Guild Wars 2

google.3709:

to be fair… elementalist have the most strongest burst heals, eaiest acess to stability/protection…. this meta just happens to have too much damage, and boon hate for them to survive…

bur if you remember, before necro/spirit rangers, there was countless threads about how this low HP class was impossible to kill on 1v1 :p

Exactly, ele was the strongest profession in PvP for about 8 months out of the 13 the game has been released. Just because some other professions got accidentally overbuffed recently doesn’t make the ele bad or poorly-designed.

kitten s.7421:

jsut today i started experiencing it. I was in the mists not even in a match and i started having massive lag spikes and dcing. Its pretty much making the game unplayable. Is it because of the new wvw map now being properly optimized? I have never lagged this badly in this game ever.

Also NA

Possibly, the WvW crowd was also reporting massive spikes so this probably doesn’t have anything to do with a PvP update.

DiBiddilyBop.1470:

What I’m saying is that the fact that I have a positive k/d ratio, I lead in point caps and lead in score, overall I think it’s fair to say I’m doing something right. I’m doing everything I can to help my team, but at the end of the night I’m down 17% in the leaderboard rankings. That just says to me that the system is incredibly flawed.

Fair enough. If you are playing above the level of those around your matchmaking level, don’t worry, it will even out. 3 games is a very small test sample—sure, you got bad teammates a few times, but if you’re consistently playing better than the people around you, you will go up given time.

Divinity.8041:

everything about this game is broken, i can’t even queue with one of my friends in solo queue, or even hotjoin. It is kitten backwards.

You can queue with any number in team queue. In hotjoin, it’s very easy to join together. It’s very easy to be on the same team, although I’d recommend team queues for that. Why would you want to group up with a team of experienced players to crush noob puggers?

Corian.4068:

Well, the thing they were pushing at the time was damage-support-control, right? Damage and control we get a lot of. Support not so much.

I’m not saying there should be dedicated healers or a dedicated healing class. But it’d be nice to be able to work some support into a typical build and not feel like so much has to be sacrificed in order to do it.

Fair enough, which is why they’re buffing support skills. But if you’re complaining that you have to sacrifice too much to provide meaningful support, you’ve already switched sides on the “self-sufficient” argument. If you don’t want to have to sacrifice self-sufficiency to give support, don’t complain about self-sufficient builds.

DiBiddilyBop.1470:

Started the night ranked 50% with a record of 12-15. Played three matches. Lost all three, one was a 4v5. Every match I was the top scorer on my team, one game I was the top scorer overall and the other two matches my score fell betwen the middle and top of the winning team’s scores, always had a positive k/d ratio and was top point capper every match. Ended the night 12-18 ranked 33%.

I’m not saying that the leaderboard is perfect, but you need to know that the scoreboard is not an indication of how much you’re helping your team. Even things like being the top point capper are not a good indication. It’s a complicated game mode, and there’s a huge emphasis on winning group fights, pulling the enemy out of position, and controlling space. Things like winning a long 2v1 will get you points, but will lead to losing the match as the rest of your team is overwhelmed.

This isn’t a “l2p” post, I’m just cautioning you against trusting the scoreboard. As is the case in most games, numbers don’t accurately gauge your effectiveness.

Corian.4068:

I’d love to see more team-oriented gameplay really, but I don’t think it’s going to happen much outside of highly coordinated havoc groups in WvW and competitive PvP teams. I guess we’ll see how their buffs to support go over the next few months.

I guess the old trinity does kind of force pugs to play more as a team, but isn’t it to be expected that coordinated groups (like havoc squads or PvP teams) will play as a team more than uncoordinated groups?

Either way, the self-reliant gameplay was probably the biggest advertising point for the game pre-release. Even in PvE, the mantra was “no more waiting to run an instance until you find a healer for your group.” I guess it just feels to me like you’re asking the devs to reverse design changes they decided on and advertised 3+ years ago.

