Balance is a myth, mm is not your friend, companies need profit and ppl are ppl. Meta that.

[troops.8276]

Big gripes on the forums;

Balance: just reroll, there's no gear grind.

MM: if you're just looking for fun then don't take it seriously, no one is making you do ranked. Scrim, AT, duo, solo, whatever floats your boat.If you do want to get to the top then you'll have to do what ever it takes. That's life. Deal with it. There's all ways someone better than you, unless you're Shadow The Jedi of course.

Toxic players: some people are just total kittens. That's an IRL problem. Just don't be one yourself.

Anet: trying to please the 'community' must be like herding cats, except we're not cute and fluffy. The company is 300 real ppl with there own problems. Nobodys perfect. Sorry kids, but when you grow up you'll make the same mistakes your parents did.

So, taking all that into account, what can we as individuals do to make the most of our own time in pvp?

Despite the salt, this is a genuine question and I hope some decent folks out there share some insight to help those of us that are struggling.

Thanks.

[Erzian.5218]

I am making the most out pf pvp by queuing up in the hopes of having more/better scourge+firebrand comps. However, the results are rather poor as I play neither of those classes. The best move would have actually been to not touch pvp after they have managed to completely ruin ranked queues with the release of scourge.

[Allarius.5670]

Balance is a shifting target, learn to be flexible and adapt.

Matchmaking is hit or miss by its nature. Anet will decide how it plays out in the end (solo vs duo, etc), so if it stresses you out too much avoid ranked.

Toxic players will be toxic, learn to brush it off and report legit harassment.

Assuming "make the most of" means enjoy the gamemode, find a build and playstyle that you just cannot help but enjoy playing and everything else becomes a little less important. The individual player cannot control or dictate balance, so enjoy what you play, adapt as you can, and accept/learn from your losses as much as your wins. Make it about what you do have control over and take a break when it stops being fun.

[MyPuppy.8970]

Having fun in unranked for the moment. People testing their stuff, no one is getting mad or salty for the tiniest mistake or whatnot (with a few exceptions though, but well humanity is hopeless anyway). It really is resfreshing. Things like gazelles that can ruin a fight, but who cares, just respawn and go back.

[NeedCoffee.1402]

@troops.8276 said:Big gripes on the forums;

Balance: just reroll, there's no gear grind.

MM: if you're just looking for fun then don't take it seriously, no one is making you do ranked. Scrim, AT, duo, solo, whatever floats your boat.If you do want to get to the top then you'll have to do what ever it takes. That's life. Deal with it. There's all ways someone better than you, unless you're Shadow The Jedi of course.

Toxic players: some people are just total kittens. That's an IRL problem. Just don't be one yourself.

Anet: trying to please the 'community' must be like herding cats, except we're not cute and fluffy. The company is 300 real ppl with there own problems. Nobodys perfect. Sorry kids, but when you grow up you'll make the same mistakes your parents did.

So, taking all that into account, what can we as individuals do to make the most of our own time in pvp?

Despite the salt, this is a genuine question and I hope some decent folks out there share some insight to help those of us that are struggling.

Thanks.

I love this mentality. Its True balance is a myth. I remember being obsessed with balance years ago in other pvp based games. I've learned the hard way, It doesn't exist. It can't exist. As soon as the new op class gets nerfed another will take its place. It's like coding . As soon as you fix a bug, you break something else.Yes, scourge seems problematic. But can we wait until the smoke clears before screaming "NERF"? PoF hasn't even been out a month yet.

[Swagg.9236]

@troops.8276 said:Balance: just reroll, there's no gear grind.

That's not at all how balance works.

@troops.8276 said:Anet: trying to please the 'community' must be like herding cats, except we're not cute and fluffy. The company is 300 real ppl with there own problems. Nobodys perfect. Sorry kids, but when you grow up you'll make the same mistakes your parents did.

Anet's attempts to please the community resulted in the condi meta among other things. There is also the case of how the "Rock Gazelle" thread on this very forum involves a dev response which says how he will "email the Soulbeast designer." Does that mean that the Soulbeast had ONE designer? Does that also mean that the Soulbeast designer wasn't already aware that the Rock Gazelle deals a gorillion damage per charge despite the game being out for, like, a month? You have to realize that despite the fact that Anet might be "300 real ppl," the vast majority are interns that are hired for chump change and then sent packing after a year's term. The game's spaghetti code and bug issues reflect this.

