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Thoughts and discussion about 2v2 Season 1


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What a crazy and wild ride this was.Absolute Hype followed by an insane first 3 days followed by stagnation again followed by a fairly interesting meta.
This thread is for everyone's long form opinions on GW2s very first open and honest attempts at an alternate game-mode, Post your anger, your hype, your suggestions, and your personal experiences and funny stories here.

Personally I was against the idea of this mini-season shtick when I first heard it. I thought it was nice to be able to take a break for PvP after a long season of failing to get any higher then plat 1. However the idea of a 2v2 game-mode really interested me. I had played a healthy portion of WoW 2v2s so I had an idea for what was going in.Personally I had a blast this mini-season, the 2v2 idea fits GW2 surprisingly well and props up the best part of the game.I think 2v2s worked on several levels:

  1. Focuses on the best part of the game instead of adding in mechanics that distract from it.
  2. Along with the ultra-patch that preceded it it allowed for a semi-return to the old days of PvP, while still having a healthy-ish balance of the new.
  3. Was great for new players as it was really easy to get into the format
  4. Focused and rewarded dou que'ing which really helps the community.
  5. Allowed for more direct adaptation to your opponent compared to conquest.
  6. Allowed for cheese strats that don't get out of hand due to having multiple rounds to adapt to the cheese.

While I really enjoyed this mini-season there are a couple of problems that either need to be addressed asap or just observations I had.These are going to be focused on the game-mode itself, and not the balance issues I thought it had, as I understand why you wouldn't want to balance for 2v2s.

  1. Condi overall felt relatively balanced to power builds, especially with the abillity to take more condi-hate mid match, HOWEVER, Double condi hearkens back to earlier scourge and its atrocious to play against. I have no idea how to reign that in but there you go.
  2. AFK timer needs to be increased ASAP, a teammate shouldn't be encouraged to give up so his teammate doesn't get kicked. Honestly this just felt like a massive oversight.
  3. While Being able to adjust your build mid-game is, imo, one of the best parts about it, someone completely changing their build mid-game feels wrong. Going 4 intense rounds against an opponent only to play against a competently different composition in round 5 is needlessly unfair I think. Perhaps add an "adaptation Phase" Where both teams swap their builds while being able to see each other swapping to avoid blindsiding someone round 5. Alternatively you could limit how much one's build can change between rounds.(E.G. You can't swap your 3rd trait line or something)
  4. Something needs to be done about the downed state. A revive simply feels too powerful and in a lot of cases unstoppable. Major offender is signet of undeath which is ludicrously powerful imo. Revive gameplay should exist, it should just be harder to get off to balance how powerful it can be. My solution? increase the amount of health a downed person has without increasing the health they start at when they get put into downed state, buff the bandage skill slightly. This will increase the amount of health that has to be healed by a teammate and thus the amount of time the opponent has to counteract this. In addition nerf any spell that can revive a teammate instantly, increase the channel time and disallow moving while channeling. Nerf revive traits' increased revive time but buff their extra effects to compensate. This I think will massively improve 2v2s without heavily effecting 5v5s
  5. Evade spam from thief and mesmer is still obnoxious to play against. Doubly so now that we are moving towards the idea of "React-able CC". I think shaving some evade frames from the end of the move so chaining them is more punishable by a good player. Admittedly this is less of a problem in conquest, but my point remains, its just obnoxious to play against.

And that's it for me. Overall I really loved this season, which I think is going to be the worst part about it.It's going to be really sad to see it go and I hope it gets at least some token support from ANET, along with whatever new game-modes they are planning.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:Complaining about Thief and Mesmer in 2v2 is a bit odd. Neither class was doing too hot, Mesmer doing slightly better (Condi Mirage was sometimes ok) while thief was easily the worst class in the gamemode.

Eh, Thief was doing pretty well in 2v2. I duo queued with a Thief and had like 90% win rate (unless I queued into Naru team).

Of course Thief is not as strong as FB/cRev. But it's because the other 2 are outliers, not because Thief is bad. They really should have another nerf pass on FB and cRev.

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@Sunshine.5014 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:Complaining about Thief and Mesmer in 2v2 is a bit odd. Neither class was doing too hot, Mesmer doing
slightly
better (Condi Mirage was sometimes ok) while thief was easily the worst class in the gamemode.

