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Do you believe SPvP has increased in popularity or declined?


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Generally speaking, do you believe SPvP has increased in popularity or declined? I remember in Vanilla GW2 it had a huge drop in popularity and numbers. HoT came and added a new rating system, for me that sealed the deal for me because lost became more of a punishment and would make SPvP more meta build rewarding, which I dont like. But curious what you all think about the state and direction SPvP is going in. Is it becoming more popular in your opinion or is it in decline in your opinion?

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I stopped PvP right after HoT.

The main reason why I pvp in the first place is the severe lack of PvE content, PvP had a good diversity of builds, and Hotjoin was great casual fun that I can join and leave at any time.

  • Heart of Thorns was a major downside to me as Elite specs destroyed diversity and all past builds. I couldn't play a necro, I had to be a reaper.
  • Heart of Thorns expansion also made PvE more enticing as it had good PvE content, and we get more new maps.
  • The last straw is when Hotjoin died from removal of dailies in Hotjoin. I didn't like unranked and ranked because I had to stay for the entire game. I wanted to leave a bad game and join a good one.
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It depends on the timeframe you look at. Compared to Season 1, when the league system was new (however flawed it was back then) or Season 5 (the first one with an actual leaderboard) it has certainly declined, which is also generally in line with the population development in a 7 year old game. If you compare it to the seasons after that (let's say starting with season 8 or so) I'd say the recent seasons have been largely similar, possibly it has even had a slight revitilization over the last 2/3 seasons, with some community tournaments, decent activity around the monthlies, the comeback of some old ESL players. and usually ~3-4 high level teams for primetime daily ATs. Ranked has only occasional good matches, but it might pick up again more next season with new titles.

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As @Falan.1839 pointed out, you really need to specify the time frame... and add an option for if they believe that the population remained relatively the same.

If I were to consider the time frame to be since the launch or even HoT release, then obviously it has declined. However, I’d say it may have increased ever so slightly the past few months.

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@otto.5684 said:The entire game is in decline. Is sPvP less popular among active players? I dunno, but most likely it’s popularity among active players did not change.

Actually, NCSoft earnings for the past quarter revealed Guild Wars 2 is selling more games compared to the previous quarter. So Guild Wars 2 is not declining. PvP is.

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My first ranked season and the amount of idle players has forced this to be my last. I'll play the daily tourneys with friends but never another ranked season. I'd rather lose by learning and getting killed than quit on my team standing in re-spawn. Best of luck in the future!

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@Terc.5736 said:My first ranked season and the amount of idle players has forced this to be my last. I'll play the daily tourneys with friends but never another ranked season. I'd rather lose by learning and getting killed than quit on my team standing in re-spawn. Best of luck in the future!

Same here. Which is why I liked it better in vanilla Spvp, since there was no punishment system for losing. This created even more of a toxic element in the SpVp than it was already.

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It's objectively gone down. At least on NA.

On NA the top 250 typically bottoms out at qround 1580 all season long once you get past the volitility of the first two weeks.

Now the top 250 is bottoming out at 1520. And the bottom is regularly dipping into gold 3 which NEVER happens.

This means that the top 250 is making up a noticably larger chunk of NA, which means the population overall has clearly shrunk.

And its hard not to see why. Balance has gotten objectively worse since last October. Back then 8/9 professions had excellent builds for placing in the top 250. Sometimes several. Even SD weaver while lackluster and boring to play and play against was still decent enough for plenty of top 250 showings.

Guardians, Firebrands, Chronos, power and condi mirages, and all three types of thieves had frequent presence in ranked. Now, Guardians, mesmer and all types of thieves have mostly dried up, and only power mesmer is particularly viable. Necros and firebrand have died down in ranked since April 2018, firebrand especially as support in generally really relies on communication between the team more than any other role, and if you're going to duo queue you're way better off with something like Spellbreaker rev thats less reliant on your teammates. Boonbeast and Weaver is just completely outclassed by warrior and engineer as 1v1 specs. Which means rangers have largely moved onto the extremely unfun and frankly toxic and unhealthy sicem build.

Now if you aren't playing a warrior, engineer, or revenant you might as well not play ranked. And I think a lot of players who arent on one of those professions have begun to stop playing. Build variety has cratered since october/ december and especially march. The past few months of balance have been a complete failure if the goal is to having higher representation of less used specs and higher build diversity.

