Guild Wars 2

Sad Swordfish.9743:

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?

There are a couple of different questions in there.

There will always be “someone” playing spvp during peak hours. Will it be amazing competition and skilled players all around? Probably not.

Of the 150,000 people playing, that does not mean that all of them enjoy pvp. A large majority of them probably do not and never even go to the pvp realm. They just enjoy hanging with their guild, farming dungeons and running world events.

There is no Esport for GW2 because of several reasons.
The biggest ones are:

A- No spectator mode for easy viewing of high ranking players and tournaments.

C- No ability to set up non ranked scrimmage matches with players of your choosing. You can’t get better in the scene unless you practice before tournaments against players of equivalent skill levels.

At the very least they need to have a spvp que system that is not random but based on some form of skill based rank.

Until those two major issues are addressed, there probably not going to get enough of a following to transform gw2 into an esport.

Sylosi.6503:

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.

Even the basics take a lot of time to get used to for some people in MOBAs. Creep deny, the large number of heroes and their abilities, map layout, creep timers, getting familiar with smart casting… The skill ceiling in a MOBA game is quite high, and it constantly gets higher as people get better and better in it.

The speed of action during an actual fight can also be very high, since carries can 2 shot each other, it all hinges on proper use of the terrain, abilities, split second decisions.

But anyway, the reason why GW2 is getting stale is because there’s only Conquest (and it will remain this way, because some classes are much better at combat than others, some have much better mobility, so the whole game is balanced around having to stand in a small circle to win games. In addition, there’s no competitive element. Sure, we have rankings that are listed… somewhere. Wow. No random or 2v2 queue make the game inaccessible for casual players, you either have a constant team or you play the watered down Hotjoin, unless you enjoy getting demolished in PuG vs Guild fights. So nobody cares about the competitive side of the game aside from a few hardcore teams.

First priority: Random/2v2 queues. This covers the largest spectre of casual players, who play alone or with a single buddy who happens to be online.

Second priority: More game modes! I understand that A-net tried to spice things up with all the unique mechanics, but if the core of the game is the same… well, it’s mostly the same game.

Third priority: True ladder system with ELO and all that. It will make the game a lot more competitive.

All that will make PvP more enjoyable and have some lasting appeal.