Guild Wars 2

Knote.2904:

Why not let Ranger traps do like x5 the conditions they do now?

Why not make it pulse 5 burns each tic on burn trap? You can just dodge out of it when it pops right?

I think you are on to something here, nice idea. Should also give stability, aegis, daze, and be instant cast.

Cynz.9437:

Yasha.5963:

I understand the above points about wanting the elite specs to be available for free in spvp, but at the same time I am quite happy to pay a reasonable sum of money for things like extra classes, skill lines, etc.

For someone like me who really only plays spvp (and sometimes WvW) paying the price of the original game just to use the elite specs is a tough sell. I keep getting faced with choices like, “so do I buy Fallout 4 or get the elite specs?” (Its the same amount of money where I live).

If it was like $20 or something for the specs it would make it look much more attractive. Plus it seems an ideal way to monetize the spvp part of the game (like I said earlier this is similar to what Smite does), as long as it didn’t go crazy with new specs coming out every couple of months.

I am not saying that elite specs should be free. I am saying that elite specs shouldn’t be SO MUCH BETTER than core specs that it becomes a MUST to have them if you actually want to win any matches, not to mention tournaments/leagues etc.

Sure, I was referring to a different post(s) above regarding the free part. But I defiantly agree with you that no matter what the business model is, it is extremely important to have some semblance of balance, which is currently lacking with the elite specs.

Spartacus.3192:

Morwath.9817:

Tercian.5709:

You can’t allow to have 2x the same class in a match! WTF

I agree, it’s like allowing running 5x Irelia in one team!

Show Spoiler

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Better nerf Irelia!

Spartacus.3192:

i agree with regards to having multiple classes in a team but if matchmaking was made to only allow 1 of each class then i suspect queue times would become very very long.

Ques would be longer only for FOTM re-rollers ;-)

Show Spoiler

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Read: DHs.

But what if your main happens to be the current FOTM? now you’re screwed. Some people only have one level 80 or play one 90% of the time.

You don’t need a level 80 to do spvp.

Spartacus.3192:

Test of Faith does some damage on trigger but Anet put a delay on when the ring of swords will damage you so you can dodge out of the ring and not take additional damage.

Dragons Maw also has an animation which takes time before it locks you in place so when you get dazed thats your signal to dodge and the dragons maw will not get you.

Same with procession of blades you can see the blades begin to appear. If you dodge as you see the animation start and when you get dazed you will avoid all the damage.

So are there two instant cast traps or not? People here are claiming only one trap is instant cast.

Tercian.5709:

Team are running with dual class in spvp how is that balance?
You can’t allow to have 2x the same class in a match! WTF

I see a lot of 2x thief / guard* DH* gg / necro reaper per match

esport my kitten every one is starting to play a kittening flavor of the month.
Way too much DH and Reaper! where are the mesmer / engineer?

Maybe Ive done way too much arena in the past few days… but when there’s a dual class DH or Reaper it’s instant win without any challenge.

Thief are broken as kitten and I play a thief.

I can’t understand the kittening AoE traps burst that a DH can do vs a thief burst to a single target, anet what did you think seriously!?

Since the release the thief class got nerfed and nerfed to the ground because we are the stealth assassin, we use stealth as mechanic to KILL.

Anet invented revealed that screw thief game play.

Today anet I ask you to remove the Revealed debuff and give back the +33% dmg to BS.

Since you don’t want to nerf the DH… Because my BS don’t do 9977 as a critical like true shot DH camper with a kitten load of trap… yea that’s right.

I can barely do below 7.5k with BS+signet+traits if I’m lucky…gg

So now Anet you need to log in and look at the data because something is not right wake up!

Anyway thank you for reading me.

P.S It’s not a rage post.
It’s what a player thief see on the battlefield. I will keep playing for the challenge.

Thank you

Got to admit that is a funny screen shot.

Obviously the beta testing for the elite specs was a success, they are living up to their name.

Xillllix.3485:

I’ve seen 2 eles in my last 9 matches. Meanwhile I’ve seen 6 DH in a single match.

Speaks for class balance.

kitten and dodge dodge dodge.

Archon.6480:

Morwath.9817:

Daharahj.1325:

People defending DH, hilarious.

We all know if these were ranger traps they would have been useless by now.

And they aren’t?

