Arena in gw2

[Deleted]

From what I understood, arenanet is betting big on DOTA crowd taking over e-sport element. And to do this, they're making the "top dog" gameplay into basically a DOTA with more skills.

I don't think you played any DOTa game then :/. There is only one thing that GW2 and your average DOTa game have in common: limited amount of abilities - that's it. The pvp in GW2 is very much action oriented and it's a fusion between MMO and fighting game (tekken), you actually try to link abilities in combos - of course since there is a dodge mechanic it's way more tricky. Nonetheless, playstyles are waaaay different (char control, amount of skills and their dependencies, combat flow, positioning, dodging or even moving away from hits..), I actually doubt that DOTa players will be the majority in PVP community.

As a result, they can't really make other PvP modes competitive. That would reduce the e-sport success chances, as DOTA crowd would not pick up the game as enthusiastically.

I'm actually impressed that they are standing by only one game mode at the release, it shows their commitment to competitive gameplay. Contrary to popular belief it's actually very easy to add more game modes, but that's not what you want if you strive to create e-sport game, instead you want ONE balanced and engaging mode where community can gather around. More modes means fragmented community.

Notably if any of you seriously think it isn't going to be build wars on top of 5v5, I have land on the moon to sell you. It will be slightly less build wars then GW1, but probably not by much.

That's actually a valid concern, but consider this: two or even one "pro" dodge and you can totally make any build "worthless" for few seconds - that's enough. Remember (except Thief) there is no resource management, only cooldowns so by baiting enemy in to using his 2 key abilities on your dodge makes any build disparity non existant. That's why even though at first I found this quote cliché "Doesn't matter what build you are playing, it's HOW you are playing it" I agree with it.

And if you think WoW competitive arena crowd is bad, well, you're in for a rough awakening to the realities of DOTA competitive crowd. You'll run back to WoW arena crowd and kiss their feet and apologize for ever calling them "elitist" after DOTA crowd is done with you .

Dealing with competitive communities for quite a while now (my own events etc.). To be honest, it's always going to be a fuckfest when it comes down top competitive group. After sitting many, many years in FPS e-sport I find any other community as playground ;p. But yeah, I agree for some people it's always discouraging (bunch of whimps :P).

[worprz]

I want to see a game that is balanced around 1v1. The only problem with doing this is that it ruins the rest of the game

I love 1v1 pvp so much, it was all I did vanilla even after bg's were released. The problem is it is way too hard to balance around 1v1 for both pvp and pve.

[Bane-Thunder-God]

Low number pvp is a problem because it requires a different balance than larger scale(10+) pvp. With 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, you create hard counters, FotM, and top tier comps. It's hard to avoid, because, unless all classes are the same, certain classes counter other classes, and certain classes can cover other classes weakness. This means that you get comps which simply are tons better than others, such as RMP or RMS right now in WoW. As for longevity, I think large scale pvp has more longevity, because it is so much more diverse in approaches to winning. In arenas, you have a set hierarchy kill order most of the time, and pretty consistent strats, but in large scale pvp it is never the same. Within one game, you could have a 1v1, then a 8v5, then a 3v3, all the while different players will be popping in and out, changing how you have to approach the battle, and all of this happens while you need to be completing an objective.

I believe arenas would be a bad direction to go, it creates class imbalance, and really destroys certain classes ability to pvp, which is against the whole idea of an mmo.

QTF^ There is no such thing as class balance unless there is only one class and one spec to play. Unreal tournament? lol. As long as there is different classes there will always be an Imbalance due to one class having an advantage over another one's weakness.

And I agree MMO's should focus on large PvP rather than 5v5,3v3. It's just a bad idea to focus on low number pvp. I for one can;t wait to play World vs World as a Charr Warrior. Swtiching from my 2 hand hammer to Bow for range whenever I need to try defend a keep door. This game needs to come out ASAP my body is ready. And so is my wallet.

[mcbeaty]

No one is saying they want the game balance around small scale pvp... I just want to have a deathmatch style pvp in this game, 3v3 or 5v5 pref, i dont care if there is some crazy comp that just dominates everything, i just play the comp with the classes my friends choose

[mcbeaty]

i want more discussion on the matter since gw2 has released

Bump

[walexia]

Actually the arena concept has been in GW long before it was in wow.I remeber how fierce gvg was back in the day and people used strats and specific skills sets, i remember one crazy strat which involved people bringing in pets and letting them die to get buffs.The arenas were also of a much wider varierty than were in wow.Even right now i can see alot of that in wow 's arena which just made it easier to get into and easier to get into for pugs.
You could even spectate gvg battles, from in the game .why wow hasn't done that??? i don't know.

