Guild Wars 2

Have to agree with Poxxia, it is not necessary. Some rivalry can be good but not to the point of trash talking. Still needs to be a level of respect between teams which seems to have greatly degenerated over the last month.

The small team of Devs they have seem rather good at skill design, map design and combat mechanics. Balance could be better but is still decent, probably would be excellent if the current dev team could focus only on those areas.

However there isn’t anyone really responsible for community management for the pvp side of things or someone to make sure the key features match ALL player’s needs. Instead it seems like they just reallocate the devs to these areas periodically, which has just left a huge disconnect here as it doesn’t seem fall under the PvP devs spectrum of expertise. Mostly I see this as a resource allocation issue, the company is asking a lot from such a small team which has left a lot of holes when comparing what the team is capable of, and what is needed. I don’t really see this as a time issue either, just that a small team can’t be so diverse to provide excellent content in all areas.

I think the only thing we can really say is EU teams are on more equal footing with one another. Either due to the top teams not participating in all paid queues or skill being closer together. Not really anything about relative skill between EU and US.

And Ace of Spades comments definitely affects his team because the challenge has been made. They have to decide if they are going to accept, back out or bench him.

They 100% need to hire a PvP community manager. Not in the sense of a forum mod but a developer that caters to the general needs of a pvp community. Reward systems, integration, progression, how fun certain builds are, etc. The current team’s focus is completely on the competitive side of things with many of these areas being completely forgotten about.

Walorx.5129:

To attract more players I think they should have another free trial for PvP. Or if anything, a PvP only option to buy the game with restrictions (such as armor, npcs, and a max rank). If they implemented this, more people could buy the game for cheaper if they only want it for PvP and we can have more people tryin it out. Just a suggestion of course

This is probably the only way for them to get the game back on track. But first they have to fix a number of issues at entry level so new players actually stick around and don’t instantly write the game off.

I also agree with Seether, there is a number of good players that have said they might come back if a proper ranking system was in place. Pushing the tournament system wouldn’t bring them back. It is more of a temporary fix.

But these are two issues at two separate levels of play and is going to be a lot of work for the dev team considering these areas haven’t really been shown to be their expertise.

Honestly though scrimming is really fun, if you are on good terms with the other teams. It is the best way to really try out new things and get feedback on how a match went. The game doesn’t offer very many other goals anyways other than improving as a player.

Agreed. Asuras directly conflict with the minimalistic UI of Gw2. A game supposed to be about e-sports should have very standardized animations, which is about the exact opposite of what they did.

Good teams simply need to be on good terms with one another and set up private scrims in 5v5 servers. This is how most teams from other competitive games practice and it avoids the demoralizing issue. A proper ladder is there for use during down time.

Paids should be completely scrapped. It is a system for a card game which not even the online versions of said card game use. Paids just have too much on the line and really just promotes bad blood between teams.

Definitely see a trend arising that matches my own impressions of the game. Gameplay is really good, balance is mediocre, everything else is basically absent.

It really shows the PvP team has their specialty but little scope. There doesn’t seem to be anyone on their team that branches out into other categories outside of gameplay and its killed the game.

The system seems to have too many mtg roots. Mtg uses a tournament system mostly out of necessity rather than it being an optimal system for generic play. Given online access and the game mostly upholding its own rules a tournament system isn’t a necessity and something more optimal can be used.

Even the paid entry fee seems to be based off mtg.

Jjaja.7218:

Balance should always be done from the top to the bottom. Your experiences in PuGs or hot-joins should be disregarded because it does not always represent the meta or the full potential of any profession composition. Top players will always present the full potential of a profession (it’s what makes them top players) and balance should be based off that. I don’t care if a half-decent Mesmer is able to beat a similarly half-decent Necromancer every single time; it’s a totally different scenario at the top.

