Custom Arenas and Spectator Mode this month!

[Zeek Daniels]

@whoever said that a-net was clear it would be paid CA
Other games like wow don't need custom arenas since
1. MMR works 2. You don't get teamed up vs "random" pugs 3. The game-mode is sort of balanced, there will always be a strongest build 4. Tournament realm is cheap, has different rules and is very competitive 5. you can actually duel 6. there are enough games to spectate via (for example) youtube/streams

If you want I can keep going but seriously, at this point in time a-net shouldn't be charging more than 10bucks for permanent server access, it's been too long to finally implement this stuff...

The closest thing WoW has to custom arenas are those Wargames. I dont know much about them or if they are still in game but im pretty sure you cant do any editing of the rules for what ever map you pick.

Custom Arenas are for practicing in a controlled environment. Which you cant currently do.

Another thing, Blizzes system for arenas does not work. If it did you would not get players constantly creating new arena teams each week when their rank gets to high. If they had a good system even if you left a team you would still get matched against people your level. Anets system does this. Also Arena combat isnt the same as GW2 spvp. Rated RBG's are more like it. And blizz doesnt have Random RBG's so cant really compare the two. Blizzards game is no where near balanced, tons of specs are not viable for pvp.

The charge for these rooms does not matter. Gold to gem exchange means you dont have to spend irl money. Also guilds can pool money to make their own to practice in. The life can be extended by anyone with access to the room

Also think about it from Anets perspective. Spvp only players prolly arnt spending that much money on gems. This could be a good way to tap into spvp players pockets for something specifically related to Spvp

[Karizee]

Karizee I can't find any info on that tunneling tool... where did you get that from?

So far... nothing new really happening in the outside, world. That was the 'living story'? Well let's wait and see the full patch notes.

From the Massively article in my OP. "there will be new items in the gem store. The sonic tunneling tool will allow players to travel for short distances underground. You'll also be able to buy four new weapon skins, two of which are weapons belonging to our buddies Rox and Braham."


Custom arenas and Spectator mode are going to be HUGE. Get ready, sponsors incoming

[MrSerious]

Agreed. I shoudn't be forced to group up to do something that ends the story that i was able to see by myself up until now. Pretty shitty move imo. So each character i make has to do Orr Story mode or when a new expansion or something comes up i won't be able to continue MY story.

its an MMO, why are you trying to treat it like a single player game. Why are you so opposed to finding a party to join up with? or making friends within this community.

Just start a group, get in there and finish the story, or type LFG in map chat. There will be heaps of people making groups, tag along with them.

The Orr storyline is another issue, that I can understand since the longer this game goes on for it may be difficult to find people to complete this with. But you have no real reason to complain about a dungeon that has a limited available time. Millions of people will be doing this, If you can't find another 4 people then you're doing something wrong.

[slipn]

Sorry if I simply didn't spot this in the reading I've done....

Is the custom arenas simply a "choose an existing map" or can you actually make new maps for this?

[Meledelion]

snip

1. You have to look at what is considered competitive, RBG's aren't considered competitive and thus aren't taken seriously by any pro team. This results in having to compare tPvP to Arena. Mechanics differ but those aren't being discussed...

2. Editing rules isn't a factor: of these adjustable rules: time/score limit, player size,ready button, spectate, name, pw, logon message, number of players, number of reserved slots, member list,respwn, banned list, progres, skill/gear swap and autobalance which ones could make the game more balanced?
5: Time/score limit, player size, skill/gear swap

Of those which ones will actually make the game more balanced? 0. As I explained above, the core mechanics as to why (t)PvP isn't balanced has to do with the game itself and how it favors bunkers over everything. I've written this out a long time ago when ppl wondered why I (and others) think conquest doesn't work, it's too late to dig through my post history atm but I'm sure you can find it if you want to.

Enabling gear/skill swap is the only thing that "could" balance the game but in reality that's not going to happen since you just will get out-counter comped. (I'm a thief) I see an ele so I assume d/d. Instead of going d/d myself I swap to s/d or d/p. The ele knows this and instead of going d/d he now goes s/d (more conditions). Thief knows this so he grabs another condi removal but this won't help since eles have too many conditions=> ele wins.

