Guild Wars 2

GW2 name: Puff w/ variations of Cocoa
Requirements: Good players that will take me with my busy schedule. A realistic shot at winning. Beat me in duels 50%+ of times.
Objective: Free trip to China/b-sports.
Expectations: Just throwing my name out there. Especially as a last minute replacement for dysfunctional teams.

I main engi. I can likely pick up necro and warrior. Possibly mesmer and ranger. Who knows after the patch? Open to running whatever comp.

Pros: – Experienced with thousands of teamq’s, etc.
- knows simple math (rotations). E.g. Backcapping an open point means you’re outnumbered; can your team survive to make it worth backcapping, or will the enemy win the team fight and snowball…
- communicates all the time
- sex appeal

Cons: – RL busy, can’t commit a lot of time
- Unsure of my schedule atm
- Haven’t been playing for a few weeks
- Need to rebind my keys if I start playing again (esp. dodge button). Need adjustment time.
- too much sex appeal

NA/EU is dependent on schedule, teams and latency.

Carry me to China.

Edit: I forgot to add, the $150k prize pool + New exclusive armors are nice. However, once the initial hype dies down, new interested players that you’ve attracted will run into the same problems we’ve had since launch (listed below).

Here is a simple experiment for everyone that reads this:
How many NEW faces have you consistently seen in competitive team queues this year?

In NA, I can maybe think of 10-15? This doesn’t count returning players (barely any)

How many familiar faces have quit Gw2 PvP?

Almost the same amount.

This illustrates the failure to attract and retain players to grow a competitive player base.
Mid-level rewards would be a good way to start like it has been suggested in the thread.

However, I would argue that is an mmo way of thinking. Gw2 PvP is not an mmo in that the mindset of a PvP player is focused on competition and improving, rather than virtual rewards. We all would have long quit by now if that were the case based on the little rewards that are available. Sure PvE players show up to ToL, but they get their llamas and they’re done. Not to say, carrots aren’t a good way to convert some PvE’ers or MMO players to try PvP; it’s just not effective in sustaining and growing a pvp community.

Improving and Competition. The real motivators for pvp players. The most fun you can have in this game are those close 499-500 games. Too bad

Think of a new incoming pvp player. Assuming that they persevere through the miserable learning period of the non-tutorial, hot joins, solo queue, 4v5’s, skyhammer, cheese builds, etc. Against all odds, if they make it to the point of forming a team for teamq’s and tournaments, three things happen:
70% of the time: they get stomped by the teams that have 2 years experience + are always queueing.
15% of the time: Matchmaking comes into play: so it can match you with the 1 or 2 other new teams that happen to be playing at the same time. Get used to it, you might play with them 7 times a day.
15% of the time: You play total newbies that you wipe easily. Gets old really fast.

It’s a chicken and egg problem. You need a large enough playerbase in order for matchmaking to setup games with equally skilled teams and with enough variety of teams. You can’t retain a playerbase because matchmaking can’t work without a playerbase.

I suggest artificial matchmaking: i.e. tournaments restricting top players so that new teams have a chance to experience winning or even making it to the finals. We can think about leagues once we have a playerbase to support a proper league. Pump some money into Mistleague or DPS to set these up.

P.S. Also pay them to set up tournaments in China…. they still have hope there, and with some nurturing, it might work out over there.

ISSUE (NOT) RESOLVED: Not sure what did it but I changed mouse ports, updated drivers.
Edit: still having issues. I thought it was fixed but after a few pvp matches, it came back or maybe it was just less apparent.

I posted in the game bugs forum because I run windows 7 instead of mac, but I’m having this same problem ever since two nights ago. I will post my previous post here:

I found this thread by googling my symptoms: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Camera-rotation-bug
I tried the suggestions in the thread but it didn’t work. From what I gather, this bug is very similar, or the same, to a known issue in the past in the Mac Beta Client support forum:
“Dragging the mouse while holding down the left or right mouse buttons in order to change camera or character direction causes the mouse cursor to briefly appear in the middle of the screen”
This happens most frequently when while moving the mouse, I hold down my lmb to try to rotate my camera. The cursor is still visible (may or may not be in middle of screen as mentioned above), and the camera failed to rotate. I think my lmb in this still registers as a click though: 1) I’ve checked my mouse click registration on some browser script and it’s working. 2) Also, during one of these failed lmb holds, I move the cursor to the top left to the options ui, and the options menu does pop up, so I feel like the click is being detected.
Also, very noticeable when I click my lmb and then quickly click again to hold lmb and try to rotate the camera.

