Guild Wars 2

The quicker Anet realizes and accepts that sPvP will never become an esport the quicker they can move resources to WvW — the player-preferred method of PvP in GW2.

Which of the 5 stages of grief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model, or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z3lmidmrY) do you think Anet is in regarding sPvP?

• Evidence for Denial: They’re still heavily pushing sPvP — tournaments, balancing for sPvP.
• Evidence for Anger: “Stop violating my game mode.”

Do the sPvP bloodlust area in WvW and unbalancing WvW as much as possible in order to move competitive players to sPvP count as “Bargaining”? Perhaps not.

:)

Nice post ilr, I wondered if I was the only one who interpreted those sentiments in Josh’s post. Players don’t accuse devs of “lies” when they don’t make happen something they mentioned might come, they accuse devs of lies when they blatantly do the exact opposite of what they stated multiple times would not happen.

I hope we don’t see any of the same mistakes that previous developers have made either. Warhammer clinging to their precious metrics until the bitter end (while players wailed on the forums, gnashed their teeth and left in droves) plus strange ex-community people appointed to key roles in PVP. SWTOR all but blaming a “toxic” PvP community for developer failures also springs to mind.

I realize that we are all just individuals, games players don’t always know what is best for the game and I/we possibly don’t know better than Devon Carver (although I suspect I have a kitten sight more experience). But I truly hope that EVERYTHING is now open to discussion and not closed off because it doesn’t suit one or more developers “vision of the game”.

We shall see.

Ah thanks for those other examples … Which were ironically the 2 games most of my COH friends went to when they felt COH itself had lost all hope for them…

But you also bring up RvR… I’m really curious now what caused DAoC’s biggest declines there? I know back around release and the lead up to Beta we had quite a few DAoC’ers commenting frequently about WvW, but I don’t recall them ever going into what lessons the devs should have taken that RvR’s decline. …if any… (didn’t one or two of those Devs from there collaborate on WvW here?)

coincidentally, i made a post in the collaboration thread about silencing josh and how they treat the forums in general, using language josh kinda warns against (emotionally charged bullkitten meant to get a rise out of the target)…

but probably just a coincidence. /tinfoilhat

ilr.9675:

But you also bring up RvR… I’m really curious now what caused DAoC’s biggest declines there?

WoW?

There is a lot of nostalgia for old games, especially those that people first cut their teeth on in a particular game mode (be it pve, raiding, rvr, etc) but they have a lot of faults when you examine them in a modern context, vs what gamers expect nowadays.

Many played an alternative gamestyle in DAoC anyway (simple 8v8 roaming fights) the actual RvR portion wouldn’t be my ideal of a perfect system.

At best you can take a few of the best mechanics or incentives from older games and incorporate them. But old games died for a reason, they were surpassed or people got bored of their simplicity even if they loved them for a time.

Anet doesn’t need to dig in to history to find the answers for WvW, they simply need to listen to their playerbase in the here and now, and not go off dreaming up new features nobody wants, or ever even asked for or discussed.

Which includes leagues and bloodust.

@OP

You need to remember one thing. If they put a focus on WvW, you may end up with changes you do not want. How many people would have wanted mastery skills and orbs as the priorities within WvW?

ilr.9675:

Ah thanks for those other examples … Which were ironically the 2 games most of my COH friends went to when they felt COH itself had lost all hope for them…

But you also bring up RvR… I’m really curious now what caused DAoC’s biggest declines there? I know back around release and the lead up to Beta we had quite a few DAoC’ers commenting frequently about WvW, but I don’t recall them ever going into what lessons the devs should have taken that RvR’s decline. …if any… (didn’t one or two of those Devs from there collaborate on WvW here?)

For many (including myself) ToA (Trials of Atlantis) effectively finished DaOC. My memory is kinda hazy that far back but it was certainly a factor although it was already on a decline. DAoC was actually my first foray in to an MMO after almost exclusively playing FPS type games online (Tribes, Tribes2 more than Quake) and it was simply revolutionary.

I don’t believe anyone from Mythic made it to Arenanet although I could be wrong. Certainly many from WAR made it to SWTOR (Gabe Amanangelo or whatever he was called being a good example I think, certainly a good example of how not to do open world PvP if you look at Ilum). There is a dev post or blog from Anet a good while ago stating DAoC RvR was the blueprint and inspiration for WvWvW but I think many of the devs have forgotten that (and most of the current devs are probably too young to even know what DAoC is or how good/important it was).

I see a common thread between WAR, SWTOR and GW2. All had early “success” and held much promise. In the case of WAR and SWTOR egos and reputations got in the way and it went to a lot of peoples heads that they were the SOLE reason the game was successful. I wish Colin all the best in rooting that out and starting some meaningful collaboration and taking the game forward.

