The New sPvP Gamemode: What we know so far.

[Buzzbugs.1236]

Going off the recent Teapot Developer stream. You can watch it here (I've timestamped it)

 From the video we've gathered;

- The primary goal for the new mode will be being an easier gamemode than conquest that newer players can understand

- Less depth than conquest, so new players can focus more on learning pvp fighting and less on learning how to play a complex map. But still some depth and decision making to keep veteran players engaged.

- The goal is to narrow the gap between new and experienced players in the new mode, so that newer players can still contribute meaningfully without needing to be a veteran PvPer.

- Conquest will remain the primary gamemode for tournaments. The new gamemode will be more like a stepping stone for new players. It is not their intent to replace conquest

- For more experienced players it will be a more relaxing break from grinding conquest

- When the new mode comes out, it will be in a live Beta state, and it will be further developed and refined as time goes on

- The map for the mode is currently being developed and it will be very unrefined when it goes live. With greyboxes, untextured shapes, and temporary art. The map will be a very much unfinished prototype, but it will provide a space for them to build the gamemode in over time.

- The goal is to get the mechanics in and the gamemode built on the new map with very little developer resources. When it goes live and players give feedback on how to improve it, they will  begin to put more development resources into it

- They learned from Stronghold that putting a lot of resources into a new mode without gathering feedback first was a bad investment in development. And want to take this slower, multi-staged approach to developing the new mode. They want to make sure they get it right.

 

Edited July 23 by Buzzbugs.1236

[Essenia.6498]

Absolutely awful news.

Conquest is in an awful state, it's unfixable with the game's powercreep that won't be toned down due to PvE.The fact that they don't plan to replace Conquest means that this is just a selling point for an expansion that later will be abandoned, just like Stronghold.Conquest has been out for 13 years. It does not work. Why waste dev time if you're not aiming to replace it? We need a better game mode more suited to the league of legends style fast combat that sPvP has turned to. Honestly, nowadays even 3v3 is better experience than Conquest. Conquest( esp. Ranked) is already all about zerging fights off point, unless there is a broken side noder build in the game capture points are cosmetic.

If this game was to have any future for its PvP, a new game mode is needed. People will not come back for Conquest, and a mode that won't have a tournament future won't interest anyone to invest in PvP. Just baffling decisions all around, but I guess wasting dev time on a feature without future if it helps you sell your product makes sense from a corporate PoV. Enjoy your raise Devbro, too bad the game has nothing going on for its future with these news.

Edited July 23 by Essenia.6498

[Voegelin.5642]

I am more with the development team than the nay sayers. Why not do an iterative approach? I enjoyed stronghold as well. I think they should revive it with more players per team. More raid style. Always fun imo.

[Buzzbugs.1236]

13 minutes ago, Voegelin.5642 said:

I am more with the development team than the nay sayers. Why not do an iterative approach? I enjoyed stronghold as well. I think they should revive it with more players per team. More raid style. Always fun imo.

They haven't said anything about reviving stronghold.

[Essenia.6498]

17 minutes ago, Voegelin.5642 said:

I am more with the development team than the nay sayers. Why not do an iterative approach? I enjoyed stronghold as well. I think they should revive it with more players per team. More raid style. Always fun imo.

Stronghold was more or less a scam. It was a wasted dev time to have a selling point for an expansion for PvP players. These forums had literal HUNDREDS pages of feedback from Beta, people were very passionate about it. However, ArenaNet completely ignored community. We've gotten ZERO changes to the Stronghold game mode. It launched in the broken state it was in Beta, yet another mismanaged project from ArenaNet.

The new game mode will only split the already miniscule PvP community even further, it might actually contribute to total death of the game mode. At this point, after 12 years of Conquest that is currently a massive failure they should go all-in on a new game mode. PvP players rarely have anything to be excited about ( outside of  new elite specs, and that ship has sailed already). Going all in on a new mode will bring back excitement, more people will be interested in participating in tournaments for a new mode rather than competing with the same no life squad in a powercrept zerg meta in which map play barely exists PLUS it would be a better marketing option.

[Kuma.1503]

Getting new players into PvP is exactly what we need. 

This is a crucial first step, but the dev team needs to follow through and continue to develop new content for PvP or we'll be back to square one. 

