Let's brainstorm on solutions to the population issue

[Xibalbar.7459]

Its just this only one gamemode making it pretty boring after some time. People starts to playing the system for good ranking, instad of having some fun. At end, we need just 5v5, 4v4, 3v3, 2v2 and maybe 1v1 to hold the game fresh. You also can add ladders to all of this modes. I was playing last 3 days battlerite and i enjoy this battles over the orb and mindgames. Something we miss in gw2 so far. Its like set someone to bunk a node, place a overtuned combo in mid, let someone bruise and have one bunky lad on the other node. Nothing changed overall, same things since 5years, same tactics.

 

And balance is a myth. In mobas there are also matchups you cant win, hardcounters you wont face 1v1. Its given by nature. Diversity is in my opinion much better, it gives me more options to play something around, the only badly thing is just if one or two builds are mandatory and setting the meta in stone for all other choices. This is what gw2 acutal do: Matches around scrouge/firebrand and before necro/tempest.

 

If anet will, they can create a great pvp game.

[babazhook.6805]

The underlying problem with PvP is as much the community as it is the balance issues. Any system that provides ranks based upon success in a given game is going to breed toxicity when groups of strangers are put into one team. This category is filled with threads with people angry that they can not achieve a higher rank due to players on their team they deem as weak As an example of this one can look to WvW when they had those tournaments. People wanted to win at all costs so as to gain better rewards which lead to server jumping and match manipulation.

 

The system also limits diversity by design. The way points are awarded defines much narrower gameplay to a given player. A person might want to try out a different or favorite build from elsewhere can not do so in PvP and if they try the examples of these boards and chats I have seen cut and pasted make it clear that other team members are NOT welcoming of such. The player that does play a certain class is then expected to perform a very specific role. if a game narrows choices via the builds that can be used or the roles a given player can play in game the playerbase will be narrowed.

 

A real life example. I was once in a casual softball league where players just joined up with groups of friends to have fun. We played the game for FUN more to win. As is often the case one or two of the teams in the league decided winning the most important thing and started just using players that were very very good. There was no room for the casual on their teams. They then trounced every other team they faced and eventually casual players just quit. The league then fell apart as the playerbase narrowed.

 

There is always going to be more casual players then there is those that deem themselves as "elite players". The format is not friendly to the casual player at all meaning the population base much narrower. This naturally leads to a more competitive format where everyone will seek any edge they can get. If a given skill/trait or build found that has a much higher success rate than many players will flock to it. As such any balance issues will ALWAYS be more pronounced in the PvP format and will always become the major talking point amongst the players that participate in the same. There has to be a much greater separation between open world PvE skills and the Pvp skills for that reason.

 

That said and back to the toxicity , if MORE player rewards are added , these going only to the better players it inevitable there will be more of that toxicity and that itself will lead to a further erosion of the player base even amongst those very competitive types. When it becomes all about what the individual can win over the good of the gaming community that might prefer that mode then you will get a whole pile of posts from people wanting every profession but their own nerfed so they can have a better chance at those rewards.

[Rennie.6750]

Easy:

 

- forbid switching class before a match starts

- remove team, map and say chat

- remove team map markers and commands

- implement a strict and harsh AFK detector.

- increase dishonor for disconnects (it's basic courtesy to avoid competitive modes if you have terrible internet too).

 

With less salt and fewer cheap ways to sabotage your own team, the population should increase eventually. I've had my share of defeats lately, but very few of them were fair ones, it was only disconnects, people going AFK or not trying, and endless complaints because why not. Also, map markers spam that drive me nuts. I can't focus when someone is playing with that crap. I suspect I'm not alone to turn insane with the constant "beep beep beep".

[Lilyanna.9361]

> @Griever.8150 said:

> Honestly, you guys can complain about balance, matchmaking, power creep or whatever else you have absolutely no control over forever and it won't help the game.

