The Big PvP Revamp Update

[Anvar.5673]

 TLDR: In short, just bring back the diversity of the PvP of Guild Wars 1 in Guild Wars 2.

A better matchmaking with less bots, afkers and match manipulations implies a lot of new players and balancing is not efficient enough to bring and make them stay in PvP.

Some examples of actions:

 

1. A minimal moderation

Ban the toxic players, the ones with bad behaviors against others and afk ones for at least 3 months and goldsellers forever, or at least apply more and more Dishonorable stacks till a real bannishment.

Extends the Dishonorable feature to the WvW. A player affected by this condition should not be allowed to do any PvP thing in the game, including WvW.

Bring back Impending Dhuum to make examples and show to the players that the rules should not be broken.

Develop some mecanics like teleporting people outside the spawn after 10 seconds for example to let the ennemy team to kill the afk players and make unbalanced matches end faster.

Or just auto-kick people who stay in the spawn more than 1 minute (which is not a normal behavior when there isn't any team outside to camp them) and give them Dishonorable stacks.

 

2. Add some PvP dailies, weeklies and monthlies tasks in the Wizard's Vault

Already planned.

 

3. Remove the duo-queue, add a fully queue system and limit the capacity to change profession

For fairness.

Let the best players to fight in a separated 5v5 conquest, 3v3 and 2v2 queues and reward them with more rating points (more risks, more rewards).

Let the people in a fully organized queue to be able to change profession but disallow it in solo-queue.

Give less ranking points depending of the number of players who are actually playing (current population compared hour by hour) to limitate the off-peak hours strategy:

• There are only 10 players who do PvP ? You get 0 points.
• There are 75 players at 8 am ? You get some points.
• There are 150 players at 10am ? You get more points.

Take a margin to take into account the fake accounts.

I know some people would like to keep the duo-queue to play with friends but it seems very difficult to handle in a balancing point of view. Also, people had already accepted the constraint of having to made fully organized groups in Guild Wars 1.

 

4. Remove the PvP levels requirements to play ranked

(that one is more debatable than some others things honestly)

A good moderation should do the job against people with bad intentions.

Having to earn 20 PvP's levels to be able to play ranked and get best rewards is not encouraring for the new people who want to invest themselves in PvP.

It drives players away and contribute to kill the PvP.

However, it's a minimal protection against bots and malicious people with free to play accounts.

 

5. Remove the Champion's Rest pass

The Champion's Rest pass is a source of profits for goldsellers.

Replace it with a new one (1000 gem cost) and allow PvP players to support the game like the WvW players can do with the Armistice Bastion.

 

6. Rework the PvP gizmos and titles

The PvP gizmos are a source of profits for goldsellers.

Just remove them as the legit players who really earned them left the game a long time ago. A legendary choice box and the other rewards like gems are enough.

Or rework them with the titles like the suggestion below:

On 7/16/2023 at 3:48 PM, Khalisto.5780 said:

baron of arena: win 500 ranked games, and so on, till you get god of arena at 2k 3k ranked games won

same with gizmos, a gizmos costs like 500 currency, by winning a at match you get 1 currency, when you win a aT you get 10 of those currencies. When you win an MaT match you get 10, winning quarter finals 20, semi finals 50, second place gets 100, first place 500.

 

7. Add some PvE in PvP

Introduce a new separate episode in the story journal where you have to help Zafirah and the Zaishen Order to rebuild the Great Temple of Eternal Battles (formerly Balthazar) with some Mists' treasures to earn from WvW and PvP.

That episode would be facultative to attract PvE players.

It would not be mandatory to complete it for the people who are not interested by that sort of things. Just push the button and get ready.

 

8. New PvP Hub: The Great Temple of Eternal Battles

The PvP part of the game, including the WvW, deserve his own hub and The Great Temple of Eternal Battles could serve that.

The Hall of Memories is a dark place with too little spaces for training and chill. The new PvP hub should be lighter, more open and more friendly with some good places to chill.

To help people to wait between two battles, add:

• some secrets like a jumping puzzle in the Zaishen Elite grotto ;
• a new pet saved from the old Zaishen Menagerie Grounds ;
• fishing holes ;
• a new open arena in the Zaishen Challenge's fort with more spaces and forbidden to mounts.

I saw a suggestion about dueling. I don't think the studio agree with dueling everywhere but people could organize them in the new PvP Hub's open arena, in Guild Halls (with a PvP setting) or in the new Isle of the Nameless' training area (see below).

 

9. New training area: the Isle of the Nameless

The Guild Wars 2's combat system is very unique among other MMOs and is a great part of the identity of the game.