Demonts.4593:

my problem tho is that now the meta is filled with builds that are hybrids and can sustain for themselves. Everyone is running more of a 1v1 build than playing a role. I want heavy burst builds and heavy bunker builds to both be viable. As i stated before, a HUGE problem is how tankier builds beat burst builds 1v1 very easily. The fact that this game is based purely around teamfights is a myth because there is no support or anything. Its damage/survivability.

One of the genius design choices of the game is that a variety of roles are viable. If you’re in solo queue, of course most people will be playing a strong 1v1 build. If you’re in team queue, you can run a 1v1 roamer or backpoint build or you can build for teamfights, either teamfight bunker or pressure or spike damage. You can do any of those even in solo queues as well, but don’t be surprised if people are playing a self-sufficient build in solo queue.

Are you asking for teamfight pressure/spike builds to be able to take on the people who are well-balanced and built for 1v1s?

Just saw the “which region?” edit. NA for me.

Last night I and a couple teammates were getting lag in other maps as well as in hotjoin. Thinking back, Foefire was the only map in which I was seeing regular DC’s, though. That was in solo queue.

aaron.7850:

wvwvw IS the reason people come back. the wvwvw scene is that gives life to this game, GW2 should concentrate all its resources to make wvwvw as good as possible!

That would be a horrible business decision though.

I urge again that people should look for numbers and statistics that back up claims that a business decision is bad. Out of all of the patch notes over the last year, the one with the most views of all time (almost 400k) is the patch that announced the living world votes and solo queue tournament PvP mode.

From what I can tell, WvW is even more popular than before with the new bloodlust buff that encourages roaming and gives significance to contributions from small groups of players, just like the WvW community has been asking for. Maybe I’m wrong—I don’t have numbers to look at. But constantly saying stuff like “WvW needs all the resources, stop developing living world,” or, “PvP is dead, everyone likes GvG better” is kind of ridiculous without any numbers to back up those claims.

garethh.3518:

NevirSayDie.6235:

If you don’t like anything about the game at all, I’d suggest doing something else with your spare time. I could understand lobbying for changes to changeable issues, but if you hate literally everything about the game and still play it, that’s a little weird.

I haven’t played it in a while, I just peruse the forums when I’m REALLY bored at school.
But pointing out where they went wrong… is pointing out where they went wrong.
It just happening to be a large part of the game (not every) is a tragedy.

I had an outrageous amount of hope for this game so I guess I’m kinda stuck still hoping Anet decides to actually fix all their kitten-ups… which is an entirely unrealistic thought considering how the devs have tended to make more issues than they solve…

My point was that you would never have had that hope if you actually hated everything about the game. You wouldn’t check the CoD forums hoping it becomes something besides a first-person shooter. I don’t mean to sound argumentative, sorry if it’s coming across that way.

Steroid.8317:

So Devon or anyone ?
Is the 1st answer correct ?

You didn’t get a response in three hours from the department head of a multi-million sale MMO. Instantly assuming that means he doesn’t care seems a bit ridiculous.

Banzie.5248:

What arena net doesnt understand. GvG is a WAYYYY more viable esport then tpvp I’d pay to go to go watch a GvG live, anyone else?

Also, the WvW team is completely different than the PvP team. If the WvW team makes a decision, it’s not because the evil PvP devs forced them to. By the way, take a look at the history of patch notes over the last year and check which one has the most views…

Chopps.5047:

Play them and see what you like.

^ make one of each and take it to the heart of the mists. Try a few different builds in hotjoin and see what feels fun to you.

Cosine.7841:

@Nevir, I would agree that the lag issue is indirectly exacerbating the matchmaking issue, but matchmaking has had an issue since day 1.

I would much prefer if they split up team members in solo Q so both teams had close to same average rating (rather than the top 5 against the next top 5, which might be 10-20% lower than you). People should be moving in rating because they have enough of an impact to help their team win an even match, not for playing just good enough to not blow it for your team that is heavily favored to win.

