Guild Wars 2

Phadde.7362:

How come this thread is already on page 2? Aren’t people more upset that we only have 1 game mode 2 years down the line?

These type of threads have been going on since launch. Most people are tired of talking about it, but newer pvpers and the most stubborn veterans still bring it up every now and then. There was a whole thread that’s stickied onto the forums, but ever since that thread’s been locked, the devs haven’t mentioned anything else about new game modes. They’ve spent all their time on the last update and the China release.

dylan.5409:

Speaking of Wow, I kinda miss Alterac Valley. A bunch of small but necessary objectives, npc’s and a time limit/ game plan unlike WvW zerg.
Will settle for any new game mode ty

I was a big battleground junkie myself and can play BG’s all day. I loved arenas too but I just hated having to grind to keep up with gear (arena seasons). If there was anything like WoW BG’s here I’m sure they would have tons more people playing.

WilnerGW.3275:

Theres no arena 3v3 cuz theres no Healers, IMO.

In a 3v3 fight, the entire team would try to kill the same player, and there is nothing he can do.

I mean, if you arent a “bunker”, you wouldnt survive longer than 15s in a fight you are being atacked by 3 enemys, cuz theres no enough healing to keep you alive.

Even if your teamates help you with support/buffs/CC.

Thans MY opinion, what you guys think?

In 2’s and 3’s a healer wasn’t necessary in WoW’s arenas. I’ve seen 2 mages and 1 rogue teams and lots of other dps only comps. It just depends on the team. I do miss being a healer myself, but Anet is adamant about not having a healer so I’m dealing with it. Healers add a different dynamic to team fights because if the opposing team is focusing your healer, you have to peel them off. If they’re focusing you, then you healer has to do his job and keep you up. I feel a healer promotes a lot of teamwork.

That’s why I quit playing Soloq, because no one takes it seriously anymore. I’m glad there are still a few that are, but for the most part, people are in it for dailies, points, etc.

I think points should not be awarded until the end of the match, and EVERYONE should get the same amount of points for winning so that bunkers aren’t shafted for doing their jobs. There should be no points for kills, capping points, destroying treb etc. That way, there should no reason why two or more people are capping a point and there would be an actual incentive to win the match because that’s where the reward comes from.

Everything being discussed here has been brought up numerous times over the last 2 years. Anet wants conquests to be the defining game mode and will continue to force it down our throats regardless of what the pvp community wants. The devs won’t address it and have dodged questions about game modes (except for the CDI thread) for the longest time. There’s no public test realm and whatever they’re doing behind closed doors is for them to know only. We have no say in what direction this game is heading so that’s why we have players who don’t care any more.

MrYay.7063:

Now, GW2 may not have the weapons for reaching simplicity in the scope of eSport because:

- Character class mechanics are all different. What is excellent for an MMORPG is not necessarily good for an eSport game. I mean, if you look at Ele where you have 4 attunements, Engineer with kits, Rangers with pets, Weapons swap in general, 2H/dual wield, etc. And I am not even counting on skills inside water. You need quite some training before understanding those concept, I mean for players not used to MMORPG.

- Character roles are not obvious and clearly linked to your build, which consists in Traits, Sigils, Runes, Amulets, Weapon Sets and Utilities. In theory any class can be bunker, burst damage, sustained damage, controller, support/heal, support cleanse, condi damage, etc. Let’s compare it to Moba. Any “hero” in a Moba will have a pre-defined role, and it is during the game that you will give him a specialty. Indeed, for newbies this is also quite difficult to understand if you didn’t play the tutorial. But still, here is the powerfull concept: during character selection, you can agree with your teamates what will be the orientation of overall your team. So if you are new, you can take the time to build slowly your character during the game. Even skills are aquired 1 by 1 for most Mobas. One things that help is the indication on which items works best on the “hero”, which are known as “recommended items”. Anet could provide pre-selected builds that fits to the class most.

- With respect to the visibility of GW2, well I don’t know what to say, a lot of special lights/particle effect coupled with Teleport/invisibility/AI spam and fixed camera make it difficult. Maybe a viewer mode could have a default particle/light effect mode with these toned down. I don’t know, Anet are the experts. Still, it is hard to review/learn from a game, so maybe a replay mode could be added too? For instance, At the end of the game, either you could rewind/replay the game, with slow motion and stuff, or you could download the replay, which you could share.

- Different game mode to experiment. The current Deathmatch is a good start but I would have made the battle field flatter, much wider with stuff to break LoS and maybe some trap to activate as secondary battle field mechanic.

- Concerning the diversity in tactics and strategies, this is obviously inherent to the game mode/map. You could think about this: how come RTS/MOBA players play always the same map per game mode without ever get bored? Maps like Forest of Niflhel and Battle of Kyhlo are really good, but objectives to win a game could be broaden. For instance, why not think about point locking for a period of time? And another mechanic to unlock the point? You could either guard the point unlocker or conquer other point. Etc. Anyway, I think you get the point.

PS: ArenaNet or anyone else want to discuss about game design/economy in more detail, just PM me.

