Guild Wars 2

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?

The league system of StarCraft II is pretty good, and the best base model out there. First, you have a hidden MMR. To join the system, you play some classification matches, which lets the system calculate your skill and place you in a league of your estimated level. Once you’re inside, your position is calculated by a public rating. The hidden rating doesn’t decide any position, just who you fight against and if you deserve to rank up. MMR is always saved, but the public rating resets each season.

There’s various leagues, like bronze, silver, gold, etc, with subleagues or divisions, so you don’t find yourself in a 10,000 player ladder. Instead these divisions have a limit of 100 players, and they are at the same level, no division is better than any other. The hidden MMR can change your league for better or worse depending your performance.

The key is:

• Hidden rating for matchmaking and ranking up. No global ladder sorted by this hidden rating.
• Public rating for your position in your division. This is the only ladder you’re able to see, with people divided in divisions and leagues.

How long should a season last?

2-3 months. Seasons wouldn’t mean “anything”, just a reset, so you need to classify again. Seasons’ purpose should be that of giving everyone a fresh start and give people new opportunities to get to where they deserve.

What would motivate you to play in one?

Feel like I’m fighting for a better position in my division, and to rank up to a higher league.

Achievements and unique item rewards are a must, too. Covered in the question below.

What types of rewards would you like to see?

Achievements and unique item rewards. However, and very important, these shouldn’t be limited to specific rank players in any way. Everything should be achievable by any player no matter his MMR.

To make people want to get better, higher MMR players could get these rewards and achievements faster than lower MMR players. Think of it like Fractals of the Mist, where everyone gets tokens no matter the level, but the higher the level you get more tokens.

Some long-term rewards could be a huge grind for low MMR players, but be easier to get for high MMR players, effectively rewarding them for their skill without punishing other players without the chance to get the same rewards.

How would a player earn these rewards?

By playing, no matter the MMR or the league. The MMR and the league would only affect the reward system by increasing the given tokens or points, never by giving exclusive rewards to higher MMR players.

Some of the rewards could be traded, too. This way, players that dedicate themselves solely to PvP can make a living off the bonus rewards they get. Less skilled players that want some of the rewards but despise the grind can use ingame gold to buy the rewards from the trading post. This way PvPers don’t need to PvE-heavy to get gold, and PvErs can get their PvP rewards without needing full dedication to it.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Unique rewards and fair matchmaking so everyone has fun without being abused or feeling like they are losing money and time for nothing.

SUMMARY POST
I’ve read through the first page and I’ve tried to collect the common points among the posts. The longer these posts get the more difficult it is for new readers to add something. If I missed yours, I’m sorry. I am just trying to reflect the general direction that the posts have been going on. For the most part the points will be listed in the order of how popular they seem. I hope a post of this form helps keep posters on topic.

Ladder System
Posts have been widely in favor of a ladder system, not an overall leader board. Details:

• Starcraft 2 Style Ladder. Specifically this means different tiers with their own ranks that you can move up and down within, as well as getting promoted or demoted to other tiers. Numbers vary from anywhere from 2-6 tiers.
• A season that is anywhere from 1-3 months long, then a ladder reset.
• Private rating, but public rank.

Team or Solo (or both) Evaluation
Just behind a SC2 style ladder, the most discussed issue: Are teams evaluated as a unit or are the individual players? Can we have ladders for both, a la the current team and yoloq system? Here are some good points people have made:

• It can be difficult to get the same group of 5 together, so if a team has its own ladder ranking, it will be difficult to actually play matches.
• If you assume each player is on only one or two teams, this reduces the number of teams in the pool at any given time, making queue times longer.
• If you only determine ladder rank on the individual unit, there is too much variability since you may get unlucky with the team you are on.
• It would unfair to allow premade teams count for individual laddering, this isn’t desirable.
• Having more ladders fragments the player base, making queues longer.

On a related note, there is a general consensus that for a solo ladder, a player has a different ranking for each character (or class).

Possible solutions for the above issues that people have put forth:

• Relax the notion of a team. Instead of the same 5 players on a team, have a fixed pool of a players that the team members can be chosen from, or allow up to 2 “adds” to a core 3 person team.
• New gamemodes that are balanced around smaller teams. (I’ll talk about some specific suggestions for this below.)

Rewards

• Access to unique rewards based on rank purchased with some currency.
• Rewards given for rank at the end of the season.
• Rewards given for participation, like the monthlies, dailies, and meta-achievements.
• Fewer randomized rewards.

Types of rewards:

• Armor and Weapon skins not attainable by other means
• Skins that are usable in PvP, WvW, and PvE
• Gold, Karma
• Laurels
• Finishers
• Wall of Champions
• Gems
• Custom Emotes
• Nameplate badges for the highest ranked players

Different Gamemodes
Almost all new gamemodes that people have suggested have team size smaller that 5. The descriptions are somewhat involved, so I opted to links for those posts instead.

• 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, Team Deathmatch link
• XvX Tag Team link

Note: Personally, I love the idea that PvP in GW2 might move in a “fighting game” direction. PvP is centered around awesome combos and counters already!

Miscellaneous
I couldn’t figure out exactly where to put these.

• Spectator mode and PR events for high level games.
• Easier access to a broadcast mode.

Proposal Overview
Horizontal and Vertical Reward System

Goal of Proposal
Increase the incentives to play.
Reward players based on their performance in the ladder system.
Reward players for playing more games.

Proposal Functionality
With every league tier you climb up, you unlock a new merchant. The merchant will stay unlocked even if you loose your league tier again.

You cannot buy stuff directly from the merchant. You first select the item you want to have, and then with every game you play, you collect points to gain access to that item.
You can only select one item at a time, but you can select a new item everytime you want, and you will not loose the progress from the previous item.

• Example 1:
  You are in the bronze tier, you select PvP Peacemaker Greatsword which requires 10 points to unlock. Every win in the bronze tier grants you 3 points, every loose 1 points.
• Example 2:
  You are now in the silver tier, and now you have access to select the PvP Sylvari Greatsword which would requires 30 points. You can still select the PvP Peacemaker Greatsword which still requires the 10 points to unlock.
  Every win in the silver tier grants you 9 points, every loose 3 points. Making it more easy to obtain items from the previous tiers, but it takes the same time to complete a items in the same tier.

Reasoning

• To complete a item you need to play the game.
• The best items will only be available for the best players.
• If you would grant the players glory like points, they would save up those points, until they gain access to the highest tier, and then immediately purchase everything available. With this system players will also get rewarded for at the bottom tiers, and don’t feel they loose something for already spending their hard earned “glory”.
• This system will also help with adding new items.

Teutos.8620:

Alissah.9281:

*How long should a season last? A week.

