Guild Wars 2

Aenesthesia.1697:

I am a bit devastated right now.

My win ratio has been always around 60%. This has drastically changed once i reached emerald.

My last record is 5-20. All the time i get matched against dragons and their mothers, solo vs premade, ok, i can take a hit here and there, but this is getting ridiculous.

Yesterday i decided to team up. Most in my team where sapphire. I thought: good, they will know what they are doing.

But the competition knew better: the new meta has clicked really fast, and even though we were consistently downing players, they were being flash revived and we ended up dying when they got a lucky proc.

I got sick of it and went to power necro with well of suffering so i could at least damage downed players and it worked, we won the next match against the new op meta.

But still, 1-5 in a team with people that are suposedly above my skill level and were playing rather poorly, that’s so bad (how did they even reach sapphire?).

I see that everybody and their mother complains about losing streaks, but somebody else is winning against them, so, my question is: who is the happy camper? who is always on the winning team?

and

can i be your friend?

End of rant.

Want to start winning consistently?

• Have a team of skilled payers willing to coordinate as a premade (if you don’t coordinate strategy and communicate with each other, you aren’t really utilizing the premade advantage)

• Make sure everyone on your team accepts the OP advantage given by the current meta and no one is trying to hold on to some really outdated PvP build (a general guideline would be to consider builds listed under “good” and “meta” on metabattle.com)

• Practice with the team in unranked. Win at least three matches in a row in unranked with the team. While there is separate MMR for unranked and ranked, this will at least give you an idea of how well the new team configuration is going to work for everyone. Your from JaxxTheRipper may have been great on his old Warrior build but, but needs more practice on the Codi Mallyx Herald he’s trying for.

Once everyone is comfortable go for it. If you’re old PvP friends are still holding on to outdated classes and builds for PvP make new friends who have accepted what’s going on who also want to win.

Death Aggro.9602:

My win ratio is around 60% solo que right now in ranked. Sometimes you have to carry your whole team lol. And type what to do etc. So many times ive been 1 pip from a tier and get a bunch of bads and have to restart a tier. It sucks. But it is what it is.

Conquest is a five party sport. Even if you are an exceptional player, luck has to be on your side to offer you the team configs on both side to allow you the opportunity to carry your team. There’s only one of you, even if the opposing team has less skilled players if they run a better team strategy or run any team strategy and your team runs none they have a huge advantage.

How many solo queue non-premade teams have you been on where any strategy was discussed? In most of the ones I have been in only 1-2 even say where they are headed at start of match and no one uses mini-map ping. So even the basic tools given to us to coordinate are ignored on top of those two Warriors and Ranger in you team running outdated builds

jonnis.2946:

With HoT, we’ve seen elite specialisations introduced. Lets have a look at what you have to sacrifice for them and what they offer:

Sacrifice:
1 Trait Line

Lets assume this trait line is designed to be balanced to be in line with the elite specialisation trait line. In a lot of cases I would argue the elite specialisation traitline is one of the strongest choices for classes, but this really doesn’t matter.

What do you gain:
A new weapon choice
Access to a new heal, four new utilities and a new elite.

If this was all the elite specialisations offered, we might get away with it in an ideal world where everything was perfectly balanced. There would still be plenty of space for “base” classes in PvP.

However its not, the elite specialisations offer something else:
Augmented Class Functionality

Without losing anything, almost every class gains an additional tool for their kitten nal. Some of these admittedly, are a tad lackluster in comparison to others, but that doesn’t change the fact that they offer more than the base class.

Daredevil only gets an extra dodge, and additional functionality on dodges. All true, but again, all you lose is a traitline. Scrappers suddenly have a knew way to stomp/res. Berserkers have a new mode with new burst skills. Druids get a completely new form to use which has massive benefits. Chronomancers get a skill that lets them use any skill twice! Elementalist gets to overload its attunements. Revenant gets a new free button to use.

Necromancers and Guardians however, have their base class mechanic changed by the elite specialisation. This is the only way balance could have been achieved.

For me then, its no wonder that only elite specialisations have any place in the current meta and I can’t ever see that changing unless this changes.

Knote.2904:

It would be perfect.

This is how it worked in League of Legends and it was great.

People solo queued, high tier players got together and formed teams from solo queue.

Top tier teams then set up scrims with each other.

Premades farming solo queuers does nothing to help them practice.

In League of Legends you can solo queue or team queue ranked, they are separate. However, you can have a partial-premade in solo queue (or at least you could). Every game I can think of except GW2 offers a separate queue for full premade teams.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I know what you are saying Sam but you are looking at it all wrong.

• Conquest is a team sport, but it doesn’t mean sports are only designed for organized teams. Just look at League of Legends.

• While the League system is designed for top GUILD teams to compete in the ESL. What does that mean for SoloQ players? Hell, I’m almost Diamond and I’ve been SoloQing my way through a good part of Ruby. What happens when top players get to Legendary 1 all by themselves? They aren’t given a team either.

The idea is you make your team from the open players in the leagues, then compete in the ESL. Having a League will help teams figure out and test players who are in legendary or high diamond. Once again, League of Legends works the same way, can’t join most teams unless you Diamond 1+. If you have a team, great! If you don’t, well, getting a very high rank will drastically increase your chances for a good team.

I misunderstood, but I understand now. You are proposing a way to restructure Leagues in a way that doesn’t involve splitting the queues and you think making everyone solo queue would be a solution.

Well I agree it would be one way to clean the waters, but I don’t like it. Conquest is a team sport and there is a lot of fun to be had being on voice coms with a team, working strategy, etc… The game was designed around that and is played at it’s best when it’s played like that. But the majority don’t play it like that.

Foe me, really the only answer is a separate ranked solo queue and a ranked team queue. The Guild Challenger League is suppose to be entire separate from ESL. Again, they stated the two would eventually face off. It’s all such a cluster-kitten now that who knows what their plans are.

Noticed the PvP leaderboard linkable from this site still has the top three names from last ranked season. Does this only get reset at season end?

Nova Stiker.8396:

How upset would you guys be?

