Guild Wars 2

I watched 1/4th of the VOD, but it was too painful to keep going. It’s sad, this game has amazing visuals and animations, but the gameplay is kitten. Their excuse is “we have to balance for WvW, PvE, and PvP” they have been using the same excuse since beta. In the end you have a game with mediocre to poor PvP experience and mediocre to poor PvE. This game has become a casual’s stronghold.

PvPers have long ago found better options in MOBAs or other mmorpgs. If they haven’t yet, they will soon.

Mouse acceleration camera movement is a terrible feature. Please remove it already!

Damage got buffed across the board due to changes to runes and sigils. Runes now have way higher stats than they used to pre-patch.

On my glass cannon engi I get instant KO’ed by Phantasmal Berserker + Mesmer’s Burst. Phantasmal Berserker does 10k damage to me, I have 18k health.

Worst part is that the glass cannon Mesmer is in either stealth or in distortion for 100% of the fight.

Even if somehow I kill a mesmer the downed state Phantasm does atleast 7k damage. Basically, if you are glass cannon and see a mesmer on the opposing team, go afk or quit.

GG

If you want 8v8 zergfest go play WvW.

I agree, Riot is a good company.

Around the time of PAX last year there were a lot of threads on these forums persuading devs to stop pursuing e-sports and start catering to their main playerbase who are mmo PvPers. Mmorpg PvP is very different from the competitive e-sport scene you see in MOBAs.

I have mentioned some of the reasons why competitive players and teams left in the following thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Reasons-for-competitive-player-disinterest/first#post3836839

I’d rather not repeat myself.

I’m so glad that LoL is taking a page from GW2’s book and starting to implement gameplay aspects that will bring it one step closer to being a true eSport.

They are not quite there yet. Maybe next patch they will give every champion 3 more customizable skills and a low cooldown healing skill. Also, they can’t be an eSport without including low cooldown damage immunity sources from dodges and blocks. Furthermore, skillshots need to be removed. Competitive players don’t like the skillshots and juking aspect of the game as it doesn’t require a lot of practice to master.

Who knows, maybe someday LoL’s competitive eSport scene will even start to resemble GW2’s huge competitive scene.

garethh.3518:

Anyways, I don’t think Anet ever seriously aimed for this game to be LoL-level competitive. I mean, they could have had it as their goal and just seriously kittened up HARD-CORE in every way possible, but if that wasn’t the case, at best they seemed to aim for it to be WoW level competitive with more of a focus on shallow esports features (rollercoaster-leaderboards, monthly tournaments, exc.) stuff to draw in all those players who thought LoL/Smite/Dota/WoW are too serious, yet still want to be a lil competitive.

You are probably right. I was hoping for a more hard core competitive scene since before launch, especially when I heard that there would be no element of grind in PvP resulting in a balanced environment.

@Mythoryk: you misunderstand. I am judging competitive game with a higher standard. A simplistic definition of an e-sport game would be a game that has weekly casted tournaments with cash prizes and one in which there are professional teams that are sponsored. But, you have to realize that in such a game the merits of the gameplay make it worthy of being a “sport”.

1.) As an athlete, hours in must equate to skill out in a nearly linear manner at first, as you put more and more hours in your skill gain might come at a slower pace, but the function for hours in vs. skill out can’t have an asymptote. Without skillshots and juking it does reach an asymptote because the game eventually becomes a number crunch.

2.) The individual skill level of the player must be the biggest determinant of success. It must be a much greater factor than team comp or luck or even teamwork. In mobas, if you are good enough you have the potential to carry a very bad team and pull off 2v1’s or 3v1’s or even 4v1’s if you play perfectly. The best athletes can pull off amazing plays and escape or wipe the enemy team against all odds, that’s what makes them an “athlete” and that’s what brings in the high spectatorship, sponsorships and competition. That’s also why the youtube series “Random LoL moments” is currently sitting at 200+ episodes and around 500k views each.

@Solstice & @Nineaxis: I disagree with your points about game mode. Look at the game bloodline champions. It was a very successful e-sport for a long time with weekly cash tournaments and amazing sponsored teams (most notably In Soviet Russia/SK gaming) and the game mode was a simple 3v3 whoever kills everyone on the enemy team wins. The game is still one of the highest skill cap games on the market.

@Solstice: I whole heartedly disgree with your comment about rewards. Look at LoL, or smite, or any moba or even any fps. Look at the rewards you gain after each match and then ask yourself would the games still be successful if all the post-game rewards were removed. Are the players in those games motivated by rewards or the fun of gameplay?