Huh. Interesting.

I guess this is going to be a minority opinion, but I actually like the Bloodlust areas. Krait Lake was boring, the weather buff was too unpredictable to be useful and too small to do anything, and there was nowhere to hide (it was a flat-out sprint to get anywhere, you couldn’t avoid telegraphing your movements, and the central island was the only feature that allowed you to break Line of Sight).

Now there’s a consistent buff from a topographically interesting area that provides a small (i.e. not game-breaking) but non-zero benefit to everyone on your side in WvW. It’s something that roamers can work on which benefits the whole server in a concrete way, and it’s great for losing a tail or turning the tables. Plus the cannons at the top of each area make “capture and hold” that much more viable.

Then again, I also don’t have any problems with SPvP. I don’t do it much (only when WvW has too big a spread to be interesting for the rest of the week), but I like it for testing builds and fast-paced small-scale action. So… I guess I just see things from a totally different perspective than you folks.

I don’t think they are liars but after reading accounts of people working for them they seem to have a lot of management, all with their own agendas, and not enough programmers.

What this means is that what players want will likely be ignored a lot of the time as management persue what they want. Anyone who has worked in a beaucratic environment would recognise this pattern.

Spvp still has the worst rewards and is the least fun aspect of the game. It hasn’t had a real update in ages. Stuff to improve it is still in discussion stage till January. So I am not sure it is as high a priority as WvW any more.

I agree with your assessment that it’s more feelings and delusions on ANet’s part at work here rather than pragmatic considerations for their continued sPvP favoritism and the relatively lukewarm embracement of WvW. But I would not say that they should completely drop sPvP development. Atleast not for the possibility that there still lies some ANet spirit from GW1 days dormant.
The problem is that they have completely kittened up priorities. You should not even start to think about how to make your sPvP an eSport and “exciting to watch” (as unfortunately stressed once again recently by Colin as the most important design consideration) when the fundamentals just don’t work. When no one wants to play your PvP. This dogma was not only not productive for the development of a great game, it actively hurt it in this case (the keyword being Conquest)
sPvP in it’s current state is just not a good PvP game. They need to work on those basics first and foremost. ANet’s denial lies there, not that they still bet on sPvP by itself.

…well that’s a really important distinction right there. I admit I hadn’t considered exactly where that line could be drawn. Not a fan of it’s fundamentals myself even though I should be (b/c it seems more based more off codex/costumeBrawl). …I hope they figure out someday what went wrong

ilr.9675:

Ah thanks for those other examples … Which were ironically the 2 games most of my COH friends went to when they felt COH itself had lost all hope for them…

But you also bring up RvR… I’m really curious now what caused DAoC’s biggest declines there? I know back around release and the lead up to Beta we had quite a few DAoC’ers commenting frequently about WvW, but I don’t recall them ever going into what lessons the devs should have taken that RvR’s decline. …if any… (didn’t one or two of those Devs from there collaborate on WvW here?)

I didn’t play, but talking to people who did the biggest factor still cited for DAoC decline was the Trials of Atlantis expansion. (To the point where Mark Jacobs, DAoC creator, specifically made a joke of it during his Camelot Unchained kickstarter).

Trials of Atlantis was the expansion that introduced a PvE raid gear grind for BiS RvR gear.

Sound familiar? That is Ascended Weapons (and later Armor) in a nutshell.

Of course, a game called World of Warcraft was introduced in 2004 with far higher degree of polish. No doubt many left for the new shiney.

If the devs fired the PvP staff and deleted PvP in the next patch, how would that make WvW better?

If I were a dev, I would have stopped taking the WvW forums seriously a long time ago. Fortunately, the GW2 devs are very patient.

Pendragon.8735:

ilr.9675:

But you also bring up RvR… I’m really curious now what caused DAoC’s biggest declines there?

WoW?

There is a lot of nostalgia for old games, especially those that people first cut their teeth on in a particular game mode (be it pve, raiding, rvr, etc) but they have a lot of faults when you examine them in a modern context, vs what gamers expect nowadays.

Many played an alternative gamestyle in DAoC anyway (simple 8v8 roaming fights) the actual RvR portion wouldn’t be my ideal of a perfect system.

At best you can take a few of the best mechanics or incentives from older games and incorporate them. But old games died for a reason, they were surpassed or people got bored of their simplicity even if they loved them for a time.

Anet doesn’t need to dig in to history to find the answers for WvW, they simply need to listen to their playerbase in the here and now, and not go off dreaming up new features nobody wants, or ever even asked for or discussed.

