Guild Wars 2

Khalisto.5780:

GW2 will never be an Esports, better mmos will be released and 80% of the community will move to those mmos.

Sure we start to play some old bad p2w korea grinder.

Khalisto.5780:

GW2 will never be an Esports, better mmos will be released and 80% of the community will move to those mmos.

Yeah like Wildstar for example is so much better than GW2 in every way, when it comes out GW2 will die.

Oh wait…

Well Archage is so much better than GW2 when it comes out noone in their right mind would continue playing GW2 any longer the game is already practically dead.

Oh wait…

Well when B&S comes out there is no chance GW2 survives because everyone would be playing that amazing, action packed PvP game instead.

You get the idea.

thanks steve, that was pretty enlightening. always nice to see more of anet posting here.

unfortunately what i got out of it is that i think i wanna mostly avoid your touch because youre marketing

TBH, I find the balance in this game pretty good, better than starcraft 2 which receives way more frequent balance updates. However, more frequent small balance tweaks are definitely needed to fix some most obvious problems. e.g. midair immob

I’m 99% sure that ship has sailed and it would essentially take a re-launch that’d kitten off a bunch of the remaining player base if they did it.

A big part of it is the structure. Things like ‘completely separate PvP mode!’ appeal to the die-hard MMO PvP community, but not to the mass community. Making it easy to drop in and play, with a strong progressive reward structure, are crucial to building a community that can sustain an esport. A.Net didn’t fail in this regard – they didn’t even try. Their game had essentially no chance at launch, owing entirely to the structure of PvP in their game. If it’s not set up to attract players, how can you hope to develop to the point of being an esport?

Things like balance are a secondary concern. Of course it would be good to actually see A.Net be responsive to balance at all. I understand it to be more a product of a staggeringly ineffective structure than not having the manpower; still, in an industry characterized by weekly or bimonthly patch cycles, a game characterized by biannual balance patch cycles is laughably unresponsive.

Short version: their initial design and structure was going to make it nigh-impossible to create an esports-level infrastructure, and neglecting to do much of the relevant post-launch development work for close to 3 years isn’t going to overcome that initial deficiency.

Junkpile.7439:

Khalisto.5780:

GW2 will never be an Esports, better mmos will be released and 80% of the community will move to those mmos.

Sure we start to play some old bad p2w korea grinder.

Not a korean, but japanese, and guess what, it’s not p2w and already bigger than gw2, and it was the only good mmo released after gw2, as ESO was bug fest and archeage p2w.

Keep talking about grind, when HoT is out you’ll have to grind the new skills, as they said those will be required to beat the new content, yeah, better than grind bigger number, but still a grind.

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

From the video: Addon Launch “this summer”.

I think I fall into the competitive-casual / core category. Biggest problem I’m currently having: Nothing to play for on a daily base (was only mentioned in the video for the hardcore-pvper).

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

Steve

Thanks for confirming HoT will release in the summer ^^.

I wouldn’t read too much into this. In that we’ll announce a date when there is a date to announce.

Follow-up from Devon. http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/38426o/steve_fowler_in_building_a_competitive_game/crs4jfl

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

Steve

1:20, Josh turns his back to the audience and stares at the ceiling. LMAO. He’s like can I BE ANYMORE BORED.

There needs to be more accessible ways for casual players I guess like myself to become competitive in-game. not so much the leader boards but more so a tier system that I can earn my way up to so I’m at least in the same bracket as competitive players and can then be noticed or even thought about when looking for a competitive team. Right now, I am not even on the leader boards and who is to say that is what dictates my skill?

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

Steve

I looked at your obstacles section, do you guys not have enough people?

• Who is your PvE team?
• Who is your dungeon team?
• Who is your combat team?
• Who is your WvW team?
• Who is your PvP team?
• Who is your material (crafting, items, gemstore) team?
• Who is your community team?

If you have a big game, you have many teams to carter to all players, right?

_

If the community doesn’t identify that the game is eports, why offer real money? Guild Wars 2 is NOT an Esport game, trying to treat it like so is wasteful.
Why not just give gems?

