What Can ArenaNet Actually do To Make PvP Better? (A Thread for Thoughts)

[Bast.7253]

Replace the people in charge of the gamemode.

Stop encouraging degenerate no-counterplay builds. 

To clarify - I don't mean this as a "can this person" but an increase to the team and have more opinions than what we have currently + player discords and golem benchmarks. 

This won't happen because they have other priorities now, no matter who's decision that is, it is what it is. 

Having two balance patches a year however is still pretty poor though. Especially considering the fact that the balance patches are generally coefficient and duration tweaks and not desperately needed skill/utility/trait reworks. Didn't they mention in one of their previous blog posts when switching to this model that it would allow them to touch up on other aspects of the game? Maybe I'm misremembering and I know it's just glitter and PR talk but it would be nice to see more core utilities adjusted and more added for missing skill types.
 

Edited October 1, 2023 by Bast.7253

[Flowki.7194]

Its so rare I play against a spec and think ''yeah he needed skill, and played well there''. 9/10 times its some low effort, or low risk build, be it burst, duelest, or thief.. where they would die withought XYZ crutch mechanic.

 

Remove crutch mechanics, and no risk no reward. None of these high mobility builds are risky, hell, even chrono isnt risky.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Madam Pussycat.6153]

Making pvp better=Separating solo queue and team queue for fairer matches , re-adding back all the things that were removed-amulets, runes, sigils, and un-nerfing the ones that got overly nerfed so build diversity can come back. Put all of the maps and game modes in ranked and leave them there forever (no more mini seasons) give option to check or un-check the modes you want or don't want to play. Those things would be enough to make pvp a thousand percent better but if you wanna make it even better you could add new things like new modes new maps new rewards, that would be great and probably attract a lot of new people to pvp. I think a tutorial mode for new players would be nice too to teach them the basics with npc's since they die too fast  when they play pvp with real players that 1 shot them repeatedly (can't learn anything that way).  Also doing something(anything) about overly toxic people and afkers and  those who may be cheating somehow. People don't realize it or don't care but a lot of people are driven away from pvp because of too many overly toxic people around. You could even put all of the rewards into unranked and make ranked  mode be for leaderboard ranking only, although that would probably make 90% of pvpers never join a ranked match ever again but it doesn't hurt to try it that way🙂

[Terrorhuz.4695]

The community is just bad. People (me included) are toxic, and this drives players away more than any stagnant content. We all (me included) need to chill a lot more and stop bming, teabagging and generally acting like entitled kittens.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 10/1/2023 at 2:05 PM, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

The community is just bad. People (me included) are toxic, and this drives players away more than any stagnant content. We all (me included) need to chill a lot more and stop bming, teabagging and generally acting like entitled kittens.

The actual correct take. If there was a large enough group of people that didn't go out of their way to be scummy to people trying to learn the game, the mode would be much healthier.

[zaced.7948]

there's a lot that can be done, none of it is worth the time and money investment for a playerbase of 3 and a half. and no, doing sweeping changes and investing a lot into the mode won't magically bring back pvp players or birth interest for it in open world bots. that would have had to happen 7-8 years ago to show any kind of significant effect.

they are actually doing the economically best and only viable solution right now: nothing.

and that won't change. nobody in their right mind will invest into a dead game mode in a game that's in its senior years. any amount of theory crafting or solution seeking is pointless. it's just a masturbatory exercise of what-if-phantasies.

Edited October 4, 2023 by zaced.7948

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

40 minutes ago, zaced.7948 said:

and that won't change. nobody in their right mind will invest into a dead game mode in a game that's in its senior years.

We just got an expansion, and WoW is ancient too. Pretty sure there's time yet.

Quote

any amount of theory crafting or solution seeking is pointless. it's just a masturbatory exercise of what-if-phantasies.

Nah. If Third Strike and other ancient games can have a healthy community, so can we. 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

43 minutes ago, zaced.7948 said:

and that won't change. nobody in their right mind will invest into a dead game mode in a game that's in its senior years. any amount of theory crafting or solution seeking is pointless. it's just a 😩☝️🍆 exercise of what-if-phantasies.

Maybe, but endeavor is its own spiritual reward. No matter what becomes of pvp, the people who played it that recognize its divisive nature are already saved.