Rewards will also need to be reexamined. Casual unranked players should have an incentive to keep playing. Intrinsic motivation only gets you so far when other game modes offer better rewards. 

Edited July 23 by Kuma.1503

[vilesoldier.9826]

39 minutes ago, Essenia.6498 said:

Stronghold was more or less a scam. It was a wasted dev time to have a selling point for an expansion for PvP players. These forums had literal HUNDREDS pages of feedback from Beta, people were very passionate about it. However, ArenaNet completely ignored community. We've gotten ZERO changes to the Stronghold game mode. It launched in the broken state it was in Beta, yet another mismanaged project from ArenaNet.

The new game mode will only split the already miniscule PvP community even further, it might actually contribute to total death of the game mode. At this point, after 12 years of Conquest that is currently a massive failure they should go all-in on a new game mode. PvP players rarely have anything to be excited about ( outside of  new elite specs, and that ship has sailed already). Going all in on a new mode will bring back excitement, more people will be interested in participating in tournaments for a new mode rather than competing with the same no life squad in a powercrept zerg meta in which map play barely exists PLUS it would be a better marketing option.

 

Lol blame Anet for abandoning one mode then advocate for them to abandon another.

Options are a good thing, and the reason veterans are so scared of variety is because they're used to the small population caused by a high learning-curve mode like Conquest. Fill out PvP with more people and "splitting the miniscule community" will not seem so scary. I appreciate them trying to develop a ladder of gamemode complexity

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

HOW TO MAKE THIS NEW GAME MODE GG

3 hours ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

For more experienced players it will be a more relaxing break from grinding conquest

That's what we all felt about Courtyard/Stronghold, but the way it was implemented, everyone just went back to Conquest and there are several reasons why. I'm worried the same thing will happen with this new mode. They need to provided exclusive rewards/titles/tournaments/reasons in general for players to want to play the new game mode, otherwise its fate will end up just like Courtyard/Stronghold. But they cannot divide the queues.

New players don't want to grind a mode that the veteran players are not playing. No one wants to feel like "they are playing the stepping stone mode". Anyone who joins pvp in general is inherently a competitive player. These types of players want to get involved in and begin learning the main mode everyone is playing as soon as possible. After all, you're not going to learn Conquest until you go in and start playing Conquest.

I get the idea behind what they are doing, but I have a few things to say about how to implement this correctly so it is successful, and Arenanet would be wise to read this and consider it, coming from a player who's been here since day 1 release with nearly 31,000 games played in pvp, who knows this community and the flow of its history quite well. I'm not even being a negative nancy troll here. I'm being completely serious:

• The real reason why Courtyard/Stronghold failed is because you gave us a CHOICE of which modes to enter queues on. This inherently divided the player base, which put people into a position of being made to choose between: "Should I queue into this mode or that mode? The population is higher in this mode, I guess I'll queue that one mode only."
• People chose Conquest for several reasons. Mainly because it isn't a simple training mode. It is the more competitive mode. There is just a lot more of a technical game to be played with elaborate strategies than the other modes. No one wants to go from "a high level of mental stimulation" to "a moderate level of mental stimulation". The competitive players want mental stimulation and they will always hover to the game mode that does this the best. Even the new players who are looking to be competitive, feel the same way.
• Players do want to play Courtyard/Stronghold from time to time, they are fun. But due to the CHOICE of "which queue should I enter?" they get ignored. The correct implementation would have been to make say Unranked, just involve those modes as map selections in the roulette wheel. This way the player base is not being divided, we are all in the same Unranked queue, but now from time to time, we get a chance to select Courtyard instead of Skyhammer or Legacy, or select Stronghold over Temple or Forest. Guarantee you in 2024 here, everyone would enjoy that. We want reasons to play those maps, it's just the population is seriously too low to divide the player base. We all need to be playing in the same queue nowadays or we get some very real problems entering queues that never draw enough players to begin. It would also be enjoyable to see occasional ATs that hosted Courtyard/Stronghold as well, rather than just Conquest or now 2v2s. I mean the content is there, use it. Just don't make us have to CHOOSE between different queues, because everyone will only choose Conquest.
• If they want this mode to be successful at all, it will either 1) need to be superior to Conquest in mental stimulation so players begin identifying it as the new competitive mode, or 2) Be implemented in a way that doesn't divide player population amongst different queues. If it is another separate queue to choose from, everyone is going to ignore it. It'll get a week of activity for people to get achievements and then players will be right back in Conquest queues.
• Most importantly, remember that the people who have been asking for a new game mode are all the veteran players, not new players. New players have been asking for an in-game tutorial for Conquest "They clearly want to learn Conquest". It's the veteran players who have been asking for a new technical competitive game mode.