>

> Even if Anet would miraculously fix all that people would whine about something else. Just look at the Matchmaking conundrum, people say they want longer queues now to improve match quality, but amusingly enough in other games i played people kept asking the devs to take measures to shorten queue times at the higher end just so the top players could actually play the game, so its rather easy to imagine how that would go here when people start getting bored of sitting around in 1hour queues.

>

> Bottom line, what makes or break a game is its community, and the higher you go on the ladder the more unbearable this one is. Its just one massive ego-fueled shitshow and one of the biggest problem come from the top.

>

> I'm a fairly new player, which makes me to a lot of you guys a "bot", a "monkey" or a "kitten". Its that simple. I can't count the time i got harassed or insulted just for playing the game, even in kitten unranked. Don't get me wrong, i have a thick skin, i really couldn't give 2 kitten about this but at the same time you have to remember this is a game, most people do this to unwind or pass time. Is it really totally unimaginable that most people don't care about putting up with this? At least within my friends and guildies, that's always what comes first as to why they don't play sPvP anymore.

>

> Then i decide to tune in on twitch and watch some of you guys, that's one way to learn right? I'm again greeted with endless rants about how everyone on their team (except that one occasional guy who's part of "the gang") and everyone on the other team is, again, a "bot", a "monkey", a "kitten" and so on and so forth. Have you guys ever watched some of your own vods? How aren't you cringing at this? I know i am.

>

> Sadly, this is 2017. Twitch is how you promote a game, build a community. I don't like it either, but its how it works now and that puts some responsibility on the people who do it. You become the face of this game's community.

>

> How can you grow a game's population when you effectively turn off any potential (non-masochistic) newcomers right off the bat?

>

>

>

>

 

Because people don't give a damn.

When you have people like the Abjured chuckleboys and faces like that for NA what do you expect? They had their own damn website which made 4chan look like a kiddie's website. Why would I ever take this game mode seriously where some of the dudes up top had:

 

Account shared/Smurf

Blalantly insulted the company

Influenced some of the PVP changes way back in the day (not positive about this one. This one was more of a rumor from other players. Take it with a grain of salt)

Has been recorded to massively insult/harass other players

Claiming they deserve more

Troll purposefully.

Throw games

 

There's probably a lot more I haven't seen. But the point is, I don't care how good you are. I don't care if you can portal around me three times and then kill me in one combo. If your attitude is garbage and you represent (or used to) represent the face of GW2, the community will follow suit. Monkey see, monkey do. Your attitude is atrocious and honestly pros from other games would probably laugh at you.

 

I'm not saying you are real life heroes, that this is very much a game. However, you chose and put the effort to be this good, so therefore you should be acting like a role model. I openly thank people like Phantaram who understands and still tries to be positive/calm in the situations that lay out before him. It makes me relieved and makes me want to watch his streams more. Not all of the top people are absolute 4chan-bred human beings.

 

But to you, who have done the listed things above? Do the community a favor and just leave. You are only making it more toxic and stirring the monkey see behavior whether you like it or not. Fix yourself up, look at your past behaviors and streams, and strive to do better, instead of being a typical internet c uck.

[Thane.9421]

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure whether the PvP devs will ever even read this post, much less take the feedback seriously. But in good faith, and because I can't find a better pvp game of this sort (yet,) I'll throw a couple ideas out there:

 

1.) Accessibility. GW1 had a PvP 'package' that allowed you to unlock the pvp mode fully, without buying the actual pve content. Maybe GW2 could use something like that - a cheap PvP only unlock of all classes, without unlocking the PvE content from the expansions. The idea is to lower the cost barrier to someone from outside GW2 who is interested primarily in PvP, and is probably experienced in PvP in other games, from wanting to join GW2 knowing how much they'll need to invest to be competitive.

