Let's brainstorm on solutions to the population issue

Quite a lot of issues that PvP has today are related to the lack of population. People complain about a lot of unfair matches (easy stomps), which is often caused by the problem that the matchmaking system has a very small pool of players to choose 2 balanced teams from. This is especially the case in non-peak hours. In this way it becomes more of a gamble if you're going to win a match. Unbalanced matches will decrease the population even further. Therefore, let's think about some solutions to it. How can we get this gamemode back alive again? Maybe Anet could do something with it.

So in a different topic I made a post that is quoted underneath. That topic wasn't meant for this discussion, so I moved it to here as a starting point.

''There are two types of people you can attract to start play PvP seriously: people from within GW2 itself, or people that never have played the game before. We need both groups to effectively increase the playerpool and with that the overall attractiveness of PvP itself.

So two questions raise:

1. How can we increase the pool of PvP-players by attracting GW2-players?
2. How can we increase the pool of PvP-players by attracting non-GW2-players?

On the matter of Question 1:

1. I was thinking that PvP should get more attention by incorporating the game mode in the game itself. Heart of the Mists is a distinct zone, where still basically nothing is going on. People have to travel there to find themselves in a boring area, if they even could find the two little swords on top of the screen. Why not remove the whole HotM and extend for example Lions Arch with a PvP area? You can mingle then the non-PvP players with the PvP-players. It might make the non-PvP'ers more curious about the game mode, and push them to try it out.

2. On the long term: one could think about adding race-specific skills to PvP. Its a long shot, and will cause balance issues, but not all racial skills have to be added. This might cause your play to feel more impactful on the game. This can also increase build diversity, which I think is necessary for attractive PvP.

3. Create more PvP events and give more attention to them. Make for example a weekly AT, and give a pop-up or yellow-letter message on the screens of everyone that is online that that AT is about to start. Many games have this. And why not give this pop-up also for every daily AT? Also, Anet could introduce things like double-XP weekends/double reward-progress weekends.

4. Fix the reward tracks into something more progressive, and with bigger loot the nearer you come to your goal. Currently I'm getting a box in another box that is stuffed in another box. When I open them I will have 12 green items and 1 yellow and thats it. I'd rather play 100 games to receive 1 bigger reward than receive 1 small reward for every game.

5. I can imagine that GW2 PvP has quite a steep learning curve. Its an old discussion on how to introduce new players better to the game mode, but its still an important one. Are there for example possibilities to incorporate the Mentoring system into PvP ?

6. ... Open for suggestions...

On the matter of Question 2:

1. Investing in PvP might look like a waste of money to Anet, as it initially won't give anything in return. However, if they want more players (which actually gives money in return), then they will have to give PvP attention. All the big games out there right now are focused on PvP. Streams, videos, tournaments, brands, etc. are mostly focused on PvP. PvP is the competitive game mode, and therefore gets the most attention. So I don't really get why Anet puts such a low effort into it. Yet we already get a new living world season, with a new map, new story, etc. ''Yay!''. No one outside of the players of the game itself care. If you compare how much work they invest into new maps, stories, items, etc. to how much time they invest in pvp: its a bit ridiculous tbh.

2. Anet should open up a bit more on the long term plans. Let people know what they can expect. If you can make outside people say ''wow!'' with those plans, you attract them into trying out the game. Take an example from Ashes of Creation.

3. Giving the base game for free is a good step I think by Anet for luring new people into the game. However, these people will find PvP an unreachable game mode, as they can't use the elite specs. Would it be an idea to open up all elite specs in PvP only? New players can then immediately be as competitive as old players. One of the strong suits of GW2 PvP is that gear doesnt matter and doesnt influence the game mode. The Elite specs got rid of this strong selling point., which is such a pity.

4. Anet will have to organize streamed PvP events again in order to get attention from Twitch viewers and such. Just don't make them so costly yet. Introduce a new ToL with for example $1000 for the winning team. If Anet organizes this and the stream, then they show that they actually care about the game mode as well.

