Guild Wars 2

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Building off of old lore without retconing it.

I just had to login to say: auuuuch!

(I do agree 100% with you though)

Mine are:

1- REVERT TO ALPINE MAP
2- Revert Reset days to Fridays
3- Rever Stability back to previous iteration
4- Specific WvW skill-balance (aka: Skill split)
5- Promote player vs player fights instead of PvE events

dsslive.8473:

Laraley.7695:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I really encourage y’all to turn into Points of Interest on Friday on our Twitch channel. They’ll be showing the warhorn and skills and all that good stuff, and then you can better get a view of how it works as the Elementalist’s elite specialization.

Will they also tell us why no one bothered to visit the ele forums and figure out there are so many people who hate the idea of warhorn? I would like to know that.

probably because its more important for the weapon to fit the spec or they know that the few ppl being unhappy with warhorn do not represent the majority of the community but just a fraction of the forumgoers which is already just a small fraction of the people who play the game?

Dont like warhorn? that’s fine, you dont have to use it to enjoy the new specialization but claiming that the “majority” hate warhorn because some are voal about it isnt exactly correct. Feel free to pull up the numbers that state that those who hate warhorn far outnumber those who love it, tho.

Obviously Anet saw the warhorn more fitting for an elite specialization to do with calling up storms (judging from the name “tempest” ) than something like sword. It’s definately a thing in lore with a famous horn called stormcaller.

There will always be people unhappy about something, there is no fixing that. So they decide what fits the specialization that they made instead of forcing themselves to the few vocal people who dont rly represent the majority. Tbf, its hard to get a real grasp of what the majority think about something when a lot of people dont even post or even visit the forums. After all, those unhappy with the weapon can still enjoy the other parts of the specialization with other weapons, one isnt forced into the warhorn.

Sword will probably come at some point, when new specs are announced.

The wishful thinking is strong with this one….

meeflak.9714:

Bio Flame.4276:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I really encourage y’all to turn into Points of Interest on Friday on our Twitch channel. They’ll be showing the warhorn and skills and all that good stuff, and then you can better get a view of how it works as the Elementalist’s elite specialization.

We don’t dislike The specialization, we dislike The choice for The new weapon. It’s a bad choice, a poor choice. It has nothing to do with the new mechanics.

It is just that The warhorn is simply not a very interesting weapon, most players dislike it on most classes. Oh, The skills are not The issue, it is the weapon itself. It’s just not “sexy”, especially when compared to other more interesting weapons.

I think you guys failed on that (poor) choice for our weapon.

“Our” weapon isn’t a fair thing to say. Neither is “we” Thematically the warhorn has the ability to fit perfectly with a tempest. Storm caller. Whatever. And it’s “appeal” is going to be relative to the individual. If this weapon does some pretty awesome stuff then hey. Its awesome

And please tell us. What you mean by " New mechanics" what new mechanics do you know of that this particular warhorn will be synergizing with ?

We have no clue…… We don’t know…. It’s very un reasonable to say this weapon doesn’t work with game mechanics, and should not be called poor till Friday

I think you so busy multi-posting and trying to white knight any opinions that you don’t even read what people post.

I was clear when I said that the player’s dislike for the warhorn has nothing to do with the Tempest Spec, whatever it is. It has nothing to do with the new mechanics, whatever they are. It has nothing to do with the new skills regardless if they will be good or bad skills.
The warhorn is not “sine qua non” to the Tempest spec. ANET could arguably switch any skills from one weapon and slap them on another weapon and they would work fine. It just a line of code
(Oversimplified, but you get my point)

And you can’t argue that the warhorn ties well with Tempest (how do you know?) but then argue that people can’t complain about the warhorn because we don’t know nothing about the Tempest spec.
Sounds illogical but that was your argument.

I said that warhorn, as a weapon choice is a poor choice. It’s not a “sexy” weapon, it’s not an interesting weapon.
And again, this does not mean that I am defending another Greatsword.
I am merely pointing out that, of all the choices available for a new weapon for Elementalists, warhorn is probably one of the top2 worst choices (arguably tied with Torch?).

Let’s see what was theoretically available to Elementalists as NEW weapons: Rifle, LongBow, Short Bow, Greatsword, Hammer, Sword, Axe, Mace, Pistol, Shield, Torch, Warhorn.
(For now, let’s just ignore that some conjures would overlap)

That’s 12 possible choices (if I didn’t forget any).
Now, if you would do a poll concerning the most interesting weapons (not skill-wise, mind you, just interesting), or the most wanted weapons, you can be sure that Warhorn would rank really, really, reaaaaaaaally low.

