Guild Wars 2

milo.6942:

ensoriki.5789:

Its the format. When you fight as a team in one area points are ticking every second elsewhere.

Yes but it’s the other way around: we have this format because sustained teamfights aren’t possible.

Thats not true, this format was used in GW1’s alliance battles and hero battles, and that had the precious trinity. This is the format because, aside of GvG which requires more pregame preparation and thus has less overall players at a given time vs arenas, capture point games are much more strategic then classic fight till you die arenas.

Gandarel.5091:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Gandarel.5091:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Django.5923:

it’s important to mention it further and further, so arenanet sees what the community wants most^^

I honestly think that arenas are a precursor to the first iteration of GvG. It would be so very easy to add a map that is based on a larger number of players (8v8) that would not be added to the tPvP map rotation. With passwords, team locking, spectators it would be very easy to set up a match vs another guild in the exact same manner as player run leagues and tournaments will be ran.

So a guild ranked 6785 would easily meet the top 3rd guild this way, because they were the ones to join your room. Not working idea.

And 8v8 would be just mindless aoe, 5v5 or 6v6 is the max that could wor i think. Maybe with different objectives that splits your team to smaller groups in the map would work with 8v8.

Did you miss the part where I stated that a new map would need to be created to facilitate 8v8 play? Also, assuming you own the arena you get to allow who joins and who doesnt… people wouldnt just ‘happen to be the ones to join’.

So you could face your friends all the time. And from where would you know the random enemy’s rating? Genious.

You are the arena owner, if ‘friends’ are joining trying to ruin games you can remove them from the arena. You act like getting 2 teams together is a problem… have you watched ANY GW2 arena streams where they very easily get 2 teams in an arena on the correct side and then play?

Where would the enemy rating come from… seeing as in post #1 one of my first sentences says THIS IS A PRECURSOR TO GVG there would be no rating. In this case teams would most likely be facing opponents in the same way that leagues will work now – you set up a website, play games, those games are recorded and your team gets a record. With that record you can judge the level of that team if you so wish to challenge them. That will suffice until an actual guild rating system can be implemented.

So, “genious” (you spelled that wrong by the way, usually insults should be spelled correctly – genius), I kindly ask that you actually read the thing you are responding to.

Humposaurus.5764:

If they could pull this off, it sounds awesome! Nice suggestion!

They did pull this off… its called GW1…

Django.5923:

expanding the game types is not as easy as adding a new map. You say it yourself. If they expand it requires that skills and classes and the whole game has to change. (I would also like an active healer.. it just provides so much options).

Therefore I would like to have some GvG option with the current capture mode (which I don’t really like, but implementing those maps as GvG wouldn’t be that complicated -or not so complicated as adding a healer etc. etc.-)

It only requires expansion of skill’s abilities (which by the way is basically a skill balance change) if the game play is to resemble GW1 style GvG which was a defend the NPC with Capture the Flag for bonus. There is no specific reason the game play needs to be this and cannot capture point with larger map to happily accommodate larger numbers which would not require ANY reworking of skills.

Django.5923:

what you guys all miss is that GvG is possible even with the capture mode. They can implement other modes later but thats a whole different theme

Expanding game types is as easy as adding a new map… the hot join ‘death match’ arenas are showing that with player cooperation you dont need capture points to play the game. It is thus easy to create a game that has no capture points or only a single capture point. Add in the guild lord (which would be adjusted to award enough points to actually win the game) from Foe Fire and you literally have GvG. In fact, if they add the option to turn off control points GvG can be played on Foe Fire by lowering the score required to win to 250.

The issue, as previously stated, is that how the game is set up players are predominantly responsible to heal and protect themselves. Healing and support would need to be expanded to allow players to actively heal their guild lords so they cannot be spiked down.

milo.6942:

I mean you can’t have more than 3 people having a fight in a spot for very long. If they focus 1 player at a time it’s just a race to downed state.

I think they should boost healing in general. The game is mainly focused around dodging to survive over healing to survive. Water eles, shout warriors would make good builds to boost to improve survivability. So I can agree with your opinion.

milo.6942:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Allrdy mentioned 100 times by the community and hopefully recognized and considered to implement in the future.

it can’t be said enough
main problem is the teamfights that gw2 system can’t handle
everything else is drop-in from existing features & mechanics

What is wrong with the the team fights? Do you mean that all current maps are control points? That is easily fixed by creating a map that has no control points and only other mechanics (like boosts as in Temple, and the orb in Watch). At that same time they can also easily increase the map size to be intended for a larger team size. Literally everything required to ‘play’ a GvG match is already implemented, just needs to be added. GvG ranking, however, needs to be added but can be added at a later date.

