Does Anet have any plans to revive PvP? Its time to talk about PvP

[XBlackCrow.6427]

I have seen how the PvP population decreases over the time, and it feels that developers abandoned this mode, in the same way that all content creators did at the time.

The question you should answer is, why? why everyone abandoned this game mode and became a niche mode for a few players? To me, the casual core design of this game is the problem, but I think it still can be saved.

 

Below is a list of things that would improve the game mode, and yes, it needs a lot of work. Some of them are similar to League of Legends system because, yes, their system works very well.

1. Make in-game report option a real thing, because right now nobody believe report does really something on this game, you can insult, leave the game match, or whatever without any punishment, and that just cannot be. You could, for example, notify who you reported, that the person who insulted you has a 24-hour ban.
2. Make ranked seasons longer (like a year maybe), and improve rewards for rankeds with exclusive skins and other stuff, for reaching X league in a season, every season would have a exclusive rewards that would not be available for the next seasons. This would make people play. The unique thing you win right now, is the possibility of showing a badge, thats sad.
3. Add new maps, and remove olders. Over the time, we have seen how PvE evolved, with beautiful maps and environments where you feel comfortable in, because of good taste in design. Having said that, I think most of the PvP maps didn't age well, they have been for years. And I repeat, most of them, not all, I really like for example the colliseum. But would be nice new maps with new mechanics, with the tasteful design that we know the Anet devevelopers have when they want.
4. A separate 5vs5 queu for normal games and rankeds (including a league system with team names), I know many people that played in the past 5vs5 with their guild mates and friends because it was very fun. The fact is that this time the queu must be separated from the solo/duo queu. Someone would say this is impossible due to the very low population, but implementing changes and improving PvP mode population should increase.
5. An easy way to find anyone PvP rating/score, where you can find them by their name. Because the current system is neither intuitive nor easy.
6. A protection shield agaisnt demote division, where you can lose a few games without demoting division when you have got 0 LP.
7. Make it longer the time inactivity you can stay without playing PvP before you are division demoted because right now is like 1 week and thats a problem.
8. Improve de match making is something must done, I cant understand it, instead of playing with people of your level you can play with/vs people that are 2 leagues above or below, always with the same people, Im not sure if this is the way is designed or because the extremely low population but it needs to be solved.
9. Improve developers transparency and comunication on this forum because as in inside the game this forum also feels neglected by the devs.

 

Also, some changes should be done in PvP classes, I wouldnt say a big balance patch is needed, because that will not solve the PvP problems itselfs, this are my biggest problems with classes:

1. You only can play the current meta builds, you cant play builds outside meta because a opponent with some skill will just destroy you. A big balance patch wouldnt solve this, because that "balance" is never really about balance, they just make some classes and builds cool and take others out. I wish I could play a build that is not in the meta and don't be useless.
2. Playing agaisnt mesmer is so annoying and hard, because you lose the target every 0.5/1s, and you cant cast skills that need to be targeted. Specially for low elo players.

 

Those changes cannot come 1 by 1, they should come in a big announcement of PvP revive from Anet. Please Anet don't let PvP die.

Lets make a healthy debate, write your opinions with arguments and being respectful.

[Fueki.4753]

As far as Arenanet has told us, there are no plans for touching sPvP in the foreseeable future.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

we need players to get dhuumed again, that'll put the fear of the gods in em

[XBlackCrow.6427]

5 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As far as Arenanet has told us, there are no plans for touching sPvP in the foreseeable future.

Do you have a link to support that? I would like to see where/when they exactly said that.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

1 hour ago, XBlackCrow.6427 said:

Do you have a link to support that? I would like to see where/when they exactly said that.

I think he's referring to ANets complete silence on the issue as evidence that they have no intention of fixing PvP. There is certainly cause for concern, but absence of their commentary does not necessarily mean an absence of their intent to help PvP.  But I agree that PvP doesn't seem to be high on the list of ANet's priorities right now. 

[Downstate.4697]

If anything pvpers are using the cash shop more since they dont farm gold. 

[ixon.2496]

What annoys me most is the disparity in pip gains, especially when farming for ascended shards/legendary armor. 