Interesting system, even tho I’d not go that way. Your system will reset the ladder far too often. And I think we have a different idea what season means. Season for me is resetting everything, and placing everyone on the bottom of the ladder again, without any benefit from the previous season. In the end you system is a daily+weekly reward system.

Beside the problem of matching players together when you reset your ladder every week, we also need a system, that rewards players for playing more then the weekly games.

In the end, rewarding players every daily and weekly with something additional is very interesting idea, and we should find a way to implement this idea in a more ordinary league system.

Yeah, I don’t have any experience with ladders or leagues in other game, so I just made something up that seemed interesting to me. Maybe other more experienced people could get something usefull out of my crazy ramblings anyway :P

Maybe this post is kinda off topic but i have to get rid off it :
I’m playing GW2 since Beta (PvE/PvP/WvW) and there are some things im missing compared to GW1 which i have also played since Beta.

I remember Heroes Ascend fights, which really thrilled me.The feeling to win a match made my heart beat, same as in GvG’s. Im missing this. Currently there is nothing comparable on GW2, which is rly sad

You may not hear this the first time, but : “Pls give us back a piece of GW1, HA was awesome,RA/TA was awesome, Ladder was awesome, tourneys were awesome, even the spectator mode, where every player could watch the the best guilds fighting, was awesome!”

It’s sort of weird for me that you are asking the community for feedback. We all know that you guys can create a great PvP system.You already did it on GW1!
Just do it again!

(sry for no constructive idea on this post^^)

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
I primarily enjoyed the WvW league more than the upcoming ‘tournament-style’. As far as for the sPvP season, in a perfect world, I would like something along these lines: ‘You have to have played 100+(example#, not concrete) tournament games (team or yolo). Then, there are break-off points in rating/mmr/whatever, and people within the break-off points are their own pool, of moderately the same rating, who vie for top placement. However, there are going to be lots of people who would game that, the same way people gamed the WvW League, by throwing matches. And that sucks. I don’t really have an answer for a good solution.

How long should a season last?
My history is 2500+ Arena 3s&5s/2650 Rated BGs in WoW multi-season, so I can say with some experience that their seasons are WAYYYYY TOO LONGGGGGGGGGGG. By google, a wiki shows that their seasons are roughly 20-30 weeks long. I would propose a length no more than what the last WvW season was, 8 weeks.

What would motivate you to play in one?
I’m hesitantly excited at the prospect for one, but finding a good group to tPvP with is quite an annoying challenge, and this is my biggest issue/worry/anxiety, finding a group of people I can play with for that long. However, the time I enjoyed most in WoW was when my Rated BG group was still together, having 9 other people laughing and joking around with and being largely successful is definitely a highlight of my gaming career.

What types of rewards would you like to see?
Exclusive skins, or access to things PvPers missed out on as a result of being PvPers and not PvErs for the past 2 years, would be awesome. I doubt that will happen, but it’s the dream. Or maybe some kind of voucher that made it so that high-achieving pvpers don’t have to spend gold to obtain rewards for ‘x’ amount of time. That’d be pretty awesome, I don’t really like the removal of glory for gold prices.

How would a player earn these rewards?
Obtaining a certain threshold of rank/ladder position/mmr during the season would be cool. Enough to be impressive, but make it so that you only have to obtain it once, or holding it for a few days. Otherwise, you penalize/threaten people for wanting to play, but not lose their achievement-status, which is a bad route, imo.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?
Access to exclusive skins based on ladder position (could even have several tiers) would surely get ‘players of all skill levels’ to participate. There are going to be some who jump into the spvp season for skins, or achievement points, or to prove their prowess, but this model does have something for all of those people. Sure, there will be some who will not enjoy sPvP no matter what you do, but you can’t make content to cater to every single player.

Additional comments
While I know full-well that it is largely impossible to have flawless balance in a game that also has RNG elements and hard counters, I don’t believe a season can be put forward while the meta is as it currently stands. Decap engis, even in non-skyhammer matches are unbelievably broken, skyhammer is still a thing, and healing signet is still far too strong. That’s not even including what is going to be broken in the next balance update (not a comment on Developer skills on balancing, but more on the line of ‘you can’t predict every outcome’).

Furthermore, the question is begged of, ‘Do you release a balance patch in the middle of a season?’ On one hand, they are sometimes incredibly necessary. On the other hand, destroying a meta halfway through a season is usually looked on as improper. If you don’t wait, and there’s a highly-broken spec (let’s say Eles get overbuffed or something), and most of the high-achievers are Ele, is that okay? Is the game in a good enough place to do a season? If not now, when? Is all vain?

idk.

Justin ODell.9517:

kdose.5309:

Please improve matchmaking parity first

I don’t think we are ready for ladders or seasons until we address matchmaking right now. Players of like rank and like skill need to be better matched together. I worry that ladders and seasons would isolate large groups of players from each other that might otherwise be compatible, due to the imbalance in matchmaking in the months up to this point.

We are still seeing too many matches of ranks like this: red team: 36, 13, 14, 52, 7 vs blue team: 37, 32, 28, 29, 34. Number averages don’t equal normalizing skill across a team.

Until this is fixed, you will be artificially pulling apart similarly skilled players and putting together incompatible players with any kind of additional layer of tournaments, ladders, etc. on top of a matchmaking system that isn’t working as well as it must.

Matchmaking improvements will likely come out at the same time, or some time before. We don’t have any dates yet, but a requirement of anything coming out of this CDI would have the new server infrastructure as a prerequisite.

Glad to hear that matchmaking is finally getting fixed. I just want to add that please bring wait time before match starts from 2 minutes to 1 minute and force people to join pvp immediately after all people for match are sorted out plus force people to press ready button. This may look like trivial request but in my opinion its not trivial at all and let me explain why.

Why bring wait time from 2 minutes to 1?
You just wait and wait and wait….People are usually very bored here. This is making them to go afk and match is starting without them. In gw1 wait time was 30 seconds why not here? I admit 30 secs may be short in some cases so i would go with 1 min. Also 1 minute is still enough to tell strategy (and lets be honest in 75% cases nobody is telling strategy to anybody)

Why force people to join matches immediatelly when matchmaking is ready?
In many cases 9 people are waiting for 1 player who is joining on very last second. You dont know who is coming (which character also you dont even know IF he/she is comming at all) so you basically cant prepare (change char/tell strategy etc). Also many times when somebody was joining on last second, they had some loading problems and then they started 1 minute later when match was already on.

Why force people to press ready button?

So that no match would start with afk people, also it would be nice if people got used to this (nobody is using ready button at this moment) this way pvp matches would start a lot faster. So lets say if somebody is not hitting ready button 10 seconds after 1 minute wait time is over kick them and replace them. This may sound cruel, but its better to punish 1 player instead of him punishing 4 others.

Bloody.8940:

“Pls give us back a piece of GW1, HA was awesome,RA/TA was awesome, Ladder was awesome, tourneys were awesome, even the spectator mode, where every player could watch the the best guilds fighting, was awesome!”