After all, a lot of problems contribute to people creating teams. Whether to abuse the system or not, having a team of friends gives a decent advantage. But then again, the only time you will be able to play with your friends is unranked or hotjoin. It’s a solo fight to the top and you might fight your friends along the way.

---

Before you say, “JUST ADD A SPLIT IT’S THAT EASY” well not really. How do you split it? Should there be a SoloQ and TeamQ League? Or should the split share the same league latter? What about the MMR? Should SoloQ or TeamQ have the same MMR? What happens when a player goes to Legendary in TeamQ but has not once played a single SoloQ game, should they be treated like legendary?

It’s a ridiculous idea. Given a single queue systems, it would make much more sense to disallow solo or even partial pre-made queuing for ranked. The best scenario would be a ranked solo queue and a ranked team queue with the option for solo players and partial premades (duos, trios) to enter team queue if they so desire. The hypothetical solo queue should have it’s own league divisions separate for team queue league divisions. That would keep the waters clean and give some integrity to that little icon beside your character name. As it stands today, only Diamond and Legendary are any indication of team skill.

• Conquest is a team sport.
• The concept of a Guild team is a new construct added with HoT to pair with League play. The whole League system is by design all about the guild team’s taking rank and the best earning a spot on the leader boards.
• The whole point of Leagues isto funnel up to Legendary divison which is all about Guild Team play with the top 8 (will there even be that many) to form the Guild Challenger League

The design is that the Guild Challenger League will eventually face off against the top eight ESL Pro League teams in a year end tournament. That was all stated. Of course when your top eight Guild Challenger League teams all open to be ESL Pro League teams I suppose it will just cancel itself out.

Sadly, most are being more clever about it. You’re not seeing them go afk instead they are just purposely throwing the match by running into 1-3 scenarios, etc… Not following team objectives set out pre-match, etc… You know something is up when you’re fighting on point and it’s a 4-2 or even 5-2 battle and the opposing team has the other two points capped and they are not contested and the score is like 100+ point lead in favor of the other team.

This sort of scenario has played out at least four times today and unless ArenaNet has a way to rewatch the match (they don’t) then this sort of thing goes completely undetected and unpunished.

The bottom line is solo queuing and even partial pre-made queuing for ranked will end up giving you a rank that most likely has no real indication of your skill.

Hooglese.4860:

That is incredibly stupid.

Well it’s one aspect of many that are incredibly stupid about this system. The most annoying is the unbalance of Elite Specs to non… Players still determined to run their old pre-HoT meta pvp build thinking it’s great and matchmaking for solo queue players not taking into account Elite Spec meta when forming team comp.

It’s just bad design all around.

Elyndis.2130:

Hollywood Votary.8914:

matchmaking assigns each team an a priori probability of winning…

cant take the OP seriously

Your assumption is that matchmaking is making accurate predictions. Since matchmaking does not account for premades, I believe that OP’s case is possible, though atypical.
….

And matchmaking is looking at old MMR. WarriorJoe.2934 just bought HoT, never reads the forms, has been running his old meta build for months. He’s finished PvE story for HoT and decides to got to PvP. He signs in decided to spend three days playing nothing but PvP and it takes him 40 matches to realize his build is no longer what it once was. Those 40 matches he was a handicap to his team because matchmaking did not take into account that he wasn’t running a viable meta pvp build… This is a real problem because some of the meta pvp builds are so OP.

Nath Forge Tempete.1645:

DONT GO on metabattle !

Old builds from the core GW2 are still Meta on this site … plz

No they aren’t. Only the five builds at the very top are “meta” What you see listed under “Good” and others under Conquest subsections are past meta builds. Effective outside high division play, but not meta. Metabattle.com has been endorsed by ArenaNet. The meta builds come from analysis of Twitch feeds and focus on ESL Pro players who live stream. It’s actually very reliable although not always bleeding edge.

Daroon.1736:

Charging for runes, sigils, amulets and now champions is IMHO is totally wrong.

Currently in order to have access to all available builds you need:

6 Sigils @3g each
26 Runes @5g each
7 amulets @10g each
2 champion unlocks @15 each.

For a grand total of 196G
(The above are the ones I currently still have locked and as I know I have paid for at least one or two the actual total is over 200g)

Yes I know that you don’t need, and will probably never use many of them but the whole ethos for PvP from the very start has been that any player can jump in at any stage and have access to the same stats and gear as any other player.

As more and more runes and sigils are introduced the total is of course going to keep going up and up.

Get rid of all the useless experience tomes in pvp reward tracks and replace them with rune/sigil unlocks pls – this is just another ‘money grab’ that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

All by design. Don’t forget ArenaNet has (at least one) economist and data scientist on staff. These individuals work together to find user patterns and strategically get the most money out of each player possible. Amusement parks and arcade/entertainment centers do the same thing. Although not entirely pay to win. Largely it is and I doubt ArenaNet would argue that. It’s the Freemium model

For any e-sport to sustain it needs spectators. Who are those spectators going to be? Your non-pro players who are just enjoying the game! You MUST take care of those players first and put the money into the features they need before your game can properly go e-sport and sustain that status. You must do this. For whatever reasons, ArenaNet decided it wasn’t important. Instead ArenaNet decided to hire a competitive brand manager and has pumped kitten knows how much into marketing GW2 as an ESL e-sport. This was money that could have been put into making sPvP a better experience for all of us.

They likely did all this based on some graphs presented to them which indicated the PvP side of the game was the fastest growing segment of GW2. They seemed to not consider it was the fastest growing segment because

1.) No new PvE content had been released and

2.) After three years the sPvP meta had finally stabilized.

So what did they do after announcing the ESL Pro League, League system (Guild Challenge League leaderboards) and $200k prize pool? They did the following

1.) They released an entire expansion of new content including new Legendaries items to grind for and Raids to offer real end-game to the PvE crowd GW2 has always catered to. Aside from one new MOBA style map (now removed from ranked play with no ETA on it’s return) they invested nothing new in sPvP mechanic or feature wise except for a late-to-the-party broken League system.

2.) They completely destroyed the old sPvP meta that had taken 3 years to stabilize, forcing the Pro teams to run some very, very boring builds and also completely mucking up ranked play for the non-pro players (can’t count how many times I’ve queued with old friends who are still running their Hammer Warrior or Burn Guard build thinking they are going to help the team).

