sPvP is in the worst possible state since Vanilla Launch.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Nah. The worst balance was esport bunker meta. The second worst was phantasm chrono crashing out so hard it caused culling issues.

This is actually markedly better.  This is the first time I've seen something from every spec and class have a build that works in competitive. 

Back before we had whole specs just trying to get on the map. Now we get to fight over damage variants in the specs. Granted everyone still thinks everything else is busted but that's gonna be a constant. We should look at results. 

They did alright.

Edit: I'm surprised people are so positive on page 1. Look at that, character development when the devs care a bit more. 

Edited August 7 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Kuya.6495]

42 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Nah. The worst balance was esport bunker meta. The second worst was phantasm chrono crashing out so hard it caused culling issues.

This is actually markedly better.  This is the first time I've seen something from every spec and class have a build that works in competitive. 

Back before we had whole specs just trying to get on the map. Now we get to fight over damage variants in the specs. Granted everyone still thinks everything else is busted but that's gonna be a constant. We should look at results. 

They did alright.

Edit: I'm surprised people are so positive on page 1. Look at that, character development when the devs care a bit more. 

I get shivers down my spine remembering chrono bunker esports. What an embarrassment. 

No one can convince me that anet didn't decide to kill pvp then and there from the public humiliation.

Edited August 7 by Kuya.6495

[Saiyan.1704]

13 hours ago, offence.4726 said:

I actually say that gw2 pvp is the worst on the market and the current state of the pvp is even worse then previous years which is saying quite a lot.

Ain't no way your convincing me that WoW's pvp is better than GW2. On that subject, ESO's pvp is also garbage.

The Cata Meta is eons worse than anything this game has ever had previously... even worse than the bunker meta we had.

People forget that we have had some really, really bad metas in the past. So bad that it makes this current meta look like a Godsend.

Edited August 7 by Saiyan.1704

[Shiyo.3578]

54 minutes ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Ain't no way your convincing me that WoW's pvp is better than GW2. On that subject, ESO's pvp is also garbage.

I'm really not sure why MMO PvP is in the sad pathetic state that it's in.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

29 minutes ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

I'm really not sure why MMO PvP is in the sad pathetic state that it's in.

it's because balancing MMO PvP requires fighting game knowledge, and most people that develop for MMOs are thinking about RPGs. RPG players and designers seem to think that players having their turns are a given, and that they can focus on theme and encounter design with the rest sorting itself out. 

Not so. Competitive is a different beast. When you start pitting players against each other, there is no guarantee that both sides will have their turn at all. You need to have a team of salty-kitten aggressive Marvel Vs Capcom/Tekken players who stayed up till 4 AM perfecting loops to have a competitive game mode that -feels- good, and if you don't have someone with that kind of headspace you run into "which dev's power fantasy is the strongest". 

You gotta build PVP from the ground up, with the knowledge that the magic you're conjuring is going to be a work in progress until you or the game dies (or both). And even if you do that, there's no guarantee what you think is going to happen will translate into an enjoyable experience. There's always gonna be somebody finding a way to use a mechanic you didnt give a second thought to in a way it wasn't expected to upset your entire house of cards you're trying to build.

That ain't something everyone is up for. 

Edited August 8 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Shagie.7612]

29 minutes ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

I'm really not sure why MMO PvP is in the sad pathetic state that it's in.

cus nobody who plays the genre wants pvp lol
no matter how good or bad it is, they're not interested in player vs player games

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

4 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

cus nobody who plays the genre wants pvp lol
no matter how good or bad it is, they're not interested in player vs player games

not true!

I play mmos AND I wanna beat people up. I'm sure like... ten other people want that, at least. 

We're just not the majority. Which is understandable. People are pretty lame when you make them compete, and most people with a 9-5 don't want to leave that then come sweat vs a player that hasn't been in a room that didn't have their bed in it for years.

The community that has a taste for these kinds of things needs a very special environment to grow in. It's possible (Evo exists, fight clubs exist, locals exist), but it needs more work than designing interesting monsters for people to hit with sticks. 