No, no, no. Ranger traps are especially useful against things like diamond skin and boons like resistance. Yes, yes… Very, um, useful. In most cases you have only 4 or 5 seconds to dodge/walk out of them before taking somewhere between 0 and…. maybe a few thousand damage. At least rangers don’t have to say l2 dodge noob. There really is no need to dodge them…

Ranger traps are OP- that’s why none are instant cast. Thief traps even more so.

Spartacus.3192:

Yasha.5963:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Locuz.2651:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

How do you dodge something which you cannot see?

You get dazed before it triggers the dmg part.

This ^.

Only 1 trap is instant and they all put out a daze before any damage occurs.

A good player with decent ping can turn enemy Dh traps into wasted utility slots via dodges, pets, clones or invulnerability skills.

Unless things have changed recently, 2 traps are instant the others have 0.5 second casts.

They are instant cast but not instant trigger. When they trigger you get dazed but you don’t get hit with the damage till just after so you can dodge immediately when you see the daze.

So is the one instant trap being talked about instant damage before daze?

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Locuz.2651:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

How do you dodge something which you cannot see?

You get dazed before it triggers the dmg part.

This ^.

Only 1 trap is instant and they all put out a daze before any damage occurs.

A good player with decent ping can turn enemy Dh traps into wasted utility slots via dodges, pets, clones or invulnerability skills.

Unless things have changed recently, 2 traps are instant the others have 0.5 second casts.

Agemnon.4608:

Yasha.5963:

Agemnon.4608:

Let’s use a clear analogy here for a second. If you play against the world champion in chess and he lacks a queen you should still be able to beat him as the correct strategy for forcing your win should come to you: trade pieces off, get your pieces out, and reinforce lanes leading to entry points, even giving up the queen for a rook (especially if only you have a piece after sacrificing) to further simplify things to snuff out any faint hope of him recovering somehow and minimizing careless mistakes on your part (get those knights off the board they can screw things up when looking ahead!)

Likewise in GW2 if a game is balanced properly then the two should win with best play. I practice 1v2’s (both as the 1 and the 2) with the expectation I’ll lose, the real “win” is holding out for a long time and putting up a good fight and not trivially going down like a punk. It isn’t enough to know how to down players in 1v1. sometimes you’ll need to know when to play defensively and apply those tactics. When you do win a 1v2 situation you just kinda feel sad that people could be that bad or that the win wasn’t quite deserved since they’d likely start the battle down on some health and with so many critical skills on cooldown.

Haha, I would like to see you beat the chess world champion with only a queen handicap, hahahaha. Video please.

The point is sometimes overwhelming resources trump skills and those with the resources from a theoretical standpoint would win in a perfect play scenario. Yeah people aren’t perfect but one person has half the skills as two people. Two people have twenty abilities between them, that’s more interrupts, knockbacks, pull ins, heals, etc., than the one person has. Yes people have won 1v2 before but only because the two were inexperienced, in a non-optimal state (below max health and abilities on CD), or simply careless while the one’s skill more than made up for the two’s resources.

Quite true. You are probably good at chess, for a beginner like me your example seemed funny.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

grahf.7540:

I don’t think new players have any idea what hotjoin is.

I’m not a new player, but I am a new PvP player, but what is hotjoin? I know unranked and the custom arena’s as I’ve used both for my daily PvP flasks (never did ranked), but I’ve never come across the term hotjoin (and I have the feeling this is different from the custom arenas)

I am not sure of the new terminology, but when you click on the two crossed swords at the top of the screen it opens a PvP “Home” browser. That opens onto a first (home) tab that has has big buttons for “Play” unranked or ranked. The third tab on the left is called “game browser”, if you click on that a list of pvp “servers” comes up and you can choose “play now” or just click on a room to join a server. The “server 001” etc are what were known as “hotjoin” servers in the past.

In case you’re interested, originally hotjoin had the option of 8vs8 and 5vs5 games and there was no easy way to rig the matches, stack teams, or essentially “cheat” like there is now.

The problem some people had at the time was that the 8vs8 servers were all at the top, and the “play now” button would put you into a basically empty server most of the time. It was actually several months before I even found out that 5vs5 games existed. So many people asked, “since the game is balanced around 5vs5 can we have that game mode be more prominent” (obviously it helps to practice 5vs5 if you ever want to play competitively).

The response was to completely take out 8vs8 (weird, they could have just put 5vs5 at the top of the list or had a separate tab for it). But at least that meant we could practice 5vs5 in hotjoin (previously the 5vs5 servers were always half empty because they were at the bottom of the list (and you had to scroll waaay down to find them).

