Is competitiveness bad more WvW and sPvP?

[ChronosCosmos.9450]

I personally love the competitive aspect, but I'm not sure if I'm in the minority or not. I understand my opinion is not the only opinion and companies should cater towards a majority vote. With that being said, WvW and sPvP right now is catering towards everyone since everyone gets the same rewards. Are you guys for competitiveness or should Arena-net leave WvW and sPvP the same without anymore incentives?

[Burnfall.9573]

Toxicity and Competitiveness do no go hand in hand. I would suggest to wait for Gw3 if it does not follow the path of its predecessor Gw2 embracement of toxicity in its design and its balance.

Or better; play Guild Wars 1 instead where healthy competition is welcomed with open arms

(Healthy Competitive players have no place in this toxic game because sooner or late;; the toxicity will poison them as well)

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/73358/im-too-toxic-in-pvp-i-need-help#latest

[Dawdler.8521]

Imagine if WvW was like a competetive Overwatch match in a grand arena and then the announcer yells... "Ladies and gentlemen the tension is rising for team Red now, player 1432, player 587 and player 459 just fell asleep!!! But will you look at that kill from Blue player 1164!" while the crowd squints and try to make them out from the ~7000 people that fill the arena matchup floor in various stages of playing, making food, sleeping and most likely shitting on the floor.

[joneirikb.7506]

Hmm, this is a difficult problem. Essentially I feel like ANet has tried to go a middle-way in WvW, where they tried to appeal to a wider audience than just the competitive players. I don't think they've quite succeeded, but I also think they've basically trying to walk a tightrope.

WvW was meant to be a PvP mode that worked thematically similar to Open World Tyria (available to everyone, if you can't beat it with skill, then zerg it! etc). So it was supposed to work for and appeal to both sides of the spectrum. In that regard, things like the old-school Stability was creating a problem for them, because it rewarded the skilled/hardcore aspect too much, so they changed it.

Essentially, I don't think changing the mode to become more competitive/hardcore would help it, since the likely result would just be that most of the population would leave (the not competitive/hardcore). Similarly if you make the game even less competitive/hardcore you're likely to drive out the last hardcore players, and essentially have the entire game turn into the old EotM karma trains.

WvW has always been designed around the idea that all/both types of players play it, to create enough variety and diversity. If you start removing one or the other, I think what's left is going to be a hollow shell.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

so what is this poll about?

[DemonSeed.3528]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:so what is this poll about?

I thought it was going to be something about skill play in terms of competitiveness, but it seems to be about rewards.

[spectrito.8513]

If you mean by competiveness more circlesin SPvP and more empty towers in WvW im completely against it.

Both are PvP modes and both lacks on the PvP aspects.

PvP as a whole is bad in gw2, ironically enough its exactly PvP what made gw1 a success.They know how to make it fun but they just wontI cant understand it.

[SkyShroud.2865]

Current wvw is already very competitive, in the aspect of who can make the best stacked link.

To be competitive, it also means to enforce a competitive standard and by design, gw2 by far is the least competitive.

[ChronosCosmos.9450]

Thank you for everyone's insight.

[derd.6413]

i'm confused did i vote for competitiveness being good or bad?

[Lonecap.4105]

@derd.6413 said:i'm confused did i vote for competitiveness being good or bad?

No for not.

[jaif.3518]

since everyone gets the same rewards...leave WvW and sPvP the same without anymore incentives?

I had trouble making sense of the post. I think these are the key phrases. If my guess is right the OP is asking if better players should be rewarded even more than worse players? This would make the modes, especially WvW, more competitive, as people fight for the rewards.

I wouldn't want to see the current system changed. Both modes are only fun with a healthy population. Good players will rise to the top as it stands.

-Jeff

[joneirikb.7506]

Regarding rewards, I don't really think that the best players play for rewards. The ones that gets really good in pvp aspects, tends to be the ones that just enjoy the combat, the competition in 1vs1 etc. Most of the good pvp players I know are also the ones that generally have the least gold or other things in the game, because they would rather spend an entire night in the guild hall dueling with other such players, than farm gold in SW or pimp the pips/reward track in a zerg.