They created a state of chaos in PvP. Play mechanics are what draw a person into a game and keep them interested. A Ranger rolled a ranger for a reason, now they are forced to be a Druid to be effective. A lot of Mesmers loved playing PU Shatter, now they must Chrono bunker. When you put design in place that steals mechanics players love and force them to play an entirely different way or not play to win at all, that is just horrible, horrible design.

On the PvE side of the game non Elite Specs still work alright for most content (exception being Raids and high level Fractals) people have choices but PvP is where balance must exist or the game becomes complete garbage.

There’s more…

Another simple truth is that, ArenaNet wanted GW2 to go e-sport but didn’t want to put the kind of money into improving the sPvP systems needed for the non-pro players. Where is solo queue? Where is the ability to spectate previous matches you’ve played or for that matter to even spectate past ESL matches and be able to appreciate past games from whatever players perspective you’d like. Are we going to see non-pro level Tournaments for the best teams in Ruby and Diamond? Why not have an entire season end week of Torunaments for the best guild teams in the top three divisions. If it cost too much to put lower division tournments on Twitch then don’t live stream them. Again I can’t say how disgusted I am that there is no in-game client spectate option for previous games. There are so many, many things they can do to nurture the existing PvP community and they just aren’t putting any money/effort into this aspect of the game outside of marketing the ESL side of it. We all should be very angry about that.

There is so much ArenaNet needs to do in order to take care of the non-pro players and in many ways these systems (such as spectate past match) would also help pro teams. Overall it’s just a horribly managed mess.

How to fix?

I honestly don’t know at this point, but if it were my decision I would suspend he current ranked season or suspend elite specializations from ranked play until a proper balance patch can happen.

The problem I suspect is that the Elite Specialization balance is exactly where they want it. They don’t want your pre HoT meta build to be viable anymore (not even if you change to new mods and update it) they want entirely new play mechanics to be the focus in hopes everyone will rush out an buy HoT. It all comes back to greed over integrity.

Pimsley.3681:

The probability of having a separate Solo Queue is looking bleak. So instead mourning for its absence, I’ve decided to create a list of mistakes commonly made in order to improve and progress further in the season.

The goal here is to help the community survive and extract enjoyment out of the game despite the unfavorable circumstances. Please add what you feel most SoloQers need to improve on.

I do not wish for this thread to be hostile or vitriolic.

1. Defend the points you just capped.

A lot of times people just wander off not knowing where to go once the team has two points capped.

2. It’s very risky to attempt to 3-cap with a team of pugs.

This is how teams get wiped. A brief 3 cap could easily turn up against you.
Going for that far cap works if heavy pressure is at mid and home.

3. Don’t double or multi-cap

A strong indication that the team is likely to fail is when 2 people cap home at the start.
Multi-capping is not the same as node team fights. Only 1 person is needed to cap.

4. Be map aware

In Khylo for example, there is no need for you to keep trebbing when the enemy has 3 capped due to your team being outnumbered and your teammates just wiped. Or, if you see the point you just capped is contested don’t run away especially if it was home or mid

5. Don’t bring garbage builds to ranked

You are doing yourself and the team a disfavor when you run garbage. If you soloQ, the best builds to run are sustain and some support. I personally get discouraged when teammates hp drop to red and then black in a matter of seconds.

Edit: I know this goes without saying but bring the class you are comfortable with. The ESL meta doesn’t necessarily apply in the first 3 divisions

Everything said is dead-on. We need a giant bullet board in Heart of the Mist next to the leader boards that has “Guidelines for Solo Queue Play” with these rules and more.

I would add

• Don’t try to play team captain in /team chat when solo or duo-queuing. People won’t trust you and will go do their own thing anyway, so instead call where you are going early on before game starts. If others don’t call it. Say “Where is everyone going?”

• Remind the team to pay attention to map ping.

• Assign team member to secondary mechanics on most maps (e.g. “Jaxx please take out enemy treb if they start using it”, “Someone with high mobility please scout base if they get inside and ping if help is needed”)

This no longer seems to be in the game.

punahou.3986:

makes zero sense.

I’m not the best player, but at least average to above— yet 2 days and 52 losses in a row.
ive been at rank 2 forever.

1. With that many losses you’ve had a great deal of bad luck

2. Are you running current meta pvp build? If you’re running your old PU Shatter, Burn Guardian, Hammer Warrior, etc… You’re pulling your team down as the old meta has been destroyed by the OP Elite Specs. If you want to PvP now you have to not only buy HoT but master one of the Elite Spec’s ranked good or meta over on metabattle.com (that’s the easiest way to go about insuring you have a solid viable build)

3. Have done 100% solo queue? Solo queue and pre-made queues are mixed. In fact even guild teams go into this queue so if you solo queue, many times you will be pigs to the slaughter for whatever premade is selected by matchmaking to get a free win off your team. Yes MMR is suppose to make all that equal, but matchmaking does not account for the experience the team has together (which is greater than individual MMR) and it also doesn’t take into account their ability to strategize instantly on voice coms. MMR based matchmaking is not nearly enough.

On the bright side, your MMR should be very low now. You can prob advertise in map chat “low MMR player LFG” and get picked up by a team right away. I have no idea if advertising if advertising that you are a low MMR player is against the rules or not so might want to check that.

Never played it, but it looks a lot like AION

People are so upset about everything else with PvP that they just kind of forget that the only new PvP content for HoT was temporarily removed.

Pinkunicorn of Dethecus.3217:

once i gave in and played the elite specs, figuring I’d rather have pips than self-respect, i started to enjoy it a lot more. Helluva lot more than playing non-elite specs.

And always more than I had arenaing in WoW.

^^^ Did that as well, then I realized some teams were dropping matches and that anyone can grind their way into Ruby because of said purposeful losses combined with luck and tier lock-in. So really the only prestige badge come end of season will be Diamond and Legendary divisions, Amber to Ruby is just ArenaNet making solo queuers and players who don’t really have the skill needed jump though hoops and think PvP is still rewarding. It’s all a facade until you get to Ruby.

