5 main reasons why PvP died/ everyone quit

[Skyronight.6370]

I tried checking out gw2 pvp again after getting bored of battle royale games and I just got reminded again why I left in the first place. Nowadays silver players get paired with rank 1-10 players from leaderboard because the population has never been lower and theres reasons for that.

1. lack of updates towards pvp, it has never changed and stayed the same, couple of new maps and no other changes

2. power creep from elite specs, basically arena net has turned everyone into a super hero while having no downsides in their build like pre hot, theres no more giving up damage for sustain or for mobility, every build has everything and large AoE spam resulting in low skill floor which creates unbalanced matches since everyone is a God that means nobody is a god. Its like playing CS GO and everyone has aim bot and wall hacks on, how do you determinate who is the better player?

3. Casual friendly mechanics such as passive traits and the overtuned downstate mechanics, when a player get downed they should be punished for the misplay but instead gw2 is the only game that gives really overpowered abilities in the downstate making it near impossible to win outnumbered fights since its so easy to res and interrupt the stomp, basically its easier to play defensively than offensively thus favoring the casual player more. Imagine playing PUBG squads and the downed player could throw smokes or molotovs at you etc, why is it so hard to kill someone that has already been partially defeated, to balance downstate there should be no abilities available aside from self res and it should take at least 2 other players to get the full res when 1 person is cleaving. Do not reward people for misplays. Same applies to passive traits like passive aegis, passive invul etc, basically making PvP too casual friendly made all the hardcore pvpers quit that are looking for a competitive game which brings me to reason number 4.

4. The competitive scene of gw2 has always been a niche instead of being the main focus, players were never incentivized to make teams because there was no tournaments and no rewards aside from ESL cups back then. This the game only stayed in a " yolo Q" only state and was never growing as a competitive game and its always been dominated by the same 2-3 teams because of lack of competition. PvP cannot survive without a competitive environment and gw2 never offered that environment except with ESL cups that had great rewards.

5. Lack of advertisment of the PvP part of the game, basically the PvP population stayed rather low at all times because there was incentive to try it and all the focus was mainly on the living story and the expansions, its like pvp was just a mini game and was something that was not important, even introducing a basic tutorial and giving people a few gold for trying out PvP would have made the population so much bigger and alot of players would end up staying and try to improve and be competitive but instead some people dont even know that pvp exists in gw2 because it was not being talked about.

   6. Edit: Forgot an important one is lack of frequent balance patches . When it takes several months to fix an over performing build, people are not willing to wait till it gets fixed they will just quit and probably will not come back.

Theres alot more reasons but those are the main ones, its kinda sad to see this because this game had potential but it never reached it.

[BadMed.3846]

Ability to duo queue making an absolute mockery of the leaderboard system. Making the game enjoyable for only title abusing elitists who manipulate the game mode to death.

[Burnfall.9573]

@"Skyronight.6370" said:I tried checking out gw2 pvp again after getting bored of battle royale games and I just got reminded again why I left in the first place. Nowadays silver players get paired with rank 1-10 players from leaderboard because the population has never been lower and theres reasons for that.

1. lack of updates towards pvp, it has never changed and stayed the same, couple of new maps and no other changes

2. power creep from elite specs, basically arena net has turned everyone into a super hero while having no downsides in their build like pre hot, theres no more giving up damage for sustain or for mobility, every build has everything and large AoE spam resulting in low skill floor which creates unbalanced matches since everyone is a God that means nobody is a god. Its like playing CS GO and everyone has aim bot and wall hacks on, how do you determinate who is the better player?

3. Casual friendly mechanics such as passive traits and the overtuned downstate mechanics, when a player get downed they should be punished for the misplay but instead gw2 is the only game that gives really overpowered abilities in the downstate making it near impossible to win outnumbered fights since its so easy to res and interrupt the stomp, basically its easier to play defensively than offensively thus favoring the casual player more. Imagine playing PUBG squads and the downed player could throw smokes or molotovs at you etc, why is it so hard to kill someone that has already been partially defeated, to balance downstate there should be no abilities available aside from self res and it should take at least 2 other players to get the full res when 1 person is cleaving. Do not reward people for misplays. Same applies to passive traits like passive aegis, passive invul etc, basically making PvP too casual friendly made all the hardcore pvpers quit that are looking for a competitive game which brings me to reason number 4.

