Guild Wars 2

{part 2/2}
And if you do, let’s move on to …

A financial advantage ingame over others stays a financial advantage over others, regardless of how many people get rewarded. Its the principle, thats not ok here.

Indeed, getting a sellable legendary for successfully performing a task in about 20 “work”-hours is around 1000000% more efficient than anything else you can do in GW2 for the same amount of time invested. Agreed. I’m sold.

But we’re not really looking at the big picture, are we? See, this was your experience in PvE, up to the point where you got your legendary:
The early days: “HA! Level up! More skill points!” | “Wow, that’s a cool drop!” | “Heeey we just defeated the most difficult dungeon ever! Died like 50 times, but still made it – thanks guild! And now I have this cool armor set to show off for it ”

The later days: “Legendary is so difficult, but I managed to do map completion! 1 down, 5 to go!” | “Holy smokes, I have enough to make the gift of fortune! 2 down!” | “Pfff, this is so grindy …”

The future: “Haha behold my legendary, folks! And did you hear I’ll be able to show it off in the mists soon? I’ll teach these fellas to envy the fruit of my hard work”

You have progression. You have goals. You can have fun. And then there’s the grindy part. You get to the legendary after hours upon hours of rigorous (and tedious) work. Getting it is the culmination of your efforts, and you are rewarded. But, sPVP has had:
- Little to no progression
- Our goals (achievements) were/still are badly implemented, to the point of someone being r70 without a marauder title (?!)
- Very hard to get into at first and especially not fun until you’ve committed a huge investment (compared to PvE)
- a single game mode, and skins not even worth the effort (you could get them all from dungeons after a couple of days)
- And since we’re talking about tournament winners, zero meaningful progression while honing your skills to win a tournament. Which usually takes months.

The level of commitment and psychological wear is huge and comparable to PvE. I didn’t make it and quit a few months back (serves me right!)

As for financial incentives, I invite the most rigorous of PvE’ers to tell us how much value they’ve accumulated since launch (liquidize your assets!), and calculate the average monthly gold gain up to this day. I am willing to bet that none of the winners of this tourney will even come close, even if they were given 2 legendaries for winning, and a 3rd one just for participation.

For these reasons, I believe a legendary at the end of that journey is at least a fair financial incentive, especially compared to the effort and time invested in PvE.

And you know what? Even if it was unfair, I think necessary. Perhaps the only feasible thing for ANet to promote sPvP (due to lack of resources to implement your suggestions – although they are golden)
So roll with the punches

{part 1/2}
Thanks for your posts, Orpheal.8263. You made me want to reply so badly, that I’m posting here after months of absence from the game. Thankfully, I still follow developments in PvP and PvE closely, so let’s challenge some of your points, shall we?

TL;DR: Winners of the tourney have played at least as many different aspects of sPvP as a PvE’er has played different aspects of PvE + the rewards are not financially unfair.

Let’s start with:

1) Other players also have to do alot of things “they” don’t like to do.
Working on Legendary Weapons is a complex task and nothing that you just get put for basically free up your butts just for participating a few days in a tournament and winning it. The time/effort relationship is a completely different when you just win a legendary of choice, compared to working months over months on your legendary doing all kinds of things in the game

I think we agree that the people who win these legendaries have indeed spent at least as much time playing the PvP side of GW2 as a PvE’er with at least 1 legendary has played “all kinds of things in the game”. Therefore, they have played through probably all the metas and systems that changed in PVP since the game released (and even before that).

sPvP is not just ONE “thing” in the game. Sorry to break it to you all, but there is no chance on earth a winner of this tourney has played one profession, one build, one kind of team matchup, one map, used the same two weapon sets or used the same strategy and tactics till the time he/she won a legendary.

sPvP has been game of its own since launch, both in design and implementation (you didn’t have to sPvP to get your legendary, did you? You didn’t even have the same equipment setup, or skills- in some cases)

And I’m being very realistic here: To win, you have to do all kinds of things in the game, including stuff you don’t like. I can easily compare getting a precursor, doing map exploration, gathering mats, tirelessly bashing on doors in WvW and farming karma to learning to play against(and with) all other professions in the game, effectively using strategy and tactics based on team comps/map/experience lvl of the opponent, finding and maintaining a winning team and adapting to meta changes. And I know * I * didn’t like doing all that (sheesh!).

