Guild Wars 2

Starl.6392:

Human Female
Mesmer

My issue is with T3 Cultural Human Light Armor (Sorcerer’s Epaulets)

ADD:
I think i have found the issue. Apparently that inner part of the armor piece uses colors from boots instead of shoulder. Since i had boots model with only one color, it used default colors 2 and 3 which are red.

I might be wrong on that. However, chaning boot model and colors affects shoulder piece inner color for me.

This exactly, I have the same problem and it the color of the inner shoulder varies depending on the boots color, which is a problem with boots that only have 1/2 colors (which is most of them).

Aza.2105:

-snip-
in fact if you journey to the wvw forums its one of the classes people complain about the most. Why is this? How do they go from last to near the top? The conquest mode is only a facade to hide severe balance issues with the game. Without many problems begin to show up. The moment Anet decides to add a deathmatch mode is the moment spvp inherits many problems found in wvw.
-snip-
The thief class has many exceptions to the game rules that makes it appear a cheesy class:

1. Stealth has no counter
2. The evade mechanic has no counter
3. The class isn’t effected by chill like the 7 other classes
-snip

No, no, no, no, no, no!
You really don’t have a thorough understanding of game mechanics and spvp. Many of the thief related problems that I see on the wvw forums are linked to different builds entirely and are often caused by damage scaling and many wvw’ers having no idea how to counter thieves. These very same people will get trashed by a lot of other builds that require some knowledge in order to counter them, but thief has flashy numbers and evades and that kittens people off more than a condi build that has high toughness.

1. stealth has plenty of counters, but they are all not focused on countering ‘stealth’ but what the person is doing in stealth. Stealth itself is a mechanic/game rule.
2. The evade mechanic is supposed to be a counter, but again, what are you talking about here… evade through dodge roll, evade on pw, or the mechanic itself? Since then you could argue that a well timed blind or block don’t have a counter either… evade itself is a mechanic/game rule.
3. True, I suppose that makes thief a hardcounter vs your chill build…

I don’t think it’s about a specific amulet but about having as little hard-counters as possible. In the glass meta there were far more match-ups and fights that were decided by clutch plays and less rock-paper-scissors etc. A mid fight with 3 glass classes is far more exciting to play at watch then warrior’s trying to outdps healing sig and spirit passives and necro’s applying some bleeds from a distance. From the glass perspective things were more balanced in the sense that a moment of tardiness could flip the match regardless of class. But ultimately it wasn’t that much different, the amount of viable meta builds hasn’t increased or decreased, it just changed into a more stale albeit forgiving format (for new players). I personally miss the old meta as this one is quite boring in comparison.

Chaith.8256:

-snip-
However, I’m of the opinion that they really need to be left alone. When a thief assaults a far point with a Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, MM Necro, DPS Guardian, often an S/D, S/P Thief is unable to quickly win a fight, if at all. And if this Thief DOES win out against their 1v1 target – they’re spending a significant amount of time off-point to avoid the target’s turn for retaliation.

S/D, S/P Thieves break glass mesmers, glass eles, and glass engies. Pretty much glass anything. However, like Reevz said, you just need to run a counter-thief on a mission to explode the enemy back-line thief, while he’s flexing on your glass X profession.
-snip-

I agree with Chaith’s assessment of the situational overall, but it’s the glass vs glass part that I believe is causing most of the ruckus. S/d thief is overrated vs non berserker builds. S/d being able to break “pretty much glass anything” as you put it yourself would hamper build viability ofc. :p

I’m not certain how good s/d with it’s current nerfs is against good glass ele, mesm, engi since there are a bunch of other things keeping those in check as well.

Reesha.7901:

Jelger.6758:

In general this is just an issue of ele’s getting hard-countered by s/d and one should get a slight shave up and the other a slight shave down to make it meaningful again. Thief vs ele matchups aren’t flat out broken like many other matchups currently are.

I don’t think he is talking about the elementalist vs thief matchup in particular, just the S/D thief in general?

If we are going to talk about the specific matchups, a shatter mesmer is not particular happy when running into a S/D thief either.

Since those 2 professions are competing for a similar role on a team, I think it is somewhat problematic that the matchup greatly favors the thief.

I strongly suspect that he mainly is talking about his exp as elementalist tho ;D kitten mesmer is not happy when running into most thief builds in a 1v1 scenario tbh, clusterbomb spam stalking the mesmer with the occasional evade deals with most kitten builds. But yeah this isn’t just about ele, very true.

Erzian.5218:

I think the actual problem is not the built-in evade of s/d but the combination of feline grace and vigour on heal+low cd on withdraw and yeah well.. lyssa runes but those are a problem in general.
Ideas:
- withdraw: cd and healing increased by 33% (20sec cd) or even 66% (25sec cd)
- feline grace: change it to a combination of flat endurance regeneration (50%) and endurance regain (7 or, so combining it with vigour (and signet of agility) becomes less powerful but still useful.

