Guild Wars 2

Erik Waananen.6089:

Thank you, everyone, for your continued input! I just wanted to pop in real quick and let you know that I have read through every single post in this thread (in addition to reading many, many other threads across the PvP forums, of course) and that the team is aware of and very appreciative of all of your constructive feedback.

Keep it comin’!

EDIT: Poor grammar :P

Erik, thanks for showing us your support and telling us that ANET is listening to the player base. We are all folks who care about this game and want to see it alive for much longer.

+1 to Erik Waananen!

my top 5 in order of importance:

1- create more game modes like team death match, capture the flag, and king of the hill. conquest is fine, but to have 1 mode after all this time is ridiculous. stronghold needs some tuning but is a great step in the right direction. no one wants to play conquest indefinitely, it will burnout players who will then leave and creates a stale competitive environment for everyone else.
2- buff all professions skills and traits that are unused due to being useless. i believe this game was created (or should have been) with the idea in mind that any profession can play any class archetype (tank, dps, healer, support). this would be a massive boost to the games health, it would create an environment in which new players can prosper and vets will stay. i cannot stress how important it is to have more build options.
3- please for the love of god balance overpowered skills more often. no one wants to wait 3 months while x class is being swarmed by newbies who have zero pvp experience and are way too effective for their skill level. its degrading, rage inducing, and extremely unhealthy for the game. more balance creates a more visible skill ladder that new players can climb, and will definitely want to climb, because thats what competitive gaming is all about.
4- lock spectator in custom games so people cant abuse it. it allows team stacking which snowballs matches for a long time (over 5 games is common). make it so if you join a team you can join spec but cant join the other team. at the start of a match force people to join a side after a set time interval or give them a choice to remain in spec and not join any teams. this also takes care of afks who remain in spec indefinitely, taking up space from active players. also please autobalance teams a lot faster, and make repawn 10 seconds.
5- this game isnt ready for esports. but it will be. i know how this sounds, i know, i know. lol you think your ideas will make it esports eh bud? youre thinking something along the lines of that right? well, not completely no. there are plenty of other things that other posters have mentioned here, and plenty more problems that will pop up. what i do believe is that people want options. cutting the esports program will give you some money to support those options and their advertising, whatever that might be. options keep players playing, and that is part of the illusion.

so yeah those are my top 5.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Erik Waananen.6089:

Thank you, everyone, for your continued input! I just wanted to pop in real quick and let you all to know that I have read through every single post in this thread (in addition to reading many, many other threads across the PvP forums, of course) and that the team is aware of and very appreciative of all of your constructive feedback.

Keep it comin’!

Yeh, but the thing is…this way lies madness. You should be listening to issues people have NOT their solutions. As their solutions cannot be good. You are the designers, the experts, the professionals. They are just players. It would be fair better to listen to peoples issues with the game. Such as “Feature x is frustrating”. And not “This should be changed by 53% to do that”. Honestly, I think you guys listen too much to the feedback, especially on balance.

Facepalm

1. I would like more Stronghold maps for ranked & unranked. The current Stronghold map is the most fun of all ranked maps in my opinion. Even if you end up in an “un-meta” team versus “meta team”, the games are usually more balanced in Stronghold compared to the same situation in Conquest.

2. Let players mix and match stats more. Two or three trinkets instead of one would be very fun and great for fine tuning builds.

3. No more than two of the same profession in the same team.

4. Make the “favorite map” statistic in the pvp menu choose my favorite by what I vote instead of what I end up playing! xD I hate foefire and never vote for it, but that is still my “favorite map” says the game. Good job.

5. Make it so that even if I’m stuck in a rank for a long time, I still get some league tickets if I play a lot to get the back pieces. “Finding your place in the rank” shouldn’t mean stopping progress. Of course getting better at the game should be the focus, but sometimes getting and losing pips is very situational. Let’s say that my wins and loses are 50/50. If I win every other game and lose every other, I’m going to be stuck. But if I lose three first and then win three, I gain pips. In other words, with the same win rate, there is still luck involved.
Or maybe give us ticket pieces for a certain amount of wins to make tickets when we get stuck. That would be fun and still challenging.

1. Stop listening to players when deciding to buff/nerf things. Everyone on the forum is a bias crybaby (The only thing people agree on is to buff war)

2. When you nerf something, give it adequate buffs to compensate

3. Split PvE and PvP. PvP crybabies with gamer OCD ruin PvE for everyone else with the current system

4. SoloQ

5. Add more maps

I like the current pip-system (and I don’t have any problems with the MM-System atm), but I think it still relies to much at grinding and not at skill.

1) Allow division/tier regression starting from emerald
– to avoid frustration, players start with 1 full tier when they are promoted (so they won’t drop back at their first loss)
– accordingly demoted players start with 1 empty tier
– while a player is in this promotion/demotion range, only match him/her with other players (last tier/first tier)

2) Reward skill and not time-spent
– only give very few rewards (eg. first time reaching a division) during a season
– give rewards at the end of a season according to the players final rank.
– To motivate players for pvp give everybody a small reward (“Amber – 0 Pips”), even if they didn’t participate this season.
– Re-Introduce a Leaderboard (including all players), so everyone can see what he/she will get, if he/she is still at this position at the end of the season (similar to the guild-team rewards)

3) Give good players a head start in the new season
– place them according to their mmr (advantage: playing unranked in between seasons “means” something)
– or place them according to their rank in the last season (eg. 20% of their earned pips)

4) Make every match count
This is the most controverse suggestion, but I think it will overall lead to a more accurate leaderboard (reflecting skill and not time-spent).
– limit ranked matches to a certain amount (eg. 50 matches/week or 7 matches/day)
– remove grinding based achievements
– pip/mmr decay system to avoid high ranked inactive players

5) Templates & queuing outside of HotM

1) Ban players for being afk in a game and for being rude in chat or whisper. Bans should start with a few hours and in case of repeating that behaviour in days and weeks
2) balance before the season. You had 4 weeks of watching your data and listening to players before you started season 2 but the balancing at the moment isn’t great at all
3) separate solo players from any group players. solo players queue exclusively with other solo players while groups of 2 to 5 people have a group queue were they meet other grouped players
4) make the pre hot builds more viable
5) change the achievements for spvp to be doable in unranked or make it a reward track. You don’t want to force people like me to play an elementalist in ranked for some achievement points. But I will go there if you force me and my team won’t think it’s a good idea.