And all of this while facing human opponents, and NOT exploitable sub-optimal AI. Except the petting zoo (oops you got me ), but even then there’s no comparison to PvE levels of difficulty, especially in high-end sPvP. Not to mention that, while a big portion of the content can be done solo in PvE, in sPvP you do not have that luxury.

I’m not being elitist here, I’m being realistic. We are talking about the winners of the tourney, therefore some of the best players in sPvP. All the above are required.

Do you still think the level of effort/time invested is that much different for the end result (legendary)?

{end part 1}

Wholeheartedly agree to the choice of rewards in this tournament! 5 sPvPers getting a legendary and another 35 people receiving components for a legendary (plus weapon tickets) is hardly making up for the lackluster rewards sPvP has been living with since launch. Not to mention the recent gear unification that I believe favoured PvE.

I’ll even go as far as suggest that if this tournament turns out to be a success (in terms of new players coming to sPVP, or re-activating old players), please make it a recurring thing. GW1 automated/monthly tournaments come to mind, but maybe solutions that were implemented in the past for GW2 would work as well – perhaps QPs would make sense to qualify players for a recurring tournament like this?

And before someone points out that 5 legendaries a month is a lot, please take a look at the big picture – rewards can be adjusted.

Great initiative ANet, get the ball rolling.

Outstanding arguments by KarlaGrey.

I wanted to point you guys to another recent thread about consecutive wins in Solo Arena: Excellent points by KarlaGrey. I agree on the networking boost. The OP brings up good points on the socializing potential we are missing by GW2’s mechanics (especially how the PvP lobby is set up).

I also wanted to point at another recent thread about consecutive win progression in Solo Arena: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Solo-Queue-suggestion/first#post3468804

All excellent points, Entropy. I still believe that winning versus higher level teams as a team of 5 people requires more raw effort than doing the same as a team of 1. People should be more incentivized to make teams and improve their overall performance (meaning solo performance + everything related to the team).

But, details. The rewards brought more bodies into the Mists. I am happy to see more people playing sPvP, even if it’s just for the carrot. Reducing the rewards in team arena might even make a bad impression and cause us to lose some of these players. That is why I would rather see Team Arena getting more difficult to get into (requiring a team of 5), or some other change that would actually make the game more enjoyable before touching the rewards. These could be anything from removing AI clutter to introducing a rank requirement to solo queue.

Don’t forget that ANet has a rewards overhaul coming up, and we have no idea how that is going to interact with other systems in the game …

Romek.4201:

or would have fair rewards for both?
there is NOTHING to excuse this big difference in rewards

teamQ total broken and its pathetic to give for this more than double the rewards

Winning as a team versus other organized competitive teams requires more effort than winning when matched up against/with random people and deserves greater rewards. Thus my belief that being able to solo Team Arena is wrong.

entropy.9613:

I was going to say that team queue rewards are only 20% higher and agree with Qaelyn, but then I did the maths.

Basically, the rewards for winning 25% of team queue matches are the same (gold) or better (glory) than for winning 50% of solo queue matches.

50% win rate in solo: (0.5 * 25s) + (0.5 * 12.5s) = 18.75 silver/match

25% win rate in team: (0.25 * 30s) + (0.75 * 15s) = 18.75 silver/match

In team queue you get the same rewards for succeeding half as much.

Even given that you will lose significantly more queuing solo in team queue, it is obviously the better option if you don’t care about leaderboards.

And that isn’t taking into account the rank point gain from Team Queue.

Perhaps solo arena would be more meaningful if we couldn’t queue solo for team arena?

I really like the idea of consecutive wins and people sticking with the same team if they won the previous match.

Still, asking for the removal of the way people are matched against (and with) one another might be too big of a change right now. I would be happy if I could go on up to a (small) number of consecutive wins with a specific team, while being matched with enemy teams according to current matchmaking principles. This would require skipping the “jumbling players up and dividing them into teams” part, and going straight to the part of finding 5 players with an MMR in the vicinity of my team’s MMR.