So things were all going reasonably dandy (at least in hotjoin) and then Anet implemented spectator mode (due to requests by community, except the community apparently wanted spectator in tournaments, not hotjoin). This was all good, but, and a BIG BUT, the way it was implemented basically destroyed hotjoin. All this team stacking, joining opposite team when losing, etc is the direct consequence of spectator mode.

Just imagine what we have now but with no team stacking, no team swapping, and a lot of fairly even games. Whenever anyone dropped out they are nearly immediately replaced with a new player, or the teams are auto balanced (not forced auto-balance by players abusing the system, actual good auto-balance that fulfilled the very good purpose it was made for). That was what hotjoin used to be. Of course it was still filled with zerging and abusive players etc, but that had nothing to do with the system itself.

There was also an incredibly fun map “Raid on Capricorn” that was taken out of the rotation, replaced with Skyhammer that is still with us despite an absolutely huge outcry from the community to get it removed (although it is much, much better now than it was originally).

I understand the above points about wanting the elite specs to be available for free in spvp, but at the same time I am quite happy to pay a reasonable sum of money for things like extra classes, skill lines, etc.

For someone like me who really only plays spvp (and sometimes WvW) paying the price of the original game just to use the elite specs is a tough sell. I keep getting faced with choices like, “so do I buy Fallout 4 or get the elite specs?” (Its the same amount of money where I live).

If it was like $20 or something for the specs it would make it look much more attractive. Plus it seems an ideal way to monetize the spvp part of the game (like I said earlier this is similar to what Smite does), as long as it didn’t go crazy with new specs coming out every couple of months.

Would be nice if we could buy elite specs individually from the cash shop like you can with gods in Smite. I mention this here on the spvp forum because its an idea that is something that would probably appeal to spvp players.

Buying the whole expansion is a lot for those of us who really only play spvp, but buying just the elite specs is something that anyone who has played a moba before is probably used to, and fits in well with the spvp setting and “esports” theme.

I know I would definitely buy specs this way if they were reasonably priced, but I am hesitant to spend money on the whole of HoT since it is the same price as the original game and I would only be getting it for the elite specs.

Exedore.6320:

Yasha.5963:

Stronghold is far more complex and more strategic than conquest.

It’s not even close. Most of stronghold’s strategy/tactics are learning how to abuse the terrible AI. Once the NPCs are dead, there’s no reason to stay. If it starts to stalemate, the only remaining depth is sending someone to stability channel mist essence for points and waiting for the timer.

In conquest, you constantly have to think about which players to send to which points, whether to add to a fight or abandon it, when the secondary objectives are worthwhile or if they’ll detract from putting people in fights.

Well I can see from what you have posted here that you have no clue whatsoever so hard to take anything you say seriously.

Liam McColgan.7689:

I hear your frustration. Pvp is in a bad state design wise. As for balance wise, i think everyone needs to chill and let the meta set itself. All these nerf threads are just amateur.

Hotjoin is a mess;
Anet has given no love to fixing this issue and i dont think they ever will. It was designed to be a fun, relaxed place where you can learn the ropes of the game and your class in pvp…….it is anything but…..
-People coming to do dailies are always ready to team-swap to get carried.
-If you loose 1 fight, there is nothing stopping you from leaving/joining another game.
-Players constant ganking and +1ing (tryharding basically) in hotjoin (where people are there to LEARN the game/their class/their traits and skills) just gives an instant negative first hand experience to new comers.
-experienced players trolling hotjoins, verbally abusing others because hotjoin is serious business right….

‘structured’ pvp is a mess;
-Solo queuing, you should NOT be facing premades of 3 or more.
-no dedicated solo queue forces you to have to face premades where your chances of a fair match is significantly reduced. Anet have released their MMR system, and they claim it takes into account team size, but most players rarely see this helping them in their matchups. Yolo queue should be a 5v5 non premade skill based fun fest.
-forcing people to play unranked, because ranked/leagues are not up, is a big fail. Most people dont have the same MMR rating for unranked as they do ranked, so this also causes imbalanced match ups.
-Unranked is FULL of premades. If you queue with 2-3 you will face a full 5/5 premade using TS. If you queue solo, as stated above, you will probably not be with/against other solo queuers.

