Why are there less people in pvp now?

[HojaDanzante.1498]

Recently I decided to return to the game, I usually play a lot of PvP, especially ranked, but in my absence of 6 months I have seen that the PvP population has dropped a lot, almost to an alarming level, when I played normal games, it was rare that from one game to other people with whom you had played, both allies and enemies, repeat themselves in the next game you play, which happens to me quite frequently, what's more, you will always see both allies and enemies people that you already knew before, that Before it didn't happen so much. In raked, for example, I don't see it as normal that the queue now takes 5-6 minutes. I remember that that was the average queue time when there was the 3v3 season in which no one played. Given these events that I have been able to see, I ask you PvP people, what happened? Why is this lack of people in PvP due?

[aymnad.9023]

I was already seeing the same people from one game to another during PoF so I would not take that as an indicator.

Queues are usually around 3 min for me. The timeframe and level (like plat +) also change that. 

Less people than years ago sure, but it did not drop as much as you suggest in 6months.

Edited June 3 by aymnad.9023

[Severiun.6495]

PVE legendary armor probably took away some casuals who were there just for the legendary grind.

[Buran.3796]

   How many years since the last time some work was put in the PvP game mode? Five, more? No new content, maps, bugs unfixed for eons...  They didn't even changed the Spirit map to put it in some use at ranked... Also, low population leads to high queue times (if start playing a game takes me mre than 5 minutes I just stop playing it) and utterly breaks matchmaking: silver, gold and plat players are constantly put together in the same matches.

[Eddie.9143]

Games too complicated, balance changes too drastically, too often, it's not beginner friendly, and it's too different from other games to pick up and do well with quickly (no trinity, and boons)

Conquest sucks

There's no solo queue 

Manipulation is insane

There's no surrender vote if there's an AFK or a blowout game 

There's no observer mode

So much potential, terrible owners. 

[Last Crab.6054]

1 hour ago, Eddie.9143 said:

Games too complicated, balance changes too drastically, too often, it's not beginner friendly, and it's too different from other games to pick up and do well with quickly (no trinity, and boons)

Conquest sucks

There's no solo queue 

Manipulation is insane

There's no surrender vote if there's an AFK or a blowout game 

There's no observer mode

So much potential, terrible owners. 

I thought no one left in the forums was a real human...cry emoji

[WingSwipe.3084]

ANET just dropped the ball on the PVP content in general, both on the design and update front as well as on the balance front.

[lemonsoda.5967]

First post on the forums but this will probably be removed / account banned / thread locked because apparently speaking about this stuff is against ToS or something.

Anyways, reasons why people stopped PvPing and the problems with sPvP in general:

-    Wintrading: for years the top in leaderboards and mATs have been wintraded by the same people that are never banned. They even sell the mAT rewards for IRL money
-    Forced 50% winrate: Per season your W/R will be locked to a certain amount. You'll see the occasional +11 / -11 wins and losses between this ratio but it will aggressively enforce this
-    Rigged matchmaking: Placing better teams on enemy and worse players on your team when you win too many games - EOMM
-    Win streaks & losing streaks like clockwork: You've likely went on a big win streak followed by a losing streak of the exact same amount of games
-    Sync queue/class matching priority and swapping/class stacking: People queuing on alts at the same time with the same classes in order to either stack multiple specs on one team, or heavily lean the matchmaker to place these accounts on the enemy team which allows you to throw the game for an easy win
-    Duo queue: Should be ranked separately. It's usually used for wintrading, and the MMR hardly adjusts to having two players in the same party
-    Team MMR disparity: Matchmaking tries to have similar MMR average/total spread across the team - this is why you'll sometimes be in game with Platinum players or top 25
-    Bots: Not very common but still happens where there are bots for one shot combos / defensive rotations / throwaway accounts used for sync queueing
-    Hackers / Scripters / Macros: It's not as uncommon as you might think. There are many hacks and exploits, I wont list how to obtain them but it's all performed client side before it sends data to the server. Things like ESP (seeing through walls to grab targets or stealth bomb, increased rez speed, increased defensive regeneration)
-    Cheaters / Wintraders / AFKers / Toxic people not getting banned: You are more likely to be banned by listing this topic on the forums than the cheaters are for cheating.
-    Build balance: Balance doesn't exist in this game mode.
-    Condition damage burst and CC application: This is extremely unfun to play against. Yes you can dodge/block/cleanse, but condition damage should've remained damage over time, not higher burst than power damage.
-    Toxicity: No explanation needed
-    AFKing: People AFKing after the first team fight, or disagreeing with a team mate, or being matched with someone they do not like and intentionally throw the game out of spite
-    Power creep: Expansions and updates have made it so there are huge damage numbers being pumped out constantly. The opposite for boons and healing is also the same.
-    Mobility creep: Almost every class is now able to jump around the map / targets
-    Mesmer as a whole, every variant (always been the case) – delete the class: Personally not a fan of the 7+ seconds of chain blocking into the instant condi/power burst, or getting 1 hit from stealth by a shatter combo. I'm sure there are other classes that do similar but nobody likes Mesmers in sPvP
-    Free to play being able to play ranked sPvP: This should never be allowed. It encourages creating alts either for wintrading, hacking, or griefing games
-    The Conquest gamemode is boring: There hasn't been any additional maps created for this game mode in a long time. It's constantly 5v5 with 3 nodes which eventually gets stale.