I’m still playing. Just trying to get as far as I can pretending Leagues don’t exist and have no expectation of getting the Legendary backpack. I think once you set expectations it helps.

The Draconic Spirit.3056:

I moved away from PvE because in order to achieve anything you need at least 27 hours a day sitting at a chair. PvP is now we’re cancer and AIDS pasients get quarantined. Unbalanced and full of brainded classes. Anet is always saving you money as no monitor is required anymore just standing there and hitting some keys will do the job for these clases. Unless you have a team full of people who indeed have 27 hours a day to play don’t think about playing PvP. You will be matched against pro players and teams and mached with inexperienced PvP players who can access ranked maches after just a few games. Off to play some better PvP games I don’t wanna wait around until it gets fixed. Should have been fixed just as quick as other things have been fixed in the past.

Yes, Amber to Ruby is going to come quickly with skill or very slow though grind, but since you’ll never know which tactic the player used to get their it’s worth of prestige is greatly devalued.

How can a player grind it?

• A.) It’s well known players are losing matches to lower MMR. I’ve faced two such teams today I was very suspect of and that was only in an hour of playing. As designed players have incentive to do this at any league division level Emerald and above.

• B.) Even if you are a mediocre or often bad player, If you play long enough you will get paired with a team either trying to lower their MMR or a team where the other 4 players are strong enough to carry you to a win.

• Eventually the combination of A & B will consecutively line up to allow a player to lock in each tier needed to obtain Ruby. You may need 200 hours to do it, you may do it in only 500 hours (numbers are arbitrary) luck gets sprinkled into the equation but what is clearly absent is a good scale. A scale that actually ties a league division rank to a players real skill in PvP.

Diamond and Legendary leagues do. ArenaNet is treating the rest of us like children at daycare. Eventually you’ll get your cookie if you repeat what we ask you to often enough.

What adds more insult to it all is the way it’s designed. Players solo queuing in hopes of getting their Legendary piece can grind up to Ruby where they will have successfully obtained 3 of the four pieces needed to forge the precursor, that last piece will require Diamond division which will not come with grind, because you can no longer rely on luck and teams trying to dump MMR to grant you those magical five string victories.

In Ruby you’ll loose those tiers. The only strategy that will get you to Diamond is to form a solid team which, if you solo queued your way to Ruby probably goes against your play style so you’ll finish out the season enraged as you win a pip, loose a pip, win 2 pips, loose 3 pips, etc….

dannyteo.5864:

Go look at the last Post Sunfish made and tell me that this is not pathetic? Even in Emerald I get an average 10-15 minute que. Anet refuses to let us que outside of the mists and refuses to add a solo que option, it amazes me how this expansion is progressively getting worse and worse as the days go by, at least for pvps
sake.

Say it with me.

They. Don’t. Care. About. PvP.

They are about marketing the PvP aspect of the game and working it as a “brand” in terms of getting it out there for ESL Pro play, etc… But they don’t care about the balance overall, etc.. Pick any PvP game played at ESL level and you will find the basics covered. Solo vs Team queue, ability to spectate past matches, balance that provides viable play options instead of a handful of meta builds resulting in the purposeful unbalance designed to make players buy the HoT

Making it into Amber, Emerald , Sapphire and Ruby is not indicative of a players skill. Because you lock in tiers Amber-Ruby (ending in ruby) play enough matches (grind) and eventually you will make it into Ruby division. If you are in a lower division and see a player with a Ruby icon that may mean that player is in a team that has done exceptionally well and that they are a skilled player but it more likely means they have just been playing a lot more PvP than you have. Given enough games even horrible players will get carried enough to lock in tiers. This is also why solo queue is viable Amber to Ruby, however it’s going to be a very, very long haul if all you do is solo queue.

If you see a Diamond or Legendary icon, those are the players who made it where they did though a combination of skill and also grinding matches (probably feed on a a lot of meaty solo queues in the lower divisions).

TL;DR It all really starts it Ruby. If you don’t have a very good team, it all ends in Ruby. Everything before Ruby is really in place just to enrage the solo queue players, keep them queuing up and keep them going to the cash shop for boost items, skins, etc… (there isn’t a 1:1 relation with playing more hours of PvP and cash shop purchases, but players who play the game more in general spend more in cash shop. This has been documented by many other game studios and reports on monetizing and freemium models in general).

In the end, as much as we hate the current system it was designed this way for a reason. It allows them to maximize profits and to steal your time in the process. PvP in GW2 is a poison.

Laserbolt.6731:

Just wondering where this “grab a low MMR” so you can Q faster is going.

What’s this going to end up with?

It WILL stabilize at some equilibrium point, right? Where there is no more way to speed up the Q time.

Could it drop to 2 Diamonds and 3 Ambers?

People are loosing matches to lower MMR not so they can queue faster, but so they can be paired with lower skilled players who they will them steam roll for a string of wins. If you are referring to players in Diamond league partying up with Amber division players you need a wake up call the system is designed to allow that and matchmaking (I laughed and thew up just a little bit at the same time there) is designed to account for these pairings. The opposing team should be equally balanced. Of course if it’s not and you end up on a team with two ambers against a full premade of five Diamonds consider it a taste of what the pug groups you steam rolled in premades getting to Diamond must have felt like.

If you happend to make it to Diamond entirely though solo queue you should immediately book a trip to Las Vegas because luck is on your side.

Conquest is not a solo sport. Your League Division Rank is indicative of how well one has played in premades and really nothing else. Actually, that’s not even true. As designed Leagues are a grind from Amber to Ruby. It may take you 300 hours but you can grind your way in solo queue to Ruby, statistically it’s not only possibly, it will happen even if you’re a horrible player. So Amber, Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby are all indicative of how much PvP you’ve played. Not how good you are.

Diamond and Legendary you can’t grind your way or solo queue your way into. When a player reaches Diamond they have a lot of incentive to give up matches and lower MMR.

Cole.3824:

Smite.

It is a 3rd person MOBA. Played a TON of DOTA2 and LoL but I find Smite is just far more appealing/satisfying. Mainly because I prefer 3rd person gameplay now as well since playing so many MMOs. Great fun.

