DoomNexus.5324

Yea those who permanently left farmed fractals to death, already had at least one legendary weapon for their main char (some even 2 or 3) and just didn't really know what they're supposed to do anymore in the game. Some really disliked the introduction of ascended gear and that Anet didn't stay true to not introducing a gear treadmill - which, admittedly, they haven't done since then but yea.. wasn't the best sign to just throw out your promises a couple months after release. There just hasn't been very grindable PvE content back then because even the fractals were... not that great. I don't know, I honestly wasn't interested in sPvP that much back then. Just did some casual matches and only started to get invested in sPvP between HoT and PoF when I started watching Jawgeous. Frost and Flame really disappointed me and the second half of LS1 as well as just LS as a concept was a huge letdown for me and most of my friends. I quit after the LS1 finale (all my friends quit way before I did) until well after HoT was released, so I obviously don't know how the balance was prior to that but I'd definitely say that it's been pretty much on a constant decline since then.

I think launching GW2 on steam with the current sPvP would be a death sentence for the game mode. It's abysmal and it will not only have abysmal player retention, it will leave players very sour after their initial experience. Most people from my old guild (like, ~2013-ish) left the game and never came back due to bad experiences created by Anet. Anet has only one shot for creating a good first experience and this ain't it. Sure, a lot of PvE players and probably WvW players will stick to the game so gw2 as a whole (and therefore in the steam charts) will probably have a pretty good player retention but not PvP.

Sarcasm doesn't work that well in text form. I mean, you are sarcastic, right? .... right?

You are playing against those much higher people because the population is so low and it keeps getting worse, because Anet doesn't do kitten to "not split the population" - because apparently giving people variety and stuff is bad. Their strategy to "not worsen sPvP population by not doing anything at all" backfired worse than their HoT pre-launch ad campaign. And you are losing this much rating because Anet completely F'ed the concept of volatility in glicko-2 (the rating system they've implemented). Usually volatility in glicko-2 is used to track how consistent a player is. If a player's performance varies wildly over a period of time then volatiliy will also be high, meaning that any gains or losses aren't super representative of their actual skill (rank) and will be reduced to equalize the total rating change over several matches. If on the other hand a player is super consistent then they really "deserved" every gain and loss and it will be closer to what the system calculates would be appropriate. GW2's volatility system on the other hand works like this: It has a really high value at the start of the season and the lower it will get until it hits 0. The higher the volatility the higher your rating change will be, so it is common to gain/loose 90 or even 100 points in your very first placement match. To hide the kitten system you just aren't shown your actual skill rating until your 11th match, where volatility has dropped significantly but is still in effect up until iirc ~match 25 or so. (You can actually still see your current rating via their API, just not ingame.. checkout gw2efficiency for example if you are curious during placements or query their API yourself) The goal is to get players into their appropriate skill group quicker, so if you are playing like plat2 you won't stick around in lower rating matches because you will win all of them - as far as the theory is concerned at least but we all know that the reality is a bit different. I think the volatility is done in such a way because if Anet wanted to actually use a glicko-2-like implementation this would also require actually tracking/evaluating a player's individual performance, which they don't do atm and probably never will. And it's really sad that they don't do that because I think it is one of the most underappreciated but most impactful issues we have in ranked pvp. Imo a ton of (seemingly) unrelated issues stem from this problem or get worsened by this system kitten up.