[insmek]

2v2 arenas have been my absolute favorite WoW endgame activity for years now, and I hope that I can continue with something similar in GW2. I think it'd be a hugely missed opportunity to leave something like that out, even as just a reasonably casual thing for fun on the side.


Also: Deathmatch FTW. Capture the flag--and most other objective-based PVP matches--can suck it long, and suck it hard.

[Fernling306]

death match pvp would make me extremely happy.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Arena mini death match battle royales are probably the worst form of "PvP" ever conceived. That said, some people seem to like it, so whatever floats their boat.

[Ticktox]

I don't think people realize when they balance a game they have to balance for all aspects. It's near impossible to completely balance 8 different classes for several different types of PvP. So there's always complaints about certain classes not being able to 2v2 or 5v5 ect ect. Best to keep one style of PvP to avoid this issue. Better and easier to balance. And frankly I was never a fan of the idea of a duel in a box. Especially when I became the standard for PvP gear, stopped playing WoW for a long time because of it, until lately when they've balanced out how and where you can get things.

[mcbeaty]

I don't think people realize when they balance a game they have to balance for all aspects. It's near impossible to completely balance 8 different classes for several different types of PvP. So there's always complaints about certain classes not being able to 2v2 or 5v5 ect ect. Best to keep one style of PvP to avoid this issue. Better and easier to balance. And frankly I was never a fan of the idea of a duel in a box. Especially when I became the standard for PvP gear, stopped playing WoW for a long time because of it, until lately when they've balanced out how and where you can get things.

The only reason why i played wow was for arena. And it will add another level of pvp to the game that isnt present at the moment. Something that you arent thinking about is the difference between wow's arena and the possible gw2's arena; The biggest difference is GEAR and that the game isnt based around a resloving door of cc. Also gw2 doesnt really have any dedicated healer. If u play wow back in 4.3 triple dps was a dominant comp and pretty much gw2 will equal mirror matches of triple dps. And those games always had me on the edge of my chair. And i feel that it will do the same to any viewer watching it in a stream.

[Deleted]

I have to say I don't think Arena is really a good idea balance wise, Tournaments are what they balance around, the smaller the number of classes the more a number of classes either perform too well or not well enough at all, nerfing or buffing abilities in that will undoubtedly break tournament sized groups. Guild Wars 1 never had an "arena" as WoW did it, but the tournaments were highly competitive and it was a very successful e-sport because of that. Now it's not to say you didn't get overpowered builds, I remember playing a Searing Flame ele for a little while but it still required us to play pretty damn well to progress to the higher rounds. Last I remember we got beaten by smite monks. I suppose 3v3+ could work but 2v2 doesn't have a chance.

[mcbeaty]

I have to say I don't think Arena is really a good idea balance wise, Tournaments are what they balance around, the smaller the number of classes the more a number of classes either perform too well or not well enough at all, nerfing or buffing abilities in that will undoubtedly break tournament sized groups. Guild Wars 1 never had an "arena" as WoW did it, but the tournaments were highly competitive and it was a very successful e-sport because of that. Now it's not to say you didn't get overpowered builds, I remember playing a Searing Flame ele for a little while but it still required us to play pretty damn well to progress to the higher rounds. Last I remember we got beaten by smite monks. I suppose 3v3+ could work but 2v2 doesn't have a chance.

it would be 3v3 and 4v4, also isnt objective based pvp really just death match with an objective? You act like adding arena will mess everything up, but every form of pvp does have some form of an arena in it. So why not just seperate it and just have it by itself?

[tjanson]

it would be 3v3 and 4v4, also isnt objective based pvp really just death match with an objective? You act like adding arena will mess everything up, but every form of pvp does have some form of an arena in it. So why not just seperate it and just have it by itself?

Objective pvp is absolutely NOT death match with an objective. I'm not sure how you ever formed that opinion, honestly.

Balancing combat around small groups of players is much harder than balancing it around large groups of players. As it is, class balance is much less of an issue in WvW than general strategy, positioning, and numbers. Boiling that all down to a few players in a much smaller environment, the emphasis immediately shifts from team strategy to individual player skill and class abilities.

If you add arenas into the game, you put a huge strain on the developers to micromanage the balance between every possible combinations of class, trait selection, and ability selection. I don't think you have any idea just what a Herculean task this is, but just look at WoW, and how they(in my opinion) still haven't been able to maintain parity between classes. Certain compositions will almost always dominate, and that's usually bad for MMOs because of the emphasis placed on developing your character to the fullest, not dropping it for whatever the FOTM happens to be.