@Sube Dai why must something come of it? I was not intending for this topic to be advisory or critical, it is merely meant to be informative. I’m not sure if it’s informative to the devs. At the very least it’s probably informative to casual mmo players, who live in their microcosm of mmorpg games, and who as I’ve mentioned comprises a large majority of GW2’s population. I repeat, given that most players are casual mmo players the path that GW2 is taking is the sound one from a business perspective.

As I recall back around the time of PAX Prime there were several forum posts on these very forums admonishing the devs’ pursuit of e-sports. That combined with the numerous forum topics asking for PvP rewards paints a very clear picture about the priorities of GW2’s PvP community.

Brigg.6189:

When you’re familiar with meta specs I’d argue you can reasonably anticipate what players will do in GW2.

I agree, certain popular builds like hambow create a level of prediction. But, even if say they make a system wherein who can see all of your opponent’s traits and utilities before the start of a match, the problem of high cooldown availability still persists. You will probably never find a player in GW2 with 0 cooldowns available at a given time. Relative to a moba each skill in GW2 is of a much lower impact.

It’s difficult to explain to a non-moba player. I’ll use an example of one of my favorite moments in the game Smite.

I was playing the god Fenrir in arena and the enemy team had a Thanatos. Thanatos has an ultimate ability wherein whenever any member of the opposing team is below a certain % health (20~30% depending on rank) he can 1-shot them with his ulti. The ultimate works like this: when his ultimate cooldown is available and an enemy is below the health threshold for 1-shot, he hears the sound of a heart beating. When he activates the ulti he goes up into the air; he can then move around the map while in flight for duration. While he is in the air a round AoE ground targetter appears on the ground, when he clicks on a location he lands at that spot. If an enemy below the health threshold for 1-shot is caught in the AoE he will be killed, otherwise the ability simply does damage ans stuns. But, there is a brief moment between the time he clicks the ground and the time he lands (about 0.2~0.3 seconds?) so the ability can be juked.

On my Fenrir I was really low health (like 1 Health) after a team fight, and I jumped over a wall to safety, but I knew that I was below the health threshold and I heard the opposing team’s thanatos go up into the air so I knew that he would try to land on me. I was running toward my base, and anticipating when he was going to land I made an abrupt 360 which made the thanatos miss his ulti. He landed behind me.

At this point I had limited options because my jump was on cooldown (I used it to leap over the wall earlier) and the only cooldowns available to me was an attack damage buff(useless atm) and Brutalize which is a very short distance AoE skillshot. Brutalize makes you teleport a very short distance to the targetted area and do damage, kind of like warrior’s earthshaker, but with a much smaller radius, shorter distance traveled and shorter animation, and you stick to the target for a short period of time if you land it.

I knew that thanatos had two threatening abilities at his disposal, a large easy to hit 180degree frontal AoE damage+silence and a difficult to hit projectile skillshot.

I turned around to face thanatos and immediately used my Brutalize to teleport directly behind him (intentionally missing it and using it only as a form of escape). As expected, I juked his frontal cone ability by teleporting behind him. He then turned around and used his projectile which I was able to juke with a rapid camera turn as I was running toward my base. At this time an allied Ymir came to save my life by making a wall between me and thanatos and I was able to escape with 1 health!

Needless to say my heart was beating very fast and the adrenaline was pumping.

I know it was a long story but hopefully it is of some use in understanding the kinds of thought processes that go through the mind of a moba player, and the kinds of plays that are possible.

When I play GW2 I always end up macro spamming a bunch of low-impact skills immediately as they come off cooldown. The same level of forethought does not go into the gameplay decisions. I am rank 42 so I’m not a complete noob. I haven’t played GW2 except occasionally for the past several months.

Conclusion
It is impossible for a game to satisfy both the competitive gaming audience and the casual mmo audience because they have fundamentally different needs. The mmo audience is motivated by tertiary objectives like gold and experience to keep them interested. The competitive gamers are only interested in a competitive environment where the rules (of atleast one game-mode) are equitable and accepted by a large competitive community, where there is room for growth as an athlete and where success is a function of personal and team skill level over anything else. While I’m sad that GW2 could not live up to its initial expectations in terms of competitiveness, the path that the game is taking now is certainly understandable from a business perspective especially given that the large majority of the remaining players are mmo gamers.

