Guild Wars 2

Whisperlude.3860:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvXDv70-6Gg

this video didnt refelct the current meta.
In Paid Toruanment you dont play anymore bunkerguard mid and mesmer portal deff all the time.U should play more paid and less free/random pvp to get a better overview if u want to do those vids.

I watch A LOT of spvp/tpvp videos. Part of the problem with both aspects of the game is that you see the same 4 kitten classes, over and over and over and over again. Game is dominated by Mesmers, Thieves, and Guardians. should be MTGw2.

Boring

Second thing, STOP ADDING NEW CONTENT and balance your classes and fix the 10,000 trait/skill bugs that plague most classes. Who wants to spend all their time on a char that is bugged. At first you don’t notice, but then you experiment with the mighty 3, and see, wow, my first chosen class is like playing in the minor league after already being in the majors. Perhaps thats why it is MTG wars, because those are the least bugged classes in the game, besides the most powerful.

i started watching just because i was curious but man you really hit every point on the head. by the end i found that i could completely agree with the entire video. currently spvp is in a sad state of affairs – i really hope it doesn’t get pushed to the back burner and the focus of the game shifted to pve only

Whisperlude.3860:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvXDv70-6Gg

lol @ “why friends are back in pandaland” if they really think wow pvp is that good then they have noplace in GW…

and you dont get stomped in lol? when i played it ppl would que with 1 lvl 1 and rest were lvl 30 and i would get guys with 400-1000 wins when i had only 20 and i was low lvl

samo.1054:

-Remove the hotjoin 8v8 altogether.
-Make free tournaments function the way Random Arena functioned in GW1. -(No premades)

RA was a cesspool where, as soon as the countdown started , the whole match was decided as soon as it was evident your team didn’t have enough Monks/Assassins. And most of that was due to the team sizes being so small. Even costume brawl had this same dynamic and it was the most balanced 4-man ever.

You can’t balance those matches with Even Quantity-vs-Quantity. You have to specifically measure every individual player’s strengths and weaknesses and then pit them against eachother based on that. Even if it means stacking up 9 amatuers against a 5 man premade

shiNn.2571:

this video didnt refelct the current meta.
In Paid Toruanment you dont play anymore bunkerguard mid and mesmer portal deff all the time.U should play more paid and less free/random pvp to get a better overview if u want to do those vids.

I made that video, and sorry but these 2 builds are still on nearly every team in some fashion, and are certainly on the most hardcore teams that win all the time. Even if you don’t agree with that, the main point is that there a small number of viable builds / comps overall which has led to stagnant play.

The next time another true random, without any prior knowledge of software-, not to mention game-, developement, chimes in and complains about the poor communication or how entitled they are to whatever they concieve to be their right i’m going to seriously consider punching a kitten.

If you think a gamedeveloper/designer will or can join a major complain-thread, just acknowledge problems and post an idea (or ack user-ideas) for a fix including an ETA, you should hang yourself. Everything posted in this thread by an official would be taken as a promise and repeated until the end of time by “the community”, this fact alone requires that everything released needs to be checked with the team, discussed, proof read etc.

Additionally with a game of that size there will be no single person who knows everything about the project, like source-developement, team-management, press-stuff, graphics-design, beta-team, QA – there is no white knight who could jump into the forum, post some helpfull advice and just by the way determine the future of the game. Attacking a single person is so ignorant i lack the words to describe my disgust.

The one thing you are currently entitled to is to leave the game, you have no right to demand anything outside of the contract propesed to you a while ago, so i would suggest proof reading your stuff twice, filtering some emotions out and getting a grip on how a buisness like that works.

I am long-time PvPer. My resume includes multiple 2K+ WoW Arena teams, SB, DF and dueling record in UO. I almost exclusively WvW in GW2.

I do not participate in tPvP and do not plan to. I am not alone, in my medium-sized ultra-competitive WvW guild there are no organized tPvP teams and no interest to start one.

Here are my reasons:

1. I can’t take my character into tPvP
2. There are no tPvP rewards that would help me advance my character (that I know of)
3. Whole rush control points defended by ‘bunker’ tPvP does not appeal to me.

If Anet were to implement 5v5 elimination-style ranked tPvP that awarded PvP tokens I would likely participate.

From where I stand tPvP problem is question of appeal. If you can’t sell your tPvP to PvPers then you ether selling wrong thing or not delivering message in a way it can be understood.

Just my 2c.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about custom arenas, but at least they (the devs) are listening to the community. That’s something.

Can someone explain what exactly the benefit of custom arenas would be (for the players)?

ilr.9675:

samo.1054:

-Remove the hotjoin 8v8 altogether.
-Make free tournaments function the way Random Arena functioned in GW1. -(No premades)

RA was a cesspool where, as soon as the countdown started , the whole match was decided as soon as it was evident your team didn’t have enough Monks/Assassins. And most of that was due to the team sizes being so small. Even costume brawl had this same dynamic and it was the most balanced 4-man ever.