The sooner these leagues/seasons come out the better. Forget all the QQ about class balance, the real issue here is the pvp structure as whole in this game. It’s clearly designed to be like an arcade, adrenaline fun 10 mins, instead of focusing on getting some real structure, rewards and system that is anything like ESL, esports standard.

Everyone loves to watch these tournaments, with the same 4-8 teams, but this doesnt do anything for the other 99% of the pvp population when there is kitten all to do.

Just my 2 cents on how i see pvp right now.

Well said, totally agree.

Therodin.2970:

Correct me if im wrong, but don’t you now need to meet a certain rank requirement before you are allowed to play unranked? I feel like i ran into this problem recently trying to do some pvp guild missions.

I am not sure, but if true that is definitely another big reason to fix up hotjoin, since that would mean new players would be forced into that mess. Oh boy, I have been a huge fan of this game but I am losing faith.

Agemnon.4608:

Let’s use a clear analogy here for a second. If you play against the world champion in chess and he lacks a queen you should still be able to beat him as the correct strategy for forcing your win should come to you: trade pieces off, get your pieces out, and reinforce lanes leading to entry points, even giving up the queen for a rook (especially if only you have a piece after sacrificing) to further simplify things to snuff out any faint hope of him recovering somehow and minimizing careless mistakes on your part (get those knights off the board they can screw things up when looking ahead!)

Likewise in GW2 if a game is balanced properly then the two should win with best play. I practice 1v2’s (both as the 1 and the 2) with the expectation I’ll lose, the real “win” is holding out for a long time and putting up a good fight and not trivially going down like a punk. It isn’t enough to know how to down players in 1v1. sometimes you’ll need to know when to play defensively and apply those tactics. When you do win a 1v2 situation you just kinda feel sad that people could be that bad or that the win wasn’t quite deserved since they’d likely start the battle down on some health and with so many critical skills on cooldown.

Haha, I would like to see you beat the chess world champion with only a queen handicap, hahahaha. Video please.

Exedore.6320:

It’s pretty simple: Casual players like Stronghold because it’s simple. Competitive players will play conquest because it has far more strategic depth.

Stronghold is far more complex and more strategic than conquest.

Just roll a reaper and you should be able to 1v2.

hackks.3687:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Avllos.7126:

Yo, Dawg. I heard you like PvE in your PvP – so I put more PvE in your PvP so you can ignore each other and attack doors.

MOBAs have PvE in PvP, yet they are far more popular pvp than conquest.

The problems with Stronghold are due to how the map and its mechanics were implemented:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/StrongHold-plyrs-Unchecked-Box/

The MOBAs you’re alluding to use their PvE to enable the PvP aspect of the match through killing mobs to accumulate resources that can then be used to win fights and positions. Stronghold on the other hand uses PvE in the opposite fashion by making the PvP aspect nearly useless by requiring players to facilitate the PvE mechanics of the game mode to then fight more PvE elements in taking down the lord. No aspect of stronghold forces teams to engage in combat with one another in order to win the game. There’s a big difference between farming resources in preparation for combat and a PvE race, such as Stronghold.

Honestly I’m not sure why it’s included in the competitive/ranked queue. It was clearly intended for the more casual and PvE oriented players.

Honestly you are speaking out of your kitten . The fundamental difference is that in a moba your player “levels up” and the death penalty doesn’t progressively increase. In other respects the link between the pve and pvp aspects is quite similar.

Stronghold presents plenty of opportunities for pvp- as much as if not more than in a moba. The way you are describing it is like two teams playing a moba and they only focus on one lane each, just racing to break the towers behind their minions without ganking, trying to protect a lane, or taking advantage of secondary objectives. You can play like that if you want to in either a moba or stronghold, but expected to get crushed by any other team with half a brain.

I love it, pretty much the best thing Anet have done for spvp. So much room for strategy, and everything just seems more fun – the fights, the objectives, the secondary mechanics.

Such a welcome relief after thousands of hours of playing conquest over the last few years.

Because they ruined hotjoin with the poorly implemented spectate, instead of the ideal solo queue/team queue/ casual (hotjoin) we used to have, they had to change to unranked/ranked and joke (hotjoin).

So now we have everyone who might have been playing hotjoin but doesn’t want to play the hotjoin meta of team swapping/stacking in unranked and everyone who is fine with cheating in hotjoin.

Really the only good spot is ranked (when it is even available).

Yeah has happened to me a few times, this is actually the first thread I have read where people give a reasonable explanation of what is going on. In most other threads about it (that I have read) people just say “you have to dodge” or “L2P.”