_

Above all, you need to resurrect your PvP player base. That should be #1 on your list, at least, I thought…
Seems like #1 on your list should be development teams :\

Puck.1509:

There needs to be more accessible ways for casual players I guess like myself to become competitive in-game. not so much the leader boards but more so a tier system that I can earn my way up to so I’m at least in the same bracket as competitive players and can then be noticed or even thought about when looking for a competitive team. Right now, I am not even on the leader boards and who is to say that is what dictates my skill?

Their concept of ranked is kinda weird, when i first started pvping, i thought ranked matches would put ppl of same rank together (that’s how it works on dota 2, and i believe any other Esport, that has ranked matches), but i remember when i was rank 3, i got a teammate rank 69, and all matches were like that till i left ranked.

Not a single mention about balance and build diversification.
Ok.

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

Steve

Steve said something along the lines of, “it would be a natural if this game was esports, but it’s not in comparison to LoL, Dota 2, and CSGO.”

This is because Anet has intentionally omitted from GW2 key mechanics in infrastructure of these esports games, the infrastructure that makes these games, and any game, competitive! There’s no leaderboards (no good ones anyway), no ranks to display, no incentive to get better, no leagues to compete in, the list goes on! Anet has purposefully left all of these things out because of fear of badmouthing and griefing, which a lot of people do anyway! I’m sorry but when you have an idea for a game, you should build for that idea! Sure you take the necessary steps to limit the trolling that goes on on the internet, but leaving it out entirely, well what has that route accomplished for GW2? Absolutely nothing! We have all of the negatives, and none of the good stuff! Either that or Anet states that they are working on these things and then years down the road there’s still nothing! Anet refuses to comment on any progress and we are left in the dark wondering to ourselves, “What the heck are we doing still playing this game!”

Anyone can clearly see that the competitive scene in GW2 is extremely small and stagnant! On NA, there is only one team! On EU there’s 2, maybe 3 teams! So essentially there’s only 3-4 teams in the entire world that can compete with one another! That’s extremely tiny! What’s more is that the people that make up these teams are veterans! They’ve been here since or near the beginning of this game’s history! These guys are devoted and all other possible competitive players have moved on to greener pastures! Where are the new players! What’s Anet doing to increase the population of its PvP scene!

Incentive is one of the things that brings more people into playing PvP! People need incentive to want to get better! One way of doing this is a visible MMR system that these esports games have! In CSGO, your MMR is calculated by a rank displayed next to your name! In Dota2, your MMR is visible as a number! The drive to get better and improve MMR keeps competitive people playing! Stop being afraid of people badmouthing other players because of what rank they are or what league they’re in and give us these features! Your solution of preventing these kinds of trolling isn’t a solution at all!

Accessibility is another way of getting new people in! The combat system in this game I believe is phenomenal! A free trial is a great way to get people to experience it firsthand! If you look at other MMOs, the most popular one is World of Warcraft! They have free accounts that are heavily restricted, but allow people to play the actual game! How many people have purchased WoW because of this method I wonder!

Grouch mentioned that the League of Legend map is the only map they play for esports! Yes this is accurate, but the map has been developed for literally over a decade! It’s stood the test of time and passed! Meanwhile GW2 conquest has not stood the test of time! GW2 has been out for 3 years now and conquest has been an absolute failure in terms of esports for reasons that I’ve already mentioned! Clearly a new game mode is needed! People have suggested arenas, capture the flag, deathmatch, etc! When it comes to MMO esports, only arenas have been played on a grand stage! Why purposefully omit a tried and true competitive game mode from GW2?

Also, these competitive games that you listed have multiple game modes! In addition to their standard 5v5 Summoner’s Rift map, League of Legends has point capture maps, 3v3, 6v6, and more! In addition to the standard competitive bomb defusal maps, CSGO has deathmatch, arms race, warcraft mods, zombie mods, the list goes on and on and on! The fact that GW2 has purposefully made it so there’s only one game mode and try to justify it with LoL’s decade long tried and true map is just foolish!

And that brings me to Stronghold! Ok so the 2 of the most popular esports games are MOBAs so you guys want to make a MOBA style map! I get it! But you guys seem to have forgotten that GW2 is not a MOBA and you’ve incorporated none of the aspects that make MOBAs skillfull and competitive and instead have just copied a simplified version of their map layout! Furthermore you advertised it in an article that described the map as along the lines of, “You don’t even have to be good at the game to play it!” What part of that is esports? I predict this map will perform well on release since it’s the first additional game mode since launch, but will quickly fade out and won’t even be remotely “esports”!