Before any white knights start white knighting again, I am not saying I know which one of the 12 would rank higher, but one can pretty much guess that warhorn would rank lower/lowest of all.
One doesn’t need to be a rocket-scientist for that, one merely has to play GW2 and talk to other players for the past 3 years, and see/listen how people feel about off-hand weapons, especially the Torch and Warhorn, for all classes. One only has to look while playing the game and see how many people play warhorns or talk about how awesome they are.

Are there people that LOVE warhorns? Of course there are.
But does the MAJORITY of the players love warhorns? No.
(disclaimer – before people spout nonsense again, no, I am not championing for Greatswords. In fact, there are more interesting, less used weapons to use).

TLDR: There were/are far more interesting options for a new weapon, as far as Elementalists are concerned. It has nothing to do with the new Spec (which we know nothing about), it has nothing to do with the new mechanics (which we know nothing about), it has nothing to do with the new skills (which we know nothing about).
The weapon itself….it’s just not interesting.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I really encourage y’all to turn into Points of Interest on Friday on our Twitch channel. They’ll be showing the warhorn and skills and all that good stuff, and then you can better get a view of how it works as the Elementalist’s elite specialization.

We don’t dislike The specialization, we dislike The choice for The new weapon. It’s a bad choice, a poor choice. It has nothing to do with the new mechanics.

It is just that The warhorn is simply not a very interesting weapon, most players dislike it on most classes. Oh, The skills are not The issue, it is the weapon itself. It’s just not “sexy”, especially when compared to other more interesting weapons.

I think you guys failed on that (poor) choice for our weapon.

Conncept.7638:

Welp, looks like we’re getting the warhorn after all. I was rooting for the sword personally.

@ANET:

Disapointed. Warhorn plain…sucks.

The Tempest specialization may or may not be good. It might even be the second coming of Jesus.

The warhorn is still very lackluster. It’s just not an interesting weapon.
It’s a poor choice, especially when there were plenty of other (better) options available.

Again, this poor choice is not related to The Tempest specialization. Tempest is not irrevocably bound to The warhorn. It might be (or not) a great specialization but is NOT sine qua non to The warhorn.

Poor choice.

I still think the nerf was not enough. It is a core PvP issue: good PvP is about player interaction, not player vs AI. That’s PvE.

I still see LOTS of Engi Cancer builds (Engi turrets), just fought a premade with 3!! Cancer builds.

Design-wise, I strongly believe that Turrets should be completely pushed out of the meta. Turrets gameplay lacks skill, it’s not fun to play against and it’s everything that PvP should not be.

I do not believe that PvP mean “player vs AI”.

Turrets, and any kind of stationary pet/turret/mine/spirit (GW1) only promotes skilless play.

Hence, I think the Engi Turret build (aka: Cancer build) should be pushed away from PvP entirely.
Do w/e you want with PvE since mobs do not care, but remove passive skills like turrets from PvP.

Your post is only valid if they haven’t made a mistake. Which they probably did.
It’s easy to realize that, surely you must know it by now.

This pseudo-matchmaking system will never be adequate for competitive PvP; hence keeping it will just bury any chances for serious PvPing.
There’s no arguments here, it’s a fact and it’s also the player’s perceptions.

Nobody enjoys facing premades with pugs, nobody enjoys facing 4+1 with PUGs, nobody enjoys facing 3+2 / 3+1+1 with PUGs, etc… I think you get my point.
Having a Dev stating that it’s ok to face 4+1 is….mind boggling. It’s…against everying true competitive PvP is and should be.
And ANET said they want to turn sPvP into esp0rtz, not me. Lol.
This matchmaking system does NOT go hand in hand with that desire of esp0rtz.

Now, the reasons for mentioning GW1 are plenty, and, sincerly, it’s quite obvious. But I’ll explain it, for those who don’t know what GW1 is, and who made it:

1- It’s ANET’s own game.

2- It’s ANET’s first game

3- Its name attracted lots of people, due to the (extremely good) PvP reputation it got over the years.

4-GW1 is clearly a superior PvP game, hands down. It’s just on another level.

5-GW1 did not use this travesti of matchmaking. Simplifying, you either played Random Arenas (pugs vs pugs), or Team Arenas (4vs4 premade teams), or HoH and GvG (8vs8 premade teams). I am over-simplifying but you get my point.