 

18 wins can fill up the repeatable byzantium track. It would take 60 losses to do the same, 36 or even 40 id be fine with. But every loss thats out of your control is costing you major progress, time and effort.

 

Its no wonder people get so toxic when they have no say on who they have on their team.

Edited February 7, 2022 by ixon.2496

[Gorem.8104]

2 hours ago, ixon.2496 said:

What annoys me most is the disparity in pip gains, especially when farming for ascended shards/legendary armor. 

 

18 wins can fill up the repeatable byzantium track. It would take 60 losses to do the same, 36 or even 40 id be fine with. But every loss thats out of your control is costing you major progress, time and effort.

 

Its no wonder people get so toxic when they have no say on who they have on their team.

Even worse if its a 500/499 loss and you get what, 3ish pips to their 10ish. One point difference and its either a time loss or a time save by hours. Like once you realise that a 500/0 loss is the same as a 500/499 loss its not hard to realise why people afk at spawn or bot. If the losing side could still work towards more rewards even if they lose pvp would be so much better.  

[Fueki.4753]

10 hours ago, XBlackCrow.6427 said:

Do you have a link to support that? I would like to see where/when they exactly said that.

Sadly, I can't link something that doesn't exist.

If Arenanet had planned anything for sPvP, or at least that sPvP still is "on the table", they should have dropped at least one small sentence. But since they didn't, it's quite obvious that there's nothing in the planned future for sPvP.

3 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Even worse if its a 500/499 loss and you get what, 3ish pips to their 10ish. One point difference and its either a time loss or a time save by hours. Like once you realise that a 500/0 loss is the same as a 500/499 loss its not hard to realise why people afk at spawn or bot. If the losing side could still work towards more rewards even if they lose pvp would be so much better.  

I wish pips were a more dynamic system. Even something simple as one pip for each 50 points your team earns and one pip for each top statistic you earn would be better.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Avatar.3568]

7 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

If anything pvpers are using the cash shop more since they dont farm gold. 

What, if anythings pvpers have it is gold, ranked and at are high gold gainers. You do not farm as good as the meta gold farm trains but dang bro, you can easily make 500 gold a week

[Gorem.8104]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Sadly, I can't link something that doesn't exist.

If Arenanet had planned anything for sPvP, or at least that sPvP still is "on the table", they should have dropped at least one small sentence. But since they didn't, it's quite obvious that there's nothing in the planned future for sPvP.

I wish pips were a more dynamic system. Even something simple as one pip for each 50 points your team earns and one pip for each top statistic you earn would be better.

Look at that, you already thought of a better system then the game has in a comment on a forum post than the Pvp dev team could think of since the pip system was introduced.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

  They probably have statistics that probably show that pvp nets less money then pve. And since that's the driving force for all businesses instead of passion and development they don't dedicate the work hours to improve pvp.

 

Imo it's not that hard to show alittle passion and concern for development if there was a balance for 2v2 and 3v3 game mode. But skills n traits are all left in 5 man mode.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Pyrial.2917]

It's amazing that people will still ask for answers to questions that have already been answered.  Do you really believe, that after the years of patterned behavior, they will suddenly give more resources to this game and actually change?  The answer is right in front of you, you simply do not want to accept it.  

[Ashgar.3024]

Harsh truth is that the PvP playerbase is so tiny investing into it is probably really hard to justify for them even if they wanted.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Bazsi.2734]

On 2/6/2022 at 1:53 PM, XBlackCrow.6427 said:

 

