Can this game ever become an E-Sport in its current incarnation?

[DrakeWurrum]

A matter of seconds? You are fighting a Mesmer, a Thief, and an Elementalist. The Mesmer is constantly moving between his identical mirrors, the thief is cloaking, and the Elementalist is wearing similar cloth gear to the Mesmer. They are all the same race with essentially the same name. While your team is easy to pick apart due to a mix of names, gear and race, you are spending that much more time trying to follow the cup game on your screen, which -you can downplay it all you want- is costing you.

No it isn't. Extremely easy to keep track of which one you're targeting. Call Target the one you want your team to focus, and you never lose track of him.
Want to focus the Mesmer? It's the one with sparkly pink/purple animations who is doing more than just auto attack.
Want to focus the Thief? It's the one in medium armor obviously, but to distinguish it from Engi or Ranger, it's the one with shadowy/bloody/acrobatic spell animations. He might also be sporadically disappearing from sight and shoving a dagger in your backside.
Want to focus the Ele? It's the one with glowy magic (water, earth, fire, or air) about his wrists, and obviously throwing out one of those four elements.

Distinguishing one class from another is as easy as seeing a single spell animation, (as every single profession has unique themes to their animations, even most of the auto attacks), and actually knowing, in general, what their animations are. It's a bit more technical than LoL, because you have to actually remember what skills do and look like, but that just means it requires more skill than the average low-elo player in LoL can handle.

Beyond that? Tab tab tab tab "Oh, Mesmer icon - CTRL + T KILL IT!"

Whether or not you want to kill the Mesmer, Thief, or Elementalist first, btw, is not simply a priority of which profession is actually more dangerous. You have to figure out how each player is building without being able to see their gear itemization or skill bars, and can really only see what weapons they currently have equipped.
Again, simply more skill than the average low-elo player can handle, as they're trained to distinguish target priority entirely by champion choice. Even if you believe Mesmers are more dangerous, what if their team built with that in mind? So the Mesmer has built up tons of Toughness and Vitality and has heavily defensive traits, expecting you to try to focus him down first... so the Thief and the Elementalist are full-on glass cannons.

Combat in GW2 is going to be more chaotic with more split-second decision making, that could go terribly wrong, than you might expect in other PvP games. Reminds me of how soccer goes, but maybe that's just because I came fresh from the soccer fields, earning my referee cash.

[worprz]

You don't really need to see what profession the player is. I do agree it is harder to tell than in other games though. I think a castbar would be nice though, right away you would know what profession the player is. I don't know if the castbar would be good for the game or not though, it is hard for me to say.

[MrSerious]

Probably not despite Anet intentions. It just looks like a mess w/ no clarity or strategy observable to casual viewing. No spectator mode either.

I think the game is too shallow, frankly.

totally this. Not only do you need to tidy up the sPvP but you also need to do a lot to make the game enjoyable to watch. WoW arena as a causal spectator sport was a nightmare to watch and I used to do arena in that game. So much is going on its hard to spot the little clever things they are doing.

If you want to see a good esport look at LoL, DotA2 and SC2. They have quite a few things that make casting the games easier, and viewing the game more enjoyable.

GW2 could be a major esport but I think they have a long way to go. Start by allowing spectators to view matches.

[Artorias]

Doubt it. In all honestly, GW2 is not at all a competitive game in terms of individual players. On a server to server level it's very competitive due to WvWvW (alliances and such care about that kind of thing), but until they release Guild v Guild content and some kind of ranking system (aside from glory, which people are already maxing out I believe?) there really is no competitive nature to it. It's all about individual achievement, rather than just a rank on a leaderboard.

[Deleted]

They have already stated they will release a spectator mode, people seem to forget LoL didn't have spectator mode for ages (18 months?).

As for it being difficult to follow for casual viewers, what casual viewers? It is not the World Cup or Superbowl where suddenly people who have no clue or interest start watching.