You can’t balance those matches with Even Quantity-vs-Quantity. You have to specifically measure every individual player’s strengths and weaknesses and then pit them against eachother based on that. Even if it means stacking up 9 amatuers against a 5 man premade

The monk problem doesn’t even exist anymore. And since gameplay is no longer about spiking through sustained group healing, the Sin problem isn’t there either.

If you do have a RA system in GW2, it can’t be Conquest, though. Imagine getting four bunker Guardians as your randoms. It’d be like getting multiple monks. You can’t force a coordination-based gametype into a random format, because that encourages people to bring specializations and hope they get the right combination of specialists.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

I am long-time PvPer. My resume includes multiple 2K+ WoW Arena teams, SB, DF and dueling record in UO. I almost exclusively WvW in GW2.

I do not participate in tPvP and do not plan to. I am not alone, in my medium-sized ultra-competitive WvW guild there are no organized tPvP teams and no interest to start one.

Here are my reasons:

1. I can’t take my character into tPvP
2. There are no tPvP rewards that would help me advance my character (that I know of)
3. Whole zerg control points tPvP does not appeal to me.

If Anet were to implement 5v5 elimination-style ranked tPvP that awarded PvP tokens I would likely participate.

From where I stand tPvP problem is question of appeal. If you can’t sell your tPvP to PvPers then you ether selling wrong thing or not delivering message in a way it can be understood.

Just my 2c.

if you think you need gear to boost you just in tPvP then gw2 tPvP is not for you and you dont like zergs, but you play WvWvW… WAT?

PotatoOverdose.6583:

Can someone explain what exactly the benefit of custom arenas would be (for the players)?

A third-party cannot hold a tournament in GW2 right now because the only way to get at competitive, organized, controlled 5v5 is in a Tournament. In order to accommodate the ability for these outside groups to use the game in a competitive manner, they need a way to set up their own server that plays by their own rules with their own monitoring.

Additionally, when you have private servers, teams can perform much more controlled and organized practices against themselves and other professional teams for scrims.

Sanis.1096:

Regrets of Sini.6083:

I am long-time PvPer. My resume includes multiple 2K+ WoW Arena teams, SB, DF and dueling record in UO. I almost exclusively WvW in GW2.

I do not participate in tPvP and do not plan to. I am not alone, in my medium-sized ultra-competitive WvW guild there are no organized tPvP teams and no interest to start one.

Here are my reasons:

1. I can’t take my character into tPvP
2. There are no tPvP rewards that would help me advance my character (that I know of)
3. Whole zerg control points tPvP does not appeal to me.

If Anet were to implement 5v5 elimination-style ranked tPvP that awarded PvP tokens I would likely participate.

From where I stand tPvP problem is question of appeal. If you can’t sell your tPvP to PvPers then you ether selling wrong thing or not delivering message in a way it can be understood.

Just my 2c.

if you think you need gear to boost you just in tPvP then gw2 tPvP is not for you and you dont like zergs, but you play WvWvW… WAT?

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read his post lol. Good call.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

1. I can’t take my character into tPvP
2. There are no tPvP rewards that would help me advance my character (that I know of)
3. Whole zerg control points tPvP does not appeal to me.
.

1. You can take any character – old or new into tPvP, just join mists, get instant lvl 80, check vendors for gear and play.
2. There are rewards that cosmetically advance your character – you know, that gear that you can get from reward chests
3. You say zerg does not appeal to you, yet you play wvw? Actually tPvP is based on team play, you rarely zerg one point with a team, usually you communicate and position members in different places.

I don’t like control point mechanic and ‘strategery’ involved in rushing (zerging) defending player (bunker) with superior numbers.

Yes, clearly tPvP is not for me and 99% of GW2 players. Isn’t this is the problem you are trying to solve?

I mean, if you are happy with double-digit participation in LARGE game like GW2, more power to you, but don’t expect any dev. attention for such failed niche.

Lukin.4061:

1. You can take any character – old or new into tPvP, just join mists, get instant lvl 80, check vendors for gear and play..

This is actually my #1 objection. I don’t want just any character, I want MY character with MY gear and MY spec. Even LOL gets it, no idea why Anet misses such fundamental MMO concept.

Yes, even playing field is nice, but not to the point that in breaks immersion/continuity to such great degree.

Plague.5329:

ilr.9675:

samo.1054:

-Remove the hotjoin 8v8 altogether.
-Make free tournaments function the way Random Arena functioned in GW1. -(No premades)

RA was a cesspool where, as soon as the countdown started , the whole match was decided as soon as it was evident your team didn’t have enough Monks/Assassins. And most of that was due to the team sizes being so small. Even costume brawl had this same dynamic and it was the most balanced 4-man ever.