Edited August 8 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Shagie.7612]

8 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

We're just not the majority.

It's more than just that.
It's a generational thing.

Back in ye olden days PvP was much more participated in, especially because a lot of gamers came into the genre from games like WC3.
But as time's gone on PvP participation's done nothing but drop and drop, as a proportion of the gamers playing them, and now little to nobody who actively plays this genre will ever be interested in the mode, and financially nobody would ever dare focusing on it for a genre of games that cost a gajillion dollars to make.

Even GW1, a game that had probably the largest focus and playerbase who participated in it, eventually lost out to the ever increasing PvE-only crowd.

It's true of WoW, it's true of GW1, it's true of GW2, of Wildstar, of Dragon Nest (this game actually had amazing fighting game like pvp but never got an audience, among other problems, check it out sometime), of Bloodline Champions and Battlerite, two of the biggest mmo-y type pvp attempts, of pretty much all of them.

FF14 literally only added PvP because of Westerners asking for it. The devs were very much not interested, back then.

[WingSwipe.3084]

The current state of balance is incredibly bad, so bad its actually comedic to watch your gameplay back and realise how busted a lot of the current top builds are.

SPB, Untamed, Druid, Harb, Reaper, WB, DH, Chrono supp, Holo, Weaver, Vindi, Grenth forsaken Theif... 

Boon and Condi generation needs to be drastically reduced across the board, trying to hit something as a power damage build that doesnt have a shadowstep into a blind is pointless. Blind and aegis spam is everywhere, weakness is so omnipresent that even if you land a hit, the damage is pitiful.

You can cleanse 10 condis and have another 10 applied in 2 seconds flat.

As bad as it is, its not the worst state. There have been times where the game was unplayable due to professions being totally and hilariously overpowered.

Edited August 8 by WingSwipe.3084
Added vindi to list, I forgor it.

[maxwelgm.4315]

The game is in a better state than most of the previous ones in terms of balance: every class has a build that is good enough (and will be complained about by people). This is in stark contrast to previous phases, including HoT release where Chrono bunkers single handledly destroyed sPvP as a game mode (nowadays it's a bonus mode next to PvE and WvW). Since then we improved a lot, but very slowly, into being able to play just about any class, if only confined to certain builds and playstyles more so than necessary due to slow dev reaction and overtuned condition/boon application.

That said, it doesn't mean we are in a good state currently, but I wouldn't say balance is the first issue this time. Many of the regular players remaining want to enjoy the ranked SoloQ and ATs, but the matchmaking has issues of its own and the lower population adds to it. Currently what should be outlier matches (the 500-200 ones where you either stomp or get stomped) are more common than what should be the common matches, where it seems sort of winnable and you may or may not be able to push it to the end - cause both teams are sufficiently balanced to the same player level. We could point at many reasons to this, both player created and both induced by the matchmaking trying to mirror classes and such, but in the end it always boils down to Anet's slow reaction to things, be it straight up cheating that only gets banned after the fact when the season is over (and only temporarily) or lack of updates nor mere communication on their own thoughts about the state of PvP and how they think to improve the balance of competitive modes (they don't I guess?).

 

[jdawgie.1835]

6 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

cus nobody who plays the genre wants pvp lol
no matter how good or bad it is, they're not interested in player vs player games

This is cap and I'll never understand why people push this nararitve. (Not attacking you) I see this all the time tho and the numbers dont support this claim at all. Infact when games stop "caring" about pvp at all theres a sharp decline in numbers followed there after in a lot of games. Spvp in GW2 hasnt seen a healthy update in ages and were still the second most active forum on here. Same for WoW. All the people who play Leauge - would of played RIOTS MMO pvp belive that. Theres More Pvpers out there spread out over different games than any catagory of gamer. The games with the best pvp also reach the most commercial success. CoD, Fortnight, WoW, Leauge of Legends. PvP is where the money is, its where most of the fun is, and its where all the players are. GW2 tried and (ALMOST) succeeded in setting out to corner the MOBA and MMO pvp markets in one game. IF they had done it successfully - they would of had one of the biggest games in history. They missed the mark though. Sadly. 