Even tho you are talking about additional game modes, you bring up a good point here. A new league system will hep improve the game, but it is by far not the only thing we need.

This also brings up the question for me: How should the new league system works with new game modes in mind? We don’t know how exactly they look like, but I think (most of them at least) they could get handled exactly like every other map, and get included in the random map selection.

Pinkunicorn of Dethecus.3217:

*My history is 2500+ Arena 3s&5s/2650 Rated BGs in WoW multi-season, so I can say with some experience that their seasons are WAYYYYY TOO LONGGGGGGGGGGG. By google, a wiki shows that their seasons are roughly 20-30 weeks long.

Totally agree, that the WoW-Seasons felt way too long, but that was mostly because after several weeks you have already gotten a good rating, every new item available, and you would not suffer any rating decays.
Personally I think the duration of the season should mostly be focused around the time the season itself gives you enough incentive to play more games. A new season means new incentives to play some matches again.

Pinkunicorn of Dethecus.3217:

Furthermore, the question is begged of, ‘Do you release a balance patch in the middle of a season?’ On one hand, they are sometimes incredibly necessary. On the other hand, destroying a meta halfway through a season is usually looked on as improper. If you don’t wait, and there’s a highly-broken spec (let’s say Eles get overbuffed or something), and most of the high-achievers are Ele, is that okay? Is the game in a good enough place to do a season? If not now, when?

Good point here. Personally I would love to see improvements / balance patches as quick as possible, even midseason.
F.e. If a players want to play as a trap-ranger, why should we hold off the for that necessary balance patch because it might change the meta / why force these players to wait / play an underpowered spec for the rest of the season?
Balancing the game takes time, but it is very important and necessary. If the balance team feels, that they have found the perfect way how to adjust something, they should do so immediately, and be forced to wait until the season is over.

Personally I do not understand, why we can not already have the balance updates mentioned in the “Ready-Up”-Show. Yes, some of them might only be necessary with the big picture in mind, but some of them should really be applied instantly, and we should not have to wait for them.
F.e. Dhuumfire might only be necessary with changes the devs have not yet mentioned / they are atm working on, so wait with this one.
Healing Signet, Casttime or Cooldown changes: Why not apply those already?

Constantine.7812:

Why bring wait time from 2 minutes to 1?
You just wait and wait and wait….People are usually very bored here. This is making them to go afk and match is starting without them. In gw1 wait time was 30 seconds why not here? I admit 30 secs may be short in some cases so i would go with 1 min. Also 1 minute is still enough to tell strategy (and lets be honest in 75% cases nobody is telling strategy to anybody)

Why force people to join matches immediatelly when matchmaking is ready?
In many cases 9 people are waiting for 1 player who is joining on very last second. You dont know who is coming (which character also you dont even know IF he/she is comming at all) so you basically cant prepare (change char/tell strategy etc). Also many times when somebody was joining on last second, they had some loading problems and then they started 1 minute later when match was already on.

Why force people to press ready button?
So that no match would start with afk people, also it would be nice if people got used to this (nobody is using ready button at this moment) this way pvp matches would start a lot faster. So lets say if somebody is not hitting ready button 10 seconds after 1 minute wait time is over kick them and replace them. This may sound cruel, but its better to punish 1 player instead of him punishing 4 others.

You have an important point here, not really on topic, but the match startup has to improve.

1. The first thing after finding a suitable team should be the ready check, even before the match is going to start. This should be 10 seconds, in which the players have time to respond. Also having an alert sound would help out a lot
2. After a successful ready check, you should get placed immediately on the map.
3. There you should have the one minute for tactical discussions / option to change the profession.
→ Would help, when you relog, to start loading the pvp map, and not first the hearth of the mists.
→ Having the option to see the teammates role would help with that f.e. is the guardian with the hammer playing a should-support-build with clerics, or is he going for berserker?
(→ In TeamQ, this time could be reduced to 30 seconds.)

team pvp- season 1 starts: 1 week sprints where teams play and accrue points during the week. Prizes and awards are based of win streaks. Win up to 10 matches in a week and get a chest. Win 20 matches get two chests. Play at least 10 matches a week to have your score recorded for the month. Points are based on win percentage and games played (this way someone risking a lower percent by playing more games would get a point bonus). If you have two scoring weeks in a month your score carries to the next month. 3 months in a season- grand prize to the top 5 teams.

The sprint system would allow a casual team to participate in weekly prizes. I would offer ascended stuff for weekly prizes as well. This would draw in players who might not otherwise play. Gold and gimmicks as well (guild kites). The scoring system would have to be set up so that a more hardcore player going 30-50 would be able to out score a player going 7 out of 10 (risk pays out). Hire a math guy for a week I’m sure he could figure it out.

Offer big prizes for top 5…. Like give them another account or change the name of your office to the guilds name for a week… Or at least plaster thee names everywhere a player looks in the game gold gems and skins u can only get of you win.

Make skins you can only get in pvp but let players is it everywhere.

The risk is in the weekly score system- if a hardcore player is constantly out scored by someone not putting in the same effort it will be deflating.

Also- if u flub the rewards players will not stay. Keep it flashy- give out gimmicks ever 5 win streaks- if it’s Halloween give people Halloween minis and those character transformation potions. Let’s be fair- u can’t give a pvp only player much as a reward but leet skins and the satisfaction of being too dog in a crowded field is somthing. The reward system would draw in players who play elsewhere as well.

Keep leaderboards for solo players- I don’t have much for the smaller groups unless you out in new game types… Anet could reach out to sponsors to set up 1v1 2v2 custom tourneys so the sponsor could offer those players more.

Best I got

I think that a league for solo players is a good idea. It would be fun.

The problem is with teams. It seems that teams can’t stay together for very long. What happens to a league when those teams break apart?

Wow. What is with all of the RIP GW2 – dead game vitriol? Seriously, if you don’t have something constructive to say, just don’t post anything at all. If you aren’t having fun, then stop playing for a while and come back when you are ready. If the game hasn’t met your expectations by now, you should probably take a step back and ask yourself why you still play.

Coming in here and offering no suggestions other than “scrap the game” or “this game can’t support competitive pvp” is pretty worthless. It is worthwhile to post some concrete feasible alternatives that would help the game come in line with your expectations. If you don’t feel like that is possible, then a CDI probably isn’t the place for your posts.

I’ll admit that I am being a backseat moderator, and this is an open forum, but most people who want to be part of something constructive will agree that these sort of comments only serve to bloat threads like these, make them more difficult to read, and detract from their original purpose. To be frank, it would be better to go make your own whine thread that you can post in so other people don’t have to read it.

Proposal Overview
The ladder system needs more visibility/filters to accurately judge a player’s progression of skill.