^This. Especially defining class roles so that the game is much easier to understand for those viewing. Unless you actually have a lot of experience in the game, you couldn’t tell a power necro from a condi necro until you see them fight. Although I don’t agree with character progression during a match, have their roles defined from the beginning of the match will go a long way for viewers to be able to understand what that particular character is doing or is going to do.

New maps with better objectives (not just standing in a circle) are needed. The secondary objectives causes too much confusion as a viewer, e.g. in Legacy, people would wonder why no one goes for the Lords most of the time, but would think that since they exist, they would play a primary role in winning the map. Personally, I think Legacy would make a great mini-moba map where the primary objective should be the Guild Lord and structural objectives placed throughout the map can be used to weaken the walls/guards defenses. Similar to what was described.

The creation of TDM was a good start, but since Anet/NCSoft is trying to monetize everything by creating an entry barrier in order to play it, it would never be mainstream since there are a limited number of custom arenas (that a few people paid for) that are TDM. So what does everyone else have to do in order to play TDM? They either find a way to pay for the custom arena or wait for a spot to open in an existing one.

Wow, just logged in and was trying to figure where all my armor skins are and to find out I need transmutation charges to equip skins that I spent a over a year unlocking made me speechless. I don’t have a character past level 4, never planned to PVE, and now I don’t plan to play this game ever again. Level to 10 to get shoulders? Are you kittening kidding me? Can’t believe I kittening wasted my time on this piece of kitten garbage of a game.

A lot of veteran necros thought that dhuumfire was not necessary. At the time of implementation, the necro community was asking for mobility and CC buffs but instead got dhuumfire. It’s good to have access to a powerful condition such as burning, but to have it proc on crits makes it too passive of a tool. I think having it proc on Life Blasts is a decent idea, but we won’t know how it will affect our gameplay until it’s actually implemented. I see what the devs are trying to do with making the game more active and since DS is so underused in condi builds, it forces us necros to be a little more active and to use all of our abilities.

A MOBA-type game mode was brought up a few months ago on one of the CDI threads. I believe the devs said they were looking into it, but the general consensus among the pvp community is to not have any player progression (leveling, unlocking skills, etc.). A MOBA game type would also require a much larger map depending on how large the teams can be especially if it’s a five man team. I voted for a MOBA game type myself, but it should definitely be all about map progression and small scale fights to control resources, but no one should have stat advantages from leveling. That’s just my opinion anyways.

Soloq is supposed to teach new pvpers “how to play the game like it’s supposed to be played.” With no other avenue for them to learn, where are they supposed to go? 5v5 hotjoins are never full so the experience is not like it would be in Soloq where the players are committed to playing the entire match (minus the 4v5 from AFKers).

I feel there should be a rank requirement for Soloq and discourage inexperienced players from queuing (not Teamq because inviting a lowbie to play on your team is the team’s prerogative), but that would mean making all hotjoins an “unrated Soloq” and forcing all hotjoin players to commit to playing the entire hotjoin match and starting all hotjoin matches when both teams are full. I would be glad to wait a few minutes for a hotjoin queue if it means that all matches start full and not have people jump in and out as they please or team stack because one side is up by 100 pts and they want an easy win.

Uhtameit.2413:

SuperHaze.4210:

Homicidal Toaster.5836:

My issue is that I do focus on point suppression, but they just leave the point briefly to kitten on me and then they cap the point while I bleed out (if they decided not to waste their sweet time stomping me).

Even a zerker ele is support dps at best. Just like others have said, wait until the patch and then see if eles can be brought up to a better place. There’s probably nothing wrong with how you’re playing, just that eles are in a really bad place right now and needs some buffs.

He said he was doing no damage as zerker ele, so again, I beg to differ. There is certainly something wrong with how he’s playing it.

Maybe he shouldn’t be trying to take a point as a staff ele (or an ele at all) and zerker staff eles aren’t great 1v1 against a thief unless you take EA, AS, and/or mistform (which would still make it tough), but eles are really at a disadvantage overall. Zerker staff eles rely on positioning and team fights in order to be effective. He might do better as S/D fresh air, but that’s not what he’s running so for his situation, he’s limited to the role of support dps. A zerker staff ele can wreak havoc with a hammer war as long as he can keep his distance and the warrior is CCing for him to keep the enemy in his AOEs.

Instead of just saying that he is playing ele wrong, you could maybe offer some suggestions…

Chase.8415:

style.6173:

This is a good addition for the PvP lobby. Some servers such as TC already have a great lobby, but if you go to Anvil Rock, it is a ghost town.

Which is sad because Anvil Rock was literally the PvP server until like a few months ago where everyone either quit due to balance reasons

Balance is just one of the issues for players leaving, but the game got really stale because of the one game mode and that’s why I stopped playing myself. I can deal with the imbalances, but one game mode just made the game extremely boring. New game modes would shift the balance in favor of other builds that aren’t the meta (such as a siege map that would make condi builds less effective overall).

Homicidal Toaster.5836:

My issue is that I do focus on point suppression, but they just leave the point briefly to kitten on me and then they cap the point while I bleed out (if they decided not to waste their sweet time stomping me).

