Guild Wars 2

Hello ArenaNet,

I’ve been enjoying GW2’s PvP for a long time, and have become increasingly perplexed about it. I thought I’d share some questions below. I understand that you might not have answers, but I would appreciate any kind of response.

What is the current size of the PvP community? I could be wrong, but I have the feeling it is smaller than what people believe:

• I’m pretty sure the matchmaking algorithm, having been refined so many times, must be good. It being reported as not working efficiently can therefore been interpreted as follows: the current players’ base is too small to have it functioning to its full power?
• I’m a polyphasic sleeper, and have been playing a bit these nights, mainly hotjoins. I don’t remember seeing more than 3-4 full servers, thus around 40 active players (so probably 100-150 including other arenas)? Would you mind sharing figures about actual attendance?

What’s your vision for PvP? You have introduced a new game mode, Team Death Match, but have not pushed it ahead, to the point that it’s currently nearly impossible to play, should someone want to try. You’ve presented a working version of Stronghold, yet not made it playable. Players have mentioned many possible game modes, some originating from the first Guild Wars, some apparently not difficult to set up (2v2, 3v3), yet you’ve not given much feedback on these suggestions. You’ve tried to revitalize the community, by bringing new players with profession dailies, yet have taken no additional step to retain them?

What investments have you been doing to sustain your vision? World tournaments are great, and seem to indicate an aspiration to professional gaming. Yet, you haven’t generalized the Spectate feature, which could bring a sensible revenue if implemented in a pay-per-view manner (I wouldn’t mind paying silvers/gold, and possibly some monthly fee, to watch quality ranked matches, or to follow known players, using the game client for a better watching experience).

If you don’t share your agenda, it’s a bit hard for players to help further advance it. I believe that you have eventually decided PvP had no potential for business, and have allocated minimum resources to perform basic maintenance, no more. I could naturally respect that decision, but would at least want to know whether this is your actual decision.

Thank you for reading, thank you for your efforts so far (which have not gone unnoticed), and kind regards.

I can try to answer one of your question. Yes, the pvp community is pretty small, which is the main reason why the match-making algorithm is not working that well.

In december, during the first test season, I started around 94% on the LB, and climbed up to the top 1000. During this progression, I’ve been at 95%, but never at 96%. We therefore deduce that the top 4% of the LB represented 1000 players. So the total number of players who participated to the first test season in December is around 25’000.

It is quite small considering the broad number of parameters the MM system considers. So in the current state, it’s not unusual to get either profession stacking, unbalance, or premade stacking. However, I have the (maybe misguided) feeling that we’ve seen an significant number of new players getting into pvp since the HoT announcement. It’s annoying when they are on your team, but if I’m right this gives hope for the future.

In the mean time, let’s try our best to motivate PvE or WvW players to play with us. Which means first of all keeping your cool when you get inexperienced players on your team. That and hope that Anet shares our goal.

I can bring my answers here based on what ANet is doing.

The lack of players on hot-join during late nights doesn’t necessarily mean a lot. There will be a lot more playing actual Queues, both Ranked and Unranked (of course there won’t be a lot there either, but we don’t know, as you said, the numbers). Remember that hot-joins are arenas for practising, testing builds, doing dailies due to its fast nature, et cetera.

Regarding their vision, I think that they are focusing right now in making Stronghold a unique, special sPvP game mode. And on the Leaderboards too, I don’t think they will leave this point system as the final product and they are testing (remember we are still in Test Seasons) this to make the system work the better possible and then, build something bigger around it.

The TDM mode that is Courtyard… well. It can be done better, but right now I think they don’t want to introduce a separate queue for just one map and they don’t want (currently, future is TBD) to spend a lot of resources into making more maps for 2vs2 or 3vs3 Arenas (or even 5vs5 like Courtyard is, of course).

Oh man, and some spectator changes are needed as you said. Making it so you pay to see some matches live from your PC (if that’s what you meant) is not the right way to do it. Can’t say anything here, I haven’t think of suggestions myself for now.

Definitely, something like a public roadmap with the highest priority objectives for sPvP would be nice, although we won’t get it, at least anytime soon.

And as Sorel.4870 said, let’s try and attract as much players as possible, so sPvP grows!

In my opinion, the lack of interest in PVP is because exposure is too limited and the process is uninviting. I’m a fairly new player, so here is what bothers me about the PVP scene in Guild Wars 2.

How you get into sPVP:

1. You have to go in a designated area, which interrupts your leveling/grinding, puzzling, etc.

2. You have to choose between ranked or unranked, I have no idea what the difference is, other than “a leaderboard”, which I don’t think you can see in-game.
I can live with this, whatever, just mentioning it.

3. The map you play is almost random. I don’t like certain maps, I like others very much. Choice is nice, and I get there aren’t enough players to run all maps at the same time with low queue time, but I’d like the choice of running a map I like and actively being able to get better at that map.

As in, Today I want to get super good at Skyhammer. But I don’t want to join an arena made by someone else where my rewards are halved(I think?), it feels unfair.

4. You have to wait(which is expected, waiting is normal, but…), in an area with little to do.
The social hub aspect is not so social, all I hear on the PVP hub chat are genital jokes and gold selling. I’d rather go gather some potatoes.

The Rewards:

They’re PVE rewards, I can get them in a dungeon. This is the biggest bad aspect of PVP. It kills incentive to PVP longterm for most players.

The exposure:

There is no PVP whatsoever in the game unless you go to a designated area.
I met older players with multiple 80 characters, that never did PVP, but they liked it very much when I asked them to join.

As GW2 is not new, I’m guessing Dueling has been mentioned and discussed before. But Dueling is one PVP aspect that greatly increases the base skill level of player since day one of playing!
Most people like to do stuff they know more about and can learn with small steps rather than being pushed in the deep end.

Being pushed to level 80 is not a baby step. You get all those abilities to try and experiment at once, with only lifeless mobs to practice on. You need to actively pursue the goal of dueling, it’s not easy to do this when you start playing.

Any serious PVP scene needs dueling. It sets the pace and expectations for a new player, and allows them to build confidence in their abilities and characters OVER TIME.

Imagine how much it sucks when you get pummeled by 3 people, but that’s acceptable. But it’s not so acceptable when a single player destroys you, you have no idea what he did, you have no way to reproduce the scenario, you will most likely never reproduce the scenario.
This creates a long learning curve, with mostly bad experiences.

Apologies to the OP if this seems to derail the subject, but I am also very confused by the PVP in this game. It has all the parts for success, but it lacks the workflow.
They should start by funneling more people into pvp, and making it accessible from outside of the PVP hub.