I’d like to join in and help to spread the good vibes.
These forums are becoming increasingly toxic, full of rants, threats, heartbreaking farewells, dramatic speeches and what not. While I understand that most of it comes from frustration and a genuine desire to see the game succeed, rather than meaningless and spiteful nerd rage, I feel things have gone a bit over the top recently.
I’m having myself a hard time understanding the PvP devs, and I seriously mean it. Six months after the release is quite a long time really. But I still think the game is solid at its very very very root (note the emphasis:p :p :p).
So rather that shouting at someone over the internet, acting like an e-bully or worse an e-lobbyist pressuring workers to get what I want, I’m just playing the game as a beta tester: trying to enjoy gw2, understand it, give some feedback then and there and…wait for the fixes:p
It’s not exactly what I expected, but at least I’m having fun and my blood pressure is not going crazy with rage:p
In the end, I guess what i want to say is this.
To the players:
If you’re so angry at Anet for letting you down, then leave to greener fields and let the game fall into oblivion. I don’t see what could hurt them more to be honest.
But if you still hope that the game can be improved, then please refrain the badmouthing and the insults as it is a terrible terrible way to get things right and it also deters potential players- and you just need some common sense to understand that.
To ArenaNet:
Put a leash on your marketing team. I’m not even kidding here. Tell them to slow down and stop the early advertising. Time will come when they will have more than enough to do advertising PvP, but now is just not the time.
As for devs, well, I’m sure you guys are not incompetent but rather you’re under constraints related to the development itself and transparency. Just know that confidence and hope don’t last forever – no pressure:p :p :p :p
Not quite Wispy.
What they said was that rank mattered more than rating. They have plans on displaying ranks (when it’s ready:p :p :p :p) but not rating. The idea is then to climb up the ladder rather than improving the rating.
I have absolutely no clue though as to why they would make such a distinction as the rank sounds like a direct outcome derived from the rating.
Iteration at its finest, even in the live game. Definitely requires balls of steel to implement such a change (read such a reversal:p :p :p)
It’s a good thing though, the cost of entry for PvP was an absolute design aberration.
I’m slightly more confused as to why you’d still want to split the playerbase on a single game mode but I guess it’s part of that iterative thingy again:p
Let’s see if teams go for the 8 teams tournaments while pugs or solo go for the 1 round system.
To be honest, I still have my doubts on any form of barrier of entry (8 team requirement) but I think the idea of progressing throughout rounds is great.
Maybe it would have been best to keep it for actual tournament play though? To be fair, it shouldn’t hurt the everyday ladder play provided you have enough players and a decent matchmaking system.
In other words, can’t wait to test it:p
This thread is so confusing. Are you genuinely trying to be constructive or is it just some kind of rant mixed with some e-lobbying?
Because I somewhat fail to see how your friend list or google analytics can teach the devs anything they don’t know already with the tons of metrics at their disposal?
Or maybe you think that stating the obvious is actually relevant? We all know what it takes to make a successful pvp (any pvp really):
- polish the gameplay
- make a smooth learning curve
- provide the indispensable tools for a competitive environment – solo and team ladder, matchmaking, obs mode, private servers…
- mass market pvp with full advertising and e-sport partnerships.
No. The real trick is to implement the above in a way that makes sense within the gw2 ecosystem and that fully integrates with all the other systems in the game.
For whatever reason it’s taking arena net months if not years to figure out how to achieve it.
So as a player, there really isn’t much you can do except, wait for it… play the game, enjoy it and push the mechanics to their limits if you’re gifted enough to be a top tier player.
And when all hope is gone or when you’re fed up with the wait, just leave and let gw2 be a case study on how to fail a pvp sequel:p
There’s no point in mass marketing a pvp in a beta state.
There’s not point in going e-sport unless the devs fully understand how the games plays so they can polish the gameplay to the perfection.
There is no point in getting partnerships with renown names before they know how to structure the game for competition.
Now having said that, how many players will leave before any of these is done? How much valuable feedback from top teams will be lost before they implement the tools for a competitive scene to emerge? Can the pvp community grow to be as amazing as gw1’s after such a questionable start?
You should have realised it by now, but hotfixes even incomplete are much more satisfying than 0 feature for months and months – cf the 1 week 1v1 to replace the 8 team tournaments.
To be honest, I don’t think people are asking for a GvG 1.2. That Gw2 is a totally different game is fine in itself.
To explain the lack of enthusiasm regarding the current sPvP, I’m just wondering if there isn’t a mismatch between the initial target audience (MMO/rpgs/gw1 players) and the sPvP gameplay that incorporates (too) many FPS elements.
I do think the game is solid in its own category, but because it’s so much faster than any rpg, it may just not be what the majority of players is after.
Assuming the above holds some truth, you can then try to help players learn the game by mastering the fast pace and the combat mechanics or you can try to tone down the damage/defense numbers to leave some room for analysis, shutdown and team coordination.