4. The competitive scene of gw2 has always been a niche instead of being the main focus, players were never incentivized to make teams because there was no tournaments and no rewards aside from ESL cups back then. This the game only stayed in a " yolo Q" only state and was never growing as a competitive game and its always been dominated by the same 2-3 teams because of lack of competition. PvP cannot survive without a competitive environment and gw2 never offered that environment except with ESL cups that had great rewards.

5. Lack of advertisment of the PvP part of the game, basically the PvP population stayed rather low at all times because there was incentive to try it and all the focus was mainly on the living story and the expansions, its like pvp was just a mini game and was something that was not important, even introducing a basic tutorial and giving people a few gold for trying out PvP would have made the population so much bigger and alot of players would end up staying and try to improve and be competitive but instead some people dont even know that pvp exists in gw2 because it was not being talked about.

   6. Edit: Forgot an important one is lack of frequent balance patches . When it takes several months to fix an over performing build, people are not willing to wait till it gets fixed they will just quit and probably will not come back.

Theres alot more reasons but those are the main ones, its kinda sad to see this because this game had potential but it never reached it.

+1

Well said

[Widmo.3186]

GW1 PvP > Old WoW PvP > Pre-PoF GW2 PvP > New WoW PvP > Current GW2 PvPIm sorry, but for me what killed this mode completly was PoF expansion. Amount of unbalance it caused is enormous. And I dont think that there's anything that ANet can do about it, its little bit too late. Many people already quit, most of those who left are elitist and ANet clearly dont know how to deal with current balance and I think its going to be (or already is) "if everything is OP, then nothing is OP".Good for those who still enjoy this mode, stay stronk.

[Silinsar.6298]

@"Skyronight.6370" said:I tried checking out gw2 pvp again after getting bored of battle royale games and I just got reminded again why I left in the first place. Nowadays silver players get paired with rank 1-10 players from leaderboard because the population has never been lower and theres reasons for that.

1. lack of updates towards pvp, it has never changed and stayed the same, couple of new maps and no other changes

Yeah, PvP has been getting less and less attention. You don't need change for change's sake (aka don't unbalance what isn't broken), but some new maps or game modes would have been nice. ANet tried with the siege thing (don't even remember the name) and death match arena, but then didn't give them a q and just left them in the dust. Removing the water combat from sPvP also was an early indicator that they just didn't want to put in the effort to fix / balance it.

2. power creep from elite specs, basically arena net has turned everyone into a super hero while having no downsides in their build like pre hot, theres no more giving up damage for sustain or for mobility, every build has everything and large AoE spam resulting in low skill floor which creates unbalanced matches since everyone is a God that means nobody is a god. Its like playing CS GO and everyone has aim bot and wall hacks on, how do you determinate who is the better player?

I don't think powercreep has reduced the skill requirement of the game. There are just more situations now that are decided by builds / team composition IF everyone has reached a certain skill level. And fights tend to be more one sided, so there generally are lesser moments in which to apply skill. But you'll still need experience to be consistently successful. And in some matchups the difference really shows.While a good expansion spec might carry a player in some situations, those in which it doesn't become the deciding ones. And those are harder than before, because more stuff gets thrown around in less time while compared to that you could take time to really ponder how to use your skills pre hot. That also makes PvP less noob friendly compared to pre hot, imo. It became more action + reaction heavy and less tactical but the tactical part didn't get removed, it's still there somehow, you just have less time to think about it :) If you want to get into the "good" tactical part of PvP you basically have to automatize the mechanical part (which takes a lot of practice).

3. Casual friendly mechanics such as passive traits and the overtuned downstate mechanics, when a player get downed they should be punished for the misplay but instead gw2 is the only game that gives really overpowered abilities in the downstate making it near impossible to win outnumbered fights since its so easy to res and interrupt the stomp, basically its easier to play defensively than offensively thus favoring the casual player more. Imagine playing PUBG squads and the downed player could throw smokes or molotovs at you etc, why is it so hard to kill someone that has already been partially defeated, to balance downstate there should be no abilities available aside from self res and it should take at least 2 other players to get the full res when 1 person is cleaving. Do not reward people for misplays. Same applies to passive traits like passive aegis, passive invul etc, basically making PvP too casual friendly made all the hardcore pvpers quit that are looking for a competitive game which brings me to reason number 4.