Sorry but this is just completely flawed. Balance must be done for both synonymously. If casual players don’t enjoy the game there cannot be a competitive scene. I probably wouldn’t be considered a casual player myself but I at least understand where the foundation of a game comes from. If I don’t see a true casual interest I know my time trying to be competitive will just be wasted.

The competitive scene needs to be dynamic. As in have proper progression of new players into competitive players so there is always new ideas being brought to the table. Who is really going to be interested in watching the same top 5 teams play in every tournament? The game has to minimize barriers for new players in order to grow interest and viewership as well as act as a resource to build new teams.

New players joining the game to get bursted by a thief or warrior or end up in an endless fight with a bunker is really going to jade their experience which just undermines the whole competitive scene. That’s even if the game is perfectly balanced at the competitive level.

I personally don’t think it should even be used for tournament entry. There seems to be so many unaccounted for situations where QPs just become a barrier. What if you recruit a new member without many QPs? Do you have to specifically avoid recruiting people who aren’t listed? Doesn’t that put the biggest barrier ever created on new players trying to get into a competitive scene? What if an old team was inactive for a period but becomes active once big tournaments are announced? Do you think you will attract old teams to come back with this current system?

I definitely agree. Energy sigils are too much of a hidden defensive resource and takes a away from watching the number of dodges used. Plus when stacked with vigor can give a dodge every ~3.5 seconds.

The downstate is of course necessary as is does fill an important role. However it is disliked by sooooo many people, probably cutting out a large number of potential players. As much as the downstate fills an important role, as it is currently implemented it is also hurting the game.

Now the question is can we takeout the aspects of the downed state that people don’t enjoy and replace it with something cool while keeping the same goal? It really seems like this hasn’t been given much thought considering the skills they gave most professions are just meant to be annoying, along with the rally mechanic. We need the downstate to be really fun and interesting to help players accept it. It is definitely not the case right now.

It just really seems warriors gave up a lot of things to make up for their higher base stats. They gave up their range options, their active defense, their condi removal and their healing. This leaves warriors with extremely bland skills like whirling axe, brutal shot, crushing blow, etc. Basically a bunch of stuff that only does one mediocre thing.

It also leaves them with no build diversity as they gave up basically everything but damage and cc. That’s really only conducive to glass cannon builds.

The other thing that really erks me is saying warriors were designed to not have condition removal. If warriors are meant to be weak to conditions they don’t have to be weak in two ways. That being little removal while also being the most effected by conditions. Besides most slows pulse so that it would take a lot of removal to be completely clean.

AmagicalFishy.6935:

The downed state is fine.

This trend of trying to justify an opinion by its affect on some material level of “fun” is idiotic. “Fun” isn’t a currency that players use among eachother—saying, “This doesn’t add to the game’s level of fun!” doesn’t mean anything. If you dislike a mechanic, you obviously don’t think it’s fun. If you like it, you obviously do.

Saying, “I don’t like this because it’s not fun, and that’s why it should be replaced with something more fun!” is useless. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it should be removed, nor does it mean it is “unfun”. Christ.

Maybe its not a quantifiable metric but that is not to say it doesn’t exist and isn’t used in creating games. Anecdotal justification is useful to determine enjoyability but usually requires a large group of people. It is also quite possible to create mechanics that can be enjoyable while accomplishing its goal.

denyitbattle.2609:

Downed state is great and will be one of the best, differentiating feature of the game if they can ever get the e-sport PvP support off the ground.

Barely getting off a rally, or perfectly coordinating a team stability to support rezing will be major points of attraction in good matches.

I disagree, even from a competitive stand point. I lose interest in watching games when players rally. It turns fights from being close to being very one sided based on team comp and fraction of a second differences. How much this swings fights becomes more of a frustration than something enjoyable, even if it is supposed to add ‘depth’.

The reason for rallies is to snowball fights to overcome problems with the interaction of bunkers and cap points, so team fights don’t drag out too long and help with comebacks. Rallies are used as a bandaid to hide another problem while being a frustrating mechanic itself.

