Or when the commander needs a quick break. Hell, 2 minutes wouldn’t even be enough to go to the toilet. Or answer the door/phone. Or grab a drink.
What’s real life again? LOL Wish more people thought like you do.
I’m sure most do 
You couldn’t even change your gear/build and run to the BLTC in that time. I do think 10min over 15 isn’t bad though. 2 min? Um, plz no.
Hi, I’m Thane, team captain of Theory of Relativity [EMC], what I would consider a mid-level team that has been competitive in many tournaments. As a devoted PvP player with a team that has been together for over a year, and a devoted Guild Wars fan who has been playing since GW1, I’d like to make a few observations at this pivotal time with Colin Johanson leaving the picture.
PvP in an MMO is a funny thing. The most successful Esports games are typically 100% PvP – League, that sort of thing. They are accessible, arguably balanced, and have top level players who can get 20k+ viewers on twitch at times. These games are 100% committed to their PvP experience, something that just isn’t possible in an MMO.
That being said.
1. PvP and PvE need to have separate skill/trait balancing. I don’t know why exactly you’ve gone back and forth on resorting to this, and while I’m sure on paper a game where skills always operate the same way sounds wonderful, the simple fact is that there is not enough flexibility with builds and skills to have them be balanced in raids, in fractals, in WvW, against world bosses and in PvP. 5v5 point contention, 20 v 20 zerg fights, 50 v 1 enormous boss, you just aren’t going to make that work. Let me give an example: the nerf to alacrity took mesmer almost completely out of the meta for PvP. This brings me to the next point.
2a. When a class is forced completely out of the meta, it needs to be absolute top priority for your PvP team to bring it back in line with the other classes. In particular, now that Pro Leagues are limiting teams to no class stacking, the fact that there are two classes arguably out of the meta right now is just not acceptable. Not only does this disenfranchise some of your top players, but imagine the frustration of being a new player who is in love with and only really knows one class, and arriving in PvP to be greeted in every match with “great, a warrior, I might as well AFK.” Is this a lot to ask? Also, as a corollary:
3. The format for ranked and Pro leagues should be the same. If Pro Leagues eliminates class stacking, so should ranked play. This would honestly do a lot to assist balance, and even though obviously most teams will never get to the Pro Leagues, that’s the dream. You WANT us to want to grind ranked because we are striving to reach the pro level. Ranked team play should feel like the road to the Pro Leagues, even if it’s a road most will never reach the end of. Keep the two consistent if possible.
4. Don’t reinvent the wheel. We all love how committed Guild Wars 2 is to doing new and edgy things, but not so much that it justifies lack of balance. When you’ve got classes that aren’t playable in PvP, instead of picking some arbitrary new build you want to FORCE into the meta, why not look at the builds that have actually worked on that class in the past, and try and bring a couple of those in line with current builds. Builds work for a lot of reasons – one of the important things is that a given build can’t be outclassed at doing the exact same thing on a team by another build, or it just won’t see play (and the players who do play it will be given grief.) So instead of, say, for example, trying to buff rifle, a weapon that has never been taken seriously in PvP on warrior, why not take a look at good old longbow, a weapon that was a lynchpin of Hambow, Shoutbow, and GS/longbow, all of which were meta warrior builds in their time. When something isn’t working, sometimes you should look at when it was working.
5. Balance based on high level play, not low level play. As much as it might frustrate some new players to get shut down by the occasional ‘easy to play’ spike build, a healthy high level game is essential to the health of the game overall. Bad players are going to get wrecked by things that they shouldn’t, and some builds are just easier to play, so they come out stronger at low skill levels. Often times, these are going to be builds that can put out a high amount of pressure, because less skilled players aren’t proficient at kiting and dodging effectively. Nerfing based on these complaints results in bunk meta, and boring high level play, or classes being drummed out of the meta, like has happened with Dragon Hunter. It is also honestly not a favor to the low level players.
6. Get these PvE rewards that every Guild Wars 2 player feels entitled to out of our ranked PvP. The way to get more people invested in PvP isn’t to railroad PvE players into it! PvP needs NEW players that are interested BECAUSE OF PVP. Players who will log the hours to play the THOUSANDS OF GAMES it takes to actually become top players, or even mid tier players, honestly. Sure, PvP players want some swag, but what we don’t want is PvE players coming in to ‘get their dailies’ or players wanting MMR to somehow create an artificially even playing field where anyone can climb to Legendary if they just play a lot, because they want their shiny wings. No. Create parallel systems to get the same items/skins in PvE and PvP involving similar amounts of effort, so you aren’t forcing PvP people to grind PvE or PvE people to grind PvP, and you’d be doing your community a huge favor.
7. Season are neat, but the ladders and ranks need to be permanent. Refresh them at the start of a season, sure. But forcing everyone into unranked while the seasons are inactive is like cruel and unusual punishment. Not only does it make a mess of MMR, it forces us to play on maps that are utterly irrelevant to ranked players, and honestly turns the heart of the mist into a ghost town.
8. Put some stuff to do in Heart of the Mist. A jumping puzzle? Mini games? ANYTHING? As much as I love killing the same 3-4 npcs at a time thousands of times, actually no, no I don’t love spending that much of my time logged into GW2 just…. waiting. Addressing queue times is an excellent step here, but you all could definitely improve quality of life for PvP players by giving us a bit more to do in HotM.
9. Maybe give some love to hot joins, I don’t know. Create a reason that non-serious, less competitive players might actually WANT to do unranked or hot join play, instead of feeling like if they don’t do ranked they aren’t making progress. Maybe bring back Zaishen quests? Make arenas less expensive? Open up more options in arenas, rather than wasting time on Guild Hall pvp arenas, where you can’t use amulets?
10. Start working on a way to poll top tier players for input on balance. Whether you open a test server, send out surveys, monitor top level play, or a combination of all, it needs to happen. It’s painfully obvious that some of these balance decisions are made by people who don’t have a very deep grasp of PvP strategy, builds and team composition. You have a community where some people have dedicated their time to thousands on thousands of games… utilize that, it’s just ridiculous not to.
I’m sure there are many who will disagree with a lot of what I’ve said here, but at the end of the day, Anet: you need to decide who your audience is, and make a product that will appeal to them. Whether that is your current PvE players, or potential GW2 players who might be drawn in by a more balanced, competitive PvP game with a robust Pro League and top level play to entice them.
Please do everyone a favor and also post this on reddit.
Apparently that’s where the action is.
Yeah, sadly I think you’re correct. You might even get dev interaction there…