Edited August 8 by jdawgie.1835

[Frequency.6407]

1 hour ago, WingSwipe.3084 said:

The current state of balance is incredibly bad, so bad its actually comedic to watch your gameplay back and realise how busted a lot of the current top builds are.

SPB, Untamed, Druid, Harb, Reaper, WB, DH, Chrono supp, Holo, Weaver, Grenth forsaken Theif... 

This list of top builds contain 8 out of 9 classes. Some have multiple specs.

Interestingly, vindi is absent from this list.

But even if vindi isn't a current top build, we can probably conclude that 8 classes having at least one top build is a sign of a decently balanced MMO.

[WingSwipe.3084]

1 minute ago, Frequency.6407 said:

This list of top builds contain 8 out of 9 classes. Some have multiple specs.

Interestingly, vindi is absent from this list.

But even if vindi isn't a current top build, we can probably conclude that 8 classes having at least one top build is a sign of a decently balanced MMO.

Missed adding vindi, mb.

Yeah but for all the professions having at least one build, that build is kitten inducing to play against. This is the main issue.

And when you have an entire team dedicated to balancing this stuff it feels weird that it isnt updated and adressed more frequently.

[arazoth.7290]

3 hours ago, WingSwipe.3084 said:

The current state of balance is incredibly bad, so bad its actually comedic to watch your gameplay back and realise how busted a lot of the current top builds are.

SPB, Untamed, Druid, Harb, Reaper, WB, DH, Chrono supp, Holo, Weaver, Vindi, Grenth forsaken Theif... 

Boon and Condi generation needs to be drastically reduced across the board, trying to hit something as a power damage build that doesnt have a shadowstep into a blind is pointless. Blind and aegis spam is everywhere, weakness is so omnipresent that even if you land a hit, the damage is pitiful.

You can cleanse 10 condis and have another 10 applied in 2 seconds flat.

As bad as it is, its not the worst state. There have been times where the game was unplayable due to professions being totally and hilariously overpowered.

If we're all busted, then nobody is busted same time 🤔

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

3 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

If we're all busted, then nobody is busted same time 🤔

I'm more inclined to agree with this than anything else, and that it would be a far easier job to put the specs *absent* from @WingSwipe.3084 s list into action than nerf every class to meet some arbitrarily defined state of balance where fighting class x isnt annoying. 

Class x is played by a human.  It's going to be annoying if that player doesnt go out of their way to not be. 

I have my eye on the fact that wingswipe in particular is having problems with trying to deal with blind, weakness and aegis in the meta.  There's a particular spec that suffers to that and the devs are at a loss for how to balance it, they've said as much on stream. 

Edited August 8 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[WingSwipe.3084]

6 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I have my eye on the fact that wingswipe in particular is having problems with trying to deal with blind, weakness and aegis in the meta.  There's a particular spec that suffers to that and the devs are at a loss for how to balance it, they've said as much on stream. 

Guilty as charged, although its not that the condis exist, its the frequency of their applications.

[Sereath.1428]

26 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I'm more inclined to agree with this than anything else, and that it would be a far easier job to put the specs *absent* from @WingSwipe.3084 s list into action than nerf every class to meet some arbitrarily defined state of balance where fighting class x isnt annoying. 

Class x is played by a human.  It's going to be annoying if that player doesnt go out of their way to not be. 

I have my eye on the fact that wingswipe in particular is having problems with trying to deal with blind, weakness and aegis in the meta.  There's a particular spec that suffers to that and the devs are at a loss for how to balance it, they've said as much on stream. 

Based.
For once I agree.
Having more than one competitive spec per class is just ridiculously naive, unless you are a dev and main certain class. 100% impossible. But what they can do is make the most interesting, complex or unforgiving of each class the most competitive. While also taking into account what most players who main the class want.
It would also be great if the devs stopped pushing different "philosophies" for each class:
"Warrior always gets to be a wall that afks on a node."
"Revenant is always punished for not building for full damage and ganking people all day."
"Don't forget your nades engis, we know you love them so always build around them."
"Thief, you are the decap bot."
etc
I still think that Conquest is the main problem. It's just too restrictive. And they probably know that, they just never had the budget for more modes. But they do kind of acknowledge it, thats why they will be trying a new mode.
Or maybe...
Can we get a dev for each class? 💀 Just like with ranger atm.