Arenas ARE the first step to a real GvG game type.

Dsquaredcri.9421:

Vandal.8029:

Spectator mode is not a medium for the public to watch your tournament. Its is a way to have an outside party shoutcast/stream/record your tournament so the public can view it (including non-GW2 players).

Yes it can helpful to watch shoutcast tournament but spectator mode is still not a useful feature, it’s like having a football field without the ball and the goal’s doors.

I am not following that comparison at all….

Anyway. Spectator mode is definitely not useless as it allows teams to practice different scenarios while allowing other players on their team to watch strategy and critical thinking. It also is an entertainment factor, though a full observer mode is better suited for this where population limit is not capped by the arenas limit.

Gandarel.5091:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Django.5923:

it’s important to mention it further and further, so arenanet sees what the community wants most^^

I honestly think that arenas are a precursor to the first iteration of GvG. It would be so very easy to add a map that is based on a larger number of players (8v8) that would not be added to the tPvP map rotation. With passwords, team locking, spectators it would be very easy to set up a match vs another guild in the exact same manner as player run leagues and tournaments will be ran.

So a guild ranked 6785 would easily meet the top 3rd guild this way, because they were the ones to join your room. Not working idea.

And 8v8 would be just mindless aoe, 5v5 or 6v6 is the max that could wor i think. Maybe with different objectives that splits your team to smaller groups in the map would work with 8v8.

Did you miss the part where I stated that a new map would need to be created to facilitate 8v8 play? Also, assuming you own the arena you get to allow who joins and who doesnt… people wouldnt just ‘happen to be the ones to join’.

Pyriall.5027:

lettucemode.3789:

Pyriall.5027:

lettucemode.3789:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pyriall.5027:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pyriall.5027:

Evan Lesh.3295:

… which is better than nothing at all…

Ahh the new found mantra of A-net. If you continue down this path, all of these little choices of “better than nothing” will lead inevitably to people taking the choice of nothing and moving on.

Like I said, we needed this technology anyways. It’s great that it can fill some of the roles of observer mode before we actually have observer mode

So is this then confirmation that a full observer mode with a higher limit of concurrent viewers is actively being designed/developed/tested?

It must be a disconnect in communication. I assumed, his original comment meant that there were technical limitations preventing observer mode. Now it sounds like it is something they are working on…Clarification please.

There are definitely technical limitations we have not solved.

I understand that, my question is still there though – is the plan TO solve them and release a full observer mode?

I hope you realize that he can’t answer this question if he wants to keep his job.

Didn’t know you signed his paychecks…

I don’t have to – it’s like a standard clause in most any employment contract.

No it’s not…

Let the man think he knows software contracts. Granted, we know its company policy not to tell us features ahead of time but there have been cases when information was given before hand…

For example they told us arenas were coming in November. Just no firm time table.

Django.5923:

it’s important to mention it further and further, so arenanet sees what the community wants most^^

I honestly think that arenas are a precursor to the first iteration of GvG. It would be so very easy to add a map that is based on a larger number of players (8v8) that would not be added to the tPvP map rotation. With passwords, team locking, spectators it would be very easy to set up a match vs another guild in the exact same manner as player run leagues and tournaments will be ran.

Do you just never read the PvP forums? People have been asking for GvG since release. With Arenas one day we may see a map that is based on an 8v8 game (assuming GvG from GW1).

GankSinatra.2653:

Yeah, its such a meaningful title. Wish i had it, so those 5 solo players in the mists who i farmed to get it would think im cool.

Your sarcastic post is such a meaningful post. I wish I would have posted so that the 10 people who will read this thread would think Im cool.

People like titles, the question was legitimate.

This is actually one of the cool features of arenas. I have been very critical about this update but I will give them this -

Adding GvG style games will be much easier to do now that arenas exist. At this point a simple GvG (without ladders and rankings) match can be created with full 8v8 teams. To make this functionality better they only need to release new maps that are sized appropriately for 8 player teams. They have shown with Temple and Spirit Watch that other game mechanics are feasible with their current system which means it should be doable to remove all cap points and reimplement the capture the flag style game.

