Guild Wars 2

Before this game came out I thought I was going to spend all my time in sPvP but the exact opposite has happened.

Now I wonder to myself, is sPvP on it’s way out?

Some people in my guild have hinted at that it’s the lack of things like in-game VoiP and a spectator mode. But some have also complained over the objective game mode being to one-dimensional.

How can it be that on Steam right now that over 150,000 people are playing? What is it that makes that game so competitive?

Because GW2 has awesome graphics, great feeling combat system. you got cool art, you got good controls, cool skills. You got a overall very balanced game compared to other MMOs. So why is the eSport not there yet?

-Dota/LoL is more viewer friendly
-Easier to get in to… especially LoL
-Dota/lol is way more fun to play(imo)
-LoL is so noobfriendly that everyone who cba to learn dota/hon goes to LoL

Easy to answer.
Anet dont focus on pvp
they have 2 !!!!!!!!!! people focus onpvp rest is pve
my copetitive team could not play the last 3 days because of the pve content – lagged too hard + loading screen bug

+ all competitive players play for something . they want to show others how amazing they are… in gw2 you cant … Our competitive guild lost about 90% of our players…. true and sad story

The reason for LoL and Dota being so successful in comparison to GW2 is that LoL especially is casual friendly and anyone can pick up the game and enjoy it. The problem is that at the moment hot join just does not offer the same experience and then when people try and transition from pugging hot join games to pugging touraments they come arcoss pre-mades that should be in paid, but due to paid being so empty they queue in free and come across these people who have just joined the game and they stomp them.

Also the reason that you see near to no one watching the GW2 streams is a direct result of the above. If the lower/ mid tier pvp community are not enjoying pvp, why would they want to watch the streams for the high/top tier players?

and there is nothing to watch if you see top players stomping scrubs

Infinitus.3712:

The reason for LoL and Dota being so successful in comparison to GW2 is that LoL especially is casual friendly and anyone can pick up the game and enjoy it. The problem is that at the moment hot join just does not offer the same experience and then when people try and transition from pugging hot join games to pugging touraments they come arcoss pre-mades that should be in paid, but due to paid being so empty they queue in free and come across these people who have just joined the game and they stomp them.

Also the reason that you see near to no one watching the GW2 streams is a direct result of the above. If the lower/ mid tier pvp community are not enjoying pvp, why would they want to watch the streams for the high/top tier players?

+1 for you Sir !! you said it right !

One more note from me
noob friendly game = game where you can play and not being destroyed by hardcore players in first hour of your gameplay experience.

(yesterday i solo joined tournament.. my team had all people r30+ while our opponents were rank 1-15 max. How is that fun? for them? and for us?)

free to play

lol is an insult to moba genre

Aragiel.6132:

Infinitus.3712:

The reason for LoL and Dota being so successful in comparison to GW2 is that LoL especially is casual friendly and anyone can pick up the game and enjoy it. The problem is that at the moment hot join just does not offer the same experience and then when people try and transition from pugging hot join games to pugging touraments they come arcoss pre-mades that should be in paid, but due to paid being so empty they queue in free and come across these people who have just joined the game and they stomp them.

Also the reason that you see near to no one watching the GW2 streams is a direct result of the above. If the lower/ mid tier pvp community are not enjoying pvp, why would they want to watch the streams for the high/top tier players?

+1 for you Sir !! you said it right !

One more note from me
noob friendly game = game where you can play and not being destroyed by hardcore players in first hour of your gameplay experience.

(yesterday i solo joined tournament.. my team had all people r30+ while our opponents were rank 1-15 max. How is that fun? for them? and for us?)

i went 18-0 followed by 15-0 and never dieing in any match in my first few LoL matches until I quit since its a joke

I thought LOL and DOTA2 and all MOBAs are very hardcore and not casual at all? dont you get destroyed in seconds in those games?

Sad Swordfish.9743:

I thought LOL and DOTA2 and all MOBAs are very hardcore and not casual at all? dont you get destroyed in seconds in those games?

Not at all during level 1-30 which is pretty much a learning phase if you queue with people at a similar level you have quite even games. The hardcores are all in ranked queue’s battling it out. Also Dota2 is still in beta so there is no ranked/normal queue’s yet.

Sad Swordfish.9743:

I thought LOL and DOTA2 and all MOBAs are very hardcore and not casual at all? dont you get destroyed in seconds in those games?

