Guild Wars 2

Tickets are awarded as you complete divisions. For example Amber to Emerald occurs after 15 ranked pvp wins and when you complete Amber division you get awarded 15 tickets.

What I am about to tell you is not an exaggeration. It can be verified by looking at the websites that record meta builds (based on Twitch feeds) and the ESL Pro League builds for this season…

It comes it down to this: The old core pvp builds that defined the game (D/D ele, PU Mesmer, Hammer Warrior, DPS Med Guard) they are all obsolete.

You can not play sPvP in GW2 using your old favorite build that (the one you trained on for months that took ANet two years to balance properly).

The new norm is high condi pressure combined with interrupts and immobilizing attacks. At a certain level it has become a game of "whoever gets the first hit and begins the chain/rotation to codi/immob/interrupt wins. At that point skill goes out the window and luck becomes the primary catalyst for the win.

When a game turns into that people stop watching and people stop playing.

Acandis.3250:

All that being said,

My prediction for average player skill distribution along the Divisions, when Leagues come out, is the following:

• Divisions 1-3:
  • These are the casual divisions, players that don’t play that much, will be among these 3, with trashcan players being stuck in D1, and much better players being in D3.
  • It is entirely possible some D3 players will be much better than higher division players, but they just don’t spam nearly as many games.
• Division 4:
  • This is going to be the trash tier division. Anyone that plays all day will easily make it into this division. If you are skilled, you’ll advance to D5+, if you are not, you’ll stay here forever, as you can’t decay.
  • Do not be surprised when you notice that players in this division will be noticeably worse than players in D1-3.
• Division 5:
  • This will be the 40-50% winrate division that have the time (and patience) to spam games all day. Most, if not all of these players are considerably better than D4 players.
  • Most of these players will eventually make it to D6+.
• Division 6:
  • I’d like to say, this is were the best of the best are going to be, but for obvious reasons not all the top players will be in this division.
  • This is the division that will be inhabited predominantly by those who farm Team Queue during the graveyard shift. Willing to wait 20+ minutes for a match that will take ~5 minutes, just so they can get that easy win and make it to the top of the League.

With that in mind, I expect at least 50% of the playerbase will be D5+.

So, yea, I really don’t think Leagues will hold any prestige whatsoever. Just another grindfest.

Excellent post. You assessments seem valid and make sense. It’s a testament to how horrible the League system design really is when you put a little thought into the patterns and habits of the community. I think ArenaNet needs to hire better people to put in charge of PvP. The stated intent for Leagues was to have a system of progression and to make PvP more fun for the casual types. Largely, I would equate casual to solo queue player. On those terms I would say the League system is a catastrophic failure when it comes to making the game more inviting to casual PvP types. Will it properly reward the more hardcore types? Time will tell.

As for predictions, I’ll add my own to this thread.

• Team builds for PvP will become a thing. Do love it when you have 17.000+ health, one hit lands on you and then you are immobilized and interrupted unable to pop any skills or move you just watch in horror as any skill you might have to bring to fight is made void. You go down within about 4 second… then are stomped… Re spawn and repeat.. Better get use to those scenarios. That sort of thing will become the norm and players maximize team builds and point capture pairing for most optimal wins. This is where good balance would save a game like GW2, but GW2 doesn’t have it. GW2 balance is reduced to a small set of Elite Spec meta builds.

• More PvP players will leave sPvP. They will go to other games or focusing on Raids or WvW. We will see a sharp decline in sPvP by end of the January

• ESL Pro League will continue to get much hype, but viewership will continue to drop. It’s horrible to watch. I have been a huge sPvP GW2 fan for years and I struggle to watch it. The announcers struggle to announce over the action. Camera angles are not good. Key “plays” aren’t called…. It’s appalling to watch and considering all that’s broken/missing and unbalanced in terms of ArenaNet taking care of the non-pro PvPers I would say he whole ESL Pro League is a facade designed to promote a level of achievement the game honestly hasn’t earned just yet.

The League Play is not for those who solo queue. Solo queue players are completely getting the shaft once again. Either ArenaNet does not care about well designed queuing or they don’t have the talent on board to build a proper system. I am not sure which scenario it is. I just know what players are calling for here and what I have experienced. It’s just downright horrible.

MyriadStars.5679:

I myself have made peace with the solo vs pre-made issue by playing one of the following games when I feel like doing some competitive play (instead of doing spvp in GW2):
1. 1vs1 in Starcraft ii
2. Hero league in Heroes of the storm (where teams of 3 or more are not allowed).

It’s sad since I did spend a huge amount of time on spvp in GW2, but I am a lot happier now by playing other games that do not have this issue and are more fun.

Thank you. I’m downloading Heros of the Storm now. It looks interesting.

Veji.7639:

Is this a bug or intended?
Feels kinda like a waste of time winning but not getting “rewarded” for it.

Was it a ranked match?

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

I don’t really think leagues were designed with solo players in mind.

Yet they allow solo queuing and the blog entry/article they put up on League play yesterday encourages solo queuers to “get in on the fun”. It’s as if the game studio is mocking it’s player base at this point. Unbelievable.

The pre-made team on voice coms League experience
“OMG this is awesome, finally a progression path!”
“gg team we just steam rolled them” (speaking of the helpless pug they just kittened)
“We’re going all the way to legednary guys, excellent job”

The solo queue League experience
“…”
“This is pointless”
“How did….”
“How many losses in a row can one player actually get”

You have people solo queuing who are ending up in a group with a horrible group composition
For example:

Pug
Hammer Warrior
D/D Ele
Dragon Hunter+
Druid+
PU Mesmer

>>> vs <<<

Premade
Herald+
Herald+
Druid+
Reaper+
Scrapper+

(where + represents a competitive Elite meta build)

Score ends in 500 to 120. High fives all around for pre-made. The two players running Elite Specs on the pug scored the most points. The entire pug feels cheated by the League system. Those not running Elite Specs feel cheated by the game in general.

This is what happens when you nuke the meta that took three years to stabilize and balance a month before introducing ranked League play. Horrible planning, horrible management. If you aren’t running a pre-made group with all party members checked to be running current meta builds or variants of, PvP is entirely pointless now. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are.

Why have you done this ArenaNet? Why have you provided new PvP features (League progression) for elitist and they’ve put those features on top of an unbalanced broken system.

A proper queuing algorithm will not only take into account past wins and losses but pre-made/pug pairings and team composition. It should be programmed to try and balance teams so that you never have a team running all elite spec meta builds against a team that isn’t. That’s just not going to end well and ultimately skill devalued. When skil is devalued you have unbalanced and a broken pvp system. That’s exactly what you have right now.

NonToxic.9185:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

3.) A huge non-pro community actively playing that take the game serious enough to watch the best of the best do what they enjoy doing, presented in a way that the non-pro’s can learn from

You hit it square on here, but for the wrong reasons I think. Our problem isn’t simply that it is boring to spectate druid vs druid on a point, but rather, the VAST majority of the GW2 community doesn’t even know what a point is. There is a far larger fundamental issue in the fact that of the millions of players (if stats are to be believed), the overwhelming majority of them don’t play pvp, never have played pvp, have no interest in doing so, and oftentimes villainize pvp players (‘OMG they are all foul-mouth bullies’).

In Dota 2, every single player is playing the same game as the pros are. Whether they be the most casual or hardest core, they are playing on the same map with the same rulesets and objectives.

In GW2, most players don’t know the rules of pvp, and they have no incentive to start learning.

The majority don’t PvP because the incentives haven’t been there. The game studio hasn’t put a lot of work into making the experiences polished… What’s more, after 3 years of balancing the game studio/publisher has droped a bomb on the meta and made it so those who spent a lot of time getting good at playing certain roles have to go learn something else entirely. This is unacceptable design. They should have to make tweaks post HoT and Elite Specs, but having to abandon old play styles and even certain classes entirely speaks to a failed development effort. The community has a right to be outraged.

In general, the overall spirit of GW2 is very “care bear” mentality. This is a game that isolates open world PvP to a unique mechanic (WvW) there are no dedicated PvP servers. The general feeling by most PvE players who don’t PvP is that the balance is so horrible and the camera problems make it pointless. They may have it right.