Also, in the case of 4v5’s, the 4-man team should not be penalized. The 1 leaver/afk should take the cumulative rating loss of the entire team, with the 4 people actually playing the game having no change in rating—unless they somehow manage to win.

That I can agree with. There are definitely tweaks to be made.

You heard it here. 8% transmute chance hard counter to permafear necro.

I agree that small fights are more exciting than large fights, but I don’t think it’s because of design flaws. The removal of the trinity means that there are no priority targets like there would be in your standard MMO.

Let’s think about it: in a 10v10 with your standard tank/healer/dps trinity, you’ve got maybe 3 heals, 4 tanks, 3 dps on each team. The dps tries to focus the healers while the tanks cc the enemy dps. There are 20 people in the game, but 95% of the fighting is focused around about 4-5 players, while the rest of them mainly either spam heals or soak damage. In a 20v20, there are maybe 10 players total dealing or trying to avoid damage.

It’s popular to hate everything right now. The lag is bad, something that the last patch or hotfix aggravated, not sure which. Queue times were long last night because lag was bad so fewer people were playing. Matchmaking was probably bad for the same reason.

So there’s a technical difficulty that’s been throwing things off for the last day or so. That doesn’t sound so gloomy now, does it?

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

The refresh rate applied by our smoke bombs are laughable…i guess thats one of the biggest pet peeves i had with our class atm

Used to be every second but got nerfed quickly after release. It’s still a great skill with the huge blind and smoke field. It was just too powerful pulsing every second—it was like the necro well of darkness except on a much shorter cooldown with five other great skills to go with it. I wouldn’t expect it to get changed back.

garethh.3518:

The whole useless/OP isn’t a problem, most MMOs have far worse balance… yet are entertaining to play…

Conquest just puts such a focus on your spec and your spec alone, forgeting about things like positioning… like teamwork… those things are supposed to be in there to add in other factors, ones to diminish the appearance of imbalance and make gameplay far deeper without much work by the devs… that’s what team fight based MMOs are for…
GW2 tossed that for jack kitten.

Their ability scheme is trash.
Their maps are trash.
Their match setup (S/TPvP) is trash.
Their character building is hectic to say the least.

They cut out the necessities of good MMO gameplay for shiny graphics and an Esports logo.

If you don’t like anything about the game at all, I’d suggest doing something else with your spare time. I could understand lobbying for changes to changeable issues, but if you hate literally everything about the game and still play it, that’s a little weird.

Update for the devs to hopefully track down this problem—it seems to be unrelated to map or hotjoin/tourney. Just had 1sec+ lag in a tourney match on Temple, then had similar lag in a hotjoin on foefire, then I was fine but a teammate was reporting unplayable lag in a tourney in khylo.

Hope you guys are able to nail this down quickly!

Mrbig.8019:

evilapprentice.6379:

Hotjoin is currently completely unplayable thanks to lag.

How is this bad ?

Made me chuckle. Well played.

foundling fox.9054:

snip

Don’t worry, we’re all fully aware of the problems. Some of us hate them and spend most of our time wishing we were the same as warriors and guardians. Some of us lobby for bugfixes but already love the depth, synergy, flexibility, and pure fun of playing an engineer.

Knote.2904:

Active dodging/landing key abilities is BOTH strategic and twitch play.

Well fighting games do have a lot of strategy, but I’m still a bit confused as to which direction you wish the game would have taken. It’s much further toward the action side than 90% of other MMOs, which feels like too much to you—but these suggestions basically make it even more action-oriented. I like the feeling I get when I dodge a skill that I was waiting for and trying to avoid, but I also like that that’s not the only part of the game—some of it is positioning, steady damage, math calculations, juggling cooldowns, defensive skills, etc, just like a traditional RPG.

windrunner.5690:

Hey thanks for the reply and kind words!

I am not suggesting that they get rid of sPvP gear and that format, but simply provide an option for matches using “normal” gear. Nothing about current sPvP would change, there would just be more options. This is more for organized matches between experienced teams and/or guilds where power creep wouldn’t be much of an issue. There could also be an option to limit ascended items.