It deserves a real place, like it was the cas in Guild Wars 1 with the Isle of the Nameless, to cover every aspect of the combat and help players understand them.

It would be an instancied area like the Special Forces Training Area but with more space and options, where you could enter solo or with a group and:

• Learn about boons, cleansing, cc, etc.
• Learn about tactics like kitting, retreat, avoid big fights, etc.
• Training mecanics: siege weapons, etc.
• Training against masters: Master of Weavers, Master of Bladesworn, Master of Cleansing, Master of Evasion, etc.
• Training against special NPCs: Svanir, Utahein, guards and guild lord.
• Fight in an arena against the members of your group in a PvP configuration.

 

10. New casual competitive missions

Like the Fort Aspenwood or the Jade Quarry to make a bridge between casual PvP to competitive PvP.

There are a lot of stories to tell with the Mists like the Charr rebellion in the Plains of Golghein for example.

People often think about World of Warcraft battlegrounds who make fighting two teams of 10 or 15 or 40 for the epic format (which is more akin to the World versus World's teams with that scale).

 

11. Permanent team deathmatch arenas

Make the 2v2 and 3v3 permanent (with ranked rewards) but keep one league and leaderboard rotation (conquest -> 2v2 -> conquest -> etc..).

Keep Wizard's Vault dailies for the actual league as an incentive (when it's conquest, all dailies are about conquest).
 

12. Guild versus Guild

Just give to the community the most popular game mode of the license across the video game industry. I still see some people who speak about the GW1 GvG across the internet despite the many years. People mainly know Guild Wars because of GvG.

Be confident about your players and let them appropriate the game mode with custom settings (team size, respawn timer, allow/disallow special mecanics).

Guild Wars 2's guild halls become Guild Headquarters to differentiate the PvE part to the PvP one. Guilds can claim a guild hall to a canthan ambassador to challenge other guilds.

Firsts guild halls configurations at launch: Warrior's Isle (classic setup), Druid's Isle, Nomad's Isle, Imperial Isle (for large scale battles).

 

13. Spectator mode

People can already go in spectator mode in unranked to help people to learn the game or for themselves.

Authorized shoutcasters like famous streamers can be selected by the studio to cover some competitions in live.

Which is missing from Guild Wars 1 is the capacity to replay the top battles to be able to learn from the best at any time.

A replay functionality (after the matches ended) could be great for the health of the PvP community and it could also allow transparancy and prove that there isn't some cheats or match manipulations in tournaments.

 

14. Unused maps and Stronghold

It's been a long time since no new content was introduced in PvP (2018). Removing some parts of it can hurt the PvP community more easily which is not great.

Bring back or reuse:

• Stronghold mini-seasons or allow people to earn the achievements in unranked.
• Spirit Watch in ranked conquest or allow people to earn the achievements in unranked.
• Raid on the Capricorn in unranked only. Just let people having fun with it if they want.
• Courtyard in ranked 2v2 and 3v3 with Team Deathmatch rules.

 

15. Heroes Ascent

Heroes Ascent was a very unique and ambitious PvP game mode of Guild Wars 1 where teams had to climb in the competition through multiple maps in the Mists with many different mecanics, rules and configurations.

It's return in Guild Wars 2 could be great for the game's reputation but the first step is to revilatize the entire PvP. Unfortunatly, this means that it may be not the first priority to have in the delivery of new PvP contents.

 

16. Balancing

The balancing is very important for the health of the game but it should not be the only one priority till the PvP have enough content to be attractive for everyone.

Doing only balancing doesn't showed good results for the health of the PvP since the launch of Guild Wars 2.

That's why I personally think that the diversity and the fun should be the main focus for game designers to enhance the PvP and put it at the great same level it was with the Guild Wars 1 one.

 

Conclusion

The developers should have more confidence about their players on how they might appropriate new gamemodes instead of indefinitly theorize on it. The life always follow his way.

In this case, it's unfair to only dedicate all of the development ressources to the most played contents since no real investments were done with the PvP of Guild Wars 2.

I would love to see the PvP of Guild Wars to go back to it's roots. The conquest mode was never asked by the community and never had nothing to do with the Guild Wars license.

The PvP of Guild Wars 1 played a great role in the waiting of Guild Wars 2. It's potential of replayability is really great.

One day there will be no more new content but with great foundations Guild Wars 2 can live forever and can continue to bring to the studio decent revenues to finance future projects.

The best soups are made in old pots.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Anvar.5673
more content

[Khalisto.5780]

to stop afkers they would actually need ppl to look at those reports, not only the pvp community is so small that wouldn't be worth for anet, but also the number of reports the actual reason is

"plays bad" (match manipulation)

"didnt do as I told (match manipulation)

[Stalima.5490]

3 hours ago, Anvar.5673 said:

 TLDR: In short, just bring back the diversity of the PvP of Guild Wars 1 in Guild Wars 2.