I agree with the synergy on feline grace being very good but withdraw & vigorous recovery isn’t that big tbh. With those changes I suspect both would just be dumped or worst case scenario the entire Acro trait line will be dropped for Trickery with bountiful theft. Which gives far better vigor uptime already. It’s feline’s grace as you pointed out that pushes it over the edge when compared to other classes.

DanSH.6143:

yeah s/d is way too strong. currently it’s the best 1v1 spec in the game.

Not even close. They’re a really strong berserker based 1v1 spec tho. Berserker in general isn’t very strong for 1v1’s tbh.

Phantaram.4816:

Jelger.6758:

S/p isn’t that different from s/d in team fights imo, less evades, but more daze/blind. Still the same step in for the kill, cleave/rupt, back away tactic.

I think S/D works in team comps like double war/ranger/guardian because it can mostly come out of fights alive if it wants to, the thief just has to know his limits. I don’t feel like S/P could execute what S/D does in that comp. S/P is typically thrown into more high damage comps where dagger thieves used to belong.

Yeah I more or less agree, s/d works better in that cause s/d is a tad more reliable to cleave with then s/p but the difference isn’t that big. S/p sits in between s/d and d/p role wise. It has d/p’s traits, rupts & blinds but works the same in teamfights as far as stepping & evade cleaving is concerned.

Phantaram.4816:

Anyways I feel like it’s the ultimate roamer and isn’t afraid. On most classes you could color a map with red/yellow/green at any given point with red being the most dangerous, and there’d be a mix of all 3 colors. S/D thief could just color the whole map green because there is no way he isn’t escaping a situation that isn’t a full on team fight.

Escaping is fairly the same across all thief builds and is the identity of the class. I agree that is what often makes thieves the ultimate roamer in terms of mobility. Matchup wise I which there were less hard-counters all across the board so none would need to be ‘afraid’ when seeing a different class/build.

Reesha.7901:

Jelger.6758:

snip

Overall, I agree with Phantaram. I do think S/D deals too much damage considering the amount of damage they in return can avoid.

That is what I mean with their dmg/(active) defense balance being out of balance, but I really don’t think that this is the case versus many of the current meta builds out there. It’s not just warrior, rangers and many other condition builds have this as well. They just aren’t as capable in bringing it right into the ele’s face. But that’s the crux of all this. Elementalists don’t have a build that can play along in this meta game of dmg&defense and thus is left out. Active defense is excellent and far better than getting it passive immunities or passive stat boosts but I understand that the more mobile direct dmg version of your average meta condi build is a pain vs ele’s. The damage of a s/d thief isn’t that high and neither is their survival that great, it’s the combination through dmg&survival uptime that is the problem. Nerfing their damage would be weird (basic AA dmg) and nerfing their evades would be as well. ‘Nerfing’ the ability to skip the aftercast will only punish the better s/d players but is probably the best option balance wise. In general this is just an issue of ele’s getting hard-countered by s/d and one should get a slight shave up and the other a slight shave down to make it meaningful again. Thief vs ele matchups aren’t flat out broken like many other matchups currently are.

I can understand not liking the rally/downed mechanic in WvW but I’m not a diehard wvw’er. The mechanic is actually great for sPvP tho. It stops yet allows viability of damage spiking and adds lot’s of meaningful play to many cc effects. Many games without this turn pvp into some silly tank and spank.

The only thing I find that is out of balance is their dmg/defense trade off. S/d doesn’t do a lot of damage but does have very good defensive capabilities (if played right) for the damage they do.

But I can think of some more offenders because the current meta is completely based on this. Deal too much damage for the defensive options you have. How else could we describe warrior’s being a damage dealer with defensive traits and utilities. And aren’t all rabid condi users essentially using a defensive amulet while still having more DPS output than a myriad of unviable berserker options.

@Reevz: you can’t pre cast pistol whip into a infiltrator’s strike, only into steal, infiltrator’s signet and shadowstep. And thieves in general get countered by a lot of the current meta builds . . . Their ability to decap nodes is the main reason they weren’t pushed out of the meta scene like ele’s and mesmer’s. That and the initial s/d buffs.

Phantaram.4816:

Yeah I agree s/p is too strong also. It’s actually even more of a nightmare than s/d for my ele in 1v1s. I don’t feel like s/p is as safe to play in team fights though.

A good ele running s/f with fresh air is also a nightmare against s/p in 1v1. S/p isn’t that different from s/d in team fights imo, less evades, but more daze/blind. Still the same step in for the kill, cleave/rupt, back away tactic.

A 1v2 situation also just doesn’t work within the current hot join games, I suggest to join another one when no new players are coming in and the current two are cute like that.

Only if you allow them to actively fly and let me jump from mine on top of yours and have the ships be PvP zones.

Intrinsic rewards, kitten yeah!

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

Jelger.6758:

Blind. There is no hit-miss chance calculation. There are evades, blinds, etc. but there’s no hit/miss calculation, you can still make monsters miss by cleverly sidestepping them and other movements such as circling, this isn’t a huge factor contributing to the skill factor however.