Lord Aargadon.4135:

OH! bringing the thread back on track, my biggest issue with anti-fun gameplay is that sPvP revolves around capture point and bunker builds.

Yeah I definitely find this. It seems great for more the competitive side as it promotes team communication and synergy. However its hardly a fun game type and is no where near ideal for people just looking to have fun in hot joins. The snowball arena has many more fun elements and really showcases the difference between something designed to be fun and something designed to be competitive. There needs to be both available.

Having only this one cap point gametype really limits the game to, do you have 5 people on viop? No? Then don’t both playing as there is no fun element outside of trying to be competitive.

I think when they add in custom servers to the hotjoin list they have the opportunity to take gametypes meant to be fun, like hutball and the snowball arena. However I really worry the devs are tunnel visioning on this, with their only goal for custom servers is to allow teams to scrim or 3rd party organizations to host tournaments.

To me downed state should look something similar to zyra’s passive. I see this being more akin to fps downstates where there is a higher recoil in the downed state. A one-off nuke that has a large skill component and can get you back into the fight. Players should also be able to recharge the skill after channeling with it being interruptable by cc. It would just need a system to help it deal with an opponents downed state as well. Such as if they die shortly after being hit by one of these nukes they enter the downstate at 33% hp.

Someone landing something more like that would seem like an acceptable way to turn a fight around and feels rewarding for the people being successful with it. Much better than a steam of dps by mashing a button.

I definitely agree the cap points should be larger. The size of cap points really affects the ability to balance the game as open field combat and fighting on a point must both be accounted for. Currently these two situations play out nothing alike.

I don’t think points per kill should be that high though. There is definitely quite a bit of action taking place. Also more defensive builds should still be viable, though its more so the current implementation of defensive builds that seems off rather than the point allocation. Giving too many points for kills just makes comebacks less likely.

If downed players couldn’t hold the point there would be less reason to finish them. Encouraging players to let people bleed out should be discouraged rather than promoted as there is nothing fun about that. Once they add a system that discourages keeping people in the downstate I could see that being a nice change.

I don’t think the concept of downstate is bad. However the implementation of it I dislike as there is nothing really fun about it. Its there to help prevent burst and add skilled play but doesn’t have a fun and interesting aspect to it. Teleporting around and forcing someone to chase you isn’t something I would call fun. Then it also limits the ability to win 1v2s and those hero moments that keep people playing.

The downstate is also hardly the only example where fun is compromised in favor of depth. Good games have depth + fun tied together, not a trade off. I think the devs need to take a step back from their vision of the competitive scene and focus on the roots of what makes a game fun. Pendragon also made a good post earlier going over how too much attention is going to the competitive scene before a base has been established. Paids aren’t always popping so there needs to be something fun and rewarding for people to fall back on in the meantime.

I am wondering what anti-fun gameplay everyone currently sees in Gw2 sPvP. This seems to be a big barrier to newer players. Looking at PvP I just see a conscious decision to compromise fun for the sake of increased depth, which pretty much goes against other successful Pvp titles.

The downed state is pretty much the perfect example of this. Can anyone say there is anything ‘fun’ about the downed state? How do you think new players seeing it in action will first react? I personally feel like its cheating to even use the downed state in a 1v2. In pub games if an ally dies in a 1v2 I usually stand back and let him get stopped because that is a victory I am not going to take away from that lone person. Sadly the game normally does.

What other types of gameplay do newer players see that just isn’t fun? Though this affects older players as well. I personally find a lot of this wearing on me and I have been around for awhile.

I would also say the slow and steady method isn’t going to work in this case. Based on the post about class identities, there needs to be more work from the ground up. Frankly just looking at the identities of each profession there are already major imbalances. So without really taking a step back to look at the fundamentals of the game its not going to get much better. That would obviously come with some pretty radical changes which is probably necessary.

