Guild Wars 2

kirito.4138:

savov.3712:

After ~2k hours spent in the mists, 3011 tourny game played…

Sounds like well spent ~40-60 bucks. Works out to about 2-3 penny for 1hr of entertainment.

I think it is wrong for the time invested and what other investments were available at that time (real life tasks for example).
I think I am not the only one with around double that amount regretting many hours spent. But anyway, real value doesn’t come from the financial investment.

Edit: Mistake there, it is not superficial but rather flawed. The enjoyment of a customer is non-linear. This is also why a lot of customer data is gathered and evaluated. Putting it down to numbers doesn’t do it justice.

Super Riceman.8702:

Playing for the experience has not worked, no one wants to play sPvP because it puts a stop to earning actual rewards. No one is forcing PvE players to play PvP because there are other ways to access the same rewards. The population has died because sPvP stands on its own and is useless to all other players that don’t care about the leaderboards.

I want to add or disagree to/with a few things, but not without explanation.
I first want to say that I think why playing for experience has failed so far is that the experience hasn’t been much worthwhile yet. Less so than months ago. Incentives which are outside of rewards like skins are not really given. Leader-boards are not as fair as many players want, balance is off, some design choices seem flawed, efforts from Anet seem rather more of a band-aid than healing a wound.
I think secondary rewards cannot fix this issue. This is also a reason I recommended changes to make sPvP stand out by its own, which Shiren mentioned in an earlier post. sPvP just doesn’t look appealing with only first class incentives.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lots of cool ideas here that I’ve been using in my arguments as of late. Been pushing to adjust the meta quite a bit.

ah please please please please please do not remove 8 vs 8 games from anet’s hotjoin servers

If Custom Arenas can be purchased and maintained by rather inexpensive means, I think it is better for 8vs8 Standard Servers to be removed or changed to 5vs5. Custom Arenas will do the job instead and I am sure that there will be active ones.
Aside this, I hope tutorials can explain that things above 5vs5 will be imbalanced if 5vs5 will be the (main) competitive format, which it has been so far.
I would also not mind any toggle option for 5vs5 servers in the NPC Menu.

I haven’t gone over the class-specific things yet but I am pretty much for the general stuff, except for the Legacy of Foefire change. So +1 on all the other general stuff.
One things which bugs me though, since I haven’t played for around 2 months, is if the frame data for each skill is the same on every class. If so, the toggle option should be no problem. Else, there has to be a different solution to make it completly fair.

Small edit already: I feel that most of the pvp achievements are not really meaningful and just brings in PvE-players for the sake of points. I would instead like to have that being directed to rewards listed in your list. Karma, tickets, etc. I would also like to see real PvP-rewards from laurel vendors. Meaning that (CA) tickets can be purchased from them. Monetizing tickets is, from my view, to some extent a slap in the face for PvP’ers. An other example are class titles. They mean nothing. Okay, maybe champion ones, but there has been “Lf Rank +X” shouted in map chat. With that, I think the achievement system has to be changed to reflect progress more meaningful in a more competitive manner.

- Keep sPvP seperated, but emphasize on its possible charm. There are differences in sPvP, WvW and PvE. This means that split balance allows for reasonable balancing. It is fairly irrational to think of a fairly balanced game-type if there are other, “non-involved” (I cannot find the proper word or phrase here) influences.
- Stop trying to monetize sPvP now. Many players are frustrated, they won’t buy anything or at least not much. Instead, focus on making sPvP grow out of its undead state and implement few, but high-quality items, bundles, etc. in the gem-store. Additionally, there are some fun items. Finishers are somewhat okay in this case, but they are still too pricy for pure-sPvP’ers. So: DON’T FORCE PLAYERS (or make them feel forced)!
- Get tutorial maps in a la allowing a single player to join one of the maps to try out the map mechanics. Keep it separate from the NPC-queues or servers. Have it probably in the PvP-Menu under an additional tag. With this, a 1-man-Battle-of-Kyhlo-Map allows to take the trebuchet in the mists out.
- Take the NPCs (Svanir, Chieftain, Class ones, Golems) in the mists out and give a NPC map a la Training Stages/Rooms in Fighting games. Make it that the training room is individual but friends or guildies can be invited. Bring new players into the training area, making it somewhat of a quest where you follow a NPC (Spirit-like one maybe), before this, have a specially designed map as a tutorial. Enable it that players can leave it once they have done it once. (Under options, maybe popping up a window when accidently joining the tutorial map and skipping it if enabled before) Make the tutorial map being joined when going to the mists.
(These last two points are also changes for aesthetics)
- Have an in-game leader-board-menu. Take the site you have off as soon as it is implemented. It is just a waste of space if not.
- Put back difficulty and depth in the game, sPvP or most games are, when played rated or competitive, hardcore. It is a reason why it is competitive for a long time since the difficulty and depth allows to learn a lot and improve a lot over a long time. What I consider being a good change, as others do, much less passive play and AI. I am not sure how there can be further depth and difficulty though since I know it ain’t an easy-to-answer question. I think unlocking the locks on weapons and skills may be important later on. Traits are partly okay, but some are just useless in the meta or have way too many down-sides with way too few up-sides. I think I can only give situational examples now (aka meta-dependent).
- Get a PTR for everyone done. It helps a ton more to get feedback and a good set of methods to rationally and reasonably evaluate data can be made from it.