"But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word that they have spoken." -Matthew 12:36 🙏

 

Reject modernity, poor sportsmanship, wintrading, division of the divided, duoq, t-baggery, weakness, degeneracy, and sin ✋

Embrace truth, respect, strength, common decency, honour, forgiveness, and righteousness 🗿

[Arheundel.6451]

2 hours ago, zaced.7948 said:

there's a lot that can be done, none of it is worth the time and money investment for a playerbase of 3 and a half. and no, doing sweeping changes and investing a lot into the mode won't magically bring back pvp players or birth interest for it in open world bots. that would have had to happen 7-8 years ago to show any kind of significant effect.

they are actually doing the economically best and only viable solution right now: nothing.

and that won't change. nobody in their right mind will invest into a dead game mode in a game that's in its senior years. any amount of theory crafting or solution seeking is pointless. it's just a masturbatory exercise of what-if-phantasies.

They better invest in this game...nobody in his right mind would ever buy another game made by Anet.....

[zaced.7948]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

They better invest in this game...nobody in his right mind would ever buy another game made by Anet.....

it's not up to anet. ncsoft is the entity making such decisions.

[Burnfall.9573]

On 9/30/2023 at 2:46 AM, Ehecatl.9172 said:

As a repeated returning player who keeps getting into PVP before inevitably leaving again I feel I have decent insight into why new players might bounce off the game mode.

The biggest issue, outside toxic players making the experience worse, is the sheer lack of transparency into what is going on. Whenever I return from a long break and try to get into PVP I'm immediately met with insta-death one-second-kill combos that have little to no tell. When you're a new player and you're trying to learn the game getting taken down from 100% to 0 before you can even register what the enemy class is isn't fun and doesn't feel like a learning experience. There are also just a lot of skills that don't have obvious tells and stuff as vitally important as boons don't have an obvious visual display on the character model either even though being able to baseline defend yourself with a knockdown or stun can be entirely negated by a few seconds of Stability you'd only know an enemy has on them if you took the time to look under their health bar and knew what each symbol was already. If Stability say, gave you a coat of stone or metal for the duration, new players would have something to look at and know when to use their control effects and when not to. As-is they might not even realize the people they're hitting have stability and will just be left puzzled as to why nothing they do can stop that guy from rushing them and one-shotting them. Heck, I've been in exactly that situation before until I realized "Oh yah, Stability. That's probably why."

The best advice anyone can give to a new player for how to better understand what their opponent is doing to kill them tends to be "Make an alt and play that class a bit," and that is a problem. Learning all the classes should certainly be how you truly master the game's PVP so you can play at the highest levels, but it shouldn't be mandatory to just know what is even going on at the introductory level of the game.

 

I Applaud Everything You Stated

Well Done!!

[coro.3176]

Somehow restock the PvP player population by drawing people over from PvE-land.

No idea how to do that. Probably involves gradually integrating more PvP-style encounters into the open world or instanced content, allowing and encouraging players to fight each other in arenas (where people can see them and learn). Stick some free-for-all squares right in the middle of the next big map? I dunno.

Game mode needs new blood

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

3 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Somehow restock the PvP player population by drawing people over from PvE-land.

No idea how to do that. 

It's happening tight now.

Wizards vault gives people trinkets for doing pvp stuff.

Be nice to them. 

 

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

On 9/29/2023 at 11:59 PM, Khalisto.5780 said:

You could play unranked for rewards on losses

Even a win in unranked gives less reward then a loss in ranked. There is never a point where playing unranked is a good idea unless you expect to lose and would rather protect your rank then get the extra rewards from ranked.

The reward being based primarily on Win/Lose is generally a bad idea, especially when most of the time if your Win or Lose is far more based on the actions of 9 other players then your own.
If match making actually worked everybody should be averaging a 50% win rate so half of your match are pointless anyway.
But match making just doesn't work anymore because there isn't enough players it's really just completely random at this point

There is no real reward for playing well and no downside to playing badly, AFKing, or just standing around typing at their team the entire match rather then playing.

Unless rewards are tied to individual player actions then there is no reason to make any effort or even try.