Beyond that if it is possible to make an arena GvG only then it should also be possible to add a guild ladder, though I am 100% sure that if this were to come it would take some time, just like the player ladder took time to add. But there is atleast hope that these things CAN be added.

Aelelan.1639:

I can’t say that it’s that big of a deal. As it is a majority of esport viewers do so through streams rather than direct in-game spectating. Any match worth watching likely would be one you would be better off watching with a shoutcaster to begin with.

If its not a big deal why do most other games pushing esports have that functionality…

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pyriall.5027:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pyriall.5027:

Evan Lesh.3295:

… which is better than nothing at all…

Ahh the new found mantra of A-net. If you continue down this path, all of these little choices of “better than nothing” will lead inevitably to people taking the choice of nothing and moving on.

Like I said, we needed this technology anyways. It’s great that it can fill some of the roles of observer mode before we actually have observer mode

So is this then confirmation that a full observer mode with a higher limit of concurrent viewers is actively being designed/developed/tested?

It must be a disconnect in communication. I assumed, his original comment meant that there were technical limitations preventing observer mode. Now it sounds like it is something they are working on…Clarification please.

There are definitely technical limitations we have not solved.

I understand that, my question is still there though – is the plan TO solve them and release a full observer mode?

Pyriall.5027:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pyriall.5027:

Evan Lesh.3295:

… which is better than nothing at all…

Ahh the new found mantra of A-net. If you continue down this path, all of these little choices of “better than nothing” will lead inevitably to people taking the choice of nothing and moving on.

Like I said, we needed this technology anyways. It’s great that it can fill some of the roles of observer mode before we actually have observer mode

So is this then confirmation that a full observer mode with a higher limit of concurrent viewers is actively being designed/developed/tested?

It must be a disconnect in communication. I assumed, his original comment meant that there were technical limitations preventing observer mode. Now it sounds like it is something they are working on…Clarification please.

I think its on purpose. Follows the company policy to not release info on anything because they fear we will be upset if the feature doesnt hit live either fast enough or ever at all. (Like city activities which were announced prerelease and never shipped)

garethh.3518:

Vandal.8029:

In my opinion GW2 is a lot more interesting to watch than LoL. I dont see how LoL got so popular. Players have like 5 abilities and there’s a lot of npc farming. No thanks.

I dont know if this game will ever get into an E-sports circuit. But there’s definitely potential now for the pvp to develop a solid community and playerbase. Anet just needs to look at what becomes popular in custom arenas and build on that.

There are allot of good players and the skill cap is VERY high.
Killing npcs is more entertaining than afk’ing at a back point.

GW2’s combat, short of rezzing is allright for shout casting and whatnot.
Conquest is utter trash.

Parisalchuk.9230:

After reading dev responses on this forum I have no faith that this game will ever have a full set of proper tools required for proper viewing, a large enough population to create and sustain a league, nor a team that is willing to continue to develop new and exciting content for league play.

Welcome to the club, took you long enough…
:P

I held out faith as long as I could… sadly, like most the community, the faith is gone.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pyriall.5027:

Evan Lesh.3295:

… which is better than nothing at all…

Ahh the new found mantra of A-net. If you continue down this path, all of these little choices of “better than nothing” will lead inevitably to people taking the choice of nothing and moving on.

Like I said, we needed this technology anyways. It’s great that it can fill some of the roles of observer mode before we actually have observer mode

So is this then confirmation that a full observer mode with a higher limit of concurrent viewers is actively being designed/developed/tested?

BlahTeeb.3254:

Vena.8436:

Parisalchuk.9230:

silvermember.8941:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Branskins.9752:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Who will be here when all is done and said? The PvPers… so you should probably start catering to them… as in implementing features that existed in GW1 years ago.

I don’t necessarily think that is true at all. I think right now more people are still PvEing than PvPing 8 months after release. Also PvE is still more popular in GW1.

Instead, they should strike a balance between the two, not cater to one or the other

Obviously, look at the mess that PvP is. You think people Will go to conventions, swarm by the thousands, to watch someone do a dungeon run? Me neither.
PvP tends to outlast PvE… that’s the general idea.

Even at the height of gw1 popularity, PvE was what kept the game running. After prophecies they became shifting focus to PvE.

I disagree with that statement. In fact they had to add heros because of the difficulty of finding people to actually play with while running HA was still going strong. After EotN HA and GvG is what kept that game alive, not the speed farmers who would gladly have quit had their runs been nerfed (just like they did as the made UW harder and harder and began to nerf dungeons).