Look, the players don't want to have to choose between this mode or that mode due to individual queue systems. The population is too small for it to work. What they want is VARIETY in the one queue we are all in. The only way to achieve this, is to put these modes together into one queue. Just put all of these new modes together in the same map roulette shuffles. And for crying out loud, make more ATs different. Players want reasons to see a fun Stronghold AT or a Courtyard AT or more 2v2s or w/e this new mode is going to be. Just whatever you do Arenanet, don't make the new pvp game mode have to compete against Conquest in "making players have to choose which queue to enter" because you already know what's going to happen there. We want the new mode to be convenient to play and succeed. Just put this stuff together in the same queue in a roulette shuffle. This is real easy to solve.

Edited July 23 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Buran.3796]

3 hours ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

- They learned from Stronghold that putting a lot of resources into a new mode without gathering feedback first was a bad investment in development. And want to take this slower, multi-staged approach to developing the new mode. They want to make sure they get it right.

 

   Great: develop the new game mode barebones, take 0 feedback from the players (as with the weapons from the last two expansions), see it fail and burn and then blame players...

   A lot of smiles and good words to hide that they will try what they want, and abandon it if doesn't get success, as with so many systems before. But be real: Spirit Valley map has been with us for like a decade and was never fixed or remade; if they can't fix a map, I doubt they can fix a game mode.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 minutes ago, Buran.3796 said:

if they can't fix a map, I doubt they can fix a game mode.

Not gonna lie, I'm also a bit confused as to how they can pump right through the creation of massive zones like Cantha maps & all of SOTO and now Janthir, but they can't finish a pvp map? I dunno man, maybe there is something I'm just not understanding.

[Buzzbugs.1236]

4 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Not gonna lie, I'm also a bit confused as to how they can pump right through the creation of massive zones like Cantha maps & all of SOTO and now Janthir, but they can't finish a pvp map? I dunno man, maybe there is something I'm just not understanding.

They mentioned a few times during the stream that they are developing the new map "internally", and seemed to suggest it's synonymous with low development resources. Maybe a lot of the PvE stuff is outsourced?

 

 

Edited July 23 by Buzzbugs.1236

[Asuran.5469]

1 minute ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

They mentioned a few times during the stream that they are developing the new map "internally". They seemed to suggest this is synonymous with low development resources. Maybe all lot of the PvE stuff is outsourced?

prolly has more to do with how nc tell them to use their funds

if no one being told make pvp map they not paid to make pvp map

is what happens

[vilesoldier.9826]

36 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I mean the content is there, use it. Just don't make us have to CHOOSE between different queues, because everyone will only choose Conquest.

 

Hugeee doubt. This discussion has been had before and top players have recognized that given the choice, more people would pick the simpler mode (the context was conquest vs deathmatch I believe). Obviously the caveat is that the simple gamemode has to be fun

"Dividing the population" imo is a far less important problem than the low population to begin with. 

 

36 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The correct implementation would have been to make say Unranked, just involve those modes as map selections in the roulette wheel. This way the player base is not being divided, we are all in the same Unranked queue, but now from time to time, we get a chance to select Courtyard instead of Skyhammer or Legacy, or select Stronghold over Temple or Forest. Guarantee you in 2024 here, everyone would enjoy that.

 

Also I can guarantee you everyone will NOT enjoy that. You think the collective groans whenever someone picks Spirit Watch is bad?? I can't imagine the kinds of mail you get when you queue up expecting to play Conquest and someone picks Stronghold

Edited July 23 by vilesoldier.9826

[Bladestrom.6425]

13 hours ago, vilesoldier.9826 said:

 

Hugeee doubt. This discussion has been had before and top players have recognized that given the choice, more people would pick the simpler mode (the context was conquest vs deathmatch I believe). Obviously the caveat is that the simple gamemode has to be fun

"Dividing the population" imo is a far less important problem than the low population to begin with. 