I think it is kind of a bit tricky to monetize sPvP, I have yet not found a clear and very effective solution, but trying to monetize it right now is just giving a disrespectful impression.

@Allie, forward this to Karl, if you can: Don’t balance Guild Wars 2 around UmvC3, it is not balanced (known in their community) and the difficulty is way, way higher in it than in Guild Wars 2. Instead, Guilty Gear may be a good source of inspiration since it has fairly easy controls as much as I have heard while still maintaining a good amount of depth and difficulty.

Lastly, I feel like way too many people think black & white nowadays. There is a lot of grey area too, which makes things more complex and fun to evaluate and learn. This kind of ties in to listening to all players but to certain extents.
Anyway, I am done with Guild Wars 2 for an unforsee-able time. If it were to blow up, I would maybe play it again. Else, it is really not a good competitive game (anymore), since it is miles away from bigger titles or series. Neither is it fun anymore. :/ (It honestly lost its charm for me around January)

tl;dr: Read the whole text. I also agree with Sensotix, Oblivion and a few others, while acknowledging it is more complex than a simple yes and no.

P.S.: Stop being irrational, take failure for what it is and learn from it. Denying failure is naive. And things have failed with Guild Wars 2 (and other failures may come).

P.S.(2): I just saw Super’s post. I forgot to mention, some old players may be inactive which explains why not all players give feedback. I had been playing for around a year, never in Alpha either. I think this is flawed since the meta evolved too. Older, inactive players cannot give much of a feedback (if they do not play much on Alpha, even less).
Also, I heard testings are done with WvW-&PvE-Players which can distort. (No offense but a certain bias is likely since they do not regularly play sPvP) (Basically what Super wrote in the last paragraph and I can back it up with what I heard too)

I want to explain why opening up to everyone is partially flawed.
I have read quite some posts in here and agree to listening to all players to some degree but not to the same.
And this is the same for balancing and other issues.
It is not the same for everyone, it applies differently for the experience and skill level of various players as well as what circumstances one finds him- or herself in.
This being said, feedback has to be evaluated in the same matter.
While one semi-experienced player may find issues with certain builds, attacks, situations, a top-experienced player may have much less issues. I recommend here keeping the top level fair, balanced and skillful. This does not mean lower tiers should be neglected. A competitive game cannot be held alive though if there isn’t much depth and the requirements to compete with the best are lowered as much as making experience lose a lot of its value. I think it is reasonable to listen to top players more but not neglect any group of players. sPvP is to be the highly-competitive part in Guild Wars 2, so it is gonna be hardcore. Making things casual-friendly can be done by 5vs5-Custom-Servers which do not take much of a farm or grind and allow players to play the game to their liking.
However, I think a bigger issue is accessibility and most people hide their real complain under balance. (I agree balance has gotten way worse over a 1-year-span)
The game modes are fairly few, Hotjoin has probably not changed for 2 months, so it is still a zerg-fest, the secondary rewards for playing are a grind and do not hold much of a value (cosmetics of which there are way more in PvE), no financial income to enjoy other parts of the game or be able to afford certain things, leaderboards were wished but (I think) all competitive players wished for a much higher decay.
I want to give some recommendations in how to fix these things possibly:

- Have a specific currency only for PvP, allowing to buy Gem Store or other PvP rewards by certain amounts. Gem Store items cost a lot more, obviously. This won’t bring chaos into the trading post market and have you take a breath. (Basic rewards; there can be special ones as I saw in Romek’s thread)
- Change the achievement system. Most of these achievements are meaningless. Why also have achievement points for sPvP’ers ? (Let them get the rewards for matches played instead)
- Decay is a bit of a tricky thing. Competitive players will play a lot of matches per day/week/month. A permanent decay is important, it should come in when players do not play, not when they also play. The amount can be gradually higher for the amount of time spent being inactive.
- Some rewards are PvP-only. Give some incentives which can only be attained from sPvP and be of use in PvE and WvW too.
- Take 8vs8 out and put them into custom servers. They have really no place. If one wants to play with higher number of players on each team, they can get a cheap custom-arena and change the settings. These servers can be made public, of course.
- Implement the rated and unrated queues you have planned for ages. I gives room for players to enjoy their time or play serious. Having put paid and free together had been one big mistake.
- Make the game non-grindy. sPvP is not about grinding meaningless stuff but having fulfillment out of personal progression (or group-progression). I am confused how the rank system got live since it shows its flaws quite clearly once the inflation of rank points is known. (Most players just grinded out rank points near the beginning of the game as information was meager)
- Get the income for the development out of PvE and/or WvW. They have the largest player-base and a lot of casual players probably are somewhat financially the backbone.

milo.6942:

Because their programming department is 80% dedicated to pve and 20% chasing bugs.

Flies, Crickets, Moths, Wasps ?
(No offense to the developers here, just a little joke on the side)

@ milo
Welcome to modern economy.
Sad how the quality suffers nowadays. All due to profit. There is not much substantial artistic progression, but maybe us old gamers grew (to some extent) out of gaming too and we have seen the flaws. (I see the flaws in older systems but I think there is some mystique charm to it with the shortcomings it had)

@ OP
This game is good, but it isn’t great. Most competitive players came to this game out of nostalgia and/or having heard of its e-sports marketing. It hasn’t been fulfilled and the standard for competitive games had been set higher over the years. That is how the scene works.
I have seen passion coming from the developers (respect to that), but it doesn’t equal success. Effort and learning out of mistakes equals progression and ultimately success. This game is way more an expression of art than a competitive game.

@ Henry/Lordrosicky
I have recently started to play fighting games. (You can say I switched to them)
The difference in skill requirement is much higher there, though it has some simple concepts too.
You get bodied, punished and what not there, but it comes with knowledge and skill to be able to pull it off (which this game lacks to some extent).
Things you can pull off here are way too easy to do. (7 buttons with CDs)
I understand why it has been made so simple as it allows to pick-up the game easier. It can benefit a lot from less chaos and more depth and difficulty though.
Props to the fluidity of the combat though.

A really nice read there.
Some things reflect on the state of my frustration, e.g. unauthentic leader-boards and simpler and more satisfying rewards.
I think there should be a gradually higher decay on leader-boards the longer your inactivity is. And you should not get your initial rating back but stay in an area around your rating if you play again.
A league system which has been mentioned on the forums before will help much more though, I think. MMR, for example, is much better as you only play in your own league. Additionally, TeamQ needs an overhaul too, cause there are no teams but single players on it.
The rewards right now are just not as satisfying as when a PvE-/WvW-Player comes into sPvP, they can easily get their daily and monthly done to have more benefits for their own types. If we step out of sPvP, we have a char presumably at level 2, some laurels maybe and very few gold if at all. Dyes are just a gamble and it isn’t fun to click on a lot of stuff just for a chance on a few gold. So gem rewards or a glory -> gem conversion would be darn nice.
Regarding dishonor, the punishment is very forgiving. It should be much less time if somebody is afk to kick and punish. (It will benefit rated and unrated SoloQ the most)

Oh and we get a LFG-Tool soon.

That argument against more Ranger Pet skills…really ?
I played WoW and Aion and there were a kitten-ton more of skills to use at any time.
Just having 2-3 won’t be hard.
(At first maybe in WvW/PvE due to the state of ranger in there, but it will be fine after a bit of time)

All american streamers aside Caed. Too few carrots eaten nowadays. (J/k)
And Denshee too.

(Ostrich takes the cake though, followed by CmC. Rooting for ya, man!)

Super Smash Bros Melee is a very technical game (Wavedashing, L-Cancel, Shield Grab are a few (Basics)). GW2 has different dynamics than it. Saying it is a casual game is flawed. It can be played casually but some have played it for years, have practiced a lot of hours just to execute a certain technique. It isn’t easy to play it competitively.
Evo also had around ~140k for SSBM. UmvC3 got over 150k (possibly 160k).

This game has a lot of potential with its combat mechanics though but the current balance has made things so simple and rewarding.