Personally, I don’t find sPvP to be “bad”, just limited and very easy to grow bored of. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit before everything became too familiar, which is why I am making these suggestions. I want to enjoy sPvP again.

btw – I’m just a PvP fan, not a GvGer

Ah, okay. Most of your suggestions line up with what the GvG crowd is after, so I just assumed you were one of them, minus the trash talking.

I think it could be a good idea to allow custom arenas to set options like PvE stats, deathmatch, etc. I don’t think Anet should officially support any of that as a game mode because then they’d be obligated to balance for it, which would require a ton of changes. But it might be nice to have a place for people to do 10v10s with WvW stats if they want, as long as it’s strictly a custom mode and Anet isn’t required to support it.

Xom.9264:

The truth is just the truth, all the best players I have met in this game have been on the WvW dueling/GvG side.

I never claimed that you were wrong. You have seen both sides; I’ve mostly just done PvP, so I can’t argue with you about that.

All I was saying is that it’s a very strange way to go about convincing the devs to support GvG like you want.

Astranagant.6409:

Thanks this was very helpful! I’m looking forward to playing again.

The warrior sounds flexible! I was starting to get a bit sad when I heard earlier that no one in pro-tournaments uses warriors

I’ve actually never heard of the side-point control role before – what is their purpose?

And if the condi-meta is already phasing out, what’s in favor now? The Stun meta?

And thanks for the website Cosine.

Side-point control is sometimes called backpoint bunker—it’s basically a somewhat defensive build that excels in duels. Teldo is the prime example of a sidepoint control player. For a warrior, that often looks like hammer/longbow, which is tankier and better at winning duels than, say, a sidepoint engineer like Teldo—although Teldo’s build also features enough knockbacks to reliably neutralize far point.

The condi meta isn’t gone but it’s not nearly as pronounced as it was just a few weeks ago. The October 15th patch will buff a few more condi removal skills and I’m hopeful that things will be even more balanced than they are now. Stunlock almost became a meta but sigil of paralyzation is getting fixed this patch. My prediction is that it’s going to be very difficult to define any kind of “meta” for at least a few months, which is a very good thing. A large variety of comps should be viable.

Knote.2904:

The problem is the balance is skewed too far away from the “fighting game” style, there should be a nice blend of that strategic RPG CCG GW1 style of play and the twitch action FPS gameplay, it’s too heavy on the latter atm though.

I thought you wanted it to put more emphasis on dodging/landing key abilities? That would be heavier to the twitch side.

Taking it to the strategic side would be something like removing active dodging and introducing resource management. But I wouldn’t want that either.

Thanks, this is one of the most reasonable GvG lobby threads I’ve encountered. Most of them that I’ve seen are largely incoherent insults so props for representing your friends well.

A couple of thoughts:
1. PvP gear was regulated to avoid power creep. Allowing PvE gear in PvP will make everyone feel more powerful for a couple days, but that’s probably all it would do.
2. CTF could be fun. The PvP devs have been working on additional game modes for quite some time now and I wouldn’t be surprised if CTF is on their list.
3. Team deathmatch is something everyone is obsessed with right now. I think only a few professions would be viable. Conquest was designed extremely well to encourage thoughtful team splits, so that the entire match doesn’t revolve around winning a teamfight.

Potentially, professions that are strong in skirmishes but weak in large teamfights could receive massive buffs so that they’re just as good at teamfighting as war/guard/necro. But obviously that would cause problems.

Again, sorry about the bloodlust stuff giving you guys issues. My advice would be to try some structured PvP. I know that GvG people generally consider sPvP to be “bad” but my experience has been that very few of them have ever tried it. I think you guys would really like the even fights and build variety available due to multiple roles being made possible by team splits.

Something I like about GW2 is that it has the RPG feel of dps, armor, stats, etc—but also rewards you for landing skillshots or dodging key attacks. It’s a hybrid. I guess it could go all to one side, to where the game revolved completely around landing/dodging key abilities, just like a fighting game. That would probably feel weird to most people, though. GW2 is an RPG, even if they wanted to challenge convention.

