Guild Wars 2

GW2 currently possesses one single game mechanic: cap point conquest. This promotes incredibly static builds and playstyles as a single player/team build excels at this mechanic. Tiny cap points cause boring bunker builds to dominate and prevent many viable builds that are more interesting and fun to play/watch from seeing the light of day.

GW1 PvP had massive build and playstyle diversity because of a vast variety of mechanics. GvG combined deathmatch with large maps, capture the flag, and base defense. The combination of mechanics forced players to play for more than one goal (unlike cap points) and allowed for massive build diversity as different players placed different value on different mechanics and goals. Hall of Heroes (the end goal of Heroes Ascent) had three possible maps chosen at random (king of the hill, conquest, and capture the flag) so team builds had to be prepared for any of those game formats and build accordingly. Some players might choose to build more heavily for a conquest style map while others might go for a king-of-the-hill focused team setup while still others would build to be able to handle any game format instead of trying to excel at a particular format.

I’m not as familiar with LoL and SC2 but afaik there is a similar diversity of mechanics: LoL has several different lanes with different goals and challenges, mechanics like jungling, and different champions who excel at particular formats and counter different mechanics.

As long as GW2 has only a single mechanic (conquest) that is dominated by a single strategy (bunkering) GW2 sPvP will be boring and will not grow into an esport. One single team setup (3-4 bunkers with 1-2 roamers) will continue to dominate and teams will continue to use identical teamsetups with identical tactics because that team build and those team tactics are ideally suited for the ONLY game mechanic in play. The game needs a diversity of mechanics and different build options for handling each of those mechanics or players will continue to abandon it in favor of more complicated games. Discuss.

hmmm i’ll be happy with more game modes for sPvP.
but if free for all death match or team death match is introduced, the respawn wait timer better be fast.

and yes free for all death match seems exciting.
the newly respawned player could be in stealth for a few seconds or invulnerable etc.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

hmmm i’ll be happy with more game modes for sPvP.
but if free for all death match or team death match is introduced, the respawn wait timer better be fast.

and yes free for all death match seems exciting.
the newly respawned player could be in stealth for a few seconds or invulnerable etc.

Death match a la GW1 Random Arenas shouldn’t be your first guess at other game formats though! hop on the GW1 wiki and take a look at how complex and interesting the old GvG and HA game formats were. Hell look at how interesting some of the non-conquest maps from the GW2 beta were? Where did those maps and those complicated mechanics go, and why were we saddled with 5 maps of boring conquest?

Absolutely agree.

I totally agree too. I just posted something similar in someone else thread, I should have posted it here.

Who could ever disagree ?

Well they(anet) seem to breaking away from there 1 char for all 3 aspects of the game ,3w, pve, spvp. So hopefully they will balance the classes for SPVP only and this should open up more doors for extra game mode etc. That was one of the problems holding back game modes like TDM from what i understand.

I didnt play gw1 past level 12 or so , however i will go read a little about what your wrote because it sounds really good.

Bunkers i agree with 100% aswell. Extremely boring.

I’d rather get blown up by quickness pre-nerf than fight on a point for what seems like eternity. Pure bunkers can stay alive way way to long when you consider how small the maps are imo. Because even if u win the fight, its still lame.

i also want to add something else:

custom arenase won’t solve GW2 issues: game modes are not interesting enough.

You have your standard conquest map with secondary objectives ( be them the treb, NPCs killing or the orb), nothing really new.

Map/ objectives depth is very tiny, strategies are very simple due to the great semplification of the format and can be easily summarized into :

1. Bunker a point ( wait for back up)
2. Chaotic mid fight
3. Outnumbering
4. Fast roaming ( back up)

Class diversity is focused around these very simple tasks, and really the deepest tactic you’ll ever find is a trap ranger putting traps on the treb/close or a mesmer porting back with its portal.

Basically, the game is too simple, altough with a steep learning curve due to its combat system.

This is what should be addressed, along with professions balance ( in some case a total rework is needed) in order to do accomplish it.

Mrbig.8019:

i also want to add something else:

custom arenase won’t solve GW2 issues: game modes are not interesting enough.

You have your standard conquest map with secondary objectives ( be them the treb, NPCs killing or the orb), nothing really new.

Map/ objectives depth is very tiny, strategies are very simple due to the great semplification of the format and can be easily summarized into :

1. Bunker a point ( wait for back up)
2. Chaotic mid fight
3. Outnumbering
4. Fast roaming ( back up)

Class diversity is focused around these very simple tasks, and really the deepest tactic you’ll ever find is a trap ranger putting traps on the treb/close or a mesmer porting back with its portal.

Basically, the game is too simple, altough with a steep learning curve due to its combat system.

This is what should be addressed, along with professions balance ( in some case a total rework is needed) in order to do accomplish it.

Agreed though custom arenas will provide a temporary bandaid if the ability to turn off specific points is extended to the ability to turn off ALL points. This would allow you to make very simplistic deathmatches and CTF. This won’t be a great solution since cap points are the primary mechanics and trying to force maps built for conquest into other game formats won’t be perfect.

tl;dr we need new, larger maps that mix many mechanics including but not limited to CTF, conquest, death match, and king of the hill.