Even a zerker ele is support dps at best. Just like others have said, wait until the patch and then see if eles can be brought up to a better place. There’s probably nothing wrong with how you’re playing, just that eles are in a really bad place right now and needs some buffs.

Team stacking is definitely a huge issue for hotjoins and I would like to see hotjoins be treated like Soloq and Teamq, just unranked so as to not affect personal ratings. I don’t see the benefit of being able to hop in and out just because your team is losing or to jump on the winning team when the match is halfway finished so you can steamroll your way to a quick win.

Soloq and Teamq is not for everyone. There are those that want to play in larger teams but in order to make it fair, every game (regardless of 5v5 or 8v8) should start full and players should commit to playing the entire match or risk a dishonor debuff. Larger and separate maps should also be designed for 8v8 so that 8v8 doesn’t feel like being a can of sardines. Maybe a separate dishonor system for hotjoins (like 5-15 mins non-stacking) should be implemented to discourage hopping around. To players that want to test builds in unranked matches, they would need to play at least one entire match to fully test their builds anyway so I don’t see it as a problem.

I would imagine it would be hard to improve targeting since body blocking exists and the camera can only zoom so far out. It would improve visibility greatly if the camera can zoom out back more so that I can click my targets easier, or maybe have nameplates above the players, but the screen is already too cluttered with particle effects.

I’m not a fan of the down system by any means, but at least only allow one ally to rally when one enemy dies. It sucks when one dead teammate rallies three enemies.

Can’t really pass judgement on the new traits without actually seeing how they affect the game/meta. What bothers me is that while they’re hyping up this balance patch, there’s no mention of new game modes. If there were more game modes, certain specs that are considered OP might be rendered useless. That’s why I feel there should be less emphasis on the conquest meta. Actually there should be less emphasis on conquest period and the devs shouldn’t be wracking their brains trying to balance everything when they should be making a more diverse game that doesn’t force you into one mode that everyone’s been tired three months after launch.

People need to realize that there is never going to be complete balance (although the devs should act sooner on hotfixing certain things in order to keep off-balance in check) and that doesn’t bother me one bit. What Anet should focus on is class specialization and give up on 1v1 balance. If you want to tank, play a guard or war. If you want to dps, play an ele or thief, etc., or at least limit each class to performing two roles well(e.g. eles can heal or dps, but can never bunker).

The no “trinity” idea was great prior to launch, but after a year and a half, I feel it’s never going to work because (1) it alienates a group of potential players who actually enjoy healing, and (2) there’s more balance in a team setting if say, two dps classes goes up against a healer and tank. Even the top esports games (a la LoL) have defined roles that each player must fulfill in order to win and that forces players to actually use teamwork.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like this question. As you said, our focus right now is to better integrate sPvP with the rest of the game. This will hopefully do one major thing: Bring more people into sPvP that are already playing Gw2. This will mean more competition, and better matchmaking. The new ladders (which I hope you’re giving feedback for in the CDI thread) should be a good way to gain prestige for being the best.

Apart from competition and prestige, what kind of things are most attractive to the high-level players? Personally I’m not hyper competitive and play all parts of the game, so the rewards overhaul will be amazing for me :P

What’s the point of asking that question when no one hears the answer? Most of the high level players left and they have a long trail of posts and comments that you guys at Anet can go over and read if Anet really cared. I’ve played since launch and like most players are playing until something is either done about the state of PvP or something better comes along. I personally don’t expect balance like a lot of players are shouting about because I understand that an MMO will never achieve perfect balance. What I want out of ongoing development is transparency. Nothing has changed in the 1.5 years since launch. Players are still kept in the dark about what the devs are doing or even looking at (e.g. rewards being removed and no mention of what is going to replace it). Yeah there was a stream that showed us sketches of possible new maps, but other than that, hardly any info about ongoing development. I guess at this point there is no point in asking questions because we as a community will just end up raging at ourselves for even asking questions.

Lagging in Capricorn 10:00pm PST.

Less lag during the middle of the day but mostly lagging in SPvP maps. Everything is fine in HotM.

Truthfully players just need to give up on PvP getting any major revamps. Every patch from launch to now was progressively smaller and minor. Yea they added a bunch of passive skills and heals that tried to draw you into PvE, but they advertised sPvP to be separate from all that so the contradiction itself shows that Anet just wants people to abandon PvP for PvE and WvW.

I’ve played from launch and I’ve basically quit, aside from a couple of matches every few days just to pass an hour. Just like everyone else, I had high hopes for this game, but when you see the hardcore players leave and there’s nothing Anet is doing to try to retain its most loyal players, you get the feeling that they don’t care. They do just enough to shut everyone up, but the game itself is broken so patches aren’t gonna cut it. NCSoft probably thought that sPvP was a one time investment with minor tweaks after launch, but they launched a bad game and they didn’t want to throw anymore at it to fix it because it’s B2P. So the devs probably got shortchanged too because they lack resources to do anything other than redesign the same maps to make us think we’re getting something new.