I had more to say but I forgot so we’ll just leave it at that! Wahoo! Bye frands!

I think that is too specific for the bullet points they presented. Balance is inherent to their goals and is an ongoing consistent process. The game is quite well balanced i’d say. Build diversification hmm perhaps, but I mean with META you’re always going to have a few top tier builds that will compete as opposed to the multiple you can choose from. Also you have Heart of Thorns coming out with a new trait system and class so I’m sure its automatic to assume balance will be incorporated.

I didn’t watch much of that video… all I can really say is that until we get this disaster of a leaderboard fixed, Arenanet shouldn’t be giving any lectures on how to build a competitive community.

Grouch, and whoever else works with him, has done a good job creating tournament and events, but that’s the only decent thing happening in the PvP community right now.

Edit: Vee Wee also posted very eloquently the things I’m too lazy/depressed to point out at this point.

Guys that video is Anet flying a white flag saying they’re never going to be an esport like companies that actually invest into it. They’re clearly stating that GW2 is and will continue to be about PvE and “the Living World” which is a marketing gimmick more than anything.

Furthermore they’re admitting publicly that they are not getting anywhere near the resources necessary to get their PvP to the kind of level they want to approach esports.

They want to get you to spend more money on PvP, attract more casuals, and give hardcore players something to keep their minds off of the better options out there…

Basically nothing is going to dramatically improve any time soon. Stronghold is their hail mary, which isn’t going to work either because, like with everything else in a game with no defined roles, the players will trivialize the challenge of the content with a standardized meta that will be static rather than dynamic.

As innovative as GW2 is in its combat system, Anet is utterly oblivious to why their competitive area doesn’t work – there has to be defined roles that players have to master, rather than mastering the character building system that ends up trivializing the “choices” that end up just being a pyramid made of dog crap with a golden nugget on top.

Without some kind of trinity system or even just the healer-everything else role division that existed in GW1, the players are just going to centralize all the builds into super builds that defeat the purpose of an “open-ended” system.

Anyway, back to playing a superior MMO and letting you guys chew on the reality of the situation XD

ellesee.8297:

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

Steve

Steve said something along the lines of, “it would be a natural if this game was esports, but it’s not in comparison to LoL, Dota 2, and CSGO.”

This is because Anet has intentionally omitted from GW2 key mechanics in infrastructure of these esports games, the infrastructure that makes these games, and any game, competitive! There’s no leaderboards (no good ones anyway), no ranks to display, no incentive to get better, no leagues to compete in, the list goes on! Anet has purposefully left all of these things out because of fear of badmouthing and griefing, which a lot of people do anyway! I’m sorry but when you have an idea for a game, you should build for that idea! Sure you take the necessary steps to limit the trolling that goes on on the internet, but leaving it out entirely, well what has that route accomplished for GW2? Absolutely nothing! We have all of the negatives, and none of the good stuff! Either that or Anet states that they are working on these things and then years down the road there’s still nothing! Anet refuses to comment on any progress and we are left in the dark wondering to ourselves, “What the heck are we doing still playing this game!”

I had more to say but I forgot so we’ll just leave it at that! Wahoo! Bye frands!

I like that, aggressive but fair and somewhat accurate. I would love to hear a developer on this post alone. That is all I need, no vague idea of what they want but a good long message underlying the problems that this game faces and that players truly want. Take a plunge Arena net, this is a revolution. Change must happen and start by replying to this post!
All the best!

I can see the spikes of population , when they realease of Legacy of the Foefire and Skyhammer , but for some reason i cant find the Countryard

OH HAIL LORD HELSETH !!!
YOUR MAGNIFICENT WILL BE WELL KNOW FOREVER !

:P

Alexander.9810:

Anyway, back to playing a superior MMO and letting you guys chew on the reality of the situation XD

My friend I tried and played FFIV and I although I have a love for it, I got bored. Skill was not primary, it was just a memory PvE game, you memorise the strategies the boss uses and communicate it as fast as possible with the team while keeping up META rotations with each class. There was no diversity, it was just DPS doing a rotation as best he could, healer keeping everyone alive and a tank keeping an emnity/damage rotation, all based on gear from dungeons after dungeons… Visually impressive, not AS much as this game though and… solid mechanics but not much skill or build diversity at all. It is a PvE game, and you’re talking in a PvP forum.