Before you read on let me say that the following are NOT the reasons:
-Individual profession imbalance
-Game modes
-Tertiary incentives (gold/PvE rewards etc.)
—-
Pre-release, GW2 was already being touted as a possible e-sports game. I’m sure many competitive players were very excited when they heard Jon Peters say that he was a competitive player with LoL experience. The game was very exciting for me (as I’m sure it was for many others) post-release. However, the enjoyment dwindled(not rapidly) as I realized that the game was very limited compared to MOBAs, largely as a result of game engine restrictions.

No skillshots
The game does not have skill shots and jukes and as a result there is very limited room for development as a player over a long enough period of time. Dodge rolls do not bring the same amount of counterplay and counter-counter-play as the intricate dance of jukes and skillshots. Due to these restrictions, the devs rightly focused on the following aspects of gameplay to keep people excited:
-map elements
-damage immunity frames (as opposed to skilled avoidance)
-conditions and counter-conditions
-healing
However, with these elements the learning curve steeply declines after a period of time. Someone who plays LoL or Smite for instance, can continue to make dramatic and meaningful improvements in their gameplay after months and months (even years) of playing the same champion/god as they learn to to improve their juking and counterjuking against better and better players. The gap between the skilled pro player and the average player is enormous and you can see amazing plays by the pro players in weekly tournaments. This incentivizes players to keep playing and practicing to improve their gameplay.

Sustain
GW2’s gameplay is perceived much more as a number crunch game and build-wars game similar to PvP in most mmorpgs. The level of sustain, damage immunity frames and counter-CC cannot be compared to that of competitive games. You have ping-ponging health bars. There is no long term resource such as mana, resulting in fights of potentially infinite length. Paired with the fact that there are so many skill cooldowns available to a character at any given time, there is a lot of skill spam with no penalty.

Cooldowns
In any competitive game you have a very limited pool of skill cooldowns available to you, 4 short cooldowns with medium~high impact/value (straight damage CDs are medium. CC and movement abilities are high), and one long high impact, high value cooldown(ulti). There is the possibility of leaving yourself vulnerable without any cooldowns available at your disposal, or there is the possibility of depleting all of your mana. There are few enough cooldowns that as a player or a spectator or a tournament caster you are able to know which cooldowns are available to a character resulting in a good amount of predictability.

In GW2 there are a large number of skills, all with low impact. Low impact because of the ping-ponging health bar aspect and high amount of damage immunity frames and CC/condi removal options.

Static vs. customizable cooldowns
In any competitive game prediction and counterplay is tantamount. In GW2 not only does the high amount of cooldown availability limit prediction, but prediction is greatly limited by the fact that more than half the cooldowns are customizable and unknown. The only visual tip off you get is your opponent’s class and currently equipped weapon set. Taking into consideration alternate weapon set, utility skills, elite skills and traits there is a large number of permutations to account for. In a slower paced game like Magic or Hearthstone this would be reasonable, but in a fast paced game it is not.

In mobas there are only two customizable skills with very long cooldowns. The skill options for these two slots are shared by all characters and furthermore you know exactly which two skills your opponents have chosen to to put in those slots. Combined with the fact that each god/champion has a static set of skills, you know exactly what your opponent is capable of.

The high number of customizable skills/traits in GW2 also poses balancing issues because devs too have to deal with the impossible task of accounting for all the multitudes of player choice possibilities when balancing. By contrast, in mobas, given that each god/champion is defined by a static set of skills, there are fewer interactions to account for. Furthermore, devs can pull statistics about certain god/champion’s win/loss, kill/death rate in order to help balancing. The result is a perceptually more polished game in terms of balance.

Evan Lesh.3295:

It’s an interesting idea to visually show selection areas, I can’t think of a game that has done this off the top of my head.?

Smite,
Dragon’s Nest,
Continent of the 9th,
Cube World,
Neverwinter Online,
RaiderZ,
DC Universe,
Elder Scrolls Online

What I’m trying to say regarding condition damage is that if you want to make a clutch escape by utilizing LoS you will likely fail because DoTs are so prevalent in this game.

Combined with the fact that the level of sustain in this game is much much higher than in competetive Mobas, the game becomes a number crunch game like with less reliance on skilled juking/LoSing.

I found it interesting that Josh, in the recent Ready up, talks about the importance of LoSing and skilled play. But, notice that a majority of the common builds in PvP disregard LoS. This includes all condition based builds, conditions will keep proccing regardless of LoS therefore you can’t do a skilled juke or LoS to save your life. Any minion based build such as minion necro, ranger pet, phantasms will keep attacking even if you LoS the caster.