Nobody is perfect, but Anet is poorly managed.

@troops.8276 said:So, taking all that into account, what can we as individuals do to make the most of our own time in pvp?

Use the lobby as a quick, free access to the bank.

GW2 is a fashion simulator with some PvE on the side if you feel like it. It's been that way since launch. People can argue that GW2 PvP was "better" than it is now at some point, but Anet's version of Conquest has always facilitated pre-determined wins and losses based on team comps. Classes have always been straightforward and predictable, and the only adjustment Anet has ever made for it is to make "underpowered" classes more passively invincible so players can be straightforward and predictable without any consequences. The game loads up classes with no more than 16 and sometimes in excess of 30 buttons despite the fact that 95% of them are just flavors of "Do damage." There is no style or risk to anything in GW2 on the whole, and PvP suffers the most because of it.

[Ithilwen.1529]

@Swagg.9236 said:

GW2 is a fashion simulator with some PvE on the side if you feel like it. It's been that way since launch. People can argue that GW2 PvP was "better" than it is now at some point, but Anet's version of Conquest has always facilitated pre-determined wins and losses based on team comps. Classes have always been straightforward and predictable, and the only adjustment Anet has ever made for it is to make "underpowered" classes more passively invincible so players can be straightforward and predictable without any consequences. The game loads up classes with no more than 16 and sometimes in excess of 30 buttons despite the fact that 95% of them are just flavors of "Do damage." There is no style or risk to anything in GW2 on the whole, and PvP suffers the most because of it.

I have to agree with this for the most part.

The Guild Wars franchise has a great system. Sadly, it's been paired down systematically. The general trend has been away from the strategic game of GW1, toward an arcade game, reaction time based style. This is why Spell Breaker is so fearsome. People in this game are not accustomed to counter play... just spamming attacks. I am green with envy that SB got to do the interrupt / denial play rather than Mesmer.

ANET, this game is not suited to first person shooter style, unless you are willing to permit macros. ( In Star Trek Online, an NCsoft sister game, macros are virtually required for high level content. Even the devs use them in demonstration videos for new ships, for example. ) The macros would further homogenize classes.

I love the fact that we had very different classes. I suggest that you;

1.) Stop homogenizing classes. The game is far better when classes have unique abilities. There is not a single thing that my favorite class, Mesmer, can do that another class cannot and they can very likely do it better. That spoils the game.

2.) Emphasize strategy and counter play rather than muscle memory and reaction time. This game is not suitable for ESL and never really was. If I wanted that sort of gaming, I'd buy an xbox or the like.

[troops.8276]

The point was balance doesn't work, hence reroll. It's an arms race and it's an easy pitch to sell, believing it'll increase revenue.

Or, don't bring a sandwich to a knife fight.

Class v class v team comp v player skill v hardware v ping v anything else I missed out of the equation.

[Ithilwen.1529]

My counterpoint is that balance could work.

The game would need to slow down somewhat. ( Yes, I was a City of Heroes player when that game ended, in part because PvP was slowed. That's not the situation here. )The way the game is currently set up, a player can simply win by spamming. They are often more effective than a player playing, say, dd ele and working an intricate rotation. Naturally, simple and tough classes rule.

[troops.8276]

That's what I'd like myself. There's other genres that I think do twitch gameplay better. I'd love something closer to chess than snap. But reality and all that :(

[Ashgar.3024]

@troops.8276 said:Big gripes on the forums;

Balance: just reroll, there's no gear grind.

MM: if you're just looking for fun then don't take it seriously, no one is making you do ranked. Scrim, AT, duo, solo, whatever floats your boat.If you do want to get to the top then you'll have to do what ever it takes. That's life. Deal with it. There's all ways someone better than you, unless you're Shadow The Jedi of course.

Toxic players: some people are just total kittens. That's an IRL problem. Just don't be one yourself.

Anet: trying to please the 'community' must be like herding cats, except we're not cute and fluffy. The company is 300 real ppl with there own problems. Nobodys perfect. Sorry kids, but when you grow up you'll make the same mistakes your parents did.

So, taking all that into account, what can we as individuals do to make the most of our own time in pvp?

Despite the salt, this is a genuine question and I hope some decent folks out there share some insight to help those of us that are struggling.

Thanks.

Replace Shadow The Jedi with Reckful (US) or Hydra (EU) and Anet for Blizzard and you could had copy-pasted that from the WoW Forums. Source 10 years of experience on them.