Which includes leagues and bloodust.

ToA (Trials of Atlantis) killed DAoC. WoW was the nail in the coffin. I kinda liked ToA and the Master Levels, but when easy mode casual WoW came to town, a ton of people flocked to it. There were still a lot of people playing DAoC through New Frontiers, Catacombs, Darkness Rising, Labyrinth…but they couldn’t compare to the numbers of WoW or their numbers during Shrouded Isles and Foundations.

While you are correct a lot of people ran 8 mans, there were still zergs in DAoC. There were some key differences in DAoC’s ‘smallman’ and ‘zergs’

DAoC’s small man had a lot of complexity too it. There always seemed to be a taxonomic hierarchy to it. Like you’d run into an 3 different 8 man melee assist trains, and each one of them had a specific flavor that made them quite different from the rest. Each realm had some generic classes, but also had some realm specific classes which brought a lot of dynamic game play. In GW2 you see “game metas” emerging, then see a lot of small mans switch to it.

In DAoC, you had zergs yes. But the only advantage a zerg had was numbers. Numbers is an already strong factor this type of pvp, but in GW2 you have aoe cap, stealth spam, downed state which gives even more power to the zergs. Also the maps were larger (broke up the zergs), and defense points couldn’t attack other defense points (IE: Stonemist being able to fire at towers nearby) Besiegers had to work to hold onto their sieges from bomber groups and enemy zergs.

Except I prefer spvp because I prefer balanced matches.

Thrumdi.9216:

ilr.9675:

Ah thanks for those other examples … Which were ironically the 2 games most of my COH friends went to when they felt COH itself had lost all hope for them…

But you also bring up RvR… I’m really curious now what caused DAoC’s biggest declines there? I know back around release and the lead up to Beta we had quite a few DAoC’ers commenting frequently about WvW, but I don’t recall them ever going into what lessons the devs should have taken that RvR’s decline. …if any… (didn’t one or two of those Devs from there collaborate on WvW here?)

I didn’t play, but talking to people who did the biggest factor still cited for DAoC decline was the Trials of Atlantis expansion. (To the point where Mark Jacobs, DAoC creator, specifically made a joke of it during his Camelot Unchained kickstarter).

Trials of Atlantis was the expansion that introduced a PvE raid gear grind for BiS RvR gear.

Sound familiar? That is Ascended Weapons (and later Armor) in a nutshell.

Of course, a game called World of Warcraft was introduced in 2004 with far higher degree of polish. No doubt many left for the new shiney.

WoW was anything but polished in its early days. Severe class imbalance, zero raiding, boring quests, etc. It was just shiney and people were trying it out because ‘omg its a blizzard game! and blizzard never makes crappy games!’ lol. However it was very easy to play, which is why most people stuck with it. But polished? Not even close, hell there were still bugs in the game from classic when I quit midway through Cataclysm.

Lord Kuru.3685:

The quicker Anet realizes and accepts that sPvP will never become an esport the quicker they can move resources to WvW — the player-preferred method of PvP in GW2.

Which of the 5 stages of grief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model, or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z3lmidmrY) do you think Anet is in regarding sPvP?

• Evidence for Denial: They’re still heavily pushing sPvP — tournaments, balancing for sPvP.
• Evidence for Anger: “Stop violating my game mode.”

Do the sPvP bloodlust area in WvW and unbalancing WvW as much as possible in order to move competitive players to sPvP count as “Bargaining”? Perhaps not.

:)

Ill add more evidence, people on the Spvp forums can trash talk call deathmatch players any name in the book call them all terrible. Yet when I respond with logical truth, ‘hey myself and about a dozen WvW players on my friends list are higher rated then you so maybe WvW players are better then you think’….. Infraction.

Say conquest is not a popular game mode…. infraction, say deathmatch mode would bring more WvW/GvG and PvE players into PvP…. infraction.

Say anything that does not support conquest…. infraction.

Thrumdi.9216:

Trials of Atlantis was the expansion that introduced a PvE raid gear grind for BiS RvR gear.

Sound familiar?

I see your point….

NevirSayDie.6235:

If the devs fired the PvP staff and deleted PvP in the next patch, how would that make WvW better?

If I were a dev, I would have stopped taking the WvW forums seriously a long time ago. Fortunately, the GW2 devs are very patient.

The answer is: opportunity cost. The resources (dev time, servers, etc.) they are spending on sPvP can be used to improve WvW. This is not insignificant. Anet is currently OBSESSED with turning sPvP into an esport.

Furthermore, sPvP is currently the only consideration when it comes to balancing. If sPvP were deleted more attention could be place on WvW’s myriad balance issues.