I think the downed / res mechanic itself is fine in sPvP. The skills around it that allow near zero risk and/or fast ressing, and the fact that ANet never really got to balance the skills of the downed state itself. And I'd have liked to see them trying to scrap rally. I get the idea to make an exciting comeback, but when you got a very even and balanced team fight, 2 people down on every side, one of them just dies while one of the other team has 1% and it turns the whole thing around so much that what could continue as a even fight is now a complete blowout... it just ends a good fight midway.

4. The competitive scene of gw2 has always been a niche instead of being the main focus, players were never incentivized to make teams because there was no tournaments and no rewards aside from ESL cups back then. This the game only stayed in a " yolo Q" only state and was never growing as a competitive game and its always been dominated by the same 2-3 teams because of lack of competition. PvP cannot survive without a competitive environment and gw2 never offered that environment except with ESL cups that had great rewards.

I've never had any tournament ambitions, but from what I read and experienced myself (from those openly indicating they're part of it) many of the players engaging in the short ESL scene were downright toxic. You don't just need tournaments and rewards, you need a community people actually want to be part of.

5. Lack of advertisment of the PvP part of the game, basically the PvP population stayed rather low at all times because there was incentive to try it and all the focus was mainly on the living story and the expansions, its like pvp was just a mini game and was something that was not important, even introducing a basic tutorial and giving people a few gold for trying out PvP would have made the population so much bigger and alot of players would end up staying and try to improve and be competitive but instead some people dont even know that pvp exists in gw2 because it was not being talked about.

Kinda like the chicken / egg problem. What was there before: Few players because of little resources invested from ANet or little resources invested from ANet because there were so few payers?In GW1 there are low level arenas that would ease new players into PvP, you always play in a team (heros / henchies), mobs are set up in groups with reasonable compositions (frontline, casters, healers...) and use the same skills players can. The PvE in GW1 is basically teaching you PvP by letting you play vs bots with your own bots. And it felt very dynamic and tactical to me because of that. Imo GW1 is the better PvE and PvP game, but GW2 is newer, it's the better MMO and has a better combat system.

6. Edit: Forgot an important one is lack of frequent balance patches . When it takes several months to fix an over performing build, people are not willing to wait till it gets fixed they will just quit and probably will not come back.

Balance often is subjective. Sometimes an OP build seems less OP 2 months later because people figure out to fight it or adjust some things to bring more counters. Sometimes "OP" builds pop out of nowhere (without following a buff) because someone just discovered it handles the current meta well. Overhasty nerfs can be necessary in some cases, but I wouldn't say that was THE problem about ANet's balancing. ANet always tried slow and steady, to continuously gravitate towards the unreachable perfect balance. And it was just that, it worked, imo, it just wasn't good for keeping impatient players. And then they threw the whole thing, years of slow and steady balancing, a pretty well balanced state of the game, into the gutter with the trait overhauls & expansions. And they still stick to slow, but became less sensible (personal opinion) about how they handle things. And they scrapped the "steady" part, suddenly reworking things here or there (that might not need it to begin with) while doing nothing or almost irrelevant number changes in other spots.

Theres alot more reasons but those are the main ones, its kinda sad to see this because this game had potential but it never reached it.

Imo, GW2 PvP (and also WvW) could have benefited massively from dedicated community managers (and balance/dev teams in the background). Discussing in detail (as much as I appreciate them, not just a post every couple of months) why things don't change fast, how they're handling it, what their view on it and the data is, previewing and opening up changes to discussions, do some weekend-event tests (like for pof) for greater balance updates, ... The PvP development is basically below an indie-dev level (at least the impression of how much dedicated resources they provide for it is) and those HAVE to engage with their communities to keep them interested and invested and to make more people take a look at it. As sad as the layoffs were, the restructuring would have been the chance to make PvP a little bit more of a priority.

And while the devs should have really upped their game in some areas, the community should have done so too. Matchmaking mixes plat with low golds, so don't ask of others what you couldn't achieve yourself (and be toxic about it), be willing to teach people. Welcome noobs. Don't expect the devs to specifically cater to your ideas of balance. Be a little patient or try to adjust a bit. Make your own tournaments. Don't shout "OP!" without giving any real arguments as soon as you encounter something new, a better player or 1 day after a patch.

[Ziggityzog.7389]

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@"Skyronight.6370" said:I tried checking out gw2 pvp again after getting bored of battle royale games and I just got reminded again why I left in the first place. Nowadays silver players get paired with rank 1-10 players from leaderboard because the population has never been lower and theres reasons for that.