Killsmith.8169:

JonathanSharp.7094:

-Too long post to quote-

Whether you like it or not, you guys already have 3 different games. Each game type has a different structure, different rules, and different goals. I get where you’re going with your analogy, but it’s flawed. You aren’t answering the same question in three languages. You’re answering English questions in English, Japanese questions in Japanese, and Greek questions in Greek.

The way you’re doing it now, you have to come up with a fix for one game type that doesn’t effect the other two too badly. I would argue that it takes more work to do that than it does to split the skills and balance to solve issues unique to each game type. The upkeep shouldn’t be costly at all, you just don’t fix what isn’t broken. What could be more cost effective than that?

I fully agree on it and love the debunking of the arguments given before. They cannot really fix anything properly if they try to balance all 3 types together.

I just filled in the survey too (I suppose, next screen confuses me).
I think though that everything, except Legendaries (who cares at this point to be fair) will benefit this game. Legendaries should be the last priority.

I think I had a similar issue as Arys quite recently.
I did every Hardmode today and finished the one for World 2 Zone 3 around 40 minutes ago. Every other chest had baubles (Mini-Bosses) and a token for a skin.
As for the Storm Wizard, I only found an open chest.

Is there a maximum for rewards from chests for Hardmode ? (@Vince)

@ Gametypes
I agree on what has been said there. I think Conquest holds some builds back and allows a different balance than TDM would have. It also forces activity due to the capture point mechanic.
Having TDM as fun mode in Custom Arenas would not hurt though. Give us more options in CA.

@ Rewards & Leaderboards
I told Karl about it on stream yesterday. Set all current armor to glory so it gets very similar to the PvE equivalent in form of progression.
Give seasons to the leader-boards, but fix them first. The decay is too slow for inactive players which rewards not playing instead of playing. It should be the other way around.
At the end of the season, you could also give out titles or certain things similar to the world map completion star. (I recommend titles here)
Someone whom I have talked with on stream and who has posted a thread here on forums, recommended a league system in it. Having it in the future would help a lot too, each league with its own boards. But focus on others things first and make the TeamQ leader-boards only show teams and fix the decay on SoloQ leader-boards.

@ Tutorials
Have them explain all the stats, effects, etc., so newer players aren’t left in the dark at first. Have each tutorial be separated. Explain certain details too. (Like how Push cannot move downed players)
Reward them for finishing tutorial once, let the tutorial be repeatable though. A reward can be something like a 5k-Glory-Item, so new players can purchase some Rabbit Rank stuff.

This is it for now. If I find more things to mention, I will edit them into this post.

P.S.: Since PvE and WvW get more ascended items, numbers will be even more off.

Edit:

@ Ranks & Hotjoin
Currently we have that Skyhammer Farm. That should not be.
Ranks mean nothing like in GW1.
So limit the amounts of points gained in Hotjoin, increase the rank points from a tournament like it has been mentioned in other threads. The order is: Hotjoin → Unrated SoloQ → Unrated TeamQ → Rated SoloQ → Rated TeamQ. Reward points for winning and losing only.

@ Tournaments
Bring in unrated tournaments so we have rated tournaments as completely for competitive things.

@ Analogy from MTG
Every game has it, yes. My class has been in a darn good position so far and I would not really mind being in a worse position with it than it has been so far.
However, the current amount of builds viable due to the strength of a few is just no fun after such a long time. Especially with having had an unenjoyable meta for 2 months.
I think though we agree that is is best to do something good for the game, but the question is, what is good ?

@ Shaving vs Whack a Mole
My question is if it is possible to have a bigger patch at the end of each month while we have a small balance patch every 2 weeks, changes based on better feedback than now.

@ Splitting
I have played all 3, not as much as most players in their own fields, but to some extent. Friends of mine have started in PvE/WvW and came to PvP. Some of them have jumped in PvE/WvW quite a while ago. I think it is fun to do all 3 simultaneously and it probably won’t limit the fun as there as things to do then.
However, the current balance limits the amount of builds in all 3 types. I do not want to see any compromises between all 3 types. Instead, let the potential be expressed through a split balance so numbers and effects can be adjusted. I really doubt, things will flourish without it.
I know it is more work, but the reward for everyone is higher, developers included, I think. It also keeps things fresh, which is good. There is something new to learn.
Why limit oneself to only one culture or language, when more can be learned ?
I also think, if it should happen, many of us players will gladly help newer ones. The now-inactive mentor-program has shown it.

I want to give some feedback on the first 4 posts, Jon. We have talked a bit on stream before but I think that hasn’t been all too substantial.
So let me go over the points you mentioned in your posts. Sorry if I break any rules with mentioning your first name to address you.

