ArenaNet, There are a lot of eyes on GW2 right now. Are you going to let the current state of PvP negatively impact the reputation of GW2 through the attention it is getting?

[SevlisBavles.3059]

I am sure you are aware of a large amount of WoW players migrating to Guild Wars 2 (and if you don't, you seriously need to get more clued in, but I doubt that's the case). There are some major WoW streamers on twitch trying out Guild Wars 2, with thousands of viewers between them (and I would estimate that overall there are about 6000-7000 more GW2 viewers on twitch in total since about a week or two, nevermind youtube). Some of these streamers are dedicated PvP players looking to try out GW2's PvP, others are regular players that eventually stumble upon it.

 

As it is now, the state of PvP is a monstrous blemish upon the image of GW2.

 

- Bots are present at nearly every rank, and the further down you go the more numerous they get.

 

- The PvP population is so incredibly thin that especially in Silver III, Gold I and Gold II there is no proper matchmaking anymore, resulting in heavily skewed matches, mixing bots, inexperienced players and experienced players together who are incredibly frustrated at being stuck in lower ranks (although that does not excuse their toxicity, it does explain it).

 

- There are massive imbalances between classes, Scourge the most dominant among them. Perhaps the idea was that it would be a fun class to play for inexperienced players, allowing them to hold out longer against players who would quickly kill them on another class. What you don't seem to realize is that this ALSO impacts other inexperienced players who are even LESS able to kill a Scourge. Say you have a 5v5 at a low level with a single Scourge on each team, you'll have 2 happy people and 8 unhappy people. You do the math on how the class affects people's overall impression about and experience of PvP. Then you have the higher levels where you have an ArenaNet partner who wins a 4v4 tournament with 4 Scourges on stream just to prove a point, or you have the North American finals of the Tournament of Legends where 6 out of 10 players are Scourges. There's also other classes to that need looking at but I won't make this post too long.

 

GW2 has had a undeservedly bad reputation in the MMO community for nearly a decade. People's opinions on the game are changing now, due to the massive exposure it's getting from WoW refugees, New World players looking for something else after the beta expired and of course End of Dragons. The current state of PvP could not only undermine the positive attention the game is getting, but also completely turn it around and affirm GW2 as a laughing stock in the community. Honestly, I love the game, I've played GW1 since launch all the way till GW2 now, it's fantastic. If even someone like me who has loved the franchise this much for a decade and a half can feel like their experience of it is tarnished by the terrible state PvP is in, imagine what kind of impression GW2 PvP will make upon thousands of players who are now being exposed to the game, directly, or through streamers.

 

Please take better care of PvP. Please listen to the community, please watch PvP streamers yourself, watch MightyTeaPot, watch Blamthrax, watch NotoriousNaru, watch Boycerino, watch RIP, watch grimjack, established high level PvP streamers who all commonly complain about the EXACT SAME issues every single stream. Watch streamers like PsheroTV, a WoW PvP veteran learning GW2 PvP and see what kind of impression he's getting, how almost every match he plays is a bingo and his ability to learn is severely hindered by games that are either unwinnable, or such a dominant victory that there are no actual fights or rotations that will improve his skill and insight. If you actually do, and did, I cannot imagine you treating Guild Wars 2 PvP the way you are treating it now in light of the exposure the game is getting.

Edited August 24, 2021 by SevlisBavles.3059

[jdawgie.1835]

This is a great post. I think it's time that devs look at how important PvP is. It's not just some small niche that should be put of in a corner. Almost all the people I know who have stayed through out the years, stayed due to the pvp in gw2. Some of the best. But it is an area of the game that gets such little love its tragic. I would love to see response on here from the devs acknowledging the fact that it needs to be looked at, and that they are are planning on doing so. 

 

Also - Despite Solo-Quers its time a team based fighting system re-integrate team fighting. If there was ever a pvp system designed for team based play it is GW2. However, we are unable to use teams. This is silly. AT's are not enough. Not even close. Ranked needs team based play. It is a team based mode. 

