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Discussion About "What Is Killing Our SPvP Community?" And What Can We Do About It?


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@phokus.8934 said:

  1. Scrap Glicko-2 and use TrueSkill. TrueSkill is a Microsoft rating system that is designed for multiple players.Won't make a difference. TrueSkill was only shown to be marginally better than Elo. No comparison was done against Glicko2, which addresses deficiencies in Elo.
  2. Update the matchmaker to have a tighter rating variance at the expense of longer queue times. I'd rather have statistically better matches than having a gamble with quicker queues.I recall that ANet actually experimented with this idea and found no difference in matching, but with a significant increase in wait time.
  3. Bring back team queuing.Yes.
  4. Perform big balance updates during off-season and tweaks throughout the seasonFrequency and timing of balance is not the problem. ANet is not doing anything to tackle the egregious power creep. It doesn't matter how often you patch if the patches have almost no impact.
  5. Do actual skill splits and not just number tuning across game modes. Compact the skill splits into PvE and WvW/PvP.Disagree here. Skill splits are a double-edged sword. They can help you balance one mode, but now developers have more skills to manage (i.e. more chances to screw up), and players are frustrated when skills have noticeably different behavior across game modes (need to retrain their brain when they swap modes).
  6. Expand the setup time to 2 minutes. If a player is disconnected at the start of the match then scrap it and kick everyone out of the game and back to queue.Disagree. The duration is largely unused already. True DCs don't come back on an extra 30 seconds.
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@Exedore.6320 said:

  1. Scrap Glicko-2 and use TrueSkill. TrueSkill is a Microsoft rating system that is designed for multiple players.Won't make a difference. TrueSkill was only shown to be marginally better than Elo. No comparison was done against Glicko2, which addresses deficiencies in Elo.Do you have any links on that because Elo is used primarily in chess and Glicko gets you faster to your rating. It's just mathematically more efficient.
  2. Update the matchmaker to have a tighter rating variance at the expense of longer queue times. I'd rather have statistically better matches than having a gamble with quicker queues.I recall that ANet actually experimented with this idea and found no difference in matching, but with a significant increase in wait time.That doesn't make any sense. The purpose of tightening the variance is so you don't have a 1700 rated player going up against 1400 rated players. I don't remember them changing how the matchmaker works in this regard. Any link with this change?
  3. Perform big balance updates during off-season and tweaks throughout the seasonFrequency and timing of balance is not the problem. ANet is not doing anything to tackle the egregious power creep. It doesn't matter how often you patch if the patches have almost no impact.Frequency is a problem for balancing. If something is overtuned and it takes them months to fix, that's a problem. When they push through updates during midseason that includes an overtuned trait, utility, etc. and then we're forced to wait until the next balance patch, that's an inherently flawed process. By changing when they produce balance patches gives them a better idea of what is overtuned and should theoretically apply it during the season so it doesn't skew matches.
  4. Do actual skill splits and not just number tuning across game modes. Compact the skill splits into PvE and WvW/PvP.Disagree here. Skill splits are a double-edged sword. They can help you balance one mode, but now developers have more skills to manage (i.e. more chances to screw up), and players are frustrated when skills have noticeably different behavior across game modes (need to retrain their brain when they swap modes).That's their reasoning too but changing a few numbers just doesn't cut it anymore. A great example is Shackling Wave where it was doing too much damage in PvP/WvW so they increased the cast time to a little over 1 second for all game modes. It completely killed power Revs in PvE
  5. Expand the setup time to 2 minutes. If a player is disconnected at the start of the match then scrap it and kick everyone out of the game and back to queue.Disagree. The duration is largely unused already. True DCs don't come back on an extra 30 seconds.Regardless of the setup time, the match needs to be scraped when someone is disconnected during setup and arguably within a certain time frame of when the match starts.