@ Pax
It has been an event quite a lot of us sPvP’ers have eagerly awaited for new information about changes regarding PvP. I understand you had a schedule which did not really had any PvP aside the tourney. The introduction didn’t look so professional though and I know at least a few of my friends and I had to cringe. In the future, try to introduce the players properly. A famous LoL-caster has a video on Youtube and a document explaining shout-casting. If you introduce a team and its players, mention their career so far. What has their time spent in GW2 been like so far ? With whom have they played ? How was the performance at separate teams with which people and how has it been overall ? There is a lot that can be done to improve.
In addition to this, the shoutc-asting needs to change a bit cause for all competitive players, we know what is going on more or less, but newer or non-competitive players may not understand certain actions, so explain the reasoning behind it. Explain how it changes a possible outcome too and how it affects the process.

@ Passion
Okay, I understand you are very passionate about the game, even though things are not in the bad state. Much respect on that. You are not the only one who is passionate about his career though. And what I see lacking very much is showing humility. I think most sPvP-players have by now seen that your statements are usually generic. I do not understand where it comes from though.
Instead, it want you to talk to us more, immerse more into the discussion. It is known from other games, that developers may lack certain experience or knowledge long-time players have due to them having embraced things much more. There is nothing ashamed of.
Instead, please work on your communication with us. We try to give constructive criticism, but so far it looks like we try to hit something in the dark. We get no accurate questions where developers see issues and for what reasons.
You can talk to us more in-game as well as on the forums. (Though I recommend a public test server or actions towards something like it)

@ Data
No one of us is a machine, I understand your frustration as much as the one from the competitive players, myself included. There has been a lot of time and effort spent on the game from both sides. That is why you have to work on communication so we can improve the game together without blaming each other.

@ Balance
I understand that certain things come up when they are tested for a while, so a meta can evolve due to a different perception.
However, one thing many of us see, is that for example the insta-casts from elementalists are not something even top players like Karsai and Denshee are fond of.
You have to look into what the mechanic is like too. Something like Skull Crack or Chain-Fear from Mark and Spectral Wall is no fun to play against, especially used right. There is not much skill involved in stunning a target for few seconds and 100b it. Especially when played on asura with less obvious animations.
Currently, the condition meta overshadows the old power meta, where I favor the old old one over the new. Both have broken parts, I recommend looking in them. I think players others than me, having mained other classes than Guardian, can help you with these. Listen to them please. Minimize the amount of broken mechanics and skill.

Lol. It got revived.
And game still in a miserable state.

That argument about “Don’t stand on point!” is invalid as the enemy can position him- or herself in a way that when being targeted, AoE can be be utilized by the team or him/her.
Besides, AoE is spammed on maps like Forest and Kyhlo where all points are small. Spamming AoEs is no skillful play.

He plays Mesmer in PvP.
But warrior has become a very, very forgiving class with the new healing signet and its longer lasting CCs (coupled with high damage on Hammer).

If you watched the recent shoutcast of the match of Scnd and VII, you may understand that for a viewer, whether WvW or PvP, it is not really easy to notice what is going on. With higher numbers of characters, the amount of effects and particles rises.
It is fun and understandable if you play it, but watching matches like the PAX finals and that GvG feels horrible to me.
Regarding GvG, there will be different builds than we have in sPvP. Mainly for minimizing/maximizing stats and no points to keep care of. I assume there will be complaints too.

What we need is a split balance, there is really no way around. We have different numbers of Stats in PvP. Conquest is being played differently than Death-match too.

We have S/F Eles on EU. They do somewhat okay.

@ Puma Every class is viable but some are underwhelming. (I heard this from some of my friends too)

This has partly been mentioned in an other thread today.
However, the idea of special skins has not been mentioned there. They cannot be given out during a season though but after a season. As a reward for the performance before.

RustyEyeballs.8927:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

If they would use it on the current system, it is not authentic due to the very weak decay on the boards.

Even if the current ladder is flawed, it is more important to give players a something to work toward. A tread mill. A hook to keep playing. A Skill based progression system.

I see 5 players on the second page who haven’t played for at least around 2 weeks. Others play more often and have lower positions. That is not fair.
Especially since SoloQ is a bit of a gamble too. You can get lucky and get teamed up with good players for more than 1 match and earn some wins. You can also get bad matches, putting you against a few good players while your team holds unexperienced players.

If they would use it on the current system, it is not authentic due to the very weak decay on the boards. A lot of players just do not play SoloQ atm and keep their rating still high.