3. MMR in WoW actually sticks even if you switch teams, this means that your entire point is invalid... The reason why people switch teams is to "boost" alts since fighting your way up the elo system when facing "similar skilled" opponents takes a long time in comparison to when you fight higher skilled opponents (+5 vs+20 mmr).

I'll give you a lovely list of screenshots of "same skilled" teams: link
that's from screenshots 105 to 92 in my gw2 file, there's 10 screenshots in that album meaning that out of 13 matches 3 were "balanced" (they weren't since 2/3 was against premades and I joined "solo") or less than 23% of the games played...

4. It's nowhere near balanced since not everything is viable? This is a hilarious point since atm the only viable meta builds are (out of all frigin combinations possible) d/d bunker ele, sw/f and gs bunker guard, shatter mes, s/d and d/d thief

5. Guilds can pool money, that's great but what If my guild has one server and 30 people want to test builds or play games under 5v5 rules? Pay another X amount of gold? Why not go with GW's way of making this possible in guild halls? oh right we don't have guild halls 8months in...

6. Where do sPvP players get "gold"/money? Yea nowhere. Why would any sponsor invest in a game who's pvp is dead as can be, it's not worth it... Why would anyone who thinks it might be worth it spend money only to find out that it doesn't change shit since "your private tournaments" won't get ANY views=sponsors=revenue?

I truly feel like whoever thinks custom arenas and spectator mode are going to change anything at this point is delusional. Those things help for sure but won't make the game balanced all of a sudden or "fun to watch"...

[Kelesti]

fyi thats what they said for current dungeons too, and we get troll boss in ascalon

I actually enjoyed going toe to toe with him with Sword/Sword and full Knight's build before they nerfed Illusory Membrane.

He wasn't interesting, but what was, was finding ways to stay in melee once he was on me, and never toe out or need to kite, mastering the timing of my cooldowns or when I needed an Aegis (extremely rarely) to keep going. To solve that puzzle, to find that rythym. Once you learn that, the rest of the game became doing the same thing, which was why the "only way to beat the dungeons is graveyard zerg" was complete bullshit to me, in pretty much every aspect. The only one that was playing by different rules was a story mode boss, Sorrow's Embrace. Kudu. Because fuck Kudu.

Troll boss wasn't hard. Fighting Lieutenant Kholer at the top with his adds was always easy. People just really tended to suck.

[zito]

I actually enjoyed going toe to toe with him with Sword/Sword and full Knight's build before they nerfed Illusory Membrane.

He wasn't interesting, but what was, was finding ways to stay in melee once he was on me, and never toe out or need to kite, mastering the timing of my cooldowns or when I needed an Aegis (extremely rarely) to keep going. To solve that puzzle, to find that rythym. Once you learn that, the rest of the game became doing the same thing, which was why the "only way to beat the dungeons is graveyard zerg" was complete bullshit to me, in pretty much every aspect. The only one that was playing by different rules was a story mode boss, Sorrow's Embrace. Kudu. Because fuck Kudu.

Troll boss wasn't hard. Fighting Lieutenant Kholer at the top with his adds was always easy. People just really tended to suck.

I actually meant there was a lack of dynamic events going on in the dungeon. You sometimes got a rare troll boss but that's about it.

[Kelesti]

I actually meant there was a lack of dynamic events going on in the dungeon. You sometimes got a rare troll boss but that's about it.

Oh, absolutely. Forgive me for misinterpreting, then.

[zito]

I'll forgive you if they fix chaos armor....

R.I.P my glamour blast finisher spam build.

[Meledelion]

In addendum to my post above (didn't edit since some ppl only press "read new posts" and they would miss it)

Please read this http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...ontent/c9l6khc so you get an idea of what "vets" and "hardcore competitive" players were/are looking for and why we believe this won't help.