Build diversity is the single most deceptive word in MMOs right now. It simply doesn’t exist. If there’s any MMO where build diversity SHOULD exist it’s GW2 and there is none. Why? Because players just play what works the best. That’s why there are maybe 10 total builds people will play in GW2 PvP when there are MILLIONS of possible combinations.

GW2 is a PvE game too, except about 1/4 of the quality of FFXIV. There is also a considerable amount of effort going into improving Wolves’ Den, which is Arena PvP.

A quote from a Famitsu interview:

“Patch 3.1 and 3.2 will see improvements to the Wolves Den system. First, 3.1 will add matching based on points/rating. But there are bigger plans as well, such as season-based ranking that resets with each major patch. The highest ranked players will get special titles and items. Wants to end up with a similar system to LoL. This would probably be in patch 3.2.”

Now here’s the critical difference between when Yoshi P and FFXIV say they’re going to do something and GW2 – when Yoshi P says he’s going to do something it gets done. Arenanet makes promises and doesn’t deliver upon them. This is the “Honest Trailer” motto of GW2 – we talk big, and we deliver small.

Furthermore the class overhaul coming in HW opens up a large number of options that make PvP to be more of a thing, particularly for how Tanks play. Instead of being stuck with PvE specific cooldowns centered around threat generation, Tanks can build to be just like a DPS, which has synergy with PvP more because threat doesn’t exist.

The infrastructure is actually already there for FFXIV to make elite PvP, but, like any big MMO, there are other priorities that come first. But since FFXIV is absolutely swimming in cash and, more importantly, decides how it will spend it (unlike slave developers working for big publishers) this kind of PvP overhaul is possible.

Yes I’ll admit that FFXIV is currently a PvE only deal. But as incredible as FFXIV ARR has been in 2 years, it was just exposition. This is the “WoW Killer” and PvP will be objectively superior to GW2’s by the end of the year.

After hearing him say it himself with buying the game being a barrier, I really believe launching a f2p PVP-only mode with a better MMR system and tutorial would be amazing for the PVP community’s growth. And even potentially money when increasing investment toward a game could lead to more gem sales from more players and potential box sales that would have otherwise been completely ignored. GW2 has such a unique position to offer such a system as their PVP already doesn’t require leveling or gearing up, I think it’s something they should consider.

Alexander.9810:

Yes I’ll admit that FFXIV is currently a PvE only deal. But as incredible as FFXIV ARR has been in 2 years, it was just exposition. This is the “WoW Killer” and PvP will be objectively superior to GW2’s by the end of the year.

I hope your wish will come true. The thing is (and being a very recent forum user, it is possible that you would not know), these last years have been filled with promising new games that were going to supplant GW2’s pvp: ESO, ArchAge, etc. In the end, they fell short, and GW2 is still regarded as a standard of the genre.

It could happen, but I have started to question these messianic thoughts.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

OH HAIL LORD HELSETH !!!
YOUR MAGNIFICENce WILL BE WELL KNOWn FOREVER !

I can’t stress how much these three things hurt PvP

Limited builds
Perma stealth
Too much CC
Visual pollution

Relentliss.2170:

I can’t stress how much these three things hurt PvP

Limited builds
Perma stealth
Too much CC
Visual pollution

There are three kind of people on the pvp sub forum:

Those who can count
Those who can’t

1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 arenas for ranked or for fun would be game breaking for the pvp scene. Just look at WoW’s pvp population. And it’s combat is kitten.

Alexander.9810:

Build diversity is the single most deceptive word in MMOs right now. It simply doesn’t exist. If there’s any MMO where build diversity SHOULD exist it’s GW2 and there is none. Why? Because players just play what works the best. That’s why there are maybe 10 total builds people will play in GW2 PvP when there are MILLIONS of possible combinations.

GW2 is a PvE game too, except about 1/4 of the quality of FFXIV. There is also a considerable amount of effort going into improving Wolves’ Den, which is Arena PvP.