I agree on it. It is really the best and most fair system we could get (in my eyes). (Cause MMR is so widely taken for queues now too)
What matters is though if there are enough resources for it to happen (in the future).

Complete splitting is really what this game needs to have a proper balance.
Right now, every format (PvE, WvW, sPvP) has to compromise something.
Having things be differently in sPvP will keep it fresh too.

Follidus, I just went over the european list and I saw a few inactive players on the list.
These are: Pharexys, Ottigan, Lorienda, Kirei and Zoose. I am also not sure if Danto still plays (Maybe Helseth knows).
You can also add me to every Guardian stuff (so also to Hotjoin) and Overall Tournament Strategy.

P.S.: How about we split the Tournament stuff into SoloQ and TeamQ ?

PvE, WvW and PvP all have their problems.
Blaming it on one of these is just no good. Instead we better focus on having a different, way more transparent communication with the developers altogether.
We also require proper splitting at this point to make it satisfying for all of us. If possible, it helps the game a lot to have developers not switching from stuff to stuff and a higher amount of developers dedicated to one type in the game.
Aside this: Keeping the servers up, etc. cost money. We can be glad that PvE-Players pay for stuff in the gem store.

I agree on all 3 points.
The biggest issue I see is really the lack of proper decay. Checking upon the Glicko 2 System, things seem fine and there is also a Ratings Deviation. This isn’t taken into account on the boards though aka we, as players, cannot really see if the rating of Player X is accurate or not. But anyway, the decay (for not playing) we see on the leader-boards is just broken. And many people just do not play.

The titles a la “Challenger of the Arena” were given out for previous standings on the QP Leaderboards, not the ones we have now. It is:
Top 100 – Challenger of the Arena
Top 50 – Soldier of the Arena
Top 25 – Veteran of the Arena
Top 10 – Master of the Arena (I am not sure on this one)
Top 5 – Legend of the Arena

Paid Tournaments used to be in this game but got taken out months ago. February or March I think.

These are my top 10:

1. Unrated tournaments. Either keeping Hot-Join in, making it 5vs5 or taking it out of the game.

2. Different rank/reward-system. As mentioned in one of the posts before me, having rank points be rewarded for winning a match is a good solution. Alternatively, give special rewards to rank points and make the current armor just glory-based.

3. Proper Balance-Split of PvP from PvE/WvW. We are not the only ones who do not like this all-in-one-balacing though. I have heard that it limits all types. Involves Point 7 too.

4. Proper decay on leader-boards. Right now, the decay is way too low and people just do not play, making the leader-boards less authentic than they can be.

5. Filling in matches with 3vs5 and 4vs5. Punishment gotta be hard for leaving or being uncooperative. Make the bans gradually higher until one reaches a ban of like 72 hours for leaving 5 times.

6. What has been said in the post above this. Observer mode. Make it though that friends in a friendlist can only watch VoDs, no actual live match footage.

7. Update on sigils and runes. Remove some, change some. Can we get our own ones maybe ?

8. Templates. Makes it much easier to prepare for an upcoming match.

9. More game modes: Death-match, Capture The Flag, etc.. Make fun-modes which do not necessarily need any perfect balancing. To avoid any farm status though, let them give less rank points than the rated matches. Maybe even make it just a fun-mode without any kind of rank points. (I am not sure how to make other game modes a lot of fun and not be abused)

10. Clearer animations and and fairer use of race models.

The most important changes I consider for now are the first 3. We definately need a better infrastructure for newer players. The veterans under us are also kind of burnt out of the current meta. The other 7 points are somewhat unorganized by priority, but any kind of punishment for 3vs5/4vs5 and making it 5vs5 in rated matches is the most important point after the first 3.

P.S.: I may update this post later and add or change stuff.

0. PTR. I know it requires a lot of resources, but it is very important for the health of the game. Right now, I feel most things are too chaotic and requires way more testers.

In addition to a lot of good stuff in this thread:

Question: When will we see Unrated tournaments be implemented and Hot-Joins be removed ?
Right now, the environment is not really in favor of new players. With a new reward system on the way, ranks can fulfill a different purpose than now. So Hot-Join kind of becomes unnecessary for various reasons when we have unrated tournaments.

Edit: Forgot to ask too, can we get tutorial servers ? Like maybe even one of each map with an announcer explaining objectives. While there could be a general tutorial server explaining the various things like Stats, trait-system, skills, etc..

http://mistpedia.net/index.php/Main_Page

I agree with the post, Henry.
And also with the examples given.

