Guild Wars 2

Orpheal.8263:

As if finding out how to dodge would have been before the NPC so freaking hard.
As if finding out how to manage your own inventory would be so freaking hard, especially how you sell something, wow, must have been really rocket science before the NPE oO
Panic Attacks from being in the downed state, rofl.
As if it would be so freaking hard to learn how this mechanic works just by doing AND READING, what the skills do, instead of wildly smashing just the buttons like crazy in hope that they miraculously make you stand up again out of a sudden…

Seriously ..any person which had real troubles of learning this game before of the NPE should rather go play games like Tetris or so, because thats the the same niveau how this game felt being dumbed down to in many cases after the release.

This! So much this!

I am not sure why the intent is to dumb this game down to a level where my cat could play it. What’s with game companies these days trying to attract non-gamers. As if these people would stick around. All it accomplishes is that dedicated gamers leave and go elsewhere. After two years of playing my entire friends list is greyed out because none of them plays anymore. I log in once a month to patch the game. Good job, NPE!

Advertise your own group through the LFG tool. Write something like “Relaxed run, any lvl/class welcome.” Doing this my brother and I found team members within two minutes.

Almost all parties I see advertised are for speed runs with very specific class/gear/experience requirements. If you offer something more laid back, people will be happy to join you.

While I love the game and have been playing since beta, the change to the trait system is horrible. The one alt I have left that was created after the trait change is incredibly tedious to level. How can you expect players to complete events in far away regions for an adept trait? That’s ridiculous. New players won’t even know how they can get to these zones.

This is a change that no one asked for. It’s not needed, doesn’t make the game better and only widens the gap between old and new players. I really hope you will revert this.

These are probably the nicest guys you can team queue with! Fun to hang out with on TS, laid-back and rage free.

If I still played this game, it would be with them <3

I do love my ranger. It still makes me smile every time Hopsy or Wolfy get a deathblow.

Then again my favourite class changes every couple of month. Trying to get the hang of engineer for now.

Everyone who solo queues has been in those bad matches where your entire team seems to have one goal and that is to tank your rating. Don’t give up on pvp, just keep queuing. Even if for now your rating does not seem to improve, you will get better with more experience.

Do yourself a favor and don’t check leaderboard stats for at least two weeks. Just play, try to win your 1v1s, try to help winning team fights, and enjoy pvp for what it is.

Also, have you considered asking one of the higher ranked players for build advice? If I wanted to play mesmer in solo queue, I’d ask Darnis.

Please remove this map from solo queue now. You removed it from team queue because it’s not a competitive map, then why would you force it on us in solo queue?

There’s only one reason to play pvp in any game and that is because you enjoy killing other players.

Find a class you like, play 5v5 hotjoin matches until you hit rank 20, then join tournaments. Once you get into pvp, you’ll never look back.

This happens a lot now both in solo queue and team arena. Can you please hotfix that treb and the door to lord cannot be destroyed prior to game start?

To summarize: the pvp playerbase has doubled, pvp exclusive skins will come next wave, we get wintersday gifts for tourny wins and the community was officially asked to be nice to newbies.

Sounds all good to me.

John is doing a lovely job as a public speaker and presents his points in a very warm and likable manner. Anyone can see how passionate you guys are about pvp.

jimmyimo.2089:

Hello average MMO player,

Players that actually played any game that requires skills can easily type and fight at the same time. Keep in mind that most specs only require you to press 1 button – 3 at most.

1/10

To OP: You need a zen like mentality when playing solo queue. Ignore any non constructive chat messages and continue trying to win the match. If you encounter people that are consistently idling instead of playing just add them to your friend’s list and dodge their queues.

Play 5v5 hotjoin till you hit rank 20 then join solo queue tournaments.

• What are your plans for magic find in pvp?
• Can we get two quality of life improvements pretty please?
  – remove skyhammer from solo queue
  – add build templates

Thanks for communicating so much with the pvp community, devs!