Now, since GW1 is ANET’s game, since it is a superior PvP game in every way and since it doesn’t use this travesti of matchmaking, it’s important to point out to our (current) PvP Devs that they have lessons to learn, inside the company, that they are ignoring.
(or are being forced to ignore, by their superiors?).

So yeah, it does make sense to talk about GW1. I could talk about other games, sports, etc, but talking about their own previous game, in which this one was built upon, does make a lot of sense.
Should I talk about DOTA, CS, etc…or talk about their own in-house/company example, which is in every shape and form a vastly superior PvP game?
(but not superior PvE game, I’ll grant that).

In summary, the question is: why don’t our current PvP Devs try to learn from the good things of their companies much better PvP game?
What’s going on that I am missing?

Dude, if you think 3+1+1 offers balanced games, then go away and learn competition, plz.
Don’t even try to argue that point, that makes you as bad as our Devs. Really, it’s embarassing.

Go check GW1…

PS – another “balanced” match of 4+1 vs PUGs. Really fun that one was. One more for the fantastic matchmaking system…

In GW1, there’s no algorithm.
It’s PUGs vs PUGs, Teams vs Teams.

And guess what? GW1 is a far better PvP game. In fact, it’s so much better that calling this game as “PvP” is an insult to GW1.

And most importantly, there’s never going to exist any algorithm that’s going to make PUGs vs Teams a balanced/fair match…because that is not possible.

If we take Evan and Josh’s track record on balancing, the “next” step will be in 3 years or so….

Don’t you read? Did you even bother to check other games? Go read and get some information for yourself?

You don’t need a silly algorithm that will never be able to do balanced, fair and fun matches between PUGs and Teams. That’s never going to happen.
You match teams against teams (5vs5) and PUGs vs PUGs.
Nothing else.
There’s no 4+1 or 3+1+1 nonsense. Either a full team of 5vs5 or full PUGs vs PUGs.

There aren’t enough players? Well, I can promise you that if ANET keeps this way, there will never be enough PvP players. Never.
Why? Because randoms vs premades/duos/trios is just plain not balanced, not fair and not fun.
New players join, play and won’t stay. PvPers will leave because it’s also not competitive to fight PUGs.

If Evan and Josh really believe there’s potential in sPvP, then they should not allow for PUGs vs Premades or that 4+1 vs 4+1 nonsense.
If they don’t believe in PvP’s future, then keep the direction and onwards towards the disaster…

Dude, if you think PvP is not difficult or “not rocket-science” then clearly you really have no idea what true competitive PvP is like.
“Play it by the book”? What do you think PvP is, PvE against humans? Yes, I know a lot of pseudo-PvPers think like you do, and like you, they are wrong.

Seriously, if you don’t know what competition is, please refrain from posting on PvP forums.

The fact is, on most games, including ANET’s own GW1, random players do NOT have to face organized teams. It’s not an even fight, it’s not balanced.
There’s no silly pseudo-matchmaking algorithm that’s ever going to balance it out.

Go check other games, better PvP games. Heck, go check ANET’s GW1, which was without doubt a vastly better PvP game and there was no random PUGs vs organized teams.
And there wasn’t this nonsense that Evan says about 4+1 vs 4+1 or 3+1+1 vs 3+1+1.
No. It’s degrees of the same lack of true understand about PvP but it is a lack of understanding nonetheless.

That our PvP Dev that says “why shouldn’t we allow 4+1 vs 4+1” is appalling and shows that he has very little grasp about competition and teams.
If he had said “I am following orders” I could sympathize and understand and even support him. But not this way.

Dude, if you think PvP is not difficult or “not rocket-science” then clearly you really have no idea what true competitive PvP is like.
“Play it by the book”? What do you think PvP is, PvE against humans? Yes, I know a lot of pseudo-PvPers think like you do, and like you, they are wrong.

Seriously, if you don’t know what competition is, please refrain from posting on PvP forums.

The fact is, on most games, including ANET’s own GW1, random players do NOT have to face organized teams. It’s not an even fight, it’s not balanced.
There’s no silly pseudo-matchmaking algorithm that’s ever going to balance it out.

Go check other games, better PvP games. Heck, go check ANET’s GW1, which was without doubt a vastly better PvP game and there was no random PUGs vs organized teams.
And there wasn’t this nonsense that Evan says about 4+1 vs 4+1 or 3+1+1 vs 3+1+1.
No. It a degree of the same lack of true understanding about PvP but it is a lack of understanding nonetheless.

That our PvP Dev that says “why shouldn’t we allow 4+1 vs 4+1” is appalling and shows that he has very little grasp about competition and teams.
If he had said “I am following orders” I could sympathize and understand, but not this way, no.