To give some credit, the Legendary back piece adds some incentive.

Zodryn.4216:

Besides the many – no, dare I say – several tooltip updates, Steal can no longer be used without a target. No party swiftness, might and fury, no panic stealth button. Thank you for making the one balance change this patch a thief nerf.

I have no idea why they did a nerf on Thief and not Warriors/Berserker. It makes no sense at all. If you’re going to target one class you completely screwed over on Elite Specs and further destroy it, why wouldn’t you take out the others too.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Conquest bunker down gameplay will not bring in viewers who are trying to see through all the colorful array of effects filling up the screen.

This game mode blows for viewer participation. Who wants to watch 4 guys fighting on 1 point for a few minutes with seemingly little things changing except maybe a +1.

As is now… NO ONE. NO ONE. NO ONE. However, if we had the ability to go in after the Twitch ESL broadcast and inside the game client replay/rewatch the match and in real-time switch between perspectives (e.g. as we can in spectate mode on hot-join now) then we would be able to really dissect these pro matches. Giving players a TOOL like this replay mechanism would vastly improve the viewer experience

ArenaNet has invested next to nothing in giving the sPvP players tools to impower us to improve our personal game, improve our teams game, to dig into personal metrics and team metrics. There is SO much they need that they do not have and that they seem to have zero interest in building.

The $200,000 raised for the Pro League brand prize should be money going into making the non-Pro sPvP experience better and delivering some of these things. At this point ArenaNet has made a boat load of money off HoT and related gem store transactions. How much of that will go back into the sPvP side of the game?

What will probably happen is this PvP Pro League season will continue to see declining numbers of Twitch. The powers that be will see that as a failure and NO ONE @ANET will seriously look at the reasons the ESL Pro season struggled to find viewers. They won’t likely consider all the failures on their end needed to improve the experience for the non-pros or the correlation between the non-pro spvp meta needing to be well balanced and well taken care of with the tools they need in order for those players to care about the ESL version of the game.

The appropriate word for this mishandling is incompetence. It’s a bit jagged, yes. But unfortunately that’s what we are dealing with. Developers or Game Directors who really have a disconnect between how for a e-sport to exist, yes the non-pro version has to be there and be serious.

I don’t think any of the staff at ArenaNet take their game all that serious. I think they have an light hearted approach to the game’s design and implementation in general and that behind closed doors many think it’s funny that some of us do want to take it seriously. This goes back to when Johnathon Sharp was leading the sPvP efforts. As an outsider looking in, I felt bad for the guy because it seemed what he was trying to do was the unfunded joke of the office. If you’re reading this as an ANet staff member thinking “how did you know”, No I’ve never worked for ANet and I don’t have fly on the wall cameras, but things were so bad, it was just THAT obvious.

Just like now it’s obvious the goals of the powers that be are to force ESL GW2 play into the spot light when frankly the game isn’t ready. Is it any surprised players are outraged that $200,000 is being put into a grand prize when so many tools needed to support sPvP don’t exist (like in-client post-game relay)?

ArenaNet, it’s YOUR game. You want to continue to do things as you have been with sPvP and pretend things are just fine, go ahead. Just don’t be surprised as those Twitch numbers continue to decline.

And another thing ArenaNet… It takes a lot to get some of us to leave but once we walk away from your game and go find another to sPvP in we aren’t coming back. Not six months from now, not when the next expansion lands. I won’t name drop but there are other game studios delivering a similar experience right now and look to be aiming to do it better. Only you can make the sPvP side of this game competitive in the market place.

In order for anyone to care about a sport or e-sport being played at pro level, the majority of the community has to have

1.) A love for the game
2.) A respect for the balance of the game
3.) A huge non-pro community actively playing that take the game serious enough to watch the best of the best do what they enjoy doing, presented in a way that the non-pro’s can learn from

[point #3 can not be overstated. Spectating sPvP in this game is not a lot of fun. The announcers often seem to be phoning it in… the game moves at such a fast pace we DESPERATELY need the ability to re-watch these matches post-game inside the game client. NOT VIDEO, but real-time with mechanics identical to spectate mode where we can follow the entire match on whichever player we want, switch around real-time, etc… If ANet would invest in this the PvP in this game would become phenomenally better]

All three of these are broken right now. You have a set of new HoT Elite meta builds that dominate the game. They dominate because they have been designed to be OP. So you’ve taken the play mechanics from a D/D Ele, Burn Guard, PU Mesmer, etc…. The builds these players loved, the classes they loved. You’ve taken them and made it so all that time invested is tossed at the window and they must learn a new meta based on one of the elite specs. That has not only enraged players, it’s made a lot of players quit altogether. This is mismanagement of sPvP in GW2.

Combine that with all the missing things (see my open letter to Josh Davis). Team Captain’s can’t even watch a post-game replay with their team and try to improve. Think about how critical that feature is to a sPvP format like Conquest. In sPvP you have mostly children running around who will tolerate these missing things. By majority they are players who do not take pvp seriously, it’s just something they do when they get tired of legendary grinding or have been beaten down by that Raid boss one too many times.

sPvP in GW2 is a recreational side line thing to do. ArenaNet has not given players the tools they need in game to really take it seriously. The Elite Spec balance is clearly more about selling product than maintaining integrity in the meta. These things are their decisions to make and if we don’t like them we can go play other games, but it is clearly cause and effect in motion. ArenaNet is solely responsible for the state of sPvP and the low numbers on Twitch for ESL Pro Play.

Again, you can not simply hire a great brand manager and pump a lot of money into advertising and promotion when the core game is completely kittened by your earnings agenda and the atomic blast you dropped on what was the old-meta.

Either the consequences were never considered by ANet staff or they were given low priority. Regardless, I feel there is a level of incompetence at play. When that happens in any company the correct course of action is to evaluate and do what’s necessary internal to fix it. The thing I notice most about the sPvP forums is how much the community calls for ArenaNet to have open dialog with their community. Instead all we get are the occasional post with the little red icon and red name banner indicating someone from staff has stepped down from the heavens and graced the community with a response. Yes, a bit dramatized but that is EXACTLY how it often feels. There is no open communication there are the occasionally voices of the ANet gods, which serves to remind the community it’s THEIR game and not ours.

ESL Pro League in this game is a death march, because the sPvP is such a wreck right now. If we make it to the end and the powers that be look back and say ‘that was a huge loss" then things will die down and what could have been will never be. It ll comes back to the ESL Pro League today being a facade. It’s something the developer desperately wants but some internal teams need to collaborate and really listen to the community. Treat sPvP like a first class citizen in the game.

Ramoth.9064:

In comparison:

Two DotA 2 celebrities currently streaming, 13k and 6.9k viewers (Arteezy and EternalEnvy)

Theres more people watching WingsofDeath on LoL test his 60fps game settings than people watching the GW2 proleague.

Go esports, amiright?

ArenaNet needs to understand the dynamics of e-sport. You can’t just toss a lot of money into advertising it and get sponsors to put up a huge grand prize payout. It takes A LOT more effort than that. The non-pro sPvP players have to really, really love the game. They have to feel it’s well balanced and they have to take it pretty serious to want to watch it at this level.

What we have in GW2 sPvP post HoT is a huge mess. The core tools a player and team captain needs to improve their game are completely absent. Team captain’s can’t even spectate a post-game playback to see who needs work and who doesn’t. We are given very, very simple metrics regarding our past matches.

It’s very clear sPvP was designed to be an after thought in GW2, never a serious competitor because so many core things are missing that people who would take sPvP seriously would demand.

Truth is ESL Pro League is behind grossly mishandled. I think advertising wise, the company has done a great job. The problem is they destroyed the non-pro sPvP experience. It’s an unbalanced mess where only those who own HoT can have builds that are really competitive (as the current meta clearly shows)

You have a lot of people who took a break from sPvP for HoT who are coming back into it, loading up their D/D Ele, Burn Guard, Hammer Warrior, whatever.. and they realize after a few hours that those builds they invested so much time in learning are now not very effective at all. Some are even quoting the game over this.