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It's been in decline for a long time now and is still in free-fall.

They tried to make money through sponsorships from Esport. That didn't work so basically its fuck sPvP. I seriously think that is the attitude. Unfortunately a lot of the the things introduced for Esport were actually bad for for in-game sPvP, and players are left with a hangover from that with a broken system and philosophy. There are basics that have been overlooked from the start of the game, like too much map clutter (e.g. Eternal Colosseum new changes - I mean...what the hell is that all about) , atrocious FoV and camera view, and intentional imbalances between classes. But the worse elements have been badly implemented elites and throwing the rule book out the window for little to no counterplay to various skills/builds.

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Extreme roles are bad because it becomes a counter vs counter battle. If somebody is running full zerker damage set then you need to either be zerker too or bunker up or condition them. The damage mitigation just isn’t enough to outlast the dps in this game. This means the fights don’t last very long unless you’re in a huge zerg (wvw) but even then pro guilds will wipe pugs every time.

Also base stats like toughness and health are different across professions. Stability, condition removal, healing, crowd control and dps is unevenly spread across them too. This means that some professions are more suited to “tank” roles. While others are more suited to “condition spam”. Then there are others suited to “zerker” burst dps.

This makes the game very difficult to balance because it is unbalanced to begin with. While yes it is true every profession can be any role some are more suited to it than others. The game can not be balanced except by numbers it seems.

There is many lessons to be taken from gw1 such as all professions having the same base health. Also healing being much more effective than it currently is. Then the pvp in this game might be more than just spamming of conditions and dps. There would be a true counter rather than just damage avoidance.

I think the biggest problem is balancing for different skill levels. Because some players have better reflexes or more experience playing a profession. This means that it is not even the professions that are unbalanced but the actual players themselves.

So what I have seen Arenanet do is make very easy builds like condition bunkers that everyone can use. Then there’s zerker thieves, elementalists, bunker guards, etc, that take a bit more skill. The main problem as discussed in Sirlin’s book is balancing for skill.

This is very difficult and he said that by giving easier options that can work, but don’t work as well as something which requires more skill. That is balance and I think Arenanet know this and what we have is a game balanced for different skill levels.

That seems to be the logical way of thinking about the metas of this game in pvp and wvw. And to me it does seem balanced and if people complain they simply need to “learn to play”. But that does not mean that builds that require much more skill should faceroll everybody either.

So in conclusion Balance is very subjective but if you balance for different skill levels it becomes much easier. And that is why a game can not ever be truly balanced. Because players and people have so many different skill levels.

The way we experience competition is by winning or losing. But also I understand that by being too subjective in our opinions of balance is bad feedback. By making the pvp combat challenging but also not too hard to learn creates a diverse pvp community.

The problem is when the game is objectively balanced completely without any player feedback then it becomes very unpopular quickly. This is why Balance is subjective because players who pvp want to have fun which is highly subjective. This is just my opinions of course because I’m sure that general balance is much harder than it seems.

Let's use the conquest meta as an example. We fight each other on small circles. And we have to hold these circles to win the game.

It’s not just the power creep that is the reason these 1-shot classes are the best. It’s simply the fact that everything else that could counter the Conquest Meta has been nerfed by Arenanet to make way for Esports.

Instead of a power based twitch reaction time meta we have an abundance of 1-shot DPS and passive gameplay. We have area of effect skills ticking away on a point. We have Bunker Specs putting out enough damage to kill players.

Why is this? Because Arenanet has removed tanky amulets and replaced active damage mitigation with passive invulnerabilities. Now instead of dodging power based attacks with well timed evades we have classes running max 1-shot DPS.

These 1-shot DPS classes are dominating because other classes cannot bring enough sustain to compete with them. They are kings of DPS and 1-shots at the same time with the best ability to stack boons.

You want to know why this game isn’t an ESport Arenanet? Because you catered too much to casuals and made this game too simple. If we had Monks they at least could heal the other classes without sustain directly instead of them slowly dying to AOE and conditions.

I call this game Gank Wars 2 and there’s a simple reason why. Immobilise stacking, Stun/Daze chaining and CC spam is neverending and only certain classes have enough Stability or condition removals to escape.