Your logic is astoundingly awful. Heroes/henchmen were a treatment to spreading the PvE population far too thinly over three continents. HA, conversely, was a hub. Compare all of the PvP hub zones to just Kamadan, ToA, LA, and Farm Spot X, and you’ll realize which population was monumentally larger.

No we should compare all the people playing each mode. Yea sure, cities were full of people. They had like three guys running around. Jump into observer for a recorded match you will chatter ten times the amount of LTS and LTB.
Its sort of the reason why PvP tournaments gave away cash prizes, because the community had grown large enough to support sponsors.

No one is trying to save Kerrigan, yet tons still play Lost Temple.
No one is fighting to disarm the bomb in Tehran, yet tons are still battling it out on Caspian border.
Look what happened when Diablo 3 added PvP… Its population surged!

(Im with you, I agree that PvP is what breathes life into games after the content of PvE runs stale)

Vena.8436:

Parisalchuk.9230:

silvermember.8941:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Branskins.9752:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Who will be here when all is done and said? The PvPers… so you should probably start catering to them… as in implementing features that existed in GW1 years ago.

I don’t necessarily think that is true at all. I think right now more people are still PvEing than PvPing 8 months after release. Also PvE is still more popular in GW1.

Instead, they should strike a balance between the two, not cater to one or the other

Obviously, look at the mess that PvP is. You think people Will go to conventions, swarm by the thousands, to watch someone do a dungeon run? Me neither.
PvP tends to outlast PvE… that’s the general idea.

Even at the height of gw1 popularity, PvE was what kept the game running. After prophecies they became shifting focus to PvE.

I disagree with that statement. In fact they had to add heros because of the difficulty of finding people to actually play with while running HA was still going strong. After EotN HA and GvG is what kept that game alive, not the speed farmers who would gladly have quit had their runs been nerfed (just like they did as the made UW harder and harder and began to nerf dungeons).

Your logic is astoundingly awful. Heroes/henchmen were a treatment to spreading the PvE population far too thinly over three continents. HA, conversely, was a hub. Compare all of the PvP hub zones to just Kamadan, ToA, LA, and Farm Spot X, and you’ll realize which population was monumentally larger.

Just because there were idles in PvE hotzones does not imply an active player base at all. Im just going to leave this discusion here though as we do not have data to support either claim for who had a larger ‘active’ population.

Vena.8436:

Parisalchuk.9230:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Parisalchuk.9230:

BlahTeeb.3254:

One year from now, ArenaNet will allow you to watch recorded games while having a nearly limitless count for observers. They will claim this to be the beginning and foundation for there highly competitive e-sport tournaments.
One year from now is too late. You had the foundations when you built GW1. What happened? This spectator mode is useless. Literally…. no one wants to watch a shout cast from a game that clearly does not stick to a competitive nature. Look at all the competitive players who transfers from a game to its sequel , like StarCraft, Dota/LoL. Then look how many competitive players from GW1 are playing in GW2.
The story in GW2 lasts no more than a month. You can sugar coat all you want, but it really doesn’t last more than a few weeks. Who will be here when all is done and said? The PvPers… so you should probably start catering to them… as in implementing features that existed in GW1 years ago.

Im with you but people are going to jump on you for agreeing that pivotal features in GW1 should have been included in this game. In PvE, sure that maybe makes sense, different game. In PvP however you shouldnt be trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to tools required to play and observe that kind of content.

I’m not saying everything should carry over from GW1. I’m saying, there are features in GW1 that are superior to what exists in GW1. Its simply that simple… There really isn’t any excuse…
That game is was more competitive than what this game currently is. Unfortunately, that will probably be the case until GW3 launches…

I agree with you. It makes no sense that various features where not chosen to be carried over from game to game. Things like GvG and a global observer mode. There truly is no excuse to have left these features off the development board when designing how they wanted their engine to work. And now that the engine was developed we get to hear how now its too complicated to do. Thats not an excuse to deploy substandard features.

Its as if you haven’t even the basic knowledge of programming R&D, or that your needs/desires are not the center of the universe.

I am actually currently working on designing the next iteration of the product my company produces, and I didnt realize that because I am stating the desires of the ESport community that it makes me want to be the center of the universe.

silvermember.8941:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Branskins.9752:

BlahTeeb.3254:

Who will be here when all is done and said? The PvPers… so you should probably start catering to them… as in implementing features that existed in GW1 years ago.