This is why you see a very limited emphasis on AI and DoTs in competetive MOBAs like LoL and smite. In Smite the only DoTs are applied by Ao Kuang’s Tornado which is very easy to avoid (it has a good cast time and after it is on the ground you have about a sec to get out and not get afflicted), Loki’s vanish which is easy to predict due to the obvious sound effect, and Arachne’s auto-attacks, given that Arachne has no movement options she is rarely in range for autos (only time is if she ultis).

The only AIs are Vulcan’s turrets which can be LoS’ed and Bastet and Wukong’s ultimates which have a high cooldown and the AI’s expire after a short duration if they are not killed before they expire.

Escadin.9482:

• Thumper Turret – Bugs

What’s bugged about thumper turret? I don’t understand. I use it and I haven’t noticed any bugs. There needs to be a target nearby for the overcharge effect to go off if that’s what you mean, but that’s not a bug as far as I know.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Are you new to the game? Great sword whirl gives damage immunity while dealing massive damage. The evasion isn’t as long as that of blurred frenzy, but to compensate, the skill has shorter cool down, deals more damage, is a combo finisher, greater aoe effect and acts as a movement boost.
100blades has 2.5 times higher damage factor than blurred frenzy so no, blurred frenzy isn’t quite the same as 100blades with evasion.

Blurred frenzy is a very defensive skill with moderate damage output, whirl attack is a nice mix of offence, defense and some utility, 100blades is pure offense. I think these 3 are all quite balanced skills.

If it is a defensive skill why not make it a block similar to Elixer S, Shield Stance and Gear Shield during which you can’t do any damage.

The nerf to Dhuumfire and the Pin Down cast time are definitely welcome changes because it increases prediction and limits randomness. We need more changes like this.

For one, Incendiary Powder for Engi needs to be nerfed. It works in a similar fashion to Dhuumfire, but that’s not the reason. The true reason is because it limits counterplay.

In a similar vein buffs like incendiary ammo and thief poisons should have a unique aura.

On the subject of skill “tells”, I would also highly recommend that the sound department work on giving each skill (or as many as possible), a unique and very audible skill effect sound. Sound effects are very important especially in 3rd person games where visibility is not as great as in a game with an isometric view. The game Smite has countered this limitation by giving each and every skill in the game a very unique and immediately telling sound effect. Just as an example, when loki goes into stealth everyone in the immediate vicinity is made aware that there is a loki readying to gank from stealth just from the very telling sound effect when he goes into stealth. This improves counterplay and reduces randomness. Ao Kuang ult is another good example.

Ofcourse a lot of skills already have an audible sound effect but many still need it. In particular, Warrior’s Kill Shot.

Along with an increase in tells we also should have a reduction in the sources of damage immunity. In most skill based games there are very few sources of damage immunity. In smite, for instance, there is aegis, a purchasable item that gives a few precious seconds of immunity on a very high CD and you are unable to do damage for those few seconds. Notice the level of commitment you need to have just to get this item, it costs a decent amount and it fills up one of only 2 active slots, if you choose aegis you might not want to spend the gold or active slot for stun break(beads) for instance. Furthermore, everyone in the match is made aware of not only the items in your active slots but also all of the skills you have access to, therefore encouraging prediction and counterplay. Damage avoidance is not gained primarily from immunity sources but from knowing what skills are available to the enemy and acting accordingly though active repositioning with leaps and movement skills.

I understand the dev’s decision to leave Mesmer’s vigor uptime as it is because of their reliance on deceptive evasion. But ,there is no reason they should need blurred flurry to grant 2 seconds of invulnerability on top of having high vigor uptime, low CD teleport and distortion and stealth. This is especially not justified because they are damage immune while they are doing damage. You wouldn’t expect a Warrior to be damage immune while using hundred blades for instance.

Endure pain is also iffy, despite its long CD. Remember that a lot of skills that grant damage immunity also needs you to commit to a few seconds of doing no damage (assuming no conditions and pets), which is a big deal in such a sustain heavy game. These skills are for instance Elixer S, Shield Stance and Gear Shield.

Pistol Whip is in a similar situation as Blurred frenzy and Endure Pain, granted the evasion might be more justified in the thief’s case because they do not have as high avoidance methods as mesmer and because of the initiative cost.

HPLT.7132:

Geff.1930:

HPLT.7132:

Marcos.3690:

style.6173:

Engi > thief in 1v1.
Ele > Engi in 1v1.
Thief > Ele 1v1

Every class has at least one that should be able to beat it in a 1v1. Well, all except for mesmers, who are the best at 1v1.

In what world eles kill engis in pvp lol

In a world were eles play scepter/focus.

