Guild Wars 2

In order for anyone to care about a sport or e-sport being played at pro level, the majority of the community has to have

1.) A love for the game
2.) A respect for the balance of the game
3.) A huge non-pro community actively playing that take the game serious enough to watch the best of the best do what they enjoy doing, presented in a way that the non-pro’s can learn from

[point #3 can not be overstated. Spectating sPvP in this game is not a lot of fun. The announcers often seem to be phoning it in… the game moves at such a fast pace we DESPERATELY need the ability to re-watch these matches post-game inside the game client. NOT VIDEO, but real-time with mechanics identical to spectate mode where we can follow the entire match on whichever player we want, switch around real-time, etc… If ANet would invest in this the PvP in this game would become phenomenally better]

All three of these are broken right now. You have a set of new HoT Elite meta builds that dominate the game. They dominate because they have been designed to be OP. So you’ve taken the play mechanics from a D/D Ele, Burn Guard, PU Mesmer, etc…. The builds these players loved, the classes they loved. You’ve taken them and made it so all that time invested is tossed at the window and they must learn a new meta based on one of the elite specs. That has not only enraged players, it’s made a lot of players quit altogether. This is mismanagement of sPvP in GW2.

Combine that with all the missing things (see my open letter to Josh Davis). Team Captain’s can’t even watch a post-game replay with their team and try to improve. Think about how critical that feature is to a sPvP format like Conquest. In sPvP you have mostly children running around who will tolerate these missing things. By majority they are players who do not take pvp seriously, it’s just something they do when they get tired of legendary grinding or have been beaten down by that Raid boss one too many times.

sPvP in GW2 is a recreational side line thing to do. ArenaNet has not given players the tools they need in game to really take it seriously. The Elite Spec balance is clearly more about selling product than maintaining integrity in the meta. These things are their decisions to make and if we don’t like them we can go play other games, but it is clearly cause and effect in motion. ArenaNet is solely responsible for the state of sPvP and the low numbers on Twitch for ESL Pro Play.

Again, you can not simply hire a great brand manager and pump a lot of money into advertising and promotion when the core game is completely kittened by your earnings agenda and the atomic blast you dropped on what was the old-meta.

Either the consequences were never considered by ANet staff or they were given low priority. Regardless, I feel there is a level of incompetence at play. When that happens in any company the correct course of action is to evaluate and do what’s necessary internal to fix it. The thing I notice most about the sPvP forums is how much the community calls for ArenaNet to have open dialog with their community. Instead all we get are the occasional post with the little red icon and red name banner indicating someone from staff has stepped down from the heavens and graced the community with a response. Yes, a bit dramatized but that is EXACTLY how it often feels. There is no open communication there are the occasionally voices of the ANet gods, which serves to remind the community it’s THEIR game and not ours.

ESL Pro League in this game is a death march, because the sPvP is such a wreck right now. If we make it to the end and the powers that be look back and say ‘that was a huge loss" then things will die down and what could have been will never be. It ll comes back to the ESL Pro League today being a facade. It’s something the developer desperately wants but some internal teams need to collaborate and really listen to the community. Treat sPvP like a first class citizen in the game.

I tried watching it yesterday. The announcers and camera following reminded me of a dad trying to film his sons soccer game and focusing on the parts of the field without the ball and some kid picking his nose or the hot mom in the bleachers on the other side of the field….

Someone said this in another thread, either here or on reddit, and it’s so true for this game. The developers don’t make a game an esport, the players do. The devs should focus on making the best, most fun and balanced game they can and let the players do the rest.

Basically, if you balance it, they will come. pops back into the corn field

Conquest bunker down gameplay will not bring in viewers who are trying to see through all the colorful array of effects filling up the screen.

This game mode blows for viewer participation. Who wants to watch 4 guys fighting on 1 point for a few minutes with seemingly little things changing except maybe a +1.

One should implement the option to switch to different cameras if this is possible, so everyone can see the favored fights. This would be much more interesting.