I am a little put off by that post. It really doesn’t seem concrete enough. I get the feeling it was put together in light of the current meta rather than where they wish the balance for classes to be. I can’t say I agree the current meta matches the identities of each profession the best. Definitely makes me worry when the origin of each profession isn’t really ironed out or may inherently have anti-fun elements attached to it.

I agree, should be able to change specs while in spawn or waiting to respawn. Otherwise the game becomes too much about counter comping.

Warpy is correct, the anti skill function is rather weak with each second of chill adding .66s recharge each second to all skills currently on cooldown . Right now is mostly for the movement speed.

For the most part correct but really depends on the degree and what is targeted.

The bounds between burst and bunkers is just a bit too large. I can’t see how bringing the bounds a bit closer together will reduce build options as currently there is a very small representation of balanced builds and the ones that are used usually have something blatantly overpowered to make them viable.

If people are dueling in a server it should be obvious to respect that decision. Its a bit annoying that the servers are not properly labeled but everyone has to deal with that. Trying to force the gametype you want to play on others when most of them don’t feel the same way isn’t going to accomplish anything. Just going to empty the server and make everyone go back to the process of finding another server.

Definitely agree. The current system just is not conducive to allowing players to play at their own leisure. Its basically schedule with a team when you’ll be on during prime hours and ignore the game for the rest of the time. Queue times are just too long and adding matchmaking would make it worse when using a tournament system. This system fits for daily/monthly tournaments however shouldn’t be the go to mode.

There is also very little progression that can be made when your team isn’t on.
Personally I think they can do a better job at helping allies tell what is happening across the map without the need to directly communicate as this is one of the larger barriers to solo play. The idea of matching solo/premade teams based on a combined ranking wouldn’t work because the game inherently favors team play much more. Compared to other games this difference is much higher because all the information isn’t available to a single player.

I just don’t think paids/frees are going to be accomplishing what Anet intends. As much as it might theoretically be a small increase in income, I see it going the other way where it just discourages players from returning to the game and purchasing expansions. The population won’t be there for 6/8 teams to lose the majority of their tickets each tournament. We see a temporary influx in teams each month due to the monthly achievement but it really dies down as the month goes on which is not good. Its a self-cannibalizing system that doesn’t truly represent skill.

I agree, really hate rallying. It just completely ruins entertaining fights as the first engagement determines the majority of how the fight plays out. So many games are just determined by rallies.

However the one thing I think the rally mechanic helps against is bunkers. That way the winner of a team fight wins by a land slide and has the dps available to clean up the enemy bunker before reinforcements arrive. A fight with only the bunkers remaining would be pretty meh…

Still I really dislike rallying. I think something a little less guaranteed would be fine, like when an enemy is stomped down allies begin healing 10% hp/s for 5s.

MaXi.3642:

good question, i was thinking about the same… if they want to add ratings to tournaments, wouldnt it be a bit unfair to give same rewards for winning in low rating and in high rating? or what about wait times? its sometimes a bit long even now, what if they add rating? waiting for 8x 5 players with similar rating seems to be quite scary to me…

This is what I worry about with the current tournament system. I don’t think a tournament system goes well with automatic matchmaking. Requiring to pull 8 teams together that are close in ranking and then distribute rewards that represent that skill bracket just feels clunky. For that goal a ladder would be a better fit. Plus ranking on a ladder is a much better representation of skill than QP.

As much as Anet thinks players want a matchmaking system I think they are misinterpreting the implementation of that system. Players want a ladder with matchmaking not a tournament system with matchmaking. Save the tournament system for daily and monthly tournaments, allow players to participate in a ladder when there isn’t any daily or monthly tournaments in progress. That is just much more casual friendly without breaking up the community across different tournament brackets. Queue times will be shorter, a solo vs premade ladder can be implemented, rewards are more controlled, ranking of players is based less on time and is more related to skill and there isn’t a need to farm tickets.