A quote from a Famitsu interview:

“Patch 3.1 and 3.2 will see improvements to the Wolves Den system. First, 3.1 will add matching based on points/rating. But there are bigger plans as well, such as season-based ranking that resets with each major patch. The highest ranked players will get special titles and items. Wants to end up with a similar system to LoL. This would probably be in patch 3.2.”

Now here’s the critical difference between when Yoshi P and FFXIV say they’re going to do something and GW2 – when Yoshi P says he’s going to do something it gets done. Arenanet makes promises and doesn’t deliver upon them. This is the “Honest Trailer” motto of GW2 – we talk big, and we deliver small.

Furthermore the class overhaul coming in HW opens up a large number of options that make PvP to be more of a thing, particularly for how Tanks play. Instead of being stuck with PvE specific cooldowns centered around threat generation, Tanks can build to be just like a DPS, which has synergy with PvP more because threat doesn’t exist.

The infrastructure is actually already there for FFXIV to make elite PvP, but, like any big MMO, there are other priorities that come first. But since FFXIV is absolutely swimming in cash and, more importantly, decides how it will spend it (unlike slave developers working for big publishers) this kind of PvP overhaul is possible.

Yes I’ll admit that FFXIV is currently a PvE only deal. But as incredible as FFXIV ARR has been in 2 years, it was just exposition. This is the “WoW Killer” and PvP will be objectively superior to GW2’s by the end of the year.

You know what I can’t fault you on is the developer’s updates. They are adamant on making the game fresh and consistent. They definitely do it better when it comes to updates. However I just prefer this game, I’m more fluid I can make better decisions and play the piano with my keyboard. I am however interested in seeing what FFIV PvP has to offer after HW.
Not sure If I’ll go back to it considering how much I have to make up in content to catch up which is… long. I ain’t got that life anymore which is why I’m a PvPer now. So if they do not offer a PvP system in the same way Guild wars always have an that is a balanced gear system for only PvPers then I will not bother.
This game has Heart of Thorns to impress me if they fail there after 2 months of release I may look elsewhere. I simple do not see them active on this community enough on the PvP side of things anyway. I respect how much they have on their hands with world v world, PvE and PvP so I’ll give them some more time..
and the benefit of the doubt.

Sorel.4870:

Relentliss.2170:

I can’t stress how much these three things hurt PvP

Limited builds
Perma stealth
Too much CC
Visual pollution

There are three kind of people on the pvp sub forum:

Those who can count
Those who can’t

Doh……….

video show nothing new. thx for post though!

what you need:
- free entrace to HotM && pvp (lock trading post & inventory entierly)
- MMR based ladderboards with ingame list and visible MMR.
- automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
- separate PvP and PvE abilityes (like C&D) and traits to make balance easyer.
- PvP balancing/development team who works faster than 6 monts/patch
- pure Solo and pure 5 man que (you can allways find +3 in town if you are with a mate. it even worked in gw1 where you had 8 man teams.)
- forget mobas. GW2 isnt a moba or anything like it. its original its unique. so forget Stronghold. try to focus on less complex objectives like you did in gw1(gj there).
- add free camera to spectator mode so events cant actually streemaed correctly. those viev points are just horrible.
- implement spectator mode. (the option to spectate someone on theyr own vievpoint in like a ranked/unranked game)
- replace/add revard tracks with ones last ~5… 10x the time to complete can differ.<— add meaningful revards (idc can be bunch of laurels/random exotic iteam from a list/skinns like glorious/etc.. you got the idea) this shoud lure more casual ppl into pvp

just some ideas that came @first out of my mind. so as you guessed a lot of things are needed..

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

OH HAIL LORD HELSETH !!!
YOUR MAGNIFICENce WILL BE WELL KNOWn FOREVER !

I am sorry sensei !!!
I will get better , i swear it ! (i will even write it down next to the Maths + History + Religion+ Jeopgraphy+ Science + Biology list memo to improve !)

SimpleKingly.5021:

1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 arenas for ranked or for fun would be game breaking for the pvp scene. Just look at WoW’s pvp population. And it’s combat is kitten.

1v1 arenas would be amazing, and i can see why anet prolly never gonna make it, more qq on forums, about op v1’s builds.