Can´t count my screams .. Switch camera! Watch MINI MAP ! SWITCH Camera! SWWWIIIIITCH! Didn´t u see the crucial part? SWITCH IT ! kitten

:-)

It’s all bin said. A camera up my kitten hole would not change the real fact.
pvp is stale & kitten boring. just stop it!

pvp is not more stale than some 20mins laning phases in mobas… gw2 is just generally harder to understand and to get into.

a rewatch feature and build templates (and better shoutcasters..) would definitely do wonders for the pvp scene. balancing is not what makes a game an esports, ofc it’s nice to have but not everything can be viable/balanced at all times.

what makes a game an esports is:

it has to be fun. when it’s fun people naturally play it.

when you play there has to be some kind of rewards and a longterm goal (i still wish for some master skins for classes, when you win 2k matches on a class for example, something to display that you’re not just a fotm player)

there have to be tournaments and competition, and at the top the pro league.
for players who are not at the top there needs to be stuff that motivates them to get there, stuff that gives them infos about the top (rewatch the pro league matches with a rewatch feature, not on stream).

the interaction between pro league and playerbase is also very low. other games like hots have very often some sorts of blogs by top players talking about matches, setups, strats and what they think about the balance.
gw2 players have more of a “no it’s mine!” mentality; the more you can be secretive the better for you.

Jekkt.6045:

pvp is not more stale than some 20mins laning phases in mobas… .

It’s stale anoth that nobody is really watching it. oups i ment an embarrassing low number of ppl watching it if you need to be politically correct. so there!

3,5k is by no means low for what pvp had in the past 3 years. it’s above smite and above regular hots numbers. it’s actually a decent start for the pro league. also the matches haven’t been that bad from what i’ve seen.
just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that it’s bad.

Personally speaking, I have no interest in watching professionals play a game if the game itself is not balanced.

All of the interest in watching for the possibility that something might happen is gone. Without even looking at the matches I can conclude that:

Thieves arent playing
There’s a whole lot of Dragonhunters
Eles are unkillable
Warriors if there are any are running zerker gunflame
Druid healz

Like, why? There’s no room for magical underdog Helseth-tier non-mesmers to just show up and be impossibly amazing from what I can tell. The game just isnt set up for that.

When all of the classes have a skill ceiling that I can benefit from watching, I’ll do so. Right now, the majority of people that care are either trying to win money or associates of those people.

Games really beautiful, honestly. It has all the trimmings of something I’d watch if I benefited at all from doing so. I’d rather continue fruitlessly trying to make p/p thieves situationally viable across the board though.

I dont mean to be rude, please don’t take it as such. This just doesnt seem like something that requires or even requests my attention atm.

Yeah I’m not going to watch a game that only has about 5 competitive builds. If Dev’s aren’t careful with their money grab by making OP elites specs and Revenants GW2 sPvP will dwindle no matter how much money they throw into the prize pool. Anet will only be known as the fool company who thought they could grow a thriving esports community by ignoring blatant balance issues and lackluster game modes and just throwing more money into the prize pool instead of hiring an actual balancing team.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Thieves arent playing
There’s a whole lot of Dragonhunters
Eles are unkillable
Warriors if there are any are running zerker gunflame
Druid healz

You must have missed the Caed show where he won 3 1v1 in a row as a thief. And you must have also missed there only being 2 dragon hunters across both regions. And warriors lol, RIP Crysis 2015. Also druids were a minor character as well. What you should have said were the Revenant dominance.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Conquest bunker down gameplay will not bring in viewers who are trying to see through all the colorful array of effects filling up the screen.

This game mode blows for viewer participation. Who wants to watch 4 guys fighting on 1 point for a few minutes with seemingly little things changing except maybe a +1.

As is now… NO ONE. NO ONE. NO ONE. However, if we had the ability to go in after the Twitch ESL broadcast and inside the game client replay/rewatch the match and in real-time switch between perspectives (e.g. as we can in spectate mode on hot-join now) then we would be able to really dissect these pro matches. Giving players a TOOL like this replay mechanism would vastly improve the viewer experience

ArenaNet has invested next to nothing in giving the sPvP players tools to impower us to improve our personal game, improve our teams game, to dig into personal metrics and team metrics. There is SO much they need that they do not have and that they seem to have zero interest in building.

The $200,000 raised for the Pro League brand prize should be money going into making the non-Pro sPvP experience better and delivering some of these things. At this point ArenaNet has made a boat load of money off HoT and related gem store transactions. How much of that will go back into the sPvP side of the game?