Edited August 8 by Sereath.1428

[Yerlock.4678]

On 8/2/2024 at 4:36 AM, offence.4726 said:

I want to preface this by saying that i've played this game for over 3000 hours and most of my time was spent  in sPvP and WvW since day 1 launch , multiple-classes-professions across the years , got my legendary pvp armor and reached plat in multiple seasons and had amazing streaks in 2v2 and 3v3 arena. I'm not one to write such posts and I know this is not an airport so I won't announce my departure , I will just blatantly quit.

Whenever I come back to a new expansion I see that the PvP balance is more and more in shambles , when you play against a fresh new player who barely has 2 months into this game and spams Balanced Condi Reaper which is one of the easiest classes ( keyboard faceroller ) and you struggle to main an ELE or anything else that can't compete with the condi pressure you just know this game belongs in the garbage bin.

Where is the skill in this game ? SWTOR and WoW is aeons in front of gw2 pvp balance , even dota or league owns gw2 in terms of balance , counterplay does exist and outplaying your opponent and managing your cooldowns is a thing in real games. Not here though. No sir.

There is no skill cap/gap anymore in this game you just jump into the most broken build from gw2 meta battle , you keybind and spam abilities and you win and you start thinking " man i'm such a pro " when in fact you are being on autopilot on set class.

WvW is just as bad if not worse but this is on the topic of sPvP and this is not a vent i'm just stating facts on the current gameplay/meta which is a truly bad joke.

TL:DR 

PvP in this game should be scrapped completely from the face of the digital earth.

10k+ hours in this game, it's not as bad as day 1 balance. That pvp was an insidious tacked on joke that should've been labeled "beta" due to how bad balance was and how incomplete it felt. We didn't even have our own armor on when it was first released, but some garbage looking armor that made everyone look like generic bots lol.

The skill gap is terrible for sure, as one would expect from older mmo's with pvp. But in Anet's defense they are trying to at least attempt to mitigate it by making a new game mode that isn't as demanding with the objectives.

Tbh though this game just needed/needs more love in the balance/competitive features department. The combat is very pvp/skill-centric compared to other mmo's , and with that higher skill ceiling and added layers of combat mechanics there's more demand for upkeep. It's just anet didn't even give a crap in the slightest until only 2 or so years ago. I fear though it's too little too late.

Edited August 8 by Yerlock.4678

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

PvP on its own is good, GW2 probably has the best combat over all the others
It's a shame though it's wasted fr. Everything wrong with PvP tends to happen beyond it; IE metagaming, queue-sniping, duoq, serial afks, wintrading, content famine, etc. etc.
The BS that drives players; especially veterans, away from the game because there's no real competition, incentive to improve, or point to grinding out the higher ranks. It's a puddle full of beautiful crystal clear water, but with a depth that couldn't drown an ant with no legs.

I'd say PvP in its current state appeals to the niche crowd of PvE players, looking to get into PvP for the rewards, and then get out as fast as possible. I can't think of 1 reason why veteran players should stick around, beyond testing the limits of ADHD medication and/or joining the endless pip-farming grind. If anyone thinks of anything lmk

[Chief.7143]

The problem is, the games UI is scuffed, the combat system in sPVP is SUPER conveluted giving sweats WAY to much of an advantage. Then you have the mesmer with clones that sucks to play against and thief with stealth which sucks to play against.

The match making is non-exsistant and thier only update in 10 years is to add monthly tournaments for like 20 players to feel good about themselves. lol. 

What funny too is that the Dev's talk about a new mode to get people ready for the 3 cap mode when in reality, no one wants the 3 cap mode, they want a death match.

[Arheundel.6451]

On 8/2/2024 at 5:03 PM, Saiyan.1704 said:

Low population is an issue, certainly, but the biggest issue is player quality. If there were solid pvp players then the mentioned issues above wouldn't be all that bad. That's probably the #1 reason why the devs are adding that "training pvp map" (paraphrasing) come the expansion.