Lastly for the guy who can't tell the difference between a mesmer that has a bunch of pink(ish) animations, an Ele that has fire, stone, water and air animations, and a thief not in light armour, leaping about and rather lacking in the flashy animations department, I don't know what to say... other than it should still be easier than LoL because teh animations are actually distinct and you won't have fallen asleep due to the first 15-20 mins of total nothinginess that occurs at the start of most pro matches.

[Valeron]

mmorpgs as esports? makes me laugh

despite ArenaNet wanting it to happen, it won't. MMOs are just not made for it

[Fencers]

It's all about individual achievement, rather than just a rank on a leaderboard.

That's not really a barrier. Esports with strong 1v1 match ups sorta dominated before MOBAs came alone. Brood War/Quake.

It all comes down to clarity. Clarity in presentation, action and communication.

For example, I didn't even like DOTA or LOL all that much. But I saw some streams and tournament games randomly. Asked around for links to VODs of top matches, pro player names, etc. It was all immediately exciting, intriguing and understandable as a non-player.

Freaking love watching esports now. Way into it despite not really playing the individual games much. Like I *hate* Starcraft [vomit* million] but enjoy watching Stefano or Taeja play or browsing Team Liquid for upcoming tourneys/Kr scene gossip.

Clarity, clarity, clarity. That's the key to e-sports.

[Hockeyhacker]

So, I know I'm going to get hell for this, but some important questions about this game need to be asked.

GW2 PvP is fun, dynamic, in many ways breaking the mold. But with a few design changes that they've deviated from the standard other games have followed, is it possible for people to take this game seriously competitively?

Issue 1: Class Icons

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Issue 2: Cast Bars
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Issue 3: Combat Logs
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1) Not sure how your trying to say that not having a quick easy way to see what a class is before seeing it start to cast a spell is anti esports, just means you have to learn the combat animations if your playing, and if/when they add a spectator mode that info plus stuff like showing actual health bar numbers and what not would be viewable to the spectator, just not the person playing since having to know your classes does not take away from playing at all, infact if anything it adds to it since skilled players will know the tells while new players may have issues.

2) This is something not needed at all even in a spectator mode, there are tells if you know what to look for, again thats about having to learn all the classes and their animations rather then watching the UI (which is why there are obvious tells rather then cast bars since they don't want you watching your UI and not whats on the screen.

3) Again how does this even apply to wither or not it can be an esport? a spectator watching say a SC/SC 2 match doesn't see exactly how much damage each unit does, combat logs or a lack there of would effect training but not its viability to be a esport.

Nothing you listed effects wither or not it is a fun game to watch as a spectator, and two of the three things you listed only separate the great players from the average players... so really the only complaint you have listed is that of the lack of ability to properly train via combat logs to see how things react to one another. If anything the only major thing holding it back from being a viable esport in its current iteration is that of a lack of a spectator mode, but that is supposedly in the pipelines so not sure why your gripping about things that not only don't hurt the game from a viewers PoV but actually make it so that the great players will dominate the moderate players because they know how to see the info and process it via tells in the game play without the UI telling them.

[Danur]

Argument from a few people above: "You just need to see their animations to tell what class they are"

Waiting for them to do something to me before I can assess what I'm surrounded by is not a good strategy. Having to click on someone who isn't casting anything to tell which player they are is not good design. Being able to mimic your teammates gear and name to cause confusion is an exploit that's easily addressed and made a non-issue in other games that came way before it. Simply stating that something isn't a problem, doesn't make it not a problem.

[Glytch]

mmorpgs as esports? makes me laugh

despite ArenaNet wanting it to happen, it won't. MMOs are just not made for it

I guess you'd have a point of you weren't... Whats the word? O yea, wrong

Let's look at spvp and league of legends shall we?

From an mmo vs moba standpoint they both have matchmaking which picks 5 plays per team, creates a game instance and dumps all the players for said game into the instance. After the game ends they all leave

So what in that exactly makes an mmo inherently worse?

