If you want PvP engagement, you're doing it wrong (imo)

[bethekey.8314]

Better rewards, more ATs, updated maps etc. Yes, very good. More of the same.

PvP (and game) longevity comes from the challenge of beating other players through skill and community. You already have a good combat system. More gold/colored titles/shiny maps might get more people through the door, but that's mostly to farm, collect achievements, and move on. You need people to stay and want to improve, to balance out matchmaking and create an enjoyable experience. These issues are fundamental and won't be fixed by surface level changes.

Players are frustrated with differing motivations (achievements/money/winning) and skill gaps on teams. Feeling like their individual contribution doesn't matter, where the Silver is fodder for the Plat, and the Plat is forced to 1v3 constantly in order to scrape by. I am literally unable to play support builds because you get no value out of supporting bad players (my lower ranked teammates dictate how I play). I can hard carry and get all top stats but get punished the hardest for a loss (I am punished for doing the best on my team). From the Silver player's perspective, I'm sure dying repeatedly without knowing why, winning/losing without knowing why, and getting constantly flamed by teammates fosters a great attitude and zest for PvP.

By pairing players with different motivations/expectations and drastically different skill levels together, you actively encourage animosity between teammates. That isn't fun and no amount of gold or titles will change that.

You need to build community and promote learning to actually "convert" more players to PvP, aligning motivations and bridging the skill gap.

• Stop splitting the population between Unranked and Ranked queues.
• Re-emphasize custom servers that allow Spectate mode for learning and better reflect how the community wants to play.
• Instead of the same time-consuming, premade-dominated ATs, implement continuous Random Arena mini-tournaments (like GW1) with auto-assembled groups, lower barrier of entry, and a decent reward at the end.
• Tighten matchmaking or allow players to set thresholds so they get the experience they want.
• Implement a rating system that rewards individual contribution or at least lessens punishment for close matches, providing a reason to keep fighting.
• Actively remove cheaters and the mechanisms they exploit to cheat.
• Kittening remove/let people close the queue pop-up after you've accepted it.

These things would be a step toward a better fundamental PvP experience. Maybe it's worth repeating them if you care about PvP again.

Edited July 11 by bethekey.8314

[Vancho.8750]

First problem with PVP is conquest , the mode is too complicated for new players (and some old ones), so it has terrible retention. Yes it is hold more points for longer then the enemy but good luck with all the feature, ,mobility or whatever creep in the game that will never go away since its for PVE. Conquest requires too much coordination to be fun and that is its biggest issue its just not FUN.

Second problem everyone starts at 1200 rating in ranked so the noobs get farmed by the "pros" and continue to farm them even after since the rating margins are kittened and the game prefers kitten quick queue where the higher rated players will still play against the lower rated ones.

Third problem is that MMO players are not amazing mechanically and the game by it self is too complicated with all the variations in builds and professions and what not, while even more complexity is added over time and quite frankly most of the new skills have kitten telegraphs or none at all. MMO players are not fighting game players and can't handle the pace of the game.

Fourth problem is that changes to how stuff plays are catered to the top end players and consulting them is stupid cause the top end that is left doesn't give a kitten about the fun of the game, but how to win something irrelevant at this point and will give biased feedback to make it easier for them to win.

Fifth to tenth problem the game ain't fun anymore.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

49 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

 

• Stop splitting the population between Unranked and Ranked queues.

I would tend to agree, if you end the split, it allows bronze to function as it should.  

Unranked truly serves no purpose other than a false hope of not getting sweaty teammates.  What they don't know is it still uses your ranked ELO to matchmake, and so you will get even worse games in unranked if a higher ELO decides to test a build or whatever.  

[ixon.2496]

Honestly just let people 5 man queue. Turns ranked pvp into a valid place to practice for AT's.

[WUROCKET.5182]

I agree that ranked and unranked should be combined into a singular queue (With any group size allowed) that serves as the "Casual" pvp environment and ATs can be the "hardcore" section.

Ranks should be removed from the queue and replaced with hidden MMR that goes up and down behind the scenes for the sole purpose of creating balanced matches.

The current prestige of getting the plat icon next to your name should be replaced with something gained from placing in ATs

People like to play balanced matches and people generally like to play balanced matches with their friends. I agree it would suck for a minority of top players to get beaten by 5stacks of great players while youre solo... but this is a MMO at the end of a day, and socializing is a skill that should be rewarded.

Edited July 11 by WUROCKET.5182

[DoomNexus.5324]

Anet doesn't want pvp engagement tho. It's a breadcrumb so the remaining 5% of pvp players left in the game don't lose hope in Anet until GW3 drops.

[Zekent.3652]

I was expecting them to talk about antifun things, wintraders, soloQ issues, sweaty duos abusing the terrible Qs system.