I don’t necessarily think that is true at all. I think right now more people are still PvEing than PvPing 8 months after release. Also PvE is still more popular in GW1.

Instead, they should strike a balance between the two, not cater to one or the other

Obviously, look at the mess that PvP is. You think people Will go to conventions, swarm by the thousands, to watch someone do a dungeon run? Me neither.
PvP tends to outlast PvE… that’s the general idea.

Even at the height of gw1 popularity, PvE was what kept the game running. After prophecies they became shifting focus to PvE.

I disagree with that statement. In fact they had to add heros because of the difficulty of finding people to actually play with while running HA was still going strong. After EotN HA and GvG is what kept that game alive, not the speed farmers who would gladly have quit had their runs been nerfed (just like they did as the made UW harder and harder and began to nerf dungeons).

kakak.2871:

All general rooms were also spectator enable? It is very sad to show all trait and skill. Eventually there will be clone every where. And since pvp gear cost 0 fee, situation will be worst than WOW and Diablo3. Can’t people just go and create their own trait instead of copying the top players? GW2 pvp now no longer unique.

Top players arent joining hotjoin…

BlahTeeb.3254:

Parisalchuk.9230:

BlahTeeb.3254:

One year from now, ArenaNet will allow you to watch recorded games while having a nearly limitless count for observers. They will claim this to be the beginning and foundation for there highly competitive e-sport tournaments.
One year from now is too late. You had the foundations when you built GW1. What happened? This spectator mode is useless. Literally…. no one wants to watch a shout cast from a game that clearly does not stick to a competitive nature. Look at all the competitive players who transfers from a game to its sequel , like StarCraft, Dota/LoL. Then look how many competitive players from GW1 are playing in GW2.
The story in GW2 lasts no more than a month. You can sugar coat all you want, but it really doesn’t last more than a few weeks. Who will be here when all is done and said? The PvPers… so you should probably start catering to them… as in implementing features that existed in GW1 years ago.

Im with you but people are going to jump on you for agreeing that pivotal features in GW1 should have been included in this game. In PvE, sure that maybe makes sense, different game. In PvP however you shouldnt be trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to tools required to play and observe that kind of content.

I’m not saying everything should carry over from GW1. I’m saying, there are features in GW1 that are superior to what exists in GW1. Its simply that simple… There really isn’t any excuse…
That game is was more competitive than what this game currently is. Unfortunately, that will probably be the case until GW3 launches…

I agree with you. It makes no sense that various features where not chosen to be carried over from game to game. Things like GvG and a global observer mode. There truly is no excuse to have left these features off the development board when designing how they wanted their engine to work. And now that the engine was developed we get to hear how now its too complicated to do. Thats not an excuse to deploy substandard features.

Dont play in an observable arena. Done. People cant see your builds.

BlahTeeb.3254:

One year from now, ArenaNet will allow you to watch recorded games while having a nearly limitless count for observers. They will claim this to be the beginning and foundation for there highly competitive e-sport tournaments.
One year from now is too late. You had the foundations when you built GW1. What happened? This spectator mode is useless. Literally…. no one wants to watch a shout cast from a game that clearly does not stick to a competitive nature. Look at all the competitive players who transfers from a game to its sequel , like StarCraft, Dota/LoL. Then look how many competitive players from GW1 are playing in GW2.
The story in GW2 lasts no more than a month. You can sugar coat all you want, but it really doesn’t last more than a few weeks. Who will be here when all is done and said? The PvPers… so you should probably start catering to them… as in implementing features that existed in GW1 years ago.

Im with you but people are going to jump on you for agreeing that pivotal features in GW1 should have been included in this game. In PvE, sure that maybe makes sense, different game. In PvP however you shouldnt be trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to tools required to play and observe that kind of content.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Sprawl.3891:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Sprawl.3891:

so basically if someone hosts a tournament with all of the top teams, they can only invite 10 people to watch and everyone else has to find a stream… lol, yea that will really build the community.

Yup, and while some shoutcasts are fine Id much rather have control of my own camera and look at what I find important, not someone else.

that is the whole point of observer mode, to be able to have your own control, view peoples stats/specs, etc. With the way it is setup, unless you are friends with the top teams, you will be relegated to watching a shoutcast/stream and hope you don’t miss whatever time they have to actually inspect the players. All we got was basically a shoutcast mode. Oh you play a thief and want to watch the thief? sorry streamer is focusing on the mesmer and ele.