Some are, some aren’t.

LoL is more casual because you don’t have to worry about denying your own minions or teammates (last hitting is easier), you don’t lose gold on death (holding your lane is easier and making one mistake won’t kitten you for the entire match), towers are much stronger (don’t have to worry as much about early tower diving), and so forth.

It basically cut quite a lot of the complexity from more traditional moba’s, so yeah it’s more casual.

Dexxer.3174:

Easy to answer.
Anet dont focus on pvp
they have 2 !!!!!!!!!! people focus onpvp rest is pve
my copetitive team could not play the last 3 days because of the pve content – lagged too hard + loading screen bug

+ all competitive players play for something . they want to show others how amazing they are… in gw2 you cant … Our competitive guild lost about 90% of our players…. true and sad story

I agree with you – there is NO focus on pvp currently in gw2. Do they really have 2 people only working on it? I would want to see the source of this information, since that would be just insane if true. Also lag was incredible during the event, people started phasing at tournaments, loading screen bug was as always in the worst possible time. Our guild has 500 members it was fairly balanced at the beginning between pve and pvp crowd, now there are 7 of us that go to the mists…

Ontopic: If i am not mistaken lol is free, thus more player base = more players that go to other levels of competition.

Sad Swordfish.9743:

I thought LOL and DOTA2 and all MOBAs are very hardcore and not casual at all? dont you get destroyed in seconds in those games?

dota yes, but lol maby after +2000 elo -.-

Mainly because games requiring no skills attract more casual players. Simple

ilJumperMT.4871:

Aragiel.6132:

Infinitus.3712:

The reason for LoL and Dota being so successful in comparison to GW2 is that LoL especially is casual friendly and anyone can pick up the game and enjoy it. The problem is that at the moment hot join just does not offer the same experience and then when people try and transition from pugging hot join games to pugging touraments they come arcoss pre-mades that should be in paid, but due to paid being so empty they queue in free and come across these people who have just joined the game and they stomp them.

Also the reason that you see near to no one watching the GW2 streams is a direct result of the above. If the lower/ mid tier pvp community are not enjoying pvp, why would they want to watch the streams for the high/top tier players?

+1 for you Sir !! you said it right !

One more note from me
noob friendly game = game where you can play and not being destroyed by hardcore players in first hour of your gameplay experience.

(yesterday i solo joined tournament.. my team had all people r30+ while our opponents were rank 1-15 max. How is that fun? for them? and for us?)

i went 18-0 followed by 15-0 and never dieing in any match in my first few LoL matches until I quit since its a joke

then u can reach the top elo players and playing with them you will find the challenge you need to have fun. there are a lot of normal players in top elo playing everyday with proplayers. question is : do you like mobas?
about lol<dota2, don’t know. dota2 is less noobfriendly, still in beta., than lol.
there are a lot of people watching lol streams and lol tourney. i think everygame will take his own audience…

oh, i forgot MOBAS =/= MOORPGS , guys

Archaon.6245:

Mainly because games requiring no skills attract more casual players. Simple

A skill based game like Counter-Strike and Starcraft 2 still has a large following, right?

Sad Swordfish.9743:

Archaon.6245:

Mainly because games requiring no skills attract more casual players. Simple

A skill based game like Counter-Strike and Starcraft 2 still has a large following, right?

dunno about CS dont really care about FPS, but SC 2 has gone down, but i guess numbers will go up again when Hots is released

Sad Swordfish.9743:

A skill based game like Counter-Strike and Starcraft 2 still has a large following, right?

re: CS -

The most relevant reason behind why that game has held and still holds such a massive following revolves around the fact that it was developed under an entirely different generation of gamers.

1. CS was originally a HL mod created by a player, and players notoriously create games that players want to play, rather than games that make money. As a result, CS (as a HL mod) developed an insanely strong community pretty much straight off the bat, which was helped by the fact that communities in FPS games actually meant something back then – read: Quake, UT, et al. Back then, you could probably find a CS LAN happening in almost any city around the United States. I can’t even count the number of times I packed my PC up back then and lugged everything over to some local venue across town for a local weekend CS tourney or something.

2. Half-Life already had a crazy following and was itself built on a modified Quake engine, which itself had a crazy competitive following. This basically meant that Counter-strike had an extremely solid foundation before it was ever even conceived.