MadVisions.4529:

video show nothing new. thx for post though!

what you need:
- free entrace to HotM && pvp (lock trading post & inventory entierly)
- MMR based ladderboards with ingame list and visible MMR.
- automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
- separate PvP and PvE abilityes (like C&D) and traits to make balance easyer.
- PvP balancing/development team who works faster than 6 monts/patch
- pure Solo and pure 5 man que (you can allways find +3 in town if you are with a mate. it even worked in gw1 where you had 8 man teams.)
- forget mobas. GW2 isnt a moba or anything like it. its original its unique. so forget Stronghold. try to focus on less complex objectives like you did in gw1(gj there).
- add free camera to spectator mode so events cant actually streemaed correctly. those viev points are just horrible.
- implement spectator mode. (the option to spectate someone on theyr own vievpoint in like a ranked/unranked game)
- replace/add revard tracks with ones last ~5… 10x the time to complete can differ.<— add meaningful revards (idc can be bunch of laurels/random exotic iteam from a list/skinns like glorious/etc.. you got the idea) this shoud lure more casual ppl into pvp

just some ideas that came @first out of my mind. so as you guessed a lot of things are needed..

• Free entrance to HotM && pvp (lock trading post & inventory entirely)
  No – Some players enter HotM just for the trading post and bank convenience.
  We want the Mists to be better not worse!

• MMR based ladderboards with ingame list and visible MMR.
  No – Not unless they fix all the Bad that MMR leaderboard had.
  I rather they finish what they started with the current leaderboard until they say it was a failure. I’m optimistic in that their revision could cater to both high MMR players and “grindy” players.
  Yes to some type of Leaderboard plus or minus system you can see in game.

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

• Separate PvP and PvE abilityes (like C&D) and traits to make balance easier.
  Yes/No – Don’t change the actual skills or abilities, only their numbers. Example: Torment in PvE is a lot Stronger on NPC’s than Players in PvP. I bet Burn and Poison stacking in PvP/WvW will be vastly different than PvE Boss fights. They should not be based on the same mechanics at all.

• PvP balancing/development team who works faster than 6 monts/patch
  Yes – 6months/1yr pvp balance or changes is not enough. But to be honest, I rather more resources go towards Rewards and Leaderboards. Things could be changed for sure… but nothing is completely gamebreaking imo.

• Forget mobas. GW2 isnt a moba or anything like it. its original its unique. so forget Stronghold. try to focus on less complex objectives like you did in gw1(gj there).
  Yes – Mobas (or any other game) can be a huge learning curve to figure out what works and what doesn’t. But on many levels, an MMO is vastly different than a Moba. Thankfully ArenaNet realizes that.
  No – I personally like Stronghold and I think it’ll outlast Conquest but we’ll see.

• Feplace/add reward tracks with ones last ~5… 10x the time to complete can differ.<— add meaningful revards (idc can be bunch of laurels/random exotic iteam from a list/skinns like glorious/etc.. you got the idea) this shoud lure more casual ppl into pvp
  Yes – Reward tracks should be more rewarding and take 5x the effort. It was way too easy obtaining all the Glorious armor pieces. Much so that I feel i’m no different than a noobie player. But no doubt, thse reward tracks is great for casuals.

• Yes – Perhaps there should be another PvP oriented objectives we have to achieve (obtaining X amount of kills, stomps, etc) in order to receive X item. Similar to 6 months of farming for a Legendary in PvE. PvP players want that same luxury!! Let us farm Objectives/goals to receive X PvP item!

I like your ideas MadVision, especially in regards to the reward system.

four words:

bring back Heroes’ Ascent

Saiyan.1704:

I like your ideas MadVision, especially in regards to the reward system.

