Reasons to play sPvP?

[Hotride.2187]

TL;DR what are the incentives of playing sPvP over roaming in WvW? I don't care about the legendary items you can get only from sPvP (at least not yet).

 

Some background:

 

Recently I started doing roaming/dueling in WvW to learn more about PvP (as to not ruin other players games by not knowing how to PvP at a very basic level). At this point I think I have at least a minimal understanding of how to fight most professions and their usually-played builds.

 

Yesterday I hopped into unranked PvP (the game doesn't let me queue for ranked yet) and the experience was weird and mostly felt whatever-ish. Some things that stood out:

 

1. Queue time has been 2 min minimum, usually 3 min; and that on a Sunday evening. Its not that WvW is very active in comparison, but waiting 2 min for a 7-8 min long game is not that amazing.

2. The arenas I entered felt very claustrophobic and cramped. Objectives were literally 10-15 seconds away from the next one. Is there some larger arenas I can choose from (I noticed players vote on an arena but the arena gets chosen "at random" even so)?

3. Sigils/runes/amulet felt very foreign and especially that even if they have a counterpart in WvW, they were different (so I have to re-read everything). Overall my profession felt very different to playing it in WvW (spellbreaker). Makes me very dubious as to whether I want to learn a lot of things all over again.

4. Players mostly didn't know what they are doing on their classes. I expect this will change as I spend time in the mode (but will I), but after which rank/level, or after how much time?

5. The objective-oriented play felt mostly lacking. Is that due to my low rank? At what rank/level should I expect people to actually play for objectives? Or players mostly queue to fight each other (if so, I can stay in WvW)?

 

Should I be bothering with the game mode at all? Again,  WvW is not particularly active and I don't get enough of a PvP experience in it for the time I spend. How much time should I give sPvP before I decide whether to play it at all? Or is it just in a very bad spot (e.g. WvW is not in a great spot) and I should be waiting for changes (that might never come)?

Edited August 2, 2021 by Hotride.2187

[Genesis.5169]

Only advantage is the option to not be zerged by 20 people out of nowhere.

[Cynz.9437]

Gear/food doesn't matter. Nobody is uplevel. You can create an account and hop right in and have decent fight/impact on outcome without need for farming.

 

It is more structured and controlled environment (hence why it is called structured pvp). Roaming can be really boring if nothing is happening on the maps or people run ONLY in huge zergs.

 

Also, you can have awesome chat with enemy team without much restriction ❤️ I personally LOVE when enemy says "teef carried you all" at the end of the match 🥰 In WvW i just get insta kick from squad and hate whispers for playing thief ._.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Cynz.9437

[Barquiel.5610]

sPvP and WvW are def 2 different things. The incentives in playing sPvP is really more person to person esp if you don't want the legendaires from PvP. However, I will list the reasons why I play sPvP and you can agree or disagree with them as you please. 

 

1. WvW is still mostly PvE ie. Flipping Camps, Killing Yaks, Flipping Guards.

2. Forcing a 1v1 or 1v2 in WvW is like finding gold on the street. Most people will just run away as they are trying to get to there zerg.

3. Even if your roaming sPvP is the place to be for fights. You can get in 10x more practice on a build in PvP than WvW.

4. Gear in sPvP is not an issue. Lets be completely honest. Most montages are against people in lackluster gear.

5. sPvP is a great place to build, learn builds, and fight against popular builds. 

6. Time. If I have a choice of spending 1 hour in WvW and maybe get 4 decent 1v1's or a fun exchange while trying to hold a camp vs spending an hour in sPvP and get more than 15 exchanges. I'll take the sPvP every time.

 

Honestly I treat sPvP like a old school Halo match. WvW for me at least is just PvE with the occasional duel.

Also in terms of skill. Doesn't matter if it's WvW or sPvP. You'll have the same person that just copy/paste builds in videos and has never read a single skill or trait on their class. They just spam buttons and then complain that there class is horrible in some way.

 

In either case my friend you do you. I would say play sPvP until you unlock Ranked and then maybe try Ranked for a bit to see where you stand. At the end of the day tho. It's a game and games are supposed to be fun. So do what ever you have fun with instead of trying to force your self to do something you don't like.

[Hotride.2187]

Well, to come back to this.

As advised I gave ranked a go, I ended up playing ~100 games (over half in ranked). Overall I really like the gameplay, but the framework around it I don't like at all.

The spvp rewards are tied to ranked to an extent where unranked seems pointless to play. You only get the pvp reward track progress from unranked or did I miss something?  The pips rewards do look good compared to wvw, in particular getting the pvp chests seems way faster.

Queue times are quite bad if I don't queue in the evening, which is when I often want to do other things. Even during "prime" time, over 3 min queue was not uncommon. I've read on the forum that the longer the queue takes the higher my chances are to play against way better players. This is not very encouraging, on top of the waiting.

Aaaand my biggest issue is the tiered ranking system. I don't mind the rating number itself. But I floated on gold 3 ever since finishing the first 10 games, dropping to gold 2 once and getting in platinum 1 right at the end of the season. I'm definitely not a platinum player, I can tell. But being 1 win away from next tier and then dropping down does something to my brain, that makes me go "no thanks". Other games I've played with similar tiered ranking have had me quit over the system. I'm sure its a me problem but I don't play games to get stressed over badge pixels. There is also the community on the forum often giving kitten to bronze and silver players, what if I'm actually one of those and lucked out? So more stress I don't need.

What I did like was the general skill level of players I played with. I would say it was usually notch higher than wvw roamers, often on par with players I duel in wvw. And I also liked the close games, as few and far between as they were.

I'll likely get the 120 ranked wins in case I decide to craft the pvp amulet in future, then I'll either play unranked every now and then or drop the mode entirely.

 

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Gold, it can be fun if u have 0 expectations and care little about win/loss.

[Gamble.4580]

Ita fun.

Only reason that matters.