You can’t balance those matches with Even Quantity-vs-Quantity. You have to specifically measure every individual player’s strengths and weaknesses and then pit them against eachother based on that. Even if it means stacking up 9 amatuers against a 5 man premade

The monk problem doesn’t even exist anymore. And since gameplay is no longer about spiking through sustained group healing, the Sin problem isn’t there either.

If you do have a RA system in GW2, it can’t be Conquest, though. Imagine getting four bunker Guardians as your randoms. It’d be like getting multiple monks. You can’t force a coordination-based gametype into a random format, because that encourages people to bring specializations and hope they get the right combination of specialists.

Perhaps. But I don’t think GW2 is as prone to possibility of that happening. Well maybe it is right now, but if Anet actually got the balance right, 4 guardians really shouldn’t happen. Even in GW1 it did not happen THAT often that you got 2 or even more monks into the arena, even tho it was a well know fact, that it’s most successful class in that arena.

Personally I just stuck to the rule that whatever you do in RA do it well. Be a good healer, be a good DPS or be a good “controler”.

If you join free tourneys (alone) right now, you usually get quite an even distribution of classes. Yes, guardians and thiefs are the most common, but i never had more than 2 of each in my team…

Regrets of Sini.6083:

Lukin.4061:

1. You can take any character – old or new into tPvP, just join mists, get instant lvl 80, check vendors for gear and play..

This is actually my #1 objection. I don’t want just any character, I want MY character with MY gear and MY spec. Even LOL gets it, no idea why Anet misses such fundamental MMO concept.

Yes, even playing field is nice, but not to the point that in breaks immersion/continuity to such great degree.

If you want to have a gear that gives you an advantage, go play wow – gw2 is truly not for you. It IS one of the best part in spvp, that there is no gear grinding, all are equal and only skill in controlling your charachter shows who is better. But you can get your spec still, since you have all utilities and trait points to spend.

Payneful.7934:

Sanis.1096:

Regrets of Sini.6083:

I am long-time PvPer. My resume includes multiple 2K+ WoW Arena teams, SB, DF and dueling record in UO. I almost exclusively WvW in GW2.

I do not participate in tPvP and do not plan to. I am not alone, in my medium-sized ultra-competitive WvW guild there are no organized tPvP teams and no interest to start one.

Here are my reasons:

1. I can’t take my character into tPvP
2. There are no tPvP rewards that would help me advance my character (that I know of)
3. Whole zerg control points tPvP does not appeal to me.

If Anet were to implement 5v5 elimination-style ranked tPvP that awarded PvP tokens I would likely participate.

From where I stand tPvP problem is question of appeal. If you can’t sell your tPvP to PvPers then you ether selling wrong thing or not delivering message in a way it can be understood.

Just my 2c.

if you think you need gear to boost you just in tPvP then gw2 tPvP is not for you and you dont like zergs, but you play WvWvW… WAT?

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read his post lol. Good call.

The problem with both of your reactions is that “if you want to retain your character’s appearance in PvP then leave” does just that. The player leaves. “I sure showed him.” Yeah, you did. Good work. If you want players to actually use your PvP system, like it, and continue to use it, you have to examine reactions like this rather than screaming at them that they’re not spending their time correctly.

Lukin.4061:

If you want to have a gear that gives you an advantage, go play wow – gw2 is truly not for you. It IS one of the best part in spvp, that there is no gear grinding, all are equal and only skill in controlling your charachter shows who is better. But you can get your spec still, since you have all utilities and trait points to spend.

He’s talking about his character’s appearance, not stats. When he enters PvP he feels a separation from the character he has developed for five hundred hours and the character he’s now using that is wearing chainmail or guild cloth gear.

Then I misunderstood him. Well he can still get the same appearance, that he has since all the armor sets are still available – just needs to get some rank or play tpvp and get items that way.

I don’t think you misunderstood me, I think Plauge pointed out something that wasn’t clear to me. Whole tPvP setup gave me out-of-body experience. Now I know why.

I have mental idea of my character, in a way it is extension of me. When it gets compromised/corrupted I don’t feel comfortable with it. Like wearing someone else’s underwear.

#2-3 Points still stand. Especially #3 promotes builds and tactics that are very specific to tPvP. Easy way to solve this (and to make it more like WvW) is to simply slow down rate of capture based on number of enemies in the circle, instead of outright stopping it.

This would also solve perma-stealth thieves holding supply camps in WvW.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

Lukin.4061:

1. You can take any character – old or new into tPvP, just join mists, get instant lvl 80, check vendors for gear and play..

This is actually my #1 objection. I don’t want just any character, I want MY character with MY gear and MY spec. Even LOL gets it, no idea why Anet misses such fundamental MMO concept.

Yes, even playing field is nice, but not to the point that in breaks immersion/continuity to such great degree.

yea even LOL get it, but the system is stupid… why would you try to make esport game where you play with stats and not skills

Lukin.4061:

Then I misunderstood him. Well he can still get the same appearance, that he has since all the armor sets are still available – just needs to get some rank or play tpvp and get items that way.