A better matchmaking with less bots, afkers and match manipulations implies a lot of new players and balancing is not efficient enough to bring and make them stay in PvP.

Some examples of actions:

1. A minimal moderation

Ban the toxic players and afk ones for at least 3 months and goldsellers forever.

 

2. Add some PvP dailies, weeklies and monthlies tasks in the Wizard's Vault

Already planned.

 

3. Remove the duo-queue and the capacity to change profession

For fairness.

Let the best players to fight in a separated 5v5 queue and reward them with more rating points if you want.

Give less ranking points depending of the number of players who are actually playing to limitate the off-peak hours strategy.

 

4. Remove the Champion's Rest pass

The Champion's Rest pass is a source of profits for goldsellers. Replace it with a new one (1000 gem cost) like the Armistice Bastion and allow PvP players to support the game.

 

5. Remove the PvP gizmos

The PvP gizmos are a source of profits for goldsellers. Just remove them as the legit players who really earned them leaved the game a long time ago. A legendary choice box and the other rewards are enough.

 

6. Add some PvE in PvP

A new separate episode in the story journal where you have to help Zafirah and the Zaishen Order to rebuild the Great Temple of Eternal Battles (formerly Balthazar) with some Mists' treasures to earn from WvW and PvP.

 

7. New PvP Hub: The Great Temple of Eternal Battles

The Hall of Memories is a dark place with too little spaces for training and chill.

The new PvP hub is meant to be lighter, more open, more friendly with some good places to chill.

Add some secrets like a jumping puzzle in the Zaishen Elite grotto and a new pet saved from the old Zaishen Menagerie Grounds.

A new open arena in the Zaishen Challenge's fort with more spaces and forbid to mounts.

 

8. New training area: the Isle of the Nameless

Like the Special Forces Training Area but with more space and options.

An instancied area where you can enter solo or with a group to learn everything about the Guild Wars 2's combat:

• Learn about boons, cleansing, cc, etc.
• Training mecanics: siege weapons, etc.
• Training against masters: Master of Weavers, Master of Bladesworn, Master of Cleansing, Master of Evasion, etc.
• Training against special NPCs: Svanir, Utahein, guards and guild lord.

 

9. New casual competitive missions

Like the Fort Aspenwood to make a bridge between casual PvP to competitive PvP.

 

10. Permanent random arenas

Make the 2v2 and 3v3 permanent (with ranked rewards) but keep one league and leaderboard rotation (conquest -> 2v2 -> conquest -> etc..).

Keep Wizard's Vault dailies for the actual league as an incentive (when it's conquest, all dailies are about conquest).
 

11. Guild versus Guild

Just give to the community the most popular game mode of the license across the video game industry.

Be confident about your players and let them appropriate the game mode with custom settings (team size, respawn timer, allow/disallow special mecanics).

Guild Halls become Guild Headquarters to differentiate the PvE part to the PvP one. Guilds can claim a guild hall to a canthan ambassador to challenge other guilds.

Firsts guild halls configurations at launch: Warrior's Isle (classic setup), Druid's Isle, Nomad's Isle, Imperial Isle (for large scale battles).

 

One day there will be no more new content but with great foundations Guild Wars 2 can live forever.

Some good points buuuuuuut...

Lets scrap all of that and replace it with a 5% herald buff for no apparant reason.

and increase in elementalist damage reduction and invuln up time.

[Anvar.5673]

5 hours ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

to stop afkers they would actually need ppl to look at those reports, not only the pvp community is so small that wouldn't be worth for anet, but also the number of reports the actual reason is

"plays bad" (match manipulation)

"didnt do as I told (match manipulation)

That's not wrong either 😅 Maybe if there was any ArenaNet developers who still play Guild Wars 2 and especially the PvP part of the game, so maybe the same players with the same bad behaviors would be easier to spot. But hey, for that they have to play their game, how difficult.

 

5 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

Lets scrap all of that and replace it with a 5% herald buff for no apparant reason.

and increase in elementalist damage reduction and invuln up time.

Yeah. Sometimes I think the community deserve all of this as there are hundreds of topics about balancing and half of them are dedicated to the elementalists instead ideas who could help the game. The balancing never helped to make the PvP popular. Fresh new contents could do it.

[RatherUnexpected.5603]

While some of this is nice, some of it... I'm dubious about, and some of it is unnecessary complication, given that overly complicated systems have evidently plagued the PVP scene in this game for a while.