People are people indeed.

[Cynz.9437]

OP, all you say is true HOWEVER, if the game is frustrating for majority, players will leave. Simple as it is. That is why pvp community has been dying for years now. That is why matches are so bad (lack of population), it gets worse and worse because main issues have never been addressed or have been made even worse (e.g. balancing classes around pve and money regardless how badly it will affect pvp).We don't post because we just want to complain, we post because we actually care about this game and don't want it die (at least not so fast) like so many other games did.

[Swagg.9236]

@Ithilwen.1529 said:This is why Spell Breaker is so fearsome. People in this game are not accustomed to counter play... just spamming attacks. I am green with envy that SB got to do the interrupt / denial play rather than Mesmer.

Full Counter isn't fearsome because players are bad or can't adjust to it. Full Counter is fearsome because spam is the baseline nature of GW2; players can't turn off passively ticking AoEs; there is no wind-up to Full Counter; and given that there is no distinction between actions (everything is just a "skill"), the only "counter-play" to a Warrior using Full Counter (for free because there is nothing that can stop a Warrior from using Full Counter) is to do NOTHING and hope that you didn't put down a pulsing AoE somewhere nearby. That's not counter-play, that's playing by someone else's arbitrary rules. Even using Blackout had more player thought and investment than Memebreaker pressing F2 in GW2. Man, even post-2010 E-drain/Wastrel Spam Mesmer has more depth than Full Counter, and that build is braindead. And, although Full Counter is undoubtedly the strongest form of bad combat design in GW2, the game is positively full of the same sort of thing: perfect damage negation while simultaneously taking offensive actions. That mere thing is what most makes GW2 combat such a joke (especially within the context of PvP).

The game isn't bad because it's an "action-style" game, GW2 is bad because there is no flow, tell or risk in combat. If played correctly, GW2 PvP looks as if the game itself is glitching out (people teleporting all over the place; phasing in and out of sight due to instant-cast, perfect invisibility; players walking through death traps of damage and CC, etc). It's just layers of passive procs and instant abilities which let people walk through everything and undermine concepts like good timing and positioning.

@Ithilwen.1529 said:ANET, this game is not suited to first person shooter style, unless you are willing to permit macros. ( In Star Trek Online, an NCsoft sister game, macros are virtually required for high level content. Even the devs use them in demonstration videos for new ships, for example. ) The macros would further homogenize classes.

Asking for macros like that is absolutely just a git gud issue. There aren't even that many skills in GW2. Besides, macros would just make GW2 even sillier given that there is no global cool-down, and every important skill is ranged and/or instant/near-instant. Combat is still a mess regardless, since there is no currently nothing stopping players from pressing 6 buttons at once. I'm no fan of it either. It's an ugly way to play any game.

@Ithilwen.1529 said:I love the fact that we had very different classes. I suggest that you;

GW2 never had "very different classes." There is a reason why PvP from launch-2013 was 4-5 d/d elementalists, and why certain classes were pushed entirely out of meta PvE. GW2's attempt at making a soft trinity like they had in GW1 was a complete failure due to:

• Too many professions
• Too many skills per profession given that 90% of them are just flavors of damage
• Not enough purposeful distinction (skill-types) among actions (things like: attack, skill, melee attack, spell, signet, etc; everything in the game is just a "skill" that deals un-typed damage)
• No shared or global systems that stretched across professions (no skill-types that every class has, no global resource system, etc)
• The inclusion of things such as stability and perfect damage negation
• Offensive attack intervals were pushed lower and lower despite excessive particle effect spam and inadequate tells from attack animations (if they even appear at all)
• Conditions didn't do anything important in any mode at launch (even now they don't do anything uniquely important; they just do damage)

@Ithilwen.1529 said:There is not a single thing that my favorite class, Mesmer, can do that another class cannot and they can very likely do it better. That spoils the game.