I know. But many players – not just him – don’t want to do that. It takes a very, very long time to get that CoF or AC armor skin (or whatever) that you’re already wearing and have already earned in PvE. When people walk around in LA in their tier 3 cultural armor, they can feel a sense of accomplishment, that this is their character and they’ve earned the right to look good, and feel good about themselves. Then they enter the mists and are told they wasted all their time, and they have to start over.

Now, you can easily make the argument that earning rewards in PvE doesn’t make you a good PvP player, and as such, you don’t get to wear something that only a big time tournament player should be wearing. And that’s a fine opinion. But you also have to understand that many players don’t care. They just won’t play at all, because you’re serving them up an ultimatum, in terms of the progression of their in-game avatar.

This is a complex design decision, you have to understand. Honestly, the way I see it, halving off the aesthetic side of thing serves only to harm the game, and offers no real benefit. The only good side of keeping the two separate is that it makes the high end players feel better about being in a sea of chainmail avatars. But that’s a rather dramatic design swing, just to appeal to a very tiny handful of the population in a part of the game that is already waning immensely in interest and popularity.

Seether.7285:

I would just like to point out that isn’t that there are only “10 teams taking it seriously” it is that the skill gaps are pretty large between teams that are winning the qps and teams that faceroll free tournies but lose in the first round of paids nearly every time. People don’t enjoy getting stomped and they enjoy it even less when they have to spend a currency and extra time just to end up against far superior opposition in paids.

This goes back to what many people have stated, putting a money sink in the only competitive tournament system is going to cannibalize the community rather than expand it.

I agree entirely.

Payneful.7934:

I completely agree with everything in the video.

Awesome, the community needs dedicated players like yourself to want to stick around and have good competition, but this isn’t happening.

Nord.5360:

Agree with the video in its entirety. Like someone else mentioned above, I really do like the idea of ‘competitive matches’ rather than ‘competitive tournaments’. Sitting around waiting for 8 teams just to play one tournament is absolutely destroying the queue times for paid tournaments.

Yeah thats an incredibly good suggestion. The barriers to experience competitive play MUST be removed for the community to remain sustainable.

Gugus.1462:

It’s sad, but you are right. I didn’t get to disagree even one time.
After playing GW2 PvP I probably couldn’t go back to WoW PvP, just like drinking good beer makes you never want to go back to drinking Bud light (even though you’ve once enjoyed it)… so please ArenaNet, don’t ruin this for me.

I am right there with you man. I think the combat innovations like no trinity, no auto targeting on skills, dodging and others are a massive step up for the genre. Its just such a shame that the actual competitive system is such a step backwards.

Project Shrine Maiden.9623:

i started watching just because i was curious but man you really hit every point on the head. by the end i found that i could completely agree with the entire video. currently spvp is in a sad state of affairs – i really hope it doesn’t get pushed to the back burner and the focus of the game shifted to pve only

Yeah PVE taking over everything is a very real danger to the competitive community. If nothing else, I hope these threads will spur Anet to at least give forecast as to how they see sPVP fitting in with the rest of the game.

Match Statistics really do need to be upgraded with more information and with ability to see and compare everyone’s stats.

Providing us more information/feedback is very important in helping to figure out how well builds/team members are doing and what needs to be improved.

if you want to look good when you are doing pvp maby go WvWvW?

Lukin.4061:

Then I misunderstood him. Well he can still get the same appearance, that he has since all the armor sets are still available – just needs to get some rank or play tpvp and get items that way.

This is a seriously non-trivial commitment. Some of the sets that are trivial to get in PvE are almost impossible to attain in a reasonable timeframe in PvP (the “PvP Knight” set, for example, is standard high-level blues in PvE but requires a minimum of rank 40 just to have a chance to attain in PvP).

Sanis.1096:

if you want to look good when you are doing pvp maby go WvWvW?

Not so easy to stand out in those zergs. Especially when a good amount of players become invisible because there are too many people at the same location.

Anyway, if only looking good was the only issue about sPvP. We’re going out of topic here…

Cogbyrn.7283:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

Can someone explain what exactly the benefit of custom arenas would be (for the players)?

A third-party cannot hold a tournament in GW2 right now because the only way to get at competitive, organized, controlled 5v5 is in a Tournament. In order to accommodate the ability for these outside groups to use the game in a competitive manner, they need a way to set up their own server that plays by their own rules with their own monitoring.

Additionally, when you have private servers, teams can perform much more controlled and organized practices against themselves and other professional teams for scrims.

So basically, it is a small part of the functionality that GvG had in GW1 except we have to pay for it?

Is there a demand for this sort of thing atm? You can get into the “top 100” in terms of Qualifying points by winning a single tournament (at least as of yesterday). Tbh, this doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene. Likewise, paid tourneys are deserted compared to free tourneys. There doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene, nor does there seem to be much interest in one.