I think if the game developers just made a post admitting they need to do away with the current tournament system in favor of a ladder system they would keep interest up. Right now what worries me the most is they are going to keep trying to push this system on us. Balance and certain gameplay mechanics can be iterated on and is in an expected state atm. Issues in those areas don’t really raise too many alarms because its easy enough to take a couple steps back. However when it come to designing the foundation used to play the game it is much harder to reiterate on as it affects the ranking and reward systems.

It is very worrysome that the devs haven’t admitted the system isn’t working already because each day that passes it makes it more and more likely such a change will never occur. The decision to either get rid of the tournament system or keep it will make or brake the game. It would be really useful to know what Anet’s plans are for this system so players can make their choices instead of remaining in the dark. I am sure they have already lost a number of players out of doubt that they will change tournaments.

Syeria.4812:

I’m not sure if you’re understanding what he means by “matched tourneys” as revised matchmaking is likely the single most requested change on this forum. Even more than ladders, leaderboards, and nerfing thief, players have been requesting that. I’m not sure why you’d say that no one’s asking for it.

I don’t believe matched tourneys are the same thing as an elo rating system, it just sounds similar but would function completely different.

To me matched tourney’s sounds like the teams are just seeded so the team with the most qualifier points plays the team with the least in the first round and eliminates them. A change like that wouldn’t fix any of the major issues with paid tournaments.

What it could also mean is that there are multiple tournament queues present representing a different skill bracket or splitting premades and random queue. I would be for splitting premades vs random queue, but do not believe this game has the numbers to also split free tournaments based on skill as this would just skyrocket wait times. This couldn’t be applied to the paid tournament system either.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Wow, what an amazing thread. Thanks for starting it tOss!

It’s a great idea and one that represents a very different point of view. You guys can do a lot to push the current game, and I applaud you for making an effort.

But at the same time, some of this still falls on myself and other devs. We will continue to listen to your posts about balance. We will continue to push features forward that help you to enjoy the game (like custom arenas, matched tourneys, QP rankings, leaderboards, a way to spectate the game, etc).

I know it sucks that everything isn’t done right away, but just know that we’re still working on the features we’ve mentioned before.

Until you get custom arenas, you can definitely use the current PvP browser to set up 5on5 matches and settle disputes via 1on1 duels. We don’t want to tell you how to enjoy the game, and we commend you for using the current systems as you wait for future features to come online.

This post is rather unsettling though. I don’t believe anyone is asking for matched tourneys or rankings based on qualifier points. Quite the opposite, many people are directly opposed to those systems. Matched tourneys would only increase the chance the top teams meet in the final round and get the best reward. This is the lowest issue players have with the paid tournament system and wouldn’t help to address some of the more pressing issues.

With the current direction seeming to go so far against what players want I would expect the importance of players taking their own initiative or organize a competitive environment would increase. Mostly as a result of needing to sidestep what the game inherently offers.

I think we really need a poll to see how many people want to see a tournament based matchmaking system with an entrance fee or a standard elo ranking system to really show the devs what the community wants.

I think the new system has more potential than the previous one, however without some tweaks it won’t really work. There needs to be more ways to help a team regroup and get back into the fight earlier. With the ability to grief people in the downstate still it is really easy to stagger timers to greatly delay when a team is able to push again.

Ideally the respawn system should prevent zerg resing a point but allow the losing team to regroup in short order. This just doesn’t work without any control over when you leave downed state and 20s might be too long. These two factors cause this new system to be worse, though if they are addressed it would be a more balanced system.

Not sure I agree with it taking away depth of the game either, it is just reallocating it. Paying attention to res timers when you stomp helps you predict when you will have to expect reinforcements rather than just being used to stagger opponents res times.

The thing about healers is they act to help the game scale up to a higher number of players. Without them it makes it much more difficult to balance around both 1v1s and 5v5s. As in conquest both 1v1s and 5v5s can occur it almost becomes impossible to truely balance pvp.