…I don’t believe you.

Not heared about projectile reflection yet,right? + ether renewal and you can hardly touch him.

Okay, but still don’t believe you…

HPLT.7132:

Marcos.3690:

style.6173:

Engi > thief in 1v1.
Ele > Engi in 1v1.
Thief > Ele 1v1

Every class has at least one that should be able to beat it in a 1v1. Well, all except for mesmers, who are the best at 1v1.

In what world eles kill engis in pvp lol

In a world were eles play scepter/focus.

…I don’t believe you.

Oh man, you dropped the mic. U r cool dood

matjazmuhic.1649:

Geff.1930:

The real reason we have a condi meta is due to client limitations. Condition damage calculation is very easy to calculate by the client because it does not have to take into consideration whether the condi tick was blocked or dodged or gained invulnerability from or avoided due to projectile speed vs. sideways movement. Furthermore, the client does not have to calculate whether it was a crit or a non-crit, and there is no RNG to the damage per tick. As a result of all this condi damage calculation is very reliable from the client’s end.

The condi meta was thought of from the game’s inception in order to counter the client’s limitations due to desync, lag and other issues.

You seem to have no idea how games and servers work.

On the other hand I still think that damage calculation is NOT a bottle neck for them but just a cheap excuse to ignore the community. That holds especially true for PvP, because there’s only max 20 people I guess and calculating damage 20 people in realtime…. Guild wars 1 did that without problems even for 24 people (Alliance battles) and there were more types of damage than two. So unless they did something horribly wrong with the servers software that is probably just a lie.

A 10 years old computer can calculate that stuff in realtime.

Excuse me idiot, it is you who has no idea how servers work. This is not a game like GW1. GW1 does not have to calculate position and range because a skill simply is unavailable if you are not in appropriate range of your target for a particular skill or if you dont have LoS. By contrast, in GW2 you can cast skills regardless of whether you are in range, the client has to then communicate with the server to calculate all of the following: was the target in range? was the target outside the projectile path by the time it reached him? was the target blocking or invulnerable or evading? Is the skill being used an unblockable skill or do you have an unblockable buff? Is the target behind blocking terrain by the time the skill finished casting? Was the skill interrupted before it finished casting? Is the target using a cheat or hack program? Is the caster using a cheat or hack program?

This is not a single player game where all these calculations can take place without sync considerations. Furthermore the age of your computer bears no significance in this matter.

what did I just read
you know there is cap on condi damage because of server stress, right?

The issue is not server load. The issue is desync and skills occasionally missing when they should not have or creating other anomalous results. Engineer’s magnet pull is a great example of desync. About 20~30% of the time magnet pull will go through all calculations and hit the target, but on the screen of the caster the target will appear to be where he was when he was hit by magnet, on the target’s screen the target will get pulled. For a brief time the position of the target represented on the caster’s screen is not the real position of the target, as a result any ground targetted abilities at the target’s location will miss. The moment the pulled target moves or takes some action he will reappear on the caster’s screen in his real position.

Also, Flamethrower’s toolbelt skill is really good. Flamethrower 5 can also be used for blindness stomps. Elixer gun is more for bunker specs. Its toolbelt skill is not only a regen source, but it is also a stun break.

The real reason we have a condi meta is due to client limitations. Condition damage calculation is very easy to calculate by the client because it does not have to take into consideration whether the condi tick was blocked or dodged or gained invulnerability from or avoided due to projectile speed vs. sideways movement. Furthermore, the client does not have to calculate whether it was a crit or a non-crit, and there is no RNG to the damage per tick. As a result of all this condi damage calculation is very reliable from the client’s end.

The condi meta was thought of from the game’s inception in order to counter the client’s limitations due to desync, lag and other issues.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Geff.1930:

Warriors are not the dominant profession in solo queue by far. It is a completely unfounded observation.

which professions currently dominate the solo arena?

i stopped participating in solo arena after trying out 20 games as i find hotjoin still to be more enjoyable and stress free for me.

In terms of frequency, Mesmer would be my best guess. Eles are the most infrequent.

Warriors are not the dominant profession in solo queue by far. It is a completely unfounded observation.

Stun breaks should remove immobilize.

Nevermind…

/more chars

At first I was thinking that maybe they nerfed it for necros and not engis because necros have access to more DoTs like Torment and traited fear. But, then I realized that Engis have confusion, one of the most powerful condis in the game.

So in response, I don’t know why.

Finally! You guys are focusing on something worthwhile. I’m looking forward to the stream, enthusiastically.