In particular:

"Remove the duo-queue"

Don't underestimate the demographic of small groups of friends wanting to play together. If you remove the ability to queue in small groups or pairs, and split the game up into full premades or full PUGs, you're nuking the already diminished PVP population, because a lot of people aren't into solo PVP and specifically want to play with friends. Now, I personally have had a lot of issues with the premade vs PUG scenario, ever since the oldest days of PVP in World of Warcraft, and I always despised unfair matchups. But there's really no getting around the fact that if you want a lot of people PVPing, you have to accommodate social play like this.

And let's not forget - if the problem with duo-queue is "fairness", then the actual problem is class balance; two people working together should give them a bit of a strategic advantage... but if it's more than that, if their class combination creates a wrecking ball? That's a class balance issue, and a bigger problem.

"Add some PvE in PvP"

Noooo. Don't underestimate how much the PVP players would absolutely hate being forced to engage in PVE, or how much the PVE players would hate to encounter story content that is actually a nudge towards PVP. Even those of us who like to distribute our time pretty evenly between the two would not really be fond of the cross-over muddying the waters; most of us want PVP to be "press button, get into a fight ".

"Permanent random arenas"

Yes, definitely. Would agree that there should be permanent 2v2 and 3v3 queues. These are basic modes that should always be available. I'm not a fan of 2v2, but it should be a given. That being said, conquest is easily the most popular mode - contrary to the sentiments of some the sweatier PVP denizens - and nobody likes it when the ranked conquest is rotated out for the fundamentally broken 2v2 (because the game's class balance is not solid enough for 2v2 to be anything other than a rock paper scissors game). So I say, keep it simpler:

Permanent 2v2, 3v3 and Conquest queues. No messing around. A tiny, tiny percentage of players actually even remotely care about the rankings, beyond the system's ability to match them with equally-skilled players. Seriously, I don't think the veteran PVPers in this game quite understand - in terms of the game's long-term health and PVP population? Nobody cares about the ranking system. The vast, vast majority of PVP players will never see anything above gold anyway, and will be bouncing between silver and gold for years. So ditch the silly rotations - just have 2v2, 3v3 and Conquest queues, permanent.

My Take:

In general I would say, keep it simple. Focus on the stuff that is visibly nudging players away from PVP:

1) The whole system is horribly complicated. To a new player, World v World is a mysterious mess with too many rules, and too contingent on somehow figuring out optimal server times for good fights. Meanwhile the smaller-scale PVP is a mass of bewildering modes, and the bizarre restriction of having to farm a mode that forces you to fight against full premades and much higher rank players before you can actually play a ranked mode that will even try to match you against similar players is really questionable.

Cut away the complication. Ditch the unranked requirement - playing unranked in no way teaches players to get better at the game. The entire point of ranked is surely to match players to other players of similar skill level - why lock this behind 20 arbitrary levels of grinding stompfests? Does anyone here have any idea how many potential PVP players have been frightened off by being forced to grind unranked? Ludicrous system.

2) Adjust old conquest maps, create new conquest maps. There's no getting around the fact that conquest is actually the crowd-pleaser. It's the mode that is just big enough to offer a "big battle" feel, and small enough that there's some room for actual strategy and a fair amount of 1v1 duelling. It's lower-stress than 2v2 or 3v3, but simpler than World v World. It's literally the main entry point to PVP for most people.

The old conquest maps need tweaking, however: Remove the gimmicks. There's a reason everyone always votes for the coliseum, or legacy of the foefire - they're the maps where you have to win by PVPing, not by killing an NPC, pressing use, or spamming the trebuchet. Optimal way to improve the conquest map list - change any map gimmick that awards team points into a buff that gives a significant, but not decisive edge. Make the trebuchet a temporary skill, awarded via capturing something on the map, that allows you to call in one artillery strike.

Then... add more conquest maps. Keep them simple. Make the scenery interesting - draw upon existing open-world scenery. Doesn't require new art assets; there are plenty of areas that would make for really fun PVP. Like, imagine a vertically-orientated map set in the Grove, with no "near/far" just top, middle, bottom. Imagine a conquest map in Divinity's Reach, with everyone fighting a close-quarters battle in the alleys. Extensive map lists are one of the primary ways a PVP game stays alive in the long term, and GW2 already has a vast library of potential assets/areas to draw upon.

3) Add a duelling system, WoW-style. WoW's duelling system did a lot to entice potential PVP players - any time you approached a major city (back in the vanilla to Wrath days at least) you would see a crowd of people hanging around just outside the city gates, duelling. It was fun, it appealed to both casuals and hardcore PVPers, it was a great way to practice, a great way to compete for the sake of competing... the fact that GW2 has no duelling system is a bit bizarre, frankly. That deranged free-for-all arena doesn't really do the job.