This is because they offer a teamwide defensive resource. A shared resource encourages intelligent target switching rather than just sitting your dps on someone important because they are guaranteed to die. This also allows teams to increase their defensive resource pool by taking more healers to offset the increase in number of players.

Gw2 ‘shared’ resource system is based around reses/rallies with the resource itself being the bunkers hp/stun immunity cooldowns.

With Aoe the number of bunkers doesn’t linearly increase this defensive resource as the hp pool of all the bunkers can be hit with AoE. Also as the resource mostly ends up being an hp pool for a single bunker, they aren’t properly scaled for 1v1s. It also either puts a stupid amount of emphasis on the downstate as the determining factor of a fight or makes it irrelevant due to AoE depending on the number of players involved. As such the game cannot be truely balanced across fights between different player numbers.

What Gw2 really needs is another mechanic that offers a teamwide defensive resource outside of just the downed state and doesn’t have to specifically be from healers. The downed state really isn’t sufficient for this role alone and mostly just becomes an ‘unfun mechanic’ even when balanced around the number of players present.

The only thing I can see this system being salvaged into is larger daily tournaments. Where there is only a set number of tournaments that can be entered. That way the rating of players isn’t based so much on time commitment. It of course needs to be supplemented with a standard rank queue system so we have something to do in the mean time.

Right now it seems like the econ section is having too large of a pull in designing this. More tickets you buy for $ = more chances to early qualifying points = higher rating. This is especially the case when tickets are being limited further.

As much as this game could be salvaged by adding a standard rank queue system I am starting to doubt this will happen with the current system seeming to have such an monetary drive.

Ace of Spades.6325:

Sorry for my Engrish.

No, and we will not be for a long time. They went for this tournament system for the sake of being different, crippling down the game for the next 5 months at least.

The concept is not bad, the problem is that the devs working on pvp are just mere humans, they can’t code faster.

This system requires many things to be finished:

Hot Join
Free Tournaments
Paid Tournaments
Monthly Tournaments
Ranked System
Private Servers
Spectator Mode

It’s very complicated to code and project something like this. But they could’ve worked on something standard, and at this point we would prolly have twice the player base, and most the features needed to start an eSport.

Example:

Unranked Q, both solo and premade. (1 match, random map)
Solo Q ranked, solo or 2 man premade. (1 match, random map)
Ranked Q, premade only. (1 match, random map) <—— no need for 8 teams to be online.
Private servers.
Spectator mode.

With a system like this, both casuals and hardcorers would be able to play at anytime of the day, instead Anet decided to be hipsters, being different for the sake of being different, and now casuals can’t play at all (without getting stomped), and hardcorers can only at specific hours.

If i was in charge, i would put the effort into bringing a ranked solo q in the game as fast as possible, that’s the main thing that keeps the average/hardcorish player playing the game. Some people simply don’t have the time to find 4 good players, but they still want to play competitive, also i could name at least 10 friends who stopped playing cuz ‘’i don’t play unranked games’’. I strongly belive that if we had a system like the one i suggested (and most big games have it) we would’ve a much healtier game.

This basically sums up the biggest short coming of Gw2. For the most part the gameplay is great. Its very hard to think of another MMO that rivals the core gameplay mechanics, however there just wasn’t enough supportive infrastructure to really showcase this. I fear we will be out this infrastructure for another 6 months which would just kill this game for me.

Right now it just seems like they didn’t have the resources allocated to PvP and that’s why we ended up with such a simple system that doesn’t properly support all types of players. Honestly this system is only good for the top 3 teams and even then a ranked system would probably be better for them.

A lot of the mechanics on top of the normal gameplay mechanics also don’t feel like they have been cleaned up. Downstate, res griefing and cap point mechanics as well as others all don’t feel like they have gotten enough attention and have been really ironed out as these are probably the areas that need some of the bigger changes that will impact balance. This makes changes in these areas harder to implement after release and should have probably been a higher priority.

