Future of GW2 eSports

[PopsFons.8934]

Hi

 

I wondered if there is any future left for esports in GW2.

It has been booming business last couple of years and I suppose that the Arenanet staff tried their best to board the train before deciding that the playerbase was not yet / will never be ready for organized esports tournaments for GW2. What are your thoughts on the matter?

 

Kind regards.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

If you want my true thoughts on the matter, I've always found 0 interest in eSports and find it boring and uninteresting.

I already find real sports uninteresting and I also don't watch stuff like Twitch as I never found an interest in watching someone play a game unless it's one of those "I'm interested in a game and I see no demo for it and/or not in the mood to pirate it... let me watch some gameplay and see if it looks interesting", then I might watch someone play.

 

So yeah. Just my opinion. Might not be the same as everyone (I would hope not as that would be a very creepy world where everyone shares my opinion), but whatever.

[ExiledEste.9536]

I would love for GW2 to be in the Esports scene again but at this moment and until further notice I don't think they will be focusing on that if not ever, but We have UGO wish is a tournament organization made by one guy and he holds GW2 tournaments

[TheBravery.9615]

[https://twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/65479402/?t=1h18m5s](https://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/65479402/?t=1h18m5s "https://twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/65479402/?t=1h18m5s")

Anet tried but they clearly weren't prepared. This game is full of match manipulators and to say this game is balanced would be a joke.

[DoomNexus.5324]

I don't think GW2 has any future as an esport title. Anet would have to put muuch more effort in PvP and balancing which is - in my opinion - not likely to happen. They didn't even do it back then when GW2 was kind of a thing in the esport scene and currently there are no signs they'll do such in the future.

 

All my thoughts aside I reeeeeeeeally wish Anet could afford it to put the needed effort in PvP and bring GW2 back to the esport :)

I honestly don't know why this isn't a primary target of Anet especially because GW2 already was an esport game so there's not only a potential. I think this would also give GW2 the attention and publicity it deserves.

[Harper.4173]

GW2 never had any eSports future to begin with. First of all to make anything an eSport these days you need quite a few people watching - so you can compete with other eSports out there.

Problem is MMOs are horrible for this - as you have to know the game before you can even begin watching. GW2 PvP is also incredibly complex and even GW2 players in their majority can't really figure out what's going on if they're watching a high-level eSports game.

Not understanding what's going on mostly translates into not having fun watching.

 

[DoomNexus.5324]

> @Harper.4173 said:

> GW2 never had any eSports future to begin with. First of all to make anything an eSport these days you need quite a few people watching - so you can compete with other eSports out there.

> Problem is MMOs are horrible for this - as you have to know the game before you can even begin watching. GW2 PvP is also incredibly complex and even GW2 players in their majority can't really figure out what's going on if they're watching a high-level eSports game.

> Not understanding what's going on mostly translates into not having fun watching.

>

 

That's a very pessimistic point of view :D

Also I think this is kinda wrong. While shooters are very easy to understand you'd typically have also no clue what's going on when watching Star Craft 2, LoL or DOTA2 unless you play the game yourself.

 

Plus I think ppl would learn more about PvP in GW2, because I know it from myself. I was terrible in PvP until I started to watch youtube stuff and twitch streams and finally understood what my actual tasks in sPvP were with a given class. My guess would be if ppl would just know what their class is actually supposed to do there would be like 90% less "Nerf dis buff dat q_q"-mimimi threads and esport would greatly contribute in spreading this kind of knowledge.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

eSports for GW2 was all about advertising; ANet has said as much more than once. They never intended it to be anything more than that.

[zoomborg.9462]

Most games that wanna be part of e-sports are usually designed like that from the get go, that includes steep learning curves, complex mechanics, teamwork,reflexes etc etc.Next step is monthly balance patches to shake the meta and make it interesting again, make players learn new stuff,combinations and adjust their skills and strategies. Then u have the companies put huge amount of $$$$ into advertisement and into the prizepool (200.000 $ is nothing) to draw people to it and make them super competitive, that's how its done.