1. Make in-game report option a real thing, because right now nobody believe report does really something on this game, you can insult, leave the game match, or whatever without any punishment, and that just cannot be. You could, for example, notify who you reported, that the person who insulted you has a 24-hour ban.
2. Make ranked seasons longer (like a year maybe), and improve rewards for rankeds with exclusive skins and other stuff, for reaching X league in a season, every season would have a exclusive rewards that would not be available for the next seasons. This would make people play. The unique thing you win right now, is the possibility of showing a badge, thats sad.
3. Add new maps, and remove olders. Over the time, we have seen how PvE evolved, with beautiful maps and environments where you feel comfortable in, because of good taste in design. Having said that, I think most of the PvP maps didn't age well, they have been for years. And I repeat, most of them, not all, I really like for example the colliseum. But would be nice new maps with new mechanics, with the tasteful design that we know the Anet devevelopers have when they want.
4. A separate 5vs5 queu for normal games and rankeds (including a league system with team names), I know many people that played in the past 5vs5 with their guild mates and friends because it was very fun. The fact is that this time the queu must be separated from the solo/duo queu. Someone would say this is impossible due to the very low population, but implementing changes and improving PvP mode population should increase.
5. An easy way to find anyone PvP rating/score, where you can find them by their name. Because the current system is neither intuitive nor easy.
6. A protection shield agaisnt demote division, where you can lose a few games without demoting division when you have got 0 LP.
7. Make it longer the time inactivity you can stay without playing PvP before you are division demoted because right now is like 1 week and thats a problem.
8. Improve de match making is something must done, I cant understand it, instead of playing with people of your level you can play with/vs people that are 2 leagues above or below, always with the same people, Im not sure if this is the way is designed or because the extremely low population but it needs to be solved.
9. Improve developers transparency and comunication on this forum because as in inside the game this forum also feels neglected by the devs.

1. They keep hiding their moderation/bans as much as possible. It's on purpose. Now this also means that you cannot tell if they aren't doing anything, or just really good at hiding it... so if you want a transparent moderation system, good luck convincing them that they should make a 180 on that. 

2. I don't like the 1 year lenght(2 seasons an x-pac?), but apart from that having (time)exclusive rewards is a good idea. Variations of this were suggested since launch, a-net dislikes this idea, never even tried to implement it. Again, some convincing would need to be done, but given how they don't even read the PvP forums(prove me wrong I dare you), good luck with that again.

3. New maps, sure. Removing old ones is not really a necessity though. Like what would it achive? Like one of the oldest 4 maps: Foefire is the only map with a guild lord mechanic, risking everything for that 150 points gives an extra layer to the match. You remove the map, conquest just got more bland and boring. If you add another map with the guild lord extra objective, what was the point to all of this?

4. Separate 5v5 queue maybe when PvP has a population to sustain it. Like whatever list of possible changes you have, put this last. It's a nice endgoal, but currently it's irrelevant.

5. GW2 has no way to inspect someone elses gear, no way to check their achivements, no clear and easy way to check someones PvP standings... because knowing things about each other fuels toxicity or some sh*t. It's dumb, people will always find a way to be toxic if they want to, your game giving proper tools to players to compare each other will not be the cause. But as with the previous points, if you want them to change this way, you'd need to convince them. Which I have no idea how to do. 

6. We strongly disagree here. Unless you copy everything else from LoL-s PvP systems, division loss protections would make no sense in this game. And you did not suggest that, so hard pass.

7. You do not actually get demoted, you are matchmade based on your actual rating. It only ever matters when the season ends. This is kind of pointless.

8. Improve it, but how? It would work wonderfully if tens of thousands of people were q-ing at once. I played back when they did, and the match quality was awesome. If there are not enough people close to your skill level, how would you make the match balanced? This is a problem that you solve by boosting the active playerbase.

9. Yeah, wouldn't communication be nice. Just for fun I used the dev tracker to find the last time they reacted to something on the PvP forums and... I scrolled back 9 months, there was 1 post in November where they acknowledged that queue is indeed not working at the moment. That's it, thats all the back and forth between devs and players for almost a year. We're given the proper silent treatment lmao.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Bazsi.2734

[Spellhunter.9675]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:06 AM, ixon.2496 said:

What annoys me most is the disparity in pip gains, especially when farming for ascended shards/legendary armor. 

What annoys me is people playing pvp for kittening pips. This pips system was the most stupid thing anet did to pvp.

[ixon.2496]

24 minutes ago, Spellhunter.9675 said:

What annoys me is people playing pvp for kittening pips. This pips system was the most stupid thing anet did to pvp.

 

Well there isn't any other option, so can't blame the players for the system they are given to work with. 