4) Automated idle kick. A simple one, but an important one. No need for reporting. No need for admin. Just have a timer for the spawn area - if a player is in the spawn area for, let's be generous, 1 minute? Boom, auto-kicked from the match, no rewards, and a cooldown on queueing again. Don't tie it to actual user input - people can just press jump to avoid the kick. Stick an effect on players while they're in the spawn area; a countdown that kicks them if they haven't left the spawn area.

While people could still theoretically leave the spawn area, then idle, rinse and repeat... a simple auto-kick for idling in the spawn area would massively reduce the number of afkers, simply by making it that little bit more inconvenient to do so.

Edited July 16, 2023 by RatherUnexpected.5603

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

the absolute best thing they could do is remove duo-queue and allow players to team queue 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5. this would free up solo queue for players who actually want to play the game for pvp and not as a sweaty career choice. i get better fights from borderlands duels in wvw.

[Khalisto.5780]

13 hours ago, Anvar.5673 said:

3. Remove the duo-queue and the capacity to change profession

For fairness.

Let the best players to fight in a separated 5v5 queue and reward them with more rating points if you want.

Give less ranking points depending of the number of players who are actually playing to limitate the off-peak hours strategy.

not sure if they can't stop the class swapping, there's always a build that is so strong the can be played 95% of the matches and it's going to do well, specially if you're a little above average players, even if you go against a worst player playing a hardcounter you gonna still win. So you can just q up as whatever class and the moment the q pops you go to op build even before match starts.

Just award mat winners with gems and done.

 

also bandaid fix the matchmaking till there's enough players, make it so a 1800 player doesnt q into a 1200 player with a 5 min q, this would severely nerf the q dodge cuz by the time the q dodger finds a match the player he's trying to dodge is already back in q and they most likely face each other in a more balanced match.

13 hours ago, Anvar.5673 said:

 

5. Remove the PvP gizmos

The PvP gizmos are a source of profits for goldsellers. Just remove them as the legit players who really earned them leaved the game a long time ago. A legendary choice box and the other rewards are enough.

Gizmos and titles should be long term achievments, that would instantly nerf the RMT involving those 2 things

something like:

knight of arena: win 250 ranked games

baron of arena: win 500 ranked games, and so on, till you get god of arena at 2k 3k ranked games won

same with gizmos, a gizmos costs like 500 currency, by winning a at match you get 1 currency, when you win a aT you get 10 of those currencies. When you win an MaT match you get 10, winning quarter finals 20, semi finals 50, second place gets 100, first place 500.

give the ranked win points retroactively so the moment this is implemented half pvp population gets god of arena.

at first this tournament method would be actually a boost to RMT but within 6 month this gizmos would have 0 prestige and nobody else would pay for them.

also 0 all rewards from losing a ranked match and double all rewards by winning it

move the current model to unranked so pve players can full team q in unranked to farm their legendary stuff

Edited July 16, 2023 by Khalisto.5780

[SlayerXX.7138]

14 hours ago, Anvar.5673 said:

3. Remove the duo-queue and the capacity to change profession

For fairness.

Let the best players to fight in a separated 5v5 queue and reward them with more rating points if you want.

Give less ranking points depending of the number of players who are actually playing to limitate the off-peak hours strategy.

Yes too remove duo Q and most of the Post.
Profession swapping is a neat quality of live feature. Competitive Profession swapping should be dealt with, with closed doors and a hidden scoreboard in the preparation Phase.

[Kozumi.5816]

The producer made it pretty clear only popular modes are getting updates.

PvP is not popular - move on and find another game.

[Anvar.5673]

5 hours ago, RatherUnexpected.5603 said:

Noooo. Don't underestimate how much the PVP players would absolutely hate being forced to engage in PVE, or how much the PVE players would hate to encounter story content that is actually a nudge towards PVP. Even those of us who like to distribute our time pretty evenly between the two would not really be fond of the cross-over muddying the waters; most of us want PVP to be "press button, get into a fight ".

This answer was, of course, expected and I respect that. I think that short story idea in PvP (with the new hub and everything else) could help more than the bad situation today. It could be the same lenght as the End of Dragons Interlude with some dialogues with Zafirah but it would not be mandatory for going in PvP. The PvP players who want to just press a button to play could to do that whenever they want.

The PvE players could do some facultative achievements to rebuilt the Temple (with actions involving PvP) like it was the case in Sun's Refuge or Eye of the North but the main PVP NPCs would be always accessibles for everyone.

With that idea, I though about the Great Temple of Balthazar in Guild Wars 1 where all type of players met together. And maybe the nicest mindset of PvE players could affect that of PvP players too.