What will probably happen is this PvP Pro League season will continue to see declining numbers of Twitch. The powers that be will see that as a failure and NO ONE @ANET will seriously look at the reasons the ESL Pro season struggled to find viewers. They won’t likely consider all the failures on their end needed to improve the experience for the non-pros or the correlation between the non-pro spvp meta needing to be well balanced and well taken care of with the tools they need in order for those players to care about the ESL version of the game.

The appropriate word for this mishandling is incompetence. It’s a bit jagged, yes. But unfortunately that’s what we are dealing with. Developers or Game Directors who really have a disconnect between how for a e-sport to exist, yes the non-pro version has to be there and be serious.

I don’t think any of the staff at ArenaNet take their game all that serious. I think they have an light hearted approach to the game’s design and implementation in general and that behind closed doors many think it’s funny that some of us do want to take it seriously. This goes back to when Johnathon Sharp was leading the sPvP efforts. As an outsider looking in, I felt bad for the guy because it seemed what he was trying to do was the unfunded joke of the office. If you’re reading this as an ANet staff member thinking “how did you know”, No I’ve never worked for ANet and I don’t have fly on the wall cameras, but things were so bad, it was just THAT obvious.

Just like now it’s obvious the goals of the powers that be are to force ESL GW2 play into the spot light when frankly the game isn’t ready. Is it any surprised players are outraged that $200,000 is being put into a grand prize when so many tools needed to support sPvP don’t exist (like in-client post-game relay)?

ArenaNet, it’s YOUR game. You want to continue to do things as you have been with sPvP and pretend things are just fine, go ahead. Just don’t be surprised as those Twitch numbers continue to decline.

And another thing ArenaNet… It takes a lot to get some of us to leave but once we walk away from your game and go find another to sPvP in we aren’t coming back. Not six months from now, not when the next expansion lands. I won’t name drop but there are other game studios delivering a similar experience right now and look to be aiming to do it better. Only you can make the sPvP side of this game competitive in the market place.

Jekkt.6045:

pvp is not more stale than some 20mins laning phases in mobas… gw2 is just generally harder to understand and to get into.

Yes it is. The lack of build variety and interesting play is what makes it stale.

With moba’s after 20mins of build up you have a unique member of the team that does something. GW2 everyone is bunker. except thiefs they just decap and +1.

It does not matter what your playing atm. The majority of successful and high level people are playing bunker builds. The game play is absolutely boring to watch as the majority of it is two wet noodles smacking each other until one gets low and resets. No one wins the fight, they just dip and top up, and if they do die; the majoirty of the time is because they are out numbered.

Also there is no interesting come back mechanics the majority of games are lost/won in the first minute and a half of the match that is it. This is very apparent by the amount of GG give ups.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Thieves arent playing
There’s a whole lot of Dragonhunters
Eles are unkillable
Warriors if there are any are running zerker gunflame
Druid healz

You must have missed the Caed show where he won 3 1v1 in a row as a thief. And you must have also missed there only being 2 dragon hunters across both regions. And warriors lol, RIP Crysis 2015. Also druids were a minor character as well. What you should have said were the Revenant dominance.

I’m fine with being wrong. The point I was making is that I didn’t feel these things were even a possibility due to what was currently happening on the PVP scene, which is why I didn’t bother watching. Revenant dominance is also a thing, yes.

Caed’s fights interest me, but I’m going to just sift through recordings for those specifically now, instead of being an active viewer.

The viewer base isn’t low IMHO, but I have to admit that I almost always watch the VoD’s and never live, mostly because of unbearably long wait-times.

Not to discredit Jebro, I think he’s doing a good job for the most part, but compare the way he’s going through builds with that of the US-casters: He takes suuuuch a long time. ^^’

Also, for a game to really pick up a decent viewer-base, there simply needs to be more than 1 tournament per week. I mean, afaik, US doesn’t even have a tournament in the middle of the week, or at least it doesn’t get boradcasted.

This game will never go huge in esports for the following reasons:
1. NO REGULAR COMMITMENT TO BALANCING;
2. Everything is straight up bruiser in this current meta, plagued by celestial amulet which needs to go to provide different comps instead of straight bruiser comps all the time thus providing more enjoyable game play;
3. Regular break intervals between matches. Seriously, after every match there’s a 5 minute break. Have the games set up in the different arenas with the teams so you can start it up right after the previous. If it’s to give the casters a break then find some others people who can go straight through.