1. Add an in-game majority voting system to auto Dishonor players for being Toxic/Unhealthy during the game.

2. Normalize certain builds as well as a slight nerf to all specializations but focus strong points – Lower CC’s across the board. Example: For DH only traps with a cast time can stun. Moa reduced by 1s, Engi total stuns reduced by 40%, etc.

3. Stability should be shaved from every class on elite specs. Half the reason elite specs performs better is because of their utilities; its suppose to be a play style change not a huge performance boost.

4. I would love non-class stacking in unranked as well. Prioritize non class stacking more in Matchmaking but have a 5m queue threshold for matchmaking to revert back to normal class stacking for an individual player who hasnt gotten a match.

Option in the report menu afk/idle players. Maybe if the whole team+1 on the enemy team does it it counts as a desertion.

Saiyan.1704:

1. Add an in-game majority voting system to auto Dishonor players for being Toxic/Unhealthy during the game.

2. Normalize certain builds as well as a slight nerf to all specializations but focus strong points – Lower CC’s across the board. Example: For DH only traps with a cast time can stun. Moa reduced by 1s, Engi total stuns reduced by 40%, etc.

3. Stability should be shaved from every class on elite specs. Half the reason elite specs performs better is because of their utilities; its suppose to be a play style change not a huge performance boost.

4. I would love non-class stacking in unranked as well. Prioritize non class stacking more in Matchmaking but have a 5m queue threshold for matchmaking to revert back to normal class stacking for an individual player who hasnt gotten a match.

WoW, +1 for the Majority voting system. Not sure why we don’t have one already.

I think the biggest problem has nothing to do with mmr or class balance but game mechanics.

An average game where each team hold thier home, 1 team gains mid and just brawls in a tight match for mid rest of game leads to a 2-1 game k*ttene the final score is 250-500. This is basically a landslide for a match that should have basically could been close. Close games make for FUN games. Landslides, winning or losing isnt fun.

A very simple mechanic that you could add is an altered respawn timer. Make it normal at 0 points behind, and if your team is 400 points behind have a 0s respawn time and just linearly move between the to. This allows a loosing team an advantage to help them come back and has no impact in close games.

A 2nd mechanic would be like a hyper boost if your team is like 300-400 points behind. Like ur team gets a 1 time 30s boost where you get like more defense and offense so your team can potentially turn the momentum and make a comeback.

Short story up top, explanation down low.

1.) Less gimps on maps, more terrain design for player innovation.

2.) Build saver like in GW1 that saves/loads your weapons, traits, skills, etc.

3.) Stat choices, for instance zerker is 1200, 900, 900. Just give players 3000 points to spend in anything they like.

4.) Trait choices, rather than stick with the line system, allow players to simply choose 3 traits from each tier.

5.) Playstyle balancing.

Long story:

1.) Khylo is the best example I have of both the bad and the good for this one. The trebuchets pretty much ruin the game. They’re too easy to use, too safe/easy to access, and impossible for a condi user to kill in adequate time. That being said after being used on the clocktower, rangers, and elementalists have done amazing things with that broken roof.

I think that broken roof is a great example of providing players tools to use through the terrain in a pvp match. That’s something that punishes large zergs, allows for people that prefer a ranged style to help on an otherwise very confined base, and can be punished if the other team notices in time. It’s a pvp mechanic that adds to playstyles, player skill, team coordination, and experience. It isn’t a random fireball wiping out an entire team in one fell swoop after someone respawned and pressed 2.

The rocks around the graveyard in Foefire are another example of good terrain design, rather than a trebuchet or skyhammer. As we’ve seen with pew pew rangers, they can be an incredibly effective tool if the other team doesn’t notice and punish, but it is still simple to run up the steps and blast a ranger off the cliff into the fray.

3-4.) These both are extremely important if we are to achieve any real form of competitiveness in GW2 spvp. The more tools we as players have to work with the more ideas we can see come to fruition, not to mention the longer buildcrafters like myself will be online simply looking at their toys. Currently the game revolves heavily around whatever the current meta may be, because there is so little that players can do when build crafting that they become confined to make specific choices. This limits build diversity as well as play style and ultimately player base.

Whether it is the bunker mesmer, celestial rifle, berserker hammer, or any other meta, simply nerfing that specific build or giving the class something better doesn’t help the spvp community. If we have more tools we won’t need to pigeon hole ourselves into narrow build specs.

5.) This is largely an expansion on 1, 3, and 4. There is always one playstyle in particular that stands out in GW2 that revolves around the meta. For some time it was hambow and turret engi which was simply throw out more cc’s than the other person has. There was also the bunker madness with druids, tempests, and chronomancers.

I feel this is largely a fault of poor map design and player customization. However this also is fed into by the lack of options altogether for some classes (thief sustainability, revenant condition survival) or over dependence on specific options for others (warrior discipline and defense trait lines). The primary thing that most classes lack, is sustainability.

Celestial Dagger Dagger elementalist was in my opinion the best culmination of design to date. Every existing map and base allowed the linear tracking and range of the skills to work well. The skills had perfect base numbers to provide both damage and defense, as well as cool downs that allowed the elementalist to continue fighting for extended periods. It was the jack of all trades.