Edited August 23, 2021 by jdawgie.1835

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

For new players pvp is a good way to quickly see how anet handles their game. Right now it spreads the message that no monetization = no attention from developers. Neglected, wasted potential is how i would describe it. EoD release will be the 2 year mark of the "power creep reduction" patch, and there still hasnt been any significant follow up to address the glaring issues that it caused.

 

I really dont expect anet to do or say anything until after EoD releases. I just hope that once it launches they actually start caring about the state of their game. But really, at this point we all know how things will go down.

 

 

[hellsmachine.4085]

How many MMOs have you played lately? Because compared to ESO and WoW classic the queue times are 10-100 times faster and as for balance it's not perfect and never will be but it's a lot worse in other MMOs. 

 

TLDR; if you think PvP is dead in this game then you haven't played many MMOs.

[hellsmachine.4085]

6 hours ago, jdawgie.1835 said:

This is a great post. I think it's time that devs look at how important PvP is. It's not just some small niche that should be put of in a corner. Almost all the people I know who have stayed through out the years, stayed due to the pvp in gw2. Some of the best. But it is an area of the game that gets such little love its tragic. I would love to see response on here from the devs acknowledging the fact that it needs to be looked at, and that they are are planning on doing so. 

 

Also - Despite Solo-Quers its time a team based fighting system re-integrate team fighting. If there was ever a pvp system designed for team based play it is GW2. However, we are unable to use teams. This is silly. AT's are not enough. Not even close. Ranked needs team based play. It is a team based mode. 

Actually sorry to tell you, but only about 5-10% of the MMO community actually enjoys PvP of any form so it is infact a "small and niche" part of the game. It's the main reason the vast majority of MMOs dedicated to PvP shut down because not enough people play it.

[Sunshine.5014]

32 minutes ago, hellsmachine.4085 said:

Actually sorry to tell you, but only about 5-10% of the MMO community actually enjoys PvP of any form so it is infact a "small and niche" part of the game. It's the main reason the vast majority of MMOs dedicated to PvP shut down because not enough people play it.

 

There are even fewer people playing Raid. But raid get way more investment than PvP.

[Crab Fear.1624]

3 hours ago, Sunshine.5014 said:

 

There are even fewer people playing Raid. But raid get way more investment than PvP.

This, for real.

[Mik.3401]

10000% agree - devs don’t sleep on pvp! Gemstore skin sales will take you nowhere if you don’t have a good game to sell for both competitive and pve players.

 

[Kanto.2485]

8 hours ago, Sunshine.5014 said:

 

There are even fewer people playing Raid. But raid get way more investment than PvP.

There are fewer people playing raids and as a result last raid wing came out over two years ago XD

Anyway yeah, this is pretty agreeable. Nothing new though, which is the problem.

[Swagg.9236]

The intention is pure, but everyone in this thread has absolutely no idea how much work would need to go into this game to make it a reliably engaging PvP experience.  In fact, so much work would have to go into GW2 that the players would probably reject the effort outright on principle by virtue of how much GW2 would be transformed into something entirely different.  What you have now is all you will ever get.

 

GW2's bad reputation in the MMO community is ENTIRELY deserved.  It was assembled using incongruent, grab-bag ideas within an unoptimized, outdated engine, and then all of its leadership and development team were either fired or jumped ship and scrubbed this whole project from their resumes by 2014.  I'd love to praise and push this game as much as I wish I could, but the reality is that GW2 has a hard cap on how far one can flex agency in Tyria.  You are all at the whim of recycled content shuffled periodically by mere patch notes, and that will never change at this point.  It's one thing to wish for a "better GW2," but without a legitimate understanding of why GW2 fails, you'll probably do more harm than good by jumping on the "improvement" bandwagon that most GW2 players or salient voices would advertise.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

9 hours ago, hellsmachine.4085 said:

How many MMOs have you played lately? Because compared to ESO and WoW classic the queue times are 10-100 times faster and as for balance it's not perfect and never will be but it's a lot worse in other MMOs. 