Proven.2854:

Geff.1930:

You realize that this is the sPvP forum don’t you? If anything the topic title should be why do you prefer sPvP over WvW/PvE.

He’s trying to compile the worthwhile feedback from the other major content areas of the game to try and get a comprehensive list that we can show the devs and say: “This is what your very own players want.”

The best advice I saw from those two threads is that we need something more straightforward as the default mode, analogous to GW1’s 4v4 team arenas. Something where it’s very easy for someone to go in, run into a few enemies, have a fight without being zerged down, and then if they’re the last person standing they get the chance to be the hero and can show off their skill in the final 1v1 and sometimes 1v2 situation.

Which makes me think, fine. Add a 3v3 or 4v4 quick arena mode that you can easily queue up for. It would also solve the problem of not having anything you can queue for with just 2-3 people easily.

Okay, but why is this thread in this section of the forum rather than in the WvW or PvE section. sPvPers look at this section of the forum because it is the sPvP section.

People who play sPvP, myself included, do not like many aspects of PvE/WvW which is why we play sPvP.

Authority.4386:

Geff.1930:

You say that PvP players don’t get gold, let me ask you this, WTF does a PvP player spend gold on?

Convert into gems and buy skins? Legendaries?

Ppl who played almost no PvP will soon run in the Mist with their legendaries.
Ppl who spent 2k+ hours PvPing will have … nothing. Frustrating.

There should be big retrospective rewards based on the rank to compensate this.

Again, all cosmetic. What does it mean if you have legendaries in sPvP. Nothing. A PvE’er with full legendary and ascended gear will always lose to an experienced PvPer with basic beginner armor. Armor has no stats.

Do you PvP to test your skill or do you PvP to ogle at people’s pretty armor?

You realize that this is the sPvP forum don’t you? If anything the topic title should be why do you prefer sPvP over WvW/PvE.

Jax.5261:

Justin ODell.9517:

Where are you getting the idea that we are removing rewards?

Glory’s being removed.
We don’t have any gold, pvp doesn’t reward any. So for these 3k hours that many of us have played we’re getting a tiny, small reward. The PvE players have all the gold, they will be able to buy pvp gear which means my pvp gear is now worthless too.

So what rewards do we get instead? I don’t understand why you guys are making it so that we lose everything (some of us actually played pretty kitten hard for, soon to be, nothing).

tl;dr: The rewards for dedicating yourself to the only remotely difficult part of the game will be negligible compared to mindlessly farming pve. Unless there’s drastic compensation (not you get to keep your lame finisher) such as thousands of gold or pvp-only armour.
But again, we have to ALREADY have the pvp-only armour because we’ve already invested the kitten time. We’ve already earnt it. Not a matter of now you get a chance to earn it, otherwise we’re back to square one.

And if you still don’t follow here’s a basic example of your proposed changes to the reward system:

You are making no sense what-so-ever. PvE players can already buy PvP armor. They might not get the high tier skins, but who gives a kitten, they are just skins, they don’t change stats. You say that PvP players don’t get gold, let me ask you this, WTF does a PvP player spend gold on?

Only recently they added some items that you need gold as well as glory to purchase, but they also added silver rewards from playing PvP matches and also added tradeable gift boxes so that you can earn some extra gold. Furthermore, a majority of these purchaseable items are skins, they don’t give any stats. So wtf are you complaining about, I don’t understand.

They already said that they do not intend to include stats in PvP gear in the future.

You play PvP for the fun of playing PvP. If you want progression besides personal skill level progression, go play PvE, nobody is stopping you.

Hotjoins are good for trying out new builds, and for practice if you are completely new. As as you get better, playing in hotjoins gets boring because everyone is so bad and you basically obliterate them. Also, killing backpedalling noobs bears down on your conscience… the PTSD…

In solo arena after you have established some MMR you are matched with people around your same skill level and you can experience a challenge.

The matchmaking gets better as you get higher ELO. The first 10~ games you will be matched with utter noobs. As you get higher you get matched with people who actually know what they are doing.

On several occasions I have been permanently rooted after stun breaking out of basilisk venom. I’ve noticed the perma root before, but didn’t notice the source. Today I finally found the culprit. It doesn’t always happen, but it occurs frequently enough to be an annoyance. The skill that I used to break stun was Rumble.

A Massive Headache.1879:

How exactly would an expansion help the pvp? Possibly a new profession that they’d have to consider balance for, and new skills. Yeah, that wouldn’t be a mess at all. And I would love to see any source for information on a new expansion, as far as I’ve been keeping up, unless you mean super long term.