Watched a few videos on this and realized a lot of the skill animations on the Elite Specs were inspired (perhaps even complete rip-off’s) of Smite skills. Guess they all steal from one another.

rchu.8945:

Burtnik.5218:

Um..given how f small this xpac was i dont think they are focused even on pve. Just compare the amount of weapon sets HOT gave to the amount of gemstore sets since hot release. Mind blowing really. They are focused on milking players atm.

Really? Clearly the HOT expansion caters to the PvE crowd (4 new maps with huge meta events, raids, etc) this new sPvP is crap, and WvW features they mentioned were left out (since march 2015 according to the ex-WvW lead), how can you say it’s not catering to the PvE?

HoT had a negative effect on PvP because their failure to properly balance is forcing people to play classes and build they don’t want to play. No PvP meta has not always been that way. Prior to HoT release PvP meta had stabilized and there was something for every class. Now it’s reduced to five builds with heavy emphasis on bunker and cc focused team builds. There is no fun in that type of play because it’s not strategic at all, it’s more a coin toss of who starts the skill rotation and lands first hit.

In PvE if you want to continue play a PU Shatter Mesmer, Hammer Warrior, DPS Guardian, etc… the option is still there and you can make that build viable. Outside Raids and top tier fractals there is a lot of variety and options.

The PvP side of the game rips back the curtain and reveals the ugly balance flaws. They introduced this right before the ESL Pro League’s introduction and were arrogant enough to believe this wouldn’t happen. In allowing the Elite Specs in ranked play they not only destroyed the old meta, they destroyed the play mechanics that every player enjoyed.

They completely changed the players experience though a combination of Elite Specs + broken League system blending solo, premade and guild team queues into one. The PvP side of the game took a huge hit with HoT.

PvE players have been given the red carpet with HoT. PvP players the shaft.

I have only mostly positive things to say about the PvE side of the game. It was worth the price of admission, it’s just my “end-game” to any expansion is going to be PvP and I think a lot of other players feel the same. We don’t want to go after that Raid wing 100 times in a row. We don’t want to replay the same fractal. The only real non-repetitive end-game content is PvP. The current “bunker meta” is evening threatening that.

While I hate watching the ESL Matches on Twitch because of the horrible camera angels, missed calls by the announcers and overall “what just happened” feeling I continue to get, I do enjoy tuning in to Twitch streams for several of the Pro players and watching their games exclusively from their perspectives. Many of you probably follow Helseth on Twitch, I’m sharing this for those who don’t.

If you’re having a bad day in PvP and are feeling like the developer doesn’t take the game serious this may lift your spirits. Lord Helseth of EU Pro team The Civilized Gentleman talks on his feeling about opposing pro team Orange Logo. This highlights a pro player giving respect to and perspective on an opponent. Knowing the pro players are still this passionate about the game gives me something to hold onto.

It seems everyone from the low-level PvP players to the Pros respect this game more than the game studio behind it does. Sad, hopeful eventually they will care as much as we do and fix all the broken things.

http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/28905219?t=01h57m10s

List your favorite PvP games similar to what GW2 Conquest PvP offers. I’m just curious what everyone else is playing and what else is out there right now.

League rank does not indicate to your ability as a player in this game. It indicates how often you play as part of a solid pre-made team. It was designed to be symbolic of the rank of a team and yet it is used as a merit badge for individual players.

The end result is the solo queuers and partial premade players who queue get a bad deal and the premades are often fed groups that are essentially free wins in the lower divisions.

They should have stuck to the plan to make League player all about guild teams and nothing else. That would have given people incentive to commit to teams and put everyone on equal ground but no… Instead we get the solo queue, partial premade, full premade, guild team “melting pot” queue the deludes the true rank of everyone and makes the whole system pointless for anyone who’s not in Diamond or above.

What’s more, the current bunker fest/cc to death train wreck is what wins in most scenarios so teams running that have huge advantage. That’s not about skill, that’s more about knowing what’s OP an during it to steam roll other teams. When you steam roll a dozen teams with good player just because you understand winning build mechanics that are grossly OP do you think you rank is really worth anything?

When I see higher league divisions icon beside someones name I don’t think “there’s a great pvp player” I think “there’s a player who’s learned to manipulate the system and has put the time in to get the rank”. So sad.

Baconomics.8674:

I was rolling with some guildies in ranked. One of us dc’d at the beginning of the match so it’s looking pretty grim but at about 100 to 200 they get back and we turn it around. We end up winning the game a disgustingly handsome 500 to 249. Get back to the lobby and we all find that we lost a pip, and in the match history it says “Desertion” instead of “Victory”.

Now I don’t know if this was directly caused by our buddies temporary dc or is a completely unrelated bug. But either way, it’s a whole lot of bs.

Ranked was already bad enough with all the unbalanced aids builds going around, but it is just the icing on the cake that even the pip system is broken. Please fix this asap Anet.

>:(

(also too bad the match history doesn’t actually signify which team you were on in a case like this, you’ll just have to take my word for it)

Same thing happened to me. System rebooted and I was the one who DC’d early in the game. Once I rebooted and came back in the score was 490 to 320 or close to that, everyone on my team lost a pip and I was not given dishonor as I should have been.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

The game’s pvp scene has much more direction and presence now with leagues:

• Strong line drawn between the purpose of Unranked/Ranked. There is now a much bolder line drawn between the world of new & casual test play and serious play.
• Gives solo que players more incentive to form teams. After much thought, I think this is the answer rather than bringing back solo que.
• Gives intermediate level teams realistic & achievable competitive goals.
• Visible pip icon system that helps distinguish the casual player from the avid.

It’s all in the right direction
I like it and so does everyone in our guild
We’ve had more fun with leagues than we’ve ever had before

The only lingering problems are match manipulation issues and overall meta balance. Mostly but not only concerning Warriors and Thieves losing their roles.