I don’t understand how any Dev would think that this is fine and balanced.
Unless they have no clue on competition? Or they don’t even play their own game?

Just split Random/Solo queue and Team queue already.

And do you believe that the proposed half-baked nerf to Turrets is going to make a significant impact?

I don’t think so.
The fact that the turrets take no crits and no condi damage is a (very) small part of the problem.
In fact, when people talk about the Cancer Build and complain….do they complain that the turrets don’t take crits/condi damage?
Is it one of the top complaints?

No, it isn’t…

With patches every 6 months…I think not even in 10 years will it be worth to play competitively…

Our PvP dev will soon come here and enlighten you on how good and wonderful the matchmaking system is and how horrible and ungrateful you must be!
Or something like that.

Just now, fought:

- I was 2+1+1+1 vs 3+2

- Now, 4+1 ( 2+2+1?) vs 2+1+1+1

Really good system! It feels fair, balanced and even odds to win/loose. Not.

Panites.6798:

….Every other match making system works like how GW2 does….

You’re wrong. When you do not know what the facts are, you should not speak, lest you come across as an ignorant fool.

Every matchmaking system works like GW2 does?
Wrong. Examples are plenty and healthy but I’ll just go with one – ANET.
ANET’s own game, GW1, does not have a matchmaking system like that.
It splits randoms from premades and guess what?
GW1 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more competitive than this one.

And btw, to people that say

saying ‘I got beat they must be premade. all my losses are because of premades’ seems to be all the rage. curse of the placebo premade.

It’s not a “placebo” (And placebo doesn’t mean what you think it means, to paraphrase a movie). You probably don’t know but it’s possible to test if they are premades or not.
You ought to get your facts straight before entering a discussion, lest you spout nonsense and don’t contribute with anything constructive.

Last but not the least, why Josh and Evan persist on this…horrible idea of allowing premades vs PUGs.
Do they think GW1, a clearly superior PvP game, had it wrong? Do they believe that their predecessors were stupidly wrong and still made a PvP game vastly superior to GW2 to this day?

He did place them on the same spot. I could attack them all at the same time, with Scepter or GS. And even though I am DPS guardian, I didn’t exactly kill them fast, no.

So you shouldn’t spout opinions based on wrong assumptions. Makes you look foolish.

Turrets take too long to kill, even with a DPS zerker build. That’s my point. It was not about how big my kitten is, or how uber-leet I can be.
And the point about the incoming changes to turrets IS to kill them faster, so yeah, my point above is totally relevant.
Read before replying.

Dude, this is sports 101.

Take 10 people. Divide them in 2 teams, with roughly the same player skill.
Give one team random builds, and let the other team pick their skills, roles, strategy and give them VOIP.

Now make them fight. Guess who wins?
Want to bet who wins?

Why do you think Soccer isn’t played with random players against real teams?
Why do you think that in sports, it’s vital to be part of a team, to train and practice every day with your team?
Why do you think there’s strategy, tactics?

Do you think those things are important in sports, but magically not here? That choosing your team composition, skills, coordinating strategy, real-time coordination through VOIP is magically NOT important in GW2?

So, it’s important in LOL, DOTA2, CS, GW1, etc, etc, etc…but not on GW2?

Get real.
This is not about how good I am nor how bad a player is.
It has nothing to do with that.

I just fought against an Engi Cancer build, with a DPS guardian.

Even though I am full Zerker and on a DPS guardian, it took some time to kill 4 turrets, while still having to dodge / LOS their attacks AND dealing with the engi.

I don’t think the proposed change is going to change much, tbh. Not enough.

Just fought with a PUG against a premade team of at least 3 guys from same guild.
To make matters worse, they have the kittening annoyingly OP Engi Cancer build.

It wasn’t even a contest, we lost 500-200.

Naturally, I am guessing that Josh/Evan will come here and spout some nonsense about their matchmaking algorithm, saying this and that and whatnot. In the end, everything was fine and fun and balanced.

Because, hey! The algorithm > any opinion from any number of players.
Keep being stubborn, ANET!

PS – I immediatly got paired on a PUG team vs a 2+1+1+1 team. No Engi Cancer builds, thank god.
But it wasn’t a fun/balanced fight, as could be expected. 500-300. Just couldn’t deal with their 2-man coordination with a PUG team.
We could have played better or smarter, for sure. But with team agaisnt a roughly equally skilled team, the one with premades and VOIP will win most if not all the matches.
I guess Evan will come here and tell me it’s another example of how good the algorithm is and we players are dumb for not seeing it…

This will not be enough.