Look at the complete overhauls that were made in each of WoW’s expansions. I agree with the OP, in order to revive the competitiveness of PvP a complete overhaul is required.

Currently the game suffers from a number of flaws:
- Much customization leading to lack of predictability.
- Too much sustain
- Too much damage immunity
- Too much CC immunity
- Damage is largely reliant on conditions and AI. Passive persistent damage. This is the only reliable source of damage due to the high level of sustain and the high level of damage immunity sources.

Tower defense like in Smite would not work in this game because it would be like five Chang’es vs. five Chang’es.

The advantage of having smaller bodies and therefore smaller animations is completely overwritten by the significant disadvantage of having a significantly worse camera angle. Most people in Solo Arena don’t play Asura but instead play human because they have the advantage of having a relatively small body, but at the same time they don’t share the camera quirks.

My asura has gotten to the point of being unplayable due to the terrible camera.

Why does sPvP need a PvE/WvW audience?

Fear is the only condition that behaves in an odd manner. Stun Breaks will break Fear (unlike immobilize which isn’t removed by stun breaks), but it is also a condition so condi immunity will also make you immune to fear. I am not certain if stability also makes you immune to fear.

Dojo.1867:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It would be nice to see a community built list that shows specs rated top>down for each class and role in all areas of play. This kind of feedback is really helpful for our team.

Engi:

• needs more interaction with gadgets badly
• new heal skills suffers because hard to use in a build and also have enough condi removal in it
• lack of stunbreakers because utility slots are filled with kits (which are necessary to stay competitive in combat)
• weak pistol autoattack
• grenade kit (forced into 30 explosives always) = toolkit > bombkit > flamethrower = elixir gun

I disagree with just about everything you said about Engis. Engis, especially condi engis are very very strong atm. They have many stun breaker options but by design you have to get certain utilities in order to get them and possibly forgo some DPS potential. You can’t have both high damage and high Stun Break access otherwise you would have a class like Mesmer. Just about every Mesmer that I have seen uses both Decoy and Teleport. CC means nothing to them. Furthermore, remember engis have access to a trait that reduces incoming damage by 20% while CC’ed just by putting 10 points in a defensive line.

Condis in the game are incredibly powerful still and completely overshadow builds that rely on direct damage. The few builds that do rely on direct damage (and are effective) are AI builds, again the emphasis here is passive persistent damage source.

Furthermore, if you build bunkery you can completely ignore direct damage because of the strong scaling of defense. This is especially true with multi hit skills. The same Unload or Flurry or Pistol Whip that might do 10k damage to a squishy target might do as low as 2k to 3k to a high defense target while at the same time potentially give incredible amounts of Retaliation damage. Weakness further exacerbates the matter.

Poison and Confusion are incredibly powerful in the current meta. All the DoTs are powerful but these two are especially powerful due to the active sustain heavy meta. That being said, nerfing them would make certain bunker builds practically immortal if direct damage scaling is not changed simultaneously.

My first character was an asura, just because I love the asura race’s look. But, After playing Charr and Human i find it difficult to go back to asura because the camera on asura characters are much more lower to the ground and zoomed in. This is epecially frustrating in certain areas like Henge and Clocktower.

Ostricheggs.3742:

We are also very limited on stunbreaks (one every 60s MAX) and run with THE LEAST condi clear of any viable class in the game (one that’s tied to our heal)

No. Engis have more stun breaks. Thumper Turret, Elixer gun and Slick Shoes toolbelt skills are all stun breaks on 40~30 sec cooldown each. That’s a wide range of options.

Traited engis are able to convert one condi to a boon every 10 secs and they have the option to take Elixer C for a full condi clear that also converts the boons and it’s on a 40 second CD.

With nades yes you have to account for the projectile velocity and distance travelled such that you have to aim it a little or a lot ahead(in the direction they are moving) of your intended target based on how far away you are shooting. But, saying that it is a hard skillshot is a gross overexaggeration. Yes, it may be a slightly harder skill to land in a sea of skills that all require little to no skill, but that’s not saying much. I would grant that it would have been a hard skill to land if this game had juking rather than dodgerolls that give evasion frames. If dodge roll only gave relocation and no evasion then yes, grenades would be able to be “juked” easily. But, such is not the case. People just avoid grenades in the same way they would avoid a regular targetted attack, with a dodgeroll through (not away from) the grenades, relying on evasion frames.