The last one is the most important overall, only games with huge money rewards can sustain a competitive scene and be popular as e-sports, GW2 never had that kind of incentive.

eSports used to be something very special sustained by the games population purely for fun but nowadays its one of the most competitive markets with huge sponsors dropping cash like crazy, it evolved into a whole culture (especially in asia) and only companies with that kind of commitment can make a game successful in this environment.

[zombyturtle.5980]

It wasnt the playerbase it was Anet themselves who werent ready to enter esports. The game was designed poorly for esports from the start and had less than half the resources needed to even think about entering esport level gameplay.

 

Capture the point isnt a great mode for esports because the game doesnt have clear stages of progression where tactics and gameplay change, meaning the mode gets stale very fast. Example: ALL the game is, is fighting on points. It never changes. Compared to LOL or DOTA where you have 3 clear stages, laning, grouping and final push which gives 3 varieties of stragety which can be played around making it much more interesting and varied.

 

GW2 as an MMO has FAR too many skills and most of these skills are too spammable to be watchable. Almost all epsorts are limited to 5-6 skills (or weapons) as its difficult for spectators, especially those unfamiliar with the game to follow plays that involve chaining endless skills and it loses the wow outplay factor. Keeping it simple makes it clear when a player uses what few tools they have well, and when they use them poorly.

 

Visual clutter is bad and has only gotten worse.

 

The game launched without a functioning ladder or league system...Im pretty sure it took them 6+ months to get that working...I mean cmon..

 

Balancing is done only once every 3 months and often doesnt fix major issues. This is unacceptable for any competitive game. Bimonthly is the industry standard for any game that wants to be part of the esports scene.

 

Prize money pools, like someone mentioned above are far too small. They need to be in the millions. They also failed to hype or advertise the games and didnt spotlight key players at all.

 

Overall Im glad they arent focusing on Esports anymore and hope they can make pvp a more enjoyable experience with more variety isntead of keeping only 1 mode.

 

[Kapax.3801]

Yes, the problem that many players complain about PvP, WvE and PvE ... I mean, they're screwed.

To be honest, at this point I do not want to bother anymore.

[Yamazuki.6073]

The ultimate thing that determines whether a game succeeds as an esport or not is how enjoyable it is to watch. MMORPG pvp generally is not enjoyable. There's a bunch of flashy stuff going on, no balance, animations that look similar, animations that are can't really be seen, a lot of instant cast effects, etc. Watching it would be difficult even if you had experience playing the game, and it all around isn't enjoyable to watch for many even if they were to enjoy playing. If no one wants to watch the games, then it won't succeed because the money in esports will come from the views.

 

If there is ever a GW3 then maybe it can succeed, because as it is now there would have to be so many changes made for a game that is already old, may as well save the effort for a new game that would get better attention.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @Yamazuki.6073 said:

> The ultimate thing that determines whether a game succeeds as an esport or not is how enjoyable it is to watch. MMORPG pvp generally is not enjoyable. There's a bunch of flashy stuff going on, no balance, animations that look similar, animations that are can't really be seen, a lot of instant cast effects, etc. Watching it would be difficult even if you had experience playing the game, and it all around isn't enjoyable to watch for many even if they were to enjoy playing. If no one wants to watch the games, then it won't succeed because the money in esports will come from the views.

 

Thank you, some one beat me to it.

 

MMO and esports don't mesh well. MMOs are to complex for non involved viewers to follow (there goes a huge chunk of your viewer base), have to much changes happen to the meta or new expansions shaking everything up (there goes consistency) and are often not balanced well (there goes your mastery and skill aspect).

 

There is a reason why the most popular esport games are:

- low amount of class skills

- easy to follow

- flat power level

- slow shifting meta (but when it does, it shakes things up)

 

One of the only sort of successful esport MMOs is WoW and that's only because a huge player base will have a small minority be interested in esports. Going by pure numbers of total player base and people actually watching esports for WoW, it's a complete joke.