I don't disagree with what you are saying but want to comment on this part. The neat part regarding balance in a mmorpg is: You don't. Or rather, you shouldn't. I think it's dangerous to expect every class and spec to be equally viable in all game modes and roles. That's as if you'd expect League of Legends to balance all 140+ champions to be equally viable on every lane/jungle and role, which would be insane. I will agree tho, MMOs usually cater to a different target audience (unfortunately). It is normal for mobas to just kitten some champions and nerf them into oblivion, especially when new ones are released. And while everybody is obviously annoyed most moba players won't quit because of it, even if they've invested thousand of hours in mastering it and it suddenly becomes unviable. Meanwhile MMO players (gw2 in particular for some reason) usually threaten to quit the entire game if their fotm isn't S-tier in every content type they are currently interested in. But in the case of gw2 it is imho a self-inflicted issue from Anet, due to conditioning the community and catering first and foremost to casuals. Regarding Albion being the only pvp mmo: I don't know for sure, probably depends on the definition of what makes a pvp mmo a "pvp mmo" instead of just a regular mmo. BDO for example is mainly a grinder and pvp mmo I'd say. Mortal Online (2) is also very pvp heavy and obviously Blade and Soul still has a 1v1 esport league (I'm not sure if they still run or just in Korea or something, can't be bothered to look it up rn tbh, sry). Even Guild Wars 1 started out as a primarily pvp heavy mmo and while they've massively focused on pve afterwards Anet back then still cared a lot about pvp for its entire active life cycle. In any case, in my opinion this is one of the major advantages of mmorpgs tho. To combine (massive) coop pve and (large/small scale) pvp content. I often find myself bored from constantly playing only pve or pvp, I like to mix things up. Also some friends only play pvp while others pretty much only play pve and I want to be able to spend quality time with both groups.

I actually agree with pretty much everything that's been suggested so far in the comments above. Would actually make the pvp experience A LOT better. Unfortunately Anet doesn't give a kitten/can't afford to improve anything related to sPvP, sooooo.. 🤷‍♂️ I'm just waiting to read through for the mixed reviews after steam launch (if it ever comes).

I would laugh if it wasn't so true.

We already have that, it's called WvW. But seriously, I agree that the population has to increase again, I just don't see it happening with ANet. And I think if people would find their way into pvp now, it would be a disaster. Everyone would just leave and gw2 reputation would be even more charred than it already is. PvP has been basically in maintenance mode for half a decade and Anet unfortunately won't invest a penny in improving anything. At this point I'd like to have WAY more parameters for custom arenas so the remaining community can at least create an enjoyable experience themselves. Like, allowing/excluding certain elite specs or something. For me personally this would still be way too little to actually stick around in a dead game mode but it would at least be something for who is still interested. I am honestly surprised Anet still pretends to care about "not splitting any queues to keep queue times low". Their unwillingness to improve pvp quality and gameplay diversity has only harmed the game mode for the last couple years. I haven't played pvp for quite a while now but since the wvw and gather dailies today have been trash/non-existent for easy and quick solo accomplishment I tried queuing up in unranked.. I've been waiting for ~25 minutes in the queue on EU, which has never happened to me before tbh. The state of the game mode is dire.

I'd beg to differ on that one - at least theoretically. It's basically the only reason why I am personally - and probably some others - considering playing an mmo at this point tbh. Otherwise I generally prefer coop rpgs since they typically aren't designed in a way that promotes kitten predatory game systems and life cycles that either milk their playerbase, completely burn out devs without an end in sight or both, with bigger emphasis on a more engaging gameplay loop instead of artificially keeping the players engaged with stuff like daily chores so they hang around long enough to shove new cash-cosmetics down their throat every now and then. There are obviously exceptions in both genres, especially when it comes to gacha mechanics, but in general I think this is still true (or at the very least it applies to the games I usually play). At least that's what I'd like to think, sadly almost no rpg game dev studio puts competition first apart from maybe Blade & Soul 1v1, so you are right in a sense that "generally speaking no game dev/publisher cares about pvp in their mmo anyway". Honestly I think the only thing that's holding mmorpgs back from being successful when it comes to competitive e-sport are the devs and publishers themselves. If pretty much every other genre (fps, br, rts, moba, tcg, ...), that has pvp encounters, manages to keep a decently large (professional) competitive scene around them I really don't see a reason for mmorpgs, that inherently stems from the genre itself. Devs usually either neglect pvp entirely or design it in a non-competitive way (for example by keeping gear/grindable stats a big factor in player-encounters).