It seems a bit unfair to say “hey, you made a nice RPG but you really should have made streetfighter IX.”

It might not go over well to kick a good player to spectator mode to make up for a DC. Some team compositions work much better with 4v4 or 3v3—for example, if your team is very defensive and already has two points, it’s almost impossible for the opposing team to overcome your bunkers with only three players against three bunkers. Besides, it seems strange to kick a player out just because someone on the other team ragequit.

Also, being idle for 30 seconds may just mean you’re defending midpoint and no one has come to attack you.

I think a “ready” button would be enough.

Not sure about forgiving DCs. If your connection quality is poor, I think that should be reflected in your matchmaking—i.e. you could be a great player but if you’re lagging out/dc’ing constantly you won’t be able to compete at as high of a level as you could otherwise.

Astranagant.6409:

I was wondering what the current state of sPVP is like. What is the meta at the moment? I have heard about a condi meta but I’m confused because wasn’t that around the whole time?

Necromancers got a few nice buffs that made them more popular—and then a high percentage of damage in teamfights began to come from conditions. The “condition meta” is already a bit outdated though, as it’s not too hard to counter them and people just started to bring more condition removal as well. Necros are still extremely strong.

Warriors are often considered the top-tier profession due to a steady stream of buffs over the last year. They have a lot of great builds, such as hammer/longbow, mace/shield-greatsword, even amazing bunker builds that often use sword/warhorn in addition to hammer or mace/shield.

Current roles are teamfight bunker/support, teamfight dps/control, roamer, and sidepoint control. Warrior can do any of those.

Xom.9264:

Guess its lucky for me the top of the leader boards all the way down to bottom players in this conquest mode dont have brains, conquest mode lol. I farmed to top 100 casually and easy.

You also believe that insulting people will cause the PvP devs to convince the WvW devs to remove the orb buff and support GvG, so I’m not sure I can trust your logic. Grats on top 100 though, a lot of people discount that accomplishment but it’s not easy.

I like:
—Encouraged team splits/constant decisions about where to be.
—1v1, 1v2, and 2v1 encouraged and game-changing plays possible in any of them.
—High apm builds (yes, there are simple ones as well—I just enjoy micro)
—Condition management (again, I like having to make a ton of fast decisions at the same time)
—Trinity removed/carry builds encouraged.

And of course equal gear, active dodging, etc. Those are just given.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

why will 4 pips control point system not work in gw2 conquest again?

Because it would eliminate roamers and pointcontrol builds such as Teldo’s. Bunkers would still be required for downed state control, probably 3 per team (a mix of guardians and warriors) with 2 dps. Thieves, rangers, mesmers, and eles would get hit hard; engineers would lose their interesting builds and just be AoE teamfight condi. Wars, Guards, and Necros would make up 90% of all teams.

Terrahero.9358:

Anet seems unmotivated to work on Engineers. And overall spends more time on other professions.

Some statistics would really bolster your arguments. How many fixes are other professions getting that makes you feel ignored? Is Anet regularly commenting in other profession forums? What unresolved issues are other professions still waiting for fixes on?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i write up short posts about 4 pips control points, everyone shoots me down.

this guy comes in with a tl; dr post suddenly everyone agrees with him?

I was trying to stay positive but again, if implemented in the next couple years, the only likely result would be thieves, mesmers, rangers, and eles feeling very left out. Even the other professions would lose all their roaming/pointcontrol builds. The game’s not exactly in a state where it can wipe out half of the working builds just because people perceive conquest to favor bunkers (you know, the kind of build each team very rarely takes more than one of).

BurrTheKing.8571:

ANet wants this to be an Esport, so I think encouraging teamfights isn’t terrible because it makes it a lot easier to commentate when all the action is in one spot. They’ve also toned down particle effects so things are a bit easier to see now as well, not to mention the shaves petting zoos have received and Warrior’s rise in prominence.