3. Gameplay. In contrast to something like BF or CoD, the former strives too heavily for realism while the latter strives to incorporate things into FPS games that shouldn’t exist in FPS games. Realism isn’t fun, while leveling and perks don’t belong in FPS games because they introduce too many variables into the playing field that are out of a player’s control to counter. In CS, it’s just you, your gun, and your ability to aim and control the map – period. It’s the same reason why Quake was/is such an amazing competitive game.

4. The engine. Firstly, you could play CS on a complete piece of trash PC and get 60+ frames. In fact, most competitive players intentionally played at 800×600 or lower for improved precision aiming. Very few CS players, competitive or casual, actually gave a kitten about visuals. Second, the engine didn’t place arbitrary limitations on the player. You could fly across maps if you were able to pull off the necessary movements and headshot people while doing 180’s in mid-air if you were good enough. If you were good enough – key words. You can’t do things like this in BF or CoD because the engine itself stunts you. Those games just feel utterly slow when compared to pre-1.5 CS, or even post-1.5 CS.

I mean, check this out -

It’s not CS, but CS was built off of that game so it’s the exact same engine. This is the sort of gameplay that drew people to Counter-strike over a decade ago and it’s the same sort of gameplay that makes people go crazy today with their eyes glued to the monitor saying things like “holy kitten this guy is incredible”. You can’t pull things like that in FPS games designed by today’s standards. The visuals are prettier, things are more realistic and visceral, but the gameplay is just bland and boring in comparison. You don’t see the sort of total map domination and insane aim that you saw back then.

5. Mods. HL had a huge modding community and that carried over directly to CS, which meant tons of maps, huge replayability, and consequently huge player retention rates – all of which lead to a literally undying competitive scene.

6. Custom leagues. CAL, CPL, CEVO, whatever. They made things happen for players at all skill levels.

There are other reasons, but those are probably some of the biggest ones. Today’s FPS games are designed under a different paradigm and today’s FPS communities just suck in comparison to Quake and HL communities back in the day, which is a big part of what it takes to develop and maintain good competition.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Kyhlo-Trebuchet-lets-talk/first#post795371

Considering the Tower is effectively at the whole map because there’s no incentive to defend it due to repair kits having such pathetic re-spawn time. This final tournament map is just bad for the game really.

If they lessened abusing broken mechanics, the game would be more competitive.

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you so hard in lane, you will ragequit.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

i guess you dont know what casual friendly mean…

Sanis.1096:

i guess you dont know what casual friendly mean…

obviously if top players own you, then game is not casual friendly Makes sense right?

Nilvio.7941:

Sanis.1096:

i guess you dont know what casual friendly mean…

obviously if top players own you, then game is not casual friendly Makes sense right?

hahaha…

Nilvio.7941:

Sanis.1096:

i guess you dont know what casual friendly mean…

obviously if top players own you, then game is not casual friendly Makes sense right?

why would top players be owning you when there in ranked and at 2.4k ELO + and causuals are in BOT games/ normal games?

EDIT: Quoted wrong person

That is quite easy. Dota is a game that has been developping itself for 10 years and it is still going firm on the updates and the content that is being added it is being rebalanced over and over.
While lol has been up for 3 years and since they went free to play and it came out before HoN also steady learning curve it provided and the way it got totally separated from dota unlike HoN it was able not only to steal dota players who had enough from playing trough hacked war3 clients or garena also they took new players in since the dota players and the noobs had a smaller skill gap. Still they did not get huge right away and they are being updated weekly with a new char every week, which is kitten for this dota like game but it is their deal.

While gw2 just came out. They are still balancing they are still looking around. Now they might win it over or fail. But right now they still don’t have an idea which way to go. At the moment we have only one very forgiving game mode which is quite borring. In my own opinion the game will evolve with time since in all fareness it took Dota like 4-5 years to even settle as an actual game and to find the direction it needs to go. While LoL had like 2 seasonal tournaments for 3-4 years that means their first year they were still balancing and screwing around aswell. For a game to develop it needs a player base and time to actually find out what it is missing. So this fuss is pointless.

Esports.

if GW2 enters Esports the’ll be an influx of players.
in other words, competitive, GW2 is currently like football without a premier league, pointless.

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

I’m sure I can trash any LoL top player even if you give me a random champion.

Why? I play DOTA2 and HoN, AKA Moba who require skills not afk farming lane.