I’ll mention something that I haven’t seen mentioned so I don’t know how others feel.

So often with a 1v1 on a point you don’t see a finish to it. Someone gets low and they run away. There is obviously a huge significance to this fight, but there’s no climax, no real resolution to the conflict. Yes, the point is what matters since it is conquest, but that doesn’t make me more entertained. In situations where a Mesmer is losing, and then ports out while their team goes through the port and destroys the guy, that is entertaining. A close 1v1 that instantly ends when a +1 comes, less entertaining but it has a resolution.

Basically, I feel like we most often have big fights with off-putting animations covering the screen or 1v1, 2v2’s with almost no resolution. Or we don’t see them because the camera switches from fight to fight before things are finished (not the announcers casters faults, really).

Personally I dislike the immense amount of downtime in between matches with the casters rambling on and on and on and on about random crap related to the game while they wait for players to even just get ready.

meow one twenty.4376:

I’ll mention something that I haven’t seen mentioned so I don’t know how others feel.

So often with a 1v1 on a point you don’t see a finish to it. Someone gets low and they run away. There is obviously a huge significance to this fight, but there’s no climax, no real resolution to the conflict. Yes, the point is what matters since it is conquest, but that doesn’t make me more entertained. In situations where a Mesmer is losing, and then ports out while their team goes through the port and destroys the guy, that is entertaining. A close 1v1 that instantly ends when a +1 comes, less entertaining but it has a resolution.

Basically, I feel like we most often have big fights with off-putting animations covering the screen or 1v1, 2v2’s with almost no resolution. Or we don’t see them because the camera switches from fight to fight before things are finished (not the announcers casters faults, really).

To add to that!

Yesterday the camera was showing Toker fighting a Rev 1v1 at Mine point. It looked like toker had the upper hand to kill the Rev sitting on his own point. THEN they cut to mid point for a fight that clearly wasn’t going to end quick, forcing me to look at health bars to see Toker finish off that Rev in a great 1v1 upset for a thief…

That was lame…

No dedicated spectate client. Looks hilarious how casters move the mouse over the screen all the time. Like you couldn’t keybing the player view or map view to different keys and doing the camera work like that.

Basically what people have said about the game is made esports by the players. Super smash bros wasn’t esports when it came out, it was just FUN. Nintendo made a fun game with good mechanics. Easier said than done right? Well that’s just how it is.

Instead of making the spvp scene better by making it more FUN by balancing, adding game modes, tweaking stuff, it’s being bailed out with a $400k prize pool look-at-us-we’re-esports-but-not-really-we’re-just-throwing-money-at-it-hoping-it-sticks. In the long run, this may hurt spvp more than the short term benefit unless they can keep throwing money at it. This is because sure you may increase spvp player base in the short term, but it’s been shown that they don’t stick around due to the frustrating meta changes, map imbalances, poor matchmaking (half/more of the “teams” are retired players that came back just looking for their cut). There is a reason they quit in the first place.

But hey, ultimately they’ll finish the tourney, call their HoT changes a success, pat themselves on the back and the same things will happen “balance” change after “balance” change.

And this is coming from someone who actually DOES like watching high level gw2 twitch spvp.

For the first time yesterday I really enjoyed watching some of those matches, my biggest problem aside from too many effects is it’s hard to quickly tell who’s who class-wise in a 3+ fight, I would love if there were little class icons beside the players health bar/name in viewing mode.

Sam:

Excellent idea!

I think WoT and WarThunder has the same feature. You can download matches and analyse them. This would be really nice and while the casters are trashtalking or having a 5 min break you could watch the crutial moment everybody and their mother going to talk in the next few days.

A third caster could even rewatch some of these moments while the break last.

You could download matches to learn, study and experience with your favorite prof.

One more thing:

They should consider a mini-screen where the chat used to be so they can show two different action in the same time…

Like someone is doing 1v1 on the mini while the main screen focuses on a 2v3 or something like this….

In todays money this wouldn’t even cost 1 dollar….

-Inability to follow the fight/player that you want to see is a big negative. There are certain classes/builds/players that I’d like to follow throughout a whole game to watch their gameplay. Impossible with the current system.

