work, Hard-Effort, with Skill-Play etc…

Do you blame players for refusing to be deceived and to be lied anymore by leaving?

Here is a re-visit to the past of the same old problems we are experiencing 2 years later..

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Spvp-Elementalist-D-D-celestial-needs-nerf/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/The-zerker-meta-and-how-to-change-it

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Ele-strongest-prof-in-the-game-Spvp

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/spvp-mesmer-too-much-damage-for-its-utilty

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Thief-combat-mobility-is-too-much

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/sPvP-Thieves-gameplay-concerns-possible-solutions-merged/page/14#post4252542

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Warrior-s-Mobility-as-heavy-armor-class

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/GW2-Combat-Offensive-Defensive-Game-Play

" Tuth about GW2 & Esports "

" Can Guild Wars 2 Make it Into e-Sports? "

Not at all!!

That is all.

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2015-09-15/can_guild_wars_2_make_it_into_e_sports.shtml

kitten balance and esport don’t go together

The deckbuilding aspect was fun at release but now we can clearly see there’s 1-2 build per class and some class are clearly better than others.
So actually the team with the most mesmer/ele wins automatically.

Daharahj.1325:

You make a really good point on lack of healers ruining a big aspect of pvp, you either go full damage and burst someone down in seconds, or go full sustain and win due to attrition; there’s no middle ground. Dedicated healers are there to keep both these issues in check.

I also agree with @raxx.8914 wholeheartedly, there’sa lot of room for improvement regarding clarity.

The major problem with having dedicated healers is they prolong the fight, sometimes even too much. The healer is obviously a top priority as a target. Using Silverwaste as an example you’d much rather go after cheapo teagarrifs or trolls first, teagarrifs have an OP charge where if you dodge back you’ll get hit, but if you dodge forward you’ll land in a damage field, move your mouse in a direction then dodge and your back is to the thing. If you hit the thing you’ll notice its health regenerating, because three little healer things are there.

Funny to use a PvE example for PvP, but the principle is the same. Healers simply mess up the kill priority due to their ability to keep players alive, so you can’t focus on the big CC and condition people or those with cheap abilities other than the guy able to bring someone to full health just yet.

Shoutbow BunkerGuard (somehow)Ele(got traits to boost healing)
No healers in gw2?

Also ofc Gw2 gonna fail in esports, it ALWAYS TAKE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH TIME to fix things, i remember i got fix on heartseeker and Lightning Rush like 1 year after relase(before even on not moving enemy HS would miss 2out of 3 attacks and LR would get stuck in the floor) Its fun seeing Anet denial of “ele is op” when they had to BAN MORE THAN 2 ELEMENTALISTS per team to not let ppl go full team overskill

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Overskill

GW2 will never be a real esport for the following reasons:

1. Conquest isn’t fun to watch. It really only caters to those who are really familiar with the game mode.
2. A lack of a balance team. How can we still see dd ele so completely OP? How can burn stacking still be so broken? Why are there not tweaks to broken specs as needed? Instead ANET waits, make 50 changes at once and then just breaks everything in a different way. Great for job security. Horrible for balance.
3. Too much AOE. There is minimal positioning required. It is all about spamming AOE. Again, not fun to watch.

I disagree with alot of what your saying,

1- the healer
Staff ele-shout bow and shout guardian are these healers. Teams are literally running a zerk class next to a healer/support class to run together. So your mistaken about that.

2-class fundamentals
If you watch the Ag tourneys and see the winner of that and watch them go to the Esl, can you tell me why most of them get smashed. You have alot of players running the exact same builds and team comp yet 1 team wins b2b 500-200 and your gonna try and say this is not skill based?

I agree there are alot of passives in the game that are truly a pain such as vamp rune but for you to say this game is not skill based but build based it completely untrue.

Lastly saying dmg is too high is wrong simply cause bunkers would be too strong otherwise and the first meta of this game was bunker wars. The skills of all these animations and crazy effects you mentioned has a player saying/doing a certain action. You literally can listen to things happening and point out who has 10% health left and certain utility skills being used. Obviously there is a lack of build diversity and certain classes are at a unfair advantage but overall your comments are not correct.

News flash: Gw2 doesn’t need to be e-sport to thrive. Spvp is just a bonus. Gw2 offer a lot to many types of player base, esp its pve.

• Add 2v2 + 3v3 arenas!
• Instant esports!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Doon.2364:

News flash: Gw2 doesn’t need to be e-sport to thrive. Spvp is just a bonus. Gw2 offer a lot to many types of player base, esp its pve.

News flash: Pve in gw2 is lame.

Necromonger.4970:

Doon.2364:

News flash: Gw2 doesn’t need to be e-sport to thrive. Spvp is just a bonus. Gw2 offer a lot to many types of player base, esp its pve.

News flash: Pve in gw2 is lame.

Much better than spvp. Only thing is the content is 3 yrs old. It was great when the game was brand new. The few things that were lame was Zhaitan fight and Fractal.

Doon.2364:

Necromonger.4970:

Doon.2364:

News flash: Gw2 doesn’t need to be e-sport to thrive. Spvp is just a bonus. Gw2 offer a lot to many types of player base, esp its pve.

News flash: Pve in gw2 is lame.