So the reality is to most players right now GW2 sPvP is a broken mess. You have maybe 50% of the sPvP population who are no either off focusing on new legendaries, ascended armor or raiding -or- they have quit the game. The rest are trying to master a new meta build and give this a real shot, but in unranked matches they are encountering team after team where you have players running inappropriate, old-meta builds. On top of that there is still the pre-made vs pug problem. So sPvP play outside ESL is completely kittened. THAT’S YOUR PRIMARY AUDIENCE for tuning in on Twitch

Drayos.8759:

YoungStar.3569:

Thx for this open letter, i agree with most points and i havent given up the hope quite yet!

@drayos

You are really simple minded or havent read the ops post at all! He is not telling anyone to make elite specs obsolet or talking about the def of meta or what the meta should be composed of..He is talking about a true balance between old and new skillz and traits and a stop of the ongoing poower creep! An indication of that really happening is the new meta which is elite specs only!

if u read what i had written, u’d have reliesed i actually perfectly understood this

I specifically wrote no matter HOW BALANCED THIS IS, ONE WILL BE DECIDED TO BE BETTER THEN THE OTHER.

At the end of the day, Meta is Decided on whats “OP”, its Decided on what plays the best AGAINST what the majority in Top MMR are currently playing, U call me simple minded for my post but u failed to really understand what i was getting at.

if Elites are Nerfed, or the base proffession brought up even to a perfect match, One would still outdo the other, being Balanced… and being Valuable in Meta are two completely different things.

Your wrong and your assessments doesn’t make sense as others have pointed out. You don’t really understand what I’m asking. I won’t call names, but it’s very clear you are one of those types who go against anyone who suggest change. Not going to turn my own thread into a series of argumentative exchanges. I know you will likely respond with a rebuttal, but I think you’ve written a lot already and I don’t think you make a good point at all. I’ll let others respond from here on.

Darnis.4056:

Any chance of selling Skillsets seperate from the expansion?
I’d love to throw you either 10$ or 800 Gems so I could pvp like a pro.

Thanks,

Will never happen, they want your full buy in to HoT.

Scenario

Two weeks after HoT I see a few old PvP friends on-line. I know they are good. We team up. After 120 points I realize to my_horror_ they are running classic pvp meta builds that are ow outdated. I try to make the best of it but end up loosing momentum because I’m healing a lot more than I should be.

The other team wins (or course)

Post match party chat is in flames as these old friends rage over how all the mechanics they loved about their class has been taken from them. You hear jagged comments “it doesn’t feel like the same game” and “I do everything on my Warrior…. I don’t have any alts and don’t plan to.”.

Gently you try to break the news to them that the new meta is all elite specs. You explain how you know this and give examples and things become weird. It’s clear you are that geek PvP friend who knows too much. They are even more frustrated one of them says “I’m done. Leaving the game. I need to spend more time in Fallout anyway”. The other “I definitely won’t be doing pvp much”.

ArenaNet gave me the burden of telling them their favorite PvP MMO died and has been reborn into something that doesn’t tolerate their old playstyle.

Two weeks pass. The player who said he was leaving has not been on in 14 days. The other hasn’t been on line in 12. It’s clear these two have moved on.

This is the reality we are dealing with. This is 100% caused by the decisions made to buff up the Elite Spcecs and make them out power everything else. Their design is actually putting us (the loyal fans and players) in the situation where we are having to start aurguments just to share this horrible news and once the reality sits in deal with the fact that our sharing this info drove our friends away from the game.

Not happy at all about this ArenaNet.

Doon.2364:

I agree with you on everything except the very first point. Elite spec is purposely design to be stronger than non-elite spec. Why would gaming company do this? It’s not only to hype up the new builds to encourage sales, but also to change the metas to keep the game fresh. If the new elites were not better than the old, then players will not care much for it. In the gaming world, new things is what keep players coming back for more. If the new things sucks or if it doesn’t live up to their hype, then the game becomes stale and boring. Look at the warrior community, their Berserker elite sucks and they are not happy. If the community is not happy, players will eventually leave for something new and better. So it’s very important that Anet made the elite spec stronger than old spec. It will keep game exciting as players will need to learn how to play and defeat the new metas. This is what you call progression. And it makes the game fun and extend the life of it. As a gamer, why would you want to keep playing with the old builts? 3 yrs of playing the same stuff gets old.

So to be clear your stance is that all those who purchase the GW2 core game prior to HoT and all those who signed up for a Free To Play account should be required to upgrade to HoT and to abandon their favorite build (in some cases their favorite class) in order to be effective? I don’t know if you’ve thought about it that way, but that is exactly what you have said.

Why I disagree with you.

1. Even if the Elite Specializations were toned down to the point that the core game pre-HoT meta builds were relevant again, players would still be playing the new elite specs. They would still be competitive and because of this players would still have to figure out new strategies to deal with them. It would still be for the better if the core pre-HoT meta pvp builds were still relevant. It would add more variety which is never a bad thing. The only reason it’s been done as it has is to drive people to buy HoT.

2. I don’t believe Guild Wars 2 PvP should be pay-to-win. As implemented a player who comes in on a free account has to buy the expanshion to be competitive. A player who has spent thousands of hours in core game and only does PvP who has no interest in the elite specs is forced to buy HoT to be competitive now. I strongly disagree with that. People are leaving the game over this. Some of these people are my friends.

3. What happens down the road when the next batch of Elite Specializations are released with the next Expanshion? Once again are we going to see our old builds superseded and flushed down the toilet? What if you hate the direction of the next expansion and just want to continue to PvP? Do you really like the idea of being forced to buy every expansion in order to stay competitive. Through your own comments, that is exactly what you are endorsing. I don’t see this as a sustainable way to move forward.

Serious Thought.5394:

Honestly, I’d settle for active communication. Say two to three Dev responses a day on PvP forum? The last dev post was 4 days ago I think. Comon…

Edit: Ok so there was a post an hour ago. But I meant before that XD
Edit2: I’m dumb. I don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving that much. Ignore my post about the time frame, that I would like more communication especially in places of unrest. PvP, Thief, Warrior and HoT discussion seem to be hotspots- WvW is more of early on. Needs help, but there is time as this is the second month of new content.

That would be nice as well. There seems to a an enormous focus from ANet to push ESL Pro League. It’s clear much money and resources have gone into giving getting the ESL Pro League off the ground and yet the light shines though the cracks all the time. For example in week one we see a Thief on one of the Pro teams running a pre-HoT traditional build and the announcer says “I’m very surprised he’s not running the elite spec” as if it’s just suppose to be understood the new Elite Spec’s destroy the classic meta. The announcers are treating this problem as just matter-of-fact. Nevermind the three years of balance it took to get sPvP in GW2 at the solid place it finally was out leading up to HoT.

Of course it is their money to toss around as they choose, but I believe for any e-sport to take hold you have to have a really, really great experience available to those who play outside pro level. The non-pro players have to love the game enough to actually care about the ESL Pro League to watch the matches. So when the pvp meta is broken at a fundamental level as it is now to put these pro produced ESL matches up on Twitch and to pretend these issues don’t exist and to pretend the game studio is taking care of it’s non-pro community, well it just feels disingenuous.

I understand how in a spreadsheet, on a chart someone at ArenaNet is looking at the data saying “look sPvP has grown by x to y from 2014 to 2015 so we are investing z in ESL Pro play” but I thinks it’s a huge misstep when the foundation problems are there and so very clear by the forum post here, on reddit, in map chat in Heart of the Mist, etc… sPvP in GW2 needs a real champion on the inside dev team. Someone to really fill the gap, take a strong look at these problems. Open communication with the community and explain why things are being done as they are and why certain request are being ignored or given low priority. They clearly do not feel they owe us that. They clearly have an agenda for ESL Pro League and it appears certain individuals on staff are ignoring some problems that really need to be addressed (tunnel vision) as they focus on certain goals.

This is an open letter to Josh Davis, Competitive Brand Manager of ArenaNet

Dear ANet Staff and Mr. Davis,

I am writing to you because in general I feel the PvP staff at ArenaNet are not doing such a good job at giving the community what it needs. The validation of my stance can be inferred from the improvement recommendations below. Please consider making the following changes.