Ah, another post the boils down to the bold. SoloQ players should just form guild teams like we did…. You miss the point of the current system being polluted by mixing the two. It’s just about what players obviously have to do (form guild team, lead and practice meta) in order to advance though League play, it’s about the SoloQ players feeding free wins and overall being kitten in this system. It needs it’s own queue.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i have a rather unusual experience just now.

after being fed up with the pip gains up and down, i took out my warrior and bring her for some ranked arena matches. all loses, however, the pips went up.

in the last match, the other team was leading a lot, say 400 – 200

then they stop capping, they let us have sides, 2 cap. then they started zerging in mid and let us kill.

when we scored at least 400, then they ended the match. i got +1 pip for that loses, now i’m at emerald 8/25 again.

they are a 4 man guild group plus 1 pug.
kinda nice of them to let us have 400 team score.

they let us had 400 team score

At this point I’m envisioning the leads at the company taking the month of December off and in their private yachts or lodges enjoying the holidays and giving a rats kitten about their product.

This is what happens when you enrage your PvP population and half of them quit.

Shylock.4653:

NeHoMaR.9812:

I only play builds I enjoy, and I never or rarely play meta, only if I think is fun to play. In a balanced or semi-balanced game, if you are good, you should be able to be competitive that way.

With all the traits and skills there are thousands of possible Build-Combinations. In no way can every one of them be viable and no game can be balanced for every possible Build-Combination.

You will always see a meta, that’s acceptable. What’s unacceptable is the current meta which has reduced the meta to five builds (all Elite Specs of course) not only forcing the game to be all about bunker/cc fest but also forcing players to change their play style all together. People decided to play a Guardian, Mesmer, Ranger, Warrior, etc.. for a reason they loved that class. With the Elite Specs becoming OP and dominating meta, they not only had to tweak build but they had the class they loved taken from them a Chronomancer bunker plays nothing like a PU Shatter. A metitapper dragon hunter nothing like a DPS meditation Guardian, etc… In arrogance they created a balance that forces players to play something entirely different to win negating most (in some cases all) skill they had before.

There is nor expected sport or e-sport on the planet that inflicts that on the player. It’s shows a level of immaturity on the part of the game studio for not grasping what they were doing and pushing Elite Specs into ranked play so they could sell more product. In doing that they burned the integrity of their game. They sacrificed it to sell more HoT expansions.

This is beyond opinion. It’s a set of facts about cause and effect. Some people are the eternal optimist. They oppose anyone who stands up and ask for change or points out flaws. They are the ones who hold back progress. They don’t take us forward.

NeHoMaR.9812:

Nath Forge Tempete.1645:

well meta is by definition something that works well or for the best.

If u change /add things … ofc this will change and something meta couldn’t be meta anymore. Or something that was “fine” or “ok” could be the worst thing ever. That’s what i meant.

U seem just not loving changes and hope the game will stay as it is forever. But if u do that… ppl will start leaving so it’s the same consequences. But the duration will be different. The game will live longer this way.

U can be good but with an awful build with no synergy … that every ppl are able to easily counterplay yours… u won’t go any further… that’s what i’m trying to say… U have to adapt yourself and try different things as the things has changed.

Testing and discovering new builds that works better is a part of the game.

You don’t get my point. Meta should be sane, not insane. You cannot just give 10000000000 HP to necros to make them “meta” (that is an example, not really talking about necros, just in case)

I’d let it go. He’s clearly irrational. The very best ESL Pro players in the game like Chaith and Lord Helseth have used words like “ridiculous” and “garbage” to describe the current state of sPvP in this game. ArenaNet does not treat their product with respect. They are treating it like it’s a toy.

I feel your pain and know you are in the majority not the minority.

Nath Forge Tempete.1645:

Long time ago, there were Solo Q and team Q. They removed it cause Q time was awful and it didn’t work as well . So u won’t see SOlo Q again… unless the reasons they deleted aren’t still an issue but let me doubt about this.

Now stop asking for solo Q … u won’t have that back anyway. Try to ask why they removed it and why they can’t do it again.

I can’t count the number of PvP titles that have soloQ and Team queue (see every respected MOBA out there). The queue times were that long then that’s still on ArenaNet to address. Give players something to do while they wait. Lock soloQ out altogether if there truly aren’t enough and make PvP all about premade team (which it is anyway).

To mix solo queue vs team queue is to pollute your own. It shows the overall mentality of ArenaNet towards integrity, they want to make sure every kid gets a chance to get a ride vs treating sPvP with respect and integrity as e-sport demands. As soon as they decided to make it so the League system leads to Guild Challenger League which eventually will lead to face off with ESL Pro for real $$$, the sPvP should have been smart enough to change this.

The game isn’t Disneyland. We aren’t little children waiting for a ride. Build a system with integrity god kitten. The talent in house isn’t experienced or smart enough to take sPvP in GW2 to where their ambitions have led them. The result is what we are seeing now, complete meltdown.

How about those Twitch numbers.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

4 players in queue together, obviously higher MMR, higher divisions. Meanwhile we are full soloq, lower divisions, lower MMR.

Also lost a pip at the end of it.

It’s simple, the algorithm is programmed so that it will wait, but it won’t wait that long. After a certain about of time it just pairs you with whatever is waiting in queue. Which would be fine if the underdog team lost no pips and gained extra pips if they won.

kouka.2965:

Dear gw2

the way you made the new pvp setup is bad like maybe one of the worst things you have put into pvp is so broken you have to cheat to get rank…..thank you again for breaking the one thing I loved.

Some words and phrases that come to mind when I think of the staff at ArenaNet behind the current League system, balance and sPvP in general in this game

• Half kittened
• Untested
• Cash grab
• Cracked the whip
• Yes-man
• Drone
• Second rate
• Slow
• “Special” (pronounced with delayed in a high-pitch voice)
• Unimportant
• Brand
• Marketing
• ESL or die
• Incompetent
• Arrogant
• Ignorant
• Bound
• Scared
• Over optimistic
• Deadlines
• Ship date
• Korean Corporate Office
• Quarterly profits
• Market estimate
• Sub-servant
• Leash
• Dog
• Unemployed (we can dream)

trytonianYeti.4389:

It’s not just $200,000. You have to add in promotional costs, administration costs etc. It’s probably more like $300,000. OR. the money comes from the pockets of the sponsors. One things for sure, their lack of response is also costing them brand value depreciation.

They are idiots.