/bump too
I would shorten ele and eng to el and en though.
And as it has been mentioned above, h for help.
This is a bit more complicated but l for eLementalist and i for engIneer may work too.

Sunni.2948:

I guess I can agree that some builds are basically run almost exclusively with the exception of some variation between the builds. What can be vastly different Is team composition.

Yeah but the thing is, on highest level, the comp is not so different for most teams. This is not good, this is not balance.
Balance means there are various comps with different playstyles and a fair chance on winning. (Can include certain comps which counter each other too, but not others)

I have not read through all the posts but I agree this meta has been the worst we have had so far due to some low-risk/high-reward builds which sadly dominate.
This should not be the case for the highest level in competitive games, especially since they lock the meta into a few builds again.

So what we need are more builds and viable comps.

Regarding the character lock, is it only during the match or does it include the pre-match phase too ?
If the latter, I am worried.

Yup, a split is necessary.
It is ineffective to keep things as they currently are if the dynamics and aspects of each sub-system are different.
This limits the potential of these.

I want to mention, too, that the last red post arguments on this topic have not been convincing to me since for example on long-term, there will be less work and everyone will be more satisfied. Constant short-term-focus is bad.

Archaon.6245:

Too late click is already mindlessly farming for 70

He won’t farm for 80 though.
Nearly 9 million rank points necessary…nobody will go for it.

1. Split queues with ranked and unranked tournaments as well proper SoloQ ( maaaaybe DuoQ ) and TeamQ
2. Rehauled reward and rank system. Give rank points for example only from tournaments and a higher amount with ranked matches. Give special rewards for ranks in addition to making all the current rewards ( weapons & armor sets ) available by glory. Else, seasonal leaderboards rewards, though seasons should not take more than 3-4 months.
3. More help for newer players. Better tutorials explaining stats too, even bringing a new player into a special map as seen with League of Legends. Upon entering the Heart of the Mists maybe some cut-scene or a short movie showing the various NPCs and training spots and explaining the purpose of these, even audio-visually.

Honorable mention: More maps and probably some fun-to-play game-modes like deathmatch.

For now I feel like the class-forums are a bit clustered up and most class-related topics for PvP are just being posted in the sPvP-forum. So we cannot get any proper feedback on classes from there.
It would help a lot if we could structure the class forums in PvE, WvW and sPvP.
As I mentioned in my suggestions forum section post too, good ideas can be spread to the other types of class forums for feedback.

I have thought about one of the old posts here yesterday which included to bring back the artwork competitions we have had in GW1. This brought up some ideas in my mind.
Bottom line of it is that I think we can expand the suggestion forum and structure it more optimal. It will help the developers more to find suggestions for one area.
What I want to see therefore is that we have an own dedicated forum section such as Support, Game Discussion, etc..
A few possible sub-forums can be:

• Artwork/Skins – We can post our own ideas of skins there which can be implemented for various purposes. Be it new zones, dungeons, events, etc.. We can also hold competitions by ourselves where we have a designated thread for posting sketches and one designated for voting which links to the other one where submissions are closed then though.
• Music – Fanmade scores which can even be taken, changed and implemented.
• Game Design – This one will be seperated in PvE, WvW and sPvP though, not seperated. If an idea in one of these sub-forums takes off, expand it to the other sub-forums and ask for feedback there.
• Gem-Store – Let people give their ideas about possible Gem-Store-Items and further improvement on it.

This is it for now. Feel free to give any constructive feedback and/or critisizm.

We basically lack a better infrastructure as we have only Hotjoing/Custom Arena and Free Tournaments.
The rewards are not really rewarding and do not give enough incentive. They are also off from the PvE-equivalents in the amount of effort necessary for get these, which has been mentioned here before I think.
We have some bugs still ingame and the balance is still off though some things depend on skill, teamplay and what the enemy team runs.
Lastly, we are forced to buy Gem-Store-Items with real money if we do not do any PvE or WvW where we earn gold. Dyes are a gamble, they are not a stable incoming.
And I do not include winning any gems from streams as seen for example with the Mist League giveaway yesterday, these guys are a small minority.