:3

Saiyan.1704:

• Free entrance to HotM && pvp (lock trading post & inventory entirely)
  No – Some players enter HotM just for the trading post and bank convenience.
  We want the Mists to be better not worse!

what do you mean with that? i see no problem with ppl banking there. they dont effect anything beside there are more ppl wo you can chat while forced to wait there in the que.

with the free entry to HotM i meant that ppl can download the sPvP part of the game for free and play it (conquest + stronghold?) w/o any potential to get skins/items/anything that makes you something in FashionWars2 unless they get the full version. its is a dramatic but vaible way to increse the poor playerbase.
ofc this gonna lead to some problems. more trolls. more griefers. more spammers. more toxic community. which can be partly solved by decresing some of the rights of ‘free’ players until they earn a specific rank/play’d x hrs/you got it… (example: they are forced to fight each other until they reach r30 /etc…)

edit:

four words:

bring back Heroes’ Ascent

I REALLY loved that gamemode in gw1 and think it would be really fun in gw2 too. The 6man team (early gw1’s) would fit gw2’s teamsizes too. straight forward gamemodes that are still strategic! shame they left it out from the second game

Saiyan.1704:

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

There used to be Paid Tournaments that required tickets and gave gems as reward. Probably my favourite period of gw2 pvp. Those didn’t really work out though, as only a few teams ever made it past the first round. Everyone else was forced to farm Free Tourneys for tickets.
Having tons of gems was cool, facing same guys all day – a bit boring.

SimpleKingly.5021:

1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 arenas for ranked or for fun would be game breaking for the pvp scene. Just look at WoW’s pvp population. And it’s combat is kitten.

To be honest with you.. Already since MoP wow started to get a lot of hate on a lot of things. (I keep up on a few news about WoW aswell as GW2, and many of the Youtubers, pods etc, really dislike A LOT about WoW!)
Point is. WoW is balanced around PvE. PvP very rarely gets anything except for the new pvp seasons once every.. 6+ months or so? A lot of people bot WoW. Yes they did recently ban 100k but only for 6 months. So either PvP is full of noobs and actual players in PvP now, or its empty and long queues.
The arenas. People sell rating boost! The people on top is the same few teams over and over. Try and watch a streamer doing arena, its the same teams they are up against!
THE REAL POINT IS xD.
WoW PvP is really not a good choise when compareing GW2 sPvP

My humble list of improvements for pvp, even tho I probably belong in the casual statistics for pvp, and actually just waiting for the “Challenging Group Content” to come around is, in no particularly order!:

Leaderboards!: The way LoL does it with the different leagues you go through is a really cool idea. You start somewhere based on how well you did the first 10 matches, and you go from there. At the start of each season you do 10 matches again and it ranks you (I think it takes into consideration your rank/league from the previous season)

Each league can have many players there all within many different 100 man limit leaderboard or so, and you compete against EVERY one from the same league (or above, or below depending in what end of the ladder you are, and MMR) not just “your” leaderboard. A league is made up of 5 leaderboards in the league. You have to get through all of them to advance a league.

When you reach a 100 points on your leaderboard, you then have to win.. I belive its 3/3 matches to reach next leaderboard within the same league. The final leaderboard before you move up a league, you need to win 3/5, 4/5 or 5/5? Some where between the three.

Rewards!: If we had a leaderboard system like the above, or any other (Good ideas flying around the forums) we could get special finishers, which you either unluck forever or reuse the same finishers each season, and you can only use the finisher you earn the previous season, like the border around the player portait in LoL.

New skins each season. If we have 5 leagues, it then means you earn a much more impresive version of that skin if you where in the top league, and a much less awesome, but still similar version for being in the lowest league.

And other rewards ofc, but these are the big sellers for me.
Exslusive skins for being good. Either a permanent or temporarily finisher, based on skill during the season.

Sorry, went on a ramble :s

Looking at the population numbers it seems the pvp is dead since 2012 was a lie.

GW2 will never be an esport until the balance team wakes the hell up and more resources are devoted specifically to pvp. You can not realistically expect a healthy pvp meta/scene to magically appear when we get balance changes maybe twice a year. It’s ludicrous. Conquest, ok good game mode it has potential, but it is not entertaining for people to watch. CTF, Deathmatch all these other potential game modes have been thrown around and so far nothing has come to fruition. Stronghold? Give me a break, you are trying to put a terrible miniature moba inside of an MMO. One Anet finally wakes and smells the coffee and actually implements a system like HA or GvG that GW1 had, then we can talk about esports. Until then, it’s a joke.

Harrier.9380:

Saiyan.1704:

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

There used to be Paid Tournaments that required tickets and gave gems as reward. Probably my favourite period of gw2 pvp. Those didn’t really work out though, as only a few teams ever made it past the first round. Everyone else was forced to farm Free Tourneys for tickets.
Having tons of gems was cool, facing same guys all day – a bit boring.