Yup, I agree. The individual implementation of spectator mode is great. How they set up who can view as a spectator for a given arena is absolutely terrible. A complete step backwards from their working implementation of this feature in GW1 which is now what, 7 years old?

Guild Wars 2 is a completely different game. You cannot take Gw1 features and just drop them in a brand new engine. Gw1 was a simpler game, which made observer mode less complicated than how it would work in Gw2. For example, Gw1 did not use Havok.

Obviously they are different games, but my point still stands. Why was an observer mode not taken into consideration when creating the new game engine. Why were features that were important to the original game forgotten during design. While it is more complicated to add now, if decisions were based around the inclusion of an observer mode from the start then we wouldnt be having this discusion. That is the issue.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Not yet. Better than before, but the games population needs a major boost first.

I would like to rescind this comment. After reading dev responses on this forum I have no faith that this game will ever have a full set of proper tools required for proper viewing, a large enough population to create and sustain a league, nor a team that is willing to continue to develop new and exciting content for league play.

Sprawl.3891:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Sprawl.3891:

so basically if someone hosts a tournament with all of the top teams, they can only invite 10 people to watch and everyone else has to find a stream… lol, yea that will really build the community.

Yup, and while some shoutcasts are fine Id much rather have control of my own camera and look at what I find important, not someone else.

that is the whole point of observer mode, to be able to have your own control, view peoples stats/specs, etc. With the way it is setup, unless you are friends with the top teams, you will be relegated to watching a shoutcast/stream and hope you don’t miss whatever time they have to actually inspect the players. All we got was basically a shoutcast mode. Oh you play a thief and want to watch the thief? sorry streamer is focusing on the mesmer and ele.

Yup, I agree. The individual implementation of spectator mode is great. How they set up who can view as a spectator for a given arena is absolutely terrible. A complete step backwards from their working implementation of this feature in GW1 which is now what, 7 years old?

Sprawl.3891:

so basically if someone hosts a tournament with all of the top teams, they can only invite 10 people to watch and everyone else has to find a stream… lol, yea that will really build the community.

Yup, and while some shoutcasts are fine Id much rather have control of my own camera and look at what I find important, not someone else.

LilAdrian.5936:

The only problem i see with this is being able to see traits because some people have worked hard to get there build to where it is and don’t want to publish it to the whole community.

Dont play in arenas with observer mode… and solved.

Gandarel.5091:

Evan, the problem is, you want to force the founding of those communities, making already existing communities go mad and leave the game. We want to watch the top rated tournament battles, not r5 rabbits zerging in a mini wvw style hotjoin and have like 3 spector slots.

Custom Arenas are great, but we need a real observer mode, and for tournaments.

They just said they are going to push the responsibility of getting viewership of games to shoutcasters rather than themselves. Add in their fear of cheating in tournaments and its clear to see we are never going to get what we truly wanted.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is intentional for performance reasons. We’ve been very clear on the limitations of the in-game spectator mode and how it is not a global observer mode. An observer mode that allows thousands of live viewers is much more difficult and complicated technology. What we have will still go a long way in fostering community building, learning, and shoutcasting.

Why was the system to allow global observation not designed in the original implementation of your engine. Why, in general, is PvP in GW2 a colossal step backwards for what existed in GW1? The original reasoning for scraping GW1 and moving to a new game was because of engine limitations, why on earth would you then design things that regress from one engine to the next?

Well, atleast we have confirmation right here that Anet isnt serious about actually making GW2 viable in ESports community. If things are too complicated to make something work correctly its better to just slap a bandaid on it and hope we are fine with it? Thats not going to cut it when there are other options out there.

Stof.9584:

There is a limited number of Spectators allowed? And it cuts into the amount of Players in the match?

Yes, that is how they thought best to design and implement this feature.

Silferas.3841:

I don’t understand this community. I am getting disgusted by all the whiners who have never had to do a piece of programming code, but all are full of themselves spouting advice at the developers. Have you ever truly done any coding on your own guys (all the ones who are complaining)? With programs that are 1/1000 of the size of gw2, it’s already hard to avoid bugs, and the difficulty of that grows exponentially. It’s beta, there WILL be bugs, deal with it. As a community, we’ve been asking for faster feature releases for the past several months, and anet listened and in 3 months we’ve had matchmaking, mmr, leaderboards, custom arenas, spectator mode, they even started doing some proper balance changes with impact this last patch.