Also I can guarantee you everyone will NOT enjoy that. You think the collective groans whenever someone picks Spirit Watch is bad?? I can't imagine the kinds of mail you get when you queue up expecting to play Conquest and someone picks Stronghold

I guarantee some will enjoy it, I and others here obviously do, and i'm happy it stays in unranked until whatever is preventing it from being switched on in ranked is resolved.   I play unranked specifically because I get something different with Spirit watch and Stronghold, and often there are great fights in both maps. The main issue with pvp is the frequency of balance patches, not the content itself which is smooth and solid, and that is being conflated by some in this thread with new PVP content, which is a different aspect and concern.  New map types that focuses on simplified gameplay for new players would be a great thing to have for the health of the game population in general.

Edited July 24 by Bladestrom.6425

[Luthan.5236]

So they think players are stupid - trying to make an easy game mode (that then will be barely anythigng more than deathmatch) because they think it is hard for people to stay in a circle (stuff we already know from PvE)?

That ... honestly ... sounds like the worst they could do. Wasted resources. Won't bring new players into PvP and the existing players would prefer something more complex (= more interesting) I guess.

Also it will bring more focus to the combat itself - which actually makes it harder for the less good players (others just will stay better at "keyboard acrobatics") to get a rewarding experience ... when giving more focus on other mechanics could be more interesting. (When a combat-weaker player can make it up by doing the right stuff regarding the secondary mechanics.)

But seems ... like they think this is too complicated and the mode is intended to train/force people to improve the "keyboard acrobatics" and playing the meta builds. Like a ... raid version of PvP. 😄 No capture the flag (that some people wanted) - that would be too much mechanics (more than conquest).

I probably won't tick the checkbox and stay with conquest in ranked mainly - not playing unranked and tournaments.

I mean:  Honestly: Conquest is not complicated. Not at all. Learning it is easy. Mastering it is harder - when you need to make decisions like defending vs attacking. Just going for an uncap ... or fully capping. Or sometimes ignoring secondary mechanics on purpose. You learn that while playing. But playing another mode just to focus on combat ... will not make people learn conquest mechanics. I am not really sure what they intend with that game mode if it really happens like explained in the OP.

Would you tell people to just train penalty shots in soccer - so they can learn how to shoot - cause the whole soccer game/match has too much dephts/rules? Or isn't the whole thing much better and more interesting?

Edited July 24 by Luthan.5236

[Asuran.5469]

16 hours ago, vilesoldier.9826 said:

This discussion has been had before and top players have recognized that given the choice, more people would pick the simpler mode

must be why there is such a big line of players waiting to play stronghold

[vilesoldier.9826]

1 hour ago, Asuran.5469 said:

must be why there is such a big line of players waiting to play stronghold

 

Honestly crazy that you can't read words in parentheses or italics

 

(Hey man can you read this?)

What about this?

Helloooooo

Edited July 24 by vilesoldier.9826

[Sereath.1428]

The hardcore pvp player base of 15 when they are told that most people do not like Conquest and would rather play anything else: 🙃

Godspeed to the devs, glad to hear they are trying something different, even if it might be the last.
However, they better address the matchmaking too (including exploits such as character swapping midgame). It is ridiculously abusable. Otherwise there's no point in doing any of this.

Edited July 24 by Sereath.1428

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

18 hours ago, vilesoldier.9826 said:

"Dividing the population" imo is a far less important problem than the low population to begin with. 

When there aren't enough people wanting to play a mode, no one queues up for it, and then the mode never starts. This is undeniably exactly what happened to both Courtyard and Stronghold, and it happened because everyone chose Conquest. This isn't a debate or theoretics. That actually happened, and it's going to happen again if they don't learn from what went wrong with the implementations there.

The things I said in my post there are very real. They cannot force this new game mode to compete in its own queue against Conquest queues, or it's going to fail. I mean it's possible this new mode could be the most fun mode anyone has ever played and everyone will only want to queue that mode. But if this is not the case, the same things will happen, everyone will play the new mode just long enough to get w/e achievements are set for it, and then they'll all go back to conquest queues. And even though it would be "a nice break" to play the mode from time to time, not enough people will ever feel that way at the same time for the mode to ever have realistic queues to join. The population is just too low for adding more separate queues.