Goal of Proposal

The current leaderboard makes it difficult to gauge how you are improving. I would like to make it more easily visible to weigh my own performance through less-biased statistics that I can monitor/judge based on an individual’s own criteria.

Proposal Functionality
Create a multitude of filters for the leaderboard to judge one’s own progression. Some of the filters which should be added:

A) Filter based on what class you are playing. I would like to know how many rounds I’ve won while playing elementalist vs. Engineer, for example.

B) Filter based on specific class rankings only. I would like to be able to compare my ranking as an elementalist against other players on their elementalists.

C) (optional) Filter based on weapon set of the class you are playing. The deeper we can drill down into these statistics the more we’ll know about the game in general. I think this will also help with development/balancing.

Associated Risks

Being able to drill too deep into the sPvP statistics will reveal glaring inconsistencies regarding certain weapon sets and classes. If everyone can see that everyone in the top 100 elementalists is running dagger/dagger, then there will be outcry from the other weapon sets for balance.

If everyone can see that Thieves are at the top 100 overall solo-queue leaderboard, there will be an outcry for nerfs (even if they’re just more naturally suited to solo-queue than other classes)

Thanks

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
- Solo Q 5v5
- Team Q 5v5
- Team Q 2v2 and/or 3v3
Team Q’s can ONLY be joined by full teams

- Different game modes randomly chosen on each game, forcing people not to play gimmicky builds focusing on a single task (ie: full bunk for flag carry or decap engi).

How long should a season last?
3 months.

What would motivate you to play in one?
Rewards !!!
- Titles & achievements
- Progress
- Items/skins

What types of rewards would you like to see?
- Titles as is already the case (more titles though – similar to WvW)
- Unique items representing some sort of achievement. Not just random drops in a chest.
- Gems, gold and mats to make certain items would be nice as well.

How would a player earn these rewards?
-By attaining higher rating
-By completing certain objectives (ie: win 50 matches on Khylo)
-By being in a certain top rating at the end of season, unique to each season. (ie: top 10 GG weapon set, top 100 GG armor set, top 500 Pwnage Weapon set, top 1000 Pwnage armor set)
-Gems, gold and/or mats for winning each game/tournament.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?
I like the idea of different tiers. However, the major problem with this is when teaming with people of a different tier than yours.

Solution: give each individual both a Solo (for Solo Q) and a Team rating. Thus:
< 1500 : Copper
1500 – 1750: Silver
1750 – 2000: Gold
>2000: Platinum

The average of all the player’s individual Team Ratings would decide the Team’s tier. Also: allow one player to be able to see their own rating. Though perhaps not on the public Leaderboards page.

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
I would like to see something similar to GW1. Daily automated tournaments for earning qualification points, which qualifies your team for playing the monthly tournament.

How long should a season last?
1 month.

What would motivate you to play in one?
Competition, fun, rewards.

What types of rewards would you like to see?
Special capes/finishers, lots of rank points, gems.

How would a player earn these rewards?
By a good performance, i.e. place 1-32, depends how many teams participate.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?
I wouldnt. Everyone can join the daily tournaments, those who arent skilled enough for getting the QP´s need to improve. Everyone whos willing to improve will participate anyway.
Oh, and rewards for daily tournaments of course, everyone who has a lil bit of fun with pvp will try to archive them anyway if they´re big enough.

1vs1, 2vs2 and 3vs3 ladder system
Proposal Overview
Add ranked and unranked ladder for 1vs1, 2vs2 and 3vs3 matches since they are already quite popular in custom arenas, so why not making it formal?
This will need also to add other maps for different gamemodes, since already available maps are not suited for these kind of games
Goal of Proposal
This will help players without a fixed team or just a few players to play with to compete and having fun in PvP, while also adding variety into PvP.
Proposal Functionality
Other than standard TeamQ and SoloQ with relative leagues/ladders, it would be nice to add other forms of competitive PvP in the form of casual small skirmishes, easy to pick and fast to play, which can also be a great way to introduce players to teamplay and individual mechanics to jump then on TeamQ and SoloQ.
Associated Risks
The addition of this kind of fights may require additional balance measures.

BLUna.7928:

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?

Something similar to the way Starcraft runs it’s system. Players get placed into divisions (Bronze/Rabbit, Silver/Dolyak, Gold/Wolf, Masters/Phoenix, etc) based on their skill level with placement matches at the start of the season and then they battle it out for top spots in their divisions and to move up throughout the course of the season.

How long should a season last?

2-3 months seems like a good number.

What would motivate you to play in one?

Ability to attain skins and/or other always visible vanity items (not finishers) only attainable through this system

What types of rewards would you like to see?

see above

How would a player earn these rewards?

Different rewards for placing in different divisions at the end of the season. Extra rewards for players in the top X% at the end of the season.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Guarantee end of season rewards for players that participated enough in this system (meta achievement?)

Edit:

Iason Evan.3806:

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Profession based ranks for accounts. Every profession on an account gets ranked separately. This way, when Johnny is trying out his Guardian for the first time, he is ranked differently than his 90% ranked Thief. When he deletes his Guardian and makes a new one 2 months later, he doesn’t get to start over because it’s per profession on the account.

I like this idea. I feel it would help to encourage new players to try new classes without worrying about their rating falling through the floor.

i second what this guy said, concise but straight to the point.

Justin ODell.9517:

kdose.5309:

Please improve matchmaking parity first

I don’t think we are ready for ladders or seasons until we address matchmaking right now. Players of like rank and like skill need to be better matched together. I worry that ladders and seasons would isolate large groups of players from each other that might otherwise be compatible, due to the imbalance in matchmaking in the months up to this point.

We are still seeing too many matches of ranks like this: red team: 36, 13, 14, 52, 7 vs blue team: 37, 32, 28, 29, 34. Number averages don’t equal normalizing skill across a team.

Until this is fixed, you will be artificially pulling apart similarly skilled players and putting together incompatible players with any kind of additional layer of tournaments, ladders, etc. on top of a matchmaking system that isn’t working as well as it must.

Matchmaking improvements will likely come out at the same time, or some time before. We don’t have any dates yet, but a requirement of anything coming out of this CDI would have the new server infrastructure as a prerequisite.

That’s music to our ears, and thanks for taking the time to respond so quickly!

Lachanche.6859:

BLUna.7928:

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?

Something similar to the way Starcraft runs it’s system. Players get placed into divisions (Bronze/Rabbit, Silver/Dolyak, Gold/Wolf, Masters/Phoenix, etc) based on their skill level with placement matches at the start of the season and then they battle it out for top spots in their divisions and to move up throughout the course of the season.

How long should a season last?

2-3 months seems like a good number.

What would motivate you to play in one?

Ability to attain skins and/or other always visible vanity items (not finishers) only attainable through this system

What types of rewards would you like to see?

see above

How would a player earn these rewards?