The best players in this game despise the balance that’s led to the current meta…. How much money is on the line for ESL Pro League?!? ArenaNet can you now see just how horrible of a job you have done? The community wants blood. I’ve never seen anything like this. Mike O’Brien would you please stand up for the gaming community instead of protecting your employees? Would you please publicly call out those internally who caused this disaster (IMO their careers should be done), terminate them, apologize to the community as a whole then kill the current ranked season. Give us a do-over when you have things sorted out. It’s the right thing to do. Will you be cowards or will you stand up for the integrity of your product and end this madness?

I honestly believe most of ArenaNet roams around the office thinking “it’s just a game” not realizing when you have $200k on the line for some it’s very much not “just a game” it’s an e-sport which takes it to a different level. It’s clear as a company ArenaNet’s perspective on their product is nat mature enough to cope with it as needed.

Disgusted and disappointed in how this season has turned out. Contemplate leaving the game every time I sign in. I don’t leave because I still love the game and have faith someone at the top will hear the community and take action.

butch.8136:

So metabattle only copies ESL games now? Lol.

It’s funny because it reinforces that meta. It goes from pro league to metabattle to the players.

DH and reaper are more than great.

No, the community gets to upvote recommended builds. But in general the builds they publish come from Twitch.

Mefiq.7039:

i bug on engi thief and necro, cant move kitten… Still anet doesnt care.

ArenaNet’s flowchart for giving a kitten

1.) Is the bug widely known? No
2.) Will the bug have negative impact on cash shop sells? No
2.). Will players impacted by the bug continue to play? Yes

There is no bug. Keep prioritizing bugs that impact revenue.

Odin All Father.1702:

With the proliferation of skills that grant super speed i had really hoped to see a faster meta develop. For years it feels like they’ve been working to speed up gameplay, reduce time spent doing nothing, and increase time fighting the other team… it’s felt as though they wanted the game to be interesting throughout the game… they wanted to hear battle cries of “it’s not over yet!” even when teams were down a couple hundred points… seeing the bunker meta develop is unfortunate… I think there was too little place for bunkers in the previous meta, but the complete 180 is just a pendulum of bad.

The bottom line is this. You have people in charge at ArenaNet over balance who are very, very bad at their jobs. There is no question about this. it comes down to the community essentially outsmarting the developers and putting together these team builds that are very effective at winning, but void of fun. To be very blunt, it’s garbage.

ArenaNet should be ashamed of their failure. They should realize the damage this is doing on Twitch as players who are potential customers tune in and see mess that it is and also for seasoned players who know how far GW2 PvP meta had come before HoT. They could have made a decision to keep HoT Elite Specs out of ranked play this season and let them cool off a bit and balance them over a year. In arrogance, they didn’t do that. So this is what we have today. sPvP meta reduced to five builds with heavy focus on bunker/power or bunker/condi duos.

It is garbage and it’s the failure of a small group of people inside ArenaNet. Those individuals took the the most phenomenal conquest experience to be had in a game and they effectively destroyed it. Yet there is no public acknowledgment of this failure. There is no course of action being taken to stop the hemorrhaging.

So let them keep going. Lets let this kitten design continue to reveal itself as ESL Pro play continues. Let’s let GW2 become the laughing stock of PvP. Is this what certain epople want?

Playing PvP these days is a bit like being tied down and forced to watch as your best friend is being violated by their parent.

Words to describe PvP in GW2 post HoT Leagues and current Elite Spec meta

• Boredom
• Contempt
• Hatred
• Malice
• Disgust
• Outdated
• Unfair
• Distrust
• Rage
• Unbalance
• Loss
• Dishonor
• Rank
• Pip
• Limited
• Ambiguous
• Enemy
• Unfriend
• Block
• Curse
• Kill
• Death
• Unacceptable
• Delete
• Uninstall

Are you proud of this ArenaNet? Look at the mess you made? Even the ESL Pro players are essentially biting the hand that feeds. Some with very public, unfiltered comments others indirect (here’s looking at you Phantaram). No one is happy with this. Again, are you proud of it? Inside the office are their high-fives all around and craft beer night with a “job well done?”

Well the effort is a failure and certain individuals should own up to reality of that. There should be a great deal of shame for those responsible for the inbalance that has destroyed the game across the board and for the broken queuing system that isolates players and turns pug groups into food for the premades and traps them there indefinitely.

There comes a point when the words that describe a players feelings about the game begin to firm up and reflect feelings about the company and people who make the game.

Current meta for GW2 sPvP according to MetaBattle Wiki (the site ArenaNet recommends we follow) has been reduced to five builds.

Scrapper
Tempest
Herald
Chronomancer
Druid

As pointed out by recent posting by ESL Pro team APEX Prime team captain, the most optimal (read OP) combination to use is

Herald – Condi Mayllx x2
Chronomancer – Bunker x2
Tempest – Auramancer

Not only is the most optimal config boring and not fun, it’s just horrible that this combination and this reduced set of classes dominate PvP. When people cry that PvP is broken. When the meta is broken it destroys everything else. Fun for the best players is deluded. On the bottom end, you have match making algorithm that does not consider build choice so it’s likely to get combinations where although MMR is matched well, build composition (Elite meta vs old meta) is now giving one non-premade an advantage over the other (this is in a system that already is matching pre-mades to non-premades often). Complete unbalanced kitten and ArenaNet is doing nothing at all…

ArenaNet, please acknowledge your multiple failures on sPvP balance and the overall League system. An apology to your play base would be appropriate. Please clean house internally on those who did this to sPvP and hire experienced talent from Blizzard or some other company competent with balance.

Anastasis.7258:

Hi everyone, I’m Tarcis, the captain of Apex Prime.
First of all, I would like to make sure that everyone knows we are not depressed at all by losing today’s match.

In fact, we know that almost every teams in Pro League on NA are going to run this comp, which is 2 Sentinel bunker Mesmers, 2 Viper Revenants, and 1 Tempest. We prepared our kitten already and treating today’s match as a chance/practice to seek a weakness from this comp. Unfortunately, we didn’t pull out our A+ games and cannot seek any weakness in time.

The reason why I’m making this thread is because that I feel extremely disappointed when I play against this comp. It is not fun to play against, and I believe it is also not fun to watch. I do understand that everyone wants to win, but this just not healthy for this game.