-Casters did a better job not jumping around as often compared to previous broadcasts, but camera jumping around still happens too often for you to really get a feel of the fights. Often you are left with not knowing the results or how a fight ended. Sometimes they hype up a 1v1 fight, then all of a sudden jump to another point just when the fight starts to get good.

-Build representation is an issue, but then players always min/max. I saw the same with WoW’s arena tournaments where certain classes/builds were guaranteed a spot on competitive teams. We need more build variety/viability, but it’s really hard to achieve such with 5v5 conquest gameplay.

-There are too many things going on in any given conquest game. I don’t want to fault the casters too much because they’re trying to cover it all. It’s just hard to cover everything that goes on in the conquest game, viewers miss a lot of strategy that goes into the play.

-Too much downtime, kills excitement.

-There should be a website where viewers can go to and flip through player builds and setups. Meaning once players login and ready up, the system should synchronize with a site that allows viewers to click through players and see their builds. The site should be updated as players in the game change their builds.

On a positive note, I had a lot more fun watching those close games & comeback games yesterday during both EU & NA broadcasts. Blowout games are not fun to watch. Close games are so much more enjoyable.

ESL viewership is low because GW2 is not fun to play when PvP is so unbalanced. People dont watch games they dont care about and less and less people care about the state of sPvP as it becomes more and more apparent that Anet is incapable of balancing their professions and builds.

nearlight.3064:

Personally I dislike the immense amount of downtime in between matches with the casters rambling on and on and on and on about random crap related to the game while they wait for players to even just get ready.

Time 0:00 – Casters introduction (who the casters are, what teams are playing, etc.)
Time 0:05 – Zero Counterplay and Apex Prime team overviews
Time 0:10 – Map introduction (Foefire Lord, Nifhel beasts, etc.)
Time 0:11 – Zero Counterplay versus Apex Prime: Match 1
Time 0:25 – Review and highlights
Time 0:28 – PZ and Abjured team overviews
Time 0:33 – Map Introduction
Time 0:34 – PZ versus Abjured: Match 1
Time 0:48 – Review and highlights

Repeat with Zero Counterplay and Apex Prime overviews.

This is just my opinion on how things should be structured and here’s why:
- Predictable structure.
- Predictable downtime let’s the viewer take breaks without missing anything.
- Viewing builds should not take very long
- A map introduction serves three functions – 1) it serves as a noticeable break to show the match is about the start, 2) it hides the “ready up” aspect so it feels less like we are waiting on players and more like a formal match, 3) it tells newer viewers/players the important features of each map.
- We can’t see everything that happened in a fight, and sometimes really cool stuff happens. Also, what this team winning could mean for the tournament.
- Switching between two different sets of matches gives players time to prepare, as well as keep people watching after a blowout.

Ummm why should I be enthusiastic about GW2 PVP when all I see from the devs is negligence and pvping is an absolute nightmare due to class imbalance?

I don’t know how many people share this issue, but this is personally my own reason not to care about the game and its esports. And this is someone who was very enthusiastic about it at first.

I mostly just want to watch ranked and tournaments in client. Gw1 had this and I have no idea why it’s not in gw2

5k viewers for a weekly tournament is a lot for a small population game like GW2. Maybe you should stop comparing it to LoL, DOTA or CS:GO, because the viewership numbers will never be that high. But its more than a lot of games which are considered competitive (like SSB Melee for example).

Sorel.4870:

5k viewers for a weekly tournament is a lot for a small population game like GW2. Maybe you should stop comparing it to LoL, DOTA or CS:GO, because the viewership numbers will never be that high. But its more than a lot of games which are considered competitive (like SSB Melee for example).

Nope, the reason those games get higher numbers is because they 1) know what they’re doing 2) care about their community and 3) have a much more efficient balance team structure and higher hiring standards.

You reap what you sow, it is that simple.

Since 200k win money is total waste of money (from business kinda of view), i for the first time i 3 years, closed my gw2 twitch channel. It was on for 3 years, often muted and not watching it, it was open for convenience. As a no vote to this money waste: I closed it. So from now on, 1 viewer less every pvp event.