1. lack of updates towards pvp, it has never changed and stayed the same, couple of new maps and no other changes

2. power creep from elite specs, basically arena net has turned everyone into a super hero while having no downsides in their build like pre hot, theres no more giving up damage for sustain or for mobility, every build has everything and large AoE spam resulting in low skill floor which creates unbalanced matches since everyone is a God that means nobody is a god. Its like playing CS GO and everyone has aim bot and wall hacks on, how do you determinate who is the better player?

3. Casual friendly mechanics such as passive traits and the overtuned downstate mechanics, when a player get downed they should be punished for the misplay but instead gw2 is the only game that gives really overpowered abilities in the downstate making it near impossible to win outnumbered fights since its so easy to res and interrupt the stomp, basically its easier to play defensively than offensively thus favoring the casual player more. Imagine playing PUBG squads and the downed player could throw smokes or molotovs at you etc, why is it so hard to kill someone that has already been partially defeated, to balance downstate there should be no abilities available aside from self res and it should take at least 2 other players to get the full res when 1 person is cleaving. Do not reward people for misplays. Same applies to passive traits like passive aegis, passive invul etc, basically making PvP too casual friendly made all the hardcore pvpers quit that are looking for a competitive game which brings me to reason number 4.

4. The competitive scene of gw2 has always been a niche instead of being the main focus, players were never incentivized to make teams because there was no tournaments and no rewards aside from ESL cups back then. This the game only stayed in a " yolo Q" only state and was never growing as a competitive game and its always been dominated by the same 2-3 teams because of lack of competition. PvP cannot survive without a competitive environment and gw2 never offered that environment except with ESL cups that had great rewards.

5. Lack of advertisment of the PvP part of the game, basically the PvP population stayed rather low at all times because there was incentive to try it and all the focus was mainly on the living story and the expansions, its like pvp was just a mini game and was something that was not important, even introducing a basic tutorial and giving people a few gold for trying out PvP would have made the population so much bigger and alot of players would end up staying and try to improve and be competitive but instead some people dont even know that pvp exists in gw2 because it was not being talked about.
   6. Edit: Forgot an important one is lack of frequent balance patches . When it takes several months to fix an over performing build, people are not willing to wait till it gets fixed they will just quit and probably will not come back.

Theres alot more reasons but those are the main ones, its kinda sad to see this because this game had potential but it never reached it.

+1

Well said

slow clap. Here here.

A game mode like pvp should not be allowed to go stale like it did with lack of anything but the same copy paste format of everything.

[Lala.8752]

personally, i stopped because i don't like playing every time the same build and balance with good change in gw2 are too rare

[Zawn.9647]

you dont need to agree with powercreep. its a fact.if you can kill people with 3 skills rather than have a fight and need to time you burst, the skill requirement of the game has been lowered. period :)

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Game was doomed from released. No skill diversity, no risk imbued into skills, every skill has a safety net. Some renowned gw1 players warned ANet about this before release, it didn't change anything.

[Burnfall.9573]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Game was doomed from released. No skill diversity, no risk imbued into skills, every skill has a safety net. Some renowned gw1 players warned ANet about this before release, it didn't change anything.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

teef was opthenboonbeast was opthenmirage was opthenrev was opthenwait... everything still op

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Game was doomed from released. No skill diversity, no risk imbued into skills, every skill has a safety net. Some renowned gw1 players warned ANet about this before release, it didn't change anything.

The warrior from the team of ''War Mach...ette'' from GW1 . called this game an un-meele game , and they where still bitter that the company didnt inv them in the closed beta to give their opinion ....

The newers ppl like mesmer Xer ..Xerxes from the top pvp teams , told the bold balance guy to not bother so much , becuase balance dont matter and ''as long there are athletes , ppl will flock in the stadium'' ....

Let me find for a sec , the street fight videos , where ''buffing up is more benificial to the game , rather than nerfing'' , where ppl where so fond of to link here...

No wonder we had 3-5k viewers for 2 years without increase , even with ESL using thier platform to advertise it ...

PPl defend their ,class , other dont like it and bail out , new ppl come in ., and in the end the ppl that defended their class get older and whine..Same circle

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@BadMed.3846 said:Ability to duo queue making an absolute mockery of the leaderboard system. Making the game enjoyable for only title abusing elitists who manipulate the game mode to death.