Nilvio.7941:

Sanis.1096:

i guess you dont know what casual friendly mean…

obviously if top players own you, then game is not casual friendly Makes sense right?

I should have quoted the guy >_> Casual-friendly means something like “Easy to hop in and easy to have fun, even for players who have no clue”.

LoL makes this possible because it has a strong elo-system, so people wont be playing against very good people (something which GW2 doesn’t have). Getting stomped by a better player isn’t casual friendly at all: You just want to play 1-2 easy games and a much much better player comes and owns you incredible hard (This is where the dumb thief-whine comes from probably).

In Lol this just doesn’t happen. First you have to level up, which also gives you a hidden elo -> usually balanced matches after a few levels. If you have no clue and are bad, you get queued against people who are bad too.

ilJumperMT.4871:

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

I’m sure I can trash any LoL top player even if you give me a random champion.

Why? I play DOTA2 and HoN, AKA Moba who require skills not afk farming lane.

There are plenty of people who came from DOTA2 and HoN and get trashed over and over by good lol-players. Though I have to say the most skill in LoL comes from the meta, knowing champion strength, optimal valuations, map awareness and teamwork and not from micro.

ilJumperMT.4871:

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

I’m sure I can trash any LoL top player even if you give me a random champion.

Why? I play DOTA2 and HoN, AKA Moba who require skills not afk farming lane.

You are making me sad, trolling iceiceice style tho he failed his hon trolling losing badly both games in 20 minutes and dropping from the tournament with his whole puny Zenith team.
And please just because you started playing dota or hon an year or two ago and quited lol does not make you better than other lol players, most probably you are one of those insta lock am failing at last hitting. Also this trolling should go back to lol forums and for the sake of our dota community never write a forum post again.

This is easy. Dota has been around forever and has built upon itself for a decade. Dota 2 is still in beta. League of legends went from least online competitive game to one of the highest cash pools and viewed competitive games online today in a couple years.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10/12/league-of-legends-claims-title-of-most-played-video-game-in-the/

how? its simple. What riot (league of legends) does that guidl wars doesnt do…is support the hell out of their game. It is their only game, and their president beleived in community involvement. So he encouraged his employees to speak directly to the players often allowing them to share much information about developement that most companys would render impossible due to NDA’s from top to bottom.

Look at dev tracker on here…see how many dev posts are about spvp…hell atually. Look how many are about anything other than tech support, forum moderators closing/combining threads or just saying "good feedback’.

Heres a current example of riots dev tracker…they will talk about anything from future plans and goals down to fan topics.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/devtracker.php?g=Riot

If arenanet didnt have strict NDA and encouraged its devs to speak openly and even ask the players opinions allowing us all to feel more involved with the development of the game and given the satisfaction of KNOWING our voices are being heard about various concerns with problems in the game…..i garantee there would be more people giving a crap about what happens in this game. Its not just the better features on dota1-2/lol….its better support.

dota 2 is dota1 full HD why? because dota1 players wanted it to be that way.

gw1 players came to gw2 because of the previous game. sadly gw2 is not gw1 full HD and a lot of players are disappointed about it. and a lot of gw1 playerbase would like to play again gw1 GvG.

it is only a anet fault. nothing more, nothing less.

Fearz.2370:

ilJumperMT.4871:

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

I’m sure I can trash any LoL top player even if you give me a random champion.

Why? I play DOTA2 and HoN, AKA Moba who require skills not afk farming lane.

You are making me sad, trolling iceiceice style tho he failed his hon trolling losing badly both games in 20 minutes and dropping from the tournament with his whole puny Zenith team.
And please just because you started playing dota or hon an year or two ago and quited lol does not make you better than other lol players, most probably you are one of those insta lock am failing at last hitting. Also this trolling should go back to lol forums and for the sake of our dota community never write a forum post again.

Like I said LoL is piss easy and which I have over 30 kd ratio on it. I just quit out of sheer borem due to no challange.

Should I mention no money sinks and no creep denie? not even proper vision for juking

ilJumperMT.4871:

Fearz.2370:

ilJumperMT.4871:

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

I’m sure I can trash any LoL top player even if you give me a random champion.

Why? I play DOTA2 and HoN, AKA Moba who require skills not afk farming lane.