One oddity of the game is that you control your camera (and also the direction your character is facing) with the right click and you control your AoE placement also with the mouse. However, all targetted AoEs in the game (nades are no exception) does not require LoS.

Now consider a persistent AoE like poison grenade and compare it to Ao Kuang Tornado in Smite. An Ao Kuang can strategically place a Tornado to split an enemy from incoming support drastically changing the dynamics of a team fight. By contrast, in GW2 if you are fighting at a point it is not rocket science as to where to put your poison field. If you are not fighting at a point people can just dodgeroll through the field to avoid going around it.

As for micromanaging buttons and toolkits. Take the following example: Lets say you have Thumper Turret, Rifle Turret and Healing Turret. You can place all three turrets, overcharge your Healing Turret and Thumper Turret and then destroy all three and then follow up with a Rumble to get a whopping five blast finishers on your water field for a total of 9~10K+ self healing and around 6k area healing. You might be inclined to say: that requires a lot of skill to press all those buttons; to that I respond with one word: macros.

Reverence.6915:

Emerge.9640:

They added death match arenas.

That is all.

That would probably make me actually want to play sPvP :o

Something like capture the flag would be awesome too. They have something similar in the wintersday events, so I can’t see why they can’t add that into regular sPvP

The Wintersday event is actually balanced. It works in the same fashion as MOBA games where every class has a predictable kit and each class can be balanced individually. It is also not sustain heavy in the same fashion as regular sPvP.

Qaelyn.7612:

Geff.1930:

Fighting against a mesmer is a source of infinite frustration.

It’s supposed to be. That’s what an illusionist-type mage is all about.

All classes can be frustrating. If you don’t feel frustrated playing someone, it usually means you are beating them easily.

Mesmers are frustrating not because they are difficult to beat but because if you run a certain type of build they are just about impossible to beat. You need a specific build in order to counter mesmers, condi build or pet dependance build.

All classes can be a challenge to fight against if they play well, but for instance if I die to a thief I know exactly what I did wrong and what I should have done. If I fight against a mesmer (again with a certain kind of build, glassy direct damage build) there is nothing I could have done. If I fight against a Warrior, certainly it may be a lengthy encounter but I know that they don’t have any burst heal and their health pool is a stop watch counting their life expectancy, this btw is exactly the opposite of Guardian because guardian is more sustain heavy while warrior is mitigation heavy. Furthermore if it is a hambow warrior they have no escapes. Meanwhile mesmers can just stealth away if a fight is not going in their favor. Yes, thieves can too, but thieves don’t have so many invulnerability sources and have to stay in a vulnerable position in order to do damage. Thief’s squishyness and risk for reward factor is accentuated.

Fighting against a mesmer is a source of infinite frustration.

Against phantasm mesmers, if you are built glassy a single berserker hit or full unload hit will take out more half your HP. Unload Flurry combo will almost kill you if not outright kill you. How do you counter it? If you focus the Phantasms the Mesmer has free reign and by the time you kill a Phantasm the CD is already available for another Phantasm.

Thief burst with Pistol Whip I can deal with because the Thief has to put himself in a vulnerable spot. Mesmers can just stay miles away and do insane damage passively through phantasms. Mesmers unlike thiefs can do damage while stealthed with phantasms. They also have sources of invulnerability unlike thieves.

As for condi mesmer. Infinite confusion stacks, just do nothing and die from illusion bleeds or do something and die from confusion. Kill the illusions and get more condis on you. Get more condis on you if you attack the mesmer during the brief moments where they are not invulnerable or has no endurance or stealth. GG.

The problem is not with warriors, but the problem is:

1) Direct damage scaling with defense (especially with multi hit skills like Pistol Whip/Flurry/Unload).

2)Weakness

3)Condition damage’s poor scaling properties making tanky characters do incredible condition damage.

Warriors are not the only culprit. All characters are on the same boat. Minion and Condi necros can build tanky and dish out a lot of damage. Tanky condi Mesmers can build tanky and rely on confusion. Also, Spirit Rangers.

Swagg.9236:

Geff.1930:

3) Health is actually a precious resource in competitive games.

Really?? Are there competitive games (I’m going to assume that by “games” you mean “MMOs” here) in which health is not a precious resource?

Name me ONE mmorpg that has a competitive scene right now with weekly tournaments. There aren’t any. WoW arena might be an exception, I know there used to be professional teams playing WoW arena, but I don’t follow that game so I don’t know if there is still an active e-sports scene there.

Mmorpg gamers tend to expect a certain amount of customization in their games, that amount of customization ability is not conducive for balance.

These are all lies!