I feel that the PvP development threads are just for them to take notes for an expansion. I honestly don’t think they’ll put any more effort in PvP development. There won’t be new maps, no new game modes, nothing. Because if there was something in the pipeline, they would announce it to get the players excited, but all you see is stalling and things being ignored or swept under a rug. Would I pay for an expansion? That depends on whether the next team of devs are open, honest, and transparent about what they’re planning and working on. And I would definitely wait at least 3-6 months after launch to see if the game is worth buying.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

In general I love the concept of the downed state. I think it’s the one thing that makes a game without healers (and tanks in pve) work. So no, I would not have it removed.

In a Teamfight downed state really shines. I do recon that there is a problem in 1v2s though, seeing as if you outfight 2 opponents and down one you will still lose generally. Maybe starting the “finish him” move should give a short aoe interrupt? So you could interrupt the rezzing enemy and then stomp the downed player? In a teamfight you usually have stability so it wouln’t matter but it could help 1v2s.

Also all classes downed state abilities need looking at. IMHO thieves do too much damage, a lot of #2 abilities suck, ranger healing is insane, etc.

The thing is that you might stomp one of the downed enemies with stability (although not every class has easy access to it), but in that 1.5 secs, you’re just a sitting duck face tanking damage just to stomp someone you beat. When you do successfully stomp them, you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose to the second player.

I hate down state and wished it was removed, but I doubt that’s ever going to happen. What bothers me more about DS is that finishing a downed player can rez multiple players. It’s great if you’re the one stomping with several teammates that are down, but being on the flip side sucks. It also makes 1v2’s impossible. I would think that if I outplayed 2 or maybe even 3 players, that I would be the only one standing, but downing a player who’s throwing rocks at you, or better yet a mesmer getting a rogue out that hits like a truck while you’re trying to take on his teammate, is what’s wrong with downstate.

Basically, you’ll never win a 1vX because of downstate.

How about stating your class/build and asking people on the forum for help with beating an MM Necro instead of just yelling OP? I understand the game is not completely balanced, but maybe you’re not focusing on the right targets when fighting an MM Necro?

I find the biggest problem with warriors is not the healing sig, but the amount of damage they can do on top of all the CC they have access to from the hammer. That’s where the trade off should be.

A lot of problems with conditions stem from easy application, overall damage, and easy access from multiple classes. I feel the only condition that should do damage is bleeds and burns. Everything else should only be a debuff to a stat (e.g. reductions in crit, power, vitality, etc.) or be an impairment to movement. That’s how attrition should work.

When giving condition access to a high mobility class such as a warrior, it becomes much harder to counter whereas a necro has few escape options so there’s a better chance at beating him before the conditions wear you down.

Zinwrath.2049:

nice to hear someone else say that Geff. I personally been preaching this since beta, there were a few other game reviewers that said pretty much the same thing…though they were a bit more brutal into breaking down every aspect of where the foundation for a competitive game were messed up in the design. (rng on abilities being a huge red flag to this).

Unfortunatly the amount of work it would take to get it into a healthy state is incredibly far off.

Unrealistic solutions if this game was remade from scratch as a pvp only focused title would include.

1. Limiting rune/sigils to only a few at max, with high impact on a core set of play style strengths. (if they were ported over at all)
2. Limiting amulet stats to 1 spread of stats to every character (aka, there would be no amulet)
3. Similar to where WoW had to finally go in the attempt to make things balance, professions would be better broke down into a few clearly defined play styles. Examp: tanky/turret eng, buffer/medgun support eng, hard hitting control shotgun eng, etc. This would be a chosen path with appropriate stats for the play style, with limited Major rune choices for limited customization to that play style, to allow for flexibility in map types.
4. game mode that actually encourages multiple class roles. Right now the “hold the point” style is very stale for roles vs mobas that are designed so you need a multitude of roles for different objectives and the eventual 5v5 team fights that come mid/late game. (“Heroes of the storm” pretty much lays out what guild wars 2 pvp shoulda been)
5. Create combat that is a bit less “spammy”. A energy resource tied into all abilities would be one way to solve the issue, or just simply fewer short cd abilities.
6. Downed state removed or heavily redesigned.
7. Out of combat regen removed. It encourages a lot of hit and run tactics that are boring to watch, and also removes a lot of risk to combat. Also self heals longer cd’s across the board.

These are some changes I would have made, that would at least give some customization without throwing the game to the wolves like they did where any kind of predictable balance is incredibly impossible to achieve.

I guarantee if they had released the game with the changes I listed above, this game would be immensely more popular, even if things weren’t 100% polished…or even perfectly balanced. (no moba is…yet they’re still incredibly popular, suppose they’re just balanced enough).

But at the ROOT of the problem, you have the fact this game was NOT designed to be a pvp game. Creating an amazing PVE mmo with some pvp was the goal. When making spvp, the head of development did not hire people initially with expertise at making competitive pvp games, nor did they give appropriate resources to it. It cant be blamed, it was obviously not the primary goal of the game, and it will never be. For the spvp game to have succeeded, it needed an entire team devoted to making a good pvp game…not a pvp game for an mmo. This is the biggest difference from spvp for guild wars 2, and any major pvp title. Like “LoL”…it is simply a pvp game. That is their only focus.