You are making me sad, trolling iceiceice style tho he failed his hon trolling losing badly both games in 20 minutes and dropping from the tournament with his whole puny Zenith team.
And please just because you started playing dota or hon an year or two ago and quited lol does not make you better than other lol players, most probably you are one of those insta lock am failing at last hitting. Also this trolling should go back to lol forums and for the sake of our dota community never write a forum post again.

Like I said LoL is piss easy and which I have over 30 kd ratio on it. I just quit out of sheer borem due to no challange.

Should I mention no money sinks and no creep denie? not even proper vision for juking

if you’re that good why haven’t i seen you in the major leagues?

LoL didn’t add buttons that would form only rotations, they added everything to be near completely strategic.
The best you could use the ability, the better you were.

GW2 is sadly lacking in that department.
(spike dps and bunkers, the majority of the meta… both involve, for the mast majority of play, pretty static rotations/specs)
Same thing with positioning, it means so much less in GW2…
To boot it isn’t even a team game unless you decide to pull together a higher up premade.

To put it simply, the majority of GW2’s learning curve is in learning other classes abilities/animations and has a terrible SPvP/tourny setup…
The majority of LoL’s learning curve is learning to actually use them to your advantage and actually has well developed balance (when talking to my brother, he actually didn’t call any but a few classes bad.. everything was ‘oh kitten watch out for this’ and there are 100~ characters) and pug que and whatnot.

Shukran.4851:

dota 2 is dota1 full HD why? because dota1 players wanted it to be that way.

gw1 players came to gw2 because of the previous game. sadly gw2 is not gw1 full HD and a lot of players are disappointed about it. and a lot of gw1 playerbase would like to play again gw1 GvG.

it is only a anet fault. nothing more, nothing less.

Honor points for losers…..enough said. This is the worst crap ever for an old gw1 player….zergs fighting for point farming instead of teamwork….seriously? Give points at the end of the match only to winners…this would instantly solve so many problems preventing noobs from gaining ranks just from farming, this is not dam pve….we don’t want stupid farmers we want good players to play with…..it’s not difficoult to understand

DoTA/2, LoL, and HoN all have the single worst communities every created. Mobas are the epitome of cesspool players.

Shukran.4851:

dota 2 is dota1 full HD why? because dota1 players wanted it to be that way.

gw1 players came to gw2 because of the previous game. sadly gw2 is not gw1 full HD and a lot of players are disappointed about it. and a lot of gw1 playerbase would like to play again gw1 GvG.

it is only a anet fault. nothing more, nothing less.

There are few to any hardcore PvP’ers in GW2 atm…
There are only kittening 3~ hardcore premades…
A game near 3 months after release, made to be an e-sport.. yet in all of NA there are only roughly 3 kittening hardcore premades…
The game has allot more wrong with it than just not being an updated version of GW1. They tried to make a whole new system, reinvent the wheel if you will, and just got completely backlogged in kitten to handle… released way too early if you ask me… the whole PvP setup/system still needs allot of working out.

I know a few people who played GW1 PvP religiously… yet can’t say the same about this game… those people actually rarely even touch GW2… at best for the PvE…

Infinitus.3712:

ilJumperMT.4871:

Fearz.2370:

ilJumperMT.4871:

Teabaker.9524:

People saying that LoL is casual friendly are wrong. Top players will own you very hard in lane.

The only reason League of Legends is played so much is because it’s incredible balanced for such a complex game (GW2 isn’t at all), it’s very very fun, it has an amazing Elo-system (this removes a lot of noob-stomping), a good progression system (GW2 has an awful progression system with the RNG skins) and because the champion (and item-pool) is so large, every match is different (While GW2 is always the same).

I’m sure I can trash any LoL top player even if you give me a random champion.

Why? I play DOTA2 and HoN, AKA Moba who require skills not afk farming lane.

You are making me sad, trolling iceiceice style tho he failed his hon trolling losing badly both games in 20 minutes and dropping from the tournament with his whole puny Zenith team.
And please just because you started playing dota or hon an year or two ago and quited lol does not make you better than other lol players, most probably you are one of those insta lock am failing at last hitting. Also this trolling should go back to lol forums and for the sake of our dota community never write a forum post again.

Like I said LoL is piss easy and which I have over 30 kd ratio on it. I just quit out of sheer borem due to no challange.

Should I mention no money sinks and no creep denie? not even proper vision for juking

if you’re that good why haven’t i seen you in the major leagues?

You’ll see me in HoN instead.