I mean, it's not thanks to the current population of PvP players that the game mode is in a good health. We must renew the blood often. And beyond that, I think the players versus players part of the game (PvP + WvW so) need his own hub with more stories, lore and immersion directly in the world of Tyria instead of a random dark place in the Mists. Players must want to discover the Battle Isles by themselves.

For the other things, your concerns are valid too. It's complicated since launch for the duels for many things that we could know (different skills between game modes, etc.) but many other one we don't.

 

1 hour ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

Gizmos and titles should be long term achievments, that would instantly nerf the RMT involving those 2 things

something like:

I agree with that solution about rewards. Fractals and WvW are a matter of time and investment, why not PvP. There is a great potential about all of what you say.
 

19 minutes ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Profession swapping is a neat quality of live feature. Competitive Profession swapping should be dealt with, with closed doors and a hidden scoreboard in the preparation Phase.

 I agree that it could stay a nice feature in a non random environment like 5v5 queues, where all players are accustomed about that practice..

 

3 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

PvP is not popular - move on and find another game.

I agree. Faster it will die, faster we can all afk with alt accounts and launchbuddy for free rewards.

[Flowki.7194]

4 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

The producer made it pretty clear only popular modes are getting updates.

PvP is not popular - move on and find another game.

It would be more popular if it wasn't so badly neglected

[Avatar.3568]

i dislike the Idea of removing mat titles and gizmo's, it would solve some Problems on na but Not all Problems, you don't actually Team USA would Stop playing theory fav Game?

[Anvar.5673]

16 hours ago, Avatar.3568 said:

i dislike the Idea of removing mat titles and gizmo's, it would solve some Problems on na but Not all Problems, you don't actually Team USA would Stop playing theory fav Game?

I would prefer to keep them too but sadly there isn't any other solution to lower the value of the accounts sold by goldsellers. The Team USA would continue to play their favorite game but it's members would have not any interest to do it with anything else that their main account.

[Anvar.5673]

Big update here. I read all the comments and integrated most of them. I will continue to do updates.

Thanks for your participation. Each point of view is valuable and I didn't give any confused reaction to anyone for that.

Feel free to continue the conversation.

[Endo.1652]

I dint feel like reading every single comment here to see if someone else said this but. Having pvp level requirements for ranked is a good thing.

If anything it should be higher than 20.

It 1, makes it more annoying for people to bot on free to play accounts or fresh accounts. And 2 it makes it so new players and fresh new alts with no mmr really set in getting into your games as often. (Mind you this still happens but raising the ranked requirement would lower this.)

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Very well thought out and it tackles just about every major issue holding PvP back. You had me at remove DuoQ really because there exists nothing else in this game as damaging and unfair as DuoQ is. Removing DuoQ was the best decision the devs ever made; adding it back in was the worst. Getting rid of 2v1 would mark a serious blow to the wintrading cartel because they all use it and abuse it, and any chance ranked has of being fun & balanced hinges on ranked first being fair and 2v1 is not fair, 2v1 is 2v1.

On 7/16/2023 at 5:20 AM, RatherUnexpected.5603 said:

While some of this is nice, some of it... I'm dubious about, and some of it is unnecessary complication, given that overly complicated systems have evidently plagued the PVP scene in this game for a while.

In particular:

"Remove the duo-queue"

Don't underestimate the demographic of small groups of friends wanting to play together. If you remove the ability to queue in small groups or pairs, and split the game up into full premades or full PUGs, you're nuking the already diminished PVP population, because a lot of people aren't into solo PVP and specifically want to play with friends. Now, I personally have had a lot of issues with the premade vs PUG scenario, ever since the oldest days of PVP in World of Warcraft, and I always despised unfair matchups. But there's really no getting around the fact that if you want a lot of people PVPing, you have to accommodate social play like this.

And let's not forget - if the problem with duo-queue is "fairness", then the actual problem is class balance; two people working together should give them a bit of a strategic advantage... but if it's more than that, if their class combination creates a wrecking ball? That's a class balance issue, and a bigger problem.

A fact that people like this either ignore or don't understand. 

To play with friends you could always play unranked. To play competitively with friends, there has always been ATs, and one of the suggestions was making 2v2/3v3 permanent modes which could also be competitive ways to play with friends.

2v1 in 5v5 is unfair. Fundamentally it is unfair. No amount of profession balance is going to change the advantage that two coordinated players have over randomly matched soloqs, it isn't even related or at all relevant to the issue.
Wanting to play with friends is no excuse. Just give soloqs their own separate ranked arena and the argument wouldn't even exist. If you find nobody else wants to play your team modes and you still cannot play with friends, then it's a personal problem and you don't get to blame everyone else. Ranked has always been and likely always will be predominantly soloq in terms of population, and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few 'small groups of friends'.