+1

A lot of good ideas here. Especially the removal of out of combat regen. Maybe they can create a team controlled heal node like Smite’s arena, but it can only heal for a set amount before the the node has to recharge.

Specialized roles are what teams are made of, but class/role specialization is based on map objectives, so if the only game mode is conquest, then bunkers are the only required specialization. Like I said before, with Anet trying to let every class do every thing (although some do it better than others), there will be no balance. The rock paper scissors approach will create better game balance as a whole rather than trying to balance 1v1 because this is a team game first and foremost. If you build for CC, then you shouldn’t be able to kill a bunker, but you can keep them locked down with well timed interrupts for a teammate to attempt the kill, etc.

I think the whole esports thing should be set aside for the moment as Anet really needs to focus on balance and redoing/creating the game modes that will make it an esport. With conquest being the only game mode at the moment, it’s clear that this game mode is not meant for esports. The combat is too fast paced and the map objectives make it really hard to watch. Particle effects are too kitten the eyes and make it really hard to watch the actually battles. Shoutcasters are talking so fast to keep pace of the match that I just end up muting the whole thing. Slow down the pace of the game and create more meaningful map mechanics so that viewers can see the match progress in the sense that the team as a whole is working towards a goal instead of players playing for themselves.

I also feel that part of the problem is how Anet tries to make every profession capable of doing everything. It sounded like a great idea at the time, but over the last year, condi spamming is out of control and bunkers are a requirement in every team comp and there’s no way to win without one.

I think new game modes might allow Anet to become esports, but they have to go from a checkers game to actual chess. Every move a player or team makes has to be calculated like it is in Dota and Lol because while combat is fun to watch, most of the excitement comes from successfully overcoming a map objective (like taking down a tower) or making an important kill (a kill in spvp doesn’t hurt as much as it does in mobas).

tldr:
Focus on balance or reworking the professions to have a specialty and create new game modes where one might potentially be the new esports map.

There will never be complete balance in any mmo because there exists different classes. The only way I see balance is if every classes has the exact same abilities but animated differently. Of course no game will ever do that, but this is where Anet is trying to go with every class having some access to similar abilities and builds (i.e every class can go power or condi). Since there are no specializations in each class because of the removal of the trinity balance seems a lot harder to achieve while trying to maintain some level of uniqueness to each class.

Thedenofsin.7340:

SuperHaze.4210:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Put more tools into custom arenas:
Turn nodes on/off
Change point rewards
Change gravity
Add/remove buffs and conditions
Mapvote
Randomize weapons/traits
Change skyhammer damage
Profession limits
Disable/enable weapons/gear
Enable costume brawl
Place in game weapons (e.g. Deathmatch plankfight)

I feel that custom arenas as a way to monetize pvp didn’t work. Aside from the lack of options for customizing arenas, most people don’t want to pay for the ability to design a map when a game like Starcraft provides that for free. GW2 custom arenas should have all of the above but for free. On top of that, to have to pay to keep it active doesn’t make sense.

I’m not interested in the monetary aspect of it. I’m interested in putting some basic tools in gameplay variety into the hands of the gamer.

For example: if I had a custom server with all kinds of knobs specified above, I could create a ‘team deathmatch’ server, where I could turn off capture points. Then I could make some observations and tweak the teamsize to get it right. Then I could enable/disable certain buffs or what-not to balance it out.

Think of it as ‘distributed processing’ for a pvp solution: if you have a few hundred people creating custom servers with differing game modes, you will quickly iterate and separate the viable solutions from the chaff.

Also, you could create fun stuff, like the ‘wooden plank deathmatch’ server. That kind of variety would make the game fun without requiring any long-term maintenance of game modes on ANet’s part.

I agree that custom servers should allow for a lot more customizing, I’m just concerned that custom servers would be limited to those with gems thus limiting access to players. I just got off track with what you were trying to say.

I’m just not sure if custom arenas is the best long term solution even though new and fun game modes can be created this way. The only success I’ve seen with this type of map architecture is in Dota and Starcraft, but since GW2 is less rts than the two I mentioned, I would think Anet would want to create one specific and consistent game mode for everyone to play.

Tranassa.4968:

How long does it takes for what number of developers to create a single PvP map in average?

What is the biggest problem/challange in the developement process?

Do you take inspiration from other games, when you create a new pvp map?

Are there any plans to involve the comunity in an mapmaking process, for example by doing a design contest?

Are there plans for bigger and more epic pvp maps? For example a castle within the mountains, with secret passages and gates that can be opend by capturing a controll point, which highly focusses on small splits rather than larger team fights (for that we already got wvw).

^This

I think it would be beneficial for Anet and the dev team to be entirely open on how much work actually goes into building a map. I’m not a programmer, but I know how much work can go into designing anything, whether it be a car or a game map. I think it would keep a lot complaints to a minimum.