Pick any of the above and eventually people get sick of it when it is not that fun or friendly.

Oh and with regards to the script/hacking/wintrading, you'll be sure to be gaslit by others claiming this doesn't exist.

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

I stopped playing with all the rigging. It's not worth it and anet can't fix it. It's not their fault, it's human nature to cheat until caught. Then cheat some more. The mode, titles, and armor are all devalued and pointless. 

 

I moved fully to wvw. I can min max my gear how ever I want! Plus the fights are just so much better. WvW rewards are better too. Spvp just ain't worth it amymore.

[Vinny.7260]

PvP was peak when Hotjoins were popular.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

I lost interest in this game myself. Haven't logged on in a few months. There's no feeling of fair competition. Every class can do everything so to me there's no structure to pvp. I get my competitive fix from overwatch these days now.

[Greyrat.2378]

No reason to keep playing mode where you feel like 3rd class citizen.

Yes, you can argue that key to have fun is to not care about win ratio, rank etc., which is  true.

Yet personally I've found myself more chasing these "fun" moments while being constantly barraged by situations that makes you feel frustrated, rather than having actual fun, which eventually wears you off.

In the end, it's simple question of why settle for less when there are better options.

ANet did over past few years very little to give people reason why they should stay, outside of fun combat, and it's too late for any meaningful change anyway.

Stick around for a ride and have fun if you can, but don't expect anything to drastically improve.

Edited June 6 by Greyrat.2378

[Luthan.5236]

A few reasons. Currently there is the festival (Dragon Bash). Also we are getting regular content updates (with the expansions being yearly and quarterly updates). The in between the weekly PvE things. (Rushes.) But also the vault changed the reward system. I am staying with the PvE tasks - to be safe. (PvP could require wins and I might get unlucky.)

I usually played 3-4 matches per day each season until the last chest (repeatable one) was finished. Then moving to 1 match per day. Currently only 1-2 and in the middle of the chest before the last one. Too much PvE content to do ...

If it were possible to get listed 12 tasks again (4 for each game mode) with only the first 4 counting for astral acclaim (but the WvW/PvP ones still giving reward track progress) I might aim for more PvP again. Filling any remaining to the 4 (for the astral acclaim) with PvE if needed.

New planned game mode (the teaser screen for the map already looks beautiful) will have me (hopefully) playing a lot. At least I plan to actively play when it is in beta. Not just for a few mins like with the elite spec betas we had before EoD.