[Whiteout.1975]

Basically, WvW allow's for two ends of a Spectrum... One end being "Casual". The other end being "Serious". At the same time. Most people lie somewhere in that spectrum. However, they all tend to lean to one side over the other respectively.However, Everyone wants "good" balance... And "balance" involves winners and losers. How you Win vs how you Lose = your overall feelings/experience around balance. So if people care about "balance"... Then they must care, to some extent, about winning and losing. Though enough to want good balance.For instance... Never in my life have I ever heard or seen someone seriously wanting "bad" balance. And even if there was... I'm sure they would lie in the small 1% out of the other 99% that rather have good balance.

Now here's where it gets more interesting...I've been curious how one justifies wanting/needing "good" balance... If they weren't actually trying to Win or do well in the first place?Like running "good" build"s for starters...The lack of someone "trying" will fail them long and well before balance ever could.

The Problem with WvW regarding competition... Is that WvW supports a "Carefree" (Casual) Environment much more. There is no Risk vs Reward.We have Population imbalances still... 24/7 through and through weekly matches also. Realistically, it hard to even have healthy competition under even just those issues.

Though, because WvW so "Carefree" (Casual) it supports people who ultimately don't try succeed. Those that like to be "carried". And when people don't actually try... It gives other people more reason not to try ether. And at that point they're pretty much just existing in the mode/game of WvW instead of actually "trying" to play it with meaning. All while putting more stress on the people who want to actually try to play the game... Not just exist in it.And if they are not adding more meaning to WvW... How does that help it?BTW, currently, I don't blame them. Like I said: "WvW supports a "Carefree" (Casual) Environment".

Now, WvW may entice people to participate... However, it does not entice very well them to succeed. Personal ego's and diverse manifestation's of Pride do a far better job in general; as a sense of a reward, after success... As far as I've seen anyways.

The good thing about a Healthy Competitive environment (Risk vs Reward)... Is that it gives people much greater reason to succeed. Gives greater reason for "good" balance (because it's not "Careless" at heart). Give's more meaning to WvW by supporting playstyles that approach WvW with care; for the ways WvW is meant to be played. And also rewards people for their Successes greatly enough to develop a real care in succeeding. Also... Still supports a Casual playstyle (if they're a true Casual at heart) because they are still rewarded for participating... Just like everyone else.

Lastly... An Anology of what WvW feels like right now (and for a long time) regarding this topic:"Imagine going to watch a Firework show. You're sitting there watching. You may like some fireworks more than others in the show. Though, that's ok because you know at the end you'll get that Grand Finale. Which will trump everything from before anyways. The main event. Everything has been leading up to this moment. Everyone is so excited! However, instead... You get nothing... They get nothing... It pretty much just ends and "come see again us next time".This is what it's like playing WvW. Except you would be competing over that "Grand finale"... Though, it does not exist (because of things mentioned before). Therefore, competition ultimately suffers.And I know @Anet understood this because back in the day we used to have tournaments.All I can do is hope Alliance's create a gateway for this ultimate problem to be fixed."

[b k.1648]

A better way to approach this is to consider how the game mode could be updated to allow both types of players to enjoy it.

In theory, the alliance system would create a continuum of matches, ranging from the most competitive to the least competitive alliances. Assuming alliances are homogeneous (a very risky assumption), this should mean people are playing against others of roughly the same competitiveness.

Another way they could approach it is simply to offer different content in WvW that caters to competitive players and adjust the existing WvW system to suit semi-casual players more. This risks segregating an already small playerbase to some extent, but if done right it could give more of a symbiotic relationship between those types of players, so they don't have to look for a new alliance to find their fun.

[joneirikb.7506]

@Ben K.6238 said:A better way to approach this is to consider how the game mode could be updated to allow both types of players to enjoy it.

In theory, the alliance system would create a continuum of matches, ranging from the most competitive to the least competitive alliances. Assuming alliances are homogeneous (a very risky assumption), this should mean people are playing against others of roughly the same competitiveness.

Another way they could approach it is simply to offer different content in WvW that caters to competitive players and adjust the existing WvW system to suit semi-casual players more. This risks segregating an already small playerbase to some extent, but if done right it could give more of a symbiotic relationship between those types of players, so they don't have to look for a new alliance to find their fun.

This is one of the reasons I keep wishing that ANet actually buckle up and start making more maps for WvW, but make them very mechanically different from each others. By making maps for different play-styles, instead of repeating the same 2 designs over and over, they could accomplish just that. 1 map for the hardcore pvp only crowd, and another map for the more casual karma train group, and a few maps inbetween. To allow people to go to the map that actually encourages their preferred playstyle rather than the current meta of transferring around hoping to find some mythic server that still has roaming, gvg or TypeManders that loves BearBow Rangers etc.

