PvP is utter trash in it’s current state, yet I still log in every single day, looking for the enjoyment I once got out of this game….
… Why do you think they aren’t really addressing any of these issues? Because their system has taken those who enjoyed casually doing PvP and turned them into hard core players who want to spend hours and hours in game. While we are angry at the system for stealing our life away (something really only we can control) they are quite happy to have designed the game to make you angry at it. They know you still love it and will continue to play regardless. The more you play, usually the more you spend.
You love solo queue. I love solo queue. For ranked, just don’t! In fact don’t even duo queue. You need a full premade. Yes, this changes how you’d like to be doing ranked pvp, but unfortunately this is the system. It’s time to make some friends and build some teams or perhaps leave the game.
They’ve got our message about wanting a solo queue but I don’t expect it anytime soon.
The best option right now is to join a premade. There is “Looking for…” forum on this site. We all have different playing habits, best to fill up that forum with what we’re all looking for and go from there. Without solo queues, there isn’t much of a choice.
Looking for a few more to join us in a North American premade group for ranked play this Sunday starting at 8:30 PM EST. Once we firm up the team we will add a time Friday evenings and another time during the week. We hope to have enough to do rotations so you won’t be required to be on-line for every session.
Desired:
Neco, Revenant, Elementalist,Theif
Must be familiar with current Elite Spec meta pvp builds (this is what we will focus on) and flexible to try new things in hot-join/unranked if asked (If you’re looking for a team of open minded players willing to experiment and find a good team build to get wins, we may be your team… If you have the mindset that pvp is all about the individual and that no one is going to tell you or ask you to change your build we aren’t the group for you)
PM me here or in-game mail
One step forward, two steps back. Lost 2 pips after losing a match solo queuing, presumably because there were more players in a lower division. Do you seriously think players are going to feel anything other than extreme frustration doing this? If I lose, fine, take a pip, that’s bad enough, but taking 2 pips? Are you serious?
Welcome to Emerald division, aka solo queue purgatory
Let’s be honest here. Everything about the design of this division system, intermingled with the mmr system, screams “Make a team or go home.” Perhaps the intent was to lure in pve players, let them get farmed, and hope they group up. However, one of the aspects of gw2 that was so appealing to players was the lack of a time commitment. That’s all changed with HoT. There’s little room to stay casual and this is just another instance of that trend.
Yes. Solo queue players are just meat for the premades to chew on probably 70% of the time or more. Every once in a while the system throws pug groups a bone so they will keep queuing up… The tag by your name is a merit badge, meant to make you feel very small if you aren’t in a premade gaining rank.
They’ve made rank all about the individual in a game where success is all about the team effort. It’s illogical design. Easy enough to fix starting with solo queue vs premade queues but match making also needs to be improved
Proposal for matchmaking revisions.
Analysis process/Data cap
- Every time a match is played in addition to contribution points, etc.. each team member build should be recorded. There should be algorithms in place to perform “near” matching (e.g. execute winning games played on current Hammer Scrapper meta and also include in search results builds that are within 15% variation of current meta. This is possible. I could code the algorithm to do it within about half an hour.
- Run map reduce jobs a few times a day to data warehouse information to be used in matchmaking. This will add the ability to query most common winning team combination, vital for helping with solo queuing.
- Use this data to note common patterns than seem OP. Bookmark for balance review
Solo queue
When player enters queue
- Stick with current ELO matchmaking as first pass filtering
- Add consideration for players build and # of wins player has had on that build
- If high MMR player is experimenting with new build for the first time, this is data the match making algorithm should have available. Consider placing them with lower MMR team mates and lower MMR opponents.
- Have match making balance team composition around players use of pvp meta and near meta builds (this can be done) to make sure one team is not OP. This is now needed because the Elite Spec meta builds are so much more powerful than everything else
Premade Queue
- Do not go to trouble to give us a duo queue. Instead force all players in party who queue to queue for premade. This will at worst case resort in 32 split with the majority of the team premade and two members being a duo. Duo’s don’t need their own queue for this reason.
- Premade match making should not just take into account individual players MMR but also consider a team MMR score. For example if NineLives.9234 and KillBill.2353 both have a record of doing exceptionally well together when teamed that should factor into the match making. Yes, this is more complex than simply tossing everything to the ELO algorithm. Match making should be data-intensive and complex and there should be a degree of machine learning going on server side to make these matches as fun and competitive as possible of everyone.
Ban those manipulating MMR
- Have the nightly processor looking for cases of premade and solo queue consecutive losses followed by consecutive wins. Juxtapose with players League Division standing (number of pips held for division when losses began, etc…). There are several things that could be tracked and utilized to infer manipulation I won’t list here.
Software Engineer of many years. 3+ years working with big data. Would contract at reduced rate to work with your software engineers to implement if interested.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
I find most of your criticism to simply be matters of preference. Also there are two game modes, dueling rooms, and several pvp builds for most classes. So do research before you write things.
Except much of what he stated is fact.. When it comes to ranked there is only Conquest and Stronghold. There is only one meta build for each class (unless you’re Warrior of course).
I would wait longer than 3 days and at least until after we enable decay before making a judgement on how the team leaderboard will settle out. It is not our intention that a single team of players has the time to possibly keep that many entries at the top of the leaderboard.
Hi Evan, certainly hope you and other staff are reading all these forum post and coming up with a plan to vastly improve Leagues, balance etc.. I don’t think anyone is happy with this implementation. I find it hard to have much respect for the way it was implemented it just doesn’t make a lot of sense that ANet team did not consider some of these outcomes and how players would reduce the game and in effect destroy the experience for many (probably most) of us. My perspective a this point is that ANet does not care and has zero intention of changing a thing
Nick names and labels, I’m thinking
Amber = Kiddie Pool
Emerald = Solo queue purgatory
Sapphire = Pug Farm lv 1
Ruby = Pug Farm lv 2
Diamond = Pug Farm lv 3
Legendary = Best MMR Dumping Pug Farmers 2015Fixed
For those going for Pug Farm, I would assume Stronghold would be your best bet because of it’s strategic elements. Even a really bad premade on voice comms with a plan has a huge advantage over an uncoordinated PUG (and all pugs are uncoordinated because no one trust each other enough to get the whole team to strategize). Stronghold enables players with mediocre skill to use coordinated strategy to take out skilled players in pugs…. I would guess is a premade wanted to combine Pug Farm with that other mentioned too many times exploit to manipulate MMR prior to seriously starting the farm then they could go very, very far.
This is of course another reason Stronghold should not be in ranked play at all this season. ANet said it wouldn’t be, but then they changed their minds.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Sapphire = average SoloQ after a week?
Ruby = average SoloQ after two weeks?
No way with many purposely loosing to lower MMR. Gain a pip, loose two.