The GW2 Mesmer was a flawed design, and it should have stayed as a boss mechanic from Winds of Change. If Anet wanted an action-RPG illusion mage, they would have gone with something like:

• Limit clone generation to 1 sturdy clone that deals equivalent damage to the user. Clones no longer need a target to summon.
• Every main-hand and two-handed has a low-recharge movement skill in their 2 slot Whenever this skill is used, it leaves behind a clone (clone has a 5s lifespan before vanishing).
• The F1 skill is a copy of the player's current weapon-set movement skill; the only difference is that it generates a clone which performs the movement skill instead of the player.
• F2 is a low-recharge "Swap locations with your clone."
• F3 is a toggle that causes your clone to performs your activated skills while it is active. The only skill that won't solely come from the clone while this toggle is active will be an auto-attack.
• F4 destroys your clone and summons a Phantasm based on your current weapon; you cannot create clones while the Phantasm is active. Your F1-F4 skills flip into Phantasm-specific skills. The Phantasm just attacks from your side and follows you around as if it were just directly part of you (mainly just for show).

But they didn't do that, so Mesmer is just a portal bot that is otherwise more or less as straightforward as any other class in GW2. Given the way the Mesmer was designed and how its skills work, there was absolutely no way that "mixing in with one's clones" was ever going to be a viable strategy.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@troops.8276 said:Big gripes on the forums;

Balance: just reroll, there's no gear grind.

MM: if you're just looking for fun then don't take it seriously, no one is making you do ranked. Scrim, AT, duo, solo, whatever floats your boat.If you do want to get to the top then you'll have to do what ever it takes. That's life. Deal with it. There's all ways someone better than you, unless you're Shadow The Jedi of course.

Toxic players: some people are just total kittens. That's an IRL problem. Just don't be one yourself.

Anet: trying to please the 'community' must be like herding cats, except we're not cute and fluffy. The company is 300 real ppl with there own problems. Nobodys perfect. Sorry kids, but when you grow up you'll make the same mistakes your parents did.

So, taking all that into account, what can we as individuals do to make the most of our own time in pvp?

Despite the salt, this is a genuine question and I hope some decent folks out there share some insight to help those of us that are struggling.

Thanks.

Ignore the small issues. This game is already several times better in quality than a myriad of other mmos on the market. This is no excuse to let QA slack, but there's no reason to let tiny things become roadblocks to you enjoying the game.

Go actually play with obscure builds and try making your own. People just copy / paste builds and then complain if they are not very or too effective. Playing with everything your class has to offer may help you find a playstyle you are good at and can enjoy. There are lots of trait/amm/rune combinations that people discard as being bad until they see them being used to great effect.

Instead of responding to insults, immediately block the individual.

Find a PVP guild.

Be prepared to practice your ass off.

Always try out new builds in unranked. If you are piloting a build or class in ranked I will reach through your computer screen and suplex you.

[Ithilwen.1529]

@Swagg.9236 said:

@Ithilwen.1529 said:

This is why Spell Breaker is so fearsome. People in this game are not accustomed to counter play... just spamming attacks.

I am green with envy that SB got to do the interrupt / denial play rather than Mesmer.

Full Counter isn't fearsome because players are bad or can't adjust to it. Full Counter is fearsome because spam is the baseline nature of GW2; players can't turn off passively ticking AoEs; there is no wind-up to Full Counter; and given that there is no distinction between actions (everything is just a "skill"), the only "counter-play" to a Warrior using Full Counter (for free because there is nothing that can stop a Warrior from using Full Counter) is to do NOTHING and hope that you didn't put down a pulsing AoE somewhere nearby. That's not counter-play, that's playing by someone else's arbitrary rules. Even using Blackout had more player thought and investment than Memebreaker pressing F2 in GW2. Man, even post-2010 E-drain/Wastrel Spam Mesmer has more depth than Full Counter, and that build is braindead. And, although Full Counter is undoubtedly the strongest form of bad combat design in GW2, the game is positively full of the same sort of thing: perfect damage negation while simultaneously taking offensive actions. That mere thing is what most makes GW2 combat such a joke (especially within the context of PvP).

The game isn't bad because it's an "action-style" game, GW2 is bad because there is no flow, tell or risk in combat. If played correctly, GW2 PvP looks as if the game itself is glitching out (people teleporting all over the place; phasing in and out of sight due to instant-cast, perfect invisibility; players walking through death traps of damage and CC, etc). It's just layers of passive procs and instant abilities which let people walk through everything and undermine concepts like good timing and positioning.

@Ithilwen.1529 said:ANET, this game is not suited to first person shooter style, unless you are willing to permit macros. ( In Star Trek Online, an NCsoft sister game, macros are virtually required for high level content. Even the devs use them in demonstration videos for new ships, for example. ) The macros would further homogenize classes.