Ultimately, this would lead to unfair matches, but if the number of maximum consecutive wins is kept low enough perhaps the unfairness would be an acceptable trade-off, assuming a healthy amount of players queueing at the same time. I wouldn’t go above 5 consecutive wins before the team is either disbanded and returned to the mists, or matched up against teams from Team Aren-erm, Team Queue.

In my opinion, giving the players the option to continue playing with the same team would make sPvP a lot more enjoyable through cultivating social gameplay/team building/connection, a greater sense of achievement (winning consecutively and being rewarded accordingly) and recognition. For some, the longer queue times or the inherent unfairness of this system, not to mention synch queueing, could be prohibitive factors, but I personally think it’s worth it. If maximum consecutive wins are kept low, rewards are kept reasonable (competitive with other modes, like Team Queue) and synching is more actively discouraged, it could be a win-win for both Anet and the players, both the casual and the hardcore (achievers and sPvPers).

Finally, when you look at the large picture: As the system stands now, why implement this change to Solo Queue and not Team Queue, when there are a lot of people (in my experience) solo-ing Team Queue? Or when a team of 3 people could just as easily play Team Queue and get more even matches in the long run(due to MM)? I would suggest implementing it to both modes, but disallowing incomplete teams to queue in team queue.

TL;DR: I agree. The changes should be kept as feasible/simple as possible, and that is why the current matchmaking philosophy should stay. The number of consecutive wins should be kept low, and special attention should be paid to disallowing synching and making rewards competitive with Team Queue. This change would do more good than harm.

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

This change will be exploited, it’s obvious. Because you can select you team before the match even begins, or switch teams as the match is in progress, winning players will all coordinate to be on the same team, i.e., they will look at who played best and choose their team based on that; this happens frequently already in hotjoin. They’ll also be able to switch in the middle of a game to go over to the winning team, and so on. This will encourage massive exploitation and unfairness as the system is set-up atm.

That’s not too bad. There are tenths of hot join servers to go to, if you realize you’re getting steam rolled by the same team comps every game. In fact, it’s good. Even the tiniest bit of effort to actually play the game mode and win is good in my book.

Thanks for this change, Anet! There are many after-effects, but overall positive.

The Grump.3209:

Can everyone please get back on topic…?
How can we get this noticed by the right people, that we want WvW geared dual/team fight arenas in SPvP?

I understand your passion, but this sounds like division by zero to me. There is a reason why the game was built the way it is: PvE and PvP are separated, with WvWvW being the only “bridge” between the two.

You should be posting this in the WvWvW forum, asking the developer company to fix whatever it is that disallows this kind of fights to occur there. I am very positive WvWvW is the place for it. I mean, you sure you can’t find some isolated wood somewhere and duke it out?

Just imagine the confusion of a new player after experiencing two different types of arenas, with very different build-making mechanics. At least now they ONLY have to get used to it once :p

Thanks for this initiative.

1. Rewards and Progression
2. sPvP game modes
3. Attracting + maintaining new players

Also taking this opportunity to encourage posters to prioritize subjects suitable for discussion. For example, while matchmaking problems are definitely an issue, what is there to talk about? A fix is a fix, so prefer something like “Rewards for winning” over “matchmaking”.

My opinion.

I used to be able to play at 60 FPS in sPvP. I took a break for about a month, and now I have 10 FPS at the heart of the mists. While it’s empty.

Specs:
AMD Radeon 5870 1 GB
Intel Core i5 660, 3,33GHz
4 GB RAM
Win 7 64bit

This might have been passed around already, but I feel like it hasn’t received enough attention yet.
My GW2 experience has deteriorated drastically after the release of the leaderboards. The only thing I do in GW2 nowadays is sPVP, but now it feels like you developer folks just gave me 2 very serious reasons to quit.

Why?

First, I cannot play for fun anymore. My friend list is QUITE full of people I’ve met in the mists and I enjoy playing with. Some of them are high-end players, some of them aren’t (this is the majority). A couple of days ago I decided to play a few games (tPVP) with some of my more casual friends (ranks 5-15). We know we’re gonna lose some games, but we have fun winning – cause every win is sweaty and comes after a struggle (again, casuals).