Now look at Theif, conceptually it is designed to be the efficient killer, mobile and lethal, but vulnerable. Unfortunately Thief is an incredibly inefficient killer, in fact nearly every single trait, stat point, and utility needs to be dedicated for the sole purpose of killing the target. After exhausting all option, thieves have little retort to a dragon hunter’s traps and aegis, a stealthed mesmer’s conditions, an invulnerable revenant, or most any other class.

Daredevil did not help. It allows thieves to flail miserably for a few moments longer with more dodges. What thieves need is the ability to use their mobility to kill the target as well as a reward for killing their target. Perhaps a heal skill or trait that massively regenerates the thieve’s initiative, cooldown, or health after a kill. The best step towards accomplishing this is the deadly blossom spam condition thief which is a nuisance to everyone.

Warriors at opening were forces to be reckoned with due to the sustainability provided to them from healing signet. But after years of power creep, that signet means nothing. Endure pain and berserker stance compensated for a short time, but even those mean nothing now. Currently warriors are seldom seen because they, much like thieves, have been forced into the position of eliminate the target before my stance wears off and I am dead.

If classes had the option to sustain themselves, they would not be forced to burn through the target in seconds as we see with the non existent thief and warrior. The alternative wouldn’t need to be have absolute invulnerability as seen with revenants and mesmers. Bring back the dagger dagger elementalist, don’t force players to dedicate everything they have into either bursting or tanking. Give players more options for sustain, play style, and creativity.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Oh yeah I’ll suggest just a single thing…

Way more game types:

You keep only balancing around Conquest only which is mostly about playing around small zones in the map and using builds that greatly synergize in full coordinated teams that play all packed together mostly in just those small areas, like bringing a Herald and a Tempest (Great Team supports, being Herald also a decent slayer) instead of a Daredevil (Great scout and even better Slayer but poor team support) or even a DH (Also poor team support, but good slayer on its own).

And also you have tournaments being used to define “Metas”… around this single type of game play… and since you won’t split PvP, PvE and WvW what happens is that you end up messing the whole time with balance, punishing people who don’t run full coordinated Teams because you keep balancing around these ideal Team formats seen in Tournaments, when what happens in reality is that most people go play PvP by only their own and have a much different setting. The collateral damage is messing with everything (builds, classes) that isn’t being played in those same settings, so literally everything that is not a Tournament or even PvP.

So yeah I can’t say this enough, whatever was used in a Tournament, which only has one game type, is very different to how PvP matches go for the rest of the people, and also completely different to how WvW and PvE goes. Because as I said, most people who go PvP go only by themselves, so builds and classes that are the best at Solo play and have easy of use will be the very different than the ones seen at a Pro Tournament.

Obvious example right now: Reaper. Because it’s quite good for solo play and not very complicated to use. Even DHs are good for solo play, good for bursting down people and that’s why you still have some people complaining about them.

Combo of classes used at Tournament finals? Two Heralds and a Tempest. Why? Because they complement each other so well when played together that you really don’t want anything else in your team using those 3 spots, also great for the nature of the only game type in existence that is Conquest of just playing in packs in small areas. And Tournaments are really all about TEAM play, knowing the weakness and strengths of your whole team and how to compensate each other, aside from the obvious facts like communication. A setting that is so different from most PvP games

WvW also has a very different use of builds and classes, so if you won’t ever split PvP, PvE and WvW, your best option is to create more PvP game types and then you will be able to notice how other classes and builds shine differently and could shine differently.

So to begin with you could really benefit from only implementing two game types, and really simple ones.
Something like Capture The Flag where you actually have to move around the map instead of “camping” the same zone(s) for points the whole day.

And a FFA where solo skills could finally be shown and appreciated.

Saiyan.1704:

1. Add an in-game majority voting system to auto Dishonor players for being Toxic/Unhealthy during the game.

2. Normalize certain builds as well as a slight nerf to all specializations but focus strong points – Lower CC’s across the board. Example: For DH only traps with a cast time can stun. Moa reduced by 1s, Engi total stuns reduced by 40%, etc.

3. Stability should be shaved from every class on elite specs. Half the reason elite specs performs better is because of their utilities; its suppose to be a play style change not a huge performance boost.

4. I would love non-class stacking in unranked as well. Prioritize non class stacking more in Matchmaking but have a 5m queue threshold for matchmaking to revert back to normal class stacking for an individual player who hasnt gotten a match.

I have to really disagree with number 1. Yes, people who are toxic should be given much harsher penalties. However, this feature would be very prone to abuse. I’ve seen enough teams that might hit you with it just for playing warrior, for instance. Also, it’s very vague. Does unhealthy include just playing poorly? Some people might think so, I wouldn’t. What we need more is for people who are reported for regularly harassing others or going afk to be given much more extensive bans when reported AFTER having been reviewed by Anet moderators.

I think the others are all probably alright though. Don’t see any immediate reason they wouldn’t work or cause some other problem. Worth a shot, eh?

1. Add GvG. (legendary wings only for those who was able to achieve results in this discipline)
2. Add separation on PvP and PvE skills, traits etc.
3. Add build profiles to save builds.
4. Use standard MMR system. Or even a standard mechanics for moba for PvP section!?
5. Add separation for teams and solo, like in GW1.

You have so many interesting things from GW1 that works good, why you have not yet used them?

PS 6. Add replays to improve game skills, otherwise it is impossible to work on the mistakes. And ability to watching the matches online to learn from good players and avoid cheaters!

1) Balance the builds.

2) Give us some death match kitten .

3) Decide who is the target audience for pvp seasons: Elite, all.