It seems to me that they’re pushing eSport features hard while tpvp isn’t anywhere near that level of competition atm. Look at GW1, which btw wasn’t the ideal model for an esport. Huge swathes of the player base begged for an observer mode for GvG, and there was much rejoicing when they got it. GW1 had a competitive scene before the esport infrastructure was in place. Gw2 is putting the esport infrastructure in place before it has anything remotely close to the interest expressed in gw1 to say nothing of real esport scenes like SC2 or dota.

I guess my point is this: wouldn’t it be better to fix your core gameplay for all users rather than push a feature that no one except maybe 5 or so dedicated teams would use? That’s the way it was done in gw1 and in dota and it worked pretty well (both set up solid gameplay before adding esport features).

Yeah, the tournament system at the moment is what is causing growing pains to newer and average teams. I also agree that they should just have competitive matches where premades “queue” up and you get paired up with another random team on one of the 3 maps randomly, and that’s where it ends. There is no need for Arenanet to stick to their current tournament format, where each team is progressively harder.

What they should so is jsut have a a generic pool queue system, where every team of 5 gets queued. After you complete your one match, then you stay “queued” or requeue, and you get paired with another team for another random match. This would greatly increase the pool of people who are playing, and also it would decrease the attrition.

When you face a team on khylo, you are facing a team that already beat 2 teams to get there, so naturally it they are going to be above average usually, so it is hard for newer teams to gain experience there or even make it there.

Under the current system of free tournaments and paid tournaments, it is a very polarizing experience from 95% faceroll matches in free tournaments to very tough, disheartening competiton in paid tournaments. We need to build a big “middle” class for teams to compete and thrive in. Free tournaments and paid tournaments formats are what caused this current PVP hierarchy that is so polarizing.

If you had the pool of teams queueing against each other for just one map at a time, it would “smooth” out the learning curve and the severity of skill disparities of teams because they could get foefire and khylo experiene against weaker teams(ones who hadn’t already beat 2 teams to be there). It would also of course greatly improve queue times and pops for everyone because you would get getting more matches in against a wider range of skill levels. This would make it so that more teams would be willing to queue up for them. This is an EASY first step towards a more sustainable system.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

I am long-time PvPer. My resume includes multiple 2K+ WoW Arena teams, SB, DF and dueling record in UO. I almost exclusively WvW in GW2.

I do not participate in tPvP and do not plan to. I am not alone, in my medium-sized ultra-competitive WvW guild there are no organized tPvP teams and no interest to start one.

Here are my reasons:

1. I can’t take my character into tPvP
2. There are no tPvP rewards that would help me advance my character (that I know of)
3. Whole rush control points defended by ‘bunker’ tPvP does not appeal to me.

If Anet were to implement 5v5 elimination-style ranked tPvP that awarded PvP tokens I would likely participate.

From where I stand tPvP problem is question of appeal. If you can’t sell your tPvP to PvPers then you ether selling wrong thing or not delivering message in a way it can be understood.

Just my 2c.

While I don’t want to derail things, He brinsg up an important point which is that sPVP is an entirely separate entity from the rest of the game.

This is relevant because if people from PVE and WvW don’t enjoy it and it only makes up a very small percentage of the player base, then it will be put on the backburner for development which seems to already be the case.

PotatoOverdose.6583:

So basically, it is a small part of the functionality that GvG had in GW1 except we have to pay for it?

Is there a demand for this sort of thing atm? You can get into the “top 100” in terms of Qualifying points by winning a single tournament (at least as of yesterday). Tbh, this doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene. Likewise, paid tourneys are deserted compared to free tourneys. There doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene, nor does there seem to be much interest in one.

It seems to me that they’re pushing eSport features hard while tpvp isn’t anywhere near that level of competition atm. Look at GW1, which btw wasn’t the ideal model for an esport. Huge swathes of the player base begged for an observer mode for GvG, and there was much rejoicing when they got it. GW1 had a competitive scene before the esport infrastructure was in place. Gw2 is putting the esport infrastructure in place before it has anything remotely close to the interest expressed in gw1 to say nothing of real esport scenes like SC2 or dota.

I guess my point is this: wouldn’t it be better to fix your core gameplay for all users rather than push a feature that no one except maybe 5 or so dedicated teams would use? That’s the way it was done in gw1 and in dota and it worked pretty well (both set up solid gameplay before adding esport features).

I don’t know all of the ways you could configure your GvG experience, and I don’t know all of the ways you will be able to configure a custom arena. Until they release official details, I’ll wait to judge features.

Those details include the payment plan, which already seems to be some outrageous sum of money by the way people make mention of it. Most MMOs make you pay $15/month to play the game at all. Let’s also remember that most transactions in-game cost Gems, which you can obtain via in-game gold or out-game dollars. If you establish a fun group that likes to jump in and play with other people they know (think FPS servers), accepting donations for the maintenance of that server is not unheard of. For those people who play the game, the fact that it can be in-game currency is extra goodness.