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@Eddbopkins.2630 said:Everyone is saying so much as to what is killing the pvp community. As for me its the lack of game modes. I can only do so many 5v5,

I totally respect your statement, and please respect this as an honest and good faith push back: In my life I have probably logged over 10,000 hours playing chess where the games move slowly and the mode is the same as always.

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TRUTH, AND SOLUTION:

TRUTH #1. You can't have a casual pve game AND a serious pvp extension without creating two parallel games and GW2 has only done that half way. There are simply way too many pve profession variations that are not viable in pvp and the average pve player will take too much time to figure this all out. They will soon leave, but not after messing up a bunch of games. They deserve our gratitude for even trying, but they will not get it. TRUTH #2. A major shift happens in skill level where players go from playing a solo game to a group synergy game. Unless you can separate those two types of players no one will be happy. Because they are literally playing two different games in the same game space (go look up the OW elo hell episode that almost destroyed the game).

SOLUTION: Either just play for fun, or if you are looking for high level play then go to tournaments or private games. Or you may want to switch to a true moba.

When you have a gazillion players this stuff doesn't matter, but as everyone knows this stuff is really becoming a problem. I personally think that smart good players figure out that they have run the course of the game and then move on to other game experiences. I think the problem is the hanger-ons who have become so good and "maximized" that they make the game no fun for the casual player who essentially walks into a buzz saw.

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I always thought it is weird that the rating is not by class. Almost all MMOs do the rating by either class or character, cuz obviously if I am playing a class I rarely play, the game most definitely should not assume I play on the same level as my main.

For duo que, again, this is a problem that many other games resolved. Most games if their is more than 1 player queuing the entire group rating is assumed based on the highest person rating.

As for match making, considering the lack of rating by class and how off the balance currently is, the match making is nothing more than a formality.

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@tacoclaw.8251 said:

@Eddbopkins.2630 said:Everyone is saying so much as to what is killing the pvp community. As for me its the lack of game modes. I can only do so many 5v5,

I totally respect your statement, and please respect this as an honest and good faith push back: In my life I have probably logged over 10,000 hours playing chess where the games move slowly and the mode is the same as always.

Same here i have hundreds if not thousands of hours of chess my self...i always have a active game on my phone against the pc at any given day of the week. But gw2 is not chess in any way and i dont think a 1v1 in a chess game with millions of possibilities and outcomes can be compared to what 5v5 conquest 3 capturepoint circle quest that gw2 is.

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We can talk about things like balance, and the meta, and build diversity, and match making, and the leaderboard, and duo queue. But I think Guild Wars 2's biggest PvP problem is a more fundamental issue with how it builds its player experience right from the beginning. No amount of refining existing systems in a game mode we all currently have played thousands of matches in is ever going to fix the fact that no one can play one game forever and that people move on and there always needs to be an influx of new blood into the population.

I think there are a lot of interesting points about how Fortnite makes players feel like winners even if they don't win, and how that keeps players playing the game over and over. But like a lot of Guild Wars 2 including basic PvE and WvW, the PvP mode is just not set up well to incentivize people to keep playing, just from a modern game design and psychology perspective. You can have a dynamic PvE or PvP game, with great game feel and interesting flowing metas at the high end but it doesn't matter if players who dip their toe in aren't introduced to an experience that's set up to make them want to play more and if they aren't taught how to play the game.

Don't worry about the obvious clickbaity thumbnail, the video is about a lot of great real game design principals. Most notably from Sid Meyer's GDC lecture on how to keep people playing his games.

  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.

Guild Wars 2's PvP tends to struggle with 1 and 3, unfortunately.

So let's start off with point 1. There's a lot to be said about how much more rewarding it feels to level up and keep in games like Overwatch and Fortnite. Even if you lose, you gain experience. And when you fill that experience bar and you get your roll on interesting skins and rewards it feels great. You might end on a game that's a complete blow out, but you end up leveling up off it and getting a roll on rewards and you might get something you really really want.