The quality of players started to go down the drain when specs like Dragonhunter and Reaper first appeared....otherwise unknown players suddenly reaching Platinum rank within a week, it all started with Hot launch, launching with "hamster wheel" professions: "run mid and press all buttons, every button is an air condi/power bomb, easy win"....stack 3-4 of them per game and suddenly players don't need to know anymore how to dodge or time skills, just F1 spin to win or 3-4-5 without ever pressing the dodge button, fast forward to 2024 and there is no need to ask why the quality of players is low

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 8/8/2024 at 9:24 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

PvP on its own is good, GW2 probably has the best combat over all the others
It's a shame though it's wasted fr. Everything wrong with PvP tends to happen beyond it; IE metagaming, queue-sniping, duoq, serial afks, wintrading, content famine, etc. etc.
The BS that drives players; especially veterans, away from the game because there's no real competition, incentive to improve, or point to grinding out the higher ranks. It's a puddle full of beautiful crystal clear water, but with a depth that couldn't drown an ant with no legs.

I'd say PvP in its current state appeals to the niche crowd of PvE players, looking to get into PvP for the rewards, and then get out as fast as possible. I can't think of 1 reason why veteran players should stick around, beyond testing the limits of ADHD medication and/or joining the endless pip-farming grind. If anyone thinks of anything lmk

This is eloquently written

Quote

 I can't think of 1 reason why veteran players should stick around, beyond testing the limits of ADHD medication and/or joining the endless pip-farming grind. If anyone thinks of anything lmk

We gotta bring back duelist communities. We have the space for it in guild halls now. If the blight is external maybe the cure can be external too.

Edited August 14 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

This is eloquently written

Thank you 😳

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

We gotta bring back duelist communities. We have the space for it in guild halls now. If the blight is external maybe the cure can be external too.

Unironically I think that's a good idea, I just hope it uses PvP stats instead of PvE stats
I remember using break enchantment on SPB in the GH arena and casually deleting 10-12k of me lovelies HP

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

2 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Thank you 😳

Unironically I think that's a good idea, I just hope it uses PvP stats instead of PvE stats
I remember using break enchantment on SPB in the GH arena and casually deleting 10-12k of me lovelies HP

Guild halls can use pvp stats now 💪👀

[Jagdtiger.2517]

On 8/7/2024 at 7:24 PM, Saiyan.1704 said:

Ain't no way your convincing me that WoW's pvp is better than GW2. On that subject, ESO's pvp is also garbage.

I will wholeheartedly agree to that. I recently re-subbed to WoW after more than a year because I wanted to check out the pre-patch for the next expansion. And then I remembered, that game has absolutely terrible gameplay. The solo queue PvP in WoW consists of sitting in queue for 20 minutes because there are no healers, then getting into a game and being CCed half the time until dampening hits 50% and then you just use your PvE rotation on the enemies and throw CC at the healer and hope that someone dies. And I'm not saying this from a scrub point of view, the last season I actually played I was a top 1% player in solo shuffle. But I quit because the gameplay is terrible and the skill expression is terrible. Now they have a new ranked game mode called battleground blitz, which is also terrible because it's 8v8 so you have too little impact as a solo player, and there's no dampening so healers are literal unkillable god kings. A healer can easily tank 3 people indefinitely and not die until they run out of mana after 5 minutes of face tanking, it's so disgusting. The best decision GW2 ever made was getting rid of the trinity system. It's honestly sad that there are so many WoW PvP players that have never played GW2, because this game is so much better. And believe me when I say I understand how many flaws GW2 has, it still beats WoW.

Also ESO PvP is a joke, I don't know how anyone plays that game for PvP. The combat is so terrible.

Honestly after playing BDO and WoW for the past few weeks I've realized that I should either stick to League or just play GW2. If you want MMO PvP GW2 is the only good option right now and it will probably stay that way for a while. If only they would #removeDuoQ.

Edited August 15 by Jagdtiger.2517