To say only 5 or so dedicated teams would use custom arenas is non-contributive hyperbole at best. It sounds like you’re exaggerating to justify your own wants, and that doesn’t help the conversation move forward. “Huge swathes” of GW1 players demanded a spectator mode, but 25 people in GW2 would use custom arenas. These forums are absolutely atrocious at exaggerating numbers for dramatic effect, and it never helps anyone get anywhere with anything.

Stormphrax.5798:

That’s exactly what happend to me and my friends. At first we enjoyed the structure PvP and soon we strated to play free tournaments but we got owned by a lot of pro-teams. We could only make the top 3 in like 2 out of 20 tournaments and always felt like we had to play against way better team. We didn’t even start to play payed tournaments because we only got like 6 tickets after playing quite some time and we knew we had a great change to lose in the first round. So we didn’t see the point of spending more time in pvp and now we rather play a tournament which is sad because we had a lot of fun when we started.

Its stories like this that fill me with so much disappointment and has no doubt been experienced by potentially hundreds of players.

You like the game and have a 5 man team ready to play, but you have no ability to develop your skill and team synergy because you can’t consistently play against similarly skilled competition.

You end up getting farmed, eventually run out of tickets and then leave because nobody is going to spend money or farm, to then just get farmed by the small number of hardcore teams that have already put in hundreds of hours and already have a never ending supply of tickets.

Cogbyrn.7283:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

So basically, it is a small part of the functionality that GvG had in GW1 except we have to pay for it?

Is there a demand for this sort of thing atm? You can get into the “top 100” in terms of Qualifying points by winning a single tournament (at least as of yesterday). Tbh, this doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene. Likewise, paid tourneys are deserted compared to free tourneys. There doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene, nor does there seem to be much interest in one.

It seems to me that they’re pushing eSport features hard while tpvp isn’t anywhere near that level of competition atm. Look at GW1, which btw wasn’t the ideal model for an esport. Huge swathes of the player base begged for an observer mode for GvG, and there was much rejoicing when they got it. GW1 had a competitive scene before the esport infrastructure was in place. Gw2 is putting the esport infrastructure in place before it has anything remotely close to the interest expressed in gw1 to say nothing of real esport scenes like SC2 or dota.

I guess my point is this: wouldn’t it be better to fix your core gameplay for all users rather than push a feature that no one except maybe 5 or so dedicated teams would use? That’s the way it was done in gw1 and in dota and it worked pretty well (both set up solid gameplay before adding esport features).

I don’t know all of the ways you could configure your GvG experience, and I don’t know all of the ways you will be able to configure a custom arena. Until they release official details, I’ll wait to judge features.

Those details include the payment plan, which already seems to be some outrageous sum of money by the way people make mention of it. Most MMOs make you pay $15/month to play the game at all. Let’s also remember that most transactions in-game cost Gems, which you can obtain via in-game gold or out-game dollars. If you establish a fun group that likes to jump in and play with other people they know (think FPS servers), accepting donations for the maintenance of that server is not unheard of. For those people who play the game, the fact that it can be in-game currency is extra goodness.

To say only 5 or so dedicated teams would use custom arenas is non-contributive hyperbole at best. It sounds like you’re exaggerating to justify your own wants, and that doesn’t help the conversation move forward. “Huge swathes” of GW1 players demanded a spectator mode, but 25 people in GW2 would use custom arenas. These forums are absolutely atrocious at exaggerating numbers for dramatic effect, and it never helps anyone get anywhere with anything.

I wish it was hyperbole.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Leaderboards-for-Qualifying-Points/first#post665723
In order to be in the top 32 players (not teams or guilds) as of Nov 8, you only need 2 tourney wins. That’s not a healthy competitive scene.

Think about it for a moment. You need 2 measly tourney wins to be in the top 32 players for your entire REGION. That is not active competitive pvp. Period.

I’ll be totally honest. From where I’m standing it looks like there are fewer then 5 or so dedicated teams. Gw1 had hundreds. And dota, sc2, and other esports? Yeah….the audience for custom arenas, especially PAID custom arenas just isn’t there.

Seems like they were more interested in making a successful E-Sport than a fun lasting game mode. Which are not at all the same thing. Now they have neither. I burned out on sPVP very quickly, while WvW is more fun and far more rewarding in a social MMO dynamic way.

Also agree with the guy that said it feels cut-off from the rest of the game, with the separate progression track. Don’t think he was asking for better stats, heck the gear plateau is ridiculously easy to reach. Instead of just duplicating all the armors from PVE they should have let you keep your PVE looks/gear/build and just made separate PVP skins to go for too.

PotatoOverdose.6583:

Cogbyrn.7283:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

So basically, it is a small part of the functionality that GvG had in GW1 except we have to pay for it?