If this is true (a lot of player have returned or are new to pvp) then it's almost RIP for the game mode. Starting the game mode into such a bad state will probably kill it immediately for most newcomers and especially for returners there probably won't be a third chance for gw2 I'd guess. My last kind of hope is the steam release but Anet probably won't even try to address any of issues that have plagued sPvP for years for that either. In this case sPvP would officially be dead imho. It's probably the last chance to attract a large new audience but if their first experience is this garbage, well....

I think those suggestions would be pretty neat for custom arenas or rather enable/disable expansions or maybe e-specs explicitly. Honestly I think ranked has long been dead now and Anet doesn't do anything to resurrect it. People need more stuff to customize arenas and organize their own tournaments, etc. Would be pretty neat if we could even adjust coefficients for skills and traits. I'd also guarantee that some really dedicated and knowledgeable people would create a better balance for their custom server than Anet ever could.. I don't actually really need new content (haven't played sPvP for quite a while tho), I just want better balance and a fair ranked system aka a more appropriate rank point distribution. Anet reeeeeally kittened up the elo (or rather glicko-2) system tbh. Or at least some incentive to power through the kitten like league rewards for unranked (not custom) arenas or something so ranked doesn't get flooded with people just playing for loot.

Since they mentioned D/P (and the skill in fact does have a 2sec daze - but only in PvE) I think the comment was referring to Head Shot, not Sleight of Hand. At least I was referring to Head Shot, which has 0.25sec daze in WvW/PvP - unless wiki is wrong.

2s daze is for PvE only, in WvW and PvP the daze is 1/4 sec. That's actually not true, there have been many times in the past where thief was not meta (or even viable sometimes) or outclassed by another class, for example mesmer pre-portal nerf. Thief is just slightly better at stealthing and walking around than most other classes (so they can sneak by someone and decap while nobody's looking). That's literally the only reason why thief is not replaced by rev or even mesmer in sPvP. During bunker metas thief was mostly able to keep themselves in the meta by being able to rip boons, that's it.

Oh, you're right, I was confusing it with Cluster Bomb in this regard.

I wouldn't want ooc auto-heal disabled, it would probably just be super unfun on many different layers. But I wouldn't mind if it took longer before regeneration starts and if regeneration was slower. Although imo it should in any case be at least be quick enough to be able to rotate between a camp and tower for example and be full health again.

They then have to work on Living Story 5/6 until they are yet again interrupted with another addon to keep the lights on because Anet still hasn't figured out a sustainable business model.

No you won't. Thief would just get replaced by the next best thing which is probably either Mesmer or Scrapper.. We had this already in the past when mesmer portal was still unnerfed and it wasn't any better. I mean at this point I wouldn't even be mad if thief's mobility was just removed, and take away their stealth as well please, so people can finally shut up about it and realize that this won't improve anything. The meta will still be the same and the flawed design of the game and balance will just result in other symptoms.

I appreciate mentioning some additional thoughts behind the scenes like what's currently in discussion. Please give of us more of this insight in the future as this allows us to follow your design process and what may have influenced your final decisions. Maybe this could also alleviate some of the confusion of future balance changes of why this has been changed but not "the obvious problem everyone has been talking about for months" (as has been the case many, many times in the past). But - like many others - I can only wonder why you are nerfing core thief skills to combat an overperforming traitline. Is it easier to split a skill effect for game modes than traits? Idk but this seems very odd to me as well. Especially with blinding powder, which is an essential stun break as well as increasing the CD of Hide in Shadows without at least compensating with more healing. Or why not just reduce the stealth duration if this is the main issue? And even if, a 10 second increase seems a bit too much for me tbh. It's a heavy nerf to the already bad sustain on several layers. I appreciate the other changes tho (including the other thief changes) and I would like to see a slight damage nerf to nade engi as well.

