Should f2p acounts bite the bullet in pvp?

Hacking is an issue and it will continue to be an issue no matter what anet does but what anet can do is to limit the influence of hackers or even make bans a bigger deal.

Rn a hacker can go to pvp, the Ats and wvw and make the experience for others fairly miserable, anet can ban the hacker but the hacker isnt losing anything, they can make a new f2p acount and continue ruining the gamemodes. In this case f2p is multiplying the problems hackers create for the game to a big extend and im curious if the players base thats f2p and participates in pvp and wvw is worth the degration in quality due to hackers.

I dont want to gatekeep anyone out of the game but when anet has seemingly hanned a hacker multiple times only for the hacker to make new f2p acounts and continue i think the easiest solution would be to lock f2p acounts in unranked only for the time being to at least ensure if a hacker wants to go to ranked or ats that theres a b2p acount on the line. That should in theory deter most of the hackers right?

Edit: Another idea suggested by ppl here is raising the pvp rank requirements for ranked. Imo it should be set at 80 so getting into ranked in the first place is more of an investment. Im adamant though that Ats should be off limits for f2p acounts (anet risks the most dmg to their reputation if hackers are trashing the bigger pvp events so easily)

The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

For pvp i was thinking of only locking ranked and ats unranked would still be available to all, plus tbf the f2p version is more of a glorified trial.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

Still a no go. There’s no reason to lock that as it’s not pof or hot content

For me it's a YES! kind of..I'd definitely exclude f2p accounts from ATs and increase their entry level for Ranked.. I think you need to be PvP level 20 for ranked atm? yea.. I'd increase that to at least 30 or maybe 40. Legit new players can still play Unranked and get into the game mode and if they are feeling it they can buy the game or can play long enough to get into ranked. It's not that reaching pvp level 40 takes a huge amount of time anyway, let alone 20.Also.. a ton of stuff is behind paywalls already, EVEN KITTEN TRADING POST AND MAIL, why the heck make a competitive game mode completely available without any restrictions whatsoever. Guild Wars 2 is still a b2p game, the core game being f2p is just an pretty big demo or unlimited trial time and NOT the full game so treat it as such in the other game modes pls.

I would be against it. I have an alt account that doesn't have xpac (got it before GW2 became f2p). I enjoy playing it for fun and do some ranked on it as well. I don't think one need to limit pvp for f2p accounts just because of few hackers. I think it would be better if Anet support actually spent more time banning few hackers than limit experience of thousands of players. It shouldn't be THAT hard. Also, pvp community is small as it is - why make it even smaller?

F2P accounts should have to reach rank 30 or more before entering ranked gameplay and tournaments.
That requirement would then be reduced to the usual 20 for unrestricted accounts.

And if rank 30 isn't enough and cheaters keep abusing F2P accounts, then raise the rank to 40, then 50 and so on. And if they keep at it even after they reach 80, then the PvP rank should be uncapped like WvW rank which goes past 10K, and keep increasing the requirement until cheaters using F2P accounts give up because it takes too long.

@Cynz.9437 said:I would be against it. I have an alt account that doesn't have xpac (got it before GW2 became f2p). I enjoy playing it for fun and do some ranked on it as well. I don't think one need to limit pvp for f2p accounts just because of few hackers. I think it would be better if Anet support actually spent more time banning few hackers than limit experience of thousands of players. It shouldn't be THAT hard. Also, pvp community is small as it is - why make it even smaller?

Apparently some hackers have been banned multiple times but getting back in to resume is as easy as making a f2p acount.

In wp's vid the hackers had 19 ap (the baseline for new acounts) so its obvious that they are using f2p throwaway acounts.

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:F2P accounts should have to reach rank 30 or more before entering ranked gameplay and tournaments.

That requirement would then be reduced to the usual 20 for unrestricted accounts.

And if rank 30 isn't enough and cheaters keep abusing F2P accounts, then raise the rank to 40, then 50 and so on. And if they keep at it even after they reach 80, then the PvP rank should be uncapped like WvW rank which goes past 10K, and keep increasing the requirement until cheaters using F2P accounts give up because it takes too long.

I dont think f2ps should be allowed to join ats at all frankly, some of the hackers just want to ruin the experience and hurt the studio so id lock the gates completely for the most competitive events in pvp.

I'd rather deal with the hackers, bots and actual f2p players, than having my queue times quadrupled.