[Zilong]

Snip

Yes I do believe that Custom Arenas are for practicing in a controlled enviroment and that's needed. I also believe it will help people get more interested since the current way things work are a mess, but it's not the root of problems. It's more of a nice and long feature that's prob it.

I can't say for sure Bliz system (altho I play pvp there). I know that leaving team doesn't change the points (had to look it up) but it surely always seemed to help, and when I say this I mean REALLY seem to work, but might be just one of those things.

The problem with the gold stuff is ONLY that YOU CAN'T WIN GOLD by pvping. If the tournies still gave some gems XD It would be much much better (I didn't pvp while they had that tho, can't say much about it). Maybe they could come up with some kind of reward that can be ONLY used on pvp-oriented gem-store items (Which are lacking btw, It's a bad strat to make people buy something if there isn't much to purchase anyway, I mean, they could def improve that.)

its an MMO, why are you trying to treat it like a single player game. Why are you so opposed to finding a party to join up with? or making friends within this community.

Just start a group, get in there and finish the story, or type LFG in map chat. There will be heaps of people making groups, tag along with them.

The Orr storyline is another issue, that I can understand since the longer this game goes on for it may be difficult to find people to complete this with. But you have no real reason to complain about a dungeon that has a limited available time. Millions of people will be doing this, If you can't find another 4 people then you're doing something wrong.

Yeah exactly agree here.

snip...

I think the rules can def facilitate testing and theorycrafting. But I understand they are not the issue.

Yes, I have ALWAYS since beta said that Guardians were too strong. Of course I was complaining at the wrong thing (Wrong word actually). It's just that their bunker build is one of the best out there and it's a set in stone class/build in a match (won't go into d/d you know why lol). I've seen/played other bunker classes/builds but they are not worth it, guardian does it better (which always brings me to the trait system and it's problems that no one sees XD). I wonder if they would replace the cap point for a flag? XD Would that help?

I will be honest and say that I don't think the MMR should be account wide. I mean fine that if I play pvp well overall it will take less time for me to get better and understand a new class for instance. And testing (with or without the C.A.) is always held on tpvp (browsers are a mess) but not only that drops my rating but also..when I play with my wife...she is not THAT good but we love playing Tpvp, when I go with her I have to go with my guardian to protect her haha. I would like to be able to use another class and dif rating to go wit her.

Yeah, the balance can't be all around. Every ele is d/d now, and so on. I am a sw/f+gs (Not sure if Im bunker tho).

I do have lots of fun with pvp currently still XD. Cause I think that I'm playing Smash Bros on gw2 setting, Ive played most mmos/single games out there and gw2 combat system is the one that interest me the most. But they do have alot of things to work out first.

We should duel sometime for fun.

--

Not sure why they can't give us Deathmatches. They say they want to focus on esports but that isn't really going to happen (yep I said it), so why not do US a favor? The MAJORITY. All people who are excited for it won't really actually be part of it XD.

Yeah. I applauded at first the neck stats thing, but seriously why not just let me pick what I want to be? Why in order to have X I also Need Y? Always? It's silly and it can be said the same for the traits to an extent. If anything enables new builds. Totally agree with poor build usage too, and they are going backwards on the balancing on that (weapons, some utilities and traits wise).


Lengthy post of yours requires a lenghty answer

[Karizee]

And then you have ranked vets posting this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...tive_play_and/

[Meledelion]

And then you have ranked vets posting this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...tive_play_and/

Which is a load of BS since he clearly doesn't understand the underlying mechanics of GW2 tPvP which is basically what CA is about

Now, that said, I still would like to address some of the negative energy I've seen surrounding the pvp community, primarily with respect to wvw. I am not unfamiliar with s/tpvp, as I am actually rank 26 in it, but it is simply not my focus here.

edit: I'll explain (warning lengthy) why he's full of BS (the numbers are his claims/quotes)

1. PROGRESSION EXISTS IN THE FORM OF SKILL
GW HoH win=> end reward => chest with PvE loot. I REPEAT! PVE LOOT! Incase you missed it PVE LOOT

2. BUILD DIVERSITY EXISTS FOR THOSE WHO CAN THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
Yea I'm sure top players aren't rocking scepter/sword mesmers with mighty confusion stacking because they can't think outside of the box...