There is a general lack of sustain and too much dps (both conditions and power). What is the counter to DPS? Nothing…but in GuildWars 1 it was a Monk and that is why this game lacks depth. Dodge rolls aren’t a replacement for healing and protection that a monk class would offer.

I find it funny when people assume GW1 was only theorycrafting builds and counters. The combat was just as if not more active than GW2. The fact is it had interrupts and hexes (based around punishing enemy for spamming). Proper protection and healing spells (able to almost full heal from a spike of dps). Along with Conditions, Melee and kiting, Aoes, block skills/spells and teleports. Also I probably need to mention you couldn’t just spam skills either. They were reliant on energy which you had a supply of and when you ran out it had to regenerate.

^ There’s an example of what is possible with monks. Also here’s a list of monk spells in gw1: “Monks…with their unparalleled gift for keeping their allies alive” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills

Just some ideas and my opinion about the different builds. Since the meta seems to be either extreme conditions bunker or burst spike with not much room in the middle. I’m hoping healing support can be made more viable instead of people just seeing green numbers but not getting any loot.

Bunker and support do very little damage unless they’re a hybrid to do conditions but you generally need some healing power to be a good support player.

Arenanet are buffing support healing and I am glad for it. Problem is most of the full zerker burst spike damage just cannot be outhealed. There’s not much you can do to mitigate the damage either apart from your main heal, dodges, blocks, invulns and evades.

A full zerker amulet player will die in a couple of hits yet can 1-shot other players, while a full on bunker such as a guardian can tank hits from multiple players. Also the condition guys in the middle cant really be blamed either since he needs to tank and do some dps through the toughness of the bunkers.

Even Monks can die and be pressured from burst damage as seen in the video but most importantly it gives a real counter to spamming of dps (either conditions or power damage). Right now it’s just a race to see who can spam and avoid the most damage to win hence we have all these “passive” condition builds and burst spikes that rely on being invulnerable.

Boons run out and can be stripped not to mention if the player isn’t in bunker gear they won’t be enough usually unless they have a good amount of toughness. Healing and condition removal is what keeps you alive in an actual fight and it seems to only work in wvw with lots of players running support.

Evades/dodges, condition removal, block and invulnerable skills all have cooldowns meanwhile the damage just keeps coming from autoattacks and aoes. This is why I think this game would benefit from having a monk, to counter the insane burst damage.

What I want simply is a game with monks like gw1 had where fights can actually last longer than a couple of minutes. But apparently Arenanet decided that healers are boring and everyone should just kill each other with dps. Healing and Damage Mitigation needs a real buff if this game wants to have any chance at being competitive and balanced.

Fights lasting longer hones skills and teamwork with players. The best example I can use in gw2 is wvw where there is enough support and the aoe limit of 5 prevents players being bursted down instantly if they make a mistake. The stacking zerg meta is there for a reason and all zerker and condition damage does is make it even more needed.

Remember gw1 we had so many skills and different builds and they could all be used because they countered each other. But that didn’t mean that some builds weren’t better than others for certain things. There is too many players complaining that 1 build is too powerful but in my opinion its all based on skill level. Burst can 1-shot bunker or condis but they have more defense making it harder.

Do you guys want a game with no “Overpowered” skills and everything the same and boring? Half the fun of games is to have fun and in gw1 I sure had fun in pve with my shadow form tank lol. So in all honesty maybe try different classes more and try to learn all the different skills and how they can be countered. There is no reason for nerfs because you guys refuse to adapt to the meta.

I played gw1 had fun but this combat system is more dynamic being able to actively dodge and every class having their own heals. I just get bored of the whole dps wins everything while damage mitigation and healing is not even considered. I think gw2 lacks depth and with a monk it could easily have it.

Maybe I’m just the type of player that likes when I’m needed such as Shadow Form tanks in gw1. There are many other players that I think want to be able to feel like they can help the party and be useful instead of just another player. This is why I love healing and damage mitigation and tanking is so fun.

I truly believe Thief's burst meta with bunker Guardian’s tankiness and Warrior’s Healing Signet and Revenant's invuln balance each other out. Also Engineer’s, Necromancer's and Elementalist’s Aoe damage controls conquest points. Meanwhile Ranger's pets and long distance damage can take out these targets from a distance. Mesmer’s spamming of clones also allows them to easily confuse an enemy long enough for them to burst them down. This is truly the best meta we can get and if you don’t like it experiment with builds and kill the passive no skill builds as you call them.