Eh, Thief was doing pretty well in 2v2. I duo queued with a Thief and had like 90% win rate (unless I queued into Naru team).

Of course Thief is not as strong as FB/cRev. But it's because the other 2 are outliers, not because Thief is bad. They really should have another nerf pass on FB and cRev.

I mean I cant say much from the perspective of playing thief (because I didnt), but thief was the only class I was glad to see on the enemy team, because it meant I was going to win that game. They just felt incredibly useless, their damage and survivability was low, and their usual edge of mobility and +1 potential was rendered irrelevant by the very basic concept of 2v2.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:Complaining about Thief and Mesmer in 2v2 is a bit odd. Neither class was doing too hot, Mesmer doing
slightly
better (Condi Mirage was sometimes ok) while thief was easily the worst class in the gamemode.

Eh, Thief was doing pretty well in 2v2. I duo queued with a Thief and had like 90% win rate (unless I queued into Naru team).

Of course Thief is not as strong as FB/cRev. But it's because the other 2 are outliers, not because Thief is bad. They really should have another nerf pass on FB and cRev.

I mean I cant say much from the perspective of playing thief (because I didnt), but thief was the only class I was glad to see on the enemy team, because it meant I was going to win that game. They just felt incredibly useless, their damage and survivability was low, and their usual edge of mobility and +1 potential was rendered irrelevant by the very basic concept of 2v2.

Thief is harder to pair with. You need something like a good Tempest with it. Then the Tempest chains CC/immob, and the Thief finishes the job. Usually people die pretty quickly. Good thief also knows how to pressure and interrupt heals.

Of course, that requires good coordination and chemistry between the duo. But it's also a lot more fun. Combat is about timing and tactics. It's not like brainless spamming in the FB/cRev/Necro cases.

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@Sunshine.5014 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:Complaining about Thief and Mesmer in 2v2 is a bit odd. Neither class was doing too hot, Mesmer doing
slightly
better (Condi Mirage was sometimes ok) while thief was easily the worst class in the gamemode.

Eh, Thief was doing pretty well in 2v2. I duo queued with a Thief and had like 90% win rate (unless I queued into Naru team).

Of course Thief is not as strong as FB/cRev. But it's because the other 2 are outliers, not because Thief is bad. They really should have another nerf pass on FB and cRev.

I mean I cant say much from the perspective of playing thief (because I didnt), but thief was the only class I was glad to see on the enemy team, because it meant I was going to win that game. They just felt incredibly useless, their damage and survivability was low, and their usual edge of mobility and +1 potential was rendered irrelevant by the very basic concept of 2v2.

Thief is harder to pair with. You need something like a good Tempest with it. Then the Tempest chains CC/immob, and the Thief finishes the job. Usually people die pretty quickly. Good thief also knows how to pressure and interrupt heals.

Surely if you want a CC-bot and damage-dealer combination, youd go for a class that has high damage, especially high AoE damage. Thief doesnt even have particularly high single target damage, and their cleave is lackluster at best. I imagine even my Core Engineer would perform much better, and I cant say that core Engineer is top tier or anything.

Of course, that requires good coordination and chemistry between the duo. But it's also a lot more fun. Combat is about timing and tactics. It's not like brainless spamming in the FB/cRev/Necro cases.

True, but again, I feel like literally any class other than thief would be better for such a teamcomp. The only one I could think of that would work, is a bunker that can 1v2 alongside the thief. But that requires a bunker that can 1v2, and at that point the thief is really just being carried.

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@UNOwen.7132 said:Complaining about Thief and Mesmer in 2v2 is a bit odd. Neither class was doing too hot, Mesmer doing slightly better (Condi Mirage was sometimes ok) while thief was easily the worst class in the gamemode.

Something can be obnoxious to play against without being top tier.In my post I wasen't exactly saying that I thought thief and mesmer were super good, I just hate playing against those specific mechanics. And I think evade spam is specifically bad when most CC's are getting decently long cast times.

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@White Kitsunee.4620 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:Complaining about Thief and Mesmer in 2v2 is a bit odd. Neither class was doing too hot, Mesmer doing
slightly
better (Condi Mirage was sometimes ok) while thief was easily the worst class in the gamemode.

Something can be obnoxious to play against without being top tier.In my post I wasen't exactly saying that I thought thief and mesmer were super good, I just hate playing against those specific mechanics. And I think evade spam is specifically bad when most CC's are getting decently long cast times.