Different rewards for placing in different divisions at the end of the season. Extra rewards for players in the top X% at the end of the season.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Guarantee end of season rewards for players that participated enough in this system (meta achievement?)

Edit:

Iason Evan.3806:

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Profession based ranks for accounts. Every profession on an account gets ranked separately. This way, when Johnny is trying out his Guardian for the first time, he is ranked differently than his 90% ranked Thief. When he deletes his Guardian and makes a new one 2 months later, he doesn’t get to start over because it’s per profession on the account.

I like this idea. I feel it would help to encourage new players to try new classes without worrying about their rating falling through the floor.

i second what this guy said, concise but straight to the point.

I should have elaborated that my 2 cents were in terms of solo queue. People like me that play solo queue get stuck in a weird situation. If Johnny is ranked 90% on his Thief, but has never played Guardian, the matchmaking doesn’t care and throws his Guardian in with his 90% ranking. I believe this is what causes issues a lot of times and I can’t say as I blame Johnny for not wanting to play hotjoin. People don’t play in hotjoin to win or an objective based game for the most part so Johnny would rather cut his teeth in solo queue because at least there people are playing as a unit.

I just want to reiterate how important it is for us solo queue people to have a system like this in place. I don’t want my newbie toon to tank my ranking on my good toons. I also don’t want to tank my team mates and I don’t want my team mates tanking my ranking either.

Please consider making the rankings for solo queue profession based. Thanks for this CDI.

Better proposal… instead of spending time trying to figure out leagues, why not figure out how to prevent 4v5 matches.

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
I would like to see something similar to GW1. Daily automated tournaments for earning qualification points, which qualifies your team for playing the monthly tournament.

How long should a season last?
1 month.

What would motivate you to play in one?
Competition, fun, rewards.

What types of rewards would you like to see?
Special capes/finishers, lots of rank points, gems.

How would a player earn these rewards?
By a good performance, i.e. place 1-32, depends how many teams participate.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?
I wouldnt. Everyone can join the daily tournaments, those who arent skilled enough for getting the QP´s need to improve. Everyone whos willing to improve will participate anyway.
Oh, and rewards for daily tournaments of course, everyone who has a lil bit of fun with pvp will try to archive them anyway if they´re big enough.

I would like to see this happen.
The GW I system was/is just great!!!

style.6173:

Better proposal… instead of spending time trying to figure out leagues, why not figure out how to prevent 4v5 matches.

Perhaps there could be an option to join a match in-progress. Since generally you’d be going to the losing side, there could be some incentive, i.e. guaranteed reward. Also to dissuade afker’s having a 30sec auto kick if afk after the match starts would be nice.

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
8 vs 8 team death match or conquest! Guilds are big and I think that it’s a crying shame that only 5 members of your guild can represent your whole guild in tpvp. I know that conquest mode on tpvp would get out of whack if 8 vs 8 is introduced in competitive pvp but I think a-net is smart enough to find a balance in their like maybe adding an extra point to capture or something. Leave soloq 5 vs 5 and also keep the tpvp 5 vs 5 but have deathmatch and conquest be available. Please introduce voting or veto-ing on maps and game modes. Guild ladders should be introduced if 8 vs 8 is made to reality then at the end of the year, a huge tournament is held just like for ultimate supremacy (reminds me of GW1). Also, individual rankings should still be kept but please introduce class rankings. I think class rankings shows how dedicated a player could be on a certain class. I also think that you should not be on the leaderboards unless you’ve got 100 games under your belt.

How long should a season last?
2 months

What would motivate you to play in one?
Capes, finishers, armor and weapon skins with special effects like the new zodiac armors that are unique to pvp, Precursor weapons or legendary weapons. Individuals and guilds should also be given rewards based on amount and games played on soloq and teamq because some teams and individuals can’t help it that they’re either in a guild that are not interested in pvp and in case of individuals on soloq, paired with players that are not skilled in pvp. Of course people should be rewarded for winning so make the amount of wins an achievement instead and for meeting certain number of wins, people and guilds are given increasingly better rewards. The rewards mentioned above should also apply on the amount of games played by the way but it should not be as good as the amount of wins acquired.

How would players earn these rewards?
These just applies to the soloq players.

Amount of games played, amount of wins earned. Rankings. 1st place gets a legendary and a unique finisher for pvp , 2nd place get precursors and a unique 2nd place finisher, 3rd place gets certain amount of gold, ascended materials, and a unique 3rd place finisher. 4-10 gets gold, 3 random exotic weapons, 3 past weapon skins of choice during introduced in past events, and rare materials, 11-30 gets gold, 2 random exotic weapons, 2 past weapon skin of choice introduced during past events, and some tier 6 materials. 31-75 gets gold, 1 random exotic weapon, 1 past weapon skin of choice introduced during past events, and some materials. 76-150 gets gold, past weapon skins of choice introduced during the past events, and some tier 6 mats. 151-300 gets gold and past weapon skins of choice introduced during past events. 301-500 gets gold and RANDOM weapon skins introduced in past events and a random exotic weapon. 501-750 gets lesser gold and RANDOM weapon skins introduced in past events, and random exotic weapon. 751-1000 gets lesser gold, random past weapon skins introduced during past events, and a random rare weapon. 1000- 5000 gets a gold and a random exotic weapon. For those who doesn’t achieve a rank, give them 1 gold for just participating but at least have 20 games as a requirement. Like I said about the amounts of games played and the amount of wins earned , laurels chest and golds are given for each amounts of wins and games achieved. I think a precursor should be awarded if a player achieve 1500 wins or more thoughout the because it’s is just so kitten hard to get a stupid precursor for a legendary weapon. The last tier rewards should be an exclusive pvp armor or weapons for each season that can be worn on pve and should be up to the the players on what they pick. I think getting at least 150 wins combined between soloq and teamq would be enough. Then it resets every time a new season starts.

For the 8 vs 8 rewards. Same type of awards as mentioned above but add capes with unique design for ranking top 10 in the world which means 10 different cape designs. And a unique finisher only attained by the top 3 guilds. Now in order for guildmembers to qualify for the rewards, members should at the very least participate (not win) 50 games. I think this is a reasonable requirement because Arenanet can hold at least 3 seasons which gives enough members a chance to rotate and take turns in the tournament. Finally for the cape issue. I think everyone should get the cape even if members did not participate in the tournament because they’re just capes.

Now when I say past event in game weapon skins, it means weapons like the lovestruck, zodiac etc. and gold rewards should be given no more than 50g for the first place finishers because it might mess up the gw2 economy if everyone just gets high amounts of gold. I know I’m just throwing some crazy numbers for rankings in here but these are just suggestions anyways.

Colin,

Thank you for taking the time to step in and add a meaningful dialogue to the thread.