^ This

DuoQ's are no more or less competitive than SoloQ's in GW2's 5v5 gamemode, they only encourage what is essentially team stacking and match manipulation.

To go along with what the OP said, killing off GW2's competitive scene started a long time ago, but the finishing blow was definitely DuoQ and Season 13.

[SPESHAL.9106]

@"Skyronight.6370" said:I tried checking out gw2 pvp again after getting bored of battle royale games and I just got reminded again why I left in the first place. Nowadays silver players get paired with rank 1-10 players from leaderboard because the population has never been lower and theres reasons for that.

1. lack of updates towards pvp, it has never changed and stayed the same, couple of new maps and no other changes

Technically, they DID do updates. The problem is that they REMOVED things. They used to have underwater combat, but instead of fixing it, they decided to waste all that programming for PvP and remove it from the maps. They had a coliseum style group map that they gave up on too. They quasi gave up on stronghold while other maps stay in beta forever. SERIOUSLY, how long does it take for a map to be in beta before they figure out the issues????

The real killer though was the worthless leaderboards. First, they took forever to implement the right scoring system that wasn't a grind and was consistent with other game...however, they then sabotaged it by allowing premades mix with solo players. On top of that, they ignore the obvious problems with cheaters and manipulators such that people don't even bother to report anymore.

The coup de grace though is these rare patches cause just as much problems as they solve. They "reworked mesmers" and it resulted in such an OP profession that they are still viable after a full year of nerfs. They recently did the same to scrappers and revenants such that double revs are a thing. In short, they break as much as they fix...not to mention...every patch they have to hotfix embarrassing things that should have been caught with 5 minutes of internal testing.

[BlackFyer.6415]

I quit this game because they never focused PvP and now i'm loving BDO after 6 months. Don't listen to everyone screaming that it's P2W. It just takes patience.

[JTGuevara.9018]

@Silinsar.6298 said:

@"Skyronight.6370" said:I tried checking out gw2 pvp again after getting bored of battle royale games and I just got reminded again why I left in the first place. Nowadays silver players get paired with rank 1-10 players from leaderboard because the population has never been lower and theres reasons for that.

1. lack of updates towards pvp, it has never changed and stayed the same, couple of new maps and no other changes

Yeah, PvP has been getting less and less attention. You don't need change for change's sake (aka don't unbalance what isn't broken), but some new maps or game modes would have been nice. ANet tried with the siege thing (don't even remember the name) and death match arena, but then didn't give them a q and just left them in the dust. Removing the water combat from sPvP also was an early indicator that they just didn't want to put in the effort to fix / balance it.

2. power creep from elite specs, basically arena net has turned everyone into a super hero while having no downsides in their build like pre hot, theres no more giving up damage for sustain or for mobility, every build has everything and large AoE spam resulting in low skill floor which creates unbalanced matches since everyone is a God that means nobody is a god. Its like playing CS GO and everyone has aim bot and wall hacks on, how do you determinate who is the better player?

I don't think powercreep has reduced the skill requirement of the game. There are just more situations now that are decided by builds / team composition IF everyone has reached a certain skill level. And fights tend to be more one sided, so there generally are lesser moments in which to apply skill. But you'll still need experience to be consistently successful. And in some matchups the difference really shows.While a good expansion spec might carry a player in some situations, those in which it doesn't become the deciding ones. And those are harder than before, because more stuff gets thrown around in less time while compared to that you could take time to really ponder how to use your skills pre hot. That also makes PvP less noob friendly compared to pre hot, imo. It became more action + reaction heavy and less tactical but the tactical part didn't get removed, it's still there somehow, you just have less time to think about it :) If you want to get into the "good" tactical part of PvP you basically have to automatize the mechanical part (which takes a lot of practice).

3. Casual friendly mechanics such as passive traits and the overtuned downstate mechanics, when a player get downed they should be punished for the misplay but instead gw2 is the only game that gives really overpowered abilities in the downstate making it near impossible to win outnumbered fights since its so easy to res and interrupt the stomp, basically its easier to play defensively than offensively thus favoring the casual player more. Imagine playing PUBG squads and the downed player could throw smokes or molotovs at you etc, why is it so hard to kill someone that has already been partially defeated, to balance downstate there should be no abilities available aside from self res and it should take at least 2 other players to get the full res when 1 person is cleaving. Do not reward people for misplays. Same applies to passive traits like passive aegis, passive invul etc, basically making PvP too casual friendly made all the hardcore pvpers quit that are looking for a competitive game which brings me to reason number 4.