Nick names and labels, I’m thinking
Amber = Kiddie Pool
Emerald = Solo queue purgatory
Sapphire = Bad premade purgatory
Ruby = Mediocre premade’s will finish out here
Diamond = Good premade’s will finish out here
Legendary = Best of the best
The more people figure out that lowering your MMR early is the best way to get pips the more you’ll have teammates not caring as Ambers.
Fundamentally what is wrong with this game. The players.
Personally I want my MMR accurate not kittening artificially low. I want to have good matches, have a good time, learn from my playtime etc. What I don’t give two kittens about is “pips”.
Too bad players like me mostly left the game long ago. Nothing left but “karma train” in wvw and “glory(oldschool term yes) farm” in pvp.
No, no, no, no…. Fundamentally it’s not the players. It’s the responsibility of the game developers to make sure the design is sound and not exploitable. People will resort to the most dirty means possible to win at anything in this life if the rewards outweigh the risk. This is basic human behavior. It’s true in any competitive sports. Those who manage the game are solely responsible for the problems in GW2 sPvP.
I take the high road. I’m not going to engage in an exploit, but for those who do I’m not shocked. Just like I’m not shocked to learn when pro athletes use substances or do other inappropriate things to gain a win. If you think there is this magical world where everyone has virtue and integrity and just wants what’s best for everyone you are living in a dream and need the veil stripped away. We would all love to live there, but it’s not realistic.
Given that it’s not realistic it’s up to the enforcing powers that be (ArenaNet in this case) to take appropriate action and manage their product. Again the game studio must be held solely responsible for allowing exploitable behavior in the first place.
Division 2 – tier 1, lost 2 PIPs for losing 2 heartbreakers.
I was the only division 2 on my team both times. I find that Division 1 people tend to quit or go afk or “are just here for fun” quite a bit, thus penalizing those of us who HAVE SOMETHING TO LOSE.
By the way, the 499-502 loss would have advanced me to the next tier.
I’m done Anet. Your league/mmr systems are terrible.
The design team has made a series of very bad decisions regarding sPvP. They have destroyed the game and not just though decisions with League design, but also due to Elite Spec meta reset that came with HoT. Players are quitting because of both.
I’m playing on plains of ashford and still have my amber rating hovering over my head, this hardly feels appropriate for this portion of the game.
thank you.
Ah, but they won’t. As I’ve stated in other post that little marker by your name is really what the whole “League” system is all about. It’s a bs form of prestige you get branded with if you play a single ranked match. The reason it shows in PvE is because they want every sPvP player who just does this causally to feel like complete dogie poo if they do not play enough to earn higher rank.
So your choices to always go in and play unranked where there is prestige based progression whatsoever and no League system for you -or- to play ranked and be branded with shame if you aren’t in a higher league come end of Jan.
The worst thing is the solo queue players are just feeding free wins to premades. The whole system is contaminated until they add a solo queue. Why ArenaNet can not comprehend this is beyond me.. Three words come to mind: Revenue. Arrogance. Incompetence.
Ill go ahead and say. What I am looking for isn’t.. Oh just go condi…or Oh just go druid. Or oh just play revenant for awhile.
I am trying to find a way to salvage SOMETHING of what I have built. I hope yall can help.
Edit: Fixed some grammar issues (I missed some I am sure)
Look at the current meta. You are out powered against the Elite Specs. Sure on an old build you may win sometimes maybe even often if you are skilled but eventually you’ll get paired with mostly teams where all other players are as skilled as you. At that point your weak non_Elite build is holding the team back. The Elite Specs dominate the new meta and have destroyed the old.
A harsh way to put it, the game you once loved is gone forever. You need to learn to play one the Elite meta builds/classes if you want to truly be competitive to the point you can climb the ranks.
… if you are lucky enough to have me on your team and you tank your MMR, especially by going to enemy spawn and standing there the whole match.
While I agree it’s a horrible thing that people are doing this, it’s just another exploit available. Ran up against a few teams today run 3 mm Reapers and going with a the most basic premade strategy to farm pugs. No skill whatsoever involved. These things are all forms of exploits of a very, very week league/ranked system.
The system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt. How trigger happy are you going to get with reporting? If they stay in one sport then it’s obvious but what if they run around the map just purposely not playing their best. You can’t really tell if they are just having a bad day/bad game or if they are trying to cost you the game. Unless you know them and how they play on a good day, you can’t make that assessment. You are would be reporting someone based on your own paranoia.
Again, it’s a broken system that’s the problem.
1. If you don’t like to communicate with others,Conquest is not for you.
2. If you don’t work well with other people, Conquest is not for you.3. If you can’t follow orders/follow the plan, Conquest is not for you.
Also…I’ll just leave this here.
com·mu·ni·ca·tion
k??myo?on??k?SH(?)n/
noun
1.The imparting or exchanging of information or news.
“direct communication between the two countries will produce greater understanding”If you don’t want to take the time to make a team, like myself, do us a favor and at least try to work with the team. It will make your experience as well as many other’s experience much more pleasant.
What do you think happens when you’re in a PUG? The design of the game makes it so you have no metrics on other players to review to take any comfort. You don’t know their builds, you don’t know their win to loss rations, you don’t even know if they know what you mean by “Im going far”. All you know is that you are with this group of people you’ve never met and when things start to go wrong there they are conveniently available to scape goat.
People like to listen and communicate with people they trust and the design of the game gives you no reason to trust your pug team mates. This leads to communication problems immediately. You have one person (who’s usually just trying to save the match) try to put together a plan or call plays as the game goes on. He or She is trying to be team captain, but the team doesn’t know them so no one is listening and following the plan suggested. The person calling the plays is trying to follow their own plan and usually goes down and becomes a burden on the team in the process.
Having a system where players can trust other players in a PUG scenario is all about the game studio giving players the tools they need to gain that comfort level. Their are endless possibilities of things ANet could have done. For example, there could have been a “team captain” achivement progression and the game could auto assign a team captain. There is design that could be in place to have led us to outcomes were Pugs had incentive to trust one another and if those were in place PUG groups would communicate.
100% of the problems with GW2 sPvP is on ArenaNet and poor design decisions not on the community.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Dear Mr. O’Brien,
I am writing to request that you or one of your subordinates address the GW2 PvP community regarding the new League system, the core missing features and the balance problems. Point-by-point here are my grievances which I believe you will find are generally in-line with the pulse of the GW2 community as reflected by the overwhelming number of post in this forum and other on-line outlets such as the official GW2 reddit. My assumption Mr. O’Brien is that you are familiar enough with the sPvP side of the game to understand what is being critiqued here. If not please pass this along to the whoever has been delegated to head the sPvP design decisions.
How far you had come
Balance is key to e-sport. Balanced maps and balanced classes or in context to GW2 PvP at least a set of balanced meta builds that players can use and know they not only have the best gear available, but also the best play mechanics at their disposal. When that came together “build wars” went away and skill became the main driver.