I would argue that armor and weapons skins alone would be a terrible way to reward PVPers. Such a reward system for any league or ladder would be to similar to what we used to have before the December update and would be a major step backwards in terms of trying to grow the community.

Keep rewards strictly at Gold, Kharma, and Gems. Add vendors to the mists where people can buy the PVP skins or PVE gear or Tomes etc. that they want.

That way, the player chooses how they want to be rewarded. You just award the currency for them to do so.

ofc they wont have plans of seasons , if the community cant decide the basic format/structure

just tell them to place 4-5 npcs , that each represent different structure/format
and let the cumminity that completed 40 solo or team tournament matches per month (if the season last for 1 month for example) ,
to take an ingame survey for what format they want in the next Ladder to be ( cant be the same for the next month ) and in the <<comment part>> to list what other option they also like to implant and the future rewards

Edit: but whatever happens , we should place 3 rewards , of which the 1 is hugely attractive with low efford ( you need to be bwtteewn 500st place – and 80% precintence in the leadderboard) and increase the effort/ranking needed by a tinny margin with each passing Season

Killthehealersffs.8940:

just tell them to place 4-5 npcs , that each represent different structure/format
and let the cumminity that completed 40 solo or team tournament matches per month (if the season last for 1 month for example) ,
to take an ingame survey for what format they want in the next Ladder to be ( cant be the same for the next month ) and in the <<comment part>> to list what other option they also like to implant and the future rewards

And that’s how you get half-baked solutions.
People playing a game, in the middle of playing a game, aren’t going to come up with great answers for, really, anything.

Honestly, I don’t understand why you don’t just go back to a season of automated tournaments. The infrastructure is already in place, its a system that people are familiar with AND you’ve already executed that system flawlessly in GW1 . You can even do a leaderboard based on how people perform in the monthly tournaments.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Top tier players might be motivated only by $$$ for example, while lower tier players may be driven primarily to earn levels/gold. (These are just random examples)

I know this is just one random example. But if that happens, can “you” (Arenanet/NCSoft) deposit/send that money anywhere in the world?

People from anywhere in the world can buy the game and gems, but some were unable to participate in certain tournaments and contests…

I do not know if it is a US law… I’ve seen some websites that send prizes to anywhere in the world. (not sure if they are US companies anyway)

Gold, Karma, and Laurels are all excellent rewards for players who split their time between PvP and PvE (and/or WvW). These rewards allow players to progress on their goals in WvW or PvE while still PvPing.

As for PvP focused rewards, I like that the current system of higher ranks reward different finishers and I think the rank=reward system could be elaborated upon. I think a good template is the achievement point rewards (every 500 AP). These reward gold, gems, laurels, boosters, account bonuses, and a choice of skins. Perhaps a similar type of reward could be given every 5 ranks or so.

I too believe that the addition of the glory vendor in the Dec 10 update provided a good source of rewards for PvPers. Sadly, glory is going away (presumable replaced with gold), so I am not sure what will happen to this vendor or these rewards.

On a related note, if rewards are available for purchase with gold, it would certainly lessen the prestige of those rewards. For example, if a TP baron who PvPs a bit on the side can afford to buy the rewards outright, what do those rewards really indicate about a player? Certainly it is not that they invested a lot of time in PvP and are proud of their PvP ability. On the other hand, I actually prefer that I purchase rewards with glory, which cannot be spent anywhere else in the game.

There is an effective reward mechanism in the PvE aspect game that has no parallel in PvP: Dungeon tokens. Specifically, there is no way (beyond titles) to reward a player for a specific type of activity in PvP. There is no differentiation between the rewards I get for – say playing skyhammer a ton or forest of niflhel instead, or for playing a lot on a warrior or elementalist, or killing a certain profession many times – everything is currently funneled through a random assortment of skins, glory, and rank points. I think it would be really cool if for winning a match as an engineer, I would get engineer tokens that I could use to buy some kitten engineer specific PvP skins.

I definitely think that skins you can earn only in PvP but can use anywhere will be a huge factor to pull people into PvP. There needs to be rewards in place to keep those people already playing to continue playing, and I think those people want things that work for PvP. It’s two separate discussions frankly, and I think some of the people railing against cosmetic rewards aren’t seeing that maybe that stuff isn’t aimed toward retention, but aimed at growing sPvP.

There are a lot of people in PvE that would come over to PvP for skins they can only earn in PvP but could use in PvE. That’s how to grow the game. I like the Legendary stuff too. There has to be a way to earn Legendaries in PvP to better integrate the game with the other parts of the game.

As a PvP’er I want capes. I think the Charr capes should look differently than the capes for the other races so there aren’t clipping issues. Gold, Silver, and Bronze trim would be a huge deal. My guild emblem on my cape would be a huge deal.

Iason Evan.3806:

I definitely think that skins you can earn only in PvP but can use anywhere will be a huge factor to pull people into PvP. There needs to be rewards in place to keep those people already playing to continue playing, and I think those people want things that work for PvP. It’s two separate discussions frankly, and I think some of the people railing against cosmetic rewards aren’t seeing that maybe that stuff isn’t aimed toward retention, but aimed at growing sPvP.

There are a lot of people in PvE that would come over to PvP for skins they can only earn in PvP but could use in PvE. That’s how to grow the game. I like the Legendary stuff too. There has to be a way to earn Legendaries in PvP to better integrate the game with the other parts of the game.

As a PvP’er I want capes. I think the Charr capes should look differently than the capes for the other races so there aren’t clipping issues. Gold, Silver, and Bronze trim would be a huge deal. My guild emblem on my cape would be a huge deal.

When they let us take our skins out of the Mists, Id be all for exclusive PVP armor skins as a PART of the reward system. You are right when you say it would help retain the current pvp population and attract new players. I would argue, however, that the higher level players (as in the ones actually playing in the league) would need more than just 1-2 exclusive skins to show off in order to keep them interested. Gems or cash for the higher level players would make sense, in addition to exclusive finishers.

I hope the rude comments won’t disrupt this thread

in topic:

With that in mind, what rewards would you like to see for a pvp league structure based on player categories who would be motivated by those rewards at different tiers?

to cater to the top players
- I believe every X season a tournament between the top X teams in the highest division should be organized by arenanet to cater to the top players.

- I believe a real life event organized somewhere (maybe in sidney, i heard anet headquarter is in sidney) where the audience can see the players in person would get way more hype and advertisement than a competition watched through streaming.

- I’m going to copy this idea from a popular moba game: you could sell tickets to see the event live and then a % of the income could contribute to the prize pool.

to cater to the competitive casuals
-guaranteed reward: at the end of the season every player who took part in at least X games gets Y useful crafting materials, maybe also an achievement ?