I think the downed / res mechanic itself is fine in sPvP. The skills around it that allow near zero risk and/or fast ressing, and the fact that ANet never really got to balance the skills of the downed state itself. And I'd have liked to see them trying to scrap rally. I get the idea to make an exciting comeback, but when you got a very even and balanced team fight, 2 people down on every side, one of them just dies while one of the other team has 1% and it turns the whole thing around so much that what could continue as a even fight is now a complete blowout... it just ends a good fight midway.

4. The competitive scene of gw2 has always been a niche instead of being the main focus, players were never incentivized to make teams because there was no tournaments and no rewards aside from ESL cups back then. This the game only stayed in a " yolo Q" only state and was never growing as a competitive game and its always been dominated by the same 2-3 teams because of lack of competition. PvP cannot survive without a competitive environment and gw2 never offered that environment except with ESL cups that had great rewards.

I've never had any tournament ambitions, but from what I read and experienced myself (from those openly indicating they're part of it) many of the players engaging in the short ESL scene were downright toxic. You don't just need tournaments and rewards, you need a community people actually want to be part of.

5. Lack of advertisment of the PvP part of the game, basically the PvP population stayed rather low at all times because there was incentive to try it and all the focus was mainly on the living story and the expansions, its like pvp was just a mini game and was something that was not important, even introducing a basic tutorial and giving people a few gold for trying out PvP would have made the population so much bigger and alot of players would end up staying and try to improve and be competitive but instead some people dont even know that pvp exists in gw2 because it was not being talked about.

Kinda like the chicken / egg problem. What was there before: Few players because of little resources invested from ANet or little resources invested from ANet because there were so few payers?In GW1 there are low level arenas that would ease new players into PvP, you always play in a team (heros / henchies), mobs are set up in groups with reasonable compositions (frontline, casters, healers...) and use the same skills players can. The PvE in GW1 is basically teaching you PvP by letting you play vs bots with your own bots. And it felt very dynamic and tactical to me because of that. Imo GW1 is the better PvE and PvP game, but GW2 is newer, it's the better MMO and has a better combat system.

6. Edit: Forgot an important one is lack of frequent balance patches . When it takes several months to fix an over performing build, people are not willing to wait till it gets fixed they will just quit and probably will not come back.

Balance often is subjective. Sometimes an OP build seems less OP 2 months later because people figure out to fight it or adjust some things to bring more counters. Sometimes "OP" builds pop out of nowhere (without following a buff) because someone just discovered it handles the current meta well. Overhasty nerfs can be necessary in some cases, but I wouldn't say that was THE problem about ANet's balancing. ANet always tried slow and steady, to continuously gravitate towards the unreachable perfect balance. And it was just that, it worked, imo, it just wasn't good for keeping impatient players. And then they threw the whole thing, years of slow and steady balancing, a pretty well balanced state of the game, into the gutter with the trait overhauls & expansions. And they still stick to slow, but became less sensible (personal opinion) about how they handle things. And they scrapped the "steady" part, suddenly reworking things here or there (that might not need it to begin with) while doing nothing or almost irrelevant number changes in other spots.

Theres alot more reasons but those are the main ones, its kinda sad to see this because this game had potential but it never reached it.

Imo, GW2 PvP (and also WvW) could have benefited massively from dedicated community managers (and balance/dev teams in the background). Discussing in detail (as much as I appreciate them, not just a post every couple of months) why things don't change fast, how they're handling it, what their view on it and the data is, previewing and opening up changes to discussions, do some weekend-event tests (like for pof) for greater balance updates, ... The PvP development is basically below an indie-dev level (at least the impression of how much dedicated resources they provide for it is) and those HAVE to engage with their communities to keep them interested and invested and to make more people take a look at it. As sad as the layoffs were, the restructuring would have been the chance to make PvP a little bit more of a priority.

And while the devs should have really upped their game in some areas, the community should have done so too. Matchmaking mixes plat with low golds, so don't ask of others what you couldn't achieve yourself (and be toxic about it), be willing to teach people. Welcome noobs. Don't expect the devs to specifically cater to your ideas of balance. Be a little patient or try to adjust a bit. Make your own tournaments. Don't shout "OP!" without giving any real arguments as soon as you encounter something new, a better player or 1 day after a patch.