From here on the suggestion branches depending on choice at #3

a) pvp season is an elite event that use a ladder
b) pvp season is an all are welcome event that use a reward track

4)
a) Soloq MM randomly pick players within a given pip range (no more VIP pass to heaven or hell).
b) Soloq seek to provide 50/50 odds of winning no matter where you are on the reward track.

5)
a) No pips safe guard.
b) keep pip safeguard.

1) Change pips to points.
2) Change win\lose system. Win = +10 points, lose= – 5 points. If win against team with higher summary MMR of all players then in your team, win= +12 points. If lose against team with lower summary MMR of all players than in your team, lose = – 6 points.
3) Change Division/Tier system. To move up from Tier need 100 points. To move up from Division after getting 100 points into the last Tier need open qualification(win 2 of 3 games in a row).
4) Allow to move down from Divisions/Tiers until 0 point into the last Tier of Amber division. If you lose the game and you have 0 points you will be move down to lower Tier/Division.
5) Disallow change prof when map loaded. Add limit per prof, max 1 of each prof per team. We have 9 profs in the game why we must see teams full of Necros?

1. Remove class stacking..only one of each class on a team…I don’t care about longer queue times…I just don’t want to fight three necros or three heal bunker tempests anymore.

2. Solo queuers should only be teamed against other solo queuers…not against pre-mades. Again, I don’t care about longer queue times, as long as I don’t get facerolled by a full pre-made with comms.

3. Nerf conditions…especially confusion and burning, they are so ridiculous.

4. Increase the size of all points on all maps to the size of the Graveyard node on Legacy…some points are so small and enclosed that it gives classes like reapers a HUGE advantage b/c they have so many unblockable AOEs.

5. Remove all amulets where healing power is the main stat. I don’t mind healing power being a secondary stat, but as a main stat, it’s too much.

6. Add a 1v1 game mode where best 2/3 duels wins.

7. Just quality of life stuff for the lobby…add crafting stations and mystic forge (w/ attendant).

8. For preferences, maybe instead of just allowing players to choose between conquest and stronghold, add options for which MAPS they want to play (Legacy, Battle, Temple, etc.). So in unranked, if people don’t want to play something like, say, Skyhammer, they can deselect it and they won’t have to worry about playing that map. It may also be a good way for Anet pvp devs to track which maps are popular and which are unpopular based on which are played more frequently; this will allow them to rework maps that are more unpopular than others.

9. For pips, rework lose streak/win streak….so for win streak, only on every THIRD win, you get extra pips (instead of on the third win and onwards), but for each third win, you get more and more extra pips, so on your third win, you get two pips, then fourth and fifth wins you get one pip, but on a sixth win, you get THREE pips, then one pip for 7th and 8th win, then FOUR pips on ninth win………..for lose streaks, as soon as you get your win, you should get half as many extra pips as you lost, so for ppl who are on a really big loss streak, like 10 losses or something, they get five extra pips plus the pip they win from when they break their loss streak.

10. Allow players to lose pips and tiers in all divisions.

11. Put in more rewards that can be bought with shards.

12. Allow legendary backpacks to be dyeable (quality of life stuff).

13. Map specific things….bring back Courtyard as its own death match game mode that can be played for ranked or unranked, add more varieties of stronghold and death match maps, each with their own mechanics….Khylo, reduce damage of trebs by 50% and increase time it takes to rotate the treb, allow for only ONE repair of treb for the whole match so people can’t just constantly repair it and have to decide strategically when to repair/use it…Legacy, make lords and guards smarter/tougher and make gates tougher….Temple, put in like one or two jump pads, b/c if you’re not a thief or mesmer, you are at a big disadvantage mobility-wise b/c of the way the map is multi-layered and if you are at bottom buff or midpoint and you’re not a thief/mesmer, it takes a long time for you to run back to home point or far point….again, for Temple, make it so that in order to interrupt someone from channeling the buff, they have to CC you successfully instead of just attacking you……Forest, make beasts tougher/smarter.

14. Class specific fixes…rework DH traps (and really, all traps) so that they don’t go on cooldown until they’re triggered so people can’t just doublespam traps, once a trap is put down, it should chain into a second skill that allows players to despawn the trap, and if they do this, it goes on like a 4-second cooldown so they can put the trap down somewhere else, but if the trap is triggered, then it goes on the full cooldown….continuum shift for mesmers should not work on elite skills, nerf portal distance and moa duration.

15. Rework elite specs so that core specialization builds are viable again.

16. Unlocking mists champions, runes and sigils costs SHARDS instead of gold.

1: No class stacking 1 classs pr team any match. ranked, and unranked, ESL .
2: Rev Sword 2+3 Rev staf 5 Rev damage on legend swap
3:Mesmer condi bomb
4:Engi hammer damage+sustain to high
5: Necro Chill hurts to much

Contributing, pls consider the following:

1. Balance changes based on a regular basis (something between 2-4 weeks).
2. Overthink “Hold and Defend” mechanic. As suggestion: +1 on a node, decaps it (slowly).
3. Copy every map with it´s features (2x Foefire feature, 2x Temple features etc.) and rework those into new designed maps.
4. Make the Heart of the Mists more attractive, something you can do while waiting.
5. Report mechnism for afk’ing. (Sometimes ppl refuse to participate, even tho there are chances for a comeback.)

Tehape, so you’re saying if only one person is on a node, it caps/decaps slower than say having more than one person? If so, I actually think it’s an interesting idea…but wouldn’t you be worried about PvP becoming like a zerging game then?

For the AFK thing, yeah, I agree, I think there needs to be a specific report option for that. But on the flip side, I feel like there needs to be an option that pops up to surrender if the score difference between teams is really high (like say 300-something to 50-something), and if 3/5 people vote for it, then your team can surrender…because let’s face it, everyone has reached that point in a game where the likelihood of a comeback is about the same as Lindsay Lohan becoming hire-able again…and everyone or most of your team just wants to move on to the next match.