 

2.) Stop using low population as an excuse not to implement a feature. If Anet doesn't believe that by implementing a feature they will attract players to play said feature, what hope is there? Currently, we don't have the population for, for example, split team and solo ranked queues. HOWEVER, speaking anecdotally, I have seen a large number of pvp players I personally knew leave the game due to lack of team oriented content since the removal of team queue in ranked. ATs are a step in the right direction, but simply aren't enough to keep a group of friends playing together. They last an hour or so at most, and aren't always available, making them difficult to schedule around. So, design something new. Come up with some kind of team pvp content that is incentivized sufficiently (unlike ranked, which gives paltry rewards and has no point) that REQUIRES 5 man queues to participate. Alliance Battle was this way in GW1, and people formed up groups for it all the time, and it was fun.

 

3.) MMOs are about playing with friends. The format is inherently inferior for single player play to, well, virtually every single player game out there. I'm not saying having a solo ranked queue is bad - there are many positive things about it. This game does not have integrated comms however, conquest is designed around a team cooperating, and losses due to poor play from a teammate you didn't choose are just more frustrating than losing a match that was fair, contributing to toxicity. Why not, for example:

A.) implement something like Random Arenas in GW1 that is solo q only, where it's just a single team fight to the death and then you roll to the next match, with quick matchmaking thanks to the solo q restrictions and inability for anyone to change classes.

B.)Perhaps implement a ranked dueling system, or 2v2 dueling system, or a variable dueling system allowing teams size 1-5 to be matched against teams of the same size.

C.) How about a self-started tournament system, where players can set up a tournament in game, with rewards, even if they have to be payed for by the players themselves (for example, all players entered must contribute x gold, with a distribution decided on by the tournament starter out of the prize pool to the highest placing teams) so that actual 5 man teams can do something when there's no AT available.

 

4.) Finally, retention. This is where everyone's points about balance, friendliness to the newbies and regular balance patches come in. We've seen twice now a significant swell in the pvp player population after an expac only to see it rapidly diminish because there wasn't enough focus on retention. I fear this may be symptomatic of the buy-to-play format, but I'd love Anet to prove otherwise to us all. I'm not gonna rehash what everyone else has said on this, because there's plenty of excellent feedback on this thread on the subject of player retention already.

 

Look, Anet, you've got a community dishing out ideas here for FREE. Can we maybe get some response or feedback on our feedback?

[maddoctor.2738]

> @Thane.9421 said:

> 1.) Accessibility. GW1 had a PvP 'package' that allowed you to unlock the pvp mode fully, without buying the actual pve content. Maybe GW2 could use something like that - a cheap PvP only unlock of all classes, without unlocking the PvE content from the expansions. The idea is to lower the cost barrier to someone from outside GW2 who is interested primarily in PvP, and is probably experienced in PvP in other games, from wanting to join GW2 knowing how much they'll need to invest to be competitive.

 

This is an excellent idea! A cheap pvp package that allows a new player, who is interested into pvp, to unlock only the specs in order to play competitively in pvp is a great option!

 

[HeadCrowned.6834]

I am very glad too see al these responses and good ideas being dropped here. I know that a lot of people think that it won't help anyway, but it's all a community can do. Let's keep it up.

[Genesis.5169]

The community refuses to pvp because the community isn't into difficult content and pvp is as hard as it gets, this why people don't raid or do high level fotms the reasons why spvp,wvw,and raiders are the minority here is because they are willing to get rekted and learn, where as the rest of the community will come to the forums and complain to nerf things like the eater of souls quest and countless other things that aren't hard.

 

People need to understand the death of spvp after the second year of gw2 was because GW2 officially established itself as a casual MMO and a ton of people who considered them selves hardcore or a serious quit including myself left. Now before you guys say well your here now why don't you quit, i play this and ff14 and i play both for different reasons Gw2 has the combat i like for fun, and ff14 has the progression and feeling of accomplishment that i don't get in gw2.

 

No amount of tweaking is going to fix this the issue is with the playbase not the game mode.

[Cynz.9437]

Imo, what we need it:

- carrots, lot of carrots that are pvp specific so people are interested to drop their pve/wvw for a sec and join pvp. Reward players for winning, not just participating. Give us flippin mount skins for example for top 10 or something.