5. ... Open for suggestions...''

only about racial passives from me.. this isnt stupid idea but ofc it will makle more and more shitstorm, as I played in ESO whereevery from 9 races had their skills on forum shitstorm was since game release how its stupid and people are forced to use races which they dont wante, dont like or hate to just have this small advantage to be more successful

@Vertep.2498 said:only about racial passives from me.. this isnt stupid idea but ofc it will makle more and more kitten, as I played in ESO whereevery from 9 races had their skills on forum kitten was since game release how its stupid and people are forced to use races which they dont wante, dont like or hate to just have this small advantage to be more successful

Fooo, thats why Quaggans can't live in peace.

PvP scene is dead because Anet is not capable to balance its game. I have no fun anymore because of this, so i left the game. Sometimes i check on the forums to see if something changes, but nope. Better reward tracks or racial skills will not bring people back, that's sure.

@Morwath.9817 said:

@Vertep.2498 said:only about

racial

passives from me.. this isnt stupid idea but ofc it will makle more and more kitten, as I played in ESO whereevery from 9

races

had their skills on forum kitten was since game release how its stupid and people are forced to use

races

which they dont wante,

dont like or hate

to just have this small advantage to be more successful

this is just by min/max builds and hmmm something like roleplayers? someone who just want to play this 1 race becasue he like it the most but he wont as it dont have any advantage for him on his class/build and here is most of hate from players

Low population is a vicious circle because it increases queue times and/or reduces the quality of games.

New players who are interested in PvP are going to have a worse and worse experience the lower the population becomes because there're fewer people to match them up against, which means a greater likelihood of a newbie F2P player encountering (say) Gold-level veterans with meta builds and elite specs and just being utterly stomped. That makes it less likely newcomers will stick around.

Meanwhile, lower population discourages developer investment, making the format easily feel 'stale' (slow balance changes, little by way of new maps/modes, etc), which in turn combined with the constantly lowering game quality makes veterans more likely to quit also.

GW2 PvP is incredibly awesome and fun. We just desperately need more players so it can stay that way, and so that it can get the developer investment it needs to remain awesome and fun.

Maybe we just need other game modes...its been like 5 years and all we have is conquest...would be cool to have deathmatch kind of stuff or duel options, this foruns used to be full of people begging for this kind of stuff, and the best part is Anet wouldnt even had to put much work on it, its allready in game this kind of stuff, old Coutyard map, or the Guild Hall arena.

@Vertep.2498 said:only about racial passives from me.. this isnt stupid idea but ofc it will makle more and more kitten, as I played in ESO whereevery from 9 races had their skills on forum kitten was since game release how its stupid and people are forced to use races which they dont wante, dont like or hate to just have this small advantage to be more successful

Dont think racial passives would be a good thing. Some races allready have advantages over others(Asuras), and thats why they made the option for standarts models. This could be a thing for PvE, like Norn and Chaar get a bonus % on damage but lose something else and Asura lose damage and win something(a Asura swiging his greatsword and doing more damage then a Norn is something that I allways founded funny, considering that a Asura greatsword is like a small dagger for a Norn lol)

Nerf scourge?

redesign Specializations, the old traits were fantastic, build diversity, now everyone is the same, changing a trait only as much.

https://ibb.co/dqvwcm

I think PvP has 3 problems at the moment.

1. Visibility. As you said, the small PvP icon is easy to miss and you can spend days and weeks without even realizing that the game mode exists. What got me into PvP in GW1 was the Kurzick vs Luxon conflict. In PvE you could clearly see the borders and gaining faction points actually got you something useful. Or does anyone remember the hall of heroes? Every time a group captured it, a game-wide message was sent.
2. Diversity. Currently there's only hold the point style maps or stronghold. PvP quickly feels repetitive.
3. (Percieved) Toxicity. I guess many players simply don't try PvP because they're afraid of making mistakes / being shouted at. It doesn't matter what PvP is really like. As long as it has the image of being beginner-unfriendly you won't see many new players.

Quality attracts people. Make the game better, and people will flock to it. That means rightfully punishing cruel people, hackers, bug abusers, verbal abusers, account sharers, intentional DCers, and the list goes on. When you don't do anything about all the assholes running around, people will leave and will not be recommending the game to their friends. Then there's the terrible matchmaking. Unfortunately, matchmaking can't be good without a larger population. Without just improving rewards that attract bad players, find ways to the game better for the ones who do PvP for what it is.