 

TLDR; if you think PvP is dead in this game then you haven't played many MMOs.

This is incorrect, don't know how long it's been since u played eso but currently bg's usually pop within 10 secs or less pretty consistently, far faster than gw2. Not saying eso pvp is better than gw2 just stating queue's are far lower than gw2 currently are,. My guess simply due to higher population.

[Mik.3401]

35 minutes ago, Swagg.9236 said:

The intention is pure, but everyone in this thread has absolutely no idea how much work would need to go into this game to make it a reliably engaging PvP experience.  In fact, so much work would have to go into GW2 that the players would probably reject the effort outright on principle by virtue of how much GW2 would be transformed into something entirely different.  What you have now is all you will ever get.

 

GW2's bad reputation in the MMO community is ENTIRELY deserved.  It was assembled using incongruent, grab-bag ideas within an unoptimized, outdated engine, and then all of its leadership and development team were either fired or jumped ship and scrubbed this whole project from their resumes by 2014.  I'd love to praise and push this game as much as I wish I could, but the reality is that GW2 has a hard cap on how far one can flex agency in Tyria.  You are all at the whim of recycled content shuffled periodically by mere patch notes, and that will never change at this point.  It's one thing to wish for a "better GW2," but without a legitimate understanding of why GW2 fails, you'll probably do more harm than good by jumping on the "improvement" bandwagon that most GW2 players or salient voices would advertise.

I think the changes needed to be made are actually quite clear, besides many skills and traits are designed differently in pve and pvp.

 

I think this is a branding issue here - the studio is called ARENAnet the name makes people expect their games bring prime pvp experience. With such name having bad pvp looks very deteriorating for their reputation 

[Genesis.5169]

It starts here, with us one thing i've learned is that almost every change that has come have been asked for.

[Swagg.9236]

1 hour ago, Mik.3401 said:

I think the changes needed to be made are actually quite clear, besides many skills and traits are designed differently in pve and pvp.

 

I think this is a branding issue here - the studio is called ARENAnet the name makes people expect their games bring prime pvp experience. With such name having bad pvp looks very deteriorating for their reputation 

Marketing and brand nomenclature are not game design.

[Leonidrex.5649]

12 hours ago, hellsmachine.4085 said:

How many MMOs have you played lately? Because compared to ESO and WoW classic the queue times are 10-100 times faster and as for balance it's not perfect and never will be but it's a lot worse in other MMOs. 

 

TLDR; if you think PvP is dead in this game then you haven't played many MMOs.

oh no, other games are kitten so its fine if this one is kitten too.

[Mik.3401]

5 hours ago, Swagg.9236 said:

Marketing and brand nomenclature are not game design.

Ok then fixing pvp would not help a thing 

[jdawgie.1835]

17 hours ago, hellsmachine.4085 said:

Actually sorry to tell you, but only about 5-10% of the MMO community actually enjoys PvP of any form so it is infact a "small and niche" part of the game. It's the main reason the vast majority of MMOs dedicated to PvP shut down because not enough people play it.

People will say stuff like this. The say it a lot. However, I am playing the game right along with you and I know its not true. I have watched over the years HOTM remain full at all random hours of the day and night. There is sizable amount of players who que simply for sPvP and WvW. If you take those game modes out of GW2, the game would die. They were the big marketing tools in original vanilla GW2. 

 

sPvP set out to jump into Esports and they actually started off doing a phenomenal job. WvW was supposed to be where the GvG thing really took place. You know the name of our game lol. This game more than any other MMO was orignally marketed towards the PvP community. Also - Esports and the money behind it all centers around PvP. Not PvE. Its not 5-10% I promise you that. Take all the people out of HOTM and EBG (and all the other WvW Zones) and you have an empty game lol. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

47 minutes ago, jdawgie.1835 said:

People will say stuff like this. The say it a lot. However, I am playing the game right along with you and I know its not true. I have watched over the years HOTM remain full at all random hours of the day and night. There is sizable amount of players who que simply for sPvP and WvW. If you take those game modes out of GW2, the game would die. They were the big marketing tools in original vanilla GW2. 