- class balance isolated from other modes and most importantly INDEPENDENT FROM MARKETING STRATEGIES of Anet management

- working pvp system, that doesn't sacrifice match quality for fast queues (silver should never ever face legend/plat, period). We need better evaluation of the match outcome as well (closer match = less points lost, so players play til the end of the match).

- dueling anywhere, every where like in wow: you right click the person you want to duel, invite them to duel; if he accepts -> you and him become hostile target to each other (but nobody else) withing given (invisible) area so you can fight each other. Reason: dueling was always the first stone into pvp, for about anyone i know in any game i have played. If we could for example duel in LA it would attract more players to pvp.

- save builds. We need those, pleaseeeee.

- ACTUAL PUNISHMENT for trolls/afkers/cheaters etc.

- messages about tourneys (say AT) should be visible in game so people know something is going on. As pve'er or wvw i have no idea if anything pvp related even happening.

- wtb games vs AI. You queue for AI match, you get put on the team of players and play vs team of AI. It doesn't reward you much but it allows players to learn pvp. If cheaters can make working bots why Anet can't?

 

These are just few i could think of.

[Rodzynald.5897]

> @Genesis.5169 said:

> The community refuses to pvp because the community isn't into difficult content and pvp is as hard as it gets, this why people don't raid or do high level fotms the reasons why spvp,wvw,and raiders are the minority here is because they are willing to get rekted and learn, where as the rest of the community will come to the forums and complain to nerf things like the eater of souls quest and countless other things that aren't hard.

>

> People need to understand the death of spvp after the second year of gw2 was because GW2 officially established itself as a casual MMO and a ton of people who considered them selves hardcore or a serious quit including myself left. Now before you guys say well your here now why don't you quit, i play this and ff14 and i play both for different reasons Gw2 has the combat i like for fun, and ff14 has the progression and feeling of accomplishment that i don't get in gw2.

>

> No amount of tweaking is going to fix this the issue is with the playbase not the game mode.

 

This.

 

The only balance we will see are minor percentage tweaks here and there, nothing shocking. If you want real pvp just look for other games. This is a shame though, because I left WoW pvp for GW2 pvp and before HoT I was really into it, pvp was really good for me back then. Now it just gets worse and worse and when I see how exploiters are not punished despite reports, it is hard for me to even farm transmutation charges or shards because my inner try hard tries its 100% to win and it is still not enough.

I had my hopes for two years that it might get better and most of the time it went downhill and gradually I saw myself playing less with every season. Now I don't even care about decay and who is bronze or legendary, it's all pretty much the same. I just show up every once in a while when I am in need of trans charges for some fresh looks.

The only thing that keeps me in this game is the community and roleplay.

[Kraitan.8476]

Maybe if we had more than 1 tiny-ass map every year people would have faith. I basicly just pvp at this point, it’s the only ‘content’ I havent ‘finished’ but currently I’ve been thinking of quitting altogether. The amount of ‘love’ pvp has seen over 5 years is rediculous. No new modes(no, stronghold does not count), no frequent major balance, 5 year old bugs, and not even 1 new map a year on average. Add to that poor communication and no build templates. One might almost think pvp was never on any table. Long story short: I love your post and some of the ideas but reality is you should stop trying. Beating a dead horse here, it is not & will never be a priority to Anet. Its been bleeding for a long time and without intervention it will die eventually.

[Zlater.6789]

I don't think you will ever be able to save pvp, the problem is that pvp endgame is the only real endgame. They tried to make it a serious thing, but they just weren't serious enough about it as a company, so it died instead.

 

How to fix it?

Well they need a platform to try again, I think they should remove competitive pvp aspects from gw2 and sell it as a separate game. They need more money right? They need a fresh start at pvp right? And they need something they can market. If they made an expansion from it and gave it a dedicated team, I think gw2 will then finally have a chance at being a serious esport, they would also be in a strong position to attract new players from other games. Aside from this, I don't they have a chance any other way. You can keep ranked and unranked along with all of the current systems in the base game. But if they made a PvP only expansion they could easily explore new and exciting ideas and start from scratch.