This thread is pointless. It's not like pvp in this game is awesome and people are just not playing it. Then you could think about ways to get people playing again. No, people left because the game is crap. It's as simple as that. And the game is crap because of the mismanagement by ArenaNet. There is nothing you can do about it. The pvp community has been trying to talk sense into ArenaNet for years now and it was pointless. ArenaNet doesn't react to feedback.

Take weaver for example: There was a test weekend for the class and the feedback of the elementalist community was overwhelmingly negative due to the broken mechanic. Sword was also way too weak and there were TONS of threads about both, the attunement swap mechanic and the sword issue. What did ArenaNet do? They ignored the feedback about the attunement swap mechanic. They made tiny changes to sword. And what is the status now? No one is playing weaver in pvp. No one is using sword in fractals or raids. That's ArenaNet!

They're like a blind person driving a car and when the front seat passenger gives advice like "you need to turn left or we're gonna leave the road" the blind driver ignores him and the car ends up drowning in the nearest lake.

Balance? having played since release i cant honestly remember a single season where balance has not been atrocious.

Aside from that, damage is WAY TOO HIGH, and it came to be this way from the complaining of some supposed "pro player" (as if there were such a thing) , who no longer play the game, and because they could not kill each other while both of them using bunker builds...

Anet needs to stop listening to "pros", you want to make the mass consumer player game, you listen to what average joe wants.

For Christ sake, there is been the solo (casuals) vs 5mans ("pros") queue debate since the dawn of time, and it took anet population plummeting, every "pro" leaving and forever and a day, to finally cave in to the reality that 99% of the players are casual solos.

kudos to OP for thoughtful post. Agree with @Zintrothen.1056 that quality will attract people and taking control of abuses the best Anet can combined with vocal positive 'mentoring' and streaming I think population can grow again. Would add a third category to OP: those that have left to try other games, or those taking a break

@BunjiKugashira.9754 agree

@cursE.1794 frankly man, thats all part of this problem. Calling kitten pointless is the way to stop all thinking. I get that certain builds/weapon sets are perfectly matched up but damn - either work with what best suits you, try different builds, or run to all the meta classes/builds if performance in matches is most important to you. Plenty of options and I see plenty of eles in ranked, but to expect that every single possible build will be perfect or 1v1 any class or whatever is magical thinking. I'm not flaming, just saying

@Felipe.1807 it doesn't seem unreasonable to try to add a few more modes, although certainly unintended consequence would be to dilute player base more, less playing each type of map possibly

Not saying I have all the answers, but just keeping the discussion going for those that like playing this game and want to build a better playerbase

More frequent, smaller balance passes to tap down overperforming builds and buff underperforming builds. This 3 month cycle thing pushes even veteran players away - why play when your favorite class(es) are simply too weak? If you drop a game for 3 months, it's very unlikely you'll want to come back. There's a very good reason that "AAA" games try to push as much DLC within the first few weeks of a game's launch -- the longer the interval is between launch and a new release, the less likely people are to purchase it.

As you mentioned, increased visibility of PvP and AT's. I don't even know what ATs are going on at any given time, and I PvP regularly. A "dueling" arena in LA would go a long ways to increasing visibility.

Visible repercussions for exploitative and cruel behavior. Toxicity that continues unabated pushes away players, old and new. As toxicity becomes more distilled, the effect amplifies.

More diverse game modes than just conquest. Stronghold was a potential for this to happen. Team deathmatch was another possibility. Sadly they invested so little in these modes that they didn't perform and players had no desire to design for them. GW2 should take lessons from other MMOs with different PvP game modes. Ironically, more game mode diversity would also help with the aforementioned balance issue -- IE scourge is significantly less powerful when ranged weapons are more useful.

Better communication with the community. Part of what brings players into a game mode is the community being excited about it and spreading the word. The lack of communication in planned changes only amplifies the 3 month waiting period.