It took three years for ArenaNet to get the balance in sPvP at a really good place. As the balance set it sPvP became very good. People learned to play certain roles and certain builds, tweaks had to happen on occasion but in the end a mesmer was still a mesmer, a Warrior still a warrior. sPvP grew and became popular in large part because of this balance.
The complete destruction of the sPvP meta
When Heart of Thorns launched the new Elite Specializations and new mods did not complement the existing sPvP meta. Instead it seems that it was carefully designed to completely destroy the current sPvP meta. The sPvP side of the game that so many players and developers labored over was completely destroyed the day HoT released. Within two weeks of HoT launch we had a new sPvP meta and it was clear if you want to play your favorite build you no longer can. What’s more, certain classes like Warrior were wiped altogether. To be competitive, Rangers are forced to play Druids (an entirely different mechanic), Guardians Dragon Hunters, etc.. It’s fair to say players had the game they loved taken from them. Why? The most likely answer seems so that your company could sell more product and that the integrity of the meta was sacrificed for that purpose.
We all understand GW2 relies on gem store purchases and expansion sells to keep things going. However, couldn’t their have been a better way to go about monetizing than to completely destroy the balance and play mechanics player had come to love? Will you please consider the impact of these decisions, look at the outcry here and elsewhere on the web over this and hold those accountable who made these decisions?
A broken queue systems
Perhaps the one thing most requested in the pvp forums is a solo queue separate from premade queue. You had such a system in GW1. Design decisions were made to not carry this over to GW2. A hybrid solo/team queue is horrible. It destroys the experience for solo queue players and it feeds free wins to premades. How can ranked play be taken seriously with this broken match making mechanic?
ELO and team sport philosophy vs solo sport philosophy
All ranked PvP play in GW2 (Conquest and now Stronghold) is team sport. It should be ranked as team sport but it never has! An individual players contribution to a match is always related to the team effort and team mechanics. It’s possible a mediocre player could be dealt a series of poor pugs and though “luck of the draw” could achieve top stats and top rank. In fact the top ranked player on the current PvP Leaderboards (Tibs.2783) posted calling the system “ridiculous”. If you want the metrics to qualify top ranked players to have meaning, they must be considered in relation to team composition and team rank. Think about what you have now? Imagine if Peyton Manning went and played with a high school team, healped them sweep an entire season and always got top stats. Would that be fair? With solo and premade queues being mixed without team rank consideration that is a reasonable analogy for what’s going on now. I good player can make strategy their time of day and figure out when to play to get the best outcomes. Also consider you’re using an logarithm for match making designed to pair up solo chess players. Why don’t you hire software engineering or task the ones you have now with building a more appropriate algorithm? Since meta builds give such an advantage the algorithm must take into account current meta builds and players use of such builds to properly balance teams along with their MMR.
Leagues- the new ant-casual merit badge system
So finally we get to Leagues. When you combine the queuing problems and balance problems the question becomes what are Leagues? The answer appears to be a context sensitive. To premade’s who only play ranked as premade (e.g. If you are The Abjured) the system seems great. You have achievements, division level awards. True PvP progression. You even get free rank in the form of lambs-to-the-slaughter PUG groups However if you solo queue the new League system offers you nothing except a coin toss. Heads: you get an open door to your slaughter, Tails: You get another Pug group (pray your pug is running current competitive builds). Mr. O’Brien do you think casual players are more likely to premade queue or solo queue? The League system should clearly be all about the team because again, Conquest and Stronghold are team sports and the team should have a place in the League. Just as solo and premade queues should exist, Pug and Premade Leagues should co-exist. It’s fine to give only the premade’s an opportunity to enter the Legendary division, but as it stands mixed it’s just a giant mess Since the focus continues to be on the individual the League rank is essentially just a merit badget to appear beside a characters name. It will make your premade players feel elite and more casual solo players feel worthless. It’s purpose seems to drive casual players to play non-stop and convert to non-casuals in order to gain prestige. This is your goal with this system is it not? Yet ArenaNet is on record as stating one of the goals of the League system was to make sPvP more inviting to casual players. I’m calling you out on that statement, because this system does the opposite. It discourages casual play.
The bottom line
In GW2 sPvP you have balance problems, you have queuing problems, you have not given players the tools needed (e.g. ability to replay past matches in client and spectate from multiple player angles post-game to improve), sPvP in GW2 is currenlty a broken mess. The best thing you could do right now is to give us a patch that suspends Leagues and removes rank until you can fix this. Give us all a mini Lama or think up something clever to compensate. It’s much better to take down a broken system than leave it active. You would stop the hemorrhaging.
Several of my friends who played have left the game. Several more curse the game every day and lately talk about leaving all the time. This angers me and it saddens me. This is not because of their lack of skill, it’s because of a broken system that offers little to them and forces them to play the game in an entirely different way.
As I finish this I am preparing to go play a structured PvP freemium model game by your biggest competitor in the MMO space. That game offers better balance, solo vs team queuing and the ability to watch past matches and learn from mistakes. There are no camera problems or other major issues. I hate to leave GW2 sPvP after spending so long in it and I am not completely gone yet. It’s just until these things are fixed I have strong incentive to join my friends in other games. With core features like solo vs premade queues and post-game multi-angle spectate absent it’s very difficult for some of us to understand why your company has put so much money into making GW2 sPvP an ESL e-sport. I think I can speak for the majority when I say we would have much rather you put that money into making the game a better experience for the other 98% percent of us.
From a long time Guild Wars franchise veteran, regardless what decision you make on the future of GW2 sPvP I want to say Thank you for the games you’ve given me. In GvG in GW1 and the past few years in GW2. You had something really great and for whatever reason it’s been destroyed, but it’s still in your power to rebuild it. To do queuing right and Leagues right.
Regards,
SamTheGuardian
In game: Samuel Masua | Fergus Masua | Issac Masua
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Well… it’s still better than Unranked.
Disagree entirely. It needs to be removed until fixed as OP suggest. No one has incentive to play unranked while ranked exist. No system as broken and expliotable as Leagues should remain in a game. It’s a determent.
This patch has been live for 3 days and there are already ACTUAL PAGES of hate on the forums, Reddit, etc.
I even saw a group of devs come into Heart of the Mists brazen enough to display their arenanet symbol, in the past people would dance around them, have nice conversations, offer group invites, etc. That is the courtesy of a bygone era, a time when devs actually developed useful and fun features. As they stood there, 5 of them, (presumably ready to 5 queue) players were yelling so many vulgar obscenities and “/throw feces” that it was actually sad, very sad to watch. As you could imagine they disappeared pretty quick and stayed gone.
We’ve yet to see any response or actions taken by arenanet officials on the state of the game. I hope they understand that it is the player that uses their product and there are many other games to hop to, I don’t want this game to go the way of Wildstar, giving into player demands far too late and being left an empty carapace of a once successful game.