Eh, even when it comes to obnoxious, Id take evade "spam" (which often isnt even spam) any day of the week over CC spam, endless block/invuln strings or res skills. And nah, CC right now is busted because the good ones have really short cast times, and stability is lacking now.

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Eh, even when it comes to obnoxious, Id take evade "spam" (which often isnt even spam) any day of the week over CC spam, endless block/invuln strings or res skills.

I mean I totally agree with you on that front, that's why I put it at number 6 as I think its a lesser issue.It's not super important but I think its worth mentioning since the

@UNOwen.7132 said:

And nah, CC right now is busted because the good ones have really short cast times, and stability is lacking now.Not Engineer's CC. Q_QAll of the CC I have access to have pretty long cast-times even if I have a lot of it. So maybe I'm a little biased in saying that.That being said I think its likely that a more CC skills will gain a cast time over the coming years, so this may become a bigger problem in the future.

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I think 2vs2 PvP might be interesting every now and then for duo queue players and tournament players (fast paced tournament - this could get added). For me as casual player the game modes with bigger teams are better cause I solo queue and I'm not experienced with many classes/professions. So I can't just switch chars and solo queue might already give a bad team combination that has it hard against the other team.

Bigger teams has better chances to work with randoms.

Then I also prefer unique and fun game modes that are a lot different from just killing and using your skills. The overall strategy/tactics are what make maps where they play a huge role pretty intesting for me. (Spirit Watch and Temple of the Silent Storm are my favorite maps. Coliseum seems pretty boring. Big map. Buffs can be ignored and are only helping in the fighting itself. Forest has bad buff - with kill stealing ... boring, no strategy. But at least the map is small. Is okay.)

For 2 vs. 2 I did it mainly for the league reward chest. And for some Ascension meta achievements I had still to do. Then only every now and then (once a day 1) checking and for more fun going back to unranked 5 vs 5. which also has Spirit Watch. Bad idea to also remove the best map in 2 vs. 2: Auric Span.

I'd love to have bigger maps, more players. And more unique map secondary mechanis. (Or even maps that aren't conquest/death match. Spirit Watch could have been a capture the flag mode where conquest would have been disabled with only orbs giving points!)

Each map it's own game mode and queue would be ideal for me. (Can queue for the favorite map only.) Too bad the population is too small for this and the only thing they tried in that direction was Stronghold which failed cause they desperately tried too hard to copy MOBA games when GW2 isn't MOBA. (People that wan't MOBA play a MOBA game. People that wan't GW2 PvP play GW2 except Stronghold ...)

2 vs. 2 could be made a bit more fun by small mechanics. Buffs that more damage or stuff. On the map. (Maybe 3 vs. 3 for that. Capping a point for a buff. Only 1 point where it spawns so it isn't all about speed but the cap point pretty small so it can't be bunker-contested all the time too easy.)

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Hands down that was best gust of fresh air the competitive part of the game has seen so far. After 6year and 6k arenas and mostly solo play I was excited for this new option and oh my did it deliver. No objectives, complex strategies, badly balanced teams and uneven fights. Just pure go and kill. And the different approaches that you can come up with your teammate, target jucking, swapping, comboing, all the clutch funny as hell moments did bring a whole new level of enjoyment from the game for me. As a mature player who’s only purpose in gw2 is having fun I already miss the mode a lot. So sick of the same old conquest over and over and over. Technically I see zero reasons for Anet to not make this mode permanent. Its already there, just make a damn interface tab for it and lets us rediscover again what this game has to offer. Don’t confine us in the conquest mode because this is exactly what it is for the pvp – a prison for the otherwise endless possibilities that this game can be experienced as.

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If it wasn't for 2v2 I don't think I'd ever go back to PvP. I got placed at 890 (2v2) and worked myself up to gold1 at the end of season. Now after my placement matches in good-ol' PvP i'm placed in Gold1 again so I can actually play. Playing long matches in bronze always put me off (seemed like either I get stomped or we stomp the enemy, no middle-ground), but shorter queue times and shorter games in 2v2 really got me interested in PvP now and actually want to play it every day.

Please let us choose between 5v5 and 2v2. Other games have multiple ranked modes (1v1, 2v2, FFA etc), don't see why GW2 shouldn't have it too. I feel like 2v2 is a really good way to learn fundamentals, because Conquest is just too long.

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