Adjusting for the F2P system: Right now, any F2P player will get REKT by any of the expansion builds due to power creep. Not only is that discouraging (as it suggest P2W), it also makes F2P players not want to participate in PvP in the future. I honestly feel bad in unranked when I fight a base ele on my holosmith -- it's not even close to fair for the ele. This can be fixed with better balance or allowing F2P players to preview elite specs in PvP.

Design the matchmaking system to encourage both quality and speed of matches. Currently it favors speed. Previously to this, it favored quality. By not emphasizing both, match quality is lowered, making the faster matchmaking feel worthless. There are means to do this, but it would require some more effort.

it's hard to make any suggestions unless we know what's wrong. Anet need to start showing the mmr of everyone at the end of every match so we can help them find what's causing the bad match making problem. Is because mmr is wrong or is it the match making screwing up..

As a non-PVP player, let me just say--the PVP is not noob-friendly at all. I gave it a try once and had no clue what to do, even to get started. Apparently I had to start by joining the group of some other guild, with no idea whether I'd be welcome to do so or not. Since I wasn't really hyped about PVP, I walked away and didn't bother coming back. I'm sure there are plenty of others. If you've played PVP in other games, maybe it's obvious what to do, but if you haven't, it's as clear as mud.

Maybe someone could form a guild specifically to keep a training group open for new players.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:As a non-PVP player, let me just say--the PVP is not noob-friendly at all. I gave it a try once and had no clue what to do, even to get started. Apparently I had to start by joining the group of some other guild, with no idea whether I'd be welcome to do so or not. Since I wasn't really hyped about PVP, I walked away and didn't bother coming back. I'm sure there are plenty of others. If you've played PVP in other games, maybe it's obvious what to do, but if you haven't, it's as clear as mud.

Maybe someone could form a guild specifically to keep a training group open for new players.

i used to train people, but after teams then duo being removed (i hit the rating where you can’t duo so fast it may as well not exist) there is so little point. you can’t even play ranked w them.

plus, powercreep makes combat so messy. ugh.

Pvp is dead because this game has gone from average difficulty to casual to hyper casual. PvP is never a casual place therefore people who want it now and are used to OW facerolling will not pvp. It's not about HoT elites or power creep the vast majority of the game doesn't even know what that is. Just the same as it is in pve with raids the community is unwilling to learn and thus either neglected the content or they lobby for its removal because they choose not to spend the time to learn.

The biggest problem is match quality. Trying to make balanced matches with people of 400+ mmr difference makes all players involved not want to queue. This happens even when population is high.

For new people, the issue is there are way too many options to make a build, and not a lot of interest from the community to develop players.

1) Revamp stronghold to look more like other mobas. Instead of using normal professions allow players to use champs/heros from gw2 lore. Each with a toolset of 5-10 skills.

That would allow anet to do a proper balance and would have no influence of pve on the skills. Also would allow anet to Nerf champ A without hurting champ B on the process. Look at what happens now. The nerf spellbreaker hit core war.

2) For conquest bring back solo queue and team queue (allow up to 5 premade).

@HeadCrowned.6834 said:So two questions raise:

1. How can we increase the pool of PvP-players by attracting GW2-players?
2. How can we increase the pool of PvP-players by attracting non-GW2-players?

On the matter of Question 1:

1. I was thinking that PvP should get more attention by incorporating the game mode in the game itself. Heart of the Mists is a distinct zone, where still basically nothing is going on. People have to travel there to find themselves in a boring area, if they even could find the two little swords on top of the screen. Why not remove the whole HotM and extend for example Lions Arch with a PvP area? You can mingle then the non-PvP players with the PvP-players. It might make the non-PvP'ers more curious about the game mode, and push them to try it out.

This has been suggested before, by myself and others. I proposed a PvP event in The Queen's Arena. ANET apparently tried to create a PvP event in PoF but failed because of lag. I suspect it was an attempt to have 100's of players fighting rather than 10.

3. Create more PvP events and give more attention to them. Make for example a weekly AT, and give a pop-up or yellow-letter message on the screens of everyone that is online that that AT is about to start. Many games have this. And why not give this pop-up also for every daily AT? Also, Anet could introduce things like double-XP weekends/double reward-progress weekends.

ANET has tried this without a lot of success. The "Greater Call of the Mists" and in game announcements have been used.