As I said before, they just need to shuffle all this content together in the same roulette selection as Conquest maps so we do have a reason to enjoy it in a way that is convenient, based on community vote, that doesn't divide the queue population. I mean in most matches we're going to see 3 selections of Conquest maps because there are more Conquest maps than anything else. Then every once in awhile, it'll give players the option to vote for Courtyard/Stronghold/New Mode. I don't see why anyone would be opposed to this.

Honestly at this point, they may as well throw Spirit Watch into ranked/ATs. People want variety man. We've been playing in the same maps for 12 years.

Edited July 24 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[vilesoldier.9826]

15 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The things I said in my post there are very real. They cannot force this new game mode to compete in its own queue against Conquest queues, or it's going to fail. I mean it's possible this new mode could be the most fun mode anyone has ever played and everyone will only want to queue that mode. But if this is not the case, the same things will happen, everyone will play the new mode just long enough to get w/e achievements are set for it, and then they'll all go back to conquest queues. And even though it would be "a nice break" to play the mode from time to time, not enough people will ever feel that way at the same time for the mode to ever have realistic queues to join. The population is just too low for adding more separate queues.

 

I don’t see an issue with forcing it against Conquest queues if the game mode is actually fun and resonates with new players. Again, this “low population” you keep mentioning is NOT the target audience, they’ve outline their focus is on a separate demographic who are currently not playing Conquest (a demographic that is larger than players currently playing Conquest). Obviously this hinges on the quality of product Anet puts out, which we have next to no concrete evidence on yet. Though their comments on making this an iterative process instead of giving us a finished product in one go without seeing whether players engage well with it is a good start.

 

23 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

As I said before, they just need to shuffle all this content together in the same roulette selection as Conquest maps so we do have a reason to enjoy it in a way that is convenient, based on community vote, that doesn't divide the queue population. I mean in most matches we're going to see 3 selections of Conquest maps because there are more Conquest maps than anything else. Then every once in awhile, it'll give players the option to vote for Courtyard/Stronghold/New Mode. I don't see why anyone would be opposed to this.

 

 

Also you have to explain this better, because the implementation matters, and could end up being the exact outcome of “dividing the population” you’re afraid of. You’re saying that Conquest and stronghold maps should get put in the same roulette. If someone picks stronghold, does that have the same weight in the roulette as someone who picked a Conquest map? How would both players not feel cheated no matter which map is selected. And if the implementation is that a specific mode has to be voted on first before maps can be picked, how is that different from the separate queues we have now?

I think you grossly underestimate how people value their time in PvP. I would not be surprised if the number of AFKs skyrockets if this gets implemented the way you’re explaining it now.

[Lonecap.4105]

It seems like the new mode is for getting to used to the idea of casually fighting other players with less emphasis on learning rotations and objectives.

But don't we have WvW for that already?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

27 minutes ago, vilesoldier.9826 said:

If someone picks stronghold, does that have the same weight in the roulette as someone who picked a Conquest map?

It would work the exact same way it does now, just add in Courtyard/Stronghold/New Mode. If 4 players select Legacy, 3 select Forest, and 3 select Stronghold, then we play Legacy. It literally can't get any fairer than this, in terms of votes cast for which map/mode the players want to play. And the roulette itself just randomly selects 3 maps to present as usual. So there would be possibility that it could throw Courtyard/Stronghold/New Mode as the only 3 selections for that game queued. But statistically, due to how many Conquest maps there are, we would likely see most queues as just 3 Conquest maps. That's just what would happen most of the time. I mean they could alter the rates in which these maps pop or set it up a certain way to make sure every map/mode gets some fair representation rate of play, but that is a different discussion. What I'm talking about is presenting completely fair RNG for which 3 are rolled and then the 10 players in the game get to vote on which one they want to play.

27 minutes ago, vilesoldier.9826 said:

How would both players not feel cheated no matter which map is selected.

The same way they deal with not feeling cheated when they were the only one who selected Djinn when everyone else selected Coliseum.

27 minutes ago, vilesoldier.9826 said:

And if the implementation is that a specific mode has to be voted on first before maps can be picked, how is that different from the separate queues we have now?

No no no no no.