Compare leveling up in GW2. You get a new finisher if you're under rank 80 and at rank 80 you get a five champion bags which will never be filled with anything particularly good and that's that. Other PvP games are not afraid to throw the equivalent of Black Lion Keys at you or a Wardrobe Unlock. At big milestones it could even throw a Outfit or Wardrobe Select box at players. I know dedicated PvPers tend to not be into "Fashion Wars" per say, but I see TONS of them wearing gemstore outfits. Reward tracks when released initially seemed to have this effect but a lot of them are very much old news at this point. Players have most of this stuff pretty easily. I think something basic like throwing a Wardrobe Unlock at each level up would do a ton for keeping players hooked and wanting to keep playing.

There's also certain factors you can draw player's attention to on tasks they haven't done yet. Again, looking at popular games like Fortnite when you log in it shows you tons of progression bars for things you haven't done yet. Things as simple as "Play with your friends" or "Assault Rifle Kills." The daily window sort of does this but its gone as soon as you win a match. Arenanet could actually make the PvP Achievement section a permanent way to remind players of what they can still do competitively and make active progression.

I think number 2 works fairly well and rebalancing PvP's rewards to have a better sense of linear progression would more or less iron out a lot of the problems.

The tricky party is number 3, make the player feel above average. And it's where Fortnite stumbled onto lightning in a bottle that can't be replicated in GW2 because Guild Wars 2's PvP is more orientated towards general competitive play rather than a "End User Experience". I think GW2 needs to address the problem of loss aversion. Humans on a psychological level feel worse about losing something than they feel good about winning something of equal value. Think about rating, you climb to the highest rating you've ever reached on the leaderboard and that's when you decide to call it quits for the night or whenever, only stepping in when you need to fight off decay. I myself have personally done this multiple times throughout playing GW2 since the leagues were implemented. There needs to be some way to look at the league play and make players feel good and rewarded even when they lose.

I think we all have probably had games where it's a complete and total blowout. Where you go to cap the home node and your team full wipes before you even finish capping the node uncontested. Or near losses where you did something like 40% of the team damage, went 20-0, or legitimately won a 2v1 and it just wasn't enough to drag your team across the victory line. This is why stuff like Overwatch's Play of the Game is important, because it gives players the spotlight and recognition for excellent performances and GW2 could do the same; That firebrand getting that Signet of Mercy off in the last second. That side noder who manages to get a kill 1v3 and survive while his team regroups and recovers. The team damage who just melts the entire enemy team all at once. The roamer who gets the dream plus and slams down the kill with his team mate then turns around and kills the enemy roamer who was on his way to the 2v1 you were just at. These kinds of things help players feel good about matches even when they lose. And it's stuff like this that provides an easy way for people to share the game with the friends and outsiders.

I don't know if play of the game could even be implemented into GW2. It's just one example of how one other game that's currently doing better than GW2 in terms of PvP goes out of its way to give recognition towards players, even if they lose. And it's certain better than a top kills, damage, healing, defense, offense stat at the end.

And I haven't even had a chance to touch on actually teaching said new blood about fundamental game mechanics in SPvP. Basic stuff like two people standing on one node does not make it capture faster. Things like line of sight, condition cleanses, jumping puzzles, unblockable, ect ect so that you create a pipeline for those new players that gets them playing at a platinum and higher tier faster and faster.

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@Balsa.3951 said:I’m not sure if anet has people working full time on PVP at the moment.

Changes may come but in comparison to pve there is not much money in pvp.

The best pvp players can do is suggest ways for anet to make money with pvp....

I don't get this. I play PvP AND buy stuff in gem store. Yes, I too want to look cool (wow, omg!).And the somewhat interesting thing is, I spend more than a wow subscription monthly cost. On a b2p game. I'm definitely not alone too.

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@FyzE.3472 said:

@Balsa.3951 said:I’m not sure if anet has people working full time on PVP at the moment.