This thread actually has a number of tpvpers posting in here saying thieves are definitely too strong. The effect of thieves is definitely buffered in tpvp due to the amount of bunkers used and the ability to res easily if only a single target is being pressured. However they still have a very noticeable impact even at the highest levels of play, probably in the ball park of 90% of tournament teams are running a thief.

Its mostly due to how cripple is applied in caltrops. Condition thieves are quite specific in who they beat. Warriors are definitely one of the classes with few options against this build which would probably be resolved just by changing caltrops to not stack cripple if the target is already crippled.

I don’t think the current system is sustainable based on ticket rewards. Each paid tourny 4 teams lose 5 tickets which takes a minimum of 5 hours in free tournaments to get back. Each paid tourny has teams from the top 1% skill bracket that will eliminate more casual teams. As more casual teams get kicked out the queue times get longer and it puts more pressure on the next higher skill bracket of team as there are less teams they can consistently beat in the first round. Eventually your left with only a single skill bracket in paid tournies and if that bracket doesn’t have the numbers to support a tournament none will take place.

Taking 5+ hours in free tournies to get tickets back when half the teams don’t get passed the first round is just unreasonable and creates a pecking order.

Right now the frame work has a lot of potential, but that’s really all it is right now. The gameplay is pretty good, there are definitely some things that stand out but with time should be fixed and ironed out. Still a long way to go in this regard but I wouldn’t say the gameplay is killing the game as I feel the gameplay is still better than what other competing games offer.

The real problem is the accessibility and reward systems. This really hurts the casual base which is 100% necessary to support the competitive scene.

There is nearly nothing in this game for a player who doesn’t have a team or whose team isn’t on. The highest skill cap in this game is by far team coordination over individual skill. Without a consistent team there is little improvement that can be made after a certain point.

This has a lot to do with how games are played. 1v1s aren’t strictly supported in a hold the point game type, especially with bunkers being present whose role is to stall for backup. 1v1s are really the only area individual skill predominates and is favorable for a solo player. I am not really interested in playing in 1v2s in a pug tourny setting as there is just less you can learn from it without voice com. So the current game type doesn’t support solo play well and there are no alternatives yet.

Voice com is also over emphasized. In games like league and starcraft a solo player has access to the same information as their allies without the need to directly communicate. Gw2 restricts the information a player receives to what they see and what their team tells them, greatly restricting the impact a solo player could have on the game.

The reward system is also awfully linear with time.
Most games have systems in place that give casual players an extra boost such as first win of the day or daily quests. Just a higher initial progression at the start of each day to help encourage players without as much time on their hands. Tournament ticket rewards should have something in place that takes this into account.

The other things is there is no real long term goal the game innately rewards people with. It seems like the intended goal is to push players to more competitive scenes which wouldn’t appeal to the casual base and requires forming a commitment to a team. The pvp skins and glory ranks aren’t enough of a goal for casual players. This just isn’t as motivating as unlocking say new champions or runes. A better overlap between pvp rewards and pve would be a good start.

That sounds like a bug, it should function by breaking stealth as soon as it ends or the thief leaves the radius. I doubt it is intended to build up stealth duration if the thief stays in it for the full duration.

Thieves can be manageable, however just being manageable doesn’t mean they are good for the game. This is a game based off animations and actively responding, now we have a burst class that can execute a combo with a very very weak tell. Sure there is still some margin to respond to it and it can be countered but really is that margin large enough to encourage new players to continue to play the game? There is nothing innate in a thieves combo that tells new players ‘this is what you need to look out for’ and honestly without that it is a bad mechanic.

Between 0-450 toughness is really all you should be aiming for. Warrior’s damage starts to really drop the second you focus on defense while your time to death won’t improve to reflect the damage loss as warriors generally lack ways to multiply their defensive stats through healing and active defense.