O man, you can talk to AND SEE plays when in the lobby? Sky be fallin

As far as structured pvp goes lol, smite or whatever else is exactly the same setup ad gw2 therefore declaring that an mmo is a bad platform is... Bad?

The reason wow didn't stay as an esport is the balance roller coaster (which even Mobas have) and the whole thing of gear which is a non issue with gw2

Sorry but blanket statements like "mmo thus never esport" just doesn't work

If you reeeeeeeally want to make that claim you need to bring more to the table than "it's a bad platform"

[Deleted]

I don't think you can deny that GW2 would work as an eSport. It is very similar to MOBA games in that you have a pre-defined skillset for your weapon - It just adds more customisation in utility skills and weapon swapping.

GW1 Guild Battles worked with proper spectator modes and they were quite entertaining to watch. GW2? Hmmm. It definitely needs some polishing, it definitely needs a better direction, and it needs a working and easy to use spectator mode.

[Fencers]

Just about any type of genre can work as an esport. The game itself is not really important. Like Happy Wheels or Trials could work as an esport.

If any MMO, which historically are awful in terms of PVP, can be an esport it is Guild Wars 2.

[Kelesti]

In an RTS like StarCraft, I see a bunch of little guys going against some other little guys, and I see them waving their appendages or pointing as if they're firing at something and then things fall over dead. I don't see the micro. In a MOBA, one sees big plays going out and remembers them, but one doesn't actually see why one person lived and another wouldn't have (from a casual point of view, as it's all upgrade path based).

That said, if I see a warrior bull charge and hundred blades, it's flashy, it tells the observer what happened. A Ranger does their bow knockback to counter a stomp, this can be huge if caught on camera or missed entirely, depending on the camera (key for a crucial observer function, which is greatly greatly lacking currently), and a good Caster will be pointing some of these things out.

Watching Elites come into play changes the battlefield just as much as watching Ults work well with eachother in a MOBA. It's where things get countered hard, something gets dominated, or you regroup and try to attrition it out and counter with your own play. Watching these unfold was an enjoyable experience from the press events even before I had any idea how to play this game myself. But they do need to make improvements with actually being able to watch the games before any of this will even come close.

[Meledelion]

You can implement that in the "cast mode" to make it easier for ppl watching. This however isn't needed for ppl actually playing.

[reckoner04]

What I noticed was that several of my casts had the exact same animation during the casting time, they only differed when the spell was already finished. Besides, the animations are often:
- too small/unnoticeable
- too similar to each other
- drowned in other animations (when someone gets focused)
The second point is especially concerning skills of the same profession. Why do all Mesmer spells have to be purple? This is just making it unnessecarily harder.

I hate to be that guy, but that's something that has been done very well in WoW. There are only a few animations which are rather hard to see and not enough distinguishable. Most of them are animations like Kick, Pummel and other melee skills. But it's incredibly easy to differentiate a Frostbolt from an Ice Lance, a Frost Nova from a Cone of Cold, a Penance from a Flash Heal and so on. Some skills are also made very distinguishable by their sound effects. Who doesn't know the sound of a Mana Burn or a Kidney Shot? All this contributes to being able to actually play the game instead of mostly having to stare at the screen and figure out what your enemy is even doing.
Blizzard obviously failed on most other parts concerning WoW e-sports though, I don't even know why they did that... I'm sure they know their mistakes and potential themselves, they've been doing it pretty perfectly with the Starcraft series after all.

EDIT: Where it could be debated as to whether the above is good or bad for competitive PvP as a player (though I believe most people would prefer clearer gameplay), it's absolutely horrible for spectators.

[Deleted]

I don't think cast animations are the particularly important thing here. I think it's best to rely on predictability of the enemy.