Changes may come but in comparison to pve there is not much money in pvp.

The best pvp players can do is suggest ways for anet to make money with pvp....

I don't get this. I play PvP AND buy stuff in gem store. Yes, I too want to look cool (wow, omg!).And the somewhat interesting thing is, I spend more than a wow subscription monthly cost. On a b2p game. I'm definitely not alone too.

I know but the how u look is not specific pvp most of the time.

Or anet thinks there is nothing they can sell pvp oriented players what they not foremost sell in pve.

Wvw had warclaw skins at least.

Infusion effects are even disabled in pvp

So as now everything u buy for pvp is just a side effect of pve. And so long anet can’t find anything they can sell pvp exclusively they are not so motivated sadly.

All that balance and rework wishes will not happen before anet does not see how they can milk that cow. Pvp is more a side game not even trailers advertising pvp in game.

This alone shows how anet feels their pvp them self

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@"mortrialus.3062" said:

  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.

Great video btw. What it was explaining was a much deeper look at what I was feeling or noticing with my OP statement. What I stated that I believed was the core issue of social problems "how the algorithm functions in terms of gain/loss" directly breaks the theory of 1, 2 and 3.

  1. It certainly does not feel like linear progression when you are getting +5 on wins and -20 on losses, especially when you KNOW you are the higher rated player in the game between both teams and you are being made to play as the "high risk player" because if you don't, you aren't going to win the match if you don't push for 1v2s and 1v3s or kill other players on a DPS build in some record amount of time. This feels terrible to only get +5 on wins but -20 punishment on losses. A player works hard in high risk play to win 4 matches for +20 to his rating, but then losses his progress in a single game that is a loss. Going even further into this, if that player losses 2x games in a row, now he's at -40 and has to win 8 games in a row to break even from where he started. Everything about this feels bad and is anti-productive for getting players to stay & play. Most people I talk to honestly tell me that they have much more fun in unranked, and after watching that video I can see why. Going back into my point made about social problems, of course the community will be toxic when so many are walking around in a perma-rage because they get +5 on wins and -20 on losses. If you look at this from a macro standpoint, something like individual player Glicko ratings applied to a 5v5 game mode is a design to keep people raging at each other for losing matches and raging at the game in general.
  2. The first point goes directly into this one. There is almost no incentive to "stay and play one more" in ranked, not unless you hit a lose streak and are trying to regrind up the leaderboards, and in that case the reason why you are "staying to play one more" isn't because you are having fun, it just begins to feel like a task or a choir. But for most players, like what you stated already, they hit a peak rating and then sit on, while playin only 1 game every 3 days to avoid decay. The system is so punishing that it by far gives more incentive to not play at all, than to keep playing and enjoying the experience.
  3. No real commentary here. I don't think it's even possible to devise a system that "makes every player feel above average" when applied to Conquest. They would probably need to design a new competitive game mode from the ground up to implement something like that. Hey, I could be wrong.
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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"mortrialus.3062" said:
  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.