There are also a lot of classes who’s burst combos will put you in a losing position whether you have 0 or 600 toughness so its not going to be night and day difference.

Tool tips aren’t always correct. I highly doubt the actual damage of hundred blades is 2030 over 3.5 seconds without taking into account crit. Test it against dummies using steady weapons and your results might be quite a bit different.

This is what a warrior does, they are great at creating uneven fights and capitalizing on them due to their high mobility, cc and burst. Probably a similar effectiveness to a thief for this task, maybe a bit lower due to no access to poison and less burst. The next thing warriors do is snowball fights once your team starts downing players. Warriors put out the highest aoe damage while being frequently available which can shut down ressing. It forces players to come to a known location to res and allows warriors to actually land their skills. Engies are also great at this being able to do this from range though with less overall damage and it being a bit more delayed.

These applications are basically the only situations a warrior is a good pick over another class. There general applicability is really low due to having two hard counters, those being cc conditions and high toughness bunkers with protection. These are really hard counters too, nothing soft about them.

So for warrior to see more play they need better general application which would happen from changing those two hard counters to soft counters. This would happen by giving warriors a small amount of innate condi removal, an option to punish blind spam, an option for boon stripping, a reliable way to damage high toughness builds in while using power and a compression in the extreme damage range warriors have.

It is really just staff ele’s that cause this issue as they can be so tanky there is no chance of taking them down before they destroy the treb. Sadly best counter play is just to leave when one shows up or commit a large portion of your team just to keep your treb up.

Twenynge.8520:

I play and engineer and I carry bomb kits for the very reason the op stated. You need to understand that you can’t just run in and spam skill 2 like you’re used to, or you will lose due to the conditions from the bombs. Pay attention. Are you standing in fire? Maybe you should get out if it.

I have considerable difficulty with ranged classes as an engineer. Equip your short bow and try again.

Also, the good bombs have considerable cooldowns. Wait for the engineer to blow the good ones (confuse, fire, and smoke), then jump in. You should be able to survive bomb kit skill 1 spam.

Considerable cooldowns is a lie! 20s on smoke bomb compared to 48s on well of darkness (4 procs vs 6). 15s on concussion bomb compared to 23 on cry of frustration. 8s on fire bomb compared to 15s on ring of fire (8s duration vs 5s though harder to get the full duration).

Skills are definitely stronger than their equivalents, just the kit doesn’t have much flexibility, though lack of flexibility can be partially covered for with pistol and grenades.

1) Guardian
2) Engineer
3) Thief
4) Mesmer
5) Shortbow Ranger
6) Necromancer
7) Bunker Elementalist
8) Warrior
9) Any other Ranger build
10) Any other Ele build

Mesmer’s are one of the better balanced classes but honestly not close to where they should be to truly be used as a reference point for the balance of other classes.

You also need to define a tier list of where other classes stand in relation to the mesmer. Right now I would say it is: Engineer=Thief=Guardian>Mesmer>Ranger>Warrior>Ele=Necro
Already at the high level of play the meta is beginning to revolve around the first 3/4

Right now mesmer has a lot of good defensive tools, that if used right can offset what another class is trying to accomplish. They also have very strong offensive capabilities in small scale fights but that begins to break down a bit in larger fights. For this reason there 1v1 potential is very high but not without hard counters such as leeching venom shortbow thieves, bunker elementalists and soft counters of a well played warrior. So I would say mesmer’s 1v1 potential is a tad bit too strong.

In team fights they transition a bit more into a supportive role with some potential to land a couple big hits as they rely on their shatters/phantasms for a large chunk of damage, both of which are prone to get shut down in larger fights. They aren’t quite ideal for larger fights but can participate depending on where the fight is taking place and what the opponent is bringing to that fight. For this I would say their supportive options aren’t quite enough to allow them to effectively transition roles in team fights to stay on par with other class options in larger fights given how much their damage potential dips in team fights.

But the biggest problem with mesmer’s is portal repairing.