-based on placement and division: at the end of the season you could get a different armor piece depending on your position (like bottom 10% gets only the gloves, the next 10% gloves and boots and son on).
Additionally, the top X players of each divisions could get a division based amount of gems

-based on season: I feel the things to play around with are achievements, particle effect colours and/or armor skins.

things to think about
-If the armor model remains the same from season to season players who ranked low in season 3 can still complete the set during season 4.
-If it changes it could be an extra motivation for players to rank in the top X% of their division to complete the different sets.
-If the particle color changes from season to season that could be enough of a motivation.
-But the particle color could also change from division to division.
-Achievement could be based solely on division to keep the consistent through time.
-Or they could also be based on season to allow players to earn new ones as they continue competing.

xantosnightwish.5438:

Colin,

Thank you for taking the time to step in and add a meaningful dialogue to the thread.

I would argue that armor and weapons skins alone would be a terrible way to reward PVPers. Such a reward system for any league or ladder would be to similar to what we used to have before the December update and would be a major step backwards in terms of trying to grow the community.

Keep rewards strictly at Gold, Kharma, and Gems. Add vendors to the mists where people can buy the PVP skins or PVE gear or Tomes etc. that they want.

That way, the player chooses how they want to be rewarded. You just award the currency for them to do so.

I also agree with this. However, I would like to add that it would be nice if the PvP daily/monthly didn’t award Laurels but a certain other currency where people can purchase ascended-equivalent items or mats to work towards legendaries, etc. Basically, skins unique to PvP.

Cruzy.3706:

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
I would like to see something similar to GW1. Daily automated tournaments for earning qualification points, which qualifies your team for playing the monthly tournament.

How long should a season last?
1 month.

What would motivate you to play in one?
Competition, fun, rewards.

What types of rewards would you like to see?
Special capes/finishers, lots of rank points, gems.

How would a player earn these rewards?
By a good performance, i.e. place 1-32, depends how many teams participate.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?
I wouldnt. Everyone can join the daily tournaments, those who arent skilled enough for getting the QP´s need to improve. Everyone whos willing to improve will participate anyway.
Oh, and rewards for daily tournaments of course, everyone who has a lil bit of fun with pvp will try to archive them anyway if they´re big enough.

I would like to see this happen.
The GW I system was/is just great!!!

Fully agree with the above.

I think personally Anet should not give up on the automated tournament system.. To give high-ranked players the possibility to compete.

Automated tournaments should, as a parallel approach, give bonus rating for ladders. Additionally the system should provide in the highest instance (Monthly or even yearly Tournaments) also the highest achievable reward—> in case you wanna go Esports with this game GEMS or money prices.

I am a dedicaded GW1 and GW2 PVP Player… In both games i played at the top competitive level. I loved automated tournaments even though they arrived to late in terms of an feature in GW1.
Please try to integrate a similar system in GW2 earlier.
Its highly rewarding in my opinion to get a rating boost by playing more competitive.

xantosnightwish.5438:

Iason Evan.3806:

I definitely think that skins you can earn only in PvP but can use anywhere will be a huge factor to pull people into PvP. There needs to be rewards in place to keep those people already playing to continue playing, and I think those people want things that work for PvP. It’s two separate discussions frankly, and I think some of the people railing against cosmetic rewards aren’t seeing that maybe that stuff isn’t aimed toward retention, but aimed at growing sPvP.

There are a lot of people in PvE that would come over to PvP for skins they can only earn in PvP but could use in PvE. That’s how to grow the game. I like the Legendary stuff too. There has to be a way to earn Legendaries in PvP to better integrate the game with the other parts of the game.

As a PvP’er I want capes. I think the Charr capes should look differently than the capes for the other races so there aren’t clipping issues. Gold, Silver, and Bronze trim would be a huge deal. My guild emblem on my cape would be a huge deal.

When they let us take our skins out of the Mists, Id be all for exclusive PVP armor skins as a PART of the reward system. You are right when you say it would help retain the current pvp population and attract new players. I would argue, however, that the higher level players (as in the ones actually playing in the league) would need more than just 1-2 exclusive skins to show off in order to keep them interested. Gems or cash for the higher level players would make sense, in addition to exclusive finishers.

I completely agree. It would be nice to have a clear line of separation between rewards to attract new players and rewards for existing pvp players so the groups lobbying for one cause over the other don’t miss the forest for the single tree they are cultivating.

I don’t just want one or two sets of armor and a few weapons. I want a whole host of stuff that exclusively drops in PvP. As the least played format in the game, it needs more love on that end to attract new players. It should take time to get it like certain positions on ladders etc. That way, “Johnny Pro PvE” doesn’t come ina nd just get what he wants in a week and then goes back to PvE to show off all his exclusive PvP gear in PvE. Some things should only be obtainable by a select few and it should be account bound stuff.

If we actually want rewards that we care about, those rewards whatever they may be shouldn’t be items that can be turned into profit. If you want that type of reward go play PvE. We should still be able to make money on matches but the actual rewards like weapons and armor should be account bound so they can’t be sold to players for exorbitant sums and also so PvE players can’t just buy the skins without playing PvP.

Iason Evan.3806:

xantosnightwish.5438:

Iason Evan.3806:

I definitely think that skins you can earn only in PvP but can use anywhere will be a huge factor to pull people into PvP. There needs to be rewards in place to keep those people already playing to continue playing, and I think those people want things that work for PvP. It’s two separate discussions frankly, and I think some of the people railing against cosmetic rewards aren’t seeing that maybe that stuff isn’t aimed toward retention, but aimed at growing sPvP.

There are a lot of people in PvE that would come over to PvP for skins they can only earn in PvP but could use in PvE. That’s how to grow the game. I like the Legendary stuff too. There has to be a way to earn Legendaries in PvP to better integrate the game with the other parts of the game.

As a PvP’er I want capes. I think the Charr capes should look differently than the capes for the other races so there aren’t clipping issues. Gold, Silver, and Bronze trim would be a huge deal. My guild emblem on my cape would be a huge deal.

When they let us take our skins out of the Mists, Id be all for exclusive PVP armor skins as a PART of the reward system. You are right when you say it would help retain the current pvp population and attract new players. I would argue, however, that the higher level players (as in the ones actually playing in the league) would need more than just 1-2 exclusive skins to show off in order to keep them interested. Gems or cash for the higher level players would make sense, in addition to exclusive finishers.

I completely agree. It would be nice to have a clear line of separation between rewards to attract new players and rewards for existing pvp players so the groups lobbying for one cause over the other don’t miss the forest for the single tree they are cultivating.

I don’t just want one or two sets of armor and a few weapons. I want a whole host of stuff that exclusively drops in PvP. As the least played format in the game, it needs more love on that end to attract new players. It should take time to get it like certain positions on ladders etc. That way, “Johnny Pro PvE” doesn’t come ina nd just get what he wants in a week and then goes back to PvE to show off all his exclusive PvP gear in PvE. Some things should only be obtainable by a select few and it should be account bound stuff.