Do you think there would be a lot of negative feedback if they nerfed the new specs? It seems to me they tuned them really strong to encourage people to buy HoT, if they suddenly improved balance wouldn’t that cause some issues?

I agree, especially with:

“If the object of the game is protecting a 600 radius node, why does it seem like 60% of skills in this game blanket a 600 range area. Its all bomb and forget. "

“Specializations didn’t make classes more unique, rather it made this more the same.”

“I really wonder if you can actually compete with a full team of non specialized players versus the new stuff. I would love to see this. Probably feel like Vegeta when Goku first went super saiyan. "

That last sentence in particular, haha.

Wing.5487:

If your going into pvp with “limited” stability or stun break options you really should stick to pve, skill sets are based around pve and pvp, you can’t really use pve dmg dealing skills in pvp, at least not without sacrificing something else, like utility or stability options.

Unlike DH’s there are classes that don’t have stability, stun break, aegis etc built into their offensive utilities.

But I think what galls many people is that the traps that have been in the game since launch (for ranger and thief) are so much weaker than DH traps. It is hard to understand how the balance team could let through something like DH traps and class synergies when they have a direct comparison with traps on other classes.

I think they should get a pet dragon to ride into battle on, there can be different types like fire, ice, acid etc. Or maybe the traps could auto proc dragons as well. Would be cool.

Rangelost.4857:

Taltevus.3289:

As far as tactics in game goes, I’ve seen the whole zerging and you would—well I guess the O.P would believe how many single players try to fight the zerg. However, what I see are players who enjoy the aspect of Brawling versus playing the actually game mechanics themselves. I’ve seen a lot of this. Another reason I don’t understand why a PvP mode that has less fighting was added? (stronghold)

Having worked as a software dev, I’m pretty sure it went something along the lines of:
“Hey, I heard them MOBAs are popular these days. Kids just love to watch them on the YouTubes and the… Steams? Streams? Anyway, let’s make our game into a MOBA! We can do that, right? Good! You have two weeks!”

Obviously, the people making those decisions are not the people who actually play the game. Otherwise, things would probably get done (such as locking teams), but that’s just not how companies operate.

No in fact ANET reached out to the community for ideas and the SPVP forum was host to a collaborative community development topic which lasted for a couple of months.

The community gave a lot of feedback, with the majority of people contributing asking for a moba style map and quite a few also asking for a deathmatch style map. As a result we got courtyard (deathmatch) and stronghold (slight moba flavour).

It took a long time before our feedback was turned into actual gameplay, but it was amazing seeing the devs both reaching out and providing a constructive forum for feedback/ideas and responding directly to community requests.

Taltevus.3289:

When I first started playing Gw2 (2013?) I never really understood why hotjoin couldn’t have the same..—well not even the same, at the time, just common kitten sense, added to the design. I never understood why it was like that? To purposefully make a and endorse a bad design?

ArenaNet shows the worst part of sPvP to new players then advertises esports?

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Is it really that hard to lock teams at the start? (Obviously, no) As in a player can leave the match if they choose but can not rejoin in the same lobby on the opposite team. I mean really.
Spectating should operate the same way. If you choose spectator, guess what you’re doing for the entire round? Just that, spectating, not playing 007 on the sidelines.

I think ArenaNet is betting too high on the same “dedicated” PvP users.
I personally could have done without strongholds (A suspicious PvP game mode that arc’s Neverwinter added as well) and would have preferred a complete fix for the entire lot of sPvP.

As far as tactics in game goes, I’ve seen the whole zerging and you would—well I guess the O.P would believe how many single players try to fight the zerg. However, what I see are players who enjoy the aspect of Brawling versus playing the actually game mechanics themselves. I’ve seen a lot of this. Another reason I don’t understand why a PvP mode that has less fighting was added? (stronghold)

Originally hotjoin was quite good, you couldn’t cheat through spectate and it was more difficult to leave and reenter the same server or to stack teams. As soon as they changed the system it became the cesspool/embarrassment it is now.

As for stronghold, I find a lot of fights develop on that map and the dynamics are different to conquest which is great. I wish we still had courtyard in the mix though.

uhohhotdog.3598:

Mitch.4781:

So is it removed from the game totally???

No it’s still in custom arena

Which basically means removed from the game totally.

choovanski.5462:

ah yes, another ‘good player’ brought crying to the forums by heartseeker spam.