Is there a demand for this sort of thing atm? You can get into the “top 100” in terms of Qualifying points by winning a single tournament (at least as of yesterday). Tbh, this doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene. Likewise, paid tourneys are deserted compared to free tourneys. There doesn’t seem to be a healthy competitive scene, nor does there seem to be much interest in one.

It seems to me that they’re pushing eSport features hard while tpvp isn’t anywhere near that level of competition atm. Look at GW1, which btw wasn’t the ideal model for an esport. Huge swathes of the player base begged for an observer mode for GvG, and there was much rejoicing when they got it. GW1 had a competitive scene before the esport infrastructure was in place. Gw2 is putting the esport infrastructure in place before it has anything remotely close to the interest expressed in gw1 to say nothing of real esport scenes like SC2 or dota.

I guess my point is this: wouldn’t it be better to fix your core gameplay for all users rather than push a feature that no one except maybe 5 or so dedicated teams would use? That’s the way it was done in gw1 and in dota and it worked pretty well (both set up solid gameplay before adding esport features).

I don’t know all of the ways you could configure your GvG experience, and I don’t know all of the ways you will be able to configure a custom arena. Until they release official details, I’ll wait to judge features.

Those details include the payment plan, which already seems to be some outrageous sum of money by the way people make mention of it. Most MMOs make you pay $15/month to play the game at all. Let’s also remember that most transactions in-game cost Gems, which you can obtain via in-game gold or out-game dollars. If you establish a fun group that likes to jump in and play with other people they know (think FPS servers), accepting donations for the maintenance of that server is not unheard of. For those people who play the game, the fact that it can be in-game currency is extra goodness.

To say only 5 or so dedicated teams would use custom arenas is non-contributive hyperbole at best. It sounds like you’re exaggerating to justify your own wants, and that doesn’t help the conversation move forward. “Huge swathes” of GW1 players demanded a spectator mode, but 25 people in GW2 would use custom arenas. These forums are absolutely atrocious at exaggerating numbers for dramatic effect, and it never helps anyone get anywhere with anything.

I wish it was hyperbole.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Leaderboards-for-Qualifying-Points/first#post665723
In order to be in the top 32 players (not teams or guilds) as of Nov 8, you only need 2 tourney wins. That’s not a healthy competitive scene.

Think about it for a moment. You need 2 measly tourney wins to be in the top 32 players for your entire REGION. That is not active competitive pvp. Period.

I’ll be totally honest. From where I’m standing it looks like there are fewer then 5 or so dedicated teams. Gw1 had hundreds. And dota, sc2, and other esports? Yeah….the audience for custom arenas, especially PAID custom arenas just isn’t there.

Even more, the system is completely flawed.

This system is rewarding mindless grinding, since it doesn’t matter if you fought against top skills team or an average team joining for the lulz: for QPs, it’s exactly the same.

Same if random X team wins against the top teams out there, leading the scoreboard, and ONLY against them ( 3-4 tourneys played), it will be among the last ones in the ladder.

It doesn’t make sense at all.

I mean, c’mon, is really THAT HARD to understand the whole PvP system in its integrity is completely flawed and doesn’t promote the develpment of a good PvP community ?

I’ve totally lost interest in PvP, today in 2 hours not a single free tourney started , and i’m not even searching for other teams to play with.

LOL if i’m going to spend my currency in paid ones when i didn’t even have the chance to improve my teamplay.

It’s saddening.

+1 OP… myself and the folks that I play regularly with are not only on the sidelines for the current s/tPVP, we’re actively reviewing other games (some of which we’ve played before). That said, we’re still optimistic that GW2 can correct it’s current trajectory. Thanks for the post, Pray, very well said.

Jacobin.8509:

Seether.7285:

I would just like to point out that isn’t that there are only “10 teams taking it seriously” it is that the skill gaps are pretty large between teams that are winning the qps and teams that faceroll free tournies but lose in the first round of paids nearly every time. People don’t enjoy getting stomped and they enjoy it even less when they have to spend a currency and extra time just to end up against far superior opposition in paids.

This goes back to what many people have stated, putting a money sink in the only competitive tournament system is going to cannibalize the community rather than expand it.

I agree entirely.

When I made my first post I had only watched a little bit of your video and then made the post, I got around to watching the rest of the video and it looks like you said that exact same stuff in the video. I definitely agree with your viewpoints and I hope ArenaNet will take quick action to save this game that has so much potential.

I really like the pvp potential for this game but it really does feel unfinished at times. Also, everything listed here is quite true however I feel they are all symptoms where the true cause is a small pvp population to begin with. And its catch 22 because if they devoted resources, they could cultivate the interest in PVP… However they probably won’t do so because the we need a larger pvp community to substantiate big and consistent patches, so resources won’t be relegated to do so because we’re too small.

Sure, they’ll fix things in time perhaps but we’re talking long after the interests of potential core players have waned. IMO the best shot they had for esport potential is if they hit the ground running at launch and delivered weekly updates and hotfixes quickly when needed. Keep the momentum going. At this point its going to be a big uphill battle to capture new interest.