And it doesn’t address two of the fundamental problems:

1- It’s not fun to fight a clusterkitten of random stuff on the ground

2- The low-risk high-reward turret gameplay still exists.

Simply put, the turrets do too much with too little input from the Engi player. That’s a no-no on any serious PvP game. That won’t change.
And it’s absurdly unfun to play against.

Aereniel.7356:

This is where you re-introduce solo queue and everyone likes you again.

- Solo ranked queue
- Team ranked queue
- Anything goes unranked queue

Thank you.

/agreed.

Why Josh and Evan are being stubborn about this, after so long and so many complaints, is beyond me.
I know they are not real PvPers, nor should they have to be in order to do a good job concerning PvP. That being said, they aren’t doing a good job and not because they aren’t real PvPers but because they are being stubborn and trying to re-invent the wheel.

There’s a reason why other games – Football/Soccer, Basketall, Rugby, [insert any team sports game here] – do not allow for random teams to fight organized teams (aka: “premades”)
Some very competitive games such as Counter-Strike, Magic the Gathering, [insert another games here]…and also Guild Wars 1 – do not allow for random teams to fight organized teams neither.

What if Josh and Evan could try to send their precious algorithm to FIFA/NBA/Wizards of the Coast? Because the algorithm is so good and FIFA might be loosing some awesome balanced games.

And also send it to whoever is in charge of GW1 since GW1 did/does have a split between random and premades (random arena and team arenas)?

/sarcasm on

Maybe GW1 had it wrong?
Maybe GW1 PvP split of RA and TA was horrible but the players just didn’t know it?
And maybe GW2 sPvP is the second coming of Jesus and the algorithm is the Holy Father, but the player’s just don’t know it neither?

/sarcasm off.

Ok, I now understand what you’re saying and I have to kinda agree with you.

Thing is, there’s no way the algorithm will ever be able to be accurate when PUGs fight Premades.
This is why Premades queues should be separated from PUG queues or if you will, there should exist a random queue and a team queue. Period.

There’s no tinkering with any algorithm that’s ever going to be able to come with “fair” and balanced premade vs PUGs mainly because a fair/balanced premade vs pug fight does not exist and will never exist.
It’s not a balanced playing field.

The sooner Josh and Evan accept that the better.

If you really think it’s working as intended, then either you haven’t played in a while or else you believe that the “intention” is to annoy the playerbase.

Because if the algorithm is WAI, then it’s the Designer’s vision that’s completely off the mark.

Josh, if it can be argued that it is less fair, in your own words….then why isn’t it less fair?

Because it does seem like it isn’t fair. It doesn’t feel balanced.
And your community is telling you that it isn’t, time and time again..

Concrete evidence? I don’t think Evan wants or needs that.
He just wants his precious data and interprets it as he sees fit to his ideas.

That the players hate PUGs vs Premades and that it’s silly and non-professional for a game that wants to be competitive to allow for that….well, that’s unfortunate because the algorithm can’t be wrong, can it?

It’s as if the algorithm was the actual holy grail and fun/balance/fair competition take a backseat.

It makes them think they play well, that’s why they have that silly attitude.
And when they get nerfed, it’s their turn to feel the salt…

Our PvP Dev – Evan – will tell you that everything is fine and will probably spout some random stuff about how well designed and efficient their matchmaking algorithm is….

In a nutshell, he’ll tell you all is fine and balanced.

Sigh….

No, I am not saying that people are rarely happy.
Do not put words in my mouth that I did not speak.

I said that many people are unhappy with the current state of queues and lack of separation of premades and soloers. Not only I’ve said that but I’ve also quoted people’s posts, stating exactly that.
That’s what I said, whatever you think I said is meaningless.

Oh, and if you believe that this current system benefits the majority, then I must believe that you are not a real competitive player (on e-games or "real"life games), in order to say such a nonsense.

Real competitive players, in any game, will tell you that it’s not fair, nor balanced nor fun to match premade teams vs PUGs. In any competitive game.