Asking for macros like that is absolutely just a git gud issue. There aren't even that many skills in GW2. Besides, macros would just make GW2 even sillier given that there is no global cool-down, and every important skill is ranged and/or instant/near-instant. Combat is still a mess regardless, since there is no currently nothing stopping players from pressing 6 buttons at once. I'm no fan of it either. It's an ugly way to play any game.

@Ithilwen.1529 said:

I love the fact that we

had

very different classes.

I suggest that you;

GW2 never had "very different classes." There is a reason why PvP from launch-2013 was 4-5 d/d elementalists, and why certain classes were pushed entirely out of meta PvE. GW2's attempt at making a soft trinity like they had in GW1 was a complete failure due to:

• Too many professions
• Too many skills per profession given that 90% of them are just flavors of damage
• Not enough purposeful distinction (skill-types) among actions (things like: attack, skill, melee attack, spell, signet, etc; everything in the game is just a "skill" that deals un-typed damage)
• No shared or global systems that stretched across professions (no skill-types that every class has, no global resource system, etc)
• The inclusion of things such as stability and perfect damage negation
• Offensive attack intervals were pushed lower and lower despite excessive particle effect spam and inadequate tells from attack animations (if they even appear at all)
• Conditions didn't do anything important in any mode at launch (even now they don't do anything uniquely important; they just do damage)

@Ithilwen.1529 said:There is not a single thing that my favorite class, Mesmer, can do that another class cannot and they can very likely do it better.

That spoils the game.

The GW2 Mesmer was a flawed design, and it should have stayed as a boss mechanic from Winds of Change. If Anet wanted an action-RPG illusion mage, they would have gone with something like:

• Limit clone generation to 1 sturdy clone that deals equivalent damage to the user. Clones no longer need a target to summon.
• Every main-hand and two-handed has a low-recharge movement skill in their 2 slot Whenever this skill is used, it leaves behind a clone (clone has a 5s lifespan before vanishing).
• The F1 skill is a copy of the player's current weapon-set movement skill; the only difference is that it generates a clone which performs the movement skill instead of the player.
• F2 is a low-recharge "Swap locations with your clone."
• F3 is a toggle that causes your clone to performs your activated skills while it is active. The only skill that won't solely come from the clone while this toggle is active will be an auto-attack.
• F4 destroys your clone and summons a Phantasm based on your current weapon; you cannot create clones while the Phantasm is active. Your F1-F4 skills flip into Phantasm-specific skills. The Phantasm just attacks from your side and follows you around as if it were just directly part of you (mainly just for show).

But they didn't do that, so Mesmer is just a portal bot that is otherwise more or less as straightforward as any other class in GW2. Given the way the Mesmer was designed and how its skills work, there was absolutely no way that "mixing in with one's clones" was ever going to be a viable strategy.

We largely agree. The game needs to be slowed down a bit and be strategic. Right now, spam wins over management every time.

For the record, I didn't ask for macros. Rather I said that if ANET wants to make GW2 a first person shooter, ( as devs have stated they wished to do, ) something like macros would be needed.

The "ammunition" mechanic is an inferior version of energy management from GW1. It's an idea but it is not implemented in a good way. You can still spam 3 shots of fiery death. Your opponent dies instantly and you have plenty of time to recharge. (I'm looking at you, Scourge.) Ammunition could have added strategy to the game but it simply enables spam as it is.

In my sixth year of GW2, ( and 2nd year of GW1, ) classes were much more unique back when... ANET has allowed far too much homogenization and been too slow with patches.

Right now we have an issue we called "min/maxing" in Dungeons and Dragons. People don't choose a class because it's what they want to play. They choose the highest rated class on metabattle and play it as prescribed. That's boring and frustrating. This happens because the classes are too similar. It matters little which you choose. I agree with you on this.

So here's my suggestion ANET: The method of "balancing" by giving everyone the same abilities is both destructive to the game and ineffective.

To solve this,

Stop giving powers from one class to another. Let classes have an identity. GW2 is hobbled by the fact that everyone can pretty much do everything.

Stop playing favorites among classes, aim at each class and sub class being equivalent in power.

[Murmaider.1805]

I do ranked until I'm getting frustrated and stop; then I move to unranked, get a group of friends together, drink and shout stupid things in map chat and over Discord. I mean that's fun to me. People need to lighten up and have fun

[JVJD.4912]

Thats the underlining principalDevs wants to create a game the ppl would like to playPublihsers wants ppl to keep playing and payingPlayers just want entertainment