1. Mercyrule
if you are behind 200 points and the score is already at 300 for the winning team end the game
if you are 100 behind and the score of the winning team is already at 400 end the game

reduce amount of points you get from lord kill and npc mobs or adjust the mercyrule treshold on such maps

2. split HoT and non HoT players enough of the p2w bullkitten gw2 became with HoT because I cant see how you will fix the balanceing issues ever as there were/are already enough balancing issues befor HoT with certain builds/classes

3. solo queue option
if I am not in a party I dont want to play against a party

4. pvp qualifier
please dont let players in ranked who cant even kill the lord with npcs or even worse the npc mobs svanir and chieftain

5. sometimes its hard too see the number of players on the minimap which fight over a point as they are overlapping to much so a number showing the players on point would be nice

LionChain.7694:

Tehape, so you’re saying if only one person is on a node, it caps/decaps slower than say having more than one person? If so, I actually think it’s an interesting idea…but wouldn’t you be worried about PvP becoming like a zerging game then?

To be more specific, let me give an example:
Current: Player Red on red node, Player Blue joins. No Decap. 2nd Player Blue joins, still no decap.
My Idea: Once 2nd Player Blue joins on node, it decaps maybe in a range of 20-30 secs. Faster if a 3rd Blue Player joins.

It is comparable with the Hold and Defend mechanic known from Battlefield. Here a node slowly decaps if you are outnumbered.

Benefits of this idea are: No real bunkering possible anymore, everything relys on good rotation (which is nowadays key aswell). Outnumbered fights are highlighted by seeing the node getting decapped. This may help players to react. Making either a fight equal or escaping.
If you have a look at all the changes Anet is doing, it comes out that bunkering shouldn´t be a thing anymore, but still meta/playstyle is related to bunkering due to the Hold and Defend mechanic. Consequently to solve this issue and underline the idea of not-being-able-to-bunker, a rework of this mechanic is recommendend (at least in my eyes).

LionChain.7694:

For the AFK thing, yeah, I agree, I think there needs to be a specific report option for that. But on the flip side, I feel like there needs to be an option that pops up to surrender if the score difference between teams is really high (like say 300-something to 50-something), and if 3/5 people vote for it, then your team can surrender…because let’s face it, everyone has reached that point in a game where the likelihood of a comeback is about the same as Lindsay Lohan becoming hire-able again…and everyone or most of your team just wants to move on to the next match.

To be honest, I dont agree with this one. I´ve fought to many matches were it was something like 4XX – 2XX (my team loosing), and in the end we had a great comeback. In my opinion a true PvP’er dont’ give up, and always tries to improve/fight back. But since PvP has come to a reward-driven branch of the game, ppl joining the mists with no ambitions anymore. Given with an oppertunity to surrender, it would rather help those ppl instead of punishing them.
Anet tries to comfort everyone, but in the end PvP is unfair, and thats something you have to learn and deal with.

1. Define a meta., then matchmake to the meta. Player’s can’t control their build mid-match with an iffy exception for Elementalist weapons, so teams are going to be hodgepodge nonsense unless they are premade or lucky.

2. Bring base specs in line with Elites for power and intuitiveness (not the other way). Elites are cooler, more powerful, and easier to understand than most base specs. As far as I can tell F2P can’t pvp effectively now, and that hurts the PvP experience for everyone.

3. Do balance metrics. You don’t need to tell us what they are, but do record them and use them. They’re good for putting numbers in perspective, determining how effective a spec/weaponset/skillset is, and for backing up a design decision when doing a balance patch.

4. Talk more! We like talking with you! Its cool. We’re also kind of salty, but its only because we care!

5. Good luck and have fun!

Thnx for clarifying, Tehape, yeah that could be an interesting idea. For the surrender thing, yeah I get what you’re saying; there are exceptions for comebacks even if the point difference is huge, but those kinds of situations (for the general PvP population, not for you or I personally) are few and far between. And that’s why it would be an option that the team can vote on. Because maybe 3/5 people will feel like, hey, let’s keep going anyway, but maybe 3/5 people will feel like they really don’t want to keep playing the match anymore, in which case, if that’s how most of your team feels (like they’ve already lost their motivation in this match), then the come back most likely won’t happen b/c 3/5 ppl on your team have already given up. And if 3/5 ppl on your team have already given up, it’s not only fair to them to allow them to move on to the next match, but it’s fair to the other 2 ppl b/c they don’t have to waste their efforts/energy in vain.

LionChain.7694:

Thnx for clarifying, Tehape, yeah that could be an interesting idea. For the surrender thing, yeah I get what you’re saying; there are exceptions for comebacks even if the point difference is huge, but those kinds of situations (for the general PvP population, not for you or I personally) are few and far between. And that’s why it would be an option that the team can vote on. Because maybe 3/5 people will feel like, hey, let’s keep going anyway, but maybe 3/5 people will feel like they really don’t want to keep playing the match anymore, in which case, if that’s how most of your team feels (like they’ve already lost their motivation in this match), then the come back most likely won’t happen b/c 3/5 ppl on your team have already given up. And if 3/5 ppl on your team have already given up, it’s not only fair to them to allow them to move on to the next match, but it’s fair to the other 2 ppl b/c they don’t have to waste their efforts/energy in vain.

You are totally right and I agree on your argumentation. But you have to think about the way how you treat such situation. If 2 people destroy the pvp-expierence of 7 other players (comparable with afking/raging in other games), you should not allow them to further participate in the game. If you look left and right besides Guild Wars 2, punishing of misbehaviour is regular (e.g. leaver-pools in Dota2). And thats what I suggest, you need a possibility to exclude certain players for the greater good of the community, and if 7 people report 2 players of afking/surrendering, it´s not judged by anet but by the community it self. This does include your stated situation aswell. If everyone is satisfied with the situation to keep on, no one will report anyone. And according to my exp. ; matches which are clearly lost are just finished quickly.