4. Fix the reward tracks into something more progressive, and with bigger loot the nearer you come to your goal. Currently I'm getting a box in another box that is stuffed in another box. When I open them I will have 12 green items and 1 yellow and thats it. I'd rather play 100 games to receive 1 bigger reward than receive 1 small reward for every game.

The legendary backpack was an attempt at this. Unfortunately, the incoming players were immediately exposed to smurfing and "competitive" deliberately unbalanced matches. They became more-or-less cannon fodder. This further lowered the reputation of PvP. I suspect many of those players will not return to PvP under any circumstances.

5. I can imagine that GW2 PvP has quite a steep learning curve. Its an old discussion on how to introduce new players better to the game mode, but its still an important one. Are there for example possibilities to incorporate the Mentoring system into PvP ?

This is a good direction to be thinking in. Blade and Soul had an interesting system: At specific levels, the PvE player would be given a mission to meet an NPC mentor in a "secret" training area. After fighting there way there, the player would be taught some new combination of skills or technique and then practice it in 1v1 combat.

I benefitted from mentoring. Lettuce of [FEAR] taught me a great deal and I credit him with helping me wade through the "Year of Ascension" and keeping my sanity. Still, many of our PvP community would make discouraging mentors.

6. ... Open for suggestions...

On the matter of Question 2:

3. Giving the base game for free is a good step I think by Anet for luring new people into the game. However, these people will find PvP an unreachable game mode, as they can't use the elite specs. Would it be an idea to open up all elite specs in PvP only? New players can then immediately be as competitive as old players. One of the strong suits of GW2 PvP is that gear doesnt matter and doesnt influence the game mode. The Elite specs got rid of this strong selling point., which is such a pity.

Good points. I think PvP ought to be vanilla spec only. This would also bring balancing into the realm of the short-to-mid term.

4. Anet will have to organize streamed PvP events again in order to get attention from Twitch viewers and such. Just don't make them so costly yet. Introduce a new ToL with for example $1000 for the winning team. If Anet organizes this and the stream, then they show that they actually care about the game mode as well.

As it stands, PvP isn't really streamable. My ex, watching a match, had no notion at all of what was going on. Too fast, too much flash and overlapping aoe. Even GW2 players, new to PvP, often seem pretty confused.

The entertainment value is low because you need to be a GW2 PvP player to follow what's going on. Also, some of the "Pro League" players have alienated a lot of people.

Vanilla only PvP would be a step in the right direction for this. A formalized 1v1 duel format might work. It should have full ritual.. bowing before the match etc. and a dedicated space. ANET designers have spoken of having a console type game. A 1v1 duel in a small arena would approach that.

5. ... Open for suggestions...''

@Genesis.5169 said:Pvp is dead because this game has gone from average difficulty to casual to hyper casual. PvP is never a casual place therefore people who want it now and are used to OW facerolling will not pvp. It's not about HoT elites or power creep the vast majority of the game doesn't even know what that is. Just the same as it is in pve with raids the community is unwilling to learn and thus either neglected the content or they lobby for its removal because they choose not to spend the time to learn.

I never understood why some people insist that elites will bring people to play. The raiding community is small. The "elite" community is always small. Neither of them inherently attracts more people to the table. While the game should be balanced for the upper echelons of play, core gameplay should be simple and easy to grasp.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Genesis.5169 said:Pvp is dead because this game has gone from average difficulty to casual to hyper casual. PvP is never a casual place therefore people who want it now and are used to OW facerolling will not pvp. It's not about HoT elites or power creep the vast majority of the game doesn't even know what that is. Just the same as it is in pve with raids the community is unwilling to learn and thus either neglected the content or they lobby for its removal because they choose not to spend the time to learn.

Core gameplay has never been more simpler to grasp then it is now. Scourge, Spellbreaker, Mirage, and Firebrand are clear examples of this. In the past you would have to evaluate your opponent actions. Currently you do not. You only have to worry about dealing as much burst damage via power or condi as fast a possible. It's all rotation based and not strategic based. That why you have bots and macros doing very well in the top 100.

I'd rather watch them fail to provide what customers need then lose player base then lose money income for their company and then eventually lose their jobs, hahahah.