And we just got more ATs basically, i'm not an AT person and i will not play ATs, even after the improvements, nothing really changed for me.

[maxwelgm.4315]

There is a sizable amount of the (small) PvP population who don't really go to ATs either because they don't have a group, don't want to bother to have a group, or just prefer the plug-and-play nature of the ranked queue in spite of the shortcomings. It's disappointing they went for the small subset of an already small population which do play ATs regularly, without so much as a crumb (other than updating a 7 year old map I guess) to the PvP playerbase at large ("at large" lol).

I agree merging queues and having a change so that they behave like GW1 random arenas (you keep going with your random buddies in case you win until you start matching to actual premades) - it would allow for premade teams (with longer queues) to match to already successful randos instead of chain farming people and effectively not getting to train properly at all, while allowing the SoloQ enjoyers to actually be enjoyers. Giving substantial rewards for consecutive victories would also be a good way of actually pulling in people. As it is, ATs are a thing only a few groups have been interested in for years now, and I don't see any changes done directly to ATs bringing new players in - said new players would be much more likely to start from the queues before grouping up, and the best we could do would be incentivize grouping up with the good old random arenas system.

[Shagie.7612]

I am almost 100% positive that you'd lose more players than you'd gain if you got rid of unranked, and it'd be almost entirely because of the psychological aspect of it.
Same reason you'll never see dota get rid of all pick or turbo.

12 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

What they don't know is it still uses your ranked ELO to matchmake

This isn't true, it uses a separate MMR and just expands the search parameters faster because getting pops is more important than close matches in an unranked mode.

[maxwelgm.4315]

38 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

I am almost 100% positive that you'd lose more players than you'd gain if you got rid of unranked, and it'd be almost entirely because of the psychological aspect of it.
Same reason you'll never see dota get rid of all pick or turbo.

This isn't true, it uses a separate MMR and just expands the search parameters faster because getting pops is more important than close matches in an unranked mode.

I think OP's proposal, while maybe not intended by OP themselves, leads up to rather ranked being removed in a sense, not unranked. With a single queue with an individual player rating that yet allows fully premade teams, the leaderboard would not make as much sense and could probably be the thing that goes away. Titles would then be awarded per rating and therefore would likely become progressive like pips/champion brawler or at least not be as meaningful to compete for. Then ATs would be the actual ranked, leaderboard based mode and that does seem to go hand in hand with Anet's apparent focus on tournaments while wholly ignoring the current issues with the SoloQ/DuoQ.

[zonias.1083]

13 hours ago, ixon.2496 said:

Honestly just let people 5 man queue. Turns ranked pvp into a valid place to practice for AT's.

It would such for solo players. I already feel miserable when i have to face coordinated duos, i can not imagine if i faced and entire team. 

[zonias.1083]

8 hours ago, WUROCKET.5182 said:

but this is a MMO at the end of a day, and socializing is a skill that should be rewarded.

I disagree with this, Gw2 markets to casual gamers. Not everyone has the time, or the timeframe to be able to find reliably a duo, or a team to play with and coordinate. Gw2 already offers many tools for solo players to find groups and remove the complications. It should not punish people for being good and having to face teams. 

[zonias.1083]

1 hour ago, maxwelgm.4315 said:

There is a sizable amount of the (small) PvP population who don't really go to ATs either because they don't have a group, don't want to bother to have a group, or just prefer the plug-and-play nature of the ranked queue in spite of the shortcomings

I fall into this category. I had a group that left the game after being disappointed with it, and since then i have no bothered to found another group. The good players that want to play already have a group. I do not wanna bother searching for players to learn AT with. 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

This isn't true, it uses a separate MMR and just expands the search parameters faster because getting pops is more important than close matches in an unranked mode.

Based from where? I've always understood to only have one MMR, and if you've never ranked it just puts you at gold or whatever.  

[Flowki.7194]

In Gw2 it is quicker to list what they got right in PVP. I'd be ashamed of that reality.

Edited July 11 by Flowki.7194

[KurtLittleJesus.8139]

those 2 ppl that "confused" this are spear and ops

[Shagie.7612]

9 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Based from where? I've always understood to only have one MMR, and if you've never ranked it just puts you at gold or whatever.  

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm#Matchmaking

It's literally the very first section.

The default rating is 1200 though yes.

[bethekey.8314]

12 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

I am almost 100% positive that you'd lose more players than you'd gain if you got rid of unranked, and it'd be almost entirely because of the psychological aspect of it.
Same reason you'll never see dota get rid of all pick or turbo.

My hope is that the game would return to how it was in the earlier years. Unranked would be replaced by custom servers that can better cater to the people joining.

Unranked is serving as a catch-all for people seeking dailies/achievements, people learning the game, people looking to get a more fair environment for 1v1s (than the FFA pit), people looking to test builds, and people not wanting to have a rating attached to winning/losing. It does a very poor job trying to accommodate all of these people at once.