• Balance so that non-elite specs are competitive again. The Conquest PvP meta consist of only six builds. All of those builds are utilizing Elite Specs. All the pre-HoT meta builds are obsolete. We see a handful still traditional meta builds but the old meta is done. What’s going to happen when the next expanshion comes out and we get new elite specs? Are you going to always make the latest elite specs more powerful than anything else to sell product? Think about the long term impact. Is that sustainable? If not, end this madness now. Balance it so the Elite Specs are less powerful across the board. The old meta core game specs should not have been wiped so quickly. It’s clear you intended to balance it like this and I think it’s a big mistake in the long term and the short term.

• Solo vs Pre-made queues. Please count the number of people calling for this!. Yes it will mean longer queue times, the answer is simple. Retool to allow those in sPvP queue to go do other things as they wait. Furthermore, when matching pre-mades improve your algorithms to match pre-mades of various sizes (e.g. ideally a pre-made of 3 should not be pitted against a pre-made of 5 if a pre-made of 3 is in queue)

• Give us access to the match end-game score card of past matches and give us more analytic tools to see how we done on specific classes when paired with others, etc.. As it is now this information is quickly presented then lost forever unless we take a screen shot. We have no way to track who we played with, etc… There is so much potential for this data and it’s all tossed away.

• Nix the unranked win/loss tallies. Keep these internal, use them for internal things if you must but do not show them to players. Too many uncontrollable variables are at play in unranked this data to be represented You have people feeling as if unranked ratios still matter. While this is not suppose to be the case, as you’ve designed the game it feels like it.

• Give us the ability to spectate the past few matches. Think of any real-world sport. Think of the importance of a coach to watch the playback with his team post-game and evaluate what went wrong and what went right. We are crippled from doing this in GW2 sPvP. It’s difficult to evaluate top contributors as the score card does not tell all. This is so critical. It’s an opportunity for ArenaNet to montiize. hell the playback feature on a monthly basis. You have to devote hard drive space to store the recorded matches it makes sense this would be a for-pay feature and serious teams will pay for it

• Why do we have a checkbox for Stronghold and Conquest but no option to queue up for deathmatch? Courtyard is still in the game and many players would love to queue up just for Courtyard (give those who hate point capture their cake and get them out of stronghold and conquest, it’s as easy as adding this checkbox).

• Take Skyhammer out of rotation, put Courtyard back in rotation. No one likes Sky hammer. It’s rarely voted for in unranked queue. You have this data. Leaving Skyhammer in the rotation is a sign the game is still setup to appease the developer and not representative of what the player base actually wants.

• Give us the ability to queue for only ranked maps. Please! For those of us who are focused on ranked play, forcing us to play on Sky Hammer and Spirit Watch are really wasting our time. These maps aren’t well balanced. You know that, we know that. This is why they aren’t included in Pro play.

• Do not drop the ball on Leagues! I love the concept of Leagues, but I also do not like what I’m hearing so far. It seems ArenaNet’s stance is that Leagues exist so that all guild teams competing in league play only have the goal of making into the legendary division and becoming one of the top 8 legendary guilds to be the guild challenger league. That philosophy undermines the value of league divisions. League divisions should categorize players of like skill and give each division it’s own progression with a mini-tournament for most divisions at seasons end. Those of us who love the game with realistic expectations should have our own progression and champions outside those who only inspire to compete at pro level. Leagues were advertised as making PvP more casual friendly. As it stands, it appears a lot of thought was put into a nice league division system and that current plans for this season will not really utilize it to give more casual types much to look forward to. That’s a real shame. There is still time. Time to organize mini-tournaments for most divisions at least. Do not drop the ball of league divisions outside legendary. Use leagues to elevate PvP in this game to the status it deserves. Your casual PvP players deserve a progression path and they will become your ESL Pro spectators.

In general there appears to be a disconnect between the leadership of the pvp side of the game and an understanding of the basic needs of a pvp community being met (e.g. spectating past matches, etc…). I am not clear if this is because you are under staffed or because you simply do not see some of these core things are priority. If it’s about not seeing them as priority then I don’t understand. Much of what I’ll bullet listed is beyond subjective. It’s common sense features. Some of these features you can even monitize and PvP community will likely pay for them.

As someone who loves the game and loves PvP in this game, it sure does appear things just aren’t being prioritized or managed very well. Just trying to be transparent as a customer. It’s very clear from reviewing forum post here that my grievances do not stand alone. Few of these are really functional changes to the game, most don’t even require reworked UI. It’s difficult for me to grasp why the development effort on some of these things has not been given high priority given it’s value.

As a player I feel it’s our job to call out what we see as problems and request the changes. Ultimately making those changes and keeping players around is up to you, the ANet staff responsible for PvP. You guys won the lotery. You work for an amazing company on one of the greatest games ever and yet this aspect of the game is being crippled by so many little things. Please consider the power you have to make these positive changes.

Sam

Ramoth.9064:

starcraft has 2 very distinct styles of commentary; play by play and tactical, but thats beside the point. I actually think the ESL has good casters, but they have crap material to work with.

Other Esports like DotA have situations in every game that creates anticipation. The 3-5 seconds before a player teleports to defend a tower creates anticipation of a team fight. An enemy team using a team conceal to stalk the enemy team creates anticipation. These are things the casters can work with.

In GW2 you have casters telling you some guy got finished, only that in 15 seconds he’ll be back doing the same bunker sustain kitten that is Conquest.

Let’s be honest about why GW2 has gone e-sport this year.. 1.) Leading up to HoT release, sPvP was really the only fun to be had in the game 2.) By early 2015 ANet had finally balanced sPvP in the game to the point that it was really worth it. These two things lead to the sPvP side of the game being the fasted growing aspect of GW2 leading into HoT. Now that HoT is available, Raiding is stealing a good number of players. Players are always leaving because the balance that took so long to achieve is gone and the Elite Specs dominate. So they pretty much busted sPvP right before the ESL Pro season started… The casters are doing the best they can with what they are being given

witcher.3197:

You said GW1, from that point on devs will stop reading and disregard your suggestion, sadly.

This is true…. Sadly.

Question to ArenaNet staff: I was queued up and when the call came to opt in a did so quickly…. after a few seconds it went to “queue abandoned” it was not by my own action that this happened. The game did this yet I was left with dishonor for 1 hour as a result.

Can you please explain how this is acceptable design? Do you really not care at all about the mechanics of your game being balanced and generally fair?

I’ve abandon a total of 3 matches since dishonor when back into place and left queue 2-3 times. On the abandon matches 1 time my system rebooted during match. 1 time the score was 350 to 40 and we were against a pre-made I was angry and took dishonor. The third time my girl friend had cut herself. I apologized to the team and told them what was happening. Then I left match knowing I’d be hit with dishonor.

ArenaNet I want you to think about my three scenarios and consider the number of games I’ve played (since PvP is just about all I do). I think dishonor should have only been bestowed for scenario #2 where I was angry and left knowingly (who doesn’t have those kind of days), In #3 when I apologized to the team and had a true emergency the game should have had an option where the team could collectively grant me a dishonor pardon, but you don’t have such a mechanic in place meaning people get dishonored regardless. Do you really think that’s acceptable design for such a small feature? All you have to do is build /resign option into the game. If the whole team chooses to /resign then the opposing team gets the win and no dishonor is granted. THIS IS A SYSTEM YOU HAD in GW1 and it makes so much sense

Currently I’m looking at an hour of dishonor I do not deserve because the game bounced me from queue as the match was about to begin. My ping was ridiculously low (39) and the user interface appeared to accept my “opt in” when the match is ready dialog appeared. So you have a bug that needs to be addressed.

The dishonor system is flawed, the queuing system in general is flawed (regarding solo vs pre-mades), there are numerous post here and elsewhere requesting these features. I guess I just don’t understand why you don’t appear to care about giving the PvP community what they are asking for. These request are rational. I think at the very least we should get a response with a strong argument against adding these things, but we all know there really isn’t one beyond the tired truth of time and resource availability to add said features. That’s not something any game studio wants to discuss in public. Fair enough.