This made me crack up, nice.

Thread should be titled “Why to buff Ranger traps”.

Zelulose.8695:

This is why I can’t play GW2 pvp with commitment. Why should I play a game seriously if they keep taking the stuff they give to the players. They add limited time cash shop items. They removed Raid on the Capricorn. They removed Courtyard. They removed rune of the ogre and rune of the pirate. Nerfs that reduce build variety and make builds nonviable rather than toning down abused features. (Yes thieves and Warriors). They even went as far as Rearranging Trait systems for all class outside the realm of balance. I keep trying to help them by telling them things they are doing wrong like removing crafting’s ability as a source of income or listing fees on the trading post that they added to nerf marketers. But the list keeps growing,.

The Game is nice the combat is beautiful the developers’ communistic inconsistency is not.

And yet they kept skyhammer….. I don’t get it!

Also +1 this, at least in unranked.

I had several games in courtyard where everyone started complaining about how they hated the map, but at the end everyone was like “that was amazing”, because the game ended up as a really intense battle that went down to the line.

I also had many games that were just a slaughter fest one way or the other, but when it worked it was fantastic.

SlayerSixx.5763:

OK, so you’re approaching the point. The DH knows you want the point. He knows that’s he going to have to fight on point to keep you from stealing.

Knowing all of this, he places the traps that he gave up precious sustain for off point where you’ll most likely NOT trigger them since you’re still aiming to capture the point. He then tries leading you off point to trigger the traps, but you’ve already captured the point and have now begun LOSing him to avoid the true shots. He has now effectively lost the point and can only spam true shots in an effort to weaken you so he can port in, but youre still dodging/LOSing. His team is now behind because he can’t hold the point.

Stupid argument is stupid.

Here is a good example of why you have a lot to learn about playing a trapper:

The great thing about playing a trapper is that it gives you some strategic options. When people start expecting the traps on point, you put them off point to where you expect them to run through.

That DH quite possibly still had all his traps off CD, so even if that first burst was somehow evaded the DH likely still had another nuke in his pocket.

Huldrelokk.6598:

Chingiz.6481:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SubOQjSHQ_c

This is simple ridiculous hahaha and hilarious wtf

I love reading the DH players desperately trying to defend this kind of thing and write it off as l2p.

Personally I say keep DH as is, but please, please make Ranger traps this OP, er, I mean, this totally reasonable and balanced. I too want to post on forums saying just dodge out of my traps that daze and interrupt dodging, l2p, and one-shot? that’s SCI-FI.

ReaverKane.7598:

Stand The Wall.6987:

zxstanyxz.8769:

its hotjoin, if you want balanced 5 v 5 team games play unranked… issue solved

Thats not much of a solution. Youre telling me and many others to play something else because, why?

The solutions exist. HoT Join is pretty much practice mode. Many arenas there are player ran, and each has different options, you can always look for arenas that force team balance and don’t allow spectators, or better yet, buy your own arena, and set it up like that.
Otherwise you’ll have to play what you’re dealt. I really don’t understand the issue here. The whole point of hot join is pretty much that you can enter a match half-way, change builds, change teams, do whatever, and practice. Its also a quick shortcut for dailies, but that’s another issue.
My point is, you’re pretty much complaining that hot join is hot join, and want hot join to be unranked.

Not at all. The point is hotjoin has wonderful elements to it, but due to a couple of poorly implemented changes it is now basically broken. Originally hotjoin was exactly what you describe above except it was difficult to stack teams.

I remember clearly the shift from the original version of hotjoin to the monstrosity we have now. After like a year or so of playing happily, suddenly things started going haywire. Why was the auto balance triggering every minute? Why did my team start with only two players? Why did that guy keep appearing on my team and then swapping to the other team? Why were games suddenly totally unbalanced?

It was very confusing when this first started happening, and then I realized that it was due to the way spectator mode had been implemented. It totally destroyed hotjoin. Suddenly if you wanted to win you had to play the stacking and swapping game.

Absolutely terrible and a total shame, because in its original form hotjoin was quite an innovative and extremely fun spvp game mode. Now its just a cesspool that tarnishes the image of GW2 spvp for any new players that who unwittingly select to play it.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Yasha.5963:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Yasha.5963:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Laraley.7695:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Laraley.7695:

TheAngryDuckling.5481:

You can play for free. Doesn’t mean the game is a f2p model. Mike O’Brien specifically said they are still considering themselves a buy to play product. So essentially your entire argument is invalid.