Great video btw. What it was explaining was a much deeper look at what I was feeling or noticing with my OP statement. What I stated that I believed was the core issue of social problems "how the algorithm functions in terms of gain/loss" directly breaks the theory of 1, 2 and 3.
  1. It certainly does not feel like linear progression when you are getting +5 on wins and -20 on losses, especially when you KNOW you are the higher rated player in the game between both teams and you are being made to play as the "high risk player" because if you don't, you aren't going to win the match if you don't push for 1v2s and 1v3s or kill other players on a DPS build in some record amount of time. This feels terrible to only get +5 on wins but -20 punishment on losses. A player works hard in high risk play to win 4 matches for +20 to his rating, but then losses his progress in a single game that is a loss. Going even further into this, if that player losses 2x games in a row, now he's at -40 and has to win 8 games in a row to break even from where he started. Everything about this
    feels bad
    and is anti-productive for getting players to stay & play. Most people I talk to honestly tell me that they have much more fun in unranked, and after watching that video I can see why. Going back into my point made about social problems, of course the community will be toxic when so many are walking around in a perma-rage because they get +5 on wins and -20 on losses. If you look at this from a macro standpoint, something like individual player Glicko ratings applied to a 5v5 game mode is a design to keep people raging at each other for losing matches and raging at the game in general.
  2. The first point goes directly into this one. There is almost no incentive to "stay and play one more" in ranked, not unless you hit a lose streak and are trying to regrind up the leaderboards, and in that case the reason why you are "staying to play one more" isn't because you are having fun, it just begins to feel like a task or a choir. But for most players, like what you stated already, they hit a peak rating and then sit on, while playin only 1 game every 3 days to avoid decay. The system is so punishing that it by far gives more incentive to not play at all, than to keep playing and enjoying the experience.
  3. No real commentary here. I don't think it's even possible to devise a system that "makes every player feel above average" when applied to Conquest. They would probably need to design a new competitive game mode from the ground up to implement something like that. Hey, I could be wrong.

Long video but my god is it relevant and the pay off is incredible. If you just want to skip to the big pay off its at 28:48

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Write up with the compassionate touch, but I believe it's partly as you say and partly because of a low population.

I also believe this is a cyclical relationship - if more people play and hence suffer from this Glicko-based system, it might be considered more strongly for a change. Right now it might just be an idea with not much motivation behind it.

Had a friend who'd do stupid shit with me and queue regardless of rating (he's marginally better, just marginally hahaha) but you don't find these kinda gaming friendships every day. Plus, the matches tend to be frustrating sometimes and it depends on personal strength of will and effective attitude adjustment to keep at it and find fun things even in the worst situations.

We became so busy IRL we use GW2 as a penpal platform but old times were good times (but the 10 mail limit is kitten).

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@"mortrialus.3062" said:We can talk about things like balance, and the meta, and build diversity, and match making, and the leaderboard, and duo queue. But I think Guild Wars 2's biggest PvP problem is a more fundamental issue with how it builds its player experience right from the beginning. No amount of refining existing systems in a game mode we all currently have played thousands of matches in is ever going to fix the fact that no one can play one game forever and that people move on and there always needs to be an influx of new blood into the population.

I think there are a lot of interesting points about how Fortnite makes players feel like winners even if they don't win, and how that keeps players playing the game over and over. But like a lot of Guild Wars 2 including basic PvE and WvW, the PvP mode is just not set up well to incentivize people to keep playing, just from a modern game design and psychology perspective. You can have a dynamic PvE or PvP game, with great game feel and interesting flowing metas at the high end but it doesn't matter if players who dip their toe in aren't introduced to an experience that's set up to make them want to play more and if they aren't taught how to play the game.

Don't worry about the obvious clickbaity thumbnail, the video is about a lot of great real game design principals. Most notably from Sid Meyer's GDC lecture on how to keep people playing his games.

  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.

Guild Wars 2's PvP tends to struggle with 1 and 3, unfortunately.

I think that #3 nails the critical issue here.

Not only do you lose, but then you're mocked for it with the closing screen. I end up logging off many nights, feeling bad about myself after losing repeatedly. So, I find myself playing fewer and fewer games..

One thing that improved the experience for me, win or lose, was the crowd in Coliseum. There's something about hearing the roar of the crowd. It feels especially good to be able to shout out and get a response from the crowd.

The culture of the game has been built to make a person feel bad if they aren't on the winning side. That is the root of the problem.

I'll think about how the experience could be improved.

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@Ithilwen.1529 said:

@"mortrialus.3062" said:We can talk about things like balance, and the meta, and build diversity, and match making, and the leaderboard, and duo queue. But I think Guild Wars 2's biggest PvP problem is a more fundamental issue with how it builds its player experience right from the beginning. No amount of refining existing systems in a game mode we all currently have played thousands of matches in is ever going to fix the fact that no one can play one game forever and that people move on and there always needs to be an influx of new blood into the population.