It's not like the clown show would get any better without them anyway.There simply aren't enough players doing PvP to get fair matches.

go the dota approach, if you want to play ranked you have to verify your account via phone. should deal with bots/hackers to a certain extent.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:I would be against it. I have an alt account that doesn't have xpac (got it before GW2 became f2p). I enjoy playing it for fun and do some ranked on it as well. I don't think one need to limit pvp for f2p accounts just because of few hackers. I think it would be better if Anet support actually spent more time banning few hackers than limit experience of thousands of players. It shouldn't be THAT hard. Also, pvp community is small as it is - why make it even smaller?

Or they had recently purchased the game. You can't really prove whether an account is F2P or not; only Anet can.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:I would be against it. I have an alt account that doesn't have xpac (got it before GW2 became f2p). I enjoy playing it for fun and do some ranked on it as well. I don't think one need to limit pvp for f2p accounts just because of few hackers. I think it would be better if Anet support actually spent more time banning few hackers than limit experience of thousands of players. It shouldn't be THAT hard. Also, pvp community is small as it is - why make it even smaller?

True, but why would you purchase the acount when you can just use a free one instead? This just feel like a weird arguement.

Not to mention, from the gameplay they seemed quite knowledgable about the game and they were using builds that compliment their hacking tools.

Doubt many 19 ap players would be able to perform at that lvl.

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

For PVP I say definitely don't let F2P players into ranked or tournaments. They can still experience the content via unranked. Plus, with the power bonuses of elite specs they're not really competitive. There's very few viable core builds anyway.

Verify by phone or just dont let them play rsnk or at

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

Well it’s wrong cuz you are already locked out of ranked at the start and from monthlies. Core is perfectly viable- core necro condi and even minion or bunker builds, core ranger many viable bunker and roaming builds even condi, core war support and duelist both viable, core thief condi dp and sd are viable, core guard burn power burst even the bunker build or support could work, core rev condi isn’t too bad and I could go on but those are the good ones for the most part. Core is perfectly viable in ranked.

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

No pretty sure i made a smurf account for kicks and giggles and it seemed pretty trivial to get a ranked char. "Isn't too bad" =/= competitive.

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

Some of these options I presented are isn’t too bad, they are literally meta contenders...

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

It's also about role you're filling. You'll notice the most successful teams normally have people swap chars based on comp, with more limited options core players aren't bringing that to the table.

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:The answer is obviously ofc not- the game is offered as free to play and restricting a whole game mode is a blatantly out the question idea.

That’s a completely separate issue. In ranked what maybe 1 person swaps, in ats maybe a lot... but that’s mostly cuz ppl are on meme builds than swap to try hard ones

fist question when I hear words "f2p " is should f2p account have pass to ranked ? .. my answer - NO

@zealex.9410Here is a better reason for Ranked and tournaments being locked to buying the game, Arenanet is losing money on this, there is no reason to buy the box if you play PVP all of PVP content is available to you in F2P. I find it kinda weird since PVE is more locked out then PVP, the TP is locked out , the mail is locked out and the better farming spots are locked out, the best gold on T4 fractals is locked out for a long time till you get Ascended gear and doing that on F2P costs allot. So for F2P, PVP has easier access to gold and ascended gear then doing the same in PVE.F2P should be just a trial which lets you see the game on its basic level, so you decide to buy the game not a way to play the game for a long time. Arenanet is business and they should make money, but they seem terrible at giving incentives for people to give them money that feel fair, they either overblow it by giving too much like the F2P or too little like the Build templates.

f2p accounts should not be allowed in ranked. f

@Jekkt.6045 said:go the dota approach, if you want to play ranked you have to verify your account via phone. should deal with bots/hackers to a certain extent.

Or verify game login with phone that would be imo best option, Anet could also count how many time that account changed number and flaag it as possible bot account and when is coming from(its actually possible to bypass dota system with free phone cards.. well at least was possible duno how it works now, some shady people even own a generator system to burn them to the card wich also envolves also abuse from workers or stolen data/access from the isp/phone company due their free usage of the avaliable numbers pool).´

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:And if rank 30 isn't enough and cheaters keep abusing F2P accounts, then raise the rank to 40, then 50 and so on.

for hacker bot no matter it is 30 or 330want play by f2p - unreanked. Also make reward less in unranked for people who have f2p account.