But the game is broken at the foundation level. ANet has pumped an absurd amount of money into taking GW2 into ESL but you have numerous broken systems in production/release code. You have grossly unbalanced elite specializations and you have no real “grass roots” sPvP happening in this game with spectators that would warrant ESL. Instead the ESL Pro League has been manufactured around Go 4 GW2 (limited) popularity and a deep desire to make this all work. But the way things stand we get dishonor for literally NOTHING (e.g. me being forced out of queue), No way for a pre-made to do a proper post mortem on a match without each player recording their stream and painstakingly watching the game from each players perspective start to end, our score card and record of team structure is IMMEDIATELY deleted following a match. So if we don’t check it right away and take screen cap we have no record of who our pug team mates were and what scores we had, etc….

There is so much missing from sPvP in this game. I’ve just giving the tip of the iceberg. Is anyone listening? Do you care that players are being stamped with dishonor because the game is kicking them out of queue? When can we expect these things to be addressed?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Removing people from queue on map travel is a decent middle ground and should be easier than temporarily removing them from the queue. However, even teleporting within a map can have decent load times and hooking up warnings to every way you can leave a map, like Elwinson listed, is still a moderate feat.

The new player argument is obviously not an ideal one, but at the time was decent. I’d argue its more important now that we’ve removed the tutorial, but ideally should not affect where you can queue from once you know how PvP works.

The WvW queue behaves much differently from the PvP queue and cannot be used as an example or launching point unfortunately.

Increasing match accept times I don’t think is an effective or fun solution to this problem.

Hi, software engineer of 14+ years. With a masters degree in the subject. While your current implementation of WvW queuing may work much differently, technically I would love to hear the argument for why you can not retool the sPvP queueing system to behave very similar. Although I don’t have privilege to your source code, I have a deep understanding of how such systems work and queuing is an arbitrary pattern for software engineers. I imagine the reason is because your queuing for sPvP is based on current instance of Heart of the Mist and perhaps you are doing some load balancing with how players are placed into instance? I don’t expect ANet to disclose proprietary design, but I do think you should be honest. Given enough effort the retooling for sPvP queuing to allow players to queue from outside Heart of the Mist is absolutely possible, it’s just right now certain powers that be do not want to devote resources to this retooling.

I think it absolutely is worth the effort if you will finally give us a premed vs solo queue. If it’s a difficult technical undertaking, make it worth it. If pre-mades have to wait 5-10 minutes to get a match at least they can be in world outside Heart of the Mist doing something else. I don’t think they would mind those long queues then.

I don’t understand why ArenaNet doesn’t invest in this. I think those responsible for leading the sPvP effort should really consider how damaging it is to continue to have pre-made vs pug groups. I imagine the general thinking is that league division play will take care of this, but I seriously doubt that it will. You’ll still have pugs vs pre-mades.

Muchacho.2390:

Well i am not even sure that Anet even wants to balance elite spec vs core spec. I get the feeling thier long term goal is to include more elite specs and balance elite spec vs elite spec.

I get the feeling that Anet wants the most current Elite specs to be a bit OP to drive players to buy the expansion…. Never forget they are a business out to make money first and foremost.

Mitch.4781:

I thought they were supposed to be a choice; optional. But, you are severely hobbling yourself by not traiting in them. The majority of them are so op or far to strong compared to the originals, you’d be crazy not to spec..especially if you are a Guard, Reaper or Chrono.

The irony in that giving us more “choice” they actually gave us less lol.

Looking at the ESL Pro Team lineups, I’d say that they are not much of a choice…There are 2-3 core game builds still effective. Maybe a few more, it really depends on the team configuration but if the majority of your team isn’t running elite specs then you will be at a real disadvantage.

1.) So combing EU and NA Pro League we see Warrior completely absent and it is the only class completely absent from pro PvP play. I know several who loved to play Warrior in PvP who have left the game over the new meta.

2.) Those still wining about Dragon Hunter meta trapper’s being OP need to learn how to play better. It’s clear DH meta is the most overrated of the new meta builds

3.) I think as the season continues more and more balance problems will be revealed though the pro team builds. Unless major changes occur, we’ll see a lot of the same in these matches. It’s a real shame that to maximize the utility of a class for pvp and to maximize your utility as a team player you are reduced to roughly a dozen combinations with one class (Warrior) not even being strong enough to compete at all. I don’t feel the balance is overall strong enough to go into a ESL Pro season and that with the balance being off it could really do more long term harm than good as respect could be lost, spectators may loose interest, etc…

Had a pug vs a premade tonight. Score ended up 249 and 40 and we realized they were coordinating on coms and controlling the map (as any good premade would) but it seems they got paired with the wrong pug group. We were all tired of these repeated pug vs premade matches and decided collectively to “quit” by all hanging out inside the respawn point. We then informed the other team or our forfeit and the reason for it.

This is the first time I’ve seen an entire team agree to do this and I think it says a lot about the level of frustration there is right now with match making of pug to premade teams. It’s to the point where if ArenaNet will not fix the problem and not give us a resign option teams will effectively forfeit by refusing to play.

For any game to be taken seriously as an e-sport the developer needs to pay much respect to balance. Pairing a pug to a premade isn’t fun for anyone. It’s a waste of time for a good pre-made and a waste of time for a pug.

A solo queue has been repeatedly ask for. I don’t care if the premade’s have to wait 10 minutes in queue! It all comes back to the developer. You can make the PvP premade queue like WvW where the players can go do something else while they wait.

The fact that these sort of matches are still occurring (all the time) shows a lack of comprehended importance of “fair fight” scenarios. IMO ArenaNet has never given a proper response as to why this hasn’t been addressed. We were told about a new matchmaking algorithm for pairing players to opponents but nothing to account for the group of like matched players where one team has a clear advantage of being a premade. It’s ridiculous this is not understood to be a real problem and that it’s been given no priority at all.

Have we crossed a threshold where the community understands the needs of the game better than the develoepr does?

Celestial : 20
Marauder : 9
Carrion : 4
Viper : 3
Zerker : 2
Wanderer : 1
Valkyrie : 1

Revenant : 8
Engineer : 6
Elementalist : 6
Necromancer : 6
Ranger : 6
Mesmer : 5
Guardian : 3
Warrior : 0
Thief : 0

A few thoughts: 1.) Dragon Hunter meta trapper was grossly overrated early on. 2.) Herlad is OP 3.) Scrapper has been the most under rated elite spec in pvp

saturn.4810:

Umm, why do some people want out weed out the casuals from GW2? xD

To focus on the PvE aspect of the game.

Causal player = Has a healthy life outside game (or plays other games), Spends time in game doing specific content for the fun of it seldom repeating content. Generally like to help casual players, puts money into the gem store to compensate for absence of time in game. Successful adults and adolescents who are engaged with sports, studies or some consuming hobby tend to be casual players.

Hardcore player = Devotes most of their free time to the game, Will grind for hundreds of hours to obtain specific mats or needed skills to achieve rare items or skins for prestige sake. Takes pride in being part of the elitist club and enjoys playing most of the time with similar hardcore players as they flood apperception on fellow guild mates over Legendaries and exotic items that amount to very nominal stat boons and a few dozen unique skins. People who don’t have much else going on in life (few hobbies, friends) and don’t have demanding families or careers tend to be hardcore types. The prestige in the game becomes a substitute for prestige in the real world. Yes it is sad and probably unhealthy (although I’m no psychologist so who am I to call that).

I have a difficult time relating to the hardcore mentality, but then again I own my own business and every hour of time time spent on something recreational is money I am choosing to give up. I can remember being thirteen and not having a care in the world… My “Legendaries” are tangible things in the real world not in game items. Yes, I can take this view and still love GW2, especially he PvP side of the game where gear progression doesn’t exist at all.

Both casual and hardcore play for the social aspect and both find fun in the game, the casual types just don’t tend to care about the prestige of specific gear. The hardcore types find fun almost exclusively in the prestige of gear acquisition even at the sacrifice of life for extremely repetitive content.

One type plays mostly for the reward you get when you cross the finish line (prestigious gear), the other plays mostly for the experience and doesn’t really understand the whole prestige aspect of the game.