[Khalisto.5780]

well, up to 2019 we had "balance" every 9 month or so that sometimes wouldn't do much about the meta

than we had 2020 patch, that seemed like a good idea but had no follow up patches and end up being bad

during the pandemics it was obvious the competition was gone with top 1 having 119/1 records season after season, only achievable due to duo q exploits, and yet duo is still here

as ppl left new players started being matched against experienced players more and more, resulting in 500-100 matches, title hunters pushed this a bit further with duo q and q dodge to farm this new players making them leave

and now there's an open world legendary armor, can't tell if this was bad tho, even if you get less new players, most afkers are gone cuz they just wanted pips

 

i'm sure ppl will come up with reasons enough to fill a toalet paper roll, but those are the main reasons IMO

[HallMonitor.6392]

On 6/4/2024 at 1:09 AM, lemonsoda.5967 said:

-    Mesmer as a whole, every variant (always been the case) – delete the class: Personally not a fan of the 7+ seconds of chain blocking into the instant condi/power burst, or getting 1 hit from stealth by a shatter combo. I'm sure there are other classes that do similar but nobody likes Mesmers in sPvP

You act like guardian doesn't do this, but better. It doesn't even need the crutch of stealth lol. Id rather play a meta with 3 mesmers on each team then the current meta. 

[Leafstorm.1349]

Because anet doesn't balance unhealthy specs and people are tired of it. 

[Player.2475]

Balance is awful and matchmaking is a nightmare.

My rank bounces between Gold 3 and Plat 2 because I will either play 20 matches with a 90% winrate or a 10% winrate and have 10 wins/losses in a row. Likewise most of my games end in my team either stomping the enemy or being stomped and one side giving up. Maybe 20% of my matches will be close, the remaining 80% will have a 300 point difference.

It doesn't help that even as Gold I had matches against Top 10 players in ranked, players that were so much above everyone else's skill level that they could handle most of the team by themselves, so that is all you really need to know. For some reason if you get stomped and queue up again, Matchmaking decides it's a good idea to put the same two teams against each other 4 times in a row without any shuffling or rebalancing.

[maxwelgm.4315]

The PvP weekly/dailies in the Wizard's Vault are always almost the same and they're quite easy to get (no wins really required except for a single weekly, which is not required for the chest), people caught on to that and population increased shortly after SotO released. But as expected, the very stale nature of the game mode drove those and a bit more folks away once again.

- If you play for the gameplay itself, that gets old quite fast as so few people play stronghold and conquest maps can only give you so much novelty

- If you play for rewards, they recently butchered the PvP rank system by only giving potions on "level up", with levels being considerably slower than they used to be. The Wizard's Vault only ever so slightly alleviates this issue. Best rewards are still locked behind playing ranked and ruining people's competition if you only play ranked for the pips

- If you do play for the competitive aspect, you're in for a very bad time if you're not one of the permanent top 25 or so players who practically gatekeep those higher up titles. You will come up against top player duos back to back as soon as you reach plat and at most I'd say you'll get top 100 if you play often. The best tactic ironically is to play the least amount possible - get a bunch of wins that place you somewhere in 25-100 and then strictly play only to remove decay from time to time. Needless to say this state of affairs is very odd if you care about the leaderboards and will effectively reduce the population even further, except for the top players who still play often with their alts who also get top 100 positions from others.

All in all, we see a general stillness wherever we look. Lack of updates have really suffocated the game mode. PvP rewards are only barely worth it if you play ranked and then you're facing the choice of playing an alt, playing as few matches as possible, or tanking in the leaderboard because more matches only ever increase your chance of losing more points than winning, never the other way around.

[motoii.1835]

On 6/4/2024 at 10:09 AM, lemonsoda.5967 said:

First post on the forums but this will probably be removed / account banned / thread locked because apparently speaking about this stuff is against ToS or something.