As for the devs taking the WvW forums seriously, they have never done so, and that is part of the problem.

I would be interested in seeing the statistics on time spent in sPvP vs WvW.

Maybe the issue has nothing to do with what players want. It could be that sPvP and competitive esports is more marketable to potential new customers. Then it wouldn’t matter if not a single player was interested. From a profit standpoint, after you buy the game, Anet can stop listening to you except in regards to buying gems. In this view, it would be in their interest to promote imbalances in WvW to promote server transfers. As this brings in more money.

As long as they keep pumping out PvE events/content, they will be satisfying the majority of the player base which keeps the customer reviews high and keeps sales coming.

If they had put spvp resources towards GvG with varying rule sets and options like LOL has where you can ban builds etc, personally I think it would have been more successful.

GvG pl0x

Lord Kuru.3685:

The quicker Anet realizes and accepts that sPvP will never become an esport the quicker they can move resources to WvW — the player-preferred method of PvP in GW2.

Which of the 5 stages of grief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model, or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Z3lmidmrY) do you think Anet is in regarding sPvP?

• Evidence for Denial: They’re still heavily pushing sPvP — tournaments, balancing for sPvP.
• Evidence for Anger: “Stop violating my game mode.”

Do the sPvP bloodlust area in WvW and unbalancing WvW as much as possible in order to move competitive players to sPvP count as “Bargaining”? Perhaps not.

:)

Does that 1+ button on this forum do anything? Because I been trying to 1 up this post.

I think I would actually play sPvP if I could use my PvE/WvW character, and it had food buffs. And glory obtained in sPvP was reflected everywhere else.

I honestly can’t understand why they ever separated them.

If sPvP was more about fighting and less about capping points, I would play it…

Game studios used “DAOC” for many years now.. Promising a game with WvW(RVR) like DAOC had, because there are many people who are waiting for such a game for many, many years now. Its a sales talk.
WAR, AION, etc all did this, sold lots of their game at the release. And lost lots of players after a few months. But made a lot of money doing it.
And most big new mmo will do the same thing.

Problem is you cant mix WvW with other genres. If you do you will fail.
But of course they all want to attract as much customers as possible. So they always add PVE and SPVP.

DAOC had tactics smaller groups could use to kill larger groups. CC didn’t work for large groups because it was removed by AOE damage of other players.
Groups could use tactics like 1 group bait and pull their zerg into a long snake(speed difference), so another group could kill the slow people and decrease the numbers.
ETC….
A good trained group that worked well together could kill a lot of weaker enemies (zerg)
GW2 doesn’t , if a large group has more then 2 or 3 times the numbers as even the best group out there, the large group will win with a bit of leading.. doesn’t matter if like more then 50% of the large zerg isn’t even 80 yet and is their first week playing .
GW2 wvw is a game for brainless zombies. Group up, skill doesn’t matter. Do PVDoor 24/7 and you will win

I also wonder if Camelot unchained will succeed. Don’t really follow it, but they wanted a sort of level system? Like realm ranks. So creating a gap between new and old players or new alts. Between players that can play 24/7 and people who have a job and family(no skill/teamwork/training/experience but level/rank/and game time will make you a winner)

Dutchares.6084:

GW2 doesn’t , if a large group has more then 2 or 3 times the numbers as even the best group out there, the large group will win with a bit of leading.. doesn’t matter if like more then 50% of the large zerg isn’t even 80 yet and is their first week playing .

We are playing same game? Try to use things called “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” on your enemy, and things called “discipline”, “coordination”, “guild builds” and “tactic” on your group, and you will see x2 zergs teared apart.

The class balance based on spvp is absolutely horrible for pve and wvw. They really need to stop pushing for esport, its hurting their game. Instead, they should make spvp more fun. I’m a little surprised that spvp doesnt even have the classic death match or capture the flag game modes.

Lord Kuru.3685:

The quicker Anet realizes and accepts that sPvP will never become an esport the quicker they can move resources to WvW — the player-preferred method of PvP in GW2.

Not specifically WvW; more-so GvG. If they can add spectators and that sort of goodness to GvG all the better.

While I don’t actually care to participate in GvG it’s blatantly obvious that it is already the start of a eSports scene – and is a pretty entertaining one too.

The thing about eSports is that it very often comes out of games that had no intention of being an eSport. Look at DoTA 1, Starcraft 1, Warcraft 3 & Audiosurf. The developers of these games never intended for them to become eSports – the fans identified the fun (to play and to watch) bits in the games and set up the eSport scene themselves. That’s the thing, I don’t think there has ever been a eSports scene come from a dev saying “we are going to set up eSports in this game with this mode.” It simply doesn’t, and will never, work like that.