You may say “Hey, The Abjured still beat double bunker mesmers comp”, but if you guys realized, Final Form’s comp is slightly different than Spookie, PZ, and Never Lucky. They have a druid instead of a tempest, and even with that, they almost pull a game from Abjured. I believe Abjured can still beat the comp like this, which us, Apex, has beaten this bunker mesmers comp in scrims too. But the fact that the skill requirement for this comp is just ridiculously low.

The comp isn’t unbeatable, but the fact that this bunkiersh comp can eliminate the mechanic skill difference between players is not cool at all. In this stage, I think everyone can just make a team and play with this comp, and will be able to compete with pro league’s teams.

EU are also running the similar comp but instead of 2nd bunker mesmer, they run marauder engi. In my opinion, both are similar but 2 bunker mesmers can be far more superior and more aids.

I know the balance patch will not hit until February, 2016, but imagine that if we or no one else can figure out a solution for this comp, what will we expect on the ESL Finals in Cologne? I don’t believe that anyone wants it and I also don’t believe that Anet wants it.

Just my personal opinion here, and sorry for the broken English.

Tarcis.

Thank you for the heart felt letter and for being a good sport about loosing and thank you for echoing what we all know deep down, whne it comes to playing to win the current meta rips all the fun out of it because it’s an unbalanced mess that reduces the winning strategy to “build wars” with a team config that’s all about who gets the first shot in and starts the rotation. If you want to know where great games die due to bad design. GW2 PvP is a good example to look at. It will make a good case study for what not to do in years to come.

In my perfect world, the game designers responsible for this and the QA testers who let it though should be metaphorically burned at the stake (terminated and then black listed in the industry). Is that too harsh? I don’t think so. Prior to HoT release GW2 PvP had grown in popularity because it had become balanced and fun to play.

ArenaNet failed to consider the balance they were destroying with making the Elite Specs OP and playable in ranked. So many possible decisions fumbled. Someone was also stupid (sorry there isn’t a better word) to decide to pump all this money into ESL Pro League the same year HoT rleased and the meta reset from Elite Specs.

It’s all a study in horrible management, horrible design by a company who continues to miss opportunities to make things right. On the low end of the spectrum you have soloQ players raging because they are just food for premades trying to gain rank.

Pro ESL players are saying the competitive meta is kitten. The question really is what did ArenaNet get right this year? Just how much of the competitive PvP side of the game have they destroyed and of course how will they deal with this internally. Will they take proper action and stop the hemorrhaging? Or will they just let the money coming in from Gem store transactions and HoT licenses guide every decision.

The consequence will be shrinking of PvP in the game. Smaller prize next year, less interest overall. ArenaNet may try to blame the game’s age for it or scape goat the problem to something else, but we all will see though the lies (one only has to look at Star Craft II to see when a game is well designed for e-sport it becomes timeless)

Time will tell, but there will be fallout from some of these horrible decisions ArenaNet has made.

Let’s not forget that being able to create a guild pvp team is a new feature in HoT added for League play! When ArenaNet originally talked about Leagues it was all about Guild Teams and the initial information was that Leagues would be exclusive to Guild Team play… That would have made a lot of sense and solved the problems. Instead someone decided to allow soloQ players to enter the League play waters, polluting the lower divisions.

Ultimately, the decision to allow soloQ players to enter League ranked play was a horrible, incompetent decision. Ultimately it is 100% on ArenaNet as they shouldn’t have implemented it this was and with all the outcry they still have taken no action. They could do many things such as 1.) Require League play be for guild teams only 2.) Take ranked play off-line entirely until they can add a proper solo queue.

The game studio has options at it’s disposal if they wanted to pursue them. The bottom line is they don’t see their system as a problem. They think there is nothing wrong with mixing solo and premades into a single queue. They disregard that no other respected e-sport does it this way. As usual, it seems with ArenaNet they will do it their way and you either like it or leave it.

Saiyan.1704:

Current Leagues are not for solo players.
Current Leagues are not for the average 50 winrate.
Current Leagues are not for casuals.

…

The easiest way to stop the complaining and “fix” the system is to lock non-premades out all together. Make Leagues all about Guild PvP teams, this is what was originally planned. The problem still comes back to the game studio for allowing solo queue and duo queue players to enter a queue with partial premades, full premades and even guild team premades. Mashing them all together in a single queue is ridiculous. This is no respected e-sport PvP game that allows this. Not a single one. It is unquestionably, horrible design by ArenaNet.

It has polluted the system. As designed the game lets you solo queue and even gives players incentive to solo queue for league because of the rewards. This mostly just feeds free ranked wins to the premades in the lower divisions and occasionally tosses solo queue players a bone. If there is no solo queue (there isn’t) then letting solo players queue for ranked play at all is a mistake the game studio has made, because again… they are just feeding free wins in the lower divisions.

What most are asking for is a solo queue and a premade queue, but of course you can’t have a solo queue and a ranked queue without having separate league divisions for each queue type.

As implemented if you’re on a full premade or a guild team premade you have no argument and you probably love the system. When you were lower level getting free wins off pug teams you probably really loved it. It’s a whole different experience for solo q players and ultimately I agree with OP but I disagree with him about it being on the player alone to not solo Q, the system shouldn’t allow it.

Had the game crash on me during ranked match. Score was around 150 to 315 when I dc’d. Fixed the problem and did a quick reboot expecting to deal with dishonor joined back in as soon as I could only to find the score 300 (something) to 490. My team lost a pip due to my technical problems and I did not get dishonor.

Does this sound like a fair and working system to anyone?

Risingashes.8694:

Losing progress is not fun.

Failing to gain a pip is already a punishment.

Nonsense. You need pip/point loss to balance things. The pip loss system is perfect as is. Starter division (no less), next two (lock in at tiers, but loose between tiers) top two divisions loose tiers and pip… What’s not well designed is complete lack of a solo queue and putting solo queue (pug, partial pug) teams up against full premades and even guild teams. soloQ deserves their own queue which also means their own league progression.

First division awards 15 tickets, but beyond that it’s all a mystery for me. For those in Ruby, do you have enough tickets to buy the four back pieces needed to forge the precursor?