We had a good run. Won 4, lost 1. And THEN, I take a look at my position on the leaderboards. Went from the early 300’s to … 90%. (we lost a match against a very low ranked team)

How can you call this a “social” game? You just gave me a reason not to play with the majority of my friend list, just so I can maintain a decent rating.

Second, I cannot solo queue anymore. First thing today I decide to roll my guardian to a fun game of PvP madness. I don’t have 18 hours a day to play Guild Wars 2 and get a team, so I solo queue sometimes. Got a premade team as opponents, average IG rank was 50 and average leaderboard rank was 150. Yes, I looked them up before complaining. It was not fun, it was not constructive (lost 500-20). It WAS a disappointment though(forced me to write this post). I understand the ‘win some, lose some’ mentality. But this happens way to often (at least to me). Often enough to realize something might be wrong.

In my opinion, the matchmaking system (and therefore the ranking system) is the primary cause of the above. Also the fact that we cannot play meaningful PvP (5v5) someplace else than ranked tourneys. I don’t understand the reason behind allowing us to be in multiple PvP(or not) Guilds, as well as be in multiple PvP teams and then giving us an individual rating. One has two choices: Either care about the leaderboard and stop playing with half his IG social circle, or stop caring about the leaderboard and never be accepted in any decent team, or having a decent match – ever.

I would like to know the developers’ stance on casual play. How do you promote that, in terms of game features? All evidence so far tells me you think it should be limited to hotjoin. Are there any plans to help us not-pro-but-not-hotjoin-supercasuals-either (semi-hardcore?) players have a decent experience?

Hello.
Since release, I had performance issues with GW2 after every windows update. The game usually runs smoothly at avg 50fps, but it dropped to unplayable levels (5-10 fps) after the windows updates.

I used to just wait for a couple of days, and then performance was up to normal again.

There was no performance drop in any of the other games I have installed.

So, I goofed around a bit and decided to undo specific updates, instead of reverting the system to the before-the-update status. As it turns out, all I have to do is Uninstall the latest WINDOWS SECURITY updates, restart the system, and then play GW2.

Performance then is a-ok.

Why?

—> Windows 7 home premium, x64, SP1

Amaterasu.6280:

QPs are from winning paids yes, but I come from the inner circle of 25 people who strictly do paids with each other, and they are also the “top” players at the moment.

[snip]

Farming QPs is MUCH easier than exp. You can get carried through a paid and earn QPs.

Logic dude.

I am sure that QPs are nothing to those 25 people that are considered ‘top players’. But that’s only 5 teams. Even if you can carry one person to earn QPs, then QPs would be nothing for another …6 people, I think.

The rest will probably have to try to get that QP per win, even a little. The importance of any metric is subjective in most cases, but I believe Amaterasu might be exaggerating a bit.

I am not a fan of QPs as a measure for skill, but at least they are tied to winning games. It is definitely a good start, as far as metrics are concerned.

Right now, the community is small and dedicated. Therefore I believe it is easier than usual to get to know the people you are playing with. In my opinion, the best way to get a decent group together is to recruit any rank/QP players and play games with them, while at the same time evaluating their play and how well it matches yours. Keep notes. After 5 days of regular play you’ll have a collection of people that is large enough to make 3 teams, not one.

Very interesting read, thank you. I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

If you want to know if the people in your PUG are any good, try:

1. Asking them about their class/build. More often than not “creative” builds don’t work very well in tPvP. Keep an eye on anyone with a weird build.

2. Duel them in an empty server while the group is filling up, or waiting for tournament to start. The best way to know someone is to fight them. Don’t be competitive about it (since most builds aren’t for 1v1), just do it in the spirit of testing/practice/fun. Even if you lose the duel, you can compare how they did vs others of that build.

3. Ask them what classes they think are the strongest vs them. If they say things like “100b warriors eat me alive” and they are an ele, something is wrong.

I recommend method 2. Method 1 and 3 are just information, which is easy to fix if someone is new but generally skilled. Fighting someone is the quickest way to know them (this is partially why people want an easier dueling system). It’s also very hard to get someone to “dodge better” compared to “here’s a better build, try it you’ll love it”

Oddly enough playing WITH someone doesn’t efficiently determine how good they are. Often you’ll stomp or get stomped, which tells you little. Other times they are always on another point, so you don’t see them fight. Since you don’t know the skill of your enemy, it can be hard to evaluate how your teammates did against them. Even if you do have a big team fight together, it’s very hard to keep track of your own class, the enemy AND each player. In a total PUG scenario that’s 4 players to evaluate, which can take many games. It’s hard to know why you lost, especially with no replay mode.