 

[GrubySzymek.1362]

gw2 never was and never will be an esport, whole fixation on competitive mode only hurt the game

[Ben K.6238]

GW2 PvP is frankly boring to watch. There's a good combat system, but the classes have been overcooked to the point it's difficult to recognise skilful play, and the game mode wasn't well designed. Mechanically, it forces some degree of tactical play, but the goal of GW1 GvG (kill the enemy lord first) had a much stronger appeal than being the team to hold 3 arbitrary points on the map for the longest period of time, and in my view it was a mistake to make this change for GW2.

 

Incidentally, had the PvP combat in GW2 been designed around the assumption you'd have 5-8 players per team involved in each fight, rather than 1-3, the combat would have scaled a whole lot better for WvW as well.

[Shirlias.8104]

> @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> gw2 never was and never will be an esport, whole fixation on competitive mode only hurt the game

 

This.

And it's not being rude or hating the game ( GW2 is a good game but is not meant for a competitive scenario ).

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @Shirlias.8104 said:

> > @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > gw2 never was and never will be an esport, whole fixation on competitive mode only hurt the game

>

> This.

> And it's not being rude or hating the game ( GW2 is a good game but is not meant for a competitive scenario ).

 

Don't let the WvW or PvP board see this post(s). They might have a heart attack.

 

 

[Shirlias.8104]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @Shirlias.8104 said:

> > > @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > > gw2 never was and never will be an esport, whole fixation on competitive mode only hurt the game

> >

> > This.

> > And it's not being rude or hating the game ( GW2 is a good game but is not meant for a competitive scenario ).

>

> Don't let the WvW or PvP board see this post(s). They might have a heart attack.

 

;)

 

Btw to be clear i do enjoy following both modalities ( like Sindrener for SPvP or MightyTeaPot for Wvw/Social ) and play them but the limit balance and mechanics related are neat.

 

[mazut.4296]

> @Harper.4173 said:

> GW2 never had any eSports future to begin with. First of all to make anything an eSport these days you need quite a few people watching - so you can compete with other eSports out there.

> Problem is MMOs are horrible for this - as you have to know the game before you can even begin watching. GW2 PvP is also incredibly complex and even GW2 players in their majority can't really figure out what's going on if they're watching a high-level eSports game.

> Not understanding what's going on mostly translates into not having fun watching.

>

 

I agree that MMOs are bad start for eSport, but to call gw2 pvp complex... really

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @mazut.4296 said:

> > @Harper.4173 said:

> > GW2 never had any eSports future to begin with. First of all to make anything an eSport these days you need quite a few people watching - so you can compete with other eSports out there.

> > Problem is MMOs are horrible for this - as you have to know the game before you can even begin watching. GW2 PvP is also incredibly complex and even GW2 players in their majority can't really figure out what's going on if they're watching a high-level eSports game.

> > Not understanding what's going on mostly translates into not having fun watching.

> >

>

> I agree that MMOs are bad start for eSport, but to call gw2 pvp complex... really

 

I think he means "So many classes are build so different that if you don't know a specific class or set up you might wonder "Wait... what?" and get confused" I guess.

Like if someone who's always been Warrior or knows Warrior with Adrenaline might think the other classes has that same structure. You get attacks, you build up a power bar, you unleash attacks with it. Seems typical.

Then you go and see Necro and go "Oh, well not just one attack but the bar(s) changes you and make you transform. Cool.

Then someone who don't understand might see let's say Mirage and wonder what's going on there as why 4 completely different attacks or then see Ranger and wondering why they're so "useless" because it's only pet commands and so on and so forth.

Or Thief/Deadeye stealing and so on and so forth.

 

I think he mean "confusing for some/many people" and not that it's complex.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @DoomNexus.5324 said:

> > @Harper.4173 said:

> > GW2 never had any eSports future to begin with. First of all to make anything an eSport these days you need quite a few people watching - so you can compete with other eSports out there.