With that said, seeing as how the dev team is pretty limited on resources but have a lot to potentially work on, what map/mode would they want to work on first?

Would they prioritize and easier built game mode that can be release sooner like TDM and CTF? Or would they want to take on a big project like a moba style map and hold off on the other things?

Thedenofsin.7340:

Put more tools into custom arenas:
Turn nodes on/off
Change point rewards
Change gravity
Add/remove buffs and conditions
Mapvote
Randomize weapons/traits
Change skyhammer damage
Profession limits
Disable/enable weapons/gear
Enable costume brawl
Place in game weapons (e.g. Deathmatch plankfight)

I feel that custom arenas as a way to monetize pvp didn’t work. Aside from the lack of options for customizing arenas, most people don’t want to pay for the ability to design a map when a game like Starcraft provides that for free. GW2 custom arenas should have all of the above but for free. On top of that, to have to pay to keep it active doesn’t make sense.

The money lies in customizing your character. Having paid access to most of the skins (not all of them though) and dyes would generate a lot more money. It doesn’t hurt gameplay and if people want rewards through pvp, there should be a special set of skins, dyes, etc. for those who have earned it. I would spend more in the gem shop, but the selection is very limited for pvp players. I bought Primeval Heavy armor set when it came out and would by the Phalanx set too if I didn’t spend so much time on my Necro. The lack of good light armor skins (Profane and Trickster are really ugly) and dyes keep me from spending any more money in the cash shop.

I would rather put out money for things like the Scythe Staff skin and lots of dyes (although dyes should be account bound not character bound), since I don’t pvp at all and don’t plan on doing it ever. But I’ll happily open my wallet for more skins cause I’m limited to what I have through pvp and don’t have much gold to buy the skins that other players offer in the auction house.

Maybe when downed you can only try to heal yourself and get rezzed by teammates or have the option of dying and going back to your spawn point (which would make it a strategical decision if your home point is being assaulted)

The problem with downstate is that it makes it almost impossible to win a 1v2. There are times where I outplay two people, but when I down one, they can still put out damage and CC me with their #2 skill. If I try to stomp, then the other will keep dpsing me. If I’m cleaving while the other is attempting to rez, more likely than not my CC’s are on cooldown cause it takes everything when going 1v2 and they’ll rez them enough that they can dps me a while longer (or in the ranger’s case, Lick Wounds + teammate rez will guarantee a rez). If I disengage, then it’s a guaranteed rez and they’ll come and finish me off.

- Scale back overall damage so that you actually have a chance to survive a 1v2 and slow down the pace of the game so that spectators and shoutcasters don’t need to bounce around all over the place just to keep up

- Scale down the particle effects and either add casting bars or make casting animations easier to see

- Increase the camera range so that I can better see what’s going on in the battle field

- Less passive abilities so that necessary counter abilities require more skill and timing to use

- Different game types (TDM, CTF, KotH, GvG, MOBA-style, etc.) and larger maps (especially for 8v8 and up)

- Reduce access to multiple conditions (no one should have it all)

- Better queue system for both hotjoins and tpvp (queuing into a match means committing and leaving hotjoin matches should punish you like wow’s battlegrounds) and let players queue hotjoins together so that players can actually play with friends and guildies (no more auto balance if the queue system and leaver debuffs are similar to wow’s)

- Some kind of dueling area in the mists or like wow when two players duel, they can only do damage to each other

- Merge the Mists between all servers so that all pvp’ers can be in one place or split between NA and EU only so that can promote a unified community

- I don’t want to bring up balance until more game modes are created because an op build now might not be as effective on a different game type, as long as overall damage is reduced first

I don’t play lol, but have a lot of friends that do and the one thing that stands out to me is a kill is worth a lot to your team. Since the game is a hybrid of rts and rpg, there is a lot of strategy involved so zerging is a guaranteed loss. Granted that a kill in GW2 grants earns your team 5 points, it’s not detrimental enough in the beginning of every match so you see a lot of players charge a point against 2+ players and they usually end up dead. Overall damage is what leads to the fast paced combat of GW2 and I think it’s unhealthy. Unless you’re on TS, it’s really hard to call out incomings through team chat which explains why no one chats during matches. By the time I can type out “2 inc mid,” I’d already be engaged in a battle to even survive long enough for someone to come and help me defend the point, and that’s if my teammates had map awareness

Many players here have asked for a moba style map not because they want a moba clone, but they want more strategy to the game (myself included). I’ve tried lol and hated the playstyle with the constant clicking. GW2’s combat system is way better and if it can be implemented into a more strategic game mode, I can see myself playing it all day.