 

At this point i'm just counting down Ascended shards of Glory to finish my 2nd Mystforged legendery set, then i'll turn off PvP on the Wizard's vault and never touch PvP again.
Apart from the few people who actually care about rank, is there any other reason to play PvP now?

[cyberzombie.7348]

For starters, they could try reviving TDM and stronghold out of the ground. Both were good concepts, just needed half the love they gave conquest throughout the years. Like a few more maps and mechanic tweaks.

[Vancho.8750]

4 hours ago, ShadowInTheVoid.9183 said:

Even a win in unranked gives less reward then a loss in ranked. There is never a point where playing unranked is a good idea unless you expect to lose and would rather protect your rank then get the extra rewards from ranked.

The reward being based primarily on Win/Lose is generally a bad idea, especially when most of the time if your Win or Lose is far more based on the actions of 9 other players then your own.
If match making actually worked everybody should be averaging a 50% win rate so half of your match are pointless anyway.
But match making just doesn't work anymore because there isn't enough players it's really just completely random at this point

There is no real reward for playing well and no downside to playing badly, AFKing, or just standing around typing at their team the entire match rather then playing.

Unless rewards are tied to individual player actions then there is no reason to make any effort or even try.

 

At this point i'm just counting down Ascended shards of Glory to finish my 2nd Mystforged legendery set, then i'll turn off PvP on the Wizard's vault and never touch PvP again.
Apart from the few people who actually care about rank, is there any other reason to play PvP now?

You can play for you know fun, like  I know it is a hard concept these days to play a game for fun and not shiny pixels but it can happen. At some point if you played long enough rewards don't matter. Also at least for me unranked seems to have better match quality since the mmr is constant , while in ranked it volatile at the start and you have like 30 to 50 games of slog with kitten quality matches till the volatility goes away, but then you start hitting the leaderboard kitten and you still get kitten matches. In unranked there is no reason to lose on purpose (except being total piece of kitten wasting everyone's time) so you literally just play for the fun of it.

[chaoslordlol.3165]

Anet needs to well. Care about pvp its that simple. As people say theres about 12 players playing it so why are reports not handreviewed banning first of all all the afkers all the toxic munchkins out of it. 
- After that we need more players to solve another issue. Matchmaking. Imagine I dropped into G2 from G3 and still have to face people with a top 100 ranked title and im like uh duh sure fun incoming. 
- We cant really fix smurfs honestly. Feels like a impossible task. The only way to come to my mind is make it worth spamming it on one account like manage idk 1500 games in a season to get XYZ reward. Basically forcing someone to stay on that one account to diehard farm it.

- Rewards feel okayish, maybe a slight bump would be nice tho. 
- Duos should be only queued with duos obviously.

- Locking someone on their character they queued up should be mandatory. Sure some comps sucks but you can change your build not your character.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

23 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

The actual correct take. If there was a large enough group of people that didn't go out of their way to be scummy to people trying to learn the game, the mode would be much healthier.

just kiss me already you beautiful kitten

[CallousEye.5018]

I would like to see some more variety for maps and game styles.

I could really use some UI modifications, so that I could improve my map and ability awareness, I play on a 32" 4K monitor so the UI elements are kind of out of my main field of view.

A campaign that brings in new players that want to play PVP, I think F2P, public tournaments, and marketing would be needed here.

[Swagg.9236]

In effect, GW2 needs to become a different game to an extent that it would likely drive away the people who play it right now.  To be competitive and engaging, GW2's main issue to fix is its DRASTIC incongruity between baseline player movement options (WASD, roll dodging, dodging, footsies) and the range of damage.  This is to say, GW2 (or really any non-turn-based video game) shouldn't rely on asymmetrically distributed gimmicks to cover the gaps in baseline class-to-class effect mitigation.  We have a dodge button.  We have a heal button.  Those should have a strong, general impact on gameplay in every situation.  Classes in GW2 instead win based on the builds they run that they got from expacs and the runaway powercreep combos available after dozens of patch notes that lacked any holistic design direction.  They deal damage and flicker around while being more or less invulnerable to damage and control during hysterically long time windows which would make any newcomer constantly ask what is happening on the screen.