To help players learn the game, you need to make team fights much easier to read, get some streams/obs mode going, improve the matchmaking system – as you learn best in balanced matches with the occasional fight against a better team- and foster a competitive environment through ladders and tournaments so that players always want to improve.
I still believe that the learning curve isn’t the only issue with the gameplay though. The game is very very fast paced and although it is a jewel design-wise, it may be just too action-intense for the core audience of gw2 -at least in competitive PvP.
The population is low because the PvP integrates more elements from fps and rts than RPGs or our beloved gw1, thus failing to appeal to its initial target audience.
Let’s take a look at the following design principles:
- fps style combat with a restricted view to make camera management and observation a skill in themselves.
- fps style combat with a very fast paced game, where kills can be achieved in matters of seconds
- minor death penalty so that players have fewer reasons to play defensively but rather are encouraged to take bold actions.
- every skill should be visually understandable
- no more team carrier like monks or lead frontliner: every character should be able to be self sufficient with some room for specialisation.
While of these look fantastic from a designer standpoint, personnally, as a (mmo)-rpg player who was a huge fan of gw1 I can’t but be frustrated with the pace and the confusion of 5v5 pvp.
I have no fun with fast encounters: killing or being killed in seconds isn’t exciting, it’s frustrating. Even at the top of tournament play, team fights rarely ever last more than 1-2 minutes.
I like kills to depend on outplaying the other team with pressure, damage and shutdown being all perfectly coordinated rather than raw damage, skills being on cool down or quickness of reaction.
I like to talk tactics and builds during the fight to gradually overcome the opponent as a team rather than focusing on my own gameplay.
I’m not a massive fan of the high micro cap. Once again, I’d rather focus on builds, tactics and strategies.
The game is very complex and allows for a high skill cap, I have no doubt about that. But:
- the gameplay is too fast paced to appeal to traditional rpg players
- the ineligibility of team fights make it worse
- the freaking steep learning curve make it worse.
So either Anet works on the last two points and hopes the player base grows once people learn the game and are used to the fast paced gameplay. Either they realise they’ve gone over the roof with the offensive combat design.
I’m pretty sure there’s some middle ground to be found between the the ultra fast and hard to read current team fight and the 8v8 stagnant fights with no deaths that plagued some of the gw1 era.
Well I’m going to go against everyone here:
Don’t introduce soloQ unless you can’t make a comprehensive solution that would combine both a solo ladder and a team ladder.
I wholeheartedly agree with what Lowell pointed out and that was developed by Eristina: bring the players together, facilitate networking and contacts between the players, make it easier to improve and to show the world where they stand in terms of “skill”.
But you don’t have to introduce soloQ to get all these benefits. The following system would pretty much reconcile the both of the two worlds.
3 types of games exclusively:
- unranked through the current jot joins
- ranked games
- tournaments-style matches of growing importance (daily, monthly, annual)
How do the ranked matches work?
Season based games: for a 3-4 months, the competition is on 24/7 and is open to everyone. You can join freely and any time as solo or as a group of friends or you can register a team for the whole season and then play under that team tag. You can then face anyone who has entered the season.
Everyone playing ranked games gains and loses rating on the individual ladder.
On the other hand, registered teams gain and lose ratings on the team ladder.
Now comes the hard part:
1/ how do you calculate team and individual rating?
2/ how do you match players against each other?
I’m going to let Anet’s developers show us how awesome they are and assume they’ve come up with a hell of an algorithm. If done well, it results in something like this: (figures are completely random, it’s just to give an idea)
- 5 solos of individual rank 20 face 5 other solos of individual rank20
- a 4-man group of average individual rank 15 plus a solo of individual rank 25 face a full group of individual rank 20
- a registered team with a team rank of 10 but only 3 players plus a group of 2 whose individual rank is 15 face a full registered team whose team rank is 10.
Whatever the situation, the rating calculation and the matchmaking have to be done so that matches are balanced, players are not demotivated when losing rating and registered teams are not penalised for playing with pick ups.
You also have to take care of “exploits” : end season farming, protecting one’s rating by tanking others with smurfs, going down as a team to then gain individual rank, make your own team lose on purpose fir whatever reason, etc, etc…
If the above is impossible to achieve or to complex to code, then yeah introduce a soloQ system.
But if you can do it correctly, you’ll achieve the recognition effect Lowell and Eristina explained and much more: incomplete teams will play with people they’d never have thus making contacts and networking much easier, the player base would be united, more alive, you’d progress much quicker since matches are balanced and cover every situation etc, etc
I’m having a hard time understanding Anet’s priorities.
While many voiced the opinion about how unattractive conquest mode is and the lack of diversity, investing resources in creating a new map instead of working on bringing together the PvP community doesn’t make much sense to me.