So when we get to the acceptance stage maybe we will see a GvG map in sPvP (or something, ultimately I think the only thing holding GvG back from really taking off is the lack of spectating features) – we are getting close with the hints of a “GvG area in WvW”. If ANet ever want to see eSports come out of this game though they are going to have to do a 180 on their perspective toward GvG – sPvP simply isn’t working out.

There is progress though – it looks like we are at a “90 on their perspective.” I’m starting to see acceptance here.

If they add an actual GvG arena, the WvWVW maps would probably be overtaken by tumbleweeds.

gennyt.3428:

If they add an actual GvG arena, the WvWVW maps would probably be overtaken by tumbleweeds.

A lot of guilds do zerg smashing a.k.a. raiding. There is still plenty of reason to do WvW apart from GvG (e.g. insane amounts of junk loot for your essences of luck).

zamalek.2154:

Lord Kuru.3685:

The quicker Anet realizes and accepts that sPvP will never become an esport the quicker they can move resources to WvW — the player-preferred method of PvP in GW2.

While I don’t actually care to participate in GvG it’s blatantly obvious that it is already the start of a eSports scene – and is a pretty entertaining one too.

I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Rednik.3809:

Dutchares.6084:

GW2 doesn’t , if a large group has more then 2 or 3 times the numbers as even the best group out there, the large group will win with a bit of leading.. doesn’t matter if like more then 50% of the large zerg isn’t even 80 yet and is their first week playing .

We are playing same game? Try to use things called “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” on your enemy, and things called “discipline”, “coordination”, “guild builds” and “tactic” on your group, and you will see x2 zergs teared apart.

Hate to rain on your parade,but lets all remember the big golden rules that break wvw.
AoE is limited to 5 enemies.
Add to that guardians providing stability for stupid ammounts to 5 players around them along with the anet goof of nerfing boon removal to the ground and that eliminates all chances of a smaller unit actually holding a choke.
The only thing discipline would had an effect on wvw is to make people back off from it entirely.
0 participation would surely get anet’s attention to stop babysitting the zergs.
Who knows maybe by some miracle they would even balance the game so you wont have to dish 70 points on siege might while siege bunker needs only 30.
And lets not forget that while might doesnt affect direct dmg on siege,protection negates siege dmg.
There are a ton of goofs in the system that favor the mindless zerging,and tactics discipline and landscape knowledge cant compete with those.

grave of hearts.7830:

Rednik.3809:

Dutchares.6084:

GW2 doesn’t , if a large group has more then 2 or 3 times the numbers as even the best group out there, the large group will win with a bit of leading.. doesn’t matter if like more then 50% of the large zerg isn’t even 80 yet and is their first week playing .

We are playing same game? Try to use things called “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” on your enemy, and things called “discipline”, “coordination”, “guild builds” and “tactic” on your group, and you will see x2 zergs teared apart.

Hate to rain on your parade,but lets all remember the big golden rules that break wvw.
AoE is limited to 5 enemies.
Add to that guardians providing stability for stupid ammounts to 5 players around them along with the anet goof of nerfing boon removal to the ground and that eliminates all chances of a smaller unit actually holding a choke.
The only thing discipline would had an effect on wvw is to make people back off from it entirely.
0 participation would surely get anet’s attention to stop babysitting the zergs.
Who knows maybe by some miracle they would even balance the game so you wont have to dish 70 points on siege might while siege bunker needs only 30.
And lets not forget that while might doesnt affect direct dmg on siege,protection negates siege dmg.
There are a ton of goofs in the system that favor the mindless zerging,and tactics discipline and landscape knowledge cant compete with those.

As discussed in many other threats: AOE removal will help the zerg more then smaller groups.

I think the biggest problems wvw have are the point system that promotes PvDooring and off hour raiding when enemies are a lot less then you.
And rewarding blobbing up to 1 zone blob the most and makes it the best tactic.

If these 2 problems would get fixed it would also mean
- staying on a server with biggest population not needed anymore: so less queues, people spread out more
-night capping don’t effect the score that much anymore (so no usa etc on euro server and the other way around)
- people spread out more over the zone running in smaller groups, will make skill lag disappear or reduced.
- more groups spread out in a zone will mean more actual fights instead of PvDooring so less boring.
- server points and ranking will actually matter again, since it is skill based and not only who has most. So players and guilds that don’t care anymore about PPT and start doing stuff like GvG and make their own competitions, will be interested again to fight for their server.

So 5 big problems fixed with 2 changes..

grave of hearts.7830:

Hate to rain on your parade,but lets all remember the big golden rules that break wvw.
AoE is limited to 5 enemies.