Just think, if after release they devoted the same resources to PVP as they did the Halloween events and likely upcoming other holiday events, imagine how much further along PVP features would be.

OP makes good points. It gets really frustrating rolling kids and then losing only to a few teams on kyhlo. It is especially frustrating because of how much effort we put into getting ourselves ready for Esports level PvP. Quite honestly I have no idea why they would let this game go live without some kind of 2v2 or 3v3 arena style play. I had really high expectations for the PvP in this game especially after wasting a significant chunk of my life playing Swtor. I’m not even going to start on the downed state and pvp imbalance / mechanics.

According to Jon Peters in the mists a few hours ago:

- The profession part of the upcoming patch notes is roughly 5 pages long.
- ~16 bullet points for rangers.
- ~30 bullet points for engis.
- Mesmers saw the fewest number of changes.
- “Tons” of bug fixes.
- “Some” balance changes.
- Portal is a cool ability that’s important to the game but has some problems (whatever that means from their perspective idk).
- The ability to use custom dyes in pvp is possibly coming in a December patch.
- Broken treb and lord announcements should be fixed soon.
- Target of target and player cast bars are low priority but something they might look at in the future.
- Probably no hope of ever letting us disable the terrible skill queue.
- Custom rankings, obs mode, etc. all “on the way” (as usual).

—

All in all, I think it’s pretty decent depending on what exactly gets fixed.

I was actually right in the middle of writing a post when it dawned on me that the biggest thing sPvP was lacking in the game was the ability to build community and keep people engaged. I briefly said as much, and here comes along a nearly perfect topic enumerating those concerns.

Bravo OP, bravo.

WHy does Jon talk about these changes in game on a single server rather than simply post them on the forums?

nerva.7940:

hopefully bunkers and portals got their heads smashed by the nerf bat. thanks for the update.

Portal and Retaliation (and aspects of Thieves) have been on the chopping block for a while, and were alluded to before as being a part of the 15th update. I’m going to hope that rankings of the team variety make an entrance in the soonish future.

gwawer.9805:

WHy does Jon talk about these changes in game on a single server rather than simply post them on the forums?

And it’s not the first time it happens…..

Thanks Noctred.

“- “Some” balance changes.”

Oh, lord. I get the impression a lot of people are going to be very mad at this supposedly “big PvP patch.” As I feared, it’s shaping up to be nothing more than bug fixes, with no attempt whatsoever to fix any of the major problems with some of the classes right now.

Noctred.6732:

According to Jon Peters in the mists a few hours ago:

- The profession part of the upcoming patch notes is roughly 5 pages long.
- ~16 bullet points for rangers.
- ~30 bullet points for engis.
- Mesmers saw the fewest number of changes.
- “Tons” of bug fixes.
- “Some” balance changes.
- Portal is a cool ability that’s important to the game but has some problems (whatever that means from their perspective idk).
- The ability to use custom dyes in pvp is possibly coming in a December patch.
- Broken treb and lord announcements should be fixed soon.
- Target of target and player cast bars are low priority but something they might look at in the future.
- Probably no hope of ever letting us disable the terrible skill queue.
- Custom rankings, obs mode, etc. all “on the way” (as usual).

—

All in all, I think it’s pretty decent depending on what exactly gets fixed.

any screen shot or link?

Sprawl.3891:

any screen shot or link?

No, but I’ve no reason to mislead or exaggerate – everything mentioned was said as is and can be confirmed by anybody else from Stormbluff who was around at the time.

Prince.3682:

I really like the pvp potential for this game but it really does feel unfinished at times. Also, everything listed here is quite true however I feel they are all symptoms where the true cause is a small pvp population to begin with. And its catch 22 because if they devoted resources, they could cultivate the interest in PVP… However they probably won’t do so because the we need a larger pvp community to substantiate big and consistent patches, so resources won’t be relegated to do so because we’re too small.

Sure, they’ll fix things in time perhaps but we’re talking long after the interests of potential core players have waned. IMO the best shot they had for esport potential is if they hit the ground running at launch and delivered weekly updates and hotfixes quickly when needed. Keep the momentum going. At this point its going to be a big uphill battle to capture new interest.

Just think, if after release they devoted the same resources to PVP as they did the Halloween events and likely upcoming other holiday events, imagine how much further along PVP features would be.

It makes sense that they work on pve stuff when 90% of the game population is in pve, but letting spvp dwindle away means fewer players and less incentive for them to develop the competitive side of things.

Plague.5329:

“- “Some” balance changes.”

Oh, lord. I get the impression a lot of people are going to be very mad at this supposedly “big PvP patch.” As I feared, it’s shaping up to be nothing more than bug fixes, with no attempt whatsoever to fix any of the major problems with some of the classes right now.

Might be a little harsh since, for some classes, a lot of the major problems stem from bugs.

Either way, Jon also said that it’s going to be a “huge” patch so you never know.