If some builds don’t have a counter then reroll to them since they’re obviously so overpowered and never die. Maybe try playing as a team instead of trying to 1v1 everything. Burst/zerker will die quickly that’s a fact. Would you prefer the meta to be bunkers and conditions only?

This is the state of the meta and Arenanet will not change it because it attracts the most players. Do you think that there is more skill to playing your build and everything else is cheese? This is called not playing to win and making excuses.

Everybody plays for or against a profession and thinks it is Overpowered. Well I am simply going to say that is your opinion. There is no balance when everything is “overpowered”.

Arenanet will not listen to your complaints obviously biased against certain professions. Because all you want is for them to be nerfed and your own profession buffed. I will link “Playing to win” by Sirlin now.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

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@"getalifeturd.8139" said:

There is many lessons to be taken from gw1 such as all professions having the same base health. Also healing being much more effective than it currently is. Then the pvp in this game might be more than just spamming of conditions and dps. There would be a true counter rather than just damage avoidance.

I think the biggest problem is balancing for different skill levels. Because some players have better reflexes or more experience playing a profession. This means that it is not even the professions that are unbalanced but the actual players themselves.

So what I have seen Arenanet do is make very easy builds like condition bunkers that everyone can use. Then there’s zerker thieves, elementalists, bunker guards, etc, that take a bit more skill. The main problem as discussed in Sirlin’s book is balancing for skill.

This is very difficult and he said that by giving easier options that can work, but don’t work as well as something which requires more skill. That is balance and I think Arenanet know this and what we have is a game balanced for different skill levels.

So in conclusion Balance is very subjective but if you balance for different skill levels it becomes much easier. And that is why a game can not ever be truly balanced. Because players and people have so many different skill levels.

The way we experience competition is by winning or losing. But also I understand that by being too subjective in our opinions of balance is bad feedback. By making the pvp combat challenging but also not too hard to learn creates a diverse pvp community.

Let's use the conquest meta as an example. We fight each other on small circles. And we have to hold these circles to win the game.

It’s not just the power creep that is the reason these 1-shot classes are the best. It’s simply the fact that everything else that could counter the Conquest Meta has been nerfed by Arenanet to make way for Esports.

Instead of a power based twitch reaction time meta we have an abundance of 1-shot DPS and passive gameplay. We have area of effect skills ticking away on a point. We have Bunker Specs putting out enough damage to kill players.

Why is this? Because Arenanet has removed tanky amulets and replaced active damage mitigation with passive invulnerabilities. Now instead of dodging power based attacks with well timed evades we have classes running max 1-shot DPS.

These 1-shot DPS classes are dominating because other classes cannot bring enough sustain to compete with them. They are kings of DPS and 1-shots at the same time with the best ability to stack boons.

You want to know why this game isn’t an ESport Arenanet? Because you catered too much to casuals and made this game too simple. If we had Monks they at least

There is a general lack of sustain and too much dps (both conditions and power). What is the counter to DPS? Nothing…but in GuildWars 1 it was a Monk and that is why this game lacks depth. Dodge rolls aren’t a replacement for healing and protection that a monk class would offer.

I find it funny when people assume GW1 was only theorycrafting builds and counters. The combat was just as if not more active than GW2. The fact is it had interrupts and hexes (based around punishing enemy for spamming). Proper protection and healing spells (able to almost full heal from a spike of dps). Along with Conditions, Melee and kiting, Aoes, block skills/spells and teleports. Also I probably need to mention you couldn’t just spam skills either. They were reliant on energy which you had a supply of and when you ran out it had to regenerate.

^ There’s an example of what is possible with monks. Also here’s a list of monk spells in gw1: “Monks…with their unparalleled gift for keeping their allies alive” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills

Just some ideas and my opinion about the different builds. Since the meta seems to be either extreme conditions bunker or burst spike with not much room in the middle. I’m hoping healing support can be made more viable instead of people just seeing green numbers but not getting any loot.

Bunker and support do very little damage unless they’re a hybrid to do conditions but you generally need some healing power to be a good support player.