This depends entirely on how the AOE works on each tick. For example, Veil can be used on an entire zerg because it affects each person as they run over it (and the others have since passed through and no longer count toward the cap). I guess some experimentation should be done with static fields to see exactly how the enter/exit mechanic works interacts with the AOE limit.

That’s all irrelevant though: even if the static field only hits one player it has still done something. A small difference is very different to no difference. Additionally, if two 80 man zergs meet (and are extremely coordinated/disciplined and are stacking) and each of those 80 players drops an AOE in the correct position the other players will on average take the same amount of damage as if they were not in a disciplined group – similar to what Tequatl does to the attacking zergs (this never happens in reality because nobody coordinates AOEs).

Furthermore, the only part of his argument that is questionable is the “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” bit. “discipline”, “coordination” and “tactic” have a massive difference.

Maybe my opinion is biased because our PUGs are slightly above average at discipline, coordination and tactics (they are forced to be because our individual groups are nearly always outnumbered).

grave of hearts.7830:

There are a ton of goofs in the system that favor the mindless zerging,and tactics discipline and landscape knowledge cant compete with those.

I’ll leave this right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDuzRJ7uY2w

Zephyrus.9680:

If sPvP was more about fighting and less about capping points, I would play it…

That statement makes no sense.

To win, you need 500 points, the best way to get points is capping, hence capping is a valuable commodity, and because of this, there are ALWAYS fights. As opposed to wvw where 95% of the players run away like cowards.

Don’t get me wrong I like both game modes, but spvp provides real fights, not babies running away or perma stealth thieves. Stealth all you want in spvp, you’ll lose.

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

Zephyrus.9680:

If sPvP was more about fighting and less about capping points, I would play it…

the best way to get points is capping, hence capping is a valuable commodity, and because of this, there are ALWAYS fights.

ALWAYS is a poor description. As you said it’s about capping, therefore your priority isn’t to engage, the priority is to cap first, fight second. In this context fighting is a bi-product of capping.

You can cap without fighting.

ilr.9675:

Looking at Whiteside’s buying-time “Collaboration push” in the General forum…
…makes me believe they’re already on the Bargaining stage.

Especially when looking at Josh’s followup in it about what they consider to be useable feedback where it becomes clear that they only care about how opinions are worded rather than how factual they actually are. …. I know there’s hundreds of us here who get infracted every month on the slippery slope of “rude/cynical” posts that they (Anet) want to imply is just a bunch of Slander because they are out of touch with the facts. … they get all their facts from datamining which if you look at similar models in the USA with regards to public polling …. you instantly see just how useless that sort of data gathering really is. (Mathematical paradox: congress having a 10% approval rating … but a 90% incumbancy for instance).

This thread itself will likely see deletion on the grounds of “character attack” even though all we’re doing is trying to figure when we can start taking all of this seriously and actually do what they claim they want us to do…. (give nothing but positive-worded feedback). ….Before we can take it seriously, there has to be some trust. When they tell us our feedback will be ignored b/c they think any one part of it might be Slander, then the discussion is no longer about collaborating. It’s about keeping score and “It’s my way, or the highway”.

And they CAN do that…. It’s their forum. It’s their Servers. It’s their ball… But when all they have left is a bunch of yes-men… When they either turn away or outright ban their most passionate fans by constraining the discussion to a point where they never have to apologize for any of the mistakes THEY MADE… they quickly lose the brightest and most creative contributors the ever had. And the product’s overall potential takes a huge hit until it becomes so inbred that it stops attracting any new playerbase —- Just like City of Heroes before NcSoft pulled the plug on that game…

…and yes…

I made a similar post in the vein of this one on their Forums about 2 years before it shut down. (just as it was hitting its death spiral). And 4 years before that… I called Jack Emmert out on his shenanigans and misappropriation of resources right before he got pushed out of lead Dev … he replied to my post with so much denial and deflection it makes that Tagged up Dev who squatted on the GvG’ers look like miss congeniality. Granted I may be a ADHD scrub in Arena, terrible at minmaxxing in general, and even mathematically dyslexic at times. But as far as prognosticating trouble ahead goes, my track record is pretty good…

…I don’t foresee Anet going down that road in the next 5 years b/c for right now, there isn’t that level of Hubris. Mike OBrien still holds the reins on this horse (I hope!). This isn’t even a nose dive yet. It’s a snag at best…. And all they have to do is just get over it. Do things that actually rebuild respect from us long-timers who’ve been with them since April 2005. Focus on bug fixes and skill splits like they used to do in good old Gw1. … don’t write off everyone with negative comments as a LOST CAUSE. Stop building Carnival Attractions and start building Trust.