You have two issues here, really:
- Combat mechanics and PvP maps/mode that don’t appeal to everyone
- a complete lack of PvP community due to the above, but also, and dare I say mainly due to the lack of tools to follow players, teams, create the gossip, the atmosphere – the mix of taunts, rivalries, inspiration that make PvP so awesome and alive- and all these things necessary for the competitive scene to blossom.
Decision was made to ship the game without any of the features from the second batch, namely no matchmaking, no ladder, no obs mode. As a consequence there’s absolutely no way to know how good one is which leads to no excitement in the PvP scene. Quite the irony for a competitive game.
I understand implementing a competitive system with ladder and tournaments is quite complex, especially when in the shadow of Starcraft 2 and LoL season 3. But at least make it your top priority:(
Don’t split up the player base! There’s no need to separate free tournaments from paid if there’s a clever matchmaking system. What you want to have is unranked games -the current hot joins- and ranked matches and that’s it!
In the same line, have some form of chat feature common to all the mists regardless of the servers. It will bring the players together, help to form groups and encourage conversations (ah, the good days of the old HA!). Don’t forget to factor in language and spam issues to avoid any absurdities of course:p
Go for a season ladder that runs for a few months! Success (ie: number of wins, “qp system”, final standing…) in the season will get you qualified for monthly and annual championships! Make it so that you can join in season matches as an individual player, a group of friends under no specific tag or as a registered team.
Have both an individual ladder for everyone playing and a team one for registered teams only. Mainly base the rankings on the wins and losses for both of them, but don’t split the player base!
It means having a clever algorithm for matchmaking that understands team structure (number of pick ups within that team) and can combine individual rank with team ranks (say, my team wants to play under its tag but can’t manually find the last player. We expect the game to fill the last spot automatically but with someone around the level of our team.)
Victory against someone much higher ranked than you grants you more points while losing against someone much below makes you lose more (on both the individual and team ladder). Don’t overdo it though or you’ll deter teams from playing under their tag when testing or incomplete.
There’s also the issues of smurfs, team management vs guild management, team creation and disband as well as end-season ladder farming, but a unified and comprehensive season system would be very much exciting as it would replicate the enthusiasm, the gossip and the “hook” of real sport seasons.
Because in the end, if you don’t look at the game mechanics, what gw2 competitive scene lacks right now is the juice:p Structured pvp just isn’t sexy: I don’t know who the hot teams and players are, I don’t know of the big rivalries, I can’t follow the transfers, there’s no prestige or pride in winning because you don’t know the rank of your opponent and nobody can see your feat, etc, etc.
The above season system would definitely spice up the pvp life quite a bit and if you combine it cleverly with first party championships and third party events, be it leagues or tournaments, then we can make gw2 a truly successful competitive game.
The early release of the game really hit hard the whole sPvP/e-sport project. Gw2 basically shipped with just the very very basics to be playable in PvP.
As to why Anet did that… well, it’s almost impossible for any outsider to fully understand the constraints they had to cope with for a massive project in the likes of Gw2 (read investment, contracts, profitability…)
Only time will tell if they were right to rush the release and if they’ll enjoy the luxury to take time to get the game where they want it to be.
In regards with the show, I think it was very insightful and great to have such knowledgeable people freely discuss together. I just feel one question could have been asked, a very simple one, but one that could answer so much :
Right now, is the game played like it was meant to be played ?
When the devs designed the combat system, they must have had some kind of vision on how the game should play from top level to low level. Well, how does reality fare now the game is 3 month old and players are really starting to get a good grip on it ? Are they happy with the way players are mastering the gameplay ? Or is the result a bit different from the kind of PvP they envisioned ?
When the top teams started, they must have dreamt about a gameplay that was deep, exciting and fun. Now they reached the “current top”, did they find what they were looking for ? Are they happy with the core gameplay as it is ?
All the other features – ladder, matchmaking, better queuing, spectator mode, private servers…- are, well… just features. The main concern about the game is probably the core gameplay experience.
So if the game is played as it’s meant to be, and it’s “just” a matter of better balance and adding features, then the future looks reasonably bright for gw2.
But if the devs and players realize the core gameplay experience falls short of their expectactions, well… things are a bit more serious then.
Hi,
My IGN is Hugs B and I’m looking for an EU English speaking guild.
My main focus at the moment is tournaments PvP and I’d like to join a team that can be competitive, fun and rage-free. All three points are equally important and ideally, I’m looking for people willing to improve with every match, learn from their mistakes and not afraid of theorycrafting or trying new tactics or builds.
My previous PvP experience has been GW1 that I played quite intensively. I was the in game leader in a few guilds and called tactics for my team to a decent level.
I’ve had my fair share of tournaments play with gw2 over the past 2 weeks but due to my friends not enjoying the game I’m now looking for another team.
If you’re looking for a dedicated player and your guild is fun with a competitive mindset, hit me up in game.
Cheers