MMO’s need both types to have a healthy community.

Qugi.2653:

Say Anet do everything they do like before HoT expansion release. Video, blog and allow beta if prepurchase. Will you prepurchase? Curious.

Depends on where I am in life a few years from now, but the answer is most likely. This one was great fun and I’ve already gotten my money’s worth a few times over. I do kind of hope that another game director steps. Not because I’m hating on Colin or anything, would just be interesting to see where the game could go with someone else in that spot. Overall a phenomenal expansion with a near flawless launch. Also ANet listened to the community in the first few days and made some changes for the better.

Unfortunately some design aspects just don’t make a lot of sense and the gold sink that is end-game progression for HoT (Guild Hall upgrades, Legendary crafting, amended gear acquisition for Raids) is designed to funnel players to cash shop to spend many times over what they originally invested in HoT. This is a good business model, but as a player looking at it from a high level view I don’t like it one bit and ultimately it may lead me to leave the game at some point. It depends on what exactly we get with Leagues for PvP and Living World content over the coming years leading up to next expansion.

As with anything in life it’s not about what you did yesterday, it’s about what you’re doing for me today. Hopefully ArenaNet understands that (I think they do) so the Living World content now has to deliver something compelling to hold us. We aren’t all raiding and legendary crafting. There should be more short term awards for Guild Hall progression too.

ChrizZcE.5981:

Put in a little over 700 hours which is a lot for me (the most I had before was the Witcher3 with 80 hours which is also a fantastic game) and I´m nowhere near bored. I have no real desire to play other games.

I feel like there is still so much to do.

PVP, WvW, Fractals, Raids, Map completion and events, Guild missions, leveling and gearing alts, getting legendary weapons and armor etc…

I have a feeling all this will keep me busy for another couple thousand hours.

Only big things I don´t like about the game is the lack of meaningful rewards, tedious inventory clicking and the dungeon nerfs. Other than that I´m loving the game.

I am a working adult and have been a gamer all my life but about 10 years ago I transitioned to only playing a single game (one game at a time). I spent a lot of time in Gw2 and since HoT launched I’ve pushed aside about 50% of my non-gamer activities to focus on the new content. Now I’m pushing that back a bit and have become engaging other hobbies again after finishing the story and getting a few elite spec unlocsks. I got more than my money’s worth and I’m looking forward to the PvP season.

For people who play 3+ MMO games at once, I really don’t know how they do it. They must be in game 90% or more of their free time. Nothing wrong with doing that when you’re 13 (I guess) but I can’t relate these days.

Not going to disagree with your observations, but the solution is not to put so much focus on the Gall Halls. Think about it. Guild Halls and the new Legendaries are where this gold sink is. As you pointed out the end result of all the hard work for these upgrades isn’t really of great value. Obtaining the Hall is still not that difficult, the upgrades are clearly a gold sink.

All F2P games funnel players to the cash shop. Do you really believe the only fun/value in the game comes from Guild Hall amenities and new Legendary Crafting? Be rational. I evaulted long ago that Legendarily weapons in general are not worth the effort given their nominal stat increase. Legendary armor is going to be for the top 10% of PvE players who focus on Raids during their time in game. If you must have these things to find any fun in the game and you don’t want to grind then I would agree it’s time to move on from GW2.

I think they provide plenty of content for the asking price of the expansion but for the end-game (Guild Hall upgrades [time gated so I do classify this as end-game], Raids and of course Legendarily) if you want to delve into the end-game content it absolutely has been designed to send you to the gem store with mastercard in hand often or to spend a lotof time in game grinding. This is a sustainable business model.

reapex.8546:

Celtic Lady.3729:

reapex.8546:

Celtic Lady.3729:

reapex.8546:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Was helping a fellow guildie earlier today on Auric Basin map and I really feel sorry for people coming into the game at this stage. Not nearly enough people to bring the walls down so everything was gated. Not nearly enough to go for hero challenges, let alone the meta… What was a lot of fun the first few times through weeks ago but today was truly a horrible experience because of lack of players.

Use lfg.

We do this all the time.

It doesn’t always work out.

That’s understandable since lfg is largely player driven. It’s up to people to decide when they want to taxi or not taxi. Sometimes players are more willing to do it than other players. So there are maps that are filled with people but no one advertises, so other players stay on less populated maps until more load in.

True. And sometimes people try really hard to fill a map by advertising and taxiing and not enough people answer the ads and join up.

And sometimes people succeed in filling up a map but the map empties out again halfway through the events and meta. Thus more time is lost/spent filling it back up.

Point is, so much trouble filling maps and having to hop maps and watching maps go south leads to frustration and burnout. Especially this early on in new content.

Not everyone has time to spend or wants to spend their time waiting around filling up an empty map or hopping around enough to find a full one in order to get things done.

And there are already so many reports of thinly populated maps and failing events and metas that I think keeping this system going long term is probably going to be a real problem.

Yes, a lot of the map population issues is people driven. Especially with taxi’s not getting people because another map has already filled up with people.

Nothing in the game is truly “people driven” ultimately the game design is what gives the players in the game their objectives and funnels players to specific content. It always comes back to the design (good or bad, in this case I would say bad) the gaming community only goes after things the game design gives them incentives to. Never blame the community for targeting specific content. You can however, blame the community for just being rude in map chat, rude after being paid for a run, etc… Unfortunately I would say on the new HoT PvE maps the attitude of the community has become the worst I’ve encountered in any MMO.

ArenaNet would like to believe this is not true. There was a video they put up a while back when the game went free to play where they boasted about all the players lining up to help new players coming into the game…. That spirit is completely gone on the new HoT maps. What we find in map chat? People angrily venting (worse than this message board), people begging for help and not getting it. People offering absurd amounts of gold for help (and probably getting it), people complaining about not having enough on the map to do meta, gated content, etc… People asking for taxi’s.

From the heart, it’s absolute garbage and an entirely different experience than what we had out the gate when HoT launched not even a month ago. Anyone who reads a positive review of HoT and buys the game for someone as a holiday present as a result of review is following obsolete advise.

While the utility of gliding, mushrooms, etc.. and overall mechanic of mastery and elite specialization unlock add great value along with the new map designs which range from best in game (Verdant Brink) to horrid (Tangled Depths) ultimately the developer has failed to provide needed incentives to keep the game population on these maps and that is not a mild oversight it is a critical issue that has largely destroyed the experience of the game. Two weeks in I would have given HoT 10/10 for rating. Phenomenal. Today I would give it 4/10. I refuse to allow the community in the game to be blamed for a game design that has driven the population away.

if I were a designer or developer on the Gw2 HoT project I would take all this to heart and take it very personal. I would consider it my failure to deliver a sustainable, quality product and if I were a lead designer I would hold some closed door sessions to explore immediate action to patch things back together (namely incentives to get people back into the HoT map). To not take this problem seriously is to be delusional and (a bit arrogant) about the state of where things really are. Unless of course ArenaNet built the expansion only to provide a grade A experience within it’s first two weeks of release.

Again, the game studio’s design is what keeps players around. Don’t scape goat the problem to gaming culture in general or trends “oh this happens with every MMO expansion”. Well, perhaps it does because no studio has correctly innovated and provided incentives. If any ANet designers are reading this, might I suggest reading Tynan Sylvester’s excellent book Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences.

quaniesan.8497:

These folks doing raid simply taking up slots that are highly needed for doing t4 in VB. A lot of AFK or people just simply stand there and staring at the post right below being overtaken. T4 night time in VB are now much more difficult to get because of these raiders. If fractals are located in LA, why not raid too.

Yet another post that shows the gaming community in GW2 often puts more thought into the design than the development studio. I would suggest moving it to the Silverwaste instead of Lions Arch

ChrizZcE.5981:

Don´t have full ascended gear and I´m a scrapper/hammer engi.

No group wants to have you if you are not the right class and don´t have fully ascended gear.

This game is no different than WoW now.

Duffy published a Raid guide that includes engineers/scrappers. Suggest you study it and see gear recommendation. Once you match what people are looking for and advertise yourself, you will get a group.