It would just take every map from every mode and do this:

1. Khylo
2. Forest
3. Legacy
4. Temple
5. Spirit
6. Skyhammer
7. Capricorn
8. Coliseum
9. Djinn
10. Courtyard
11. Stronghold
12. New Mode

So the roulette is like a 12 sided die. It rolls the 12 sided die three times, to see which maps are selectable for the players. Say it rolls 3, 7, and 11. So the players get to choose from Legacy, Capricorn, or Stronghold, for that given queue. 10 players vote on the three maps. The map with the highest vote count is the map played. Simple as that.

But if the new mode is more than a 10 man game queue, then what we are discussing here only applies to the implementation of Courtyard and Stronghold. If this new mode is going to be 10 v 10 or something, then it will certainly need its own queue.

Edited July 24 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[vilesoldier.9826]

21 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

It would work the exact same way it does now, just add in Courtyard/Stronghold/New Mode. If 4 players select Legacy, 3 select Forest, and 3 select Stronghold, then we play Legacy. It literally can't get any fairer than this, in terms of votes cast for which map/mode the players want to play. And the roulette itself just randomly selects 3 maps to present as usual. So there would be possibility that it could throw Courtyard/Stronghold/New Mode as the only 3 selections for that game queued. But statistically, due to how many Conquest maps there are, we would likely see most queues as just 3 Conquest maps. That's just what would happen most of the time. I mean they could alter the rates in which these maps pop or set it up a certain way to make sure every map/mode gets some fair representation rate of play, but that is a different discussion. What I'm talking about is presenting completely fair RNG for which 3 are rolled and then the 10 players in the game get to vote on which one they want to play.

 

I have to point out what you’ve outlined is not what we have now. Currently players vote on the map they want (out of a random batch) and that changes the size of the votes on the roulette. But it’s still a roulette. A single player picking Spirit Watch for example can still get that map even if everyone selects Coliseum. What you’ve outlined is a straight voting system, which would mean the current playerbase would never get to play stronghold, because when is the majority ever actually picking stronghold?

And again, what is stopping players who don’t want to play stronghold from AFKing if stronghold ever gets picked? A lot of people don’t like Djinn, true, but it’s still Conquest. Players are essentially clicking queue for the chance to play the game mode they like.

 

*Back on topic, I’m cautiously optimistic about a new game mode. Hopefully it’s as fun as Conquest*

Edited July 24 by vilesoldier.9826

[maxwelgm.4315]

I wholeheartedly agree with Trevor's fundamental point that this just be in the unranked queue with a tickbox for it like stronghold. It's the only way I ever play stronghold to be honest (I always tick "stronghold + conquest" for the novelty I suppose, never only "stronghold"). The only other possibility for more people to even try out the mode no matter how good it is would be to offer more rewards than conquest, then the stepping stone might become the endgame in that case. So allowing players to queue for unranked "any mode" does seem to be the most straightforward option that players would be most likely to follow. Basically just add the choice of bypassing having to choose a queue, it's simple and it's likely something many players will prefer doing.

[vilesoldier.9826]

4 hours ago, Luthan.5236 said:

Honestly: Conquest is not complicated. Not at all. Learning it is easy. Mastering it is harder - when you need to make decisions like defending vs attacking. Just going for an uncap ... or fully capping. Or sometimes ignoring secondary mechanics on purpose. You learn that while playing. But playing another mode just to focus on combat ... will not make people learn conquest mechanics. I am not really sure what they intend with that game mode if it really happens like explained in the OP.

 

44 minutes ago, Lonecap.4105 said:

It seems like the new mode is for getting to used to the idea of casually fighting other players with less emphasis on learning rotations and objectives.

But don't we have WvW for that already?

 

Granted these two are valid concerns. Anet has made it clear the new mode is going to be easier to master, but what players will be mastering is unclear for now. Cmc says it’s not going to be a straight deathmatch, so I’m curious how they plan to execute that balance of leaning to new players without completely throwing out depth.

It also doesn’t seem exactly clear that they intend this mode to be a direct funnel into Conquest. They recognize it “might” get more players to play Conquest, but it seems the focus is introducing a middle ground mode for the main season (IMO), for those who otherwise would not play Conquest. WvW certainly has some of those attractive elements, but zergs + celestial + minstrels is a dealbreaker for a good number of players.