I also think the reason why hotjoins and pvp in general is in such a terrible state is because players hop in and out with no consequence other than the recent changes where you can’t get your rank/glory points if you leave. I know ppl are going to say “that’s what hotjoins are for,” but I still want to pvp with a dedicated group of players but not have to worry about ruining someone’s rating because I’m not playing hardcore. In the casual pvp realm with everyone hopping in and out, no one commits to the match. You even have players leaving so they avoid the stomp. In wow’s battlegrounds, everyone has to queue on every map and games don’t start until the rosters fill up. If you leave the battlegrounds, you get the deserter debuff for 15 minutes. That was a huge deterrent for me so even if my team was losing, I would stick it out and try to make a comeback and at least I still have my whole team (or most of them anyways) to make that happen. Way too many times I’m in 8v8 and 5 players rage quit after being down 100 points, then autobalance kicks in and you have 5v6 until more players join. By the time the game fills up again, it becomes really lopsided and more players will rage quit and so on.

tl;dr

Tone down the damage, add a real deterrent for leavers, fix the hotjoin queue system, and create more game modes so players have more variety and can CHOOSE what they want to play.

I just hit 40 recently (no farming) after playing since launch and I don’t mind not having a lot of rewards, but I’m just really tired of conquest as the only game mode.

Lupanic.6502:

Because your teammates hates you. I had such a guy yesterday. He wrote: team is not ressing. I am afk.
He did not leave the base until we lost. He was not afk but he was just chatting and blaming people. Hate….. just hate….

This is what makes conquest such a bad game mode if you don’t have a team. If it was a TDM game, he would’ve just died and left. In wow bgs, they would rage quit, get a deserter buff, and a new player would come and take his place. Or the whole team can report him afk and he would be kicked and replaced.

At the moment there were some changes to classes and some new maps (but same old conquest). Leaderboards and MMR are still an issue and there are no new rewards.

On the plus side, Anet finally started a thread to talk about implementing new game modes (TDM, CTF and maybe a moba style map), but those talks started about a couple of weeks ago so don’t expect anything the next few months either. They also mentioned rewards, but with the way the game is, it’s not going to be anything game changing.

I’m against a moba game, but a moba map would be cool. As long as there’s no skill/level progression, I think it would be a good option just to have on top of TDM and CTF, which are the game modes that Anet seems to be leaning towards based of the now locked collaborative pvp thread.

Maybe something along the lines of fighting for control of a tower (which promotes more fighting) and that remains in control for the capping team for a period of time, like 3-5 minutes on top of providing a small buff like +15-25 to all stats during that time, but if you don’t gain control of the next tower, you lose that buff and the opposing team can regain control of the capped tower. I think that would promote a lot of team coordination. Loosely based on Strand of the Ancients in WoW, but two sided. But yeah, I would hate having to start with just an auto-attack and have to earn my other skills/utilities or having to “level those abilities up.” That’s what turns me off from moba games. That and last hitting for gold.

I play necro mostly but as a DS power necro. I don’t like the condi spamming so I choose not to play it even tho it’s the more effective build atm. I also play a power rifle hgh engi. I try to stay away from the fotm builds and classes because I don’t like getting whispers from players saying I’m using a fotm build/class. I also played warrior in between the frenzy nerf and stopped after hambow and skullcracker became popular.

Healing power scales poorly in general and it seems (and correct me if I’m wrong) that your only on-demand source of fury comes from Rampage as One. That’s 20s of fury every 3 minutes. Your runes give you a 5% chance to proc fury when you’re hit, so it’s an unreliable source of fury. Your other option is to change your offhand weapon to warhorn for 15s of fury, might, and swiftness every 35s just to make more use of the burst dmg bonus.

If you want to build for more survival then you would need to do more sustained damage and outlive your opponent. In the case against Caed, if you switch from axe/axe to sword/dagger, you would have more evades to survive the burst. That would be the only option if you wanted to keep your build as it is.

With that build it’s better to run with soldier’s amulet. Since you have such low crit, crit damage bonuses from the valk amulet is useless. Are you going for a support with sustained damage build? With the soldiers amulet you get an additional 6k health so you’ll be able to take more hits. I’m not a ranger expert so maybe someone will have better suggestions in terms of how you traited your points.

I play a DS Power necro the majority of the time and I’m ok with the defenses we have. I run spectral armor/walk and either wall or a well depending on what I see. When I do run the condi build, I feel ok because I don’t focus on chain fearing every person I fight against nor do I rely on DS to tank all my damage. I save my staff fear for preventing stomps on teammates, and use spectral wall if a group is attempting to run at me and I need to get away. The only fear I use often is the DS fear.

We don’t need invulnerability and I think there should be less invulnerability skills because it lets players take more risk with less consequences. I’m still on the fence about stability because I learned to play without it and I’ve managed just fine. I feel that it being 30 pts in Soul Reaping is a bit far for just 3 secs of stability, but stability as a buff overall should only be accessible to tanking/bunker builds on all professions.

We have access to a lot of cc (chills, cripples, fear) and that is what our defenses should rely on. I think DS should have two sets of abilities though, one for power and one for conditions (we should only be allowed to run one set) so that there can be more build variety.

Not many thieves can successfully land these combos, most are HS spammers so they’re easy pickings. Don’t worry it happens and this is a good example how a well played thief can pick you off.

If you state your class and build, I’m sure someone here on the forums can give you some tips on how to survive and counter the burst.

EverythingEnds.4261:

The only thing I rly would like to have changed on stealth is, that if attacks out of stealth get blocked, you dont become revealed.