Otaur.9268:

Seriously… RED GREEN and BLUE? I know so many people who cannot see Red and Green. Please give players a color scale option for alternate colors. When guildmates cannot see the difference between a Red and Green enemy, it is bad. Can you add a color blind friendly option please…

I have geographical dyslexia (yes it’s a real thing, no it’s not funny when you have to deal with it. It’ the way the brain processes spatial informatin ). VB and Auric Basin push me, but Tangled Depths is too much. I paid other players to run me around.

Smoosh.2718:

Ok, picture yourself as someone who has just hit level 80 been playing for 3 or 4 months and wants to get the new legendary weapon. How on earth are they to get the gold or materials without resorting to heavy heavy grind?

Mastercard + Gem Store

Yes and while you get temp banned for 5 minutes, hackers are running rampant using free accounts (so no fear of getting banned) + latest hack tools to do all kinds of deviant acts in pvp. They need to nix the dishonorable for missed queue (it’s kind of ridiculous and was never a real problem when dishonorable was disabled) and they need to restrict free accounts. Do not let free accounts into sPvP or only allow them to queue with other free accounts.

• Provide season end league division tournaments for top three tiers below Legendary (since Legendary tier top teams advance to Guild Challenge league they don’t need a tournament, theirs is the BIG one). If this is too much work, consider providing ANet sponsored tournament for top eight guild teams in League division right below Legendary.

What I would really love to see is an entire week of playoffs for each League division with gem store prizes for winner increasing the higher the division. So if we have six divisions the best 8 teams in each division would face off in something like this.

Season end playoff week

Thurs – Bronze division top 8 guild team tournament
Friday – Silver division top 8 guild team tournament
Sat – Gold division …
Sun – Platinum division …

Get announcers, broadcast on twitch. While not everyone gives a kitten about ESL you will have guildies come watch and rally on friends if their guild team makes it into the tournament for their division. You’ll create excitment across the whole spectrum of sPvP and not just the elites. If you give the lower divisions tournaments and make it exciting you’ll draw more people into ESL because the lower ranked players will have more reason to study the mechanics of the ESL pros. (same reason high school basketball players study every game in he NBA). There has to be ranked progression for league divisions. The best in a given division need to have a shot at something, they need their own tournament.

Yet so many times we see game studios go about it backwards. The studio wants their game to go ESL so bad. It’s end up not growing naturally and the base who would watch and care just aren’t there. If the spectate numbers aren’t there then it’s pointless. Want spectators? Show respect and give competitive progression to the less hardcore PvPers.

I realize resources are limited, but I feel like the PvP side of the game is still an unfinished mess. My specific grievances

• No good spectate mode. Spectate is limited to live private server events and live hot-join matches only. We need the ability to spectate spectate/replay the last few guild team matches after game. IMO this is critical to the e-sports manifesto as with any pro (non E) sport teams review games to see what went wrong. Without this it’s all blind speculation unless every member records a stream, puts it up on youtube and the team painstaking re-watches the match from every perspective. Without this feature feature players can misinterpret what’s going on and give bad information to team post game. The ability to improve one’s “game” based on detailed understanding of what the team did right and right is critical to any sport and as implemented in GW2 spectate mode is grossly inadequate for this purpose. As implemented it’s just a fun side feature

• No history of previous matches. Once we exit the game the score card goes away. How hard would it be to achieve this information and make it available to us? It would be nice to have a record over the past few weeks (if not perm) of who we played against and who we were teamed with, outcomes, etc.. As implemented the score card is ripped up immediately. In ranked matches this design shows no respect at all for the hard work the two teams just put into it

• Build save/restore feature. Everyone is asking for this, not just the pvp crowd. Is it really that difficult to implement? I suspect other motives are at play (e.g. concern about character slot sales declining)

A few other things

• Unless it is the developers intent is for Necromancers/Reapers to confuse the other team with the number of minions being controlled, I believe minions of any kind (pets, undead, spirit weapons, etc..) should be marked as a restrictive color when “Team colors” option is enabled. I suggest yellow. As it stands part of the minion Reaper’s mechanic is simply making it difficult for a player to call how many of the opposing team are on point. Yes, I know Mesmers sort of do the same thing, but the difference is Mesmer’s redundancy is easy to spot the decoy. So I don’t think mesmers should be impacted.

• The PvP meta has been reduced to all Elite Specialization builds. PvP Meta is the result of community voting and observation of pro team play.The bottom line is PvP is now all about the Elite Specializations and many are crying that PvP is now “pay to win” in that HoT is a pre-req to one being able to be competitive. Will also say reducing serious PvP to a half dozen core meta builds is very sad. While it’s so much fun that it won’t send me away, a good many are quitting because Warrior is no longer viable or their old Guardian build is now superseded by a ranged trapper they are expected to play. We didn’t see major balance patch to the core game pvp meta builds which just means the Elite Specializations in meta all are collectively OP over core game meta. This is no surprise as it helps sell HoT, but it is disappointing.

• Remove the ridiculous unbalanced maps from the game. Spirit Watch and Skyhammer are problematic maps due to the mechanics (Namely Skyhammer) these maps are fun for light-hearted play, but can not be taken seriously as they feature mechanics that deviate too much from mechanic of Conquest. The secondary mechanic of Spirit Watch (the better of the two questionable maps) often reduces the game to “death match near orb”. Skyhammer tosses hydro-lifts, “trap doors” and the possibility of being knocked to your death. While I can see the designer of Skyhammer thinking it would be a lot of fun to make the map so busy, the problem is all the additional mechanics going on deflate too much from Conquest. For consistency sake it is a horrible map with unforgivable design that will never see ranked play. For unranked rotation, Courtyard should be brought back in as a check box option like Stronghold but make the Courtyard checkbox label “Deathmatch”. Remove skyhammer from rotation, add Courtyard (when checked)

• Revamp the Heart of the Mist. Give us an area to duel with PvP builds (GH arena allows duels with PvE gear so it doesn’t compete), Include ability to fight your doppleganger, re-introduce Heros Ascent

• We need guild team leaderboards by division. Would like to see where we place inside our respective league division. This is not only a reasonable thing for the community to request, in a big way Leagues make no sense without this feature. We all want to know where we stand. You say “but wait Leagues patch isn’t even available yet”. True, but it’s clear where priority level of PvP stands with ArenaNet. Recent Guild Chat video on this subject even implied the Guild Team leaderboard feature (across all divisions) has been scrapped. If that’s true don’t even bother releasing Leagues. We must have division level break down to make progression fun. If this isn’t coming, please hire someone for PvP side of development that understands the basics of competitive sports and the psychology behind what draws fans and competitive players in. It’s clear there has been a disconnect.

• Provide season end league division tournaments for top three tiers below Legendary (since Legendary tier top teams advance to Guild Challenge league they don’t need a tournament, theirs is the BIG one). If this is too much work, consider providing ANet sponsored tournament for top eight guild teams in League division right below Legendary.

Thanks all

Was helping a fellow guildie earlier today on Auric Basin map and I really feel sorry for people coming into the game at this stage. Not nearly enough people to bring the walls down so everything was gated. Not nearly enough to go for hero challenges, let alone the meta… What was a lot of fun the first few times through weeks ago but today was truly a horrible experience because of lack of players.

As currently designed I feel the maps as unsustainable with dwindling map population as the game community has moved on beyond the HoT PvE maps to WvW, Fractals, Raids, etc… The strongest incentives seem to be acqusition of acended armor for raiding (we know ANet said exotics are fine. The community as a whole seems to be ignoring that stance and requesting full ascended gear for squads, leading people to work fractals, etc… to try and obtain them) also new Legendaries are leading people back to core game for Legendary Crafting mastery.

Bottom line? It seems the majority of the population has moved on to specific content almost all of which is outside the HoT PvE maps. ArenaNet the new maps are largely empty now and mechanics of those maps are not sustainable on small populations so please tune and scale as needed. As is the new maps are largely broken save for Dragon Stand and VB metas which are both still popular.