Sorry for the double post, but I just read this.

I doubt anyone who just wants to play and win some games with a pug will be bothered to do all that. And quite frankly, it has already been mentioned that rank, although not an indicator of skill, is an indicator of experience. If you want experienced players, simply add a rank requirement and maybe ask a few questions before joining a match (build and voice comms).

That is the easy method, and it limits the number of weak people you might get. But it’s a low risk-low reward thing, not to mention it discourages new players.

It would be a lot better to form a pug, get them on a voice comms server, play a couple of games and see how it goes. If you have a sliver of sPvP experience you’ll know who needs to go or stay, provided you are using some kind of voice communication. And you’ll be playing the game at the same time.

Bottom line is, don’t ask for a CV to do sPvP. Bet on the jockey, not the horse. People can learn, and long term it’s a better strategy to help them to do. You get more people to play with, and the game gets more happy smiles.

I got started in sPVP 2 days ago, after quitting some months back (was rank 22) and I had the same problem as you.

I joined teams recruiting “any rank, any profession” and there was no problem. After a couple of days, I now have a friends list that contains an adequate number of pple whose nickname ends in _PvP (it’s how I distinguish people). Easier to play now.

I suggest you start recruiting yourself. “Any rank, any profession” has worked well for me and I got to know some interesting people. Not everyone will look at your rank and judge you.

Hello!

I’ve been asking around In Game for a team or tPvP-oriented guild to join, but I was unfortunate enough to only get 1 reply after 5 hours of searching. Since map chat in Heart of the Mists (guested in several servers also) didn’t help, I decided to post here.

After checking the first few pages of this sub-forum and the “Guilds” forum, I couldn’t find any designated place for this kind of post, so I am leaving this open as well as posting my own stuff.

I’m looking for a team for some tournament play. I’ve been around since before launch, but stopped sPvP before attaining my 23rd rank. I’m trying to come back after seeing the (beta) implementation of matchmaking is in.

My rank at the time of posting this is 22, timezone EU, GMT+2, experience with Elementalist and a little bit of thief and warrior. I aim at playing from 2 to 4 hours a day, maybe not all days of the week. Very skeptical about time commitments at the moment.
Would also like to add I don’t do drama.

If you are in a team with an open spot, feel free to send me a mail IG or on the forums ( Hyperion.6027). If you are also looking for a team, don’t hesitate to whisper or mail.

Also, I encourage you to post your ‘LFGs’ here. If you are on the recruiting side, I suggest you contact the posters directly, since that would help keep this threat cohesive.

Thank you.

Archaon.6245:

Rambodacious.7495:

Archaon.6245:

imo here ranking up is wayyy faster and easier than in gw1….and i mean…really…REALLY…faster, people 63+ already rushing for phoenix after some months…come on it took MeatBall from Math guild, if i remember right, around one year to reach phoenix emote with lots and lots of good (not hot join crap like pretty much everyone of those rank farmers do) playing…..

So…are you serious?

First, I have no idea wtf you’re talking about. Second, why the hell should a title take 6 years? How is it impressive? It’s simply a “I know what I’m doing” title. It is not “I’m a good player” title. Especially considering you make glory faster in hot joins.

If people want to express dominance, it shouldn’t be through a six year daily grind. The only thing that expresses is a complete lack of a life and a pathetic need to impress strangers. I want these titles to be more attainable to give people a better idea of where you stand experience wise, just by clicking on your character.

So…are YOU serious?