Except a level 10 Warrior… and an NPC at that… has no capability to dodge, sidestep, or do any of that other stuff that you listed in your post. So your entire point is moot. Try again.

Npc’s are able to dodge and sidestep, most npc’s don’t dodge and sidestepping isn’t done afaik as a tactic to avoid anything. Npc movement isn’t very reactive or intelligent. But we’re talking about the system right? Hit/miss calculations aren’t programmed anywhere as far as I know, and the collision system obviously is. It doesn’t matter if it’s an invisible wall, a blind or a silly pebble that caused the attack to not go through but it’s even more likely that npc’kitten each other for 0 damage then that npc’s have hidden stats (hit chance and/or evade ratings) and do these (fairly pointless) calculations.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

Seras.5702:

There’s dodging and more build variety than many other MMOs.

I am sorry, but ABSOLUTELY NOT. The only thing of what you just said that is true is the dodging bit. This game is actually rather limited in relation to build variety. Take Guild Wars 1 for example (that still counts as an MMO, right?), where you had an entire freaking wikipedia site devoted to build diversity

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t come anywhere close to that.

While I won’t argue that there’s games that are able to create more different builds GW2 really isn’t anything to laugh about in respect to build variety, and I’d argue does in fact have more build variety than many other MMO’s. I still wouldn’t say that’s it’s really GW2’s selling point, which was obviously the case in GW1. GW2’s main problem where builds are concerned is in the viability, or rather the comparability of these builds. A thief can run every weapon combination and specialize in different ways to do damage or focus on different ways of survival. Yet some ways are far more effective than others and therefore the amount of build diversity that is commonly used ingame is fairly low. There’s quite a few MMO’s that really don’t have more than 3/4 theoretical builds available of which only 1 or 2 ever sees practical application at any time. One can also look at the variety of roles that can be covered by a specific class which is another common way to diversify in games.

And as a final note…. GW2 may not have a wikipedia page devoted to builds, but the amount of build calculators and repository’s is still incredibly large compared to other MMO franchises.

I find that most activity’s don’t stay fun for very long but to rate them according to how fun I found them in their first weeks:

1. Dragon ball!
2. Aspect arena
3. Snowball mayhem
4. Sanctum sprint

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

TheDaiBish.9735:

I think ‘skill-based’ is a misnomer.

Every game is ‘skill-based’. They just require different skills.

eh… actually… when someone refers to a “skill-based game” they are referring to one of two different things.

A. They are referring to a game whose game play takes actual strategy and thought in how it is played. For example Magic the Gathering, Poker, or heck, even Chess (though at high levels of play I hear that Chess is more choreographed than it is actually about skill due to the limited number of moves available in that game).

B. They could also be referring to a game whose game play is largely determined by a system where in each mechanic is governed by a skill that over time can be increased in some way. For example, some of the more recent Final Fantasy games utilize this system. Their most recent MMO actually turns the crafting skills into actual classes (as in D&D Classes) that are more in depth than any crafting skill normally has any right to be.

Point is, the way most people play Guild Wars 2, it cannot really be considered either of the above.

Danicco.3568:

snip

If there is no Hit or Miss chance or calculation in GW2, would you care to explain to me why I saw a Minotaur (NPC-enemy) completely fail to hit it’s target with a Charge Attack when it was standing right next to the target who happened to be an NPC herself, and thus could not have dodged? In fact I have seen NPC’s miss their targets on such attacks numerous times. If what you say is true, then there shouldn’t be any chance for them to miss their targets AT ALL unless the target is player controlled and able to dodge.

Blind. There is no hit-miss chance calculation. There are evades, blinds, etc. but there’s no hit/miss calculation, you can still make monsters miss by cleverly sidestepping them and other movements such as circling, this isn’t a huge factor contributing to the skill factor however.

What I find more disturbing is you only listing 2 types of skill and neither is including execution based skills. Having good reflexes and hotkeys can result in a higher APM (actions per minute) and better situational awareness. Both of which matters far more in GW2 then many other games. GW2’s game mechanics hugely influence this. If you’re casting a churning earth and I blind, stun, daze, fear, teleport, dodge, evade, block or simply move out of range I can outplay you. And in turn I can get outplayed through cc’s, teleports or being caught unaware. GW2 has a lot of ways to outplay your opponent, far more than other MMO’s out there. I personally find it extremely disappointing how little GW2 players are actually aware of this and how little these mechanics seem to matter in PvE and WvW. You can simply be better than your opponent by gap closing through the use of dodge jumping and intelligent cast cancelling, how is this not a beautiful example of execution based skills?

These game mechanics are the sole reason I can enjoy GW2 as much as I do and the strongest USP next to GW2’s art & design.

This game isn’t just about strategies, awareness, teen reflexes or buildwars, it’s all of them, and forgoing or excelling in any of these fields will affect your personal effectiveness.

Can try to play gs/staff as well. Works fairly similar, consider taking the halting strike trait and learn to get some extra damage from it with chaos storm, illusionary wave and Diversion. You’ll be reliant on rupts and staff for survival over blurred frenzy.