^This.

Stealth as a mechanic in any MMO is fine because stealthed classes like thieves should be allow the preemptive strike because that’s what they do. The problem is that there is less risk for a thief in GW2 to attempt the preemptive because if they miss, they can try, try again until they do land the hit.

I think WoW had it right where a stealth player getting too close can actually be seen and if you spot the rogue fast enough you get the preemptive strike. Other than that, stealth in WoW is used to reset the fight IF the rogue runs far enough away.

Stealth is so embedded into thieves (stealth+heal+remove condition) that it takes away some of the skill required to play such a complex class type. I’m all for letting thieves have more stealth or evade, but they need to make sacrifices in order to get it.

Soul.5947:

How about a game mode where there are 2 teams of 5 people. Fights are just 1v1 and when one member of a team dies another instantly replaces him. Last team to have people alive wins. People should be able to spectate the fight until their turn comes but they should not be able to change skills/traits or weapons in order to counter the enemies build.

I like the sound of this. Maybe this arena can be placed in the mists so that people can hang out and watch.

ZenoSpyridon.1396:

Random arenas forced more “jack of all trades” style builds as you never knew what team members you were going to get, Competitive helped players learn to make specialized builds that rely on each other as team members more, and this allowed them to be prepared to move in to HoH/GvG.

But the important thing, relative to what we have now, is we need some type of progression OUTSIDE of looks. Looks are great, but there has to be other things too. And for looks it needs to be something dramatically cool or different, and a sign of accomplishment. The current ones are just,… a grind really.

Totally agree with random arenas forcing players into different builds. Tired of seeing 5 zerker builds focus firing someone down in 2-3 seconds.

With rewards, there definitely needs to be skins available to those who have earned it instead of the farmers. If Anet chooses to, I wouldn’t mind spending real money to buy skins too, it’s just that the available skins in the gem store are mediocre at best.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ multiple people who commented on progression, ala moba games: We agree. While I think that leveling up and acquiring items/skills/gold is core to moba games, I think we can do something different which fits an MMO. I think we can give you guys the cool aspects of an MMO + the some aspects of a moba which fit our game well.

Glad you guys feel that way. Like I’ve said in my previous post, map progression should be the primary way to achieve victory with maybe a small buff from killing certain npcs like on Forest where you get +50 to all stats for a few minutes.

Yasha.5963:

Mobas do have a level playfield, that’s one of the main reasons why they are popular as an esport.

However, I don’t disagree with you view on just taking elements of mobas either. The rpg/progression side could be done more subtly by just unlocking weapon skills as the game progresses, possibly also with npc or other buffs (as we already have in spvp).

Improving the power of npcs over time through upgrades and such also sounds a good idea.

The rpg or power progression through a moba is what enables it to have start/ mid/end game plays and adds a layer of strategy.

As to length, it would have to go for 30-45 mins on average- but there are other shorter game modes already. So as long as you have the choice of which mode you want to play that sounds fine to me. Certainly the length of moba games doesn’t seem to have stopped them from being incredibly popular and highly competitive.

I don’t play DoTA or LoL so I have no idea what balance is like in those games. Thanks for enlightening me. The only thing I know about MOBAs is that there is a lot of mouse clicking involved lol and trying to get the last hit on a minion to get the gold.

My problem with the unlocking skills through game/level progression is that I don’t want to spam auto-attack until the game progresses where I can unlock my other skills. That adds to really long game times. I guess we’ll have to wait to see where Anet wants to go with this, but I’m sure they’re wanting to keep matches short enough where it doesn’t take 30+ minutes to play a match, especially when they’re trying to release other game modes like CTF or TDM. It seems (correct me if I’m wrong) even upcoming mmo’s like Wildstar and ESO etc., don’t have the same combat mechanics as GW2 so Anet has the ability to implement tons of different game modes that require active combat. I just hope they get these out before those other games get released so that we don’t lose anymore players.

Most teams seem to be on hiatus until there are enough changes to the game for them to come back.

Everyone wants shorter queue times. That’s a given, but if you have to sacrifice quality matches then there’s no point in it. Like I (and many players) have said, the issue is the population. The more people that pvp, the shorter the queue times and there wouldn’t be a need to place a low MMR player into a match with high MMR players just to get a match started.

aaron.7850:

what killed this game for me was the major buff to conditions

“what utilities will I bring?” “how should I open?” “when should I disengage” are questions I asked myself some months ago whenever I faced an opponend… but right now? Its all about “how many condition removal my class has?”

conditions should never have been worked as a primary source of damage, it lets these classes have tanky stats while doing insane damage. conditions should always have been a secondary source of damage.

its even worse in wvwvw where condition duration is mandatory in food and runes…. if you dont have those then you are a dead man. its just sad how power builds are useless right now

This is exactly what is hurting pvp right now. That and pets. I would rather play in a cc heavy meta than a condition heavy meta at the moment. The spamming is completely out of control. Engagement into a fight should require a lot of thinking into risk and reward with the outcome of the match determined by who outplays the other through the timing of blocks, dodges, and cooldown management.