Arenanet are buffing support healing and I am glad for it. Problem is most of the full zerker burst spike damage just cannot be outhealed. There’s not much you can do to mitigate the damage either apart from your main heal, dodges, blocks, invulns and evades.

A full zerker amulet player will die in a couple of hits yet can 1-shot other players, while a full on bunker such as a guardian can tank hits from multiple players. Also the condition guys in the middle cant really be blamed either since he needs to tank and do some dps through the toughness of the bunkers.

Even Monks can die and be pressured from burst damage as seen in the video but most importantly it gives a real counter to spamming of dps (either conditions or power damage). Right now it’s just a race to see who can spam and avoid the most damage to win hence we have all these “passive” condition builds and burst spikes that rely on being invulnerable.

Boons run out and can be stripped not to mention if the player isn’t in bunker gear they won’t be enough usually unless they have a good amount of toughness. Healing and condition removal is what keeps you alive in an actual fight and it seems to only work in wvw with lots of players running support.

Evades/dodges, condition removal, block and invulnerable skills all have cooldowns meanwhile the damage just keeps coming from autoattacks and aoes. This is why I think this game would benefit from having a monk, to counter the insane burst damage.

What I want simply is a game with monks like gw1 had where fights can actually last longer than a couple of minutes. But apparently Arenanet decided that healers are boring and everyone should just kill each other with dps. Healing and Damage Mitigation needs a real buff if this game wants to have any chance at being competitive and balanced.

Fights lasting longer hones skills and teamwork with players. The best example I can use in gw2 is wvw where there is enough support and the aoe limit of 5 prevents players being bursted down instantly if they make a mistake. The stacking zerg meta is there for a reason and all zerker and condition damage does is make it even more needed.

Remember gw1 we had so many skills and different builds and they could all be used because they countered each other. But that didn’t mean that some builds weren’t better than others for certain things. There is too many players complaining that 1 build is too powerful but in my opinion its all based on skill level. Burst can 1-shot bunker or condis but they have more defense making it harder.

Do you guys want a game with no “Overpowered” skills and everything the same and boring? Half the fun of games is to have fun and in gw1 I sure had fun in pve with my shadow form tank lol. So in all honesty maybe try different classes more and try to learn all the different skills and how they can be countered. There is no reason for nerfs because you guys refuse to adapt to the meta.

I played gw1 had fun but this combat system is more dynamic being able to actively dodge and every class having their own heals. I just get bored of the whole dps wins everything while damage mitigation and healing is not even considered. I think gw2 lacks depth and with a monk it could easily have it.

Sorry, you're just low tier. None of your perspective on heals makes any sense in ranked play or ATs. Firebrands are a thing. We don't need monks.

You are right on one point. The problem is players who can't grasp the depth of gw2 mechanics because their brains have been damaged by doing endless pve world bosses.

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Sustain is too high over all and the dps is too high on the high sustain classes in comparison to the squishy low sustain classes. U have classes/builds now in this game that have insane sustain potential while out putting insane high bursts dps etc. Then uve got classes that were given ways to sustain at a reasonable amount but no where near the amount of alot of the other classes/builds all while having similar and in some cases lower dps bursts. It's really is like the balance team plays the bare minimum of their game and of course some natural bias of prefered classes seem to fair better in the end.

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@bladezero.9470 said:You are right on one point. The problem is players who can't grasp the depth of gw2 mechanics because their brains have been damaged by doing endless pve world bosses.

Thanks for cherry picking my post and ignoring some of the points made while insulting me with ad hominem.

please for the love of god if you're gonna quote someone and they have a wall of text, delete it or only keep the relevant parts.

This here is exactly the problem with these forums. People ignore what people have said and try to strawman their argument to suit themselves.

RXbdjcN.jpg

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@getalifeturd.8139 said:

@bladezero.9470 said:You are right on one point. The problem is players who can't grasp the depth of gw2 mechanics because their brains have been damaged by doing endless pve world bosses.

Thanks for cherry picking my post and ignoring some of the points made while insulting me with ad hominem.

please for the love of god if you're gonna quote someone and they have a wall of text, delete it or only keep the relevant parts.

This here is exactly the problem with these forums. People ignore what people have said and try to strawman their argument to suit themselves.

RXbdjcN.jpg

Dude, you're a philosophy major. We get it.

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