Right, I mean it could work. It would just be a very different game than we have today, and about half of the professions would need major buffs or nerfs to adjust for the removal of sidepoint control and roamer roles. If you think about it, there are currently four roles: teamfight bunker, teamfight dps (usually condi right now), roamer, and sidepoint control (e.g. Teldo). Making everything one big teamfight would make teamfights interesting, but it would cut the number of roles/builds in half and we’d see a whole lot of war/guard/necro until massive balance changes evened things out.

A better way is perhaps to introduce a similar mechanic on a new map without fundamentally changing the way conquest works and eliminating so many viable playstyles—for example, a linear tug-of-war map where you have to capture points in order. I feel there would be a large backlash if the current maps were suddenly changed in a way that made a lot of currently viable builds outdated.

Larger node size and 2v1 decap might work together, maybe. They certainly wouldn’t individually, as larger nodes benefit bunkers in a huge way and 2v1 decap hurts bunkers in a huge way. All in all I think if both changes were implemented at the same time it would put a larger emphasis on keeping all or most of your team together (i.e. no one would guard back point because why?)

People would complain about zerging because 1v1s, 2v2s, and 1v2s would happen very rarely. Thieves would complain because they never realized that the conquest system encourages team splits and thus allows for a roamer role to be played. Rangers, mesmers, and any build that excels in small fights would get hurt badly. Hammer warriors, bunker guardians, and necros would be significantly more important (if that’s possible), just like we currently see in team deathmatch/GvG.

However, I’m not saying it would necessarily be awful. A kind of 5 on 5 teamfight tug of war might be interesting. It would change the game for sure and would remove about half of the current viable builds/roles, but it would reward teamfighting, focused bursting, and downed state control. All depends on what you want.

Radiology.3597:

the number of views for your ESL Grand Finals: http://www.twitch.tv/blu42/c/2942621

A year since the release and those are the only numbers you can pull? It’s obviously dead, give up your dreams of eSport fame and stop ruining WvW…

1. You’re off by a factor of about 100. Blu confirmed 2000 concurrent viewers on his stream throughout the tournament, which either means 2000 viewers watching for like 5 hours straight or 10000 viewers watching an hour at a time. It was also streamed in German, French, and I believe Chinese. The official low-end estimate is 30,000—although that number is not confirmed by any means, just an estimate.

2. The PvP team is not ruining WvW. Despite the fact that the PvP forum is currently being occupied by GvG players mad at the WvW devs, and contrary to popular belief, the PvP devs do not control WvW. A good example of this is thief balancing—thief received several nerfs even while being perceived as a weak profession in PvP, because they were ganking people in WvW. This was later made up for with large buffs to sword that directly countered popular tournament builds.

S –
A – Warrior+, Necro, Thief-, Guardian-
B – ranger, mesmer, ele, engineer
C -

Erdrick.4560:

So i played this game back in beta but never ended up buying it at launch until today.
Was wondering if there is a way to enjoy this pvp as I’m level 5 being capped to level 80 against level 80 players in 80 gear?
No low scale pvp like on other MMO’s until I’m high enough level/geared up?

There are two types of PvP—one is server against server, or “world vs. world,” which takes place on large maps with hundreds of players at a time fighting for keeps, towers, etc. In that mode, your character will be upscaled to level 80 but you won’t automatically get the best gear, so other players will have a huge advantage over you until you actually reach level 80 and find/buy a full set of level 80 equipment.

The second type of PvP is structured PvP, or tournament PvP. That’s the game mode for this subforum—it takes place in small arena maps limited to small teams. That’s the mode that you access by clicking on the crossed swords at the top left of your screen and choosing “go to the heart of the mists.”

Structured PvP is completely separate from the rest of the game. You are automatically level 80 and all of your equipment is the highest quality. A level 2 player has nothing holding him back from a level 80 except for skill/experience playing. You also have a somewhat decent build pre-loaded onto your character for you, so if you want you can just join a match without even changing anything—although of course you can customize your stats/traits/weapons/utilities just like in the rest of the game.