It’s very fun. Play 5v5 hotjoins till you hit r20 and then join tournaments.

Well, I for one hope that some of you achievement hunters realize while completing your dailies that spvp is actually really fun.

Since it has been forever talked about that they are looking at making pvp more rewarding in terms of achievement points, this might be a great time for you guys to get into pvp.

Rubik.7192:

… you kind of get sick of slaying that golem that nobody cares about dozens of times.

Exactly. I know there’s more important stuff to work on, but I’d like the option to skip the tutorial back too.

Lopez.7369:

The MMR deviation for new players is way too high and lets someone at the default rating get matched with players in the top 500,

This. I am fine with losing matches because we’re getting outplayed. But it’s getting rather irritating to lose because you get a newbie the game assumes is top 500.

In my last match, I had a necro in my group who spent the entire game sitting in front of the enemy spawn trying to duel people. I give myself a gold star for not raging.

What’s the point of being on the leaderboards when you are still being grouped with r9 players with no tournament experience?

It’s rather hilarious that the skyhammer farmers now also made thousands of gold.

mighty meak.6387:

i am alone
no one helps no loves

I love you! <3 <3 <3 <3

I really wish you would reconsider where you place people rating wise after they have played just a couple of games. There are some r9 people being let into top 200 tournaments who really should not be playing in that tier at all. I am not talking about smurf accounts, but newbies with no experience.

Today and yesterday, I’ve had six matches with one r9 newbie on my team of which I’ve lost five. The newbie runs around confused all match, has no clue where to go, and it’s basically a 4v5 every time. Unfortunately, the lowest enemy rank was 40. It’s rather disheartening that I’ve lost 200 ranks in matches that seem impossible to win unless the enemy team gets a newbie with an inflated rating too.

Just look at the first couple of pages of your solo queue leaderboard and you will find a bunch of people with less than 20 games played. They should not be on the leaderboard at all, let alone in the top 100.

Since you can’t seem to agree on whether this is an exploit or not, I am willing to test it for the benefit of the community.

Someone send me The Dreamer or 3.5k gold, please.

TheOnlyVv.9625:

He expected to go into PvP on his first day and just slaughter people, but he’s the one getting slaughtered and he says it isn’t because he’s unskillful, it’s because he’s getting pilejacked by tons of people by himself.

Find an empty hotjoin server and duel him over and over on different classes. Once he’s doing okay, join a 5v5 hotjoin match and try to win. When you open the pvp tab, there is a button at the top left corner to apply filters. Create a filter for 5v5 matches. Avoid 8v8, they will teach you nothing. He can also join 1v1 duel servers to practice his class/build.

Please do not attempt to play any tournaments before both of you are r20+.

JTan.1687:

This is a good idea it will seperate the skyhammer farmer and the one who play rank games. And those who are serious in pvp and the one who only play casual pvp

This. Please make it happen!

Silentshoes.1805:

I dropped to the 25% level in SoloQ.

You should pug team queue with me. If we both bunker a point, while the three rank 1 players on our team do whatever, we have a reasonable chance of winning.

Thanks, Justin. Most of those guilds are dead/inactive as far as I know. If you could promote the guilds and teams still playing that would be wonderful.

Justin ODell.9517:

The fact it is geared toward more dedicated pvpers is why I think the OP might enjoy it more. Though, I agree… there are some very good players in this arena and it can be very hard to win.

No offense, Justin, but unless you have several friends to queue with team arena is a a horrible experience. Since solo queue pops take so long, I’ve been pugging team arena for the past couple of days. I consistently find myself in matches with guild groups of four r1 players on my team. I am sure the newbies try their best, but they just have no clue how to play their class, let alone in a tournament environment. Of course, these total blowout matches wouldn’t happen if you introduced a rank requirement for competitive pvp…

I wouldn’t advise anyone to pug team arena unless you have at least two buddies to queue with so you are able to carry two newbies. I’ve lost 95% of my team queue matches and the only reason I still queue up is for giggles. It is hilarious how many players die to Svanir or manage to never run over a node, not even by accident, throughout an entire game.