> > Problem is MMOs are horrible for this - as you have to know the game before you can even begin watching. GW2 PvP is also incredibly complex and even GW2 players in their majority can't really figure out what's going on if they're watching a high-level eSports game.

> > Not understanding what's going on mostly translates into not having fun watching.

> >

>

> That's a very pessimistic point of view :D

> Also I think this is kinda wrong. While shooters are very easy to understand you'd typically have also no clue what's going on when watching Star Craft 2, LoL or DOTA2 unless you play the game yourself.

>

> Plus I think ppl would learn more about PvP in GW2, because I know it from myself. I was terrible in PvP until I started to watch youtube stuff and twitch streams and finally understood what my actual tasks in sPvP were with a given class. My guess would be if ppl would just know what their class is actually supposed to do there would be like 90% less "Nerf dis buff dat q_q"-mimimi threads and esport would greatly contribute in spreading this kind of knowledge.

 

But those games DO make for a good spectators, which is the real reason certain titles gained popularity that way. Comp players are manipulators by nature, so its extremely hard to design a game around them while still maintaining spectator engagement. But if you look at nearly all the eSports and even National sports games which are popular, they all have a hand full of things in common.

- An easy to follow objective

- Only really needing to focus on 1 or 2 things to follow events

- Easy to follow movement

- and Upsets

 

Ball games focus on the ball, which makes it easy for the Camera to know where to be at any given time. When you start getting into video games, an easy to read environment is crucial. MOBAs accomplish almost entirely through their Difference in Kind balance model with the Champions, with each one's distinct visual style not only being a draw for attention, but improves spectator and player's ability to keep track of what happening. MOBAs tend to have higher visual learning for spectators; but once you establish basic rules for skill ranges and effects, situational awareness continues to grow naturally. Its greatest difficulty, however, is too many points of action forcing them to move around to capture noteworthy events. One of the most irritating things to someone watching is only seeing the last half of an event, as context given by the lead up adds the much needed tension.

When you get to shooters, CS got away with its simplistic models and uncomplicated mechanics. Objectives being static also lends a huge boon to predicting where flare ups of activity are likely to happen. Fast forward to TF2, and that game gets around its visual chaos by having everything being extremely distinct visually, audibly and behaviorally- its so well refined, you can immediately recognize what projectiles belong to what classes (stock) after observing a few games of CP or Cart. The polarized direction of the those maps also contribute heavily to observing player strategy, since that tends to be a trait of most live sports people will recognize immediately. However, if I had to point out one weakness in the spectator systems of many FPS games, its that its really hard to predict the right point of views to capture the most important moments. Some things are better seen from an external view, while others only make sense from player eye view. Case in point, this clip from CS:GO...

 

If you don't play game's CS's era, at first it wouldn't make any sense about what happening. But the punch line is something that would be right at home with modern action movie, and most people would catch on pretty quickly. As much of an anomaly that is, it highlights how important the right point of view is these kinds of moments.

 

Moving up to MOBAs and RTS games, the strategy aspect is mostly ignored by spectators, as much of their interest gets tied up in the individual skirmishes that break out during the match. The size of the Rosters tend to be a problem "at first", but eventually people watching can begin picking it apart by following one player at a time to learn what the attacks look like. From there is just a matter of mental investment one is wanting to put in. A good spectator sport is one where the audience can follow along, so major moments are easily recognizable. A great one is where the audience can delve into the plays, the roster, and rules to start making predictions. But a fantastic one is where those predictions can be wrong, is still within the realm of control, and occurred when something previously thought unimportant suddenly became critical in that exact moment. This is the alluring nature of the "Upset", and why it can only be appreciated when organic. We've all seen compilations of them.... feats of improbability, perfect mathmatical alignment that defies odds, or one intentionally delivered action that utterly disrupts a moment to moment prediction of outcome.