 

sPvP set out to jump into Esports and they actually started off doing a phenomenal job. WvW was supposed to be where the GvG thing really took place. You know the name of our game lol. This game more than any other MMO was orignally marketed towards the PvP community. Also - Esports and the money behind it all centers around PvP. Not PvE. Its not 5-10% I promise you that. Take all the people out of HOTM and EBG (and all the other WvW Zones) and you have an empty game lol. 

to add to this, even if 10-20% players only play pvp/wvw doesnt mean it should be abandoned.
I bet even less players play kittening strikes missions as the last time I looked there were 0 parties, but it didnt stop them from making new ones. You could also very easily at least make new pvp maps and tie them into new content releases.

[Broxxgar.6801]

Apart from bots/afk/hackers/wintrades this mode seem welll.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

17 hours ago, Sunshine.5014 said:

 

There are even fewer people playing Raid. But raid get way more investment than PvP.

 

Counterpoint. 

 

The WoW players migrating from Bleghzzard  are going to be mainly interested in endgame raiding and pvp.

 

PvP as it stands right now is several times better than anything WoW PvP could be on its current engine, and its balancing issues are more egregious.

 

Raiding is getting fresh attention from the devs to make more classes viable for raiding.

 

As it stands right now, Anet could do absolutely nothing  and pvp would probably still see an influx of people with a positive opinion. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

14 hours ago, hellsmachine.4085 said:

Actually sorry to tell you, but only about 5-10% of the MMO community actually enjoys PvP of any form so it is infact a "small and niche" part of the game. It's the main reason the vast majority of MMOs dedicated to PvP shut down because not enough people play it.

The majority of the mmo community doesnt like pvp because no mmo has ever done a good enough job to make it competitive. People who want to play competitive games are playing FPS or mobas. Just because they arent playing mmo pvp right now doesnt mean they never would want to.

[Broxxgar.6801]

1 hour ago, holodoc.5748 said:

Literally nobody cares about Guild Wars 2 on Twitch. The game gets what? Two maybe three thousand viewers on average?

Especially with the current botting situation where people are literally begging ANet to do something about it but guess what? Nobody cares.

 

I think what need is good  videos and a good player. Another thing is  avideo editor and a good soundtrack to follow the profession.

I can do this. There is a lot of matches that I fought there was like kind professional player on my team and on the opponents team. They were clutch, precisely,strategic. Their enfforts make you play better and the game begans to start to being beuty to play and watch.

[SevlisBavles.3059]

On 8/24/2021 at 10:41 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

The majority of the mmo community doesnt like pvp because no mmo has ever done a good enough job to make it competitive. People who want to play competitive games are playing FPS or mobas. Just because they arent playing mmo pvp right now doesnt mean they never would want to.

 

GW2 was originally designed to be suited for PvP

[Genesis.5169]

2 hours ago, SevlisBavles.3059 said:

 

GW2 was originally designed to be suited for PvP

 

This is true when guild wars 2 first came out pvp was the end game and had matches where you could win real money.

[Archer.4362]

On 24/8/2021 at 21:20, jdawgie.1835 said:

Quote

People will say stuff like this. The say it a lot. However, I am playing the game right along with you and I know its not true. I have watched over the years HOTM remain full at all random hours of the day and night. There is sizable amount of players who que simply for sPvP and WvW. If you take those game modes out of GW2, the game would die. They were the big marketing tools in original vanilla GW2. 

You are combining pve with pvp, that the HOT maps are full does not mean that the pvp is. the pvp pairings are very bad, people of platinum 2 or 3 with people of gold 1 or less. I prefer to wait longer and enter with people of my level. And of course that the groups of 5 vs 5 in ranked return, there it would be seen how people return. I am not good with the ATs, I want to play with my friends at any time of the day the hours that I want, not one in particular and lose two games and not be able to play anymore because I was eliminated