Last time I checked, ANET wanted sPvP to be an esports? Right now, it seems Evan and Josh are doing all they can to keep sPvP from being competitive…

Evan, I am not bothering to look on other threads, just this one:

Just lost another match with full pugs vs. duo queue and a top player on their team. How this matchmaking is working is beyond me, so I’d love an explanation

and

Iason Evan.3806:

There was a lot of unnecessary hyperbole in the OP’s post but that doesn’t change the thrust of his argument. We want split queues for solo/team queue.

and

I think premades should be banned for PvP generally or should be confined to team queue.

and

Now, personally, i’m all for bringing solo/team queue back, I think that things were much better that way.

and

+Unranked
+Ranked team
+Ranked solo
Remove Hotjoin
Keep customs
All problems solved.

and

I want to see something like in GW1 arenas where when you enter randoms and your team wins you can continue as a team and after 10 consecutive wins you enter team arena.

and

Why did you guys remove solo queue in the first place? Serious question. I think it would be good to put it back in.

and

Well I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion. I remember having a lot more fun with the old ranked soloqueue.

QFT!

Evan, stop trying to tell us that everything is fine, that everything is good. It is not.
It’s NOT fine. Regardless of what your paper says, what you think your metrics tell you, it’s not fine.

Go play for a while and you’ll see for yourself.

Alexander.9810:

Bio Flame.4276:

I don’t think Josh even understands why is it that Turret Engis are so OP.
And he doesn’t understand why is it so frustrating to play against one of them.

Can they be beat? Sure, I kill them all the time but it’s not fun. It’s annoying.
VERY annoying.

And it’s too kitten ed easy to just face-roll with a Turret Engi and still be extremely effective.
The proposed change won’t be enough. Not by a longshot.

There will be quite a few ways for classes to kill a Turret Engi is this goes through.

AI builds really do need to be addressed in this AMA as a general concept. I’m sure people would be okay if Anet formally said, “Guys we are just as tired of AI as you are and will only make this worthwhile for PvE and maybe WvW players,” but in the interest of build diversity I think they should at least try to make AI more competition-friendly.

Emphasis is mine.

I really think that should be the way to balance AI for PvP. AI should never replace player-skill nor should it be more important than player skill.
We’re talking about PvP not PvE so per definition, this should be true.

But currently, it isn’t. We have all the clusterkitten around AI: Mesmer clones/phantasms, Necro minion, Ranger Pets, Engi Turrets, some creature-summoning Elites….
(and fortunately, Guard Spirit-weapons are not viabel in PvP!)

I don’t think Josh even understands why is it that Turret Engis are so OP.
And he doesn’t understand why is it so frustrating to play against one of them.

Can they be beat? Sure, I kill them all the time but it’s not fun. It’s annoying.
VERY annoying.

And it’s too kitten ed easy to just face-roll with a Turret Engi and still be extremely effective.
The proposed change won’t be enough. Not by a longshot.

ozma.3498:

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is the consequence of allowing any party size to queue, but in my opinion is far less of a problem than splitting up the community.

Well, no disrespect intended but have you paid much attention to the general outlook most people have on the current state of PvP/matchmaking/the queue system?

He reminds me of a politician (no offense Evan!) that keeps telling his people that everything is fine and all is well….while people are suffering and have no money.
aka: out of touch with the reality….

Evan Lesh.3295:

Hunter.4783:

However why do i even have to WORRY about being matched vs premades while queuing solo?

The fact that im getting premades on both sides means that there are more flaws in the system, not less. Its just that for these past few games i happened to get the “better” premade or it would be more losses than that.

Why do you have to worry?

If a 4+1 versus a 4+1 is an even match, why shouldn’t we make it? There is no right or wrong answer here, just curious as you seem to not think this is a good idea.

I couldn’t let this one go by. There is no right or wrong answer here?
Of course there is a right or wrong answer here, Evan.

Premades should NEVER fight PUG teams. Ever. It’s not balanced and it’s not fair.
You’re placing too much faith on your precious algorithm and you’re not paying attention to actual gameplay.

It’s not fun. It’s not fair, for both sides. When PUGS fight premades, it’s horrible. It’s as if you have one weapon, or less traits. It’s not fair. VOIP and real-time strategy + tactical choices whilst building the team will trump most of the times the poor PUG team.
When the premades fight a PUG, it’s not fun for them neither. Sure it’s fun to win 500-100 for a few times but after a while, real PvPers will become bored.

If you have to know, PvP is all about competition, it’s not about beating a kitten over and over again.

What’s your reasoning for saying that it’s not wrong to allow premades vs PUGs? Even if it’s 4+1 vs 4+1 (or similar to that) it’s not fair, you do not know what choices one team made and the “randomness” that the PUG will bring.
And, now the important part: a lot of times it’s full 5vs 1+1+1+1+1 or 4+1 vs 2+2+1 or stuff like that. And it’s not fair.
The more you move away from 4+1 (say, 3+2, or 3+1+1 or 2+2+1, etc..) it gets worse and worse.