 

GW2 combat only plays to some of these elements, but does a terrible job of projecting the most important ones. First and foremost, the damage system is significant for the wrong reasons. The damage and HP scales are too large for the numbers to feel significant, so many will default to a perception of "average scale"... basically anything less then 5000 is unimpressive, because most attacks are 4 digits, and less then 5 is commonly seen as below average (ie round down value). Once you start getting into 8k and up, thats when the eye catches a potential tip into 5 digits. It seems asinine at first, but this information eventually gets supplanted with metrics for TTK and Burst combos, as those have more universally recognized significance. Look at any game of LOL, and seeing how big of a chuck of the HP bar is lost has more meaning then how much damage an attack is actually doing. Looping back around to GW2's buildcraft, there is an extremely heavy skewing toward raw damage potential in everything that reaches meta; and that hampers all other aspects by demanding extremely high performance in other areas to give up the universal potency of 0 HP = Dead. Now are you starting to see why slow attrition damage is pretty boring for a spectator, when 1 or 2 shot combos, or a 2-3 second burn downs exist within the system.

Moving on to visuals..... the game started out of the gate with too many effects that were universal in nature. Boons are excellent for an attrition style damage setup (which is what PvE is with the decisions they made). But for PvP where they are aiming decisive action, the sheer number of boons and conditions gets in the way of everything. Condi is broken here, because its application is passive, and has to "ramp up" to matter... this leaves it in a place where its insignificant, until its not. Like burst damage, burst condi's impact is immediate; and only through that apparent threat does it actually create tension in the battle.

If we're going with opinions for a second, the Degen methodology of GW1 was extremely easy to understand, and made immediately clear how much danger you were in when stacked with conditions. The same can't be said with Damage conditions in GW2, where the damage can be shurged off, until they hit a tipping point of each DPS tick matching that of a burst attack. CC on the other hand fair a LOT better, because each one had a far better visual cue to go with its negative performance effects. But given how their piled on, you always just watching a moving character, then suddenly its moving less good. Its only in certain key situations where a single condition is the turning point for the outcome..... a player escapes, but cripple causes them to hobble along for a few seconds before the enemy catches up. That gap in time, and the realization of the odds of his escape dropping rapidly, is exactly the kind of tension that makes that moment feel impactful, instead of stupid due to being grossly overwhelmed. Had that same thing happened in a condi bomb, they're so overwhelmed that survival, if even possible, won't feel important when another bomb restacks it all moments later. Turning around and fighting would look futile, and less heroic as a result.

 

 

Ugh, theres so much here to be covered, but I'm getting tired trying to sort through it all. Frankly, at this point I may as well just point to Overwatch, as its a literal master class on designing for spectator engagement, and is one of the few games that aimed for eSports and got its PUG to Comp "play scaling" even remotely correct. The problem I've noticed, supported by anecdotes from MLG players (though they'll never admit it), is that designing for eSports using Comp player feedback results in a game that too reliable mechanically to be fun to watch, and usually not fun to play unless you're hitting Korean levels of practice. Its mostly rooted in the demand for perfect balance, in an inherently imperfect system created by their other demand of mechanical complexity. If you look at older games that were fun in their own right, and a Competitive league later formed around it, you'll notice the game's high level play were unintentional side effects of an uncapped portion of the mechanics. In less obtuse terms, most older games had simple, fairly uncomplicated rules, and players got creative in how they employed them. While most modern games employ force multiplication, and damage and/or TTK metrics as their primary balance target, and thus a mathematical hierarchy arises in the meta. When too many weapon/attacks are similar, you end up with everyone favoring certain ones for their damage output. BRINK, Titanfall, Tribes: Ascend, all games which are based on old school arena combat, all having extremely high mobility, and yet the homogeneous design of their gunplay inevitably undermines the choice of weapons to a hand full which can consistently dump large amounts of damage, in a short time.... and surprisingly, none of top performers are splash weapons. In all 3 cases, it was a high ROF AR type weapon, with high accuracy, and high "per magazine" damage capacity. And when I say high accuracy, I mean strong recoil control to mitigate bloom at multiple ranges. On top of this, the first 2 are hit scan, while the third has the highest velocity of non-hitscan. This may seem off topic right now.... but consider how its design allows for what should be a high precision weapon for mid to long fights, performs markedly better up close by just pouring damage into a target with much less care for aim or stability. The only reason the Shotguns still outperform at short range is their ability to damage dump a lethal blow 1 to 2 shots at most.