I was in a LoL game today against a Nautilus and Cho'gath in bot lane (don't ask why, I don't know. They lost). You don't sit there and observe their animations. You KNOW Cho'gath is going to launch you, you KNOW Nautilus is going to pull you. You work your play style around giving them as few opportunities to do this as possible or preventing it by (at least as Soraka or Taric, who I usually play) silencing or stunning them.

You didn't see Nautilus get ready to sling his anchor. You didn't see Cho'gath get ready to slam the ground. You just assume it will happen and look to work around it. Automatically assuming it won't happen is a loss, even if the cast animations are obvious, you won't be prepared for it anyway because you weren't expecting it to happen.

[DrakeWurrum]

You KNOW Cho'gath is going to launch you, you KNOW Nautilus is going to pull you. You work your play style around giving them as few opportunities to do this as possible or preventing it by (at least as Soraka or Taric, who I usually play) silencing or stunning them.

You didn't see Nautilus get ready to sling his anchor. You didn't see Cho'gath get ready to slam the ground. You just assume it will happen and look to work around it. Automatically assuming it won't happen is a loss, even if the cast animations are obvious, you won't be prepared for it anyway because you weren't expecting it to happen.

I still find it funny that people act like humans are unpredictable, and that's exactly why. May not be scripted, but still exceedingly obvious as to what exactly your opponents will do.

If people actually took the time to think about it, they'd realize how easy it is to figure out your enemy.

[DrakeWurrum]

There's actually a post on ArenaJunkies about this very topic...it's not the BEST post ever, but it does touch on some things.

The problem that MMO's typically have when it comes to E-Sports is that it's incredibly hard for a casual observer to watch a fight and really appreciate anything about it. Ok, so the two red guys ran over and swung their arms and the blue guy fell over. Ok? What even happened? Did something cool happen, was there some clutch move? I dunno.

Most other "E-Sports" games don't have that problem. You can watch a Street Fighter match and even if you don't know the attack priority and other details, you can still watch it and make sense of what's going on. You can see the significance when one player counters another with a particular move and whatnot. You can watch StarCraft and even if you don't really know much about the game you can see why a good Dropship maneuver is effective, or understand why a timely, strong base expansion or other things are significant and can appreciate that ambushing someone's forces and crippling them is important.

In MMO's all the casual observer generally can see is that some guys are waving their arms at other guys, and eventually someone falls down. When there are clutch or important moves made, they tend to be really subtle and the feedback only noticable to the parties involved. (Interrupts come to mind here). In an FPS game you know that "Bob got hit by a rocket." probably hurt, in most MMO's you have no idea what that Fireball just did, if it was a devastating attack or a weak, idly tossed move from a healing-based Elementalist.

There's just a lot of barriers for an MMO to overcome to really be a good E-Sport, and I don't think GW2 has really made many steps in that direction.

With the way GW2 skills have been designed, I have to disagree. The skills in this game are all flashy and obvious. In other MMOs, you have TONS of different skills that all do the exact same thing, with different numbers, and so on.

When a Thief pops CnD and then uses Backstab, it's pretty obvious what just happened. When a Guardian uses Whirling Wrath, it's also pretty obvious. When an Elementalist with daggers leaps forward, and then drops down a Ring of Fire, and then switches into breathing a cone of fire, it's pretty obvious what just happened.

The only things that are "Two red guys ran over and swung their arms and the blue guy fell over" are auto attacks, but um... funny thing about that?
LoL has auto attacks. Starcraft has boring basic attacks. What spectators who don't understand the finer points of the game will notice is the special moves and the tactics, which GW2 has plenty of imo.

---------- Post added 2012-10-01 at 04:35 PM ----------

Chess and Go grandmaster speaking here, apparently. =)

When you understand how the enemy thinks, they're not difficult to counter.

[Glytch]

Chess and Go grandmaster speaking here, apparently. =)

didnt realize we had to be to post about esports

why are you still posting exactly?

[Glytch]

Missed the point, as usual.



To borrow a line from <Fanboy Legion>....just for the fun!

hmm, looks like you musta missed it