It should stack, wearing the full set should give you 10% more damage vs foes below 50% HP.

As a regular sPvP’er i have a hard time relating to the “pvp tards, smack talking” and “smack talking childish brats” statements, and not because of the irony in these statements but because it’s not that different when you go pugging challenging PvE content. If I’m going to perform poorly with a badly performing build in an arah dungeon and my team can’t carry me then you’ll get a very similar experience. I can recall trying to pug Arah paths in the first half year after launch and half the groups had exactly this toxic behavior of smack talk, leaving and sheer elitism. The reason I, like many others, never experience this anymore is because I nearly always run in premade groups and the content isn’t that challenging anymore. I’m by no means saying that there’s no truth to these statements, but are we comparing things fairly here?

I find that Anet is actually a very transparent game company that announces their plans very early on – way before they even work out any details themselves. This is transparency and imo it’s a great thing, but these statements aren’t the same as patch notes or something that they’ll ever add to the game. When developing anything, it’s quite likely (even more so early on in earlier phases) that you run into problems that may never see a specific subject released. Take into account that they are continuously looking at player opinions and try to adjust to this as well.

Did they release all these things? Nope. Do we know if they’re still being worked on? Yup.
There were multiple pvp maps introduced and we know there were plenty of other maps that were looked at that didn’t got finalized. Due to the CDI on game modes I suspect they shifted their focus of new conquest maps to new game modes which are accompanied by new maps.
PvP rewards are currently being revamped, legendaries aren’t in place yet because they decided to rework the entire rank/reward/leaderboard system. Why? Probably due to a lot of player feedback on this subject, which we also saw a CDI on.
There were new unlockable skills… perhaps a bit lackluster, but I also recall a lot of player feedback asking to first fix existing skills, they did have a large amount of fixes and changes to current skills. There are also new traits which have replaced old ones, it’s probably not as shiny as you had pictured it, but there were some (very minor) changes here.
New (types of) legendaries? Nope. Arguably delayed by introduction of a diversity of ascended items which I feel was a controversial addition that (i feel) in the end was really something that many players (indirectly) asked for in the first few months.

I’m not really interested in defending Anet here, but a company that says it will try to be transparent and listen to the community whenever they can and at the same time says: ‘hey we’re going to work on this and that stuff this year." Don’t blindly expect those things to be there. Delays aside, they may just get new data (from us) that makes them go back on their opinion.

Pvp’ers asked if instead of just new maps they could get new game modes as well = delays. Pvp’ers asked if instead of legendaries getting dumped in there could be a new more meaningful reward system = delays.
Anet could’ve easily given us these things, adding new legendaries, maps and skills is really really easy for them. Improving the current system is the hard way, and I really appreciate them doing this.

ellesee.8297:

that’s how pve generally works for every game. once you’ve committed the scripted fight to memory it’s cake.

^ This mostly, there’s still room for improvement to bosses, monsters and fight mechanics in general but let’s be honest… nothing really stays kittence you know how to counter it. one shot AoE field around a boss? 2 sec wait into a dodge roll and keep on nuking lads. Harpies causing you problems son? Take out the anti projectiles!

So what is it that creates challenge if not the timing of dodge rolls or specific counter mechanics like anti projectiles? Synergy between classes? Banners, FGJ, frost spirit, spotter, fire field stacking etc. etc. is commonly used synergy. Sure this is all offensive stacking but having to do defensive stacking would actually make the content even easier: stack protection, frost aura, toughness traits and water field healing spam. Or should we kite stack? Swiftness uptime, line of warding, (AoE) cripple/chilled, lightning fields, fears etc. Is there really more challenge here? That would create an everyone go tank/heal/kite ‘meta’. If you want the game to demand there’s one of everything we’re basically back to a pigeonholding trinity.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree, PvE feels too easy for me as well, but what actions can we perform in game that would make which content Anet could throw at us challenging?
Is fotm not loaded with mechanics that are really challenging the first time you see them? In other games with difficult PvE content it’s often because they throw a lot of slightly different alterations at you. Combine that with continuous gear progression and you have a game that feels really hard initially but becomes more manageable in a controllable time span.

There is even less room for challenging content in world exploring since the ways to counter this is even harder without homogenizing the classes or setting demanding a certain gear standard. Another way to create difficulty in mmo’s/rpg’s is to have health/resources not regenerate and use different abilities or items to close this gap (think of potion spamming or resting in between combat). There is also the unforgiving way that we experience in super adventure box hardmode: execute a sequence perfectly or try again. Many of the more oldskool games that people call hard or challenging fall in this category.

Soooo, how would you like to see GW2 become more challenging in a sensible matter?