Qaelyn.7612:

I see lots of complaints around here about how few people participate in PvP, and that attitude is part of the reason. Long-time PvPers need new PvPers more than the other way around. If the oldtimers make the environment a hostile one, they’ll just go back to PvE/WvW. They’ve lost nothing, while PvPers have lost the chance to grow the activity and have more potential good opponents down the road.

While I agree with the general sentiment of being nice to newbies, they really should not be allowed in competitive matches. Adding an entrance barrier of 50 or 100 matches played before they can queue up for tournaments may reduce some of the hostility newbies encounter in solo queue.

Josh Davis.6015:

tichorum.2415:

HOTJOIN is getting gold? Lol this will be good.

I’m not at the office so I can’t look it up, but if I remember correctly, you get more gold for LOSING Team Arena than you’d get for WINNING a CA/hotjoin match.

How about hotjoin players get nothing and only the winning team in team queue gets any gold? That would be beautiful. Please make it happen…

Kline.9561:

My suggestion is make specific or better rewards that can only be achieved through Team Que

This. Team queue is the most fun to be had in game. Can we please provide people with an incentive to form teams?

• What are your plans on incentivizing competitive pvp?
• How will you promote players to form a team and join team queue?
• When will we be able to save builds and switch between them?

hooma.9642:

u mean tournament wins and not chest and that also for previous wins!

While rewards for previous tourny wins would be nice, I want gold/xp/whatever to be tied exclusively to tournament wins. Hotjoin players should get nothing

You should only get rewards from tournament win chests.

I am very disappointed. After waiting months for this blog nothing in it promotes the competitive side of pvp. Team queue is as good as dead and the solo q population is not great either.

Four daily achievement points, gold in hotjoin, xp through pvp – I really couldn’t care less about these things. At the very least all these rewards should be exclusively earned through tournament wins.

The game really shines in team queue, when the population is healthy. I can’t understand why there is not more emphasis on promoting teams and rewarding players for doing well in team queue.

The only people who comment positively on the blog start with “I am not really a pvp player but I love…” Well, as a tournament player I am not thrilled to have to wait another year for seasons/leagues.

And yes, this blog made me think of quitting.

I would like to know how you are going to incentivize competitive pvp? If people can get gold, xp, and whatever other rewards in hotjoin how are you going to encourage them to play tournaments?

Please focus on getting people into solo and team queue above all else.

To honor the effort that players have put into the rank system, existing players will be able to keep all unlocked rank finishers and will earn a special title based on your rank to show that you were there from the start. .

Why stop there?

Just give them a special finisher as a reward for their effort. Make it a bunch of people that jump on the downed player, AoEing like crazy, and then they all fall through a big hole in the ground.

EgyptRaider.3946:

I’ve been doing PvE ever since hoping that I would be lured someday into playing PvP and this is exactly what I’ve been waiting for!
Not only will it encourage me to PvP more often but for the meantime will certainly encourage me to keep leveling my character in PvE going for the ultimate armor, knowing that I will be able to use that armor in PvP (yes I’m talking about the looks, not the stats… I could care less about that)..

Yes, it’s just awesome to reward people in a pvp blog for doing more pve! And unlocking pvp skills with skillpoints obtained in pve is super great too!

Who wants to run a dungeon with me tonight!!!

Sampo.9678:

With these changes coming to pvp..
I feel like the players who exploited to get glory and ranks fast are rewarded even more…

Yes.

Well, I for one am really disappointed. Unless you can earn gold, xp, and whatnot exclusively in tournaments all the pve people will play hotjoin while tpvp remains dead.

Hotjoin heroes get a title based on the rank they farmed in Skyhammer and get to keep their finishers. Okay… Tournament players get nothing, as always.

Seasons at some point in the future that is so far off it can’t be talked about yet. End of 2014?