I suggest removing the safety nets in place or at least those from sapphire. The issue that the existing system is creating is that going through the first three divisions only takes a matter of time with very minimal risk of losing progress. Even a terrible player will eventually make it to ruby. What this does is create a bottleneck at ruby making the first few tiers rather pointless. What difference is there from starting at amber compared to just starting at ruby other than rewards or achievement progression?

The bottleneck should be created at the start that way it opens of the later divisions to where individual/team skill matters more. Will this make it more difficult for low skilled players to progress and get their achievement? Yes but this isn’t a bad thing. If it is then next season have just a single meta achievement where all those that participate to a degree get their gold sta… I mean they get their legendary reward.

Greetings Fellow Developers,

I hope to add to this excellent post with some more professional oriented feedback,

1. Mechanics

At the top of my list is The core mechanical operation of Dots, Buffs, and Toughness. The way these are working i would suspect would be the most efficient and accurate way of balancing the classes. Dot System is counter intuitive, The buffs system is overly powerful for short duration’s (Which would be better tuned down, over longer durations, as longer durations would encourage support builds more), and the toughness’s lack of effect of condition base damage invalidates tanking (aka bunker builds).

2. Complexity is the root of Overly Powerful builds.

When we look at a casual, easy to understand game (Like WoW) you will find that there is no room to “investigate ways of exploitation”. What i mean by this is, by doing lots of testing and research you can find builds which massively invalid others (because
of sheer power, either through numbers or inability to be countered).

The Soul and single mechanic is this is the room to be able to find those builds, which only reward the hardcore player base; For this reason this game needs to “dumb down” its complexity levels.

3. Runes & amulate are the cause of the power creep in Builds

These systems could use a design pass. I have been toying with the numbers and concepts of why classes and specs of classes are broken. At current i think the current runes should be wiped, and redesigned to work in a new way.

- Each Rune will now have class oriented ties to them. Limited to being equipped by a single class, or a group of classes. I would push each of these combinations to work in ways that it would cooperates with specific stats that specific builds are oriented.

On the downside it will kill some of the combinations, but this is actually good because it will move to fewer, more viable and more controlled (by devs) Builds.

For example, Ranger Marksmen and Theif Builds would favor the stats like precision and ferocity. So making a rune that has these stats, and some sort of special effect (like 50% chance to go invisible for 3 seconds on hit) Would be excellent move to making these classes more viable in combat. I would like these runes to both ranger, and thief.

From here i’d move each class to have some combinations of runes to have access to, i’d start this system on 3 runes per each class, each one of the runes countering for the various aspects in a class, for example a condition damage, pet health/damage, and power for a necromancer.

Amulates i would look at making work in a different way, changing the base way that the spells are effected. I would look at the following Options (instead of power in most cases) for amulates

Amulet of Power – + 150 All stats (generic)
Amulet of Frostfire – Burning effects now Chill the target
Amulet of Toxic Poison – Poison now reduces healing taken by 50%
Amulet of Invulerable ice – Chilling a target now has a 30% chance to freeze for 1 second.

And i would move off in this direction with each type of amulet to help “diversify” Builds. The purpose of this would be to allow players to have radically different effecting builds with out actually changing the builds in ways. This would give way to a more “diversified” form of building classes, but allow the developers to have a more controlled aspect on the classes damage rates.

The reason for this is because if we shift the stats away from these things and primarily into base, static powers + talent related power, it would make talent specs and options more potent, make controlling the classes much easier (for balance because you have a more static value) but still make retain the viability of all specs.

4. Map Objectives

Various map objectives are being ignored by players. This tells me as a designer that their “perceived Value” is not high enough. Maps that have micro bosses that grant +25 points should be increased to 50.

Catapults should have their values of rebuilding much higher as well as their kill points. Additionally the knock down should be removed, and the damage should be decreased, and their rate of charge (to fire) improved. This will provide more encouragement to put people in it (Again, the map objective options are not valued enough by the players). To name a few examples.

5. It would be nice to see some other various improvements, but of them it would be excellent to see buffs to the pvp area itself, like a repair merchant, crafting vendors, and other such things Like dueling.

The OP’s suggestions were the BEST. Anyone that comes along after asking for nerfs (to any class) is the WORST.

I hate nerfs, ninja nerfs kitten me off BIG TIME and I quit a lot of games because of game developers constantly doing “re-balancing.”

Electra.7530:

The OP’s suggestions were the BEST. Anyone that comes along after asking for nerfs (to any class) is the WORST.

I hate nerfs, ninja nerfs kitten me off BIG TIME and I quit a lot of games because of game developers constantly doing “re-balancing.”

There is an utterly insane position, and highly ignorant one to have. In fact all i really read from that is i want to own everything and never want my awesome build to be nerfed.

When it comes to balance we generally do the most effective and efficient change. If 5 things are out of place because they are to weak, we buff them (as opposed to nerfing everthing else). Same thing with buffing. the objective is to increase or decrease accordingly.

In fact one of the most accurate and fastest ways of balance is to intentionally make something op, and under powered so we get a “ceiling” and “floor” of where their should be, after the third patch we are generally +/- 15% of the target area.

We wouldent do massive amounts of work buffing stuff because one thing is really op. For you to purpose that is insane considering if something is op it would involve changing everything in the game (boss life etc) In pve and pvp.

So nerfs are here to stay.

Don’t let f2p users have access to ranked and only allow those who bought HoT before the start of league 1 to have access to ranked.