Lordrosicky.5813:

If there was ever a place for knee jerk balancing it is here.

Hmm. Can’t agree.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

17,000 players have tried soloQ. This is divided between US and NA. In a game that boosts over a million box sales, that equals 1.7% of players have tried it. Divide that number between NA and EU. That equals .85% per region. How do expect there to be any sort of match making when each region only has under 1% of players actually in soloQ?

I believe that number was a guess based on what percentage rank you were directly after falling out of the top 1000. That was also several weeks ago, and solo queue has only been out for a couple months total, so it’s likely grown now. And it was a guess as to the NA population only, since the leaderboards are divided by region.

However, we don’t know if the guess was actually very accurate to begin with. If it was, the number of players with more than 10 solo queue matches is probably up to something like 20,000-25,000 in the NA region.

BlizzarD.9617:

NevirSayDie.6235:

PvE player no? or casual?

Just got back up to 160 on solo queue last night. Not as high as I was before and I’m not claiming to be a great player—I know the real pros are in team queue. There are a lot of people way better than I am, but at least I can debunk the ad hominem.

I do something like 15 minutes of PvE a week.

stof.9341:

The only overspecialization that was going on was Cantrip elem and it was nerfed.

Considering it was a case of having easily 3 utilities that were each both stun breakers and condition removals, on top of whatever the utility was doing was kind of obvious though :p

Actually, all-kit engineers were popular before kit refinement was nerfed several times and eventually reworked. At one point, we even had a hidden cooldown on one category of hidden cooldowns. But it’s cool.

Mortar is still bad. Elixir X is situationally useful, especially in certain maps/areas in PvP/WvW. Supply crate is always pretty good.

fugazi.5139:

Play ranger.

Too mainstream.

fugazi.5139:

I’m going to have to see this on paper please. Offical. Signed.
and…
who cares if people that play already watch it. the only way the community get better and bigger is by having new people watch it.

In all seriousness, I think the number might be accurate. It’s impossible to prove one way or the other without contacting the 3+ channels that were shoutcasting, and even they may not really have data on how many unique viewers tuned in.

I never watch games—ever—but I just browsed through a few of the youtube videos to see if I liked watching GW2. It wasn’t bad, the close matches were very exciting. It would probably be pretty boring for someone who had never played, though, mostly because there’s just no way to understand what’s going on without a knowledge of each build being used. It might be cool to see shoutcasters explain the strengths and weaknesses of each build—at least for me, if I didn’t understand what was going on, I’d be more interested to hear about each team’s composition than who was winning a certain fight. I did enjoy the times Blu switched to a player’s viewpoint, although sometimes seeing the whole fight was helpful. Mostly I just wanted to see what builds the engineers were using.

fugazi.5139:

How on earth did you get this job?

30-50k unique viewers LOL THAT’S FUNNY!!!

Well I’ve been having fun defending the devs recently, so here goes…

She was obviously counting EU channels. A quick youtube search pulled up a french and german shoutcast, and there’s even a chinese one. I’ve seen some in spanish but couldn’t find one for the ESL final (doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it’s just not on youtube). Blu’s twitch was confirmed to have about 2000 live viewers at a time. Let’s say that the average viewer only tuned in for a couple matches—for simplicity’s sake let’s say each viewer watched a fifth of the tournament, meaning 10k unique viewers.

The German channel appeared almost as popular. We’ll arbitrarily say it managed 8k, the French channel managed 6k, and the chinese channel managed 6k. We’re up to 30k unique viewers by extrapolating some arbitrary numbers. I’m probably way off, but I’m just saying—it’s possible, only just possible, that she’s accurate.

jportell.2197:

wall

And yet out of all of that, the only things holding mesmer back are really S/D thieves being a bit too strong and necros being a bit too strong. We could buff mesmers to OP status (again), or we could just shave the tiny details holding them back.