Let me give you an advice…just go try guild wars 1 and then come back again. Getting max titles in a short time makes those title worthless, titles are just a reward not something you have to farm for, titles bring nothing to you but the title itself…it’s not a gear or something that makes you stronger it’s just something than not everyone can get, i was not for sure one of those who reached r15 hero and it’s fine…starcraft, oh my, chamalee and so on put much more effort and time than me playing HA so they deserved it and i didn’t….in guild wars 1 you also get fame points (The same of actual honor points) only by winning matches, that’s why i’m saying that here ranking up is wayyy more easy than there, everyone gets honor even if loosing and everyone can rank up…and ranks also require less time to get, so no…ranking up it’s all but long here compared to the gw1 system. In gw1 you would probably be one of those buying zkeys on ebay just to show a max “pvp” (ROFL) title…

Ranking up in GW2 is way easier through hot-join.
The closest pvp format in GW1 to hot-join play is Random Arenas.
Point #1: In my eyes, rank in GW2 is closer to GW1’s Gladiator rank, which (also in my humble opinion) doesn’t mean you are a good player, relative to the Champion(guild vs guild) and Hero (Heroes’ Ascend) titles.

Guild Wars 1 had a very different PvP system. There was variety, and lots of ways you could get your rank points there. GW2 is currently much more limited, and very different in every conceivable way.
Point #2: Comparison between the mechanics and reward systems of the two games has no meaning.

Also, someone mentioned it took people 3 years to reach the highest rank in HA (and the phoenix emote). 3 years is still only half-way to 6 years. 3 years for the highest title sounds reasonable to me, but 6 sounds absurd. Or very arrogant, but they cannot afford that, considering the current state of PvP.

I don’t title-hunt. Heck, I feel kinda forced to do PvE (and I have moved towards that in many ways, since it’s obviously more rewarding). But I still mind clicking on someone and seeing the Ascendant title. Even if the title only means you only ‘know what you are doing’ it should be achievable in a unique way, related to pvp. If anything, it is a sign that PvP is being looked down at by the developer. Bad marketing in a game that got me to play it due to good marketing.

So, yeah. Please change the GW1 title to something else.

The discussion is getting derailed.

Can I have a benchmark – what’s the average time it takes your team to put the sparks in, haviz? Or any team that can beat this fight without ridiculous DPS.

haviz.1340:

Ele Lady.6103:

Are you kidding, or mostly DPS team cannot do it with 4-1 tactic, and a team with less DPS and not using the 4-1 can do?

I’ve tried to kill her with just Weth once. We lack a bit dps for that, we couldn’t get her below 10% but that was mostly because she was petrifying us. That was just the two people. Once we invited another guy we 3manned her. So yea, most of those dps team that people want to have are either very bad at dealing damage or they’re plainly lying about their spec.

Secondly, thing I repeat yet another time, the most important aspect of that fight is how perfect your spark runs are, you don’t need 5 people in full zerkers, you need 2 people that are able to run sparks as fast as possible.

You 3 manned her. If that’s true, then the encounter has to be problematic. Even 5 half-decent players should be able to dish out more damage than 3 people, more so when said 5 are geared specifically for damage.

Also, @George Steel: Some parts of the game are intended to require farm to get. That’s the reason exotic, ascended and legendary gear exists. So that you can spend your time farming them.

Seriously, if you created a game with grind in it, would you go out of your way to alter ONE boss fight to require farm, clearly going against the logic of all the similar (in context) encounters? O.o

Ioflux.4369:

Skill isnt limited to fight mechanics, but to your understanding of the classes synergy, traits, weapon skills, and what is optimal for your party.

I completely agree. I never meant to imply otherwise.

Unfortunately, I am one step away from being completely convinced the encounter is broken. More precisely, inconsistent as to its mechanics. And that is because I am confident there is nothing you could tell me or my regular party about our profession combinations, individual traits, weapon skills and gear that we don’t already know. I wouldn’t be posting here if I wasn’t.

It doesn’t make any sense to have the same results with a set-up that’s 40% focused on DPS as with a set-up that’s 70% focused on DPS. And 100% DPS spec is just silly to require your players to spec for, if the fight is the equivalent of a punching bag boxing training.

I’ll refrain from debating this any longer, as we have not tried to complete it with full berzerker’s gear for everyone in the party, rarity exotic, ascended and legendary. But if the time comes and we do, you can be sure I’ll have my stopwatch on again, and get back here to bring you the latest news.

What I would like to suggest is, since we are posting at roughly the same times, please take me with you on your next ‘non DPS-centered’ run of path 4. I will do my best not to be a burden, and I promise you I am not stuck to preconceptions.

haviz.1340:

What I don’t want is yet another faceroll boss added to collection because average gamer can’t start to think once in a while.