[b k.1648]

I'm curious how you'd make maps for different play styles. Would that involve basically different game modes (for example a map where the structures aren't capturable and the objective is to kill as many players as possible, among other possibilities), or similar to existing WvW but with layouts and balance adjusted to promote certain types of play?

[joneirikb.7506]

@Ben K.6238 said:I'm curious how you'd make maps for different play styles. Would that involve basically different game modes (for example a map where the structures aren't capturable and the objective is to kill as many players as possible, among other possibilities), or similar to existing WvW but with layouts and balance adjusted to promote certain types of play?

In general this is mostly limited by imagination, and what ANet is willing to do.

An example could be to make a map that is/works circular, with all the objectives effectively on circle around the map and towers/keeps defending choke-holds so you have to capture or at least break its walls to go past. That would encourage a more straight forward play-style where you generally know where the enemy is, you know generally what the enemy can attack and where to go for action. This would create a 2 front system where all players on the map can run back to where the action is, do siege warfare reliably. That map would likely appeal to people that likes sieges, mass combat over objectives, doesn't like running around looking for commanders or fights.

A map for the more hardcore and fighting ? Something like a map around a roman arena, fewer structures but not guarded by npc's other than the lord itself, in the center the roman arena where players can take on and challenge others for control over bloodlust and gain points for winning duels over the points. If they could find a way to construct the objectives to encourage going out and fight instead of hiding behind walls and siege, perhaps restrict siege somewhat in general. They might even make a own map rule for something like that, personal rewards or more points for killing enemies with your own skills.

Where a roaming map likely will benefit from less keeps, but focus more on different terrain and lots of small objectives. While the map likely wouldn't give as many points as a normal map it could instead have own mechanics tied to it (something like bloodlust that would only come from this one map, but affect the whole match, encouragement for team, and a role for roamers). Terrain could be made to encourage small groups, and make it difficult for larger groups to accomplish things, especially by making many small capture points that are easy to take, so the whole zerg isn't going to get participation for taking it (that will bore them off).

Anyways that's some ideas on different ways to make maps to have different play-styles. ANet could go heavier into this as well, but allowing more unique mechanics per map, but I mostly tried to avoid that to keep it simple®. Unfortunately map making is a long and costy process for ANet, so they're not very likely to.

[Reverence.6915]

More competitiveness is good, but WvW doesn't reward competitiveness. Players will come to play if there's more visible "bragging rights" style rewards. WvW doesn't give js for rewards, gold or otherwise right now, such is its neglect.

[ChronosCosmos.9450]

@Ben K.6238 said:I'm curious how you'd make maps for different play styles. Would that involve basically different game modes (for example a map where the structures aren't capturable and the objective is to kill as many players as possible, among other possibilities), or similar to existing WvW but with layouts and balance adjusted to promote certain types of play?

More maps would be nice but it would take a lot of resources. Something like gvg leaderboards for rewards would be less costly lol. Maybe they can even make tower/keep skins for players to get some profit.

[Tibicia.8315]

Assuming I can get past your grammar and understand your meaning, you do know the "v" stand for "versus", right?

[Dawdler.8521]

@joneirikb.7506 said:

@"Ben K.6238" said:I'm curious how you'd make maps for different play styles. Would that involve basically different game modes (for example a map where the structures aren't capturable and the objective is to kill as many players as possible, among other possibilities), or similar to existing WvW but with layouts and balance adjusted to promote certain types of play?

In general this is mostly limited by imagination, and what ANet is willing to do.

An example could be to make a map that is/works circular, with all the objectives effectively on circle around the map and towers/keeps defending choke-holds so you have to capture or at least break its walls to go past. That would encourage a more straight forward play-style where you generally know where the enemy is, you know generally what the enemy can attack and where to go for action. This would create a 2 front system where all players on the map can run back to where the action is, do siege warfare reliably. That map would likely appeal to people that likes sieges, mass combat over objectives, doesn't like running around looking for commanders or fights.