• Dodges need to be the only way to consistently mitigate damage; to this effect, everyone needs more of them, and they need to have more of an impact on character mobility.
• If everyone is getting a heal button, it's better off being often available, generic, impactful but also vulnerable to punishment (i.e. Dark Souls party heals or estus).  This also plays much better with traits for the purpose of designing role-based effects to trigger off of heal skill usage.
• If you're dealing damage or inflicting CC, you shouldn't also be invincible or teleporting.
• Reduce AoE radii; reduce AoE durations; lean into ammo skills, lower cooldowns and activation times that float around or exceed 0.75s (or at least come with an actual animation like a leap).

The game also has too many skills on the skill bar.  Everybody here is likely to get buttmad about that comment, but the reality is, the fact that there are 5 skills per weapon bar is how you get things like "Throw Axe" critting for 4-6k on dudes from 600-900 range.  It's such an UNINSPIRED, FILLER SKILL that, in order to compete with every class being some flavor of thief, it will eventually be buffed into full delirium clown world mode; just one of many such cases.  GW2 is built out of those cases.  You need to compress down the bar and throw out a bunch of the trash that generally just ends up as part of a DPS rotation anyway.  Focus on field effects and hazards over "Throw torch" or "hit ground for damage and then wait 20s to do it again lol."  Maximum 4 skills per weapon combo/two-hander.  Auto-attacks likely ought to be generic across weapon types as well rather than specialized.  If autoattacks are specialized per class-weapon association then they are subject to bad patch note decisions.  Homogenized auto-attacks also have other benefits:

• Possibility to shift/compress what was an overtuned or annoying autoattack into the rest of the skill bar; better weapon identity across the game; less auto-spam
• Auto-attack homogeneity plays better with traits for the purpose of designing effects with generic triggers
• Auto-attack damage and weapon speed becomes more consistent and legible across the game (much easier to balance between PvE and PvP)

Right now, the only reason people "move fast" across the screen is because their class has teleports.  The only reason players "dodge" a bunch of incoming damage is because they have some buttons which just effectively turn all incoming damage to 0 for several seconds straight.  You have to funnel player suitability and movement back into the core dodge mechanic while removing it from everywhere else.  Nobody should be inflicting CC or attacking for lethal damage while simultaneously also teleporting or more or less being invulnerable (GW1 was clunky has heck, and even in that game, devs understood that teleports needed an after-cast in order to prevent excessively oppressive pre-cast or super-range attack combos).  One of GW2's biggest points of frustration is often watching an opponent do whatever they want and simply being unable to influence that.  The way to fight certain builds is often by simply playing a certain way or running a certain counter build.  This doesn't let people actually experiment or engage beyond what patch notes dictate.  It's hard to have a high skill ceiling or legible combat when there are really only a handful of ways to properly "solve" the game.

tl;dr

It's dead.  Nobody new will play what GW2 is now.  Nobody who takes GW2 PvP seriously now (lmaoooo) will want to play a game that actually lets their opponents act against them or punish their stupid plays which just get shielded by a bunch of expac powercreep.

[Carnifex.3275]

On 9/29/2023 at 3:04 AM, Sidetrack.2563 said:

Hello gamers, this topic posts goal Is to give ArenaNet a dedicated post regarding what we think could actually Improve the PvP side of Gw2.


The goal Is for people to post what they think the largest issues with PvP as a whole are, and what could be done to change It- which means If possible please refrain from "Ranger Is op and ruins all of PvP!" posts unless you have actual reasoning behind why that specific thing Is what's making PvP bad for everyone.

I think that most of the issues PvP struggles with Is actually not balance based, (even though that does Impact It).  I do think however the game modes available, class swapping, and being able to run multiple of the same elite spec- does Impact the game negatively. Why can players, after they get in a match swap specs to have 5 necros, Dh, whatever they are on one team? when ArenaNet has things placed in the game to not allow it BEFORE you queue? I think removing the ability to have that many of the same class would Improve the game dramatically, as well as being able to swap mid match, I dislike the Idea of being able to hard counter people after you see the comp like It Is currently.

I also think that the lack of diverse game modes could be seen as a Issue, why do they not turn Strongholds into 10v10 maps and remove the current objectives of the mode? why can we only duo que In a 5v5 competitive game mode?