Thanks for the effort ANet, keep up the good work, you are headed the right way.

Im insulted by the statement, and I question if you yourself have any programming experience. I myself AM a practicing software engineer for a company working on much larger projects then ArenaNet is. It is not hard to avoid most bugs with proper development, reviewing and testing. Testing being the critical point here. All new features should be completely tested to the best of their abilities and all bugs fixed before ship date. This is not happening. SOME, and I stress some, of these bugs are unforseen due to the nature of the development environment compared to deployment but the vast amount of UI bugs, or features that dont quite work (current UI bug for spectators not counting in the lobby display, unable to join as spectator if the teams are full, Play Now no longer functional 100% of the time) should have been caught during Anets QA process.

To respond to your second point, that in 3 months we got matchmaking, leaderboards, arenas, spectator mode… we were promised all those things before launch, shortly after launch, shortly after the start of the year and now finally a first iteration of these features has appeared. How easily you forget the promises that this company has given to us and failed to deliver once they hand you a new toy.

Kyzen.7452:

You have to look at team size, if the room size is over the limit can’t even join as spectator which is silly

Thats not the only issue, spectators count against the max players but do not show up on the UI. So in a 10v10 if there are 4 spectators the room will show 16/20 even though its full.

Brutal Arts.6307:

They’d have to make the game entertaining to watch.

Did you watch BLUs shout cast with the new spectator mode? I doubt it. GW2 is heavily animation based which makes it fantastic to watch when you can view it from static locations.

Nik Rane.6431:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Your 2015 comment only reinforces Anets current streak of not learning from their past mistakes and successes.

That was, in fact, the joke.

Well said then!

Not yet. Better than before, but the games population needs a major boost first.

Nik Rane.6431:

Parisalchuk.9230:

If I click play now functionally it is supposed to find me a server based on the servers availability and my cummulative glory and put me in it. How is it attempting to put me into full games functionally working?

Your point about Public test servers is valid, however GW1 had private invitation only private test servers that allowed large scale testing. They did not carry this over into GW2 for whatever reason.

I misread your post. I thought you were referring to the issues stated by the OP or the Dev that came after him.

The GW1 Private Test Server showed up several years after the game was deployed. You can expect one in 2015.

Your 2015 comment only reinforces Anets current streak of not learning from their past mistakes and successes.

BLU.8961:

Thanks guys. The response I got tonight was amazing! Just wanted to address a few of the concerns people had…

Technical: I believe all of these issues have been fixed, working on a new mic, but the crash at around 8:30ish was due to twitch’s servers crashing, not my own error.

Fast Talking: This really only happened because I was alone and wanted to deliver all the info I could.

Game knowledge: I have been out of the loop for about two months, but as I ease back into it I should begin to state things with more confidence soon.

Co-caster: I have two people that have signed on to stream with me already. Fixi from the first game had to go early (late in EU), but I will be with him again tomorrow. I will gladly cast with anyone wishing to try it as well. Just hit me up by email and we can talk: DrBLU42@Gmail.com

Thanks again for the amazing reaction guys… was a great first day for esports!

I think your cast showed a lot of people how enjoyable watching a GW2 pvp match can be without being locked behind 1 or 2 characters with their camera movements.

Frellin.6318:

I was spectating for a while to try out the feature. It seems spectators count against player cap for that server but are not counted in the list. Which brings up some questions.

Why do spectators count against the cap of those actively playing?

If a server holds 16 players (8 vs 8 ) than why now allow for 16 players + spectators?

Can we put a limit on the number of spectators other than those actively playing? That way not too many show up to lag the server.

If a server is full on players actively playing is no one supposed to be able to spectate?

These are just some of the questions I have. Also, if there is/were a split between active players and spectators it could be setup where spectators can join into the fight once a spot opens up. Also, when the server switches to a new map the active players would have priority and keep their spots. On map transition a spectator would stay a spectator until a spot opened up. I might think of more questions later.

Edit: Just wanted to say that it is a nice feature. I have enjoyed it but I can see people becoming aggravated if 1 person is spectating and keeping teams uneven.

Another terrible issue is that spectators dont count towards the cap on the UI. So games which are full may show that there is space open. Its terrible.