By all means arenanet, take note of what needs to be changed, make a list, have a twitch stream where you apologize about what waste of money this game currently is and go through the list, annonce the changes that Need to be made.
Prior to HoT they had three years worth of balance and had created a really good sPvP expereince. There was something for every play style in meta. ArenaNet made a decision to completely destroy that meta. By doing that they made it so no one could play their old builds in sPvP effectively. So instead of blending the Elite Specs in and working to balance them along side the core game meta builds they decided to make them OP. They completely changed a game that had taken three years to become really good. Players spent months, years getting good playing a certain way and really loving their role and ArenaNet took that away from all of us and even made it so some classes (Warror) are useless. What’s to love about that? What’s not to HATE about what they have done. The big question is who at ArenaNet was responsible? I’m sure we’ll never have that answer but I would like to know.
But then you toss in a League system that makes no sense; a league system that can really be reduced to a glorified merit badge system designed to make casual types feel like they need to work harder to get rank (least they run around Heart of the Mist looking like a little Amber or Emerald player when the season winds down). It’s been called garbage by a very famous Pro ESL GW2 player and he’s right. It is garbage.
No solo queue vs team queue. No ability to spectate past matches to self critique. It’s missing core tools needed to be taken serious as e-sport yet it’s been pushed as an e-sport. It’s just grossly mismanaged IMO.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
GAME TO 3 YEARS IN PVP AND L ’ I HATED I NEVER SO MUCH! SINCE THERE ARE NEW BRANCHES IN BUILD YOU CREATED A UNBALANCING is monstrous , MY BUILD FROM RANGER BERSERKER HAS ALWAYS WORKED WELL , NOW I CAN NOT OWN THE GAME , PVP POPULATED BY TANK bestial YOU HOW TO EXPLODE NECRO NEW SPEC , SPEC NEW ENGINEER , And RAVENANT SWORD SHIELD , NOT TO MENTION THE DRUIDS , IN 3 A fight one , WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED ? is USELESS EVEN FIGHT 1 VS 1 CLASSES ABOVE YOU EXPLODE AND THERE ’ is WAY knock them down , I CAN USE MORE MY FAVORITE CLASS , THE FACT THAT RANGER THAN NOT COME EVEN MORE fun insulted by ALLY TEAM, PURE HATRED
Just want to say I understand your rage… There is no question about what ArenaNet has done. They took a really strong, fairly well balanced meta that offered something to all player types and they completely destroyed it. They’ve made the Elite Specs OP on purpose to drive Heart of Thorns product sells and as a result have wiped all previous pvp meta, effectively destroying the old PvP in GW2.
The conquest maps are the same, but when you play today vs two months ago (pre-HoT release) it’s an entirely different play mechanic you’ll be using. What’s more, if solo queuing you’ll often find pug team members who are still learning this running outdated meta builds aiding in your loss and aiding in serving free ranked wins to the opposing team. This is the state of GW2 sPvP in late 2015.
It was an asinine decision made in the name of profits over game integrity, balance and stability. This is not an opinion, it’s something that’s proven by the current meta vs the pre HoT meta. As a community should we really forgive them for this and give them a chance to make it right or should we move on to other games? Many I know have left. Pretty much everyone I know playing is contemplating leave PvP. It’s just that bad. I would go so far as to say League implementation combined with the decision to blance Elite Specs to be greater than core game specs were collectively the worst decisions ArenaNet has made with GW2. They will pay for this though loss of players.
ArenaNet has taken our favorite aspect of the game and they decided to destroy it. It’s their game, not ours. That is the one theme that has been reoccurring since GW2 launched. I’ve already said too much about other games so I’ll just say this. If you want a great, balanced Structured team based PvP experience there are other famous MMO game studios who have product out there worth exploring. In those games you will find things like solo queue vs team queue and the ability to rewatch past matches to learn from mistakes and relive great plays. Good design does exist and there’s plenty of it out there for ArenaNet to model after should they choose to put more money into the sPvP play experience. Perhaps they should do that instead of dropping hundreds of grand into ESL promotion for a game that is largely broken? I don’t know. Maybe I ask too much.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
I mean, can someone explain to me the reason to have Leagues if players from different Leagues can play in the same match?
Are Leagues not supposed to be a system to split players into different skill levels (leagues) in order to match them together?? And not with players of other skill levels (other leagues)??
I do not f@kng understand!!
TL;DR: Yes, your logic is sound. Leagues should be a division (heh, the word division is even explicitly used by ArenaNet to define these boundaries). But as implemented it’s purpose is to be a merit badge system. The little icon beside your name in Heart of the Mist is meant to shame you or to show off your prestige and that “rank” is all about your individual League rank in a game that’s suppose to be all about team play. Doesn’t that just make perfect sense? They designed it this way to make casual types feel inferior and want to play 24/7. Every design derision in HoT from Raids to Legendary crafting is about making Guild Wars 2 a game all about hard core play and isolating casual types and making them feel worthless if they don’t play more, which of course is really all about spending more as they have the data and know those who play more spend more in the GEM store.
Now the long verson
The stated reasoning behind the League system was to “provide new progression path in PvP” and to “make sPvP more inviting to casual players”. Originally when they talked about Leagues it seemed rank would be something for the organized guild teams and all about guild teams not the individual. Had that implementation gone though or had they added a solo queue that would have made sense. As implemented the only
Instead they decided to make League divisions all about the individual (once again) showing ArenaNet does not seem to understand Conquest and Stronghold are TEAM sports and that rank within any League for team sports should represent the rank of a team not an individual. Solo queues should have their own progression path and ranks. This not only makes perfect sense it is critical and anything else is asinine. It comes down to the basics of solo sports vs team sports and the limitations in which metrics can be applied, etc..
As implemented there are an array of problems. From MMR matching mucking things up to premades going against solo queue all the time. It’s complete trash as implemented and players are now purposely loosing consecuative in Emerald to bring down their MMR low enough to be paired against easier teams (see recent reddit postings on this).
Shameless plug
If you enjoy GW2 sPvP, Blizzard’s Heros of the Storm may interest you. It’s competitive team play gaming. It’s nice addition to GW2 sPvP but once you see how well a game can be balanced and how well a game studio can really take care of their base you may decide to play it quite a bit more until ArenaNet sorts this League mess out.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
How many tickets do you get for each division? 15 tickets are awarded for amber to emerald. 20 for emerald to sapphire. But beyond that what is known? How many tickets will be needed to obtain all four backpieces for the legendary crafting? Just trying to kitten the effort that’s going to be required.
Give it some months. They have rushed this and it can only get better. As ANET have one of the best mmr matchups. (Even tho some complains about solo/duo que) i think it will get better in next league. Take this as a tryout it’s not like you rush something are u?
You don’t “some months” the season ends end of January. Then you have to start all over again.