His entire "point" about how he "figured out" his builds is really cool, except it doesn't fly in tPvP since a) conditions get removed instantly since the only thing you face are frigin guardians and eles or consta immune mesmers (who negate his entire rotation without ever being in danger...) or thieves who can simply teleport out of churning earth which is where 70% of his "build" works around...

3. EFFECTIVE SKILL USE IS NOT SPAMMING THEM/NUMBERS ARE NOT EVERYTHING
They are, why do you think mesmers only use a 54321 combo and so do thieves and eles and guardians? LOS doesn't change this, it simply adds "tricks" but doesn't change your "rotation/priority"

His 20ppl in a zerg beat 40 so bashing skills "asap" clearly isn't how to do it, is a retarded point since a) we don't know anything about the teams (small group on VOIP always wrecks unorganised zergs since they can't react as one) b) defenders have an advantage (multiple but let's not digress) c) you can't prove one group is spamming skills and the other isn't...

[Zilong]

And then you have ranked vets posting this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...tive_play_and/

I don't his post is as good as you think XD (at all). Ive read, watched the vids, nothing much there. He writes well and has some good points that are right but doesn't have anything on the matter here.


Edit: Oh Damn you Mel!

[Meledelion]

Edit: Oh Damn you Mel!

What's up?

[Lazuli]

And then you have ranked vets posting this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...tive_play_and/

1) he was talking WvW obviously
2) most videos he posted are of WvW
3) that isn't pvp
4) pvp is shit in this game, and being ranked means nothing in GW2 lol no one plays tourny or spvp for that matter.

E-sports was advertised and not delivered in the slightest.

edit; at this point I honestly believe GW1 has a bigger pvp crowd than GW2 does.

[Zilong]

What's up?

Oh you beat me to it. Thats what I was meaning XD

[Karizee]

1) he was talking WvW obviously
2) most videos he posted are of WvW
3) that isn't pvp
4) pvp is shit in this game, and being ranked means nothing in GW2 lol no one plays tourny or spvp for that matter.

E-sports was advertised and not delivered in the slightest.

edit; at this point I honestly believe GW1 has a bigger pvp crowd than GW2 does.

For being so "shit" there sure is a crapton of people doing it lol.
Maybe you should tell them about GW1 more ;-)

[Meledelion]

Karizee, I'd like to beg you to please not comment on tPvP.
I agree that Lazuli didn't word things all that nicely but in essence he is right.

Saying a crapton of people are doing it is a very vague point for many reasons.
1. Many didn't start
2. Many quit
3. Many don't take it seriously
4. We don't know who is actually playing with teams and who isn't. Basically the equivalent in wow would be saying: "many people raid".
5. We can't quantify "crapton/many"
6. (nearly) All GW (I refuse to add the one, please get used to it internet ) vets agree that GW > GW2 PvP wise.

To be frank/harsh, it doesn't seem like you're (or have been) a "hardcore" competitive player which is why you don't understand the points people are making.

edit: I'm sorry for being harsh but 3ppl pointing out that your "counter point" doesn't fly is a clear indicator that you're missing something. Please do not take this as an insult as I don't mean it this way. I in no way, shape or form want to say that I (or anyone else) is better than you (or you being worse than anyone else), I'm trying to express that through your post history I've deduced (possibly wrongly) that you're not as familiar as others.

[Smitzelplix]

1) he was talking WvW obviously
2) most videos he posted are of WvW
3) that isn't pvp
4) pvp is shit in this game, and being ranked means nothing in GW2 lol no one plays tourny or spvp for that matter.

E-sports was advertised and not delivered in the slightest.

edit; at this point I honestly believe GW1 has a bigger pvp crowd than GW2 does.

People play spvp all the time, but it's very casual and mostly they are in there for the daily/monthly. At least that's what me and some guildies were doing last week for a few nights. Didn't have any problems with finding opponents and many of our match ups had different people so it wasn't us fighting the exact same groups over and over again.