[Flowki.7194]

The biggest change for me is capping the range of matchmaking. You should never be playing against a player 3 tiers above or below you. Even 2 tiers is already quite a gap.

 

The second change, which is very unlikely, is raising the skill floor across many specs and even entire classes, like warrior, necro and gaurdian.

[doozer.7063]

20 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

The second change, which is very unlikely, is raising the skill floor across many specs and even entire classes, like warrior, necro and gaurdian.

Lower skill floor is not a problem, give ppl an easier entry to learn. Lower everything else is a problem.

[Flowki.7194]

9 minutes ago, doozer.7063 said:

Lower skill floor is not a problem, give ppl an easier entry to learn. Lower everything else is a problem.

Lower skill floors are a massive problem.... you give people a chance to learn through a working matchmaking system that puts low skill vs low skill. That is litterally what matchmaking is suppose to do.

 

There are multiple low skill floor specs that are increasingly more effective because higher skill floor/effective specs are being systematically nerfed. If the weapon changes make some of these low skill floor specs more effective for the same effort, they will dominate ranked, to the point no high skill floor, high effort spec is worth playing at any level, other than bragging rights or something.

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Anvar.5673]

48 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

The biggest change for me is capping the range of matchmaking. You should never be playing against a player 3 tiers above or below you. Even 2 tiers is already quite a gap.

In theory, the PvP Matchmaking Algorithm already do it's best to put people from the same tier/level together.

However, this system can only work if there is enough players who are playing at the same time.

Since the PvP didn't get any new content since years and most and most people leave it each years, the algorithm have to compose with the few remaining players.

Speaking about a better matchmaking in those pity conditions, with a very few people, is like opening hundreds of topics about balancing.

I agree, it's a real problem but it can't be resolved if more and more players continue to leave, sadly.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Anvar.5673
typo

[Sereath.1428]

14 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Lower skill floors are a massive problem.... you give people a chance to learn through a working matchmaking system that puts low skill vs low skill. That is litterally what matchmaking is suppose to do.

 

There are multiple low skill floor specs that are increasingly more effective because higher skill floor/effective specs are being systematically nerfed. If the weapon changes make some of these low skill floor specs more effective for the same effort, they will dominate ranked, to the point no high skill floor, high effort spec is worth playing at any level, other than bragging rights or something.

 

Yeah pretty much what I've been saying for a while. Controversial take for sure but it's impossible to make everything being equally rewarding without completely kittening up the risk/reward ratio therefore having a massive class usage disparity in the games of the vast majority of players.
By making low skill floor classes and builds so rewarding and durable, a lot of people just ragequit from annoying each other to death (CC chains for example) and just stay with a negative perception of the game.
And this also affects the 1% because, just as you mentioned, there's no point in playing something that has to go through more loops and setups just to get the same reward/effectiveness as a straightforward class or build.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Sereath.1428

[verysaltysnackk.3916]

There hasnt been an actual pvp team for half a decade so to me all these serious posts read like love letters to an imaginary gf

[doozer.7063]

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Lower skill floors are a massive problem.... you give people a chance to learn through a working matchmaking system that puts low skill vs low skill. That is litterally what matchmaking is suppose to do.

 

There are multiple low skill floor specs that are increasingly more effective because higher skill floor/effective specs are being systematically nerfed. If the weapon changes make some of these low skill floor specs more effective for the same effort, they will dominate ranked, to the point no high skill floor, high effort spec is worth playing at any level, other than bragging rights or something.

 

I mean how skill intense something is mechanically and how effective/ rewarding it is are two different balance aspects you can combine and finetune quite well as balance dev. I do not see a problem with mechanically easier builds existing, in particular when they are only easy to pick up (low skill floor) but still hard to master with a decent learning curve (high skill ceiling and skill cap).

Builds do not need to differ a little bit better newbies from worse newbies that hard. Differ worse from better playes only becomes very important in mid, high and top tier, not in low tier. Means the effectivity of a build needs to decrease relatively with increasing skill lvl of the player on that build in particular but also with the general skill lvl of the player, so that at some point a better player will be more rewarded with playing a higher ceiling/ cap build over a lower skill ceiling/ cap build the moment he is able to play that build at least decent.

For me GW2 problem is, that low skill ceiling and low skill cap builds are also the most rewarding and lowest risk builds, so even mechanically good player do not get any reward for playing higher risk or more skill intense builds. But that is just bad balance done but clueless devs and not because some builds exist with easier mechanics to pick up which give new player some minimum impact and a bit more survivability even when being bad so they at least do not instant die on first mistake in bad vs bad players in silver/gold games. Ofc they should still get rekt by better player on same build or on harder to play builds but in a game with an actual pvp population you would not have low goldies playing vs mid/ high plat. 