Erik Waananen.6089:

Thank you, everyone, for your continued input! I just wanted to pop in real quick and let you know that I have read through every single post in this thread (in addition to reading many, many other threads across the PvP forums, of course) and that the team is aware of and very appreciative of all of your constructive feedback.

Keep it comin’!

EDIT: Poor grammar :P

ANET! This is the kind of communication the player base is talking about! Even if you don’t have anything like “Well we can’t do this because” the acknowledgement that you read the posts and took them into consideration is a step in the right direction! Thank you Erik!

Topher.5631:

Erik Waananen.6089:

Thank you, everyone, for your continued input! I just wanted to pop in real quick and let you know that I have read through every single post in this thread (in addition to reading many, many other threads across the PvP forums, of course) and that the team is aware of and very appreciative of all of your constructive feedback.

Keep it comin’!

EDIT: Poor grammar :P

ANET! This is the kind of communication the player base is talking about! Even if you don’t have anything like “Well we can’t do this because” the acknowledgement that you read the posts and took them into consideration is a step in the right direction! Thank you Erik!

Exactly!

Les hope that ppl keep posting their suggestions.

new ideas are always a step in the right direction

1.- dont alow class swaping ( like this u could prevent class staking, by not putting more than 2 of the same class at start of tge game.
2.- try to find a way to join pvp while playing pve or www.

3.- add a resign feature if all 5 players agree /resign then the game should end.

4.- verbal abuse specially for no reason should be punish automaticly, if u curse and some one reports u the game should be able to see what u wrote and give u a 15 minutes dishonor (reason for this is because i get a lot of insults for no reason and its hard to focus on the game while typing or replying trying to explain some decision that i did about rotating or calling some target or not stomping and cleaved insted)

5.- add template builds like in gw1 this one is long overdue that i not even need to explain why we all want and need.

throw the whole system out and start over

don’t punish people – don’t restart seas 3 with players being burdened with low mmr or low win/loss ratios for w/e reasons – scrap it all and start over w. everyone on a level playing field (I started the season at 54% win/loss – I am now below 45% – how is this possible in one season, esp after years of pvping – and which one is reflective of my “skill” – season 1 at 54% or seas 2 at 44% or neither or w/e)

why shouldn’t good players have to endure bad players – as a “bad” player with low mmr, I am forced to encounter and play w/ “bad” people all day long everyday. I never get to play w/ “good” players – I’m not allowed because of the present system. How can I improve then? How can I tier up? How can I ever find out if its my own personal skill that put me here – or something else like a win begets win/loss begets loss system (or perpetual pairings w/ losing/new/low mmr players so … have some more losses pls)

teams of 100% soloers should never be pitted against pre-made teams of 2 or 3 or 4

Make it all 100% random, w/ no class duplication (or balanced so that 2 mesmers exist on both teams, etc)

Don’t ever allow amber players w/ ruby players, unless the opposing team is matched identically (i.e. 1 duo of ruby/amber per team, etc) – I mean what’s the pt of being in ruby, for ex, if ur team is 2 ambers, 1 saph, 2 rubies (all solos – no duos/teams) and ur opp is 5 solo rubies (or worse, 4 rubies premade w/ 1 solo ruby)- how does this happen?

Consider factoring in length of time/exp players have in pvp as a threshold for placement – certainly after playing 2000 games I must be a better pvper than a brand new player – altho my current win/loss ratio (and presumable low mmr) would suggest otherwise (how can this be, unless I’m unbearably stupid, but even then pure random match-up would suggest it would be almost impossible to encounter a 100 game losing streak). Brand new players with vanilla builds should never be paired with experienced players, unless the opposing team has the same disadvantage.

NO rerolls ever – no logouts mid game to get achieves on other chars – if u log out, u lose a pip (but ur teammates don’t lose a pip – but they don’t win one either if they win) – I have seen ppl using rerolls to exploit in so many diff ways its disgusting – u get what u get when u load in – makes it more random/more challenging and actually separates the men from the boys cuz then it truly is more based on skill and the ability to flex/adapt to w/e ur presented with.

Ban repeat afkers/bot/match manipulators and penalize their individual pips after multiple offenses

Balance skills/classes rather than rotating the classes who get OP meta this season

Don’t have OP tanky builds and if there’s a healer on one team, the other one must have one also – I have seen too many games where the entire game is won because of a single healer or single tank that 4 teammates just couldn’t kill (why they bother to try rather than rotate I’ll never understand), so the cap never changes (yes, this is how it is at the bottom)

Eliminate downed states in rpvp- if u down a player, they’re dead – the whole synchronized stomp, pull and double rez w/ ur pet, dead but not really dead, dead but rezzed, down but then inexplicably instantly somewhere else on the map w/ full health or rolling thru base portals in downed states or any # of other ridiculous things I have seen, whether legit or exploit should be eliminated – matches would be over quicker too and the play more intense (tho u could extend pts needed). This would put ppl in q availability sooner and there would be faster skill play, more indicative of skill rather than gimmicky, he was dead but then two teammates rezzed him, and then they downed me but my teammates were interrupted rezzing me or it took too long for my rez, etc – it would get rid of all that useless bs that makes games tedious and less to do w/ skill and more about gimmicks/tankiness or “rezzing skill.”

Stop punishing poor/weak/new players and average players and some good players caught in the hell of mmr-mandated perpetual losses for the benefit of pro players who just wanted to “get there faster” and didn’t want to have to do what I have to do all day everyday – teach ppl strategy and skill and builds and simply how to pvp, only to endure endless abuse from both losers and winners and smug gloating from the pros – not fun

Punishing players by relegating them to an endless, or potentially endless losing streak is demoralizing, not fun, not necessary and counter-intuitive to profitability and longevity of the game – pls don’t sacrifice the game to serve a few smug epurts players that will rise to the top no matter what anyway – it just might take them a little longer, and along the way, the games might be a little more diverse and challenging and fun and require actual flexible personal skill than gimmicky synchronized builds with 1,2,3 focus/stomp/next tactics (think HOH IWAY).