I think there are a lot of interesting points about how Fortnite makes players feel like winners even if they don't win, and how that keeps players playing the game over and over. But like a lot of Guild Wars 2 including basic PvE and WvW, the PvP mode is just not set up well to incentivize people to keep playing, just from a modern game design and psychology perspective. You can have a dynamic PvE or PvP game, with great game feel and interesting flowing metas at the high end but it doesn't matter if players who dip their toe in aren't introduced to an experience that's set up to make them want to play more and if they aren't taught how to play the game.

Don't worry about the obvious clickbaity thumbnail, the video is about a lot of great real game design principals. Most notably from Sid Meyer's GDC lecture on how to keep people playing his games.
  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.

Guild Wars 2's PvP tends to struggle with 1 and 3, unfortunately.

I think that #3 nails the critical issue here.

Not only do you lose, but then you're mocked for it with the closing screen.
I end up logging off many nights, feeling bad about myself after losing repeatedly. So, I find myself playing fewer and fewer games..

One thing that improved the experience for me, win or lose, was the crowd in Coliseum. There's something about hearing the roar of the crowd. It feels especially good to be able to shout out and get a response from the crowd.

The culture of the game has been built to make a person feel bad if they aren't on the winning side. That is the root of the problem.

I'll think about how the experience could be improved.

I think for the end game screen rather than being dead the enemy team should be clapping in the foreground Super Smash Bros style. Yeah you lost but there is something courteous and good sported and less mean spirited about it.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:We can talk about things like balance, and the meta, and build diversity, and match making, and the leaderboard, and duo queue. But I think Guild Wars 2's biggest PvP problem is a more fundamental issue with how it builds its player experience right from the beginning. No amount of refining existing systems in a game mode we all currently have played thousands of matches in is ever going to fix the fact that no one can play one game forever and that people move on and there always needs to be an influx of new blood into the population.

I think there are a lot of interesting points about how Fortnite makes players feel like winners even if they don't win, and how that keeps players playing the game over and over. But like a lot of Guild Wars 2 including basic PvE and WvW, the PvP mode is just not set up well to incentivize people to keep playing, just from a modern game design and psychology perspective. You can have a dynamic PvE or PvP game, with great game feel and interesting flowing metas at the high end but it doesn't matter if players who dip their toe in aren't introduced to an experience that's set up to make them want to play more and if they aren't taught how to play the game.

Don't worry about the obvious clickbaity thumbnail, the video is about a lot of great real game design principals. Most notably from Sid Meyer's GDC lecture on how to keep people playing his games.
  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.

Guild Wars 2's PvP tends to struggle with 1 and 3, unfortunately.

I think that #3 nails the critical issue here.

Not only do you lose, but then you're mocked for it with the closing screen.
I end up logging off many nights, feeling bad about myself after losing repeatedly. So, I find myself playing fewer and fewer games..

One thing that improved the experience for me, win or lose, was the crowd in Coliseum. There's something about hearing the roar of the crowd. It feels especially good to be able to shout out and get a response from the crowd.

The culture of the game has been built to make a person feel bad if they aren't on the winning side. That is the root of the problem.

I'll think about how the experience could be improved.

I think for the end game screen rather than being dead the enemy team should be clapping in the foreground Super Smash Bros style. Yeah you lost but there is something courteous and good sported and less mean spirited about it.

The closing screen cancer has always shown how out of touch and encouraging of toxicity Anet really is. I'm surprised they never added a tea bagging option to it.

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What is killing our SPvP community? Lack of playerbase simply. Anet being super slow with every meaningful improvement doesn't help either, but at this point it's not even the main issue.

The best MM algorithm in the world can't create good matches when there are not even 10 players of similar skillvl queuing simultaneously.