I'm sorry, but powercreep has most certainly lowered the skill requirement. This is not even a contest. When I can smash keys and get results on a new profession...that's a problem. It simply should not happen. There is no "tactical" part, it's all reaction based. Elite specs just stuff everything in one build--evades, damage, cc, defenses with basically no tradeoffs. All you really get are glass cannons and bunkers, there's nothing in between.

Also, balance is not subjective, it has a clear meaning: the opposite of imbalance! And I'm seeing a LOT of imbalance. Examples are glass cannon builds like GS berserker with double axe which can one-shot professions. I'm sorry, but that simply should not exist in any structured pvp game unless it's a first-person shooter. Same goes with soulbeast, holo, rev, mirage, deadeye which are nothing but pve-centric glass cannon gimmicks.

I'm sorry, but current pvp caters to the pvers and pvp elitists. It is NOT pvp. There's nothing to defend here.

[Dreamreaver.4908]

It's been seven years, and I've tried SPvP over and over again on and off and have never been able to enjoy it outside of the initial illusion of thrill due to its fast pace. I just came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me. Loved it in GW1, but in GW2, it feels like "he who can spin in circles the best wins" (if you don't just outright get bursted from something lame).

Not saying there isn't strategy involved, but the feeling of strategy, and especially variety, feels much less than its predecessor. Not even commentators have been able to tell what's going on.

I remember sucking at fighting so much that I started playing a tanky healing core guardian and found my love with that--helping out my team. Then that stat combo was removed... I've never gone back.

[Sovarica.4368]

I know a lot pf people who stopped playing pvp because they finished their backpack and don't have a goal anymore to lure them back. so.. I think if they added another backpack with achievements more casuals will probably return

[Dami.5046]

so nothing about the toxic nature if it then?

[LaGranse.8652]

Still confused why people whose priority is balanced player vs player combat look for it in MMO's. There are games specifically designed for this while an MMO has many elements that complicate fully balancing the game.

GW2 caters more the the casual side of games and the ranked PvP mode does not interest many 1 bit. I myself played unranked and never considered playing ranked because my guildies all told me I will have more fun in unranked. More build diversity, less 100% tryhards etc.

[imahich.8415]

Last 7 rank games we lost with less than 100 points no one on my team talked except like 1 person until i said something about my team being bots then another would talk but no one would do anything win trading guilds queuing up together to let the other win?? Like come on i just came back from 2017 and this is what this game is going through right now?

[ilonlie.4316]

I do not PVP since the game auto-changes my build.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@LaGranse.8652 said:Still confused why people whose priority is balanced player vs player combat look for it in MMO's. There are games specifically designed for this while an MMO has many elements that complicate fully balancing the game.

GW2 caters more the the casual side of games and the ranked PvP mode does not interest many 1 bit. I myself played unranked and never considered playing ranked because my guildies all told me I will have more fun in unranked. More build diversity, less 100% tryhards etc.

I, too, share your confusion. I mean, it would be nice if we could magically get balanced spvp within our mmo, but I'm not sure pvp was ever really a priority for this game. More importantly, I'm not sure that it really needs to be, either.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@LaGranse.8652 said:Still confused why people whose priority is balanced player vs player combat look for it in MMO's. There are games specifically designed for this while an MMO has many elements that complicate fully balancing the game.

GW2 caters more the the casual side of games and the ranked PvP mode does not interest many 1 bit. I myself played unranked and never considered playing ranked because my guildies all told me I will have more fun in unranked. More build diversity, less 100% tryhards etc.

I, too, share your confusion. I mean, it would be nice if we could magically get balanced spvp within our mmo, but I'm not sure pvp was ever really a priority for this game. More importantly, I'm not sure that it really needs to be, either.

Yeah, they might as well just dump one of their core elements.

I really think that will bring in more players and convince the veterans to stay.

I mean there can't be any other better PVE experience out there, can there?

[Chasind.3128]

Same reason why WvW is dying - noone left to fight in it. No real updates, no incentive to play WvW or GvG. Players are still waiting for things anet has asked for since the beginning of the game that anet promised theyd follow through on.The Dev team will not and cannot handle pvp/ wvw- thats why theyll never be fixed or improved. It's easier to cater to the casuals, give them a raid and some pve content and theyll tell everyone this is the greatest game ever.