I understand the need for an “Oh please this will solve everything” concept, but this is far from that. Adding a castbar won’t really help much, right now we’re scanning for animations (which has issues) but adding castbars would have that shift to castbar icons? This won’t add meaningful play since most skills have a really short casttimes regardless.
Most casts are so fast that from an 1 on 1 perspective different animations will actually be more distinguishable than a 0,5 sec castbar with a small vague icon next to it.
Castbars above enemy heads would make things slightly easier in clusterducks, but I doubt it will allow for much more meaningful play. There’s five people spamming at each other but you’ll dodge the 0,75sec necro fear mark? Questionable. Would this create for a less chaotic situation? I highly doubt it, if anything you just added a load of bars floating around. Picture it: a spirit ranger running around spamming uninterruptable evade skills (with castbar?) while his spirits have castbars popping up above them when activating their skills. Wouldn’t this just give you a load of random bars popping up all around you? I have no trouble keeping an eye on that res spirit animation right now, I can’t imagine having bars everywhere would help me to interrupt that one (it will make it far easier to dodge the other spirit skills naturally).

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think the current system has flaws, but I don’t think castbars are the solution, I think they will change too much for too little. As long as skill balance account for some skills being hard to track this entire topic would be rather unimportant.

As for the speed of combat discussion…. matter of preference, there are plenty of popular games that are fast paced and animation based, fighting games and (fast-paced) shooters are based on these principles. That said, fast paced games will never attract the biggest crowd since it’s simply more demanding for players and not everything is willing to play the game that way. Slowing the game is out of the question as you’d move closer to the competition and in this day and age that’s really not the soundest strategy.

Hello dear reader and welcome to frontpage today!
Your super quick and dirty overview of today’s frontpage and its most exquisite moans.

Today’s frontpagers!
- An announcement of today’s blog post about the PvP rewards revamp by Anet’s John Corpening. And announcement and copy pasta of today’s blog post about the PvP rewards revamp by Ronpierce. Inside both you will find a of outcries about how people do not want their hard earned ranks to disappear! Curiously there have no been replies saying “ranks don’t mean kitten” today.

- A dragged out discussion on the upcoming diamond skin change! It will be completely OP, or it will be completely “Meh”, and it may or may not be what we want in this meta! Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets! Only one side will come out of this debate unscathed! (not really) – tune in December the 10th to find out more . . .

- A story about a man on a epic journey to discover the strongest class in PvP, and to find out the in’s, and out’s! Of all GW2 classes… will he live to experience everything firsthand?

- A deeply engaging discussion on the complex workings of endurance and dodges! Should there be an enemy endurance bar? The hardcore say: No!, the casuals say: Yes!, and Jon Peters finally found a topic debating game design. There also seems to be no mention of Anet’s decision to scale down vigor accessibility… Lost opportunity for either side to argue in their favor? – you decide!

- A cunningly disguised rant about Thieves being OP and this game being in dire need of a full support class. Don’t forget what needs to be changed fellows, it’s very simple.

- A tale of love death and uninstalling, please e-mail this man when the game is fixed!

- Numerous topics have been sighted that complained about today’s blog not addressing the issues they care about the most right now! Anet is pointing fingers to different departments! Will the community finally understand the devs are working in separate teams, or insist on demanding answers!? Find out tomorrow!

This was B. Ored from Frontpage Today,

Stay classy Tyria!

Yoji.1420:

Most importantly, add more rocks for me and my guild to stand on and snarl at people approaching in the lobby.

Just redo the entire mist section a year from now, a better and more fun environment is definitely of importance if the pvp in this game would actually pick up. Otherwise, you should be able to manage with the few rocks out there now :P

Thedenofsin.7340:

Come on guys, this isn’t hard. We don’t need the 100% solution. The 90% solution will be fine.

Here’s the rules for solo/team queue:

1. Players rank 1-12 will have a reduced effective MMR when matched.
2. The match will not start unless there are 5 players on each team present in the arena. If 5 players are not present on each team within 30 seconds after the scheduled match start time, the match is abandoned, the players are sent back to the front of the queue and the missing players are given dishonor.
3. Players leaving the match must return within 30 seconds or receive dishonor. Departing a second time is an automatic kick with dishonor.
4. Teams with missing players/leavers/etc will not lose MMR
5. Solo Queue only: Each team may have no more than one pair of players with the same profession. This eliminates “triple warrior”/“double warrior double guardian”/etc teams.

Also, make 5v5 hot join the standard. 8v8 is available but is not an option in “play now”.

Players that are given dishonor should have this appear over their character’s head for 1 hour of game time:
http://www.lisforloser.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Im-a-LOSER-yellow.png

The system should also shame players who leave or no-show by calling them out in an overlay. And it should play this sound: https://archive.org/download/SoundEffectLoser/Sfx-PriceIsRightLoser.mp3

In terms of ‘how long is long enough’ in terms of waiting for a match: compute the average time of a single hot-join match and multiply it by ~1.3. That’s your wait time. (one full hot-join match, with some slack) Anything longer is too long.

There’s your solution. It does not handle malicious cases where someone swaps out a character and creates a ‘triple warrior’ team, but it’s the 90% solution and that’s probably good enough. Let players report the guy/girl that toon swaps to violate the rules.

If you want you can hire me and I’ll come over and code it, too.