So all in all, the combat system and its mechanics are quite decent and players have hope for this game to become esports and there is not a better game on the market at the moment, but that obviously cannot keep everyone here forever.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

This may seem like a sneaky advertising, but I will drop this here.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Reward-System-Incentives-PvP/first#post2113474
Especially the higher ranks are not worth it. Dredge and Nightmare Armor are dungeon-armors in PvE, so one has a much, much easier access. Tier 1 and 2 Cultural Armor cost less than 10g together. This is just one day in Citadel of Flame. And we spend time to reach 1621500 or 1771500 rank points to just get Tier 1 ? Even more with rank 70 requiring 3421500 or 387500 rank points. ( Not sure what to read out of wiki ). This carrot is rotten. And there is no other carrot to stick to aside skill progression ( which is rewarding itself too ).
Furthermore, I talked with a few of my friends and a conversion of like 100 glory to 1 gem would not be bad.
What infuriates me the most at the moment though is how I am forced to farm PvE for gems or play gamble with dyes. This means either spend less time on PvP or pray I get some good dye which sells well. This is not satisyfying at all, especially since it has been said that PvE and PvP should be completly seperate. One should not be forced to do stuff he or she does not enjoy in order to be able to purchase or enjoy things.
Also, get any RNG out, it is not in the favor of customers and even PvE’ers are put off.

As for infrastructure and it being a good part of the incentive, divide Solo-Q and Team-Q. As probably a lot competitive players will also play SoloQ, it may put others off, but I guess that will do more good than harm for learning purposes and some challenging matches.
Put in also seasons where one can earn titles, skins, etc., make it even quarter-yearly if it drags out too much. Or half a year.

Edit: Make it much less glory for higher rank points or scrap that system, else it will put off casuals too which have even less chances to get an armor like Nobleman, Dredge or Nightmare. Make the rewards much more accessible but also put in seperate rewards for high ranked/skilled players.
Giving the players freedom of choice to decide what armor or weapon to go for keeps them happier.

Rank is not worth any hour to grind, since competitive play is not rewarded. You can be no. 1 on this worthless ladder and still a hotjoin zerger makes more rank-progression over the day. This game overall feels not rewarding at any point in competitive play, it feels more like a job. As for me I rather enjoy some map-completation on PvE (which is sad) than wasting my time in a stale and repetitive game-mode without any kittening incentive. The only thing that keeps me in this game are my friends.

Regarding an incentive or reward for competitive players I looked upon it in my previous post with suggesting a reward for placings on leaderboards like top 100 after a given period of time. Just that there is a suitable purpose to play for a high ranking on the leaderboards.
About the rank system, I find, from a competitive point of view, it is inherently flawed due to how accessible it is and what value the rewards have. Aesthetics should be optional and I think even Anet said that at some point but I am not sure. Instead we are forced to play PvP-matches to aquire a specific skin and how many of these is determined by the rank we want to reach to unlock it. This is neither fun for casuals nor hardcore players. Especially since casuals are the backbone too. It is just a shallow reward system, nothing more.
I also think the achievement system can be better.
There is a lot of room for improvement including to make it a purposeful reward-system.

This may seem like a sneaky advertising, but I will drop this here.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Reward-System-Incentives-PvP/first#post2113474
Especially the higher ranks are not worth it. Dredge and Nightmare Armor are dungeon-armors in PvE, so one has a much, much easier access. Tier 1 and 2 Cultural Armor cost less than 10g together. This is just one day in Citadel of Flame. And we spend time to reach 1621500 or 1771500 rank points to just get Tier 1 ? Even more with rank 70 requiring 3421500 or 387500 rank points. ( Not sure what to read out of wiki ). This carrot is rotten. And there is no other carrot to stick to aside skill progression ( which is rewarding itself too ).
Furthermore, I talked with a few of my friends and a conversion of like 100 glory to 1 gem would not be bad.
What infuriates me the most at the moment though is how I am forced to farm PvE for gems or play gamble with dyes. This means either spend less time on PvP or pray I get some good dye which sells well. This is not satisyfying at all, especially since it has been said that PvE and PvP should be completly seperate. One should not be forced to do stuff he or she does not enjoy in order to be able to purchase or enjoy things.
Also, get any RNG out, it is not in the favor of customers and even PvE’ers are put off.

As for infrastructure and it being a good part of the incentive, divide Solo-Q and Team-Q. As probably a lot competitive players will also play SoloQ, it may put others off, but I guess that will do more good than harm for learning purposes and some challenging matches.
Put in also seasons where one can earn titles, skins, etc., make it even quarter-yearly if it drags out too much. Or half a year.

Edit: Make it much less glory for higher rank points or scrap that system, else it will put off casuals too which have even less chances to get an armor like Nobleman, Dredge or Nightmare. Make the rewards much more accessible but also put in seperate rewards for high ranked/skilled players.
Giving the players freedom of choice to decide what armor or weapon to go for keeps them happier.