This is not exactly rocket-science. This is not also anything new or ground-breaking stuff. This is something known for any real PvPer, it’s something that should not be done.

Last but not the least…why do you keep dissmissing your player’s concerns so lightly? Everyone complains about premade vs PUGs, during battles, ingame, on the lobby, on the forums….
But you try to convince us that everything is fine, that the precious algorithm makes everything fair and smooth and balanced.
I dare you to go play for a few days and change your mind.
It’s not balanced. Not even close.
And it’s telling that our PvP Devs have more faith on a stupid test algorithm than their own players.

PS – people saying that’s ok to fight premades vs pugs are not real competitive PvPers. Sorry, but they are not. Go ask in any competitive game, be it electronic, or real sports and they will tell you the same answer. Any random PUG team will ALWAYS loose to an equally-skilled premade team. And it’s not even a close match. Training with your fellow players, common tactics and strategy is too much for a PUG team to overcome.
This is why we have teams in sports and not just random pool of players to pick from for every match.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Bio Flame.4276:

Justin, I can’t help but ask: Why do you insist on allowing for an organized team (aka: “premades”) to fight PUG teams?

By now you probably must have realized what any good competitive player could have already told you: it’s a bad idea. In the realm of the terribad ideas.
You must know this.

Why do you allow for this?
Oh, I can guess the reason – not enough player population. But in the long run, if you keep allowing for this travesti of a competition/balance, you’ll lose more players than if you split for “Random Arenas” and “Team Arenas”.

It’s as if you do not believe yourself that sPvP can be improved…

This is over stated. Premades vs pugs. You can win most premades with solo queue and in fact most premades dont use ts or tryharc anymore. Mostly people qq about it to give them an excuse for losing because they arent as good as they think they are

You can win if they are bad or your team is very good, true.
But what does that prove? That given a large skill-gap, a good team can beat a bad team?

That is not the point. The point is that an organized team has chosen their classes, their builds and skills in order to become more than the sum of all their parts. An organized team has TS, is able to adjust to the fight faster than their PUG counterparts, courtesy of voice coms.
That is a very different playing field when compared to 5 random strangers, with builds which are probably not optimized with their team mates and have no quick voice coms.

We’re in 2015. PUG team should NOT face organized teams. Period.

*Disclaimer – this is only valid is one is looking for competition and a competitive game. *

Hurray And Stuff.6785:

@ Atronach.6832, Bio Flame.4276, alcopaul.2156, and Goldberg.4831

Just remember that the RA system was subject to abuse while successful RA teams eventually had to play against TA groups. And that when they removed TA from the game one of the reasons cited was its dwindling numbers. So queue times actually did in part kill team play in the original.

I do think you’re right though, in suggestion that they separate ranked play into solo and group queues. Though it would likely increase the queue times and make queuing up for ranked play as a group pretty arduous if not impossible. For the sake of competition it only makes sense to have a level playing field, and no algorithm will be able to effectively quantify the communication advantage. Especially when it can’t know if they’re using voice chat or not.

snip

(emphasis is mine)

Exactly!
There’s no way any algorithm will be able to level a playing field with Random vs Team fights.
Not possible.

I wish the PvP Dev would accept that, change and move on.

Justin, I can’t help but ask: Why do you insist on allowing for an organized team (aka: “premades”) to fight PUG teams?

By now you probably must have realized what any good competitive player could have already told you: it’s a bad idea. In the realm of the terribad ideas.
You must know this.

Why do you allow for this?
Oh, I can guess the reason – not enough player population. But in the long run, if you keep allowing for this travesti of a competition/balance, you’ll lose more players than if you split for “Random Arenas” and “Team Arenas”.

It’s as if you do not believe yourself that sPvP can be improved…

That is a fairly small playerbase, is it not?
I mean, compare GW2 overall population vs that numbers, and it does seem rather small.

I don’t have the numbers here with me but I Think GW1 had a lot more players on the GvG laddder with far lower box sales, overall.

PS- Are you the Ensign for GW1 Idiot Savants [iQ]?

You are incorrectly assuming that they care……..

pelle ossa.9705:

Bio Flame.4276:

This is becoming more and more frequent…

it’s the new meta

Maybe our PvP Dev team should change their oh-so-precious match-making algorithm to compensate for this? ????

Lol.

alcopaul.2156:

premades (5man) vs premades(5 man). solo queue vs solo queue. how is it hard to implement?

look at your guild wars 1. team arena versus random arena. hard to implement?

THIS is how it should be.
No match-making algorithm can compensate for this.