Exotrax.4207:

So , I’m trying hard to grind xps doing events but since the raids came out , maps (even VB) are quite empty.
Yesterday I ran around VB trying to find a small group to do events and we were 3 people (from 8pm till 11pm).
Normally when I find no people in maps I go do some crafting ….come back after 1/2hour and than map is full again……but really lately no one doing events , so how I’m supposed to level up my mastery ?
Another thing I disagree with HoT is that now became almost impossible play solo and the only way to do meta-events and gain some good amount of xps , is to play with big group of player …..I really miss the old quest system , at least you can play solo and progress anyway.

Don’t get me wrong , I still love the game and the map design is great , is just that Anet seems more focus only to make a game for players that only play in groups and not for casual players.

Maybe I’m wrong….what’s your opinion ?

Depends on time of day you play and what other meta events are going on in the game but in general the maps have been dead (compared to first two weeks after lunch) for a while now. Now that raids are here everyone is trying them with pug groups, that will soon go away as people realize “no you really can’t pug these”. In general the maps will continue to decline, though. People will return to WvW, PvP, Fractals and now organized Raids so that’s population not in PvE.

As time passes ArenaNet will nerf the content to accommodate smaller populations (this started two weeks after launch and continues) but sadly that wonderful rush of full PvE maps with players everywhere is gone from HoT and not likely to return. Same story with every MMO.

With the few that are on your map, there is the problem of aligned incentives. Outside meta’s you’ll all likely be focused on different hero challenges, etc… The answer to solving this problem is player paying player (ANet has no policy against this). I have offered gold in change for help with runs (Tangled Depths is horrid) and also for partying up for hero challenges. This is effective. It’s a tool you can use to give other players incentive to help you, because as it stands the game design doesn’t really do a great job at that when the map population is low.

Inoki.6048:

This game has a big ESL sticker on it, if you don’t see it the glue was bad. But even with that I fail to see how others cannot see the blatant imbalance and I don’t believe no pro player ever brought up the disadvantages many classes have compared to others, beginning (in this thread with your Ele) with Druid e.g. – that class is a very bad joke.

I don’t understand your comment because the sPvP side of the game that’s relevant to ESL has no gear progression whatsoever. That’s right, your legendary armor and legendary weapons give you zero advantage in PvP. They designed the core game this way and it remains this way in HoT.

Can understand your frustration with the crashes. If I were dealing with that it would be enough to make me put it down for a while as well. This is not a rebuttal, but some general thoughts on your other points

• The expansion is not over priced. Please see the retail price of the last few World of Warcraft expansions for comparison. The price you paid is new norm for expansions in 2015.

• Elite Specializations – You do realize it was originally set to 400 hero points for unlock!!! The community got fired up and ANet compromised at 250 which means capping all hero challenges on the first two maps and then picking up a few more on the third or going back to core game and picking up missing hero challenges

• I suspect the Dungeon nerf is temporary and designed (in part) to shift player population around a bit. Core game dungeons have been with us for over three years and they are all some players have been doing. Agree we need more 5 man tactical combat, it seems improving Fractals is where this will happen.

• Guild Halls, I agree with you on this one. They designed them for large guilds. In the weeks leading up to launch one of the developers proclaimed “Small guilds will not be left out” and at that time we really didn’t have any context for the comment. It was if someone stormed out of a closed door meeting at ArenaNet to proclaim victory. That comment has led me to suspect they were at one time going to be much harder to fill up. The timer gating is suppose to be the mechanic that helps smaller guilds but I agree with you it’s not good enough

• The game no longer feels casual to you because suddenly there’s a lot of new content to do and you want everything done right now. It’s about competing with other guilds for guild hall features, it’s about competing with other players to get things done first or unlock certain things to be able to enjoy playing the game a unique way. That’s part of good MMO design. You’ve been playing the game so much because it’s designed so well that crazy fun and very hard to break away from.
  
  Not defending every decision ArenaNet made, but unlike many studios/publishers ArenaNet has been listening to the community and making changes. The patches will keep coming and the tuning will keep happening.

NinjaWursti.9627:

Can we now finally get that buildsaving feature or build templates (whatever you like to call it) for PvE and PvP? Please?

So many reasons we need this.

Awe.1096:

Nah. They should hire some hardcore guild like DnT and invite them to ArenaNet for few weeks of testing. Ask them to kill bosses several times and then record their fastest kill and set the hard-enrage timer to that value. There you go, legit challenging content for you!

^^^

Ok. Your idea wins

People are already getting to 90% completion on the first raid wing, clearly this content is not difficult enough. PvE “grand masters” need to be challenged more. ArenaNet please consider making raids more challenging by shortening the clock by 10 seconds for each retry attempt make this restriction account bound and displayed clearly to squad leaders. Have it so the restriction continues to stack up to 10 minutes and resets weekly. That should keep the new content new for most everyone for quite some time.

mistsim.2748:

they did what I feared the most when elites were getting announced: they left the core profs in the dust, giving most of the new tech and fresh design ideas to the elites. core specs might as well not even exist.
…

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

DD ele still works. Soldier engie rifle still works. And warrior was proven OP by Crysis yesterday. So you got that.

LOL

If you tuned into the ESL Qualifiers this past Monday (stream still up on official Twitch channel if you missed it) you witnessed the ugly truth… PvP this season will be all about maximizing Elite Specializations. Winning teams will consist of Elite Specs with perhaps one core game classic meta spec in the mix to round things out.

Bear in mind meta becomes meta because it is what the best in game figure out is most optimal given the utility of the class and it’s team function. That spec is upvoted on sites like metabuild.com and can also be observed in hot-join, etc… Meta builds rise up from the community, they are proven. ArenaNet should be constantly monitoring them to see where balance needs to be placed and see what is OP. The fact that meta is now dominated by five builds and those five builds are all Elite Specs speaks for itself about the current balance issues.

A more optimistic perspective is just to accept that the game will always be changing. Buy HoT if you haven’t already and learn to play one of the Elite Specializations builds. If you want to pout about no longer being able to run a specific build on a specific class you can but it’s not going to ever be like it was. We all knew a meta reset was coming with HoT. Adapt!

I created a guild years ago and have kept it although I am the only member. Now I hate the name of the guild and want to rebuild it under a new name. How do I do this? There appears to be no way to edit guild name and no way to leave if you are the leader or disband the guild? Please help

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

well, i founded and started running a small casual PvP guild (Choo Choo Train Vanguard [CCTVpvp]) after some conflict of interest with the original PvX (Choo Choo Train Volution [CCTVpve]) guild that i founded 3 years ago.

they insisted on running weekly PvE guild missions so i created a new casual PvP guild to run weekly PvP guild missions instead.

the new casual pvp guild has around 30+ members from the original now turned PvE guild and we have some dedicated pvp players and some pve players but does some pvp and is willing to help out with some of the “harder” pvp guild missions if they are free to do so.

we are mostly malaysians so our time zone is GMT +8:00
not sure if your time zone would fit ours though.

basically, the new casual guild rooster is a list of people who have interest in pvp for me. if i wanna clear some weekly pvp guild missions, i check the list, then whisper them to see who wanna do some pvp.

but, we’re still very casual at the moment, not using voice communication, so if you are looking for slightly more competitive pvp players then perhaps we’re not the ones you are looking for.

Thank you for the response Deimose. Yes, I’d prefer a team interested enough that most members are on voice coms. Good luck with your team, though. It’s nice you’ve organized a group. Like minded players having fun is always priority.

DavyMcB.1603:

Generic false assumption.

A few good players teaming up together to bypass team arrangement, making team composition skewed. That’s pretty much as far as it goes. It takes a lot more than just being in the party to be a premade. And it’s usually obvious since the first few seconds if you’re up against REAL premade: where each of them heads to, class combination, spec combination, confidence & aggressiveness, etc.

Real premade are still not that abundant in PVP. I play almost every day and maybe I face a full premade once every two weeks.

With the guild team as now an entity that will receive it’s own leader board and be the entity that places a team in the league system. The paradigm is set to shift completely away from the solo lone wolf who likes the envision himself the savior of the pug group. In the past there has been no real strong incentive in game for players to form “true pre-mades” but with the new guild pvp team option + guild team leader boards + leagues (which are 100% about guild teams) again the focus has shifted and teams have much more incentive to be on comms.