Programming contest suggestion -or- how ArenaNet can fix the queuing problem for next to nothing..
We already have the PvP API and other APIs that give us details. Challenge programmers in the community to build a better match making algorithm. You tell us what inputs and outputs you need and let us build a web service that does the processing.
Winner gets a prize (perhaps job at ArenaNet) but also has to hand over code and all rights to it. Sign non-disclosers, etc…
but for divisions where you can loose pips/tiers (any division above amber for pips) it shows where you stand in ranked play against other premades.
No. That is your subjective problem because of your high MMR. It does not have anything to do with the league system.
You will always face players with about your own MMR, it does not matter in which division they are playing.
The basic problem is, that you are facing opponents based on your MMR Without an effecting your pips..
- That means, that it does not matter if you are currently playing for an amber pip or a diamond pip. Opponents are still based on your mmr.
- It does not matter if a high mmr ruby player is fighting vs other high mmr players OR a low mmr ruby player is fighting vs another low mmr player -> they are BOTH fighting for a ruby pip.
I knew there were MMR problems but didn’t realize matchmaking was prioritizing MMR over League Division… if that is true the system is truly fubar. What’s the point then? Other games seriously are looking very appealing. I don’t even know how to respond. Did they not consider this?
The entire League system is an unfinished mess it seems. Shipped to meet a deadline obviously and not quite ready from prime time. Remind me again why we’re all still playing and supporting this? Strongly thinking of a taking a hiatus from the game and coming in next pvp season.
On the positive side we are on day #2. I would say by Monday of next week most premade teams will have advanced through Amber and be will into Emerald if not further along (even the causal premades that only play on weekends) so you should begin to encounter more pug teams in Amber and Emerald next week.
sam,
you forgot about casual players who just simply parties together, not using voice communication, but simple in game text before the match begins, in game call targeting, some simple text, 2 home, 3 mid etc.
casual players can still group up together ya know.
The way I think this should be handled is an option for non pre-mades to enter premade queue. Let’s envision a GW2 where solo and premade queues do exist. If you only have two and you want to be in party together when queuing, then you would be required to enter premade queue and not the solo queue but also the matchmaking should be so that you are paired with a premade. Keep in mind a premade must be 3 or more. So you would enter a match with you and your buddy paired with three others who are a premade. That’s not such a bad deal. When you score pips with you and your buddy queuing together like this they would be premade pips and you would get rank towards premade. When he’s not around you can queue up solo and take comfort in knowing that you’ll always be paired with 100% pug groups on each side.
When you see post asking for separation of premade and solo queueing, this is what they are asking for. I’ve just detailed how I envision it could be made to apply to ranked play.
If you feel inferior because you don’t actually try to do well in Ranked (which means gasp queing up with groups) that’s on you not the game. Unranked exists for a reason. There is no shame in playing Unranked and while being in a high division will open doors for you I doubt casual players are interested in those doors.
I honestly don’t know what anyone expected Leagues to be just as I don’t know what people expected HoT to be… none of this is a surprise. The League system brings GW2 PvP more into line with traditional MMO PvP… I haven’t played any of those Esports titles you mentioned from Blizzard but they aren’t MMOs and PvP is naturally structured differently in those types of games.
Well sPvP in GW2 is completely separate from he MMO side of the game. There is no gear progression in PvE related to sPvP. The maps are entirely different. The objectives are entirely different and progression is entirely different. So in calling out GW2 sPvP as different than say Heros of the Storm because GW2 PvP happens to be attached to an MMO is not on point. Although it comes bundled with an MMO, it is an entirely separate aspect of the game that has nothing to do with the MMO side.
Putting that aside.
The bottom line is ArenaNet stated one the major reasons for League divisions was to make the PvP side of the game more causal friendly and they do absolutely nothing to accomplish that. That is the entire point of this post. If you want to take the stance that unranked is for causal players, that’s fine. But the point is they said Leagues would be something to provide incentive to more causal types and it does the exact opposite.
There is a psychological aspect to entering the Heart of the Mist and seeing the icons near characters heads showing the achieved rank. It’s all planned out and designed to make casual types play more and feel inferior if they do not. If you doubt this type of effort goes into these designs then you are ignorant of modern game development (keep in mind game studios hire sociologist, economist, etc… to entire players to spend as much time in game as possible and to spend as much possible int he cash shop. ArenaNet has said in interview they have an economist on staff). The reality is you go into a retail store you are being manipulated, tracked, etc… to help that company maximize profits. MMO games are the same way. I don’t have a problem with that in general. However, when you juxtapose this information with the “more casual friendly” comments and see that their real aim is to make it so causal players are made to feel inferior so they will play more and (likely) pay more in cash shop it all seems very disingenuous.
Regardless if you agree or disagree with the result, the reality, the fact is that today Post league patch the game is much less inviting and more intimidating to PvP newcomers. Not the other way around.
GW2 home of low risk high reward play style (aka Boring)
It was not pre HoT release but ANet decided to balance it so Elite Specs were by design more powerful than non-elites (this is validated by the current PvP meta). PvP in this game is defined by the meta and they completely wiped the old meta effectively destroying all the balance they spent years to achieve.
It is one of the most asinine things I’ve seen a game studio do. No doubt it was done to help push HoT sales, but look at the cost. The best Elite Spec builds should stand toe to toe with old meta builds not wipe them out entirely.
People are leaving the game because they loved playing certain classes they can no longer play. Pre-HoT it was just about minor tweaks as patches came, but now it’s most often playing an entirely different way. Again, it’s just asinine.
casual players will graduate from amber division eventually.
they just need to get 15 wins.as for emerald and sapphire, if they manage to get 5 wins in a row, they can climb a tier.
after 5 tiers in emerald and 5 tiers in sapphire, they will eventually graduate into ruby division. where it kinda gets hard, as they need to win 30 games in a row to graduate from ruby into diamond.
and as mentioned by Teutos.8620, upon reaching ruby division, start losing matches as a 5 man team until MMR hits rock bottom. then farm those 30 wins in a row at odd hours where pro esl teams do not play. add all those pro esl players to your friends list, then only queue if they are not afk-ing in pvp lobby.
then do the same when reaching diamond division.
Let’s work on some definitions for context. I am defining causal player as one who likes to come in a solo queue, non-casual as someone who puts together a premade and works on team strategy etc… Those with a different definition of causal vs non-casual aren’t going to be on the same page with me, so they can stop reading.
Given solo queue player = casual, a solo queue would allow pugs to compete with pugs. They should be able to see how far they can get in league divisions exclusively going against pugs and furthermore, better match making algorithms should be utilized to compose the pug groups. I think the solo queuers should have separate pips/rank and they should be able to go all the way up to Diamond division though solo queue (but not Legendary). As for the icon beside your name that appear sin Heart of the Mist, it should be the highest division you have achieved (either solo or though premade queue, and yes the two should be recorded separate). This would make it casual friendly. As it stands now, it’s all about the premade rank.