Also who cares about MLG? Halo and COD are in there. Shows it goes with kitteny popularity not competitive games.

garethh.3518:

Shukran.4851:

dota 2 is dota1 full HD why? because dota1 players wanted it to be that way.

gw1 players came to gw2 because of the previous game. sadly gw2 is not gw1 full HD and a lot of players are disappointed about it. and a lot of gw1 playerbase would like to play again gw1 GvG.

it is only a anet fault. nothing more, nothing less.

There are few to any hardcore PvP’ers in GW2 atm…
There are only kittening 3~ hardcore premades…
A game near 3 months after release, made to be an e-sport.. yet in all of NA there are only roughly 3 kittening hardcore premades…
The game has allot more wrong with it than just not being an updated version of GW1. They tried to make a whole new system, reinvent the wheel if you will, and just got completely backlogged in kitten to handle… released way too early if you ask me… the whole PvP setup/system still needs allot of working out.

I know a few people who played GW1 PvP religiously… yet can’t say the same about this game… those people actually rarely even touch GW2… at best for the PvE…

GW1 had a proper ladder/matchmaking system from the box. Where is this now?

Who are we kidding Anet? PvP in GW2 is second rated compared to PvE. PvPers go should and will go back to PvP Games which GW2 is not.

Fundamental problem with tPvP is that it is separate game from GW2. There is not even continuity of your character.

No rewards, no ladder, no continuity = no participation.

In my opinion its simple:

1. GW2 PvE & WvW is very good/fun and most people play that.
2. sPvP is horrible when soloing – getting blown up by a thief or air rune proc is just not fun.
3. Unless you already know 5 people who are decent, the game provides absolutely no way to find players at your skill level (no matchmaking). This makes tPvP pretty much impossible to get into unless you devote alot of time to finding a team.

It’s hilarious to read all these LoL “facts.”

Let’s get something straight right away: LoL was not successful right out the gate. Even 6-8 months into the game’s life, 30+ minute queues were the norm. The game struggled. Huge numbers of people fled from the game. It didn’t look like it would ever have a chance to be an esport. It was a pretty grim situation for quite a while.

So, how did they overcome the hump and refine themselves into a game that so many people want to compare against? Mostly by doing the opposite of what people here constantly suggest.

1) Focus – Having just one game mode and only two maps, they allowed Twisted Treeline to basically rot, while only focusing on their one map, one mode situation. Adding something new and different (which had been promised, and many players clamored for) would have diluted their resources and the player base. That would have made existing problems worse, while making it more difficult to fix issues, and more likely for new issues to crop up.

2) Dedication – Like the focus point, they stuck to their decisions, and saw them out to completion instead of abandoning them for new directions whenever fancy took hold of them or their critics. The game today is largely the same as it was a few months after release. Sure, champions have been balanced, their “honor” system has been added, and new content has been released, but for the most part I can hop in a game and it’s the same game I played back in 2009-2010.

3) Ease of Access – Players could get into LoL for free. In fact, they never have to spend a cent on the game if they so choose. Players can get by with free champions until they earn enough IP to buy the ones they want. It can be slow going, and I certainly know people who have dropped quite a bit of money on the game, but these players didn’t spend any money until after they knew they enjoyed the game. There was no cost to these people, and it was at a time where that sort of Free to Play hadn’t really blown up yet so there was plenty of market to capture.

So, what should Anet do with GW2 sPvP?

If they want to model themselves after LoL, they need to focus on conquest. New game modes will only dilute staff and the players, exacerbating issues faced by the game right now. Custom servers could be helpful (taking the place of Twisted Treeline or the practice type areas LoL players could utilize) but once released, effort on those should be limited to maintenance.

The team needs to continue to focus on bug-fixing and balance. A top priority must be bug fixing because things like the mace block bug completely turn people away from this game. Balance needs to be approached slowly because the ideals they wanted each class to embody shouldn’t just be abandoned because balance is difficult. The classes can be balanced as long as they’re not overbalanced, and enough time and effort is put into them.

Finally, the most difficult and probably controversial thing they need to consider is a completely free option to the game. It could be modeled after LoL (though the 8 class thing makes it difficult) where one or two classes are available each week. Another option would be a “halfway there” thing where a person could buy just access to PvP (doesn’t GW1 have this?) without access to PvE for a smaller price than the full game (and gem store option of buying the whole thing). It’s an extremely difficult issue as it deals directly with cash flows, income, and sales.