Nik Rane.6431:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Visual bug… yes, thats why I can click it to my hearts content and it will not put me into a game because its trying to put me into games that are full. But thats just visual right?

Yes, it is visual. The server restrictions are proper, the client ones are not.

Sprawl.3891:

Anet being all hipster and avoiding public test server at all costs

Public test servers are worthless when you do not give the testers the proper tools and patch notes ahead of time. It’s only for making players feel like they’re a part of the development process when they’re not.

If I click play now functionally it is supposed to find me a server based on the servers availability and my cummulative glory and put me in it. How is it attempting to put me into full games functionally working?

Your point about Public test servers is valid, however GW1 had private invitation only private test servers that allowed large scale testing. They did not carry this over into GW2 for whatever reason.

Nik Rane.6431:

Parisalchuk.9230:

What QA groups are you talking about? A feature is designed and during design a cummulative test plan should be created to check all positive and negative paths. After a feature is develop and initially tested by developers it will be handed off to QA who will test based on that cummulative test plan. It should then be integrated tested with the full system to ensure continued functionality. Errors should be caught by QA and not delivered.

Because of the nature of having a live server there will always be some things that cannot be tested, however automating players to join a server and then attempting to join with ‘Join Now’ should not have been effected by being tested on a live server versus not.

The issue is a random problem with the UI in which a player uses a specific function of the UI, and the UI breaks SOMETIMES.

Good luck finding that on Test. It’s a minor visual bug at best.

Visual bug… yes, thats why I can click it to my hearts content and it will not put me into a game because its trying to put me into games that are full. But thats just visual right?

Nik Rane.6431:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Root cause analysis – why did this not get caught during your software QA testing, and what is going to be done to improve the process? Every patch a plethora of these kind of bugs hit the live servers and while they are fixed over time the process never improves for the next patch.

Fix that…

QA checks for basic functionality and obvious issues. They cannot check for every possible problem under every possible circumstance. It’s unlikely it was caught because it requires two full teams, when there are relatively few testers on the Test server at any given time.

kitten happens.

What QA groups are you talking about? A feature is designed and during design a cummulative test plan should be created to check all positive and negative paths. After a feature is develop and initially tested by developers it will be handed off to QA who will test based on that cummulative test plan. It should then be integrated tested with the full system to ensure continued functionality. Errors should be caught by QA and not delivered.

Because of the nature of having a live server there will always be some things that cannot be tested, however automating players to join a server and then attempting to join with ‘Join Now’ should not have been effected by being tested on a live server versus not.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Join Random will put you on either the Red team or the Blue team, not spectator. However, there’s an issue where the join team buttons aren’t greying out properly when the teams are full. So I suspect that’s what happened to you. You began the match as a spectator, clicked Join Random, but both teams were full, so the UI just closed, without moving you off the spectator team.

Root cause analysis – why did this not get caught during your software QA testing, and what is going to be done to improve the process? Every patch a plethora of these kind of bugs hit the live servers and while they are fixed over time the process never improves for the next patch.

Fix that…

Liewec.2896:

agreed, after months of “work” you’d expect more than a couple of tweaks and some tooltip fixes, honestly what do you guys do? office mini golf?

as everyone else has been saying, we don’t want month after month of babysteps.

i will add however, that this patch has been babysteps in the right direction,
which is good!

They dont have to be held accountable for an update being small if they dont announce features when their designs are finalized. They probably have tried numerous styles for arenas and bug fixes, but beacuse we have no idea what they are actively working on scraping an idea is no big deal for them. Its a crappy design philosophy and the customer gets the short end of the stick.

robotempire.2451:

Clicking “Join Random” should have 0% probability of landing you as a spectator, and yet this just happened to me.

Atleast you can even join, only full games when I try to join that way.

guza.6170:

i guess they think 10 ppl is enough spectators, esports here we go.

Without password protecting their arenas it will be zero players, just spectators. With passwords they will have zero spectators.

Terrible design. Im sure they will come in here and say either something like shoutcasting or that their engine just cant handle that many spectators. My prememtive responses:

You shouldnt have to go to a third party to watch something that all current AAA pvp games.

You designed your engine, why was there no foresight for this type of issue.

When I was in college I would have loved nothing more than to work at ArenaNet, but now that I see that they care nothing about quality assurance, and they refuse to let themselves be accountable to their customers by releasing details about features before that feature is completed Im glad I write my software else where.