Apart from rule 4 (to prone to abuse imo) this is what should have the highest priority of addressing right now.

Another, perhaps better, but more time-consuming solution would be to introduce a match start screen similar to certain MOBA’s where there is a class/role selection and ready up phase. More than one minute wait in the game is fairly pointless.
Individual skill is very important (although less so in the current meta) but on high ranked solo queue games I can predict most outcomes based on role setups. And having a 2nd bunkguard or 2nd zerkroamer enter in the last second usually just instantly kills the match. There’s hardly anything as frustrating as being forced to relog to a mid point bunk only to have another join last second. In conquest the entire team composition just overrules individual skill. But I strongly believe that the examined changes to the matchmaking isn’t the right place to fix this. People are quick to blame the entire system whereas the users are in reality just not using the system in the right way, the system should encourage the players to use it the right way. The current system wasn’t designed with competitive solo queue in mind. Class/role/ready selection does that, 5v5 hotjoins (as default) does that, forced ready does that. I honestly think that pvp does not need more overly complicated (5v5) game modes, but I do think that the accessibility of conquest should still be improved. The amount of players who don’t really understand conquest right now are just the evidence for this. And imo the system rewarding (daily) players for brainless double capping of points etc. is prove that the system doesn’t even try…

TLDR: Profession restriction isn’t necessary if everything works fine (balance & other system mechanics). Profession restrictions outside of the matchmakingprogress is an improvement for now but addressing the underlying reasons is the real solution.

Yasha.5963:

Jelger.6758:

Many tPvP players will understand that KotH with one capture point in the middle of the map would be a lot like Legacy of the Foefire without keep and side nodes.
Keep vs keep will be Legacy of the Foefire without the nodes and with added NPC’s and WvW elements.
MOBA will be like Legacy of the Foefire with added NPC’s and towers.
CTF will be similar to Spirit watch but without the nodes.

Most of these suggested modes are switching the main and secondary mechanics of conquest around. All these ‘modes’ could work and be lot’s of fun - but don’t expect them to change the entire play experience. That said, they will be a great improvement to the current sPvP scene. Generally speaking I wouldn’t expect these modes to draw large numbers of new players to GW2. They would cater to different groups within the PvE and WvW communities, which could potentially turn them into sPvP regulars. But this would mostly come from the renewed communication and labels (New CTF mode available! vs New conquest map: Spirit watch) than because of an intrinsically different sPvP experience.

Well, playing a MOBA doesn’t feel anything like the current game mode in gw2 so I think you are overgeneralizing, kind of like saying brussel sprouts are the same as roast chicken because they are both food. Same for CtF, although that might be somewhat closer.

Its an interesting point though. What are the primary differences between the current gw2 game mode and other game types like MOBA? What makes the MOBA set up incredibly popular and so much fun to play?

I would say the scoring system and game progression are fundamentally different.

In mobas there is a “real” sense of progress, in terms of both character power and territory “captured”. GW2 is very abstract in a way. You take these kind of meaningless circles and build points, get enough points and win.

Mobas and are not based on a “score” but on an actual objective (kill lord/destroy base), and progress toward the goal is measured in tangible terms such as towers destroyed, npc/player upgrades etc.

The player progress is also key, I think. It gives the exciting element of levelling-up and gearing-up that we have in pve while providing a totally level playing field for pvp, all in one 30-40 min game sitting.

I think there is room to really push the bounds of the established thinking of what a “battle-ground” is in mmos. GW2 is set up like a moba in some ways-limited skill set, level playing field, can start pvping straight away; but the current game mode is locked into the mmo mindset imo.

Hey Yasha, I certainly didn’t mean to overgeneralize, but my point certainly wasn’t to insinuate that playing a MOBA and Conquest feel the same. I wanted to point out that there are several elements that are quite similar. Take for example the roles, while being far less obvious in conquest, there are plenty of similarities between the roles in both games.

I wholly agree with you on the subject of the game progression being fundamentally different. The sense of progress that you speak of is indeed psychologically enticing. And perhaps feels better than the points and nodes currently captured in conquest. But it’s exactly these mechanics that allow for easier comebacks and a fairer sense of play.

I think the deciding difference between MOBA’s and Conquest is the level of understanding. In both games it’s hard to find out what works and what doesn’t. But in a MOBA the general goal and task of everyone is far more obvious. It’s really hard for players in GW2 to get meaningful feedback of what they’re doing right and wrong. I strongly suspect that most players genuinely don’t know that it’s stupid to move and capture nodes in a group. It’s also far harder to tell your teammates what the best course of action is, or to communicate anything tbh. I feel that the sPvP scene in general could be improved greatly by relatively small additions like player tips and easier communication.

If it gets balanced to do the same dmg/effect as an on crit sigil it’ll just be a very minor buff to a very select few builds. Not a big deal really. I realize that there are a whooping 11 on crit sigils that non crit builds don’t have access to, but only 2/3 of these really see much use. – But let’s be honest, the sigils and runes should just be properly redesigned as a whole. Changing them from crit to hit wouldn’t really be worth the time at this point. And adding on hit sigils would be even worse. Too much clutter and illusion of choice already.