I second your posting.

We shall see if they care in the next two patches or so. Sad to have to wait after waiting over a year.

I don’t really want to feed this thread, but there’s a lot of accusations being thrown around for no good reason.

1. Anet is not “pushing” for esports. That implies they are spending significant time and resources on getting GW2 into the esports scene. That’s not happening, so I can’t take this accusation seriously.
2. Anet isn’t ruining WvW balance with PvP. As an example, take the revealed debuff. When it was increased to four seconds across the board, thieves were awful in PvP. There was a lot of moaning on the PvP forums because there was no real need to nerf thieves there. The only reason it got reverted to three seconds in WvW is…PvE. It is true that the three modes sometimes conflict with each other, but the conspiracy theories are not useful.
3. Anet probably can’t move devs and resources around internally on a 1:1 ratio. “Opportunity cost” implies knowledge of internal expenses and profit breakdowns, something none of us has.
4. PvP is a lot of fun. Even though I play both, I enjoy PvP more because of the even, small-scale fights and because capture points force engagement. If you’ve never tried it past hotjoin, give it a go!

I won’t claim to be a psychologist, but I do wish anet would try to identify their core constituency of the game and work from that rather than trying all the random band-aids on the game that have been failing badly.

In politics the right track / wrong track poll is one of the most important metrics that leaders use to pretend they care about the will of the governed. I would guess that such a poll taken of WvW players that really care about the game, and aren’t just there to farm more stuff would be abysmally low.

Rednik.3809:

Dutchares.6084:

GW2 doesn’t , if a large group has more then 2 or 3 times the numbers as even the best group out there, the large group will win with a bit of leading.. doesn’t matter if like more then 50% of the large zerg isn’t even 80 yet and is their first week playing .

We are playing same game? Try to use things called “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” on your enemy, and things called “discipline”, “coordination”, “guild builds” and “tactic” on your group, and you will see x2 zergs teared apart.

There is also this thing called a ‘cap timer’. It doesn’t matter how big a zerg is there, they can’t make the timer go faster. So, they should either give up and go do something else while waiting to cap a point for ten minutes, or have their main force tied up for ten minutes.

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

Zephyrus.9680:

If sPvP was more about fighting and less about capping points, I would play it…

That statement makes no sense.

To win, you need 500 points, the best way to get points is capping, hence capping is a valuable commodity, and because of this, there are ALWAYS fights. As opposed to wvw where 95% of the players run away like cowards.

Don’t get me wrong I like both game modes, but spvp provides real fights, not babies running away or perma stealth thieves. Stealth all you want in spvp, you’ll lose.

You seem to have validated my statement. I have played sPvP to gladiator and of course there are fights but again, it’s more about capping and less about fighting as the priority of the game mode. The problem with the way it’s structured is, the fights are usually no larger than 2 players on each side (everyone else is running around capping different places).

I would have liked something like match making for Random/team arena that GW1 had where small teams face off with their whole team and control points if anything would only be to complement the fight for example with small combat boosts, not the main objective.

The way sPvP is set up, the meta is stuck in 1v1 and 1v2 builds, while 5v5 builds have almost no purpose because that fight never happens. WvW has everything sPvP has, and more. And although PPT is a thing, you’re not forced into that mode of playing.

Zephyrus.9680:

You seem to have validated my statement. I have played sPvP to gladiator and of course there are fights but again, it’s more about capping and less about fighting as the priority of the game mode. The problem with the way it’s structured is, the fights are usually no larger than 2 players on each side (everyone else is running around capping different places).

Gladiator takes about 10 hours. It would be similar to me saying dismissively “I played WvW to rank 10, but it was all zergs.” You would rightly disagree.

Try some solo arenas—you get nice recurring 4v4 or 5v5 fights at mid. “Everyone running around capping” doesn’t really happen outside of hotjoins (practice arenas).

If you’re looking for fights bigger than 4v4 or 5v5, then yes, WvW is for you. But that’s not the fault of PvP, it’s just that you like large-scale better than small-scale.

If after that you still like WvW better, that’s fine! But I think everyone should at least give it a try.

Rednik.3809:

We are playing same game? Try to use things called “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” on your enemy, and things called “discipline”, “coordination”, “guild builds” and “tactic” on your group, and you will see x2 zergs teared apart.

Did you read today’s patch notes???

Those are pretty much ALL sPvP motivated changes. (even if they’re not 100% tPvP).
IOW: they make everything you listed even less effective VS. puggy zergs.