 

Once you reach your rank peak, you'll either get 50/50 wins or massive loss streaks then win streaks keeping you exactly where you were over a large enough number of matches. When you can no longer climb all there is to do is farm. 

 

As for the "Get good" argument, whats the incentive? Slightly more pips. If you watch the leaderboards, the people at the top get there and play as few matches as possible to maintain their rank. There were 4 legendary ranks last week, checked again yesterday  then there were 2. 

[schloumou.3982]

13 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

Harsh truth is that the PvP playerbase is so tiny investing into it is probably really hard to justify for them even if they wanted.

Kinda self fulfilling prophecy tho. Lots of people believe the core foundation of pvp combat design in this game is still among the best in the genre. It's just sad ArenaNet/NCsoft didn't anymore after the esl debacle.

Edited February 8, 2022 by schloumou.3982

[subversiontwo.7501]

On a very broad overlooking level, the best way to revive PvP is to revive PvP on a whole concept level. They need to find overlap in the PvP modes and find some concentration, direction and strategy in that. Like with many other issues with this game, it feels like they have been sitting on the working recipe for a very long time but have not pursued it with enough direction and commitment.

All the way back in vanilla there are developer interviews where they discuss what the playerbase has asked of them and they have prototyped projects for it but they have not delivered, iterated or succeeded. You have always had people talking about the GW1 TDM modes, in vanilla there was the creation of larger maps, in PoF there was the larger-team or UI project, WvW has had their numerous attempts at GvG events and arenas, the TDM stuff finally came to sPvP but it was limited 2's and 3's with far less attention than Conquest is getting (and let's not even talk about Stronghold). If you take all of that you can see some multipointed overlap and you can see alot of wasted potential. A first step from that could be to revive the UI project once enough engineers can be free'd up from other PvP projects. If such resources are relocated more to PvE again it will show their commitment and will spell what it does for PvP as a whole and not just for Conquest. For me, that's the big interesting question to follow with EoD.

It isn't so much about what specific things they need to look at and more about whether they are ready to commit resources to PvP as a whole (from WvW to Conquest) to be able to deal with any issues is any acceptable way going forward, from which even Conquest stand to benefit no matter how they divide the resources or prioritise the projects once resources have been given. Over the course of this game, not the least which involves the past two expansions, the the broad, higher level issue has been severe misbalance of resources allocated to PvP as a whole.

Edited February 8, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 2/7/2022 at 8:21 PM, Ashgar.3024 said:

Harsh truth is that the PvP playerbase is so tiny investing into it is probably really hard to justify for them even if they wanted.

Sad but true.

Pve laughs at us. We could all quit today and it probably wouldn't make any noticeable change in playerbase or player revenue. All the changes that have been made thus far have been first and foremost about trivializing pve or making it more comfortable, and the changes we haven't got are because pve is more important. 

Still though, I'm here for pvp, and it deserves a thought when the combat is predisposed to it.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

3 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Sad but true.

Pve laughs at us. We could all quit today and it probably wouldn't make any noticeable change in playerbase or player revenue. All the changes that have been made thus far have been first and foremost trivializing pve, and the changes we haven't got are because pve is more important. 

Still though, I'm here for pvp, and it deserves a thought when the combat is predisposed to it.

In all seriousness, if I could pay to make ANet care about PvP again, I would.

 

I truly believe PvP is GW2's best game mode, or at least it could be if it got the attention it deserved.

[Jaden.1420]

Quite a nice list. Some annotations:

 

To 2.) I never understood why there're seasons in the first place. Why not just never reset the ratings (only the rewards), like in most other competitive games.

To 3.) Of course, the maps preference is subjective (for example, hate Coliseum), and ANet can't just remove maps due to achievements, only move them to unranked. However, there could be an easy fix: just let us preselect which maps we want to play and which not, again just like basically in every other competitive game. That also would immediately provide some statistics on which maps are popular and which are not. This might prolong queue times, but so what? You can always extend your map pool if it's too long.

To 5.) and 8.)  The start here has to be to show the rank of each player in the scoreboard at the end of the match, once again, like in every other PvP game. I don't see how this would increase toxicity, and it would be quite helpful to know that the algorithm didn't just kitten with me.