It’s really not that hard to implement and it would make the game phenomenally better overall for everyone.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
just played a match got 3v1’d the whole game (kiting on celes engi) wich gave me 0 points my teammates couldn’t cap a single point and i lost 2 pips. cus of how bad my teammates were i am sorry but this system is kittened.
1.) If you were in a premade think of it as an opportunity to work on your team skills. If it were a great game it would provide some level of pairing and recommend similar premade guild teams that you could contact and run matches on a private server outside ranked. But GW2 doesn’t offers very little in the way of tools for PvP
2.) If you were in a solo queue, you need to understand your primary function is the queue and in leagues is to feed free wins to the premades. Occasionally the game will reward you with another solo pug group, but don’t be surprised if when that happens the opposing pug are all running current meta builds and your pug is running outdated builds… so… skill will have little impact, you still get steam rolled.
Welcome to Build Wars 2.0
when in reality the division icon represents your effectiveness on a premade team
Currently, the league icon only shows how much you played.
That’s not true. It shows your division (Amber, Emerald, Ruby, Diamond, etc) which for the lower divisions represent how much you’ve played but for divisions where you can loose pips/tiers (any division above amber for pips) it shows where you stand in ranked play against other premades.
Why would that bother an actual casual player?
Because no-one wants a system that isolates them and makes them feel inferior. If causals could gain rank through solo play in solo queue and cap out in Ruby division or something then it would work, but that’s not going to happen due to the lack of a solo queue.
when in reality the division icon represents your effectiveness on a premade team
Currently, the league icon only shows how much you played.
That’s not true. It shows your division (Amber, Emerald, Ruby, Diamond, etc) which for the lower divisions represent how much you’ve played but for divisions where you can loose pips/tiers (any division above amber for pips) it shows where you stand in ranked play against other premades.
Odd how both his reddit post and video have been deleted. I wonder if its on his own accord or by pressure via arena net. Prob the latter.
He’s a pro player with sponsors. His words have weight to them that could cost the game viewers and in effect defund/derail future ESL efforts. For him to say something negative about the game publicly is not political correct and since it is biting the hand that feeds I can sort of see ArenaNet’s stance if in fact they did contact him.
Regardless he did say it and if he said it I’m sure many other ESL Pro players feel exactly the same way. ArenaNet should not hide their failure with leagues they should own it, apologize for the mishandling of queues and fix it.
When ArenaNet originally talked about leagues they said “Leagues will make PvP more accessibly to everyone inviting more casual players”. If this truly was their intent they grossly missed the mark by doing the exact opposite. Leagues are anti-casual and pro-hard core, here’s why
- The new symbol of prestige in sPvP is the league division icon beside your name (amber, emerald, etc..). Let’s not kid ourselves, that’s why this symbol is there cluttering Heart of the Mist; so everyone will know your league division and covet the high division players.
- To get into a higher division (earn prestige) you must compete in ranked matches
- Without a proper solo queue, solo players attempting rank just serve to feed the premades wins. Without separation, ranked matches are all about premades
- But solo players are queuing up ranked to try and earn mats, etc.. for the legendary back piece. This is creating a nice harvest of pug groups that really only serve to feed the premades free wins and the every great once in a while pug vs pug match that gives the casual solo queue player a fair fight.
- In the coming weeks when you enter Heart of the Mist all you will see are league division icons allowing other players to judge you and classify you as a player (which make no mistake will happen) when in reality the division icon only represents your effectiveness on a premade team and not your individual skill as a player. It is a system truly designed to make the non-premade casual player feel worthless though the chosen UI aesthetics. It’s designed to make other players judge those not in premades very harshly. It offers nothing for the casual player.
The prestige symbols in league play are all about the premades.
It is a system that deserves no respect. I’d like to respect it, but it just doesn’t make any sense if it truly was designed with the goal of “making sPvP more accessibly to the causal players” it servers the opposite purpose. I’ve had so many friends quit the game over HoT and a few others have no left over Leagues.
Look, this isn’t been written in anger. In my calmest, heart-to-heart voice I want to know, ArenaNet… What are you doing? This is really, really bad guys. It’s garbage. It really is. The players in pre-mades who are been fed pug groups and quickly moving up I’m sure will fire in with a rebuttal “Don’t listen to him, etc…” But seriously think about your objectives with Leagues and the causal players this was suppose to offer something to. Think about how absurd the solo vs premade queuing and the impact to both solo players and premade players. One group doesn’t stand much of a chance the other gets a free ranked win?
How is that good design? Can you justify it?!? Will you respond to this thread or any of these threads? Will you open a dialog with your PvP player base? It really seems you don’t care and that your stance is “It’s our dish to serve cold, eat it or go play something else” If that’s how you want to continue to roll with this then I guess I need to go find another game to play.
I hope you realize that everyone here pouring out messages in this forums are taking their time to tell you about problems they see. That’s time they could be spending on something else in life. These are not just Q.Q players, they are your players who care about your product. Do you even see it that way? Do you care? Where is the company that had integrity? Is the ArenaNet founded by three guys who left Blizzard to build a better game? Let me ask you something ANet. Have you played the latest offerings by Blizzard? Hearth Stone or Heros of the Storm? These PvP focused games have many of the elements we’re asking for. Why won’t you compete with other game studios and provide a product that’s on par? Do you thnk we want to leave GW2 to go play something else? We don’t. We just want you to fix a broken product.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Would also add that if you do 1-3 you must change it so that those in PvP queue can leave Heart of the Mist and go do other things as they wait. I think everyone would agree longer queue times are a small trade off for fair matches, just allow us to go do something other than hang out in Heart of the Mist as we wait.
Rewarding us for farming non-premades and stomping guilds that clearly doesn’t have equal MMR was toxic enough, but you want us to do that for 25 games?! Ruby and Diamond you want us to do that for 30+ games?!!
_
What the hell ArenaNet? You do realize that is a ton of games JUST to kitten people off?
There is a reason why you have placement matches in other games ArenaNet, it’s to prevent high skill teams from farming over and over until they get to their proper rank.
Yes, there is a lack of competency by the individuals who designed this. It was not well thought out and it adds credence to the argument that ArenaNet really doesn’t have the talent it needs on the PvP development team. The company needs to put more money into this aspect of the game and frankly hire more experienced and more competent staff.
If you want the PvP in your game to be respected at pro level, there a lot more to it than hiring a good brand manager and tossing boat loads of money into production and promotion of the Twitch broadcast. It seems that was their approach unfortunately.
Shocking, I know, but there will ALWAYS be people in lower tiers. That’s the way the system works. So don’t go acting like you DESERVE to be in a higher tier when other people in higher tiers are better than you, have a better team comp, better communication, etc. If you want to be the best, you have to actually try.