…I’m just amazed they haven’t tried to move this thread to trashcan already with some malarky excuse. Maybe they’re actually reading it and mumbling at their desks in the same vein of nerd rage we’ve been writing it in. If so Kudos to them for having more restraint. That’s not a bad start. That’s where Cognitive Dissonance is allowed to take root and eventually months later, there’s a chance that compromise can start to happen

ilr.9675:

Rednik.3809:

We are playing same game? Try to use things called “choke points”, “static fields”, “concentrated AOE” on your enemy, and things called “discipline”, “coordination”, “guild builds” and “tactic” on your group, and you will see x2 zergs teared apart.

Did you read today’s patch notes???

Those are pretty much ALL sPvP motivated changes. (even if they’re not 100% tPvP).
IOW: they make everything you listed even less effective VS. puggy zergs.

…I’m just amazed they haven’t tried to move this thread to trashcan already with some malarky excuse. Maybe they’re actually reading it and mumbling at their desks in the same vein of nerd rage we’ve been writing it in. If so Kudos to them for having more restraint. That’s not a bad start. That’s where Cognitive Dissonance is allowed to take root and eventually months later, there’s a chance that compromise can start to happen

We’ve managed to pull such a thing off in Sorrow’s Furnace. We can consistently go up against bigger groups and bigger zergs, usually double our group’s population, and come out on top. But you know what, I’m just going with what I know and I’m sure we’re in the minority. Then again, hardly anyone watches/cares about us.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Zephyrus.9680:

You seem to have validated my statement. I have played sPvP to gladiator and of course there are fights but again, it’s more about capping and less about fighting as the priority of the game mode. The problem with the way it’s structured is, the fights are usually no larger than 2 players on each side (everyone else is running around capping different places).

Gladiator takes about 10 hours. It would be similar to me saying dismissively “I played WvW to rank 10, but it was all zergs.” You would rightly disagree.

Try some solo arenas—you get nice recurring 4v4 or 5v5 fights at mid. “Everyone running around capping” doesn’t really happen outside of hotjoins (practice arenas).

If you’re looking for fights bigger than 4v4 or 5v5, then yes, WvW is for you. But that’s not the fault of PvP, it’s just that you like large-scale better than small-scale.

If after that you still like WvW better, that’s fine! But I think everyone should at least give it a try.

The WvW sPvP comparison isn’t meaningful because in WvW you can do whatever you want however long you want (including sPvP styles of play) while in sPvP, every match is essentially played out the same with the only difference being tactics.

I’ll definitely have to try ‘Solo arenas’ since they didn’t exist when I did sPvP and tPvP. I have no idea what they are.

Zephyrus.9680:

The WvW sPvP comparison isn’t meaningful because in WvW you can do whatever you want however long you want (including sPvP styles of play) while in sPvP, every match is essentially played out the same with the only difference being tactics.

I’ll definitely have to try ‘Solo arenas’ since they didn’t exist when I did sPvP and tPvP. I have no idea what they are.

Actually you can gain rank however you want in PvP as well. Practice arenas give rank points for anyone you tag, as well as any point you are in when you capture it. It’s actually very similar to the WvW system—you can get to rank 10 by knocking down a few keep doors with the mob, or by roaming 1vX and soloing camps. Either way will get you to rank 10.

Solo arenas are rated 5v5 matches with no party queueing, so basically your standard solo-queue rated match. I’m the first to admit that PvP was missing several key features at launch, this being maybe the biggest one. Since people are usually very concerned about winning the match to get higher on the leaderboard, they play smarter and try to win fights.

style.6173:

@OP

You need to remember one thing. If they put a focus on WvW, you may end up with changes you do not want. How many people would have wanted mastery skills and orbs as the priorities within WvW?

Amazingly enough, WvW would be better today if NONE of the changes they made since launch (except maybe orbs) had ever been implemented. I’m not saying that all of the changes were bad, but in aggregate the devs since then have done far more harm than good. That’s rather an astounding thought considering how many things were on the table.

Madora.9340:

We’ve managed to pull such a thing off in Sorrow’s Furnace. We can consistently go up against bigger groups and bigger zergs, usually double our group’s population, and come out on top. But you know what, I’m just going with what I know and I’m sure we’re in the minority. Then again, hardly anyone watches/cares about us.

Oh no you didn’t…. you did not just pull the Learn 2 Play line…

the little guild I’m in wipes zergs of 50+ in OPEN FIELD with no chokepoints or seige like the post I was replying to cructhed off of. That doesn’t mean it’s what the Developers are incentivizing here. I don’t care what’s “possible”. It’s possible to get a precursor drop off Core… that doesn’t mean I wanna fight core all night. So don’t start this strawman stuff plz. Look at the actual patch notes and debate their intent instead. That’s why I pointed to them in the first place