I am very confused tbh. Isn't this like the main difference between a side noder and roamer? Like.. If you want to "side node" then you stick to a node, if you want to roam around to different nodes and join team fights then play a roamer/bruiser build? And why is thief an issue yet again? thief mobility has already been gutted. I mean.. thief will always be stuck at this role since we can't really contribute anything useful to a teamfight so if someone wants to do basically anything else than decapping and ganking (aka finish off low targets in a team fight and disengage) then they'd be better off just playing a different class. And if thief mobility is reduced even more the only thing this will get you is thief falling out of meta and being replaced by another class. I just want to remind you of the time where mesmer portal was busted.. Thief was pretty much irrelevant then and mesmer dominated the roaming role, especially because it was far burstier and had some more sustain as well. With the stealth and mobility creep you'll just get another class doing the exact same thing as thief now. With EoD this is probably just getting worse.

Yes it heavily favors placement matches due to how volatility is implemented (Anet implemented it "wrong" btw - like.. it's not how it's intended by Glicko2 - the rating system gw2 pvp is based on). But it is also crucial to keep in mind that the previous season's rating gets carried over to the next season via the formula: So if one dude ends their last active season with 1600 rating and you ended on 1000 rating then they will start with 1400 and you will still only be at 1100. Something I haven't considered up until now: This will actually favor them and will put you at a disadvantage. Since they will be put in a lower skill group than their "actual" skill would match, it should be easier to get especially early wins (the ones with extremely high volatility, granting 90+ rating gain), while you get pulled into a higher skill group, making it more difficult to get those early placement match wins. I've also talked about other aspects of why the current mmr system is bad and should be improved. I think this is a real issue tbh and should be adressed by Anet, even tho it doesn't affect gameplay or anything but it's really frustrating and puts players off I think (as evidenced again with this thread).

True. But thief then was also a lot more mobile in general. sb#5 alone for example is essentiall 77.78% more expensive than it used to be, since it had a range of 1200 at only 6 ini vs 900 range at 8 ini now. Like.. to travel the same 3600 units of distance you now need 4 casts at 8 ini (32 in total) whereas then only needed 3 casts at 6 (in total 18). With no increase of available initiative. Man.. I really wish we had a legacy mode for Custom Arenas where for the entire match all skills would be like at a selected patch :( I miss the old days where a good backstab crit could oneshot a soft target and the high mobility in general.

Yes! Stronghold is actually good and still very much alive.

My favorite part is when my team doesn't contest all 3 nodes simultaneously, where they get outnumbered on one node after another and everyone starts flaming that everyone else is so bad since "they are carrying the game" by wasting time in a 1vX on a node that's capped by the enemy team.

I've described my view on the role like this: So your job is really not to win the fights by yourself. You rather just stay long enough to ensure your team manages to win the fights and immediately continue roaming to your next opportunity. However, this may require you to stay in a team fight if you are required to secure one or two stomps or something (usually when the enemy team has support and can rezz real quick). Especially since thief is really good at denying rezzes and stomps (mainly with Steal against targets with stability or Choking Gas - sb#4 - against multiple targets rezzing/stomping at once). It's also important to recognize that decapping for example basically challenges the enemy team to either lose out on points or splitting/diverting their attention to recap. This may lead to additional opportunities for your entire team. But like I said, your team has to play along. One of the main mistakes I notice throughout almost all skill groups is that people play all three nodes. meaning someone is close, someone is far and the other 2 are on mid or rotating between points. This is extremely bad because not only is it very easy for the enemy team to outnumber your mate(s) at any node and snowball, but it also basically renders you (the thief) useless since your +1 can't really even out a team fight and you also can't decap any node since no node is unguarded. Which means you have to commit to a team fight (which is not ideal for a lot of reasons) or you have to wait until the fights are over and your team (hopefully) zergs down a node, starting a snowball themselves (which unfortunately is rarely the case if a team is so split up..)

I would already be satisfied if deadeye's mark would reset when the target goes down, not die entirely. Because I really don't want to cleave through a ton of downed-player-hp or stomp just to get my mark back, especially since it's usually beneficial to let them bleed out in sPvP. And being forced to waste Mercy just to get it off a downed target is also meh.. But idk, imo it's rather an annoyance than an issue.