Anyways, reasons why people stopped PvPing and the problems with sPvP in general:

-    Wintrading: for years the top in leaderboards and mATs have been wintraded by the same people that are never banned. They even sell the mAT rewards for IRL money
-    Forced 50% winrate: Per season your W/R will be locked to a certain amount. You'll see the occasional +11 / -11 wins and losses between this ratio but it will aggressively enforce this
-    Rigged matchmaking: Placing better teams on enemy and worse players on your team when you win too many games - EOMM
-    Win streaks & losing streaks like clockwork: You've likely went on a big win streak followed by a losing streak of the exact same amount of games
-    Sync queue/class matching priority and swapping/class stacking: People queuing on alts at the same time with the same classes in order to either stack multiple specs on one team, or heavily lean the matchmaker to place these accounts on the enemy team which allows you to throw the game for an easy win
-    Duo queue: Should be ranked separately. It's usually used for wintrading, and the MMR hardly adjusts to having two players in the same party
-    Team MMR disparity: Matchmaking tries to have similar MMR average/total spread across the team - this is why you'll sometimes be in game with Platinum players or top 25
-    Bots: Not very common but still happens where there are bots for one shot combos / defensive rotations / throwaway accounts used for sync queueing
-    Hackers / Scripters / Macros: It's not as uncommon as you might think. There are many hacks and exploits, I wont list how to obtain them but it's all performed client side before it sends data to the server. Things like ESP (seeing through walls to grab targets or stealth bomb, increased rez speed, increased defensive regeneration)
-    Cheaters / Wintraders / AFKers / Toxic people not getting banned: You are more likely to be banned by listing this topic on the forums than the cheaters are for cheating.
-    Build balance: Balance doesn't exist in this game mode.
-    Condition damage burst and CC application: This is extremely unfun to play against. Yes you can dodge/block/cleanse, but condition damage should've remained damage over time, not higher burst than power damage.
-    Toxicity: No explanation needed
-    AFKing: People AFKing after the first team fight, or disagreeing with a team mate, or being matched with someone they do not like and intentionally throw the game out of spite
-    Power creep: Expansions and updates have made it so there are huge damage numbers being pumped out constantly. The opposite for boons and healing is also the same.
-    Mobility creep: Almost every class is now able to jump around the map / targets
-    Mesmer as a whole, every variant (always been the case) – delete the class: Personally not a fan of the 7+ seconds of chain blocking into the instant condi/power burst, or getting 1 hit from stealth by a shatter combo. I'm sure there are other classes that do similar but nobody likes Mesmers in sPvP
-    Free to play being able to play ranked sPvP: This should never be allowed. It encourages creating alts either for wintrading, hacking, or griefing games
-    The Conquest gamemode is boring: There hasn't been any additional maps created for this game mode in a long time. It's constantly 5v5 with 3 nodes which eventually gets stale.

Pick any of the above and eventually people get sick of it when it is not that fun or friendly.

Oh and with regards to the script/hacking/wintrading, you'll be sure to be gaslit by others claiming this doesn't exist.

First post... makes sense.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

at least to me, the short answer is if you want to pvp then wvw is better in every way, especially with world restructuring about to launch. the only real advantage pvp has is faster games, slightly better balance and less trouble with gearing (though this is countered by pvp gear being bad).

 

i feel like it was more fun when it was absolute chaos, and matches could go either way on a dime, but now its just been sterilised too much. it moved away from fun-based to entirely skill-based gameplay, which allows one good player to kill an entire enemy team or tank them forever on a node. yes, it was annoying when someone was one-shotting you or completely unkillable in 1v1, but at the same time since everyone was overpowered, anyone could do amasing things.

 

honestly, if you get a few platinums or a dual-queue in your game, you might as well gg since you can't "git gud" while being crushed repeatedly. if you don't end up getting spawn camped halfway through any losing game then you could honestly consider it a good game even 500-50, because that's where the bar is at now.

Edited June 10 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[keramatzmode.1906]

My personal problems with PvP:
Everyone has mobility utilities with damage or defensive boons built in, turning every game into 5 Roamers vs 5 Roamers
Invincibility and "Phase Out" skills like Vindicators and Soulbeast Smokescale
Unblockables, or worse, instacast unblockable CC.
Matchmaking
CC chaining when in 2v1 with built in boonrips.
The existence of Alacrity and Quickness.
Matchmaking
Everyone gets easy access to self Stability, just like a Warrior.
Everyone can build into a Melee superiority build, just like a Warrior. 
Toxicity from players being good at a dying game mode, in a dying game.
Did I mention Matchmaking?