“Keep vs keep, MOBA, KotH, CTF, “GvG” – popular suggestions
The second concept seems draw inspiration from GW1 and WvW alike, at times even borrowing from the other MOBA suggestions. The general consensus here seems to be that you win once you defeat the enemy lord. There are some really creative and intelligent ideas in these posts but at times these lead to some pretty intense suggestions of things that should be changed in order to make their suggestion work.
Let us assume that no mechanisms are going to be reworked, and balancing would be shared with conquest mode. The options for keep vs keep, MOBA, KotH and CTF are nothing more than an innocent shift from the 3 capture nodes to a different victory condition. I think there is a lot of room for many of these ideas to work. But let’s not fool ourselves, the current system and balancing will require a certain way to operate.

Many tPvP players will understand that KotH with one capture point in the middle of the map would be a lot like Legacy of the Foefire without keep and side nodes.
Keep vs keep will be Legacy of the Foefire without the nodes and with added NPC’s and WvW elements.
MOBA will be like Legacy of the Foefire with added NPC’s and towers.
CTF will be similar to Spirit watch but without the nodes.

Most of these suggested modes are switching the main and secondary mechanics of conquest around. All these ‘modes’ could work and be lot’s of fun - but don’t expect them to change the entire play experience. That said, they will be a great improvement to the current sPvP scene. Generally speaking I wouldn’t expect these modes to draw large numbers of new players to GW2. They would cater to different groups within the PvE and WvW communities, which could potentially turn them into sPvP regulars. But this would mostly come from the renewed communication and labels (New CTF mode available! vs New conquest map: Spirit watch) than because of an intrinsically different sPvP experience.

Thank you for reading, if there are any questions regarding my way too long and overdue post please let me know.

PS: I would personally love to hear the dev’s point of view on 3 v 3 Arena’s as a new mode. As i personally think this has the most potential for ArenaNet and the amount of sPvP players in general.

1 v 1 (/ arena)- popular suggestion
Personally i don’t believe in 1 v 1 as an arena game mode, but! Proper 1 on 1’ing is something the community has practically demanded since the start of the game and many have actually been doing for better and for worse. While 1 v 1 as an arena game mode isn’t a good idea (as many have pointed out already), supplying the tools needed to play 1 on 1’s in a more optimized setting is simple and effective. By creating simple maps(based on the existing themes) optimized for 1 on 1, allowing these to rotate would be all that’s needed to increase the popularity of the custom arena’s and PvP by itself. It won’t draw new people to sPvP, but it will have a positive impact on the frequency of play and allow for effective and meaningful completion of PvP daillies. It would simply serve as a “hotjoin” friendly alternative for many people. A negative result will be an increase in 1 v 1 builds in other game modes. Something that both the community and developers can react to. Allowing easy switching between multiple builds/templates for example – something that having multiple game modes quickly cries out for.

3 v 3 arena (and 2 v 2/5 5 v 5) – popular suggestion
If there is any suggested game mode that will succeed in drawing more players (new and old ones alike) to GW2 it will be 3 v 3 arena’s. I suspect 2 v 2 to bring too many balancing issues and 5 v 5 quickly turns into an AoE clusterduck which diminishes build viability and viewing pleasure greatly. Having more than one new arena format added will just split out the player base as well. Adding 3 v 3 arena’s goes great with the gameplay of GW2 and has the most positive effects on all the stakeholders that are looking for a accessible new PvP game mode. Implementation is manageable in the same fashion as the 1 v 1 suggestion – few new maps to rotate through and a separate option within custom arena’s. A similar addition as current arena’s for queue’ing and leaderboards. Leaderboards preferably fashioned based on team rating over personal rating.
Expected negative effects will be the decrease of conquest popularity, which many new competitive game modes carry with them.
Expected positive effect will be the attraction of new players to PvP and GW2.

“GvG” – zergrush – popular suggestion
Let us start by abandoning the ridiculous name of GvG. Nearly any form of play can be engaged in by guilds and the only thing the title seems to suggest is a limitation of accessibility. It may score points for relevance to the game’s title and nostalgia, but that’s about it.

There seem to be 2 general ideas that are called GvG. First we have the “zergrush” suggestion. Which is the good old vocal WvW community expressing their dearest wish to be taken seriously as a competitive form of play. Adding this as a competitive mode right now would be rubbish for a plethora of reasons. But i do feel that these people should be given a proper platform to organize, practice and execute their large group battles. There is no shortage of demand, but I suspect the amount of use it will see in general to be relatively low. None the less this was an opportunity that should’ve been wholly embraced with the introduction of custom arena’s. They seem to want nothing more than an empty field and an option to allow for a greater number of players. I see no reason why this can’t be a win-win scenario for everyone.

I love all the creative ideas in this thread! That said I feel that this discussion in general is overlooking the diverse groups of players within an MMO. Too often I see terms like “many people would like this” and “my friends would start playing again”.