Further options to emulate LoL include clear solo queue matchmaking (that biases towards PUG vs PUG and Premade vs Premade) and perhaps very small rewards that give a competitive edge (a la glyphs in LoL).

Syeria.4812:

So, what should Anet do with GW2 sPvP?

Awesome post, Totally agree with everything.

They have to give some kind of free/cheaper option to play spvp. This trial thing is quite nice, hopefully they make more of these after SPvP gets better.

Ladders, free-to-play.

I talked one of my close friends into playing this game. He joined and we decided to PvP. Well, he wasn’t ready to TPvP yet, since he just picked up the game. So, we joined SPvP “together”. We ended up on opposite teams way too often and trying to get on the same team was frustrating. He never got past the initial learning curve of the games mechanics because he found it too frustrating.

How can the most simple idea of even “playing in pick up games with friends to learn the game” be so broken?

The more I read the forums and the more I look at my friend’s list the more angry I get at how botched this is.

At this point I would actually be less mad if the game were just bad. I could easily stomach that I waited for years for this game and it turned out to be a kitten Instead, the game is fantastic at its core and a stinking kitten in its implementation, which to me is worse.

I equate it to having 2 children. One was just never intelligent or well-behaved. Then as they grew older they never changed. They ended up in and out of trouble. Then lets say you had another child that was an honor-roll student who never did anything wrong. Then one day during ivy-league college they lost their mind. Started doing drugs and skipping classes. Soon, they too, were in and out of trouble and fell far from grace. Well, the latter is the way I feel about GW2. It makes me more angry because of the lost potential. If that makes any sense.

I disagree. I don’t have the facts but these are my speculations. Leagues of Legend didn’t have quite have the roar as Guild Wars 2 did from the beginning. However, LoL’s community even then slowly grew while currently GW2 sPvP community is slowly declining when compared to beta and launch. I believe this is because LoL had potential but just didn’t have the player base where as GW2 has the player base but not the potential. Wiki quote :

“League of Legends was born “when a couple of very active DotA community members believed that the gameplay was so much fun and so innovative that it represented the spawning of a new genre and deserved to be its own professional game with significantly enhanced features and around-game services.”

Note it says “a few.” Compare it to Guild Wars 2 which had a HUGE player/fan base from even before the betas and was one of the most anticipated games; yet, sPvP has been dying down when compared to the betas or launch. If I do a google search for “most anticipated game Leagues of Legend,” I don’t find any mention of it being popular before the game was released. I did hear small mentions of this game on the net but if my memory serves me right, it wasn’t a game that everyone talked about at school which leads to me believing had a small player base. Compare it to GW2 that just launched where in just about every single one of my classes, there is at least always someone who plays GW2. I even see people playing GW2 on their labtop before class.

I believe why LoL succeeded is because their game mode had potential and because it had potential, it ever so slowly eventually gained the player base it deserved.

So the question I believe is: Does conquest mode have potential to grow into E Sports? I say no. Why? I believe it’s because it doesn’t make sense. Not just for the players but for viewers (yes I’m talking about Twitch TV adaptability). If were watching a movie, in a battlefield, it’s strange to see characters running up to a point, camp it, and this point will then automatically generate magical points that determines who wins. Why would anybody want to watch this? A simple “destroy the enemy base” makes a lot more sense. For the record, Leagues of Legend has a conquest game mode too but its not nearly as popular nor is even of E Sport mention as when compared to the game mode in LoL where you destroy the enemies base. Conquest was more of a game mode for new or casual players. If pros ever did go to conquest, I believe it was just to test builds or to just get some fresh air from true competitive game type and stomp new players. I am elo 1960ish platinum player, and I go there just to test builds since money income is fast. So as far as potential, I’d say no. But yeah, works for casual players and is a good place to test builds.

Edit: included my LoL ratings

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/21146727#profile

MOBA games are more fun because the grind is actually playing to have fun not grinding to get geared up to have fun. They also are easier to balance and people can spectate and learn.

It also helps games like LoL are very easy on a mechanical level, which opens them to a larger potential playerbase, pretty much everyone can cope with the top down / 2d, point and click & very few skills, where as I know many people who still struggle with the zillions of skills you have in MMOs and the sort of speed combined with spatial awareness and movement you need in the 3D enviroment, especially when it comes to PvP.