So… You support a signal system that only caters to those in premade groups where pug groups should know their only function in ranked will be to feed wins to the pre-mades? That sounds incredibly open minded of you. :/
The reality is the game could be made phenomenally better with a bit of effort on the part of ArenaNet to make solo queuing a real thing where it will always be Pug vs Pug. Allow these groups to progress though League play to the point they can work for and obtain the legendary back piece without having to form a premade and devote hours a day to practice.
The solo queue would solve 90% of the “Q.Q” it’s something almost universally desired by both solo players, casual types and even hard core players who would like to be able to run the occasional solo queue (see thread on Lord Helseth’s comments), premade’s would benefit because they would no longer be handed free wins by pugs that stand no chance.
Without the solo queue it’s a fair assessment to say the system is trash.
So The Lord Helseth (one of the most famous pro players in GW2) has spoken out in his Twitch feed calling the new League system “trash” then showing you the horrible pairing really is…
There are a lot of balance problems, but let’s put those aside and look at the big problem Helseth was pointing out. It’s the queuing/match making! The problem is with the ArenaNet programmers. They are using an algorithm designed to match chess players for 1:1 competitive scenarios. This was a very bad choice. They should hire exceptionally bright software engineers to design an appropriate algorithm for pairing that meets the needs of their product. As a software engineer and a avid GW2 pvp player, I can tell you how I would approach such an algorithm
1.) Premades should be required to queue seperately and be defined as a group of 3 or more in party at time of queue. Solo players should have the option to queue for premade knowing they will always get placed with a pa. rtial pre-made. Solo queue should also exist where matches will always be 100% Pug and both sides (can not enter with party). Adding this alone with current match making algorithm would be a huge step forward, but they should do more. Such as…
2.) The algorithm for match making should be aware of the current meta builds for sPvP. This is not out of the question in 2015 with machine learning patterns being well established. A few times a day, a process should evaluate current meta and determine changes and also be smart enough to determine “near meta”. it should also take into account other statistically data (how many games player has played with that build, etc..). This is data they probably aren’t capturing right now but they should.
3.) When players queue up it should account for players not running current meta builds, it should balance the pug team configurations accordingly so that you never have pug scenarios with a team of 5 elite spec meta builds vs 2 elite spec meta + 3 outdated non elites. There’s a lot more to this, but for the purpose of a bullet point you get the idea. Real balance for pugs and a real solo queue for pugs…. The same type of evaluation.
If this sort of balanced existed in the game you would have a fun casual PvP experience for those who just want to solo queue. This is what it would take to create that. Pre-mades would also benefit as they would no longer be handed wins for free from pug groups that don’t stand a chance.
The fact that this sort of algorithm and design is not in the game now shows a serious misstep on the part of ArenaNet. It’s a mechanical queue system balance they could work to put in place today that would have no impact on skill balancing (so they don’t have to screw up the Pro ranked season).
The honorable thing to do at this point would be for ArenaNet to admit there is a major problem. Shut down Leagues to implement something like what I’m suggesting or perhaps some better queuing approach (I’m just tossing out a napkin sketch of an idea for queuing, if I spent a day with their development staff who knows what magic we could come up with to make the game better for everyone). There are really bright software engineers who can help them with this problem if they made it a priority.
ESL Pro Season should continue on, but I feel Leagues should be put on hold until they retooling queuing. As it stands the solo queue players are being isolated and toyed with. If ArenaNet wants to keep things as it is now the best thing they can do is prevent solo queue from every happening. Make it so all in solo queue will be paired with a 3-4 man pre-made. Restrict pre-mades so that at least 3 or more must be in party. That alone won’t help much (they need the whole retooling of match making) but at least it would be a start.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
This is not meant to be a rant but (hopefully) a collection of inspiring victories soloQers are having in-game. Feel free to share your stories or screenshots.
Yes, it can happen. If you queue up and thee is a 3 or 4 party premade that you happen to get paired you have a fighting chance. I’m about done with Amber and have been doing mostly solo queue. But my account rank has taken a huge hit from it
Here are common the possible negative possibilities when you solo queue for ranked.
- Placed in 100% pug group vs partial pre-made
- You get some kitten in party chat trying to run the pug like a pre-made (if you land as an extra for a pre-made do listen to them, otherwise these kind of dictators often are the demise of the team)
- Chances are you’ll get 2-3 running their own thing or running outdated meta builds that aren’t applicable.
- Really good teams are still moving up the ranked and are in Amber division so your pug are just pigs for the slaughter to feed the mediocre pre-made you’re up against. The entire 5-10 minute matches only servers to feed the pre-made a ranked win.
It really is that simple
All this crying about balance yet you have these options just pick one of the meta builds- Rev/Reaper/Tempest/Scrapper/Druid/DH – If you are really bad I suggest DH
Don’t like the meta builds because they are “lame” or “cheesy” better get used to losing
OR
Make a team and coordinate so that you can play your special snowflake Necro Minion Healer build and have a chance at winning with superior rotations and coordination
Don’t wanna make a team? Don’t wanna use a meta build? Stick to unranked and let the big boys who care about winning play in ranked
It is really that simple
In general agree with the “meta is meta for a reason, play it or hurt yourself and your team” philosophy. But asking players to do that is only part of the story.
Since launch of core game in 2012, we’ve seen balancing that’s made certain meta builds obsolete and gave way for new pvp meta builds, once things stabilized in 2015 finally the sPvP side of the game started growing because of that balance…. Now with HoT, those who purchased GW2 core game or recently joined on a free account can no longer compete in PvP unless they 1.) Buy HoT and 2.) Create an Elite Spec meta build. Those who invested a lot of time playing a specific meta build or set of meta builds no longer have the option to simply tweak those builds. It’s now 100% about the HoT Elite Specs and those specs are not balanced well at all. We have a meta that is dominated by codi/interrupt. When a competitive game only allows for a few play styles and the mechanics come down to the build winning over skill winning then it’s safe to say it’s broken. GW2 sPvP is broken.
So sure, go grab a sPvP HoT meta build if you want to be competitive, but don’t dare solo queue or you’ll be placed in teams with players who are running former meta builds or their own concoctions. This solo queue really is just mucking up ranked. Because you have mediocre pre-made teams paired with mismatched pugs that stand no chance at all. The pre-made gets the win, but the victory was really handed to them on a plate. These things matter a great deal for a game expected to be taken serious enough for ESL so they can’t be ignored. The entire kitten foundation of sPvP is a shattered mess right now. That is something worth complaining about.
It’s a much bigger problem than “oh I can’t win a match” people here are looking at things on a higher level.