Think what? Oh, you mean get more DPS and learn to herd the sparks properly. But you see, the sparks thing is just a mechanical thing and the DPS is based on gear and profession. The latter only translates to more time spent (wasted?) on grind to get gear some people wouldn’t normally use outside that one encounter.

The more I watch this thread the more convinced I am that Simin doesn’t work right all the time. First time we fought her (only did p4 with guild pple) we had very support-oriented builds. All our efforts to gear up for maximum DPS yielded the exact same results, both in terms of seconds to bring her to a certain % and in terms of her life total. It was EXACTLY the same, no matter if the first time we had 2 support-spec’d people and the second we were many times more DPS-y.

I would be convinced by a dev stating that ‘Simin fight works as intended, maybe some issues with the sparks’. But as it is, I am not spending any more effort (gear, grind, time) on that fight.

To those saying this is a l2p issue: How can it be a ‘learn to play’, if you need specific professions with specific gear to make it work? Knowing what gear and professions to bring is NOT learning to play. It’s reading the wiki. And having a lot of time in your hands to grind for the required gear. Also, it is NOT Guild Wars 2.

To those saying the encounter is ‘do-able’ and not as hard as people make it out to be: There can only be two scenarios here. Either we are playing different instances (it’s buggy and my version is harder than yours) or you are dead WRONG in your assumption that your elementalists were playing in ‘water attunement’.

I just stopped trying to beat the encounter with guildies. We didn’t all have ascended gear. We didn’t have 3 warriors. But we did do our best to build/play to maximize the damage. And we ain’t bad. Still no go.

I also used my stopwatch. 12 seconds to get the sparks right, 25 seconds fighting the boss. She always goes invulnerable at 50% health. What’s up with that?

Overall, I do not mind the dps check – that is fine. But it has to be tuned down. If you guys, developers and players, are looking for something more ‘difficult’ in this game, then you need to find a more creative solution. If the encounter is indeed not bugged or broken, then I believe your priestess of Dwayna is a gimmick that the players shouldn’t accept. Not even the ‘elitist’ minority that defends it, since their time and (in game) money is wasted for bragging rights that mean next to nothing.

And as a final note: it isn’t even remotely fun.

I bet this is already true. Forum posters whose opinions represent what ‘the PvP community feels is needed’ exist. We don’t have to formally select a few to represent the masses (ahem). If the developers are already watching the forums, it is certain that some people have stood out from the rest, in terms of their ability to state valid arguments and promote realistic opinions.

And of course if someone’s very first post is of high quality, it is the developer’s job to find it, print it and bring it to the attention of the dev team.

The only potential missing link between the developer and the community is the former’s inability to properly track the discussions on the discussion board. Personally, I am convinced they are watching the forums and taking our opinions into account.

Finally, do not forget that the developer is the only one who has the ability to make profit off the success of the game’s PvP. At least in the foreseeable future. They will take the community’s input into account only to the extent it helps them meet their internal goals – direct monetization or not.

Today I logged in to find that Lornar’s pass, which previously offered me an average of 40-50 FPS, now averages at 10 – 15 FPS at Auto detect settings. I immediately moved to the Mists and noticed that FPS were lower than usual as there as well. 25 max at best appearance and 15 at auto detect.

The first time I noticed the drop was last night (24h from this post), but I only stuck around for 2 minutes after noticing that performance was bad.

This is the third time Guild Wars 2’s performance on my system decreases dramatically. The first two were after a windows update. This time I am positive nothing changed on my side.

Why is this so unstable?

AMD Radeon 5870 1 GB
Intel Core i5 660
4 GB RAM
Win 7 64bit

Same issue, and this has happened before, exactly after a windows update as well.

Restoring pc to a state before the update did not work, performance was still incredibly low.

Last time this happened, my fps went back to normal after a day. The game client did not patch, my pc didn’t update anything … I’m at a loss;

I am having the same issue. Eight hours ago from this posting, the Grove offered me around 40 FPS.
Now, it averages at 8.

AMD Radeon 5870 1 GB
Intel Core i5 660
4 GB RAM
Win 7 64bit