Instead they should invest in a proper pvp team, that doesnt walk empty every 6 month because of leaving employee’s. The lack of dynamics and future vision is very clear for a post expansion era. It’s to fix that first (perhaps with the 200k of the next event spend on that rather then to waste of orange logo, tcg, etc. Always same ppl who win. Those guys don’t need more money.

Yes they have to put some support behind their own game!

1, rewatchable games
2, double screen while streaming (or a mini screen)
3, builds, changes, STATISTICS (it’s a shame that Morwath had to make one… +1 BTW)
4, hell, even bloody skin effects so the PvE player might check this out for some “kitten-looking” gear….

Daharahj.1325:

Nope, the reason those games get higher numbers is because they 1) know what they’re doing 2) care about their community and 3) have a much more efficient balance team structure and higher hiring standards.

You reap what you sow, it is that simple.

Have you ever read LoL forums? According to them, LoL devs don’t know what they are doing, don’t care about their community, and can’t balance.

So no, these games are successful because the game itself is appealing to more players/viewers. Don’t be the kind of forum warrior who tries to fit every fact into his personal ideology and requests.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

3.) A huge non-pro community actively playing that take the game serious enough to watch the best of the best do what they enjoy doing, presented in a way that the non-pro’s can learn from

You hit it square on here, but for the wrong reasons I think. Our problem isn’t simply that it is boring to spectate druid vs druid on a point, but rather, the VAST majority of the GW2 community doesn’t even know what a point is. There is a far larger fundamental issue in the fact that of the millions of players (if stats are to be believed), the overwhelming majority of them don’t play pvp, never have played pvp, have no interest in doing so, and oftentimes villainize pvp players (‘OMG they are all foul-mouth bullies’).

In Dota 2, every single player is playing the same game as the pros are. Whether they be the most casual or hardest core, they are playing on the same map with the same rulesets and objectives.

In GW2, most players don’t know the rules of pvp, and they have no incentive to start learning.

Sorel.4870:

Have you ever read LoL forums? According to them, LoL devs don’t know what they are doing, don’t care about their community, and can’t balance.

So no, these games are successful because the game itself is appealing to more players/viewers. Don’t be the kind of forum warrior who tries to fit every fact into his personal ideology and requests.

I’m an avid lol player so I do frequent the forums, and please take a minute to compare their Dev Tracker to ArenaNet’s.

This was written a week ago.

Take a look at their patch notes they give in-depth detail of every change, why it was changed, what they expect from the change, how is it beneficial for the game and the meta, etc.

They have 10x the amount of players than ANet does (being generous), so it’s expected for the forums to be a little crowded.

If you think this has nothing to do with their success you’re either in denial or willingly ignorant.

NonToxic might hit it on the head…

But this is the fault of ANET again!

If the game (i mean sPvP) was entertaining for a beginner and s/he had some support (not just the forums, what I stated above) s/he might be playing it!

Now we had this no-ranked cancer to turn away every f2p player who wanted to try spvp. The twitch is barely watchable so why would a “random-iron-farmer-guy” try the spvp?

Honestly guys, put your hands up if you were trying this game out as a f2p NOW and would stay for years! Would you?

I personally would run as far as I could and never look back….

(sorry for my English I was really struggling to put this crap together…)

NonToxic.9185:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

3.) A huge non-pro community actively playing that take the game serious enough to watch the best of the best do what they enjoy doing, presented in a way that the non-pro’s can learn from

You hit it square on here, but for the wrong reasons I think. Our problem isn’t simply that it is boring to spectate druid vs druid on a point, but rather, the VAST majority of the GW2 community doesn’t even know what a point is. There is a far larger fundamental issue in the fact that of the millions of players (if stats are to be believed), the overwhelming majority of them don’t play pvp, never have played pvp, have no interest in doing so, and oftentimes villainize pvp players (‘OMG they are all foul-mouth bullies’).

In Dota 2, every single player is playing the same game as the pros are. Whether they be the most casual or hardest core, they are playing on the same map with the same rulesets and objectives.

In GW2, most players don’t know the rules of pvp, and they have no incentive to start learning.