I personally would like to see 100% random, solo with teams at the top composed of non-synced solo players whose stats match ea other (from all their individual games) and like a box of chocolates they never know what they’re going to get or be up against

1. Full solo queue, let’s see the ESL pros climb like we do, or give bonus wins in 5 man pre-made team, so they and us can play normally! ( Note that I’m 33 pips diamond, soloed a lot, duo-trio-ed a lot)
2. Profession stacking max 2 same profession
3. Make more maps, and make the ESL twitch camera normal, normal visual, I can’t even see a thing what’s happening, so a new players says this is the rock era!
3. Start promoting the WvW to, there are more players there, bigger community, but with this ideology you will loose it, and gw2 will die…( it’s already dieing that’s why you start to talk to people I guess )
4. Don’t treat ESL players like they know everything and going after their advise, see this MMR hell, my friend was in same tier as me, we got harder opponents, like tier 2 us, and enemy team tier 6, that’s fair? After I got to tier 6-7 I got enemy team in tier 2-3 which was my friends team, not to mention we beat up them like hell!
5. Don’t let duo-trio pre-made from another divisions, only same divisions! Even in diamond a guy got his diamond tier 2 friend to us in tier 6-7 and he was a total 0, did nothing, just dieing, it was a 4vs5 really, my mother could have played better… that of a big difference is diamond tiers!

1) Create an incentive to help other players. From my experiences I think the PvP community is helpful if the player is open to people analyzing their game play. I’ve had plenty of people take time to show me tricks to improve my play, and provide good feedback on game streams. However, there currently is nothing in the game to reward people for this type of behavior. This helps raise the overall level of play, and encourages people to keep playing even if they are not doing well.

2) Qualification to play in ranked. You should have to have x number of wins with the build you are using before you can queue for ranked. You can use the preseason for prequalifying the builds you want to run.

3) Harsh and consistent punishment for toxic players. They ruin the experience for the other 4 people on their team. The guy that spends the match telling everyone how dumb they are, or AFKs the minute they get focused down in a team fight should have a significant punishment. Maybe make them requalify their characters, or a week ban from ranked matches. I’ve won plenty of matches where the first fight was a cluster and we were down 100+ points. If this guy is on your team it isn’t going to happen.

4) Improve training grounds. Give the class NPC dummies decent AI and builds. Make them look like the enemies you are fighting. That way people can learn what skills they will be facing look like. Right now you can auto attack kill most of them with at the most healing yourself once.

5) To me more interesting twitch content would be having something similar to ultimate fighter where upper tier players coach a set of lower tier players for a season and you can see them get better. Also seeing the matches from the POV of the player with the text window open that shows damage/healing would make it useful for other people to follow and replay to see what is really going on. Right now ESL matches really aren’t relevant to what most people would see in a sPvP match and look like a firework show with someone talking over it.

1.Make having HoT mandatory for ranked. That’s all for now.

Hey ppl, Anet already said they are following this post, dont let it die!

Keep giving ur top suggestions!

1. Nerf all elite specs, when HoT came out Anet said base classes would still be viable
2. Buff war sustain and damage
3. Fix the downed sliding bug
4. Buff thief sustain a lil bit gotta be careful if they get too much they will be op
5. Nerf Mes, great 1v1 portal moa, its a lil bit too much all in one

i’ve already done my top 5.. just gonna dropp this as a plus: If you wait with changes for long months, ppl gonna just leave and never regret that after seeing the patch you made needs ‘shavings’.. but w8.. that requires a new patch, that needs 3months to be worked on…

(A) Don’t allow doubling up of classes in teams, i.e. two of class X within the same team.

It’s clear you definitely can’t balance class pairing.

(B) Have an OP Button. Each player will be able to select ONE class they do not fight against. Thus:- (1) If there are OP classes they will end up fighting less or have longer queues, and (2) the developers will be giving a clue to where to actually balance things with at least SOME input for their customers, and (3) those players that do think there are OP classes have some from of rage-absorber.

© Split solo joiners from fixed teams, i.e. ranked random and team leagues.

I would also suggest that more evidence is provided that the match-ups are honest!

This game has potential for being e-sport, but since it’s on maintenance mode without any significant changes ever happening again, here are my top suggestions:

1. Make a separate game, PvP only, using the same mechanics that everyone love. That way, skills will be balanced around PvP and PvP only.

2. Achieve balance. Not only within the tier list but also in general (balance the amount of CC/stun break, damage/active defense, nerf/buff) to avoid the atrocious power creep (and skill spam) this game currently suffers from.

3. Add more PvP mods: king of the hill, capture the flag, moba/stronghold, arena/deathmatchs, free for all rings/areas while waiting in queues…

4. True skill based ranking, no pip farm. Something fine grained and transparent (visible Elo rating).

5. A matchmaker that prevents class stacking or role stacking (matchmaker should detect if someone is damage dealer, bruiser, tank, support/healer, jungler/pusher, etc…).

1. make a major pvp adjustment to self healing so that things die more regularly
2. don’t let any spec exist that can be nigh unkillable in 1v1 for ANY other spec
3. add some more optional feedback for what is happening in fights
4. never let premades fight solos
5. keep different MMR’s away from each other, i.e. don’t let high MMR’s farm the low

1 Ban all free accounts from playing ranked. This will help with those trolling and re rolling.

2 More maps. Don’t care if conquest or some other type.

3 Reward 1 ticket on match loss.

4 Some other folks agree: limit class stacking.

5 Something else to do while waiting for queue to pop.