TLDR: Small scale combat is for other games, not MMOs because of the immense strain placed on the developers to microbalance every fucking thing, which is impossible to get right, anyway.

[Cthulhu 2020]

If you add arenas into the game, you put a huge strain on the developers to micromanage the balance between every possible combinations of class, trait selection, and ability selection. I don't think you have any idea just what a Herculean task this is, but just look at WoW, and how they(in my opinion) still haven't been able to maintain parity between classes. Certain compositions will almost always dominate, and that's usually bad for MMOs because of the emphasis placed on developing your character to the fullest, not dropping it for whatever the FOTM happens to be.

They've "balanced" arenas by making all classes the same without any flavor. In GW2? Do not want.

[BananaInsane]

I think we should hope for a duelling system before we go and ask about Arenas.

[insmek]

TLDR: Small scale combat is for other games, not MMOs because of the immense strain placed on the developers to microbalance every fucking thing, which is impossible to get right, anyway.

Small scale combat--WoW arena style or similar--could absolutely have a place in GW2 as long as the developers make it clear that they're not betting the farm on that mode of play. The problem with WoW was when the Arena came out, it was PVP. Blizzard made it painfully clear for too long that if you were going to PVP seriously, you had to do so in the Arena. ANet could very easily say very publicly "Here's the arena you were asking for. It's not what we're balancing the classes around, but we love you so we wanted to give you as many ways to play as possible" and be done with it.

[Deleted]

I don't think you played any DOTa game then :/. There is only one thing that GW2 and your average DOTa game have in common: limited amount of abilities - that's it. The pvp in GW2 is very much action oriented and it's a fusion between MMO and fighting game (tekken), you actually try to link abilities in combos - of course since there is a dodge mechanic it's way more tricky. Nonetheless, playstyles are waaaay different (char control, amount of skills and their dependencies, combat flow, positioning, dodging or even moving away from hits..), I actually doubt that DOTa players will be the majority in PVP community.

Whilst the style is different, there is somethng else they have in common - the aim for competitve, balanced PvP, which pretty much does not exist in MMORPGs.

I know many people that only play Lol, DOTA, etc, because to get decent competitve, balanced PvP in an MMORPG is impossible, that actually prefer the full 3d styple, more skills (yes I know GW2 has less than skills than msot MMOs, but 19 (ish) active skills is still more than you get in a typical MOBA game.

[mcbeaty]

Objective pvp is absolutely NOT death match with an objective. I'm not sure how you ever formed that opinion, honestly.

Balancing combat around small groups of players is much harder than balancing it around large groups of players. As it is, class balance is much less of an issue in WvW than general strategy, positioning, and numbers. Boiling that all down to a few players in a much smaller environment, the emphasis immediately shifts from team strategy to individual player skill and class abilities.

If you add arenas into the game, you put a huge strain on the developers to micromanage the balance between every possible combinations of class, trait selection, and ability selection. I don't think you have any idea just what a Herculean task this is, but just look at WoW, and how they(in my opinion) still haven't been able to maintain parity between classes. Certain compositions will almost always dominate, and that's usually bad for MMOs because of the emphasis placed on developing your character to the fullest, not dropping it for whatever the FOTM happens to be.

TLDR: Small scale combat is for other games, not MMOs because of the immense strain placed on the developers to microbalance every fucking thing, which is impossible to get right, anyway.

Well its pretty simple actually if you think about it, if your team is fighting over a node, for you to get that node what do u have to do? Kill the imposing players? Which is the objective of team deathmatch, so objective pvp is deathmatch with an objective. Also how do you figure it would put a huge strain development team? Is this just a blind assumption? i think it is, also gw2 has been a game of skill not fotm comps which you are imposing. Sure certain classes benefit each other in certain ways better but so far as i seen all classes give some kind of support. Idk i think it will be actually really fun to watch, seeing like support guardian/Ranger/Thief and see the thief and Ranger jumping all over the places.

[Deleted]

Still don't get why people insist on this. If it was a PvP based game surely they'd have world pvp right? Not talking about WvW. Just because it actually balances the classes correctly doesn't make it a PvP based game.

Since when did open world PvP make a game a PvP game? WoW, SWTOR, Rift all have that and the all primarily PvE games where PvP is a secondary consideration.

There is a quote from onw of Blizz devs that often gets repeated (usually in regard to their utter failure to provide balance in PvP) which bascially goes 'I wish we never introduced arenas, because it is impossobel to balance unless you design the game around them from the start', guess what GW2 is designed aroudn competitive PvP from the start, it is not a poor cousin to PvE.