Still nothing about the reward system overhaul. So what am I saving my tourny chests for again?

The most exciting part is the introduction of new healing skills…

All in all, this is probably a great pvp roadmap for hotjoin players. But there is nothing for tpvp in it. What are you thinking ArenaNet?

My pleasure. It’s probably easier to give you my build. Check your PMs.

Laserbolt.6731:

And for me, it was loss after loss tonight. I tried very, very hard to help the teams I was assigned to…but just had to watch all the points at the top of the screen continuing to go to the enemy team’s color…over and over. That’s what the game gave me.

I played my way out of elo hell before, so I get how fun those matches are.

• On a spirit ranger, I’d suggest you hold side point and then support mid. If you don’t hold a point, assume no one else will. I don’t know how you play your ranger, but I’d equip a warhorn because you’ll be running around a lot.
• At the beginning of the match, tell people what you will be doing and ask someone to take home point, kill treb, or whatever. Once in a while, people do listen.
• Call targets. Override bad target calls from newbies asap.
• Ping on the map. Draw on the map. Tell people where to go. If anyone listens, thank them.
• Be able to switch classes before the match. Have a bunker guardian ready to play. Newbies don’t know how to kill guardians and if you can get one team member to stand on a second point, you have a good chance of winning.
• If the map has secondary objectives like temple buffs, announce them in advance, then go for them. Assume no one will help you.
• If you get consistently matched up with a really bad player, e.g. a thief who dies 200 times per match, friend him or her. Then wait until he/she is in a match before you queue.

I hope you have better luck with your queues. The game can’t afford to lose more players.

Remove the map from solo queue already. Having to wait 10 mins only to get Skyhammer is just cruel.

The game desperately needs a bigger pvp population until then the match making will remain cringeworthy. Since reset I have to wait 10 minutes for a pop and then it will be 5v4 with at least two players between r1-10.

If I have to play with r1 players anyway, at least make the pops instant. I spend more time waiting for matches than playing.

Solo queue pops take forever right now. I wait 7-10 minutes for a match and then it’s with/against the same people over and over. No one seems to be playing.

I very much hope this will change with the announcement of the reward system overhaul next week. Waiting 10 mins for a 15 minute match is way too long for me.

cesmode.4257:

Can you ‘show off’ this progression in the open world?

You get Champion titles for 150 tournament wins per class. Oh, and you unlock finishers, which you can also use in wvw.

Until we get new info about the reward system next week, that’s pretty much it.

Gorni.1764:

I’m actually not sure either if I should stay close at start or go mid as a bunker. I’m often flamed for just staying close (though we’d have lost it several times if I wouldn’t have defended it – people don’t see this of course and start raging about me doing nothing constructive) and on the contrary I’m flamed if I join mid and we loose close …

When you hold home, look at the health bars of your team members. If you see two people getting low, most likely your team is not winning the mid fight. That’s when I usually rush mid to turn it into a 5v4. Once a couple of the enemies are dead or your team seems to be doing well, run back home. Don’t stay to cap mid or anything.

Can we get rid of this horrible map in solo queue already?

Thank you, Justin <3

GW2 has been updated. Please exit and relaunch it.

Just like last time restarting the game does nothing. I want to play…

Same. Now it won’t let me queue again.

In every second match last night, one person per map was rank 5 grouped with/against people who have played hundreds or thousands of tournaments. This happened in the top 300 rating range. In short, these matches ended 200 to 500 depending on who had the newbie on their team. While people were surprisingly civil about it, it was not a fun experience for anyone involved.

It’s great that new people are trying out spvp, but they should not have the option to queue for tournaments without understanding the basics. Most of the time, they don’t seem to read team chat or notice anything you draw on the mini map. They don’t even know where home point is, let alone any secondary objective.

TLDR: Can we please have the tournament tab grayed out for players below r20? Ideally, this needs to happen before you reset MMR on Tuesday. If not, I anticipate a lot of rage from whatever team is unlucky enough to have the most newbies.