I disagree. There are people who didn’t buy the xpack, but bought the core game before. It’s like they took what they bought from them, those people still should be able to be competitive in pvp.

You’re lucky you can even play with people who have the expac in PvP, to be honest. If you had vanilla StarCraft, and a friend had Brood War, did he pay to win if you were able to play agaist him? No, he’s playing Brood War now.

So come play HoT, or don’t complain that you don’t get everything for free after your initial payment. Expansions aren’t a p2w mechanic.

I have the xpack.

The reason people with and without xpack play together is the fact the population is not high enough to separate them but it still isn’t fair.

What’s another game where you don’t have to buy the expac, but you stay “competitive”? What genre does that happen in, where they don’t add new units/guns/abilities/races/etc. that take the game to a new level, but it’s still an expansion?

That would be esport type games like Lol and Smite. One of the most attractive things about Gw2 is (or was) its level playing field in spvp. Its still much fairer than other mmos I have played though.

Do LoL and Smite have expansions? In LoL, when they release new heroes, don’t you have to buy them? Does buying access to the “good” heroes in LoL make it a pay-to-win game? Otherwise I’m stuck with the rotation heroes, which may not give me a real shot at winning.

Exactly you don’t have to buy them to be competitive, glad you understand.

You don’t have to buy expansions, because expansions don’t exist? That’s your argument to me asking what games with expansions don’t require you to buy them to be competitive?

Sigh. I should know better than this. I’ll see myself out.

Its fairly straight forward. If you have to pay extra for something that gives you an advantage that is p2w. Before HoT GW2 was completely non-p2w, probably the only mmo that could claim this, at least in spvp.

Is the p2w in HoT something to worry about? I don’t think so. Its in a completely different ballpark to games like AA, where people can spend thousands of dollars to just rolf stomp everyone.

In addition, there is every possibility that balance changes will be made that bring the original specs in line with the newer specs.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Yasha.5963:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Laraley.7695:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Laraley.7695:

TheAngryDuckling.5481:

You can play for free. Doesn’t mean the game is a f2p model. Mike O’Brien specifically said they are still considering themselves a buy to play product. So essentially your entire argument is invalid.

I disagree. There are people who didn’t buy the xpack, but bought the core game before. It’s like they took what they bought from them, those people still should be able to be competitive in pvp.

You’re lucky you can even play with people who have the expac in PvP, to be honest. If you had vanilla StarCraft, and a friend had Brood War, did he pay to win if you were able to play agaist him? No, he’s playing Brood War now.

So come play HoT, or don’t complain that you don’t get everything for free after your initial payment. Expansions aren’t a p2w mechanic.

I have the xpack.

The reason people with and without xpack play together is the fact the population is not high enough to separate them but it still isn’t fair.

What’s another game where you don’t have to buy the expac, but you stay “competitive”? What genre does that happen in, where they don’t add new units/guns/abilities/races/etc. that take the game to a new level, but it’s still an expansion?

That would be esport type games like Lol and Smite. One of the most attractive things about Gw2 is (or was) its level playing field in spvp. Its still much fairer than other mmos I have played though.

Do LoL and Smite have expansions? In LoL, when they release new heroes, don’t you have to buy them? Does buying access to the “good” heroes in LoL make it a pay-to-win game? Otherwise I’m stuck with the rotation heroes, which may not give me a real shot at winning.

Exactly you don’t have to buy them to be competitive, glad you understand.

uhohhotdog.3598:

Yasha.5963:

Sekai.2987:

calling now for all gw1 veterans, i started gw with nightfall so i dont know for sure BUT in gw1 each expansion also introduced new skills and new proffesions, you could not use these skills/profs without buy the expansions….am i wrong? isnt this with every game that gets expansions?

I think the issue is that the new specs are in general much stronger overall than the old specs. Although as others have said its only another $60 (well about $80 for me). Seems a bit expensive just for playing spvp, but I certainly got my money’s worth out of the buying the original game at launch.

You can’t call it pay to win just because things aren’t balanced properly.

If you can pay to get more powerful classes it is pay to win.

Stand The Wall.6987:

sephiroth.4217:

You’re not playing something different at all. It’s exactly the same except It’s hotjoin, hotjoin is for: Dailies, new builds, boredom and various other PvP related things.

If you are after an actual game, then Unranked is there for that. 5v5 locked teams no spectators, controlled environment.

