Guild Wars 2

First: I’m not a PvPer, I mostly just do it for the achievement points. I don’t mind it, but as I’m about to explain, I’m kind of frustrated and I’m looking for guidance.

So about 3 months ago I started doing SPvP on a daily basis to get more achievement points. I’d say I’m pretty average; I understand the maps and their mechanics and I can strategize quite well, but my execution is lacking since I’ve always been a PvE player and have very little experience fighting other players. After a little while, I started noticing some problems with the standard (hotjoin I guess) PvP crowd. I would usually do 3 or 4 rounds to get my daily done, and it quickly became apparent that pretty much everyone else was there for the same reason. This isn’t a problem at all. The problem is that nobody really seems to care about even putting up a fight. Virtually every match is a blowout, with one side getting 500 points and the other getting 200 or less, and often under 100. Some would say “who cares as long as you win,” but I’m the sort who would rather have a decent challenge while getting my daily done. People ignore map mechanics (I rarely see people try to take the Skyhammer lazer after the start of the round, use the commune points in Temple of the Silent Storm, or use the cannon in Raid on the Capricorn, despite their importance to winning—heck, I’ve seen whole teams completely ignore wide-open bases in Legacy of the Foefire). They even admit in map chat that nobody cares in the least about these things.

On the other hand, I’m not a hardcore PvPer by any means. I only do it for the daily, and I don’t see why I should start doing tournaments when I’m not that invested in PvP and will never be a competitive PvPer. All I ask is a decent challenge while doing my daily. I’d gladly lose—even routinely—to a good and evenly matched opponent rather than win against an apathetic or just plain bad one. Is there a game mode for me? Am I overlooking something?

Hot-join is a complete disaster, sorry. We have been asking for removal of hotjoin or atleast changes to it and we shall nver receive. It’s part of the reason no one starts playing pvp anymore, there is no place to learn.

Join a solo queue arena! The super-casual nature of hotjoin means that relatively few players even stay for an entire round. Those that do certainly aren’t thinking about the score, they’re just looking to see some big numbers pop up after they use a skill.

Solo arenas are pretty new, so they still have a couple of issues to work out, but they’re still the best thing that has happened to PvP. Every match is rated so your matchmaking level will rise or fall as you play. You don’t have to be super competitive. You’ll have to wait a few minutes for the matchmaker to form two teams of similar rating, but it’s worth it. Plus you can join a queue from anywhere in PvE, so you don’t have to wait for anything.

you could try soloqueue, even if you bomb the leaderboards at least you’d be having fun eh?

Start doing some solo queues as your dailies. Issues you brought up will still happen but a lot less.

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I had thought that solo queues were for 1v1 or something. I understand now that it’s a team vs. team format, but what makes it different from hotjoin?

Equinox.4968:

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I had thought that solo queues were for 1v1 or something. I understand now that it’s a team vs. team format, but what makes it different from hotjoin?

People take the objectives seriously because it’s a rated format and you get larger rewards for winning (tournament chest+ extra glory).

Arachnid.4062:

Equinox.4968:

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I had thought that solo queues were for 1v1 or something. I understand now that it’s a team vs. team format, but what makes it different from hotjoin?

People take the objectives seriously because it’s a rated format and you get larger rewards for winning (tournament chest+ extra glory).

Does it count as a tournament for achievement purposes? If not that’s fine, but if so then I’ll definitely be doing them from now on

Yep, it does They are very fun as long as you don’t take your rating seriously and play to enjoy the game

Equinox.4968:

Does it count as a tournament for achievement purposes? If not that’s fine, but if so then I’ll definitely be doing them from now on

Yes.

In that case, solo queues it is. Thank you everyone for being helpful

which mode is best for glory farming/can finish daily fastest?

Excalibur.9748:

which mode is best for glory farming/can finish daily fastest?

Hotjoin for sure

Excalibur.9748:

which mode is best for glory farming/can finish daily fastest?

Hotjoin is fastest if you can stand it. But for all the reasons listed above, solo queues are better for your sanity!

Use hotjoin to finish your daily. Or play trol- cough fun specs and run circles around people.
Solo que is good if you don’t have a team (like me…) and you want a fair-ish matchup where you play to win. Queue times are acceptable (5-8mins) on the scale of a few hours. I wouldn’t say often, but a fair amount of matches could be competitive to the last point which makes it thrilling to win or lose.
Issues such as afk’ers, DC’ers and uninspiring players may crop up here and there but they shouldn’t be a big worry.

In EU, I rarely queue more than 1 min for soloQ.
Apart from the odd 4v5 and the weird matchmaking, it’s much better than HJ for sure.

Equinox.4968:

First: I’m not a PvPer, I mostly just do it for the achievement points

Why would you do that? In the same time you could make at least ten times as
many achivement points in pve. Or do you allready have all/most of them?

Flamfloz.6732:

In EU, I rarely queue more than 1 min for soloQ.
Apart from the odd 4v5 and the weird matchmaking, it’s much better than HJ for sure.

U are lucky, last time i played i had 12 minutes queue :P in EU too.

Cyhann.2609:

Equinox.4968:

First: I’m not a PvPer, I mostly just do it for the achievement points

Why would you do that? In the same time you could make at least ten times as
many achivement points in pve. Or do you allready have all/most of them?

I’ve been playing since beta and I have something like 8800 achievement points now. The only PvE achievements I have left require large amounts of grinding (slayer, weapon master) and it wasn’t until recently that I realized the reason why some people have so many more points than I do is because the daily PvP counts for 4 points per day, which adds up over time.

Hmm, unfortunately the only solution is solo queue.
I’m saying “unfortunately” because suggesting you the solo queue means throwing a relatively new SPvPer in rated matches, which may be the reason of the loss of your team (and the their point loss for leaderboards).
I don’t want to accuse you, since it is not your fault that this game lacks serious non-rated matches.
kitten , when someone has to learn SPvP it becomes a tough problem…
Wondering why ArenaNet didn’t remove hotjoins already…

Anyway, if you are going for solo queue, do your best!

JinDaVikk.7291:

Hot-join is a complete disaster, sorry. We have been asking for removal of hotjoin or atleast changes to it and we shall nver receive. It’s part of the reason no one starts playing pvp anymore, there is no place to learn.

It’s not just that though, the balance issues on higher level play are also very prominent on lower level play. Untill the game stops rewarding easy builds and passive gameplay, including the condition meta, there will be no incentive to even try and improve. It’s getting a bit better, but believe me that if I ever do a Hotjoin, I get atleast 5 necros. Usually more. Tanky individual conditions builds are very strong in every PvP platform and so they are everywhere in Hotjoin because they promote individual and passive play even more. Perfect for Hotjoin.

I actually had a discussion about this with a guildie. He didn’t agree, but I found that high level balance is a great barometer for the general balance of a game on all levels. This is because of various reasons, one is that people use a lot of similar builds or because the basic game mechanics are the same.