Oh, I had no idea. Could you buy tickets in game or was this strictly outside the game?

Balance? People don’t have an idea about esports if they think the balance is the one that decides about it xD. You sound so naive by saying that. Or should I make a list of games on espots that are like x10 times more unbalanced then gw2 pvp?

Everything that has to do with esports is about the audience, the amount and the need for it. And the only thing that will make Gw2 pvp to esports is the audience itself, as more people play it, watch it and talk about it, it has more chance to get to the esports.

NOTHING else matters more then that, not even remotely close, especially not balance which is even ok compared to some games on esports.

EDIT:
Maybe balancing the game will get more audience (not even sure about that) and that way it can make it through, but balance itself is not a factor for esports.

Harrier.9380:

Saiyan.1704:

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

There used to be Paid Tournaments that required tickets and gave gems as reward. Probably my favourite period of gw2 pvp. Those didn’t really work out though, as only a few teams ever made it past the first round. Everyone else was forced to farm Free Tourneys for tickets.
Having tons of gems was cool, facing same guys all day – a bit boring.

Good idea, wrong implementation. Really, all they have to do is copy GW1’s infrastructure. 3 times a day there’s an automated tournament with greater rewards.

The problem with GW2 is that its not that friendly of a spectator game, someone that has never played GW2 might look at a warrior going a million miles an hour swapping between weapon sets frantically every 5 seconds and decide this game is too complex.

However as we all know, GW2’s combat system is simplistic as hell, it only looks and plays fast as a pseudo “complexity facade”. To become an esport, casual gamers need to be able to pick out individual actions on obs mode, much like GvG or HA observer mode in GW1, a game that was easily 10x more complex and had a much MUCH higher skill barrier of entry at the highest level of competition.

There’s a reason why more people watch DOTA or LoL vs faster combat paced games like the traditional arcade fighters, they do it because they feel like they can get better and pick up on things by watching the pros, but you can’t do that in a game where by the time they picked out on 1 skill/action, the gameplay has already moved on to the 10th.

Saiyan.1704:

Harrier.9380:

Saiyan.1704:

• Automated tournaments with divisions <— do gem revards.
  Yes – That is if we can buy gems (tickets) for in game tournaments rather than having a third party set Tournaments up. ESL is a big esports site but they’re only really needed for sponsorship and advertisement purposes. I rather receive cash prizes rather than lame gem rewards. Remember, they don’t want to give away Gems because the Store is how they make most of their monies.

There used to be Paid Tournaments that required tickets and gave gems as reward. Probably my favourite period of gw2 pvp. Those didn’t really work out though, as only a few teams ever made it past the first round. Everyone else was forced to farm Free Tourneys for tickets.
Having tons of gems was cool, facing same guys all day – a bit boring.

Oh, I had no idea. Could you buy tickets in game or was this strictly outside the game?

It was all ingame. There were two types of tournamets – Free and Paid. Both required 8 teams (so quite long q’s). For Paids you also had to join as full 5man premade. 1st-2nd place in Free gave you tickets to enter Paid. 1st-2nd place in Paid gave gems + some tickets back. They were avaliable for gems, but barely anyone bought them, choosing to farm Free instead.
Facing same team 10 tourneys in a row in Paid in 2nd-3rd round was really common.

Steve Fowler.1498:

Grouch and I were asked to talk about GW2’s competitive program at a local conference and if your interested you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLslqhBn3PU

Steve

Interesting video thx for sharing.

What would it take for gw2 to go esports?
answer: A lot of more players first & b4 hand.

What would it take? Well probably better servers or more locations for pvp would be a start…. 80 ping is a bit high for twitch/reaction based gameplay.

The game just isn’t impressive visually. Players are just tiny polygons in a sea of glitter and effects… they don’t look or feel like kitten characters going head to head in an nail biting fight to the death fight to the downed state.

Of course the inability to fight 1v2, 2v3, and win is definitely something holding gw2 back as a competitive game… you can never clutch, you can never get lucky, you can never out-skill opponents by enough.

In 8 months when HoT is released and reasonably balanced maybe we can look at leagues and whatnot again.

I think with a free PvP client, there will be more players