 

Ok i am probably too drunk for that crap 😆

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by doozer.7063

[Anvar.5673]

10 hours ago, verysaltysnackk.3916 said:

There hasnt been an actual pvp team for half a decade so to me all these serious posts read like love letters to an imaginary gf

I can't disagree, sadly.

Sometimes as a player of the franchise since the begining, I think I'm too old when I see that half of the topics are things like:

• [profession.name] is too weak
• [profession.name] is too powerfull
• [profession.name] nerf is a joke
• Why [profession.name] is a joke
• Hey Ben P/CMC/Grouch stop joking
• Hey Ben P/CMC/Grouch swhat are you thoughts on my specific griefs against [profession.name]

I can understand why developers never read the PvP forums, don't want to deal with the PvP community and don't take her seriously.

The community should have fight more, every day, for a proper PvP at least as good as it was in Guild Wars 1.

Maybe times changed. Streamers remplaced fansites. Targets are not the same. Dramas and false pretenses are more meaningful.

New contents doesn't interest people (I never thought I would say that one day) like they would prefer keeping the same WvW borderlands maps forever or criticize the last published map for anything for the sake of it.

The Guilds versus Guilds seemed too old in 2012 in a video game industry where the Moba were the tendency before battle royals.

Developers had dreams of esport with their conquest mode as the only one PvP gamemode even if nobody in the community asked for it (unlike GvG). Then those developers leaved the company a long time ago.

That's great. Let's continue this way, with not doing Guild Wars things in Guild Wars 2, and let the PvP die a little more day after day I guess. Afk players, wintraders and bots like it.

What a waste.

[Flowki.7194]

18 hours ago, doozer.7063 said:

I mean how skill intense something is mechanically and how effective/ rewarding it is are two different balance aspects you can combine and finetune quite well as balance dev. I do not see a problem with mechanically easier builds existing, in particular when they are only easy to pick up (low skill floor) but still hard to master with a decent learning curve (high skill ceiling and skill cap).

Builds do not need to differ a little bit better newbies from worse newbies that hard. Differ worse from better playes only becomes very important in mid, high and top tier, not in low tier. Means the effectivity of a build needs to decrease relatively with increasing skill lvl of the player on that build in particular but also with the general skill lvl of the player, so that at some point a better player will be more rewarded with playing a higher ceiling/ cap build over a lower skill ceiling/ cap build the moment he is able to play that build at least decent.

For me GW2 problem is, that low skill ceiling and low skill cap builds are also the most rewarding and lowest risk builds, so even mechanically good player do not get any reward for playing higher risk or more skill intense builds. But that is just bad balance done but clueless devs and not because some builds exist with easier mechanics to pick up which give new player some minimum impact and a bit more survivability even when being bad so they at least do not instant die on first mistake in bad vs bad players in silver/gold games. Ofc they should still get rekt by better player on same build or on harder to play builds but in a game with an actual pvp population you would not have low goldies playing vs mid/ high plat. 

 

Ok i am probably too drunk for that crap 😆

 

I mostly agree but the problem with low skillfloor-high effective specs (if buffed like that) is that they will get to a higher rank for FAR less effort. So, on a high skill floor spec, you may be in gold 1, fighting many ''lower skilled'' players being carried by low skill floor specs. That simply makes the effort to reward ratios toxic AF, when the entire enemy team can have low skill floor, high effective specs. That already happens a lot in ranked now (minus the effectiveness), due to the bad matchmaking, enemy team consisting of core gaurd/willbender, power/scourge necro, SPB/bladesworn, bunker mes. All very over represented specs, and some are very much creeping on being way too effective for the effort, despite ceiling cap. Due to the current matchmaking, you can't get to a certain rank, where you can then avoid these toxic low skill matchups. I expect to die if I don't even attempt to dodge.. the avg gaurd, necro, warrior can, by design of their mechanics, face tank way too much damage. For example, a warrior stun breaking, then getting an added bonus of a 3 seconds of physical immunity, then by a full counter, then by spamming stuns.. lends itself to getting away with far less dodging. The other specs follow a similar pattern, for their own mechanical reasonings.

 

Ironically, I think DD thief is the biggest offender of being carried by low skill/low risk gameplay. The ability to avoid pvp, and just back cap, lets them win games that most other specs would simply lose 100%, on account of not having the pvp skill, thus dying in group/1v1s.. and not having the mobility to back cap all game, and escape being caught.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Flowki.7194