If we actually want rewards that we care about, those rewards whatever they may be shouldn’t be items that can be turned into profit. If you want that type of reward go play PvE. We should still be able to make money on matches but the actual rewards like weapons and armor should be account bound so they can’t be sold to players for exorbitant sums and also so PvE players can’t just buy the skins without playing PvP.

Quoted for truth!

Nacht Fuchs.3762:

Cruzy.3706:

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?
I would like to see something similar to GW1. Daily automated tournaments for earning qualification points, which qualifies your team for playing the monthly tournament.

How long should a season last?
1 month.

What would motivate you to play in one?
Competition, fun, rewards.

What types of rewards would you like to see?
Special capes/finishers, lots of rank points, gems.

How would a player earn these rewards?
By a good performance, i.e. place 1-32, depends how many teams participate.

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?
I wouldnt. Everyone can join the daily tournaments, those who arent skilled enough for getting the QP´s need to improve. Everyone whos willing to improve will participate anyway.
Oh, and rewards for daily tournaments of course, everyone who has a lil bit of fun with pvp will try to archive them anyway if they´re big enough.

I would like to see this happen.
The GW I system was/is just great!!!

Fully agree with the above.

I think personally Anet should not give up on the automated tournament system.. To give high-ranked players the possibility to compete.

Automated tournaments should, as a parallel approach, give bonus rating for ladders. Additionally the system should provide in the highest instance (Monthly or even yearly Tournaments) also the highest achievable reward—> in case you wanna go Esports with this game GEMS or money prices.

I am a dedicaded GW1 and GW2 PVP Player… In both games i played at the top competitive level. I loved automated tournaments even though they arrived to late in terms of an feature in GW1.
Please try to integrate a similar system in GW2 earlier.
Its highly rewarding in my opinion to get a rating boost by playing more competitive.

The best part is that they should already have the code for such a system written, since they had a skeleton of the automated tournament system in place. They should go back to that and execute it fully by adding ranking pts for teams based on how they perform in the weekly and monthly tournaments. Those ranking pts could determine who qualifies for the annual tournaments at the end of the year.

After the first season, you could even give each player a ranking based on how their teams performed and divide those players into divisions. The NPPL and PSP leagues of paintball do this and it works out very well.

Add 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 ranked matches. CAPTURE isn’t popular at all. Ppl want to fight not to capture. I support only capturing in WvW havig fun with this. But in PvP BORING!

Btw love the game love the pvp but i know tons of ppl who do not like capture sistem in spvp. Also pvp option in pve would be nice. so you can for ex. fight with friend while waiting for Tequatl or Wurm.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Top tier players might be motivated only by $$$ for example, while lower tier players may be driven primarily to earn levels/gold.

I’m not interested in $$$. For that I go to work. I pvp for fun.

Skins & Titles make me happy

Please fix balance before you even consider doing this……………………..

Please fix balance before you even consider doing this……………………..

What would motivate you to play in one?
How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Here’s some input from a recently returned PvEer, fwiw.

The only time I’ve stepped foot into sPvP in GW2 so far is one five-minute session during beta. I am far too clueless to consider doing so again without certain things being put in place, namely, the only people I want to have to deal with and who I want to have to put up with my noobiness for my first X matches are other equally clueless players. If you can find a way to separate the newcomers out into some kind of beginner’s league then I’ll definitely give it a go, especially if the rewards per unit of time spent are better than those from doing PvE or WvW.

ya its really nice doing some1 else job

ColinJohanson.2394:

So an open question to add to the brainstorm, when considering leagues rewards is always going to be an important component to driving participation. There is some great ideas in this thread on rewards already, but it’s worth delving deeper into what type of rewards will motivate different types of players in the league structure. Top tier players might be motivated only by $$$ for example, while lower tier players may be driven primarily to earn levels/gold. (These are just random examples)

With that in mind, what rewards would you like to see for a pvp league structure based on player categories who would be motivated by those rewards at different tiers?

I’ll give myself as an example: I consider myself competitive casual. I will never join a top PvP team to compete in tournaments to be the best in the world, I will however play in any solo play league or rated solo play if the rewards are compelling enough. I generally play hot join and custom arenas as my core game mode type.

For me, unique skins for my character that I can only earn from participating in a league structure would be the biggest motivating factor. This would allow me to show off to others that I was there, and also feel like I earned something unique and exciting for my time spent. Similarly, any rewards that help speed my progress towards building a legendary would provide a large amount of motivation for me. And gems would always be nice, can I always seem to be finding more on the gem store I want to buy than my wife will be ok wit

As one of these “top tier players” I’m glad you brought this up Colin!

I think most players in most games would put themselves in this “competitive casual” category that you have described yourself as. These players solve all the problems that high level players run into. Those problems being $$$ and long queue times.

So making the system to highly attract the competitive casual players is of utmost importance. This is something WoW arena failed at miserably. People make fun of duelists because they just didn’t make it to gladiator, you’d rather just have no title at all, it’s a system only encouraging people to attain the highest of ranks possible.

The highest ranked people can get there little something that can separate them from everyone else and they’ll be happy. Give everyone else regular in game currency rewards like gold/gems (whatever else I am not to keen on too many in game things as I pretty much only pvp)

And as a side note I am in full on agreement with others on the subject of having short seasons. In WoW too many players only played during the end of seasons, it’s only natural though, can’t blame em!

Or even make a season 6 months long, but every 2 months there is a preliminary with lesser rewards which will keep people coming back more often.

ColinJohanson.2394:

competitive casual

Pity the two are mutually exclusive.
Unless ‘playing to win’ equals ‘competitive’ in your book, dat is.

@above post, comparisons to WoW are the best. :*

KarlaGrey.5903:

ColinJohanson.2394:

competitive casual

Pity the two are mutually exclusive.
Unless ‘playing to win’ equals ‘competitive’ in your book, dat is.

@above post, comparisons to WoW are the best.

They are not. Hardcore and casual are mutually exclusive, but that has nothing to do with being competitive in a game.

Competitive directly translates to aiming to become the best. It goes hand in hand with ‘hardcore’ because of the amount of dedication needed to attain your goal(s).

Being casual automaticaly means you will not be dedicating the time and effort required to achieve that; however you might still be able to give competitive teams a run for their money, or at least won’t be mere cannon fodder, but you will do so randomly and on a whim more than to be truly competitive – and most definitely not to get to the top.
Sorry, there is no such thing as a competitive casual player. There is just a casual player who plays to win, and a casual player who plays for fun/to kill time.
Moreover, ‘competitive’ usually implies you also have a regular team you play with, because you cannot really be competitive with 4 deadweights on your team…unless you’re up vs an opponent team of simlar skill level (read pve/beginners).