This is essentially whats happening with Condi bombs. The problem isn't it inherently being "less skilled" mechanically... its that its designed in such a way that counter play isn't possible without a binary solution, so stacking it just always works. It also irks me when people claim things to be skilled or unskilled, as if skill itself can be quantified as like a damage metric, and thus a mechanic can be made to work only for a certain group of people. So to all you people who claim thieves are fine because they have a high skill cap- just understand that you managed to hit a minimum viable to cheese the mechanics and remove the counter play..... and given how they've treated "reveal" skills as hard counters that are never reliable due to having incredibly short range, and not nearly enough uptime to compete against disengage potential of even a core thief. Because at some point the Devs are going to realize that thieve seem to be the only things that work right, and are going to go nuts with the hard counters..... We've been down this road with stability; and I suspect the only reason they've never touched stealth is because it doesn't have a damage metric they can use to put it on the list of things to balance.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @Shirlias.8104 said:

> > > @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > > gw2 never was and never will be an esport, whole fixation on competitive mode only hurt the game

> >

> > This.

> > And it's not being rude or hating the game ( GW2 is a good game but is not meant for a competitive scenario ).

>

> Don't let the WvW or PvP board see this post(s). They might have a heart attack.

>

>

 

PvP and WvW are skin farms now. All people interested in competitive environment left.

[Ayakaru.6583]

Dont quote me on this but..

But I overheard some people wanting to make a phonecall to anet to let the, know they have a pvp mode in their game

[Harper.4173]

> @DoomNexus.5324 said:

> > @Harper.4173 said:

> > GW2 never had any eSports future to begin with. First of all to make anything an eSport these days you need quite a few people watching - so you can compete with other eSports out there.

> > Problem is MMOs are horrible for this - as you have to know the game before you can even begin watching. GW2 PvP is also incredibly complex and even GW2 players in their majority can't really figure out what's going on if they're watching a high-level eSports game.

> > Not understanding what's going on mostly translates into not having fun watching.

> >

>

> That's a very pessimistic point of view :D

> Also I think this is kinda wrong. While shooters are very easy to understand you'd typically have also no clue what's going on when watching Star Craft 2, LoL or DOTA2 unless you play the game yourself.

>

> Plus I think ppl would learn more about PvP in GW2, because I know it from myself. I was terrible in PvP until I started to watch youtube stuff and twitch streams and finally understood what my actual tasks in sPvP were with a given class. My guess would be if ppl would just know what their class is actually supposed to do there would be like 90% less "Nerf dis buff dat q_q"-mimimi threads and esport would greatly contribute in spreading this kind of knowledge.

 

Shooters are easy to watch. Most eSports are shooters. Starcraft 2 has a very particular situation with SC1 being a precursor and already a household name as an esport. It also helps that the generations that were introduced to SC1 as an esport were very different than today's gamers.

As far as dota 2 goes - it's still far easiler to watch than GW2.

The games take longer - there's a lot more down time and it's somewhat less complex. There are fewer variables and hero abilities you have to take into account or follow.

 

 

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > @Shirlias.8104 said:

> > > > @Kheldorn.5123 said:

> > > > gw2 never was and never will be an esport, whole fixation on competitive mode only hurt the game

> > >

> > > This.

> > > And it's not being rude or hating the game ( GW2 is a good game but is not meant for a competitive scenario ).

> >

> > Don't let the WvW or PvP board see this post(s). They might have a heart attack.

> >

> >

>

> PvP and WvW are skin farms now. All people interested in competitive environment left.

 

If that is honestly true, then can we just kill off PvP and WvW and add those skins within PvE?

I'm just saying, because when I had to go through WvW only to get that Triumphant top was painful.