Sigh. Why doesn’t the PvP Dev get this? Too stubborn? Doesn’t play competitive sPvP?

PS- GW1 was one if not THE best PvP MMO. If our sPvP Dev doesn’t know what to do, just ask the original gW1 Devs. Or buy a copy and go see for himself. The Game is still around….
Geeeez.

This is becoming more and more frequent…

style.6173:

@OP: Premades should definitely be allowed to play in unranked.

The issue, as I keep saying on these forums, is a broken matchmaking system. Premades should be facing other premades. It makes no sense for them to fight against pugs.

I’m still hoping ANET does the right thing here and scraps the new system. It is horrible. The old system definitely had some flaws, but no where near the current situation.

No, you are wrong. Anyone with a minimum grasp of competitive PvP and competition as a whole knows that a random team should never ever face an organized team.
To be perfectly clear, this isn’t just about GW2 sPvP. I am speaking about PvP in general, most especially about competitive PvP.

If one has any understanding concerning competition then I believe that it is fairly obvious why it must be so. If one doesn’t have a basic understanding about competition, then I respectfully think one shouldn’t post about it.

As a side note, I hear some people saying that some PUG teams can and do beat organized teams (sorry,premades It’s an idiotic term). Well, it is fairly irrelevant whether a (Very good)PUG team can beat a (terribad) organized team. That is not the point. It is meaningless to say that if the other team is terribad and my team is fantastigood then I can win.
In fact, having to say that my team can beat an organized team IF them are terribad should already point you to the crux of the problem.

If ANET, or any other company for that matter, is actually serious about competitive PvP then PUGs should not have to fight against organized teams. Period.
There’s no in-house, overly complicated, useless match-making algorithm that can compensate for that.
If ANET is not serious about competition, well then…. who cares anyway?

Because if ANET doesn’t care or is too stuborn to change, Why should we care?

It’s not that GW2 sPvP doesn’t take player skill to suceed. I think everyone admits to that.

What some/most sPvP players don’t admit is that the skill cap is low. Meaning, the amount of skill needed to succeed doesn’t even register when compared to other PvP games such as GW1 (and even less so compared to other games).

That’s the issue.
What some/most sPvPers think to be a good tactical and skilled game is, for good PvPers that experienced and were successful on other games (and not just GW1), GW2 sPvP is shallow and without many strategical and tactical opportunities.

Also, sPvP is universally considered to be bland and insipid for spectators to watch (and this is even admited by ANET).

Last but not the least, this is not about GW1 pvp being better or worse than GW2 sPvP. This is also not about one player not being able to succeed in GW2 sPvP.
Don’t be so foolish to dismiss criticism’s to sPvP so lightly.

What these complaints are really about is that sPvP is shallow and uninspired. It’s not fun to watch, it’s not fun to shoutcast, it lacks “power-plays” and game-changing strategies and builds and counters.

Again: does it have strategies and counters? Yes it does….but they are so few and so unimportant and shallow WHEN compared to other PvP games.
That’s the real issue.

PS – Also, what self-entitled “competitive PvP game” allows for random PUG teams to play versus full organized teams?
Really?
There’s no excuse for that crap.
I know the reasons – not enough population – but that’s no excuse.

Liewec.2896:

sorry, but if you have a problem with AI builds then you’d have absolutely HATED some GW1 builds, minion masters (atleast until the very late patches) had no limit to the amount of minions they could summon, all they required was a corpse,

in pve this meant that as a MM you only needed your group to get the ball rolling, after that you could pretty much solo the rest of the map :P

plus IMHO spirit ritualists were 10x worse than turret engis,
perma blind mixed with damage that can 2 shot you?

that all being said, i do agree that GW1 pvp generally felt alot better balanced,
if a particular build was annoying you, lets say those vermin Backfire/Empathy mesmers! you could create a build to counter it, maybe a ranger with attack speed increase and Broad Head Arrow (one of my favourite skills in the game)

plus the maps…they were all great and basic, no kitten SKYHAMMER

Dude, the forum is about PvP, OP is discussing PvP player…and you come here and talk about GW1 PvE to justify…….what really? To make what point?

The point on your reply which makes a lot of sense is the part in which you talk about builds and counters.
GW1 was all about your own skill, and your build and counters. There was always a counter to every skill (except maybe Rit Weapons…).
GW2 doesn’t have counters, or enough counters to really make a difference in gameplay.

@OP:
you’re right. How is it that the same company that made such an outstanding PvP game managed to do such an awful PvP on GW2 is beyond me…