This is definitely a problem when playing grenade engi where I rotate the camera a lot in pvp.

I am using free camera option in the menu. Have checked it and unchecked it, but the issues persists.

They’re staining the very foundation of this e-sport with their childish behavior. The sanctity of the dev talk has been tainted. For shame.

I think they give 0 kittens. They’re just having a good time.

TLDR: If the problem is ‘overwhelmed new players’, the solution is NOT ‘unlocks’. Unlocks do not help new players, they only hurt all pvp’ers and hamper build diversity.

I think Anet believes that new players to spvp feel overwhelmed and ‘minor speedbumps and unlocks’ will go unnoticed. This can be argued, but I can see where they’re coming from. When you first start pvping, you’re terrible and your focus is on trying to survive and kill stuff. OR if you’re feeling clever, you attempt to build-craft and will most likely fail.

So fine, in reality, unlocks won’t make a difference for the newbies because they’re still learning pvp basics. Still, people should have the freedom to pick any gear/stats/skills. To learn the entirety of the calss, to experience different play styles, etc… even if they end up becoming confused or hurting themselves by picking a terrible build. That’s the only downfall that can come out of it, and these can be remedied with better solutions.

Fix the actual problem of _helping new players get oriented to spvp. _
1) Give a meta starter build and explain (in game or even a youtube link) the reasoning/playstyle of the build. E.g. A)Bunker Guardian = Stands on point, supports allies, does little damage, etc.. DPS Guardian = Sustain, does lots of damage, etc..

2) If you want unlockable skills or stats, make it a ‘soft lock’. It’s faded out, but when you go to unlock it, a warning message pops up saying ‘this is an advanced skill/stat combo. Not recommended for new players’, or something along those lines. I don’t really agre with this explanation, but put whatever you want.

3) Not necessary imo, but another option is a minimum number of spvp hotjoins to unlock everything. Let’s say 10 or 20. Or Rank 5. Something really minimal. This is easily implementable since there are already rank vendors that sell based on ranks. Make this ACCOUNT bound, not character bound.

The STUPIDEST thing right now is that even experienced pvp’ers can only create kitten characters that don’t have the final healing skill. WHY does this cost skill points? This is a totally arbitrary gate. Based on their comments, more unlocks are coming like this.The only reason I can fathom is that they consider a new character = a new (overwhelmed) spvp player that can’t handle access to everything.

Please make the distinction between a new pvp player and a competent player making a new character by implementing #3) above.

We spvp’ers all have that one character slot that we delete/recreate to test alt classes. This was one of the best things about gw2 since we didn’t need to grind any aspect to have access to everything.

Not everyone has enough character slots to try out every class. If I want to try an engi, I might not find the play style I wanted because the new heal skill and certain stats were gated. As an example, maybe an experienced player would have figured out a new meta bunker build using AED and a certain tanky stat set that was gated. Too bad no one wants to invest 25 skill points and overcome whatever ‘speedbump’ they’re going to implement because that’s their ‘free character slot’ that they delete/recreate to try different classes. Keep in mind, almost all the new heal skills are non-meta and considered bad, so the likelihood of investing 25 skill points to test it out is even less. This is hurting build diversity.

Definitely pick up incendiary powder in the first trait line instead of bleeds. Switch out tool kit for elixir gun if you need a stunbreak.
Spec for condi dmg/duration. Don’t waste your grenades, especially the freezing one since if you land that you can land everything else easier. Don’t autoattack on grenades when roaming, you’re condi and will probably miss them sometimes. Set up your burst with glue bomb or some other cc, don’t just spam buttons. Always rotate through your kits and weapons, you have plenty of low cd’s to maximize the amt of condi uptime. Stealth bomb + heal turret overcharge or shield 4 is a free stealth disengage. Practice and you’ll be 1vXing in no time.

Hulk like smash. But Hulk also like love.

All of the above is great and should be worked on. However, here are some NEWish ideas to promote activity in the mists, which can only help pvp.

Please consider some minor but worthwhile low hanging fruit: implementing a black lion trading post, bank, guild bank. Makes the mists more friendly to pve and wvw players.

Maybe put designated areas for costume brawl or mini games to promote players wanting to dailies and achievements. Also, nice past time while people wait.

p.s. Please allow all transformation tonics/items/choir bell in the mists. Would really like to use the green potion to make my Hulk character better. TY