The bottom line is they introduced this grand new League system and decided to open it up to solo queue players who don’t really stand any chance. There are no good LFG tools for putting togeather a PvP team. I can’t see my team mates buid, I can’t see their ranked win/loss record, the tools aren’t there to support LFG. It’s all trust based so what you have are a small group of teams really being competitive and most everyone else being steam rolled. It’s ridiculous that those who loved playing certain classes now only have the choice to play a different class to be competitive. That’s is unacceptable, horrible design. Nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
Your stance is “the game is designed this way… I don’t care if it’s broken… Learn what works and roll with it”. Where as the community is asking ArenaNet to just make the product better. Either you’re the type of person who tries to rally for change or the type that goes with the flow and feels any effort to try to get change to happen is pointless. I’ll have you know it was this forum community that has helped ArenaNet see where improvements could be made. This “Q.Q” post need to happen to invoke that change.
Sure some are truly Q.Q and should be ignored, but most are not that way this time around.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Tell me about the most vicious team build combinations. What’s the worst you’ve encountered and the most successful you’ve played with. Please don’t create a wall of text, but list the party builds (if meta) and talk about tactics. What do you like about what you’re seeing and what do you dislike the most about the overall current meta?
AN doesn’t realize the poor balance effects their hopes of PVP being a success. They seem to think we are all just a bunch of cry babies because not all of us choose to play flavor of the month.
The reoccurring theme is they built GW2 for themselves and not for us. It’s not our game, it’s their game and we we don’t like it we should go play something else. They don’t want to hear that they’ve made horrible mistakes with the design and they don’t want to engage the forum community and begin a dialog.
That is the common trend I’ve noticed. Unlike so many other MMO forums, you don’t have open dialog here between developer and community. You get occasional post from staff but very little follow up. ArenaNet staff generally come into the forums to make announcements, scold us or to provide very brief comments. They do not engage the community in a way I think they should and that’s a real shame.
HoT was the balance patch guys! That is why the only (well, almost only) competitive specs now are the elite specs released in HoT! Balance achieved.
Meh, I remember reading the HoT patch notes regarding each core specification and considered the impact of that patch on (pre-HoT) sPvP meta builds. There was very little they changed. Why? Because the core game specifications had achieved pretty good balance leading up to HoT. That’s why sPvP in GW2 had grown so much from 2014 to 2015, because players were giving it a try again and realizing that skill actually played a part in winning.
With the HoT Elite Specs were back to ground zero. All skill invested in non-elite sPvP builds has been made void and if you want to sPvP and be competitive you have to run one of eight Elite Spec meta builds. If you want to actually win a lot you need to run a team build with a few codi/interrupt heavy players and make the game all about codi/immob/interrupt.
The bottom line is they took the best sPvP experience available in gaming and turned it into one of the absolute worst. Welcome to “Build Wars” 2.0
The game is completely unplayable between mallyx/shiro and condi reaper the amount of condis spammed on you is outrageous at this point I suggest the dev to introduce more traits like diamond skin…or on a more serious note I think it’s be about time for Jon Peters to honour his promise from months ago where he recognized that:
@Jon Peters
Just getting these out there so we know we are all in agreement:
1) Conditions seem a bit strong
2) World bosses are currently too easy
3) There are some bugged skills and traits
4) There are some overpowered builds
We won’t fix it all at once but these are four large topics we are talking about. In the meantime keep the feedback and bug reports coming, and I guess farm up some world bosses. We are dedicating time towards these issues and are intending to resolve them as quickly as possible. As we have said before, the live environment differs too greatly from anything we can reliably simulate internally so big changes like today’s build will cause things to sometimes change at an alarming rateTM.
Thanks for your patience,
JonSo..when conditions will be looked at? I mean you dev are more than happy to nerf burst dmg…but condi burst is fine? Burst coming from glassy spec that can die if you cough in their directions it’s not fine..but tanky specs that deal absurd amount of dmg with conditions are fine? Weren’t conditions supposed to be an attrition mechanic than from where the rev and reaper come from?
This is so true. If the opposing team has spec’d to maximize it you find yourself in their rotation of immobilize/codi/interrupt. You have zero chance to use your skill to be competitive. Instead you can just sit there in horror as your health drops from max to 0 in about three seconds. You are constantly interrupted unable to move or to pop any defensive skills, heals or counter attacks. The opponent who did this to you had to use very little skill to begin the cycle.
In this scenario a players skill at playing the game is removed. It comes down to luck of whoever can get that first hit and begin the vicious immob/codi/interrupt/condi cycle.
I have a Codi Mallyx Herald and a Codi Reaper. I know these builds. Winning with them (especially when stacking multiple reapers or heralds on the same team) is mostly utilizing the OP build, it’s not skill. There is no fun in that.
It’s very sad that all this money has been pumped into GW2 ESL Pro League play and yet the game itself has become “build wars” once again. ArenaNet, you had a really great sPvP experience with GW2 Conquest leading up to HoT. The best sPvP experience I’ve had in any MMO and your kittened that away. In order to sell more HoT product, someone made this horrible decision to make Elite Specs more powerful than non Elite specs in PvP. That alone wouldn’t have destroyed sPvP, but the lack of balance around those Elite Specs does finish the job.
I don’t blame those working on the PvE aspects of HoT. They did a great job overall. Your developers responsible for sPvP balance and defending the design changes of the post-HoT sPvP aspects of the game completely and utterly failed us. They continue to fail us because in spite of all these forum post, we have zero communication from them. We got one post from Colin the other day on reddit! Not even here. Is there that much political kitten behind the curtain at ArenaNet?!? Why Colin? Why is the game director addressing the sPvP community?!? It seems someone below him in charge of the sPvP aspects of the game should be a point of contact with the community and handle these relations. You can’t even properly address us on official forums? I just don’t get it. sPvP in this game is a joke.
What’s more it’s very sad to see it go ESL Pro on Twitch and those viewer numbers dropping because we know how good sPvP in GW2 can be. You worked for years, since launch of GW2 in 2012 leading up to HoT to get good balance. Then you nuked that balance and made it so people who invested months in getting really good at playing the game on a balanced class and balanced build they really enjoyed had to start all over again. Whoever made that decision should be terminated. In fact the game would probably do great if a lot “house cleaning” happened in the sPvP section.
I’ve never seen such a complete train wreck of an implementation and so many people angry. I had guild members and friends who loved sPvP before you destroyed the game. Many of them have left and they are strongly trying to pull me into other games. This is what catastrophic failure looks like ArenaNet.
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)
Read his words a few times though. It’s strongly implied.
“There are loads of reasons why HoT was considered for us the first big balance update (and the month that followed it) for this PvP League and we couldn’t do any more balance updates before this one, but the reality is none of them really matter since they are just words. What you all care about is action.”
That’s almost an apology for how bad the balance is.
The subtext of his comments are “we know there are things that need further balance… can’t do it before end of this season… sorry you’ll have to buy HoT and pay attention to the meta builds if you want to win matches” (drops microphone and runs away)
Humm