Instead, we could have duel servers again for duelists. PvE people looking to optimize achievements can play with other PvE people and throw matches back and forth. Noobs can freely leave sweaty matches to play against other noobs, or actually learn through spectate mode at their own pace. In the past, certain servers were known as tryhard servers, which functioned like continuous in-houses for everyone. It worked well, people got what they wanted, learned, and built communities around specific servers.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

13 hours ago, zonias.1083 said:

I disagree with this, Gw2 markets to casual gamers. Not everyone has the time, or the timeframe to be able to find reliably a duo, or a team to play with and coordinate. Gw2 already offers many tools for solo players to find groups and remove the complications. It should not punish people for being good and having to face teams. 

If gw2 was marketed for casual  gamers, you wouldn't really care about who you get so long as you play to have fun, PvP in gw2 is generally not fun, I personally quit after S5 as it just became a grind with players that I don't know and are either toxic towards everyone else, afk when we lose first skirmish or troll for the sake of trolling.  The other reason why PvP is not that fun is the lack of a forfeit button, being stuck in a match where your being spawn camped was never something fun but having no way of getting out of it makes it worse

Edited July 12 by Mini Crinny.6190

[WUROCKET.5182]

17 hours ago, zonias.1083 said:

I disagree with this, Gw2 markets to casual gamers. Not everyone has the time, or the timeframe to be able to find reliably a duo, or a team to play with and coordinate. Gw2 already offers many tools for solo players to find groups and remove the complications. It should not punish people for being good and having to face teams. 

Saying that Gw2 pvp is casual is very out of touch with reality...  anyone here that has tried to get their friends into GW2 pvp can attest that what the game lacks is a good way to get people into the game in a balanced environment you can play with friends

[Zekent.3652]

Yeah, there's a big difference between 'casuals', 'adepts' and good players, GW2 PvP is way far from being casual friendly or casual oriented.

[maxwelgm.4315]

6 hours ago, WUROCKET.5182 said:

Saying that Gw2 pvp is casual is very out of touch with reality...  anyone here that has tried to get their friends into GW2 pvp can attest that what the game lacks is a good way to get people into the game in a balanced environment you can play with friends

What do you mean fam all the top 50 players have a very healthy environment to play with their friends and they avoid ever saying a word about DuoQ so they can keep playing among friends

[Sarako Mindweaver.2786]

If you want something to be competitive ,you have to have a team. To have a team, you need  a group organized for a specific outcome. The true problem with pvp is there is no team. No one would watch football, Baseball or anything else if every  game ,only 2 regular players are allowed to play and the rest of the team has to be  random, It makes any sense of competitiveness pointless. What they need to do is have a group Q (2-5 players) and a solo Q  then pvp could grow because then you could make a team and practice with your team and the solos can solo problem solved.

Edited July 12 by Sarako Mindweaver.2786

[Mhina.1827]

On 7/10/2024 at 3:56 PM, Vancho.8750 said:

First problem with PVP is conquest , the mode is too complicated for new players (and some old ones), so it has terrible retention. Yes it is hold more points for longer then the enemy but good luck with all the feature, ,mobility or whatever creep in the game that will never go away since its for PVE. Conquest requires too much coordination to be fun and that is its biggest issue its just not FUN.

Second problem everyone starts at 1200 rating in ranked so the noobs get farmed by the "pros" and continue to farm them even after since the rating margins are kittened and the game prefers kitten quick queue where the higher rated players will still play against the lower rated ones.

Third problem is that MMO players are not amazing mechanically and the game by it self is too complicated with all the variations in builds and professions and what not, while even more complexity is added over time and quite frankly most of the new skills have kitten telegraphs or none at all. MMO players are not fighting game players and can't handle the pace of the game.

Fourth problem is that changes to how stuff plays are catered to the top end players and consulting them is stupid cause the top end that is left doesn't give a kitten about the fun of the game, but how to win something irrelevant at this point and will give biased feedback to make it easier for them to win.

Fifth to tenth problem the game ain't fun anymore.

6th problem is the PvP community kinda just sucks. Why would anyone put themselves through braving any of the already steep as hell learning curves only for one of the countless ego inflated weirdos to block them then spam whisper them because they lost a 10minute match. I already know what comes next. "Well that's all PvP communities." Are they all kitten near dead too? 

[Shagie.7612]

10 minutes ago, Mhina.1827 said:

Are they all kitten near dead too? 

Eh?
PvP games are extremely popular?
Probably moreso than PvE ones overall tbh

The other ones just do actual community moderation. Instead of here, where the only thing we get is players tirelessly trying to come up with system-based solutions that are worse in every way than just actually punishing people for being terrible people.