A map for the more hardcore and fighting ? Something like a map around a roman arena, fewer structures but not guarded by npc's other than the lord itself, in the center the roman arena where players can take on and challenge others for control over bloodlust and gain points for winning duels over the points. If they could find a way to construct the objectives to encourage going out and fight instead of hiding behind walls and siege, perhaps restrict siege somewhat in general. They might even make a own map rule for something like that, personal rewards or more points for killing enemies with your own skills.

Where a roaming map likely will benefit from less keeps, but focus more on different terrain and lots of small objectives. While the map likely wouldn't give as many points as a normal map it could instead have own mechanics tied to it (something like bloodlust that would only come from this one map, but affect the whole match, encouragement for team, and a role for roamers). Terrain could be made to encourage small groups, and make it difficult for larger groups to accomplish things, especially by making many small capture points that are easy to take, so the whole zerg isn't going to get participation for taking it (that will bore them off).

Anyways that's some ideas on different ways to make maps to have different play-styles. ANet could go heavier into this as well, but allowing more unique mechanics per map, but I mostly tried to avoid that to keep it simple®. Unfortunately map making is a long and costy process for ANet, so they're not very likely to.Except then if you have 90 players that would normally fill a border and do roaming, havocing, zerging, defending, attacking and whatnot you'd now have a map with 30 people trying to siege objectives they need more people for so thats bleh, 30 people doing "hardcore fighting" on another map wondering where all the enemies are and 30 people roaming on a boring open map with no commanders, no guilds or anything interesting to do except just... roam. Oh and one empty WvW map that could have been great fun if it only had people on it.

[b k.1648]

@ChronosCosmos.9450 said:

@Ben K.6238 said:I'm curious how you'd make maps for different play styles. Would that involve basically different game modes (for example a map where the structures aren't capturable and the objective is to kill as many players as possible, among other possibilities), or similar to existing WvW but with layouts and balance adjusted to promote certain types of play?

More maps would be nice but it would take a lot of resources. Something like gvg leaderboards for rewards would be less costly lol. Maybe they can even make tower/keep skins for players to get some profit.

Yeah... so they say with regards to new maps, but I'm not convinced. I suspect that's more because they didn't have any level designers available to assign WvW jobs. It just doesn't take that long to put together maps like that unless you decide to create a huge number of new art assets, which isn't required in this case.

I think what holds them back is the perception that new maps wouldn't do much good, and that they'd need too much revision because they're competitive environments. Ironically PvP has less of a problem there, because players can choose different maps more easily and it's not so much of a headache to remove one from circulation if it's really causing problems. That's what happens when you have more to start with.

I think GvG leaderboards would be a welcome addition as well, but I suspect that would take much longer to implement. Infrastructure changes are out of my area of expertise though, so I can't be sure.

[kash.9213]

Not voting on your poll, don't really get it.

Anet designed the maps and structure of WvW as a large arena match mode, but they keep making changes to cast a larger net as if it were a pve or open world pvp mode, then they have to fix a fix with a more structured match lens again. You're asking the players, but in general the player base is stupid and will say they want competition but will avoid it or dilute it on their own. You need to ask Anet what kind of mode they want WvW to be.

[ChronosCosmos.9450]

Yep, maybe they can just revamp some of the older maps that we have. They can just sell tower/keep/camp skins too. A lot of players would buy that lol.

@Ben K.6238 said:

@ChronosCosmos.9450 said:

@Ben K.6238 said:I'm curious how you'd make maps for different play styles. Would that involve basically different game modes (for example a map where the structures aren't capturable and the objective is to kill as many players as possible, among other possibilities), or similar to existing WvW but with layouts and balance adjusted to promote certain types of play?

More maps would be nice but it would take a lot of resources. Something like gvg leaderboards for rewards would be less costly lol. Maybe they can even make tower/keep skins for players to get some profit.

Yeah... so they say with regards to new maps, but I'm not convinced. I suspect that's more because they didn't have any level designers available to assign WvW jobs. It just doesn't take that long to put together maps like that unless you decide to create a huge number of new art assets, which isn't required in this case.

I think what holds them back is the perception that new maps wouldn't do much good, and that they'd need too much revision because they're competitive environments. Ironically PvP has less of a problem there, because players can choose different maps more easily and it's not so much of a headache to remove one from circulation if it's really causing problems. That's what happens when you have more to start with.

I think GvG leaderboards would be a welcome addition as well, but I suspect that would take much longer to implement. Infrastructure changes are out of my area of expertise though, so I can't be sure.