The majority don’t PvP because the incentives haven’t been there. The game studio hasn’t put a lot of work into making the experiences polished… What’s more, after 3 years of balancing the game studio/publisher has droped a bomb on the meta and made it so those who spent a lot of time getting good at playing certain roles have to go learn something else entirely. This is unacceptable design. They should have to make tweaks post HoT and Elite Specs, but having to abandon old play styles and even certain classes entirely speaks to a failed development effort. The community has a right to be outraged.

In general, the overall spirit of GW2 is very “care bear” mentality. This is a game that isolates open world PvP to a unique mechanic (WvW) there are no dedicated PvP servers. The general feeling by most PvE players who don’t PvP is that the balance is so horrible and the camera problems make it pointless. They may have it right.

To give some credit, the Legendary back piece adds some incentive.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/announcing-the-esl-guild-wars-2-pro-league/

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

meow one twenty.4376:

I’ll mention something that I haven’t seen mentioned so I don’t know how others feel.

So often with a 1v1 on a point you don’t see a finish to it. Someone gets low and they run away. There is obviously a huge significance to this fight, but there’s no climax, no real resolution to the conflict. Yes, the point is what matters since it is conquest, but that doesn’t make me more entertained. In situations where a Mesmer is losing, and then ports out while their team goes through the port and destroys the guy, that is entertaining. A close 1v1 that instantly ends when a +1 comes, less entertaining but it has a resolution.

Basically, I feel like we most often have big fights with off-putting animations covering the screen or 1v1, 2v2’s with almost no resolution. Or we don’t see them because the camera switches from fight to fight before things are finished (not the announcers casters faults, really).

To add to that!

Yesterday the camera was showing Toker fighting a Rev 1v1 at Mine point. It looked like toker had the upper hand to kill the Rev sitting on his own point. THEN they cut to mid point for a fight that clearly wasn’t going to end quick, forcing me to look at health bars to see Toker finish off that Rev in a great 1v1 upset for a thief…

That was lame…

The camera people and shoutcasters need a ton more practice. They look and sound super unprofessional right now and it really hurts the spectator environment. I mute the sound on every stream because I dont need John Madden to tell me that one team is passing the ball while the other team tries to stop them from passing the ball. I can SEE that, what I NEED from casters is in depth meta analysis or gameplay predictions based on experience. Get a couple pros in the booth to do the analysis and play-by-play.

If anyone watches MTG regularly on twitch I feel like its the difference right now between SCG’s amazing commentary and Wizards kitten commentary.

The kind of condition, condition damage, AOE , CC skill is out of control in HOT. The game become confusion and lost the accuracy.

Making the stream easy to find on the forum would be nice, too.

The reason why I don’t watch ESL is because:

• Twitch.

Upload them to youtube so I can enjoy them. Cut out Jebro and the other dude talking and upload the matches itself.

I watch a lot of LoL, HOTS, and Starcraft 2 because they are on youtube.

Seriously, I hate not being able to spectate the matches!

But that’s only half the problem.

BunkerWars2 is the problem. Saw a necro running Settler’s in one of the games. If that’s not an indicator GW2 PvP in it’s current state is absolute trash I don’t know what is.

We need a new PvP mode that isn’t complete garbage. We need 3v3 and 5v5 deathmatches. Anything really. Spice it up. Add more maps. I’m bored.

I tune in to watch the tourneys just so I can read the twitch comments.

Chip Skylark.2367:

Seriously, I hate not being able to spectate the matches!

But that’s only half the problem.

BunkerWars2 is the problem. Saw a necro running Settler’s in one of the games. If that’s not an indicator GW2 PvP in it’s current state is absolute trash I don’t know what is.

We need a new PvP mode that isn’t complete garbage. We need 3v3 and 5v5 deathmatches. Anything really. Spice it up. Add more maps. I’m bored.

I have a lot of fun playing Settler’s on my Necro (with a decent team).

I didn’t know anyone else did it, can I get a link?

I watched one match yesterday the score was 501-500. Obviously a close match, but I was still bored pretty quickly. If a match that comes in that close can’t entertain me, none will.

Maybe if they had a way to let the view follow the action their own way (the GW1 model was good for me) it would have been better.

Celestial ruined this game. It made the whole meta completely one dimensional. Everyone just plays bruisers. There are no defined roles like when we used to have bunkers, back point holders, roamers and +1 roamers. It is really that simple. They tried to nerf celestial but did the math wrong and buffed it instead. That was awesome