These are my thoughts personally- what about you?

 

What could actually imrove PvP? Getting rid of current devs and hiring devs that know how to balance their game. That also applies to WvW and PvE.

After all.. this is the main reason why PvP died in the first place. I'd say 2016-2017. It all went downhill from there. And the reason was as usual - balance.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[doozer.7063]

1. Add ingame tutorials for new player.

2. Give some advertisement back for PvP. The gamemode wasn't even mentioned in any trailer for the game or expansions after HoT anymore, like wtf?

3. Put a bit of effort into providing new content (a 1v1 KotH mode with special no bunker balance or whatever. Do not tell me that is not possible to ban specific stuff in specific servers).

4. Hire devs with clue about balance and the will to create a skillbased competition

5. Give incentives to improve at the game by not fully devalued rewards you cannot just grind with braindead builds and mm-manipulation or kissing the right players back side. And increase the skill ceiling/cap (no one tries hard to improve, when he can just get carried by build) and only provide some low skill floor builds for easier entry into the game.

6. Perma Hardware and IP ban all wintrader and cheater, including all smurf accounts. I don't mind when 95% of the current "top" player, which are anyway mostly wannabe good midtier homies, are gone after that. Will make growing a new and better community easier.

7. Also consider to increase match quality with more even teams in terms of skill lvl/ rating, no matter it means longer q times in the start until population grows. You can do WvW, PvE, troll in ffa or duel ppl during waiting. It is really not a big deal to wait 10 mins or more for an actually good PvP game. Insterad waiting 5 mins to then waste another 12 mins in a pre decided match without surrender mode. That also means: Make sure that high ranked duos only get matched vs other high ranked duos (just as it is in other games, that plat+ duos cannot farm 5 solo player or a gold duo). If mm-abuser wanna wait the whole off hour or the whole day with q-dodging to not get a single match they can easy farm, its their problem.

8. Go back to take the highest rating of a duo as the avg rating for the duo to prevent mm-manipulations with low lvl accounts .

9. F2p accounts cannot participate in Ats and ranked anymore. Unranked is more than enough to test the game.

Edited October 6, 2023 by doozer.7063

[Sahne.6950]

19 hours ago, chaoslordlol.3165 said:

As people say theres about 12 players playing it so why are reports not handreviewed banning first of all all the afkers all the toxic munchkins out of it. 

because after that it would only be 3 people left.

[Yerlock.4678]

On 9/29/2023 at 4:53 PM, Bazsi.2734 said:

Anything. Just do literally anything beside minor balance patches 3 times a year. 

Literally this. Just do anything, any idea or set of ideas to stimulate the pvp community and help it grow. It’s still on life support with meager balance patches every 5 months, and before that it was actively dying a slow and miserable death from the shear amount of neglect. There’s a trillion ideas anet could use that are floating around so that’s not an excuse. Here’s some of mine:

1. /Surrender option. Letting teams surrender after 5 minutes of playing and 4/5 (or all 5 if need be) players vote to surrender. It would save time in pvp and stop headaches. If you really hate surrender that much than just limit it to unranked at first, but in my opinion game-wide is just as good.
2. Only 2 of the same specs per team. Overwatch had this issue and this game, depending on the meta, sometimes has this issue also. As much of the same class WOULD be allowed, but more than 2 of the same specs WOULDN’T be allowed. That way if something in the meta is too strong, you can’t just abuse it and steamroll every game with 5 of the same spec (scourge/necro meta as an example).
3. Remove/rework the trebuchet, and remove/rework spirit watch. The fact that this is even a request to me is a bit sad as I think this is captain obvious. If it’s too much work or effort than at least remove trebuchet so that noobs don’t throw the game.
4. More amulets. If the amulet is too strong, then nerf the numbers and add a warning saying that this isn’t as good as other amulets. Or put it in an “experimental amulet” tab with a caution sign. The point being we need more stat combos than zerk, carrion, rabid, marauder, valk, and avatar. 
5. Remove Duo’s. No one except sweaty players who want to try hard at 4AM to farm the graveyard shift likes this feature. If a team wants to try hard then do AT’s, otherwise unrank. Ranked should be solo only to alleviate elo hell.
6. Add Weekly Automated Tournaments. Every Saturday perhaps at a later time than the Mat, have a weekly. There could even be smaller gizmos that aren’t as cool as the monthly ones, but are a little trinket to show off nonetheless. Or if that’s too much, than a unique mini that is only available in the Weekly’s that’s worth a ton and looks super freaking awesome, like cooler than any other mini in game. Point being this would help hype up pvp and would bring players in the mix to spike the population, as we need it desperately right now to help the matchmaker do it’s job better and suck less.
7. Add Yearly Tournament with money as a reward. This is a total pipe dream and copium I admit but I’m throwing this in here because if this game had the right amount of support and balance it could compete on a larger stage and show other esports who’s boss. Don’t let your potential of great esports combat go to waste Anet! You could be competing with some mega titans if you put work into this!
8. Rework Stronghold. This is another pipe dream but I’m throwing it on here cuz the initial part of the work to at least implement it has been already done. Just modifying it and making it more like dota and less like living world would go a long way.
9. 1v1 Tourneys. Yet another AT that could be used to get duelists hyped.
10. 10v10 game mode. Maybe an attack/defend game mode? Just an idea, but having like a mini wvw battle attacking and then defending a keep and seeing which team did better might be interesting? It could be best of 3, or 3 rounds? Having this would also allow for for commanders to get a bit in on pvp and have a squad join a match, as opposed to a 5 man party. (It would also let wvw players know that they can mess with pvp some and it won’t bite them)
11. New conquest maps, EoD and Soto themed. Kind of speaks for itself, just new conquest maps that give more variety.
12. New Sigils/Runes, and more variation between sigils/runes. After the Relic changes, a lot of runes kind of underwhelm or feel samey. Trying to give more unique stat modifiers or stat variations would help. This also applies to sigils, as many don’t feel great or simply feel outdated. Having some updates here would help.
13. Core specs are equal to expansion specs, and many need buffs or love. I’m dying on this hill. Idc what anyone says, the core specs need to be treated as equal to expansion specs and balanced accordingly. Expansion specs are meant to give more play styles and variety, not necessarily more power (at least in theory). So core specs need updates to work alongside xpac specs. After all, if you let the f2p player have a good time with a balanced core spec, they’ll more likely than not go for your elite specs also.
14. More Relic love/ balance. Speaks for itself, just more relics and more fine tuning to get relics in a more comfortable spot.
15. More balance in general. Also speaks for itself. Just keeping and monitoring the pulse of the metas in pvp and acting accordingly, as well as reworks to specs and classes is a big deal.
16. PvP Week. Allow for a pvp week that entices everyone in the game to come celebrate with us and have fun playing pvp, with lots of rewards and festivities. Hell you could make it coincide with a MAt or even a Yearly if you started doing those, so that people were more in tune with what was going on and could watch their favorite players.
17. Make 2v2 and 3v3 game modes permanent. Just keep this as a new mode that’s always around.
18. Make a Fiesta mode. Have a bunch of random game modes that can be more wacky in nature. Have fun with it!
19. Consider lending out this mode to another studio to help with developing new things. Anet doesn’t have the time or manpower? Then let others do the work for them.
20. Consider Making a Forge-like mode in the same vein from Halo so that players can have some mod-like tools to make their own custom modes and maps. If anet can’t build the content, then maybe let the community do the heavy lifting for them.

In the meantime I’m waiting for a game to rip off this combat system and focus on pvp instead of Story and “Living World”. I could imagine said game raking in millions and I’d love that because it would show to anet how much of a missed opportunity this combat system is. Missed potential is gw2 in a nutshell 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

9 hours ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

What could actually imrove PvP? Getting rid of current devs and hiring devs that know how to balance their game. That also applies to WvW and PvE.

After all.. this is the main reason why PvP died in the first place. I'd say 2016-2017. It all went downhill from there. And the reason was as usual - balance.

To care about how it is balanced, you first have to care about the pvp in general, yes?

Could be perfectly balanced garbage and it would still be garbage. Still got wintraders and/or afks every other match, duoq 2v1, losing enough rating per loss to have to win twice in a row to make up for, just to name a few

its a lot bigger than profession balance