No one here can tell you what you prefer to do, but please don’t ignore peoples advice and continue to complain that there is nothing to be done.

Not sure what the first sentence is about so I wont comment. As for hotjoin being for something, yes for all those mentioned I agree. I think hotjoin could be a lot of things, but what is most important to me is finding good fights. Not once every so often, but consecutively, because when I turn on the computer I do not want to think about “well what if”.

If I’m after an actual game, unranked would be the last place I would look. Now if I had a better internet connection, I would be playing ranked all the time. That wouldnt make the state of hotjoin any better though.

They not only can, but are. I’ll stop ignoring advice when it presents a solution. As for the complaining part, I’m sorry you see it that way but I’m trying to be an advocate for change.

Its definitely worth saying. Hotjoin wasn’t like this initially and it was actually a lot of fun.

The auto balance system, the easy drop-in drop out, and ability to stay in the same room and keep playing over and over with the same people in a fairly casual environment were absolutely brilliant ideas on ANETS part.

It just fell apart due to how they set up spectator mode and allowed people to stack teams. It went from probably the best casual spvp game mode in any mmo to something really bad and worse than what is on offer in other games. That’s kind of sad.

Anyway, unranked is basically the new hotjoin now so its not the end of the world, but it is strange that it is just left festering away in the corner like that.

I think we will get more of an idea once ranked starts up, but yeah what you say seems pretty accurate, not sure if that can be called the meta though.

bbennett.7463:

I think pvp is pretty balanced atm if you are using the new elites.

Bingo, I think you have just identified why this forum is one big QQ.

Kuya.6495:

Yasha.5963:

Pimsley.3681:

You haven’t seen the epitome of OP if you haven’t seen a Herald played by a competent PvPer in higher tiers.

Your DH doesn’t stand much chance in 1v1

Its amazing to realize that DH aren’t even the most brokenly OP spec that came in HoT.

But they sure are complained about the most.

They are just clearly so much more powerful than their “mirror” the trapper ranger that its 1) easy to identify what is comparatively OP, and 2) hard to fathom how it even got through the gate in that state.

Ezrael.6859:

Avoiding traps

You should post videos of spvp. The gear differences, teamplay, objectives, and map size make WvW not a particularly relevant way to show off how to beat DH.

What I would like to see is how to deal with a guard that teleports onto you and trap dumps, or pulls you onto traps (in spvp). This is because in those situations for some reason I can neither dodge out of or stunbreak to get clear of the traps.

Kuya.6495:

Now we’re gonna complain about the daze too? kitten, might as well just delete the spec at this point.

Well the daze is one of the most powerful aspects of the traps, its an incredibly strong trait. The ranger equivalent is a trait that applies cripple that only works on offensive traps.

Sekai.2987:

calling now for all gw1 veterans, i started gw with nightfall so i dont know for sure BUT in gw1 each expansion also introduced new skills and new proffesions, you could not use these skills/profs without buy the expansions….am i wrong? isnt this with every game that gets expansions?

I think the issue is that the new specs are in general much stronger overall than the old specs. Although as others have said its only another $60 (well about $80 for me). Seems a bit expensive just for playing spvp, but I certainly got my money’s worth out of the buying the original game at launch.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Laraley.7695:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Laraley.7695:

TheAngryDuckling.5481:

You can play for free. Doesn’t mean the game is a f2p model. Mike O’Brien specifically said they are still considering themselves a buy to play product. So essentially your entire argument is invalid.

I disagree. There are people who didn’t buy the xpack, but bought the core game before. It’s like they took what they bought from them, those people still should be able to be competitive in pvp.

You’re lucky you can even play with people who have the expac in PvP, to be honest. If you had vanilla StarCraft, and a friend had Brood War, did he pay to win if you were able to play agaist him? No, he’s playing Brood War now.

So come play HoT, or don’t complain that you don’t get everything for free after your initial payment. Expansions aren’t a p2w mechanic.

I have the xpack.

The reason people with and without xpack play together is the fact the population is not high enough to separate them but it still isn’t fair.

What’s another game where you don’t have to buy the expac, but you stay “competitive”? What genre does that happen in, where they don’t add new units/guns/abilities/races/etc. that take the game to a new level, but it’s still an expansion?

That would be esport type games like Lol and Smite. One of the most attractive things about Gw2 is (or was) its level playing field in spvp. Its still much fairer than other mmos I have played though.