Errant Venture.9371:

Hell look at how interesting some of the non-conquest maps from the GW2 beta were? Where did those maps and those complicated mechanics go, and why were we saddled with 5 maps of boring conquest?

link

pullnointer.1476:

Errant Venture.9371:

Hell look at how interesting some of the non-conquest maps from the GW2 beta were? Where did those maps and those complicated mechanics go, and why were we saddled with 5 maps of boring conquest?

link

Sorry that was my bad, I meant alpha not beta. there were reports from GW1 PvPers who were asked to join the closed alpha that there were a variety of game types for sPvP during the closed alpha and I think a few of them even showed up at demos during conventions (but never in beta)

Errant Venture.9371:

pullnointer.1476:

Errant Venture.9371:

Hell look at how interesting some of the non-conquest maps from the GW2 beta were? Where did those maps and those complicated mechanics go, and why were we saddled with 5 maps of boring conquest?

link

Sorry that was my bad, I meant alpha not beta. there were reports from GW1 PvPers who were asked to join the closed alpha that there were a variety of game types for sPvP during the closed alpha and I think a few of them even showed up at demos during conventions (but never in beta)

ye but any more details?

Circle ticks lack impact. Seeing a pt every second cus you have a circle is meh, srs.
Seeing a guardian sitting on graveyard by himself waiting for everyone else to funnel in is completely uninteresting. Or on Raven, or on Gate, or whatever he’s sitting on. Even worse if they decide to just ignore him and go far and close play. Which means you have a character whose role is to sit on a circle and deter single-player initiation when you want to encourage initiation, where seemingly other modes do not.

Wot…
Imo part of what hurts the mode is the whole slow tick, sitting on a point is great because every second you sit on it, you gain which means for others every moment you aren’t you’re losing. Maybe if the intervals to gain pts where longer than one second, you’d create a greater discouragement of actually just sitting there, and emphasizing moving your kitten inbetween each tick as well as giving slower professions actual time to get inbetween points. But whatever. I get the idea of “defend your node” but it seems completely redonculus by the slow tick nature of it. You have limited time to go and defend as a result of how fast the game neutralizes. This weakens the idea of pressure, because you don’t have time to do it, you need people to die quickly or get off pts quickly to prevent the slow tick. Which emphasizes extreme offense and defense because an attrition battle is a definite poor choice when the slow tick is rewarding them for every second that node is blue even if they’re actually losing the fight. Skills like banners and Spirits get marginalized because they generally don’t produce the immediate effects you want (among other issues). You rather something like an Illusion of life that does its effect “now” and loudly.

This might be different on say a map like Foefire if the Lord was worth a lot more or even insta-win and dps and things like water field healing the lord were more important.

Lulz maybe the top of the top shake their head, but I think slow ticking is really boring to watch in its current state. Sure being in the background it’s fine as a forefront principle deemed the most important of the mode? No thanks jeff and It’s probably what kills the variety of the game even more.

tl;dr; Conquest would be fine probably if conquest was actually less of itself and more of its secondaries. I swore they agreed on it too, but there has been no changes.

As time has gone on im glad they are sticking with one competitive mode for pvp….I thought the same as you did….but to me, I liken it to League of Legends….they started with summoners rift…that to this day is their biggest esport scene of their game and any other game in the world….their esports didnt kick off at any level until 2 years into the game roughly…

With all that in mind I can see their decision for conquest mode. Victory condition not based on player skill or build is important. Now what I refer to this is abstract but ultimately no matter what you build or how good you are at it. You win via controlling positions and gaining points…no 2 teams have this awkward stand off and lack of engagement. ( think arenas from wow and how they sucked to watch. ) Conquest mode forces things to move along.

What they DO need is to shake up the " meta ". And for the love of god I hope they eventually realise that public test servers would do them a world of good. Players are far better testers than developers.

Zanthrax.6538:

As time has gone on im glad they are sticking with one competitive mode for pvp….I thought the same as you did….but to me, I liken it to League of Legends….they started with summoners rift…that to this day is their biggest esport scene of their game and any other game in the world….their esports didnt kick off at any level until 2 years into the game roughly…

With all that in mind I can see their decision for conquest mode. Victory condition not based on player skill or build is important. Now what I refer to this is abstract but ultimately no matter what you build or how good you are at it. You win via controlling positions and gaining points…no 2 teams have this awkward stand off and lack of engagement. ( think arenas from wow and how they sucked to watch. ) Conquest mode forces things to move along.

What they DO need is to shake up the " meta ". And for the love of god I hope they eventually realise that public test servers would do them a world of good. Players are far better testers than developers.

yes but summoner’s rift didn’t suck

Zanthrax.6538:

What they DO need is to shake up the " meta ". And for the love of god I hope they eventually realise that public test servers would do them a world of good. Players are far better testers than developers.

Agreed but how do you propose to “shake up the meta” without dramatically changing current mechanics? The meta will always produce builds ideally suited to the current gametypes, and conquest will always favor bunker builds since controlling a point through defense, cc, and knockback is more effective than through DPS and teamwork.

To shake up the meta you NEED to introduce much more important secondary mechanics (like moba, base defense, ctf, large maps, fewer cap points, etc) in order to force players to build differently. Simply nerfing a few bunker setups won’t shake up the meta b/c players will simply develop the next most effective builds at bunkering.

We definitely need more game modes.