Stakeholders
When working on concepts it’s always extremely important to keep a close watch on all the stakeholders involved. To get a good idea about the impact of the changes we suggest, it’s highly recommended to carefully identify and split all the stakeholders involved. There are in fact many suggestions in this thread that cater to different needs from different kinds of players. And some groups may very well be more vocal than others. The vocality and different needs from different players do not carry the same weight however. To illustrate: if everyone in the game received a pop-up with a multiple choice question, asking them want game mode they would like to see added to PvP I daresay that that 1v1 option would be the most popular, and the gw1’ish suggestions would score relatively poor. This data of course means very little in this discussion, but hopefully does illustrate the matter that different audiences wish for different additions. What person X would like to see added – might not be what person Y’s friends would return to the game for.

Why all of this matters is because of a simple but vital assertion: Adding game modes will inevitably affect the current PvP user base.
I firmly believe that carelessly adding new game modes will spread out the existing user base. But when done correctly , i believe that added modes and maps can in fact increase the user base and frequency of play. Similarly: some suggestions are so dislocated from the current sPvP scene that they may bring in new groups of players entirely, or actually harm the existing sPvP user base.

A stakeholder analysis can get very long-winded and would be over the top, for the sake of this discussion I’ll try to limit the stakeholders to: sPvP regulars, PvE’ers, WvW’ers and prospects (potential GW2 players).
A broader stakeholder analysis might divide players in more specific groups, you won’t hear me talk about the needs beginners, veteran pvp’ers or GW1 nostalgics for example. Nor will i discuss the aesthetics of games. I’m assuming sPvP is designed for players who wish to experience competition as a main psychological need[sup]1[/sup].

Ideal results would be to:
Increase frequency of play within sPvP regulars;
Attract more players from PvE;
Attract more players from WvW;
Attract new players to GW2.

When discussing game modes, attracting new players to GW2 is mostly limited to increasing the public perception of PvP in GW2 (through current GW2 players/streams).

I feel that for every game mode added or even for every significant action done it is important to consider who the target audience is and how the change will/might impact the other audiences/stakeholders.

Conquest – current mode
First of all, i really like conquest. I feel that it is a strong and intelligent mix between team deathmatch and MOBA style games. Where i feel that conquest mode falls short is in “hot join” games. Conquest requires players to understand and perform different roles as well as having a extensive understanding of the game system without any ingame communication (tutorial etc) explaining this. The easygoing nature of hot join doesn’t mix well with the way conquest is meant to be played.
Seeing as conquest mode isn’t a new addition, there is very little opportunity for it in this thread, mainly risks.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

If a Thief is stunned or dazed he shouldn’t be able to use Infiltrator’s Return. You need to add some punishment if a Sword Thief is caught without a stunbreaker up. You need to chip in some separators between average thieves and GREAT thieves. A GREAT Thief would use Infiltrator’s Return before the stun arrives, that’s good reward. An average Thief wouldn’t have the timing to avoid the stun and therefor would be punished.

Skill vs Reward/Punishment is something we need
Infiltrator’s Return can’t be the “OH SHIET” button. That’s not very balanced for competitive play.

Introducing this fix, would you go as far as not going foward with this cast time increase and maybe reducing initiative cost? What are your thoughts on this?

I agree with your philosophy about skill vs reward/punishment, but i’m afraid that with both the dec 10th and your suggestion thieves will really have no business in teamfights anymore. 4v4 & 5v5 are already a clusterduck, and with all the past SB nerfs thieves will just be too squishy and too underwhelming to bring anything to the table. I agree with your solution from a 1v1/2v2 perspective, but expecting to shadow return before getting hit by any form of cc before in a 4v4/5v5 is too much to ask. Having a norn or some petshop on my screen shouldn’t mean instant death.

Moreover i feel that a thieves vantage point should be mobility and being hard to catch, the s/d evade spam was silly, but thieves are immensely dependent on evading and mobility right now, which is great fun, but also a slippery slope. Even with your suggestion we’d just get wrecked on fear #2 etc.

manveruppd.7601:

So, while this is a much bigger discussion beyond the scope of this thread, I put it to the developers that new game modes won’t be enough. Ways must also be found to slow down the pace of the game and encourage more team plays. There are some interesting mechanics in the game that are great for team fights (combo fields, the rally system etc), which don’t really live up to their full potential in the 1v1s and 2v2s that form the majority of fights in Conquest.

Right now i think that combo fields and finishers are ideal for fights of 2-5 scale, that way you can really play around them, and all of them have a use. Moreover i’m certain that slowing the pace of the game in fact destroys all that makes the current fluid action so great. Slowing the pace has a positive impact on zergplay – negative impact on small skirmishes. Moreover I feel that the rally mechanics are perfect for 2-5 scale as well. It is exactly in larger fights that everyone just spams blindly hoping to rally before getting cleaved down.

Patching now, dunno about everyone else, but similar to some other guy on a earlier page it happened to me after running a windows update (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830/en-us) <- seems unrelated tho.