Much better than spvp. Only thing is the content is 3 yrs old. It was great when the game was brand new. The few things that were lame was Zhaitan fight and Fractal.

Fractals is the only really enjoyable PvE content. If you say that fractals is lame while kittening the poor svanir shaman in wayfarer’s is great, then something is wrong.

I think GW2 could benefit from a spectator like GW1 with a more top down view of the fights. Being that there’s a lot of horizontal movement in this game it should make things a lot clearer. Top-down with less sporadic camera movement.

Doon.2364:

News flash: Gw2 doesn’t need to be e-sport to thrive. Spvp is just a bonus. Gw2 offer a lot to many types of player base, esp its pve.

Wrong forum. People here actually want a focus on PvP.

Strictly without touching balance issues which are a whole other level, ESports practically requires viewers to understand what is going on.

That’s a big problem, there’s a lot of action going on without proper explanation. Shoutcasters have to put out a massive amount of information in just a short amount of time. And most of that information goes straight over viewers heads.

Here are my thoughts strictly towards helping viewers both new and old have a better experience watching those GW2 tournaments live:

- Intermissions need to be filled in with not just player interviews or speculation, but perhaps 10 second clips of profession skills and animations such as what we see in Elite Specialization showcases. Showing off something like Swirling Winds and what it does ever briefly will allow even the newest of viewers to nod their heads in understanding. That way, when you see it in action and used well, there’s a better appreciation for it.

- We need replays of key points during a matchup, if possible. Show off things that might have happened off screen, make the clips and highlight with circles and lines why the amazing play went down as it did. Show off those pro stomps and explain what impact that had in the match!

Making progressive changes towards explaining SPvP will increase the viewership. Even if things are not quite balanced yet, at the very least things won’t be utter confusion for the players. In fact, after balance patches perhaps the shoutcasters could reference what changes shifted the builds around just before the match starts.

One can predict the future by looking at the past.
3 years of PvP have passed. We can very easy see what balance will be like in future.
In the end nobody forces us to consume this product.

That’s why I play fighting games if I want something competitive.

Acrisor.8097:

One can predict the future by looking at the past.
3 years of PvP have passed. We can very easy see what balance will be like in future.
In the end nobody forces us to consume this product.

This is actually true. People here choose to play an unbalanced game. Yeah, there is potential, but until ANET hires a balance team it won’t matter.

back to the rooots:

gw2 is nice, shiny, fun and all, but spvp is very little to non existent compared to the volume of other (pve, wvw, roleplay, brony, transgender expressionism, omnisexual domination) content. dont get me wrong i love them all equally, but the petty spvp part needs more attention.

my solution:

kickstart a project for gw1 technology (or main idea, licence, pvp only), repolished, modernized (with jumping!) f2p or b2p wahtever you guys want.
should include: 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 and 8v8 different arena/tournament/ladders and modes
half gw1 (pvp focus) half gw2 (dynamic combat) and here it comes: actual organised competitive guild versus guild mode. ofc it would have the best replay/view game observer mode ever from gw1
not sure about healers though, even though i was the best red bar prot ever, it was annoying to find a useful counterpart aka red bar infuse… skill gap was too high maybe.

Agemnon.4608:

Daharahj.1325:

You make a really good point on lack of healers ruining a big aspect of pvp, you either go full damage and burst someone down in seconds, or go full sustain and win due to attrition; there’s no middle ground. Dedicated healers are there to keep both these issues in check.

I also agree with @raxx.8914 wholeheartedly, there’sa lot of room for improvement regarding clarity.

The major problem with having dedicated healers is they prolong the fight, sometimes even too much. The healer is obviously a top priority as a target. Using Silverwaste as an example you’d much rather go after cheapo teagarrifs or trolls first, teagarrifs have an OP charge where if you dodge back you’ll get hit, but if you dodge forward you’ll land in a damage field, move your mouse in a direction then dodge and your back is to the thing. If you hit the thing you’ll notice its health regenerating, because three little healer things are there.

Funny to use a PvE example for PvP, but the principle is the same. Healers simply mess up the kill priority due to their ability to keep players alive, so you can’t focus on the big CC and condition people or those with cheap abilities other than the guy able to bring someone to full health just yet.

I agree to me dedicated healers belong in PvE, what pvp needs is a boost in healing support and more viable support builds but not over buffing it, a good balance in support so cannon builds can feel the synchronization similar to what you see in mobas for example, also adding or buffing the healing elites. At the end you can play as support but still be killable not like the type of healers you see in WoW or other mmos.

Look, I like “esports” kitten within reason, but I wonder when the kitten people started thinking that games need to be easy to watch or whatever, hell, I’m playing this game to play it, sacrificing mechanical fun so that someone who doesn’t even plays the game has an easier time watching it is something I can’t really grasp, why do people think this is a good idea? Are you so desperate to be like actual sports that you must have the bullkitten too? I know! We should have Coca-Cola stickers on our armor skins!

Speaking from a 5v5 pvp point of view, you kinda get used to all the particle effects and even though gameplay might appear chaotic, it is actually pretty skill based. Its frantic and fun in a way you can’t have with slower games. What we need are different game modes other than horrid conquest, playing “Summoner’s Rift” with GW2 characters and gameplay would be incredibly fun, maybe Stronghold will help?