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@tacoclaw.8251 said:TRUTH, AND SOLUTION:

TRUTH #1. You can't have a casual pve game AND a serious pvp extension without creating two parallel games and GW2 has only done that half way. There are simply way too many pve profession variations that are not viable in pvp and the average pve player will take too much time to figure this all out. They will soon leave, but not after messing up a bunch of games. They deserve our gratitude for even trying, but they will not get it.

Also, even the builds that WERE viable in pvp no longer are thanks to the expansions' power creep.

There were builds that I loved playing (3-kit power engi, condi pistols, etc.), but since HoT and PoF they were made obsolete and nothing replaced the complexity of their playstyles.

So I'm left with two choices: either play the meta builds which I don't enjoy (holo, scrapper), or be a liability to my team.

.. so I don't play. It's that simple.

I imagine a lot of other players feel the same way about other builds and playstyles (eg. d/d ele)

Edit: oh, someone already said it better farther up the thread:

@Exedore.6320 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Most people would just say "Toxicity!" or "Bad Balance!" Let me explain what I believe to be the reason why all of it is happening. I believe it has nothing to do with general toxicity and very little to do with general balance issues. I believe the root and bulk of the problem begins with how the algorithm functions on a core foundational level:Second, elite spec power creep has also alienated players by forcing them to give up on established characters. Many players started out by picking a profession and a playstyle which suited them. They felt comfortable with that choice and became attached to it over time. Then a new round of elite specs hits, leaving everything before it as non-viable for PvP. You have three choices: re-roll, continuing playing the sub-par spec, or quit. For players who make the second choice, a huge divide in power drives them to quit because they simply can't compete against the immense power differential by substituting greater skill.

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There are not a ton of things to do to have a bigger PvP playerbase. Renew the playerbase is key. If players leave (because life happen) other players must come in. Promoting PvP is the best way to do this.During the mount event in WvW (regarding the fact if it was good or bad for the mod, it is not the point), a lot of player tried it, often for the first time, and some, maybe not most of them but still some, like it and play it.That is the kind of thing PvP need : advertising to incent people to try it, maybe like it and play more of it.Anet can do that (it's obviously their job) if they want the mode to live longer but player can too : talking to friend in guilds, take them to a game, etc.It's like a real life store after all, you have to renew your customer base.

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@phokus.8934 said:

  1. Scrap Glicko-2 and use TrueSkill. TrueSkill is a Microsoft rating system that is designed for multiple players.
  2. Update the matchmaker to have a tighter rating variance at the expense of longer queue times. I'd rather have statistically better matches than having a gamble with quicker queues.
  3. Bring back team queuing.
  4. Perform big balance updates during off-season and tweaks throughout the season
  5. Do actual skill splits and not just number tuning across game modes. Compact the skill splits into PvE and WvW/PvP.
  6. Expand the setup time to 2 minutes. If a player is disconnected at the start of the match then scrap it and kick everyone out of the game and back to queue.

This, this is what would have saved sPvP 2-3 years ago... I don't know if even this would save it now...Also, pick ban phases before setup. This would minimize balance issues and completely solve class stacking.

@Exedore.6320 said:

  1. Scrap Glicko-2 and use TrueSkill. TrueSkill is a Microsoft rating system that is designed for multiple players.Won't make a difference. TrueSkill was only shown to be marginally better than Elo. No comparison was done against Glicko2, which addresses deficiencies in Elo.Not commenting since i didn't see that comparison.
  2. Update the matchmaker to have a tighter rating variance at the expense of longer queue times. I'd rather have statistically better matches than having a gamble with quicker queues.I recall that ANet actually experimented with this idea and found no difference in matching, but with a significant increase in wait time.Not really, what Arena Net did, was they HAD this already, but removed it because it was increasing queue times, but that was years ago... And yeah, with the current population being so low, it would be like 1h queues for the top ranked.
  3. Bring back team queuing.Yes.Agreed.
  4. Perform big balance updates during off-season and tweaks throughout the seasonFrequency and timing of balance is not the problem. ANet is not doing anything to tackle the egregious power creep. It doesn't matter how often you patch if the patches have almost no impact.I assumed that "big" meant impactful ones, and with weekly/bi-weekly "tweaks" that should solve outlying issues.One of the worse "cancers" for PvP in GW2 is that they allow broken metas to keep going for MONTHS, not days or weeks, but months. Then they wonder why sPvP is doing poorly...
  5. Do actual skill splits and not just number tuning across game modes. Compact the skill splits into PvE and WvW/PvP.Disagree here. Skill splits are a double-edged sword. They can help you balance one mode, but now developers have more skills to manage (i.e. more chances to screw up), and players are frustrated when skills have noticeably different behavior across game modes (need to retrain their brain when they swap modes).Not all skills need splitting... But splitting effects instead of only numbers would improve the overall quality of the game, nowadays there are entire classes, like Necromancer/Scourge that are almost completely useless in PVE because they were completely gutted in the name of sPvP and WvW.The fact of the matter is that each game mode has completely different dynamics, sPvP is more about burst potential and quick engagements, WvW is more about survivability and AoE (for big engagements, Roaming is closer to sPvP builds, being focused on either being a duelist or a highly mobile disengager), and PvE drifts between DOT and DPS with a few tanks and supports sprinkled in between.

But each type requires different damage profiles, and making skills one-size fit all will end up sacrificing one or two of those game modes for the sake of balance in another. Which we have seen repeatedly happen.As for amount of skills... GW2 doesn't really have that many, other games manage to be balanced with more, GW1 managed to be decent with more, so why wouldn't they? And unlike other games, and GW1, for weapon skills, they can control what kind of purpose and interaction they have with 5 skills at once, which reduces headway a lot...

  1. Expand the setup time to 2 minutes. If a player is disconnected at the start of the match then scrap it and kick everyone out of the game and back to queue.Disagree. The duration is largely unused already. True DCs don't come back on an extra 30 seconds.Well, what's a "true dc"? My modem can fail, get no internet light, and be back in under one minute... And anyway, that's the point, if the guy is dcd, true or false, for more than 2 minutes, the game replaces that guy, instead of forcing a team to play without one player...League has a similar thing, but with surrender, you can surrender early if someone dcs in the first two minutes... But because GW2 forces you to stick around on losing matches... At least do that in the setup phase...Also, having a larger setup could open up space for a pick/ban phase. As in you get to pick and ban specs, and then reformat your build accordingly during those 2 minutes.

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The main issue obviously is the dwindling playerbase.

As to why the playerbase is shriking is something that can be discussed.Personally for instance I DONT think that a lack of different gamemodes is a core issue....then again, I have put several hundred hours into Dota2 and other MOBAs before coming to GW2 ....so my personal opinion might not be a good representation on that matter.

I DO however believe that the"terrible new-player experience" plays a major part in the decline of the PvP playerbase.Veterans get bored by lack of competition and leave, while new players feel frustrated, quit and never give it a second chance after barely giving it a try.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

  1. Create a Sense of Linear Progression.
  2. Make the player constantly one to play One More Turn.
  3. Make the player feel above average.
  1. No real commentary here. I don't think it's even possible to devise a system that "makes every player feel above average" when applied to Conquest. They would probably need to design a new competitive game mode from the ground up to implement something like that. Hey, I could be wrong.

Agreed, @mortrialus.3062 that's a great video and rather interesting. I wish Anet would take some learnings from it, especially after how committed they were to PvP to start the game.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 my disagreement with you is on your third bullet point. Their system of making people feel above average is "top stats." Often times, it's lesser players that get top stats because, frankly, they're not awarded to always go to the most impactful players.

People who know that top stats mean very little are immune to feeling disappointed when you don't get any, because you know you probably helped your team score as much as they did.

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