Curse

Razz L Dazzle · Nov 06, 2007, 08:46 PM // 20:46

With the 100,000 dollar tournament series almost over i'm sure A-Net is trying to decide what would be best to do next. I'd like this thread to discuss what the players would like, so that we may prolong our enjoyment of PvP. This is our chance, and theirs to prove to us that they have figured out what the players want PvP to be like in Guild Wars 2, and in the future.

Automated Tournaments
Would another 100,000 Automated tournament system idea be successful?
How can this idea be improved or what parts of it should stay?
What about this idea is bad? Why?
What about the times they're played at?
How can A-net get increased involvement amongst the GW community?

Guild Ladder
What changes should the Guild Ladder undergo in 2008?
Should the historic ladder stay?
A 2008 historic ladder?
How about the old shorter ladder system?
Frequent resets?
What tweaks could make a more successful ladder?
What about the current system of +0's, +2's, +/- 5's? Or AT's ELO values?

Guild Tournaments
What would be the best sytem:

World championship '08 tournament series?
Monthly AT's?
Seasonal championships?
Celestial Tournament styled platform?
Monthly ladder-based tournaments? (top 16, top 8 etc)

PvP Game Pack
To increase the PvP player base could A-net sell a $50 U.S dollar game that was UAS/UAA/UAX with the promotion of one of the above mentioned tournaments? (Intended that you receive all the skills from each game, not just one game. All inclusive pvp pack. Gives you all skills, weapon mods, etc.)
Would others be opposed to someone getting all the PvP so cheaply?
OR, would you be happy to play new customers?
Is this too late in the game to have any impact?

Feel free to encompass all of, part of or something else related to the future of PvP i didn't address.

~cheers

Winstar · Nov 06, 2007, 09:56 PM // 21:56

As a larger goal, i'd love to see GWWC 3 (not that I'll be there) but I'd still like to see a tournament of significance to end of gw1 and kick of gw2.

The ATS was somewhat underwhelming in my experience. The biggest letdown is the utter lack of participation in daily AT's. The tournaments generally consist of a handful of top teams and a couple of lower ranked ones and a long list of forefits. AT's were intended to replace open ladder play in terms of high rating gain while the open ladder matches dropped to small gains. The problem for a large number of guilds its not very appealing to participate in ATs given scheduling problems, and the fact that they are most likely to play a couple of top teams, lose 5 or more rating to them and then get paired with a bunch of teams who forefit.

The AT system, as a tool, seems pretty interesting. But as an intended replacement for high rating gain matches for everyone interested in gvging it seems like a failure. I'm not sure what would encourage more participation. Some ideas,

(1) Keep the monthly tournaments, but have the prizes be spots at GWWC 3. This might encourage more participation in ATs on a daily basis given a larger goal.

(2) Go back to ladder seasons with playoffs at the end using the AT system. Again, to qualify for a GWWC 3

(3) Keeping the current AT system, but also return open ladder matches to high rating gain. ATs as in (1) are for spots at GWWC 3. So teams interested in just moving up the ladder can play open ladder matches for higher returns, but simply grinding like mad won't mean you get access to GWWC 3.

Of course if GWWC 3 falls through the ideas above are somewhat useless. I think some form of (3) in this case would be more appealing. (except with the same 100,000 ATS format instead of GWWC 3).

I'm not sure the historic ladder matters all that much. There is so much change anyway. Old guilds abandoned and sold, old players making new guilds etc. Blowing up the ladder for seasons doesn't seem that bad to me.

Ekelon · Nov 06, 2007, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

World championship '08 tournament series?

This is the main one I'm hoping for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

What about the current system of +0's, +2's, +/- 5's? Or AT's ELO values?

This needs to be fixed in HB. (Rated matches are capped at +2 and even high rank beating low ranked it's +2 as opposed to the supposed +0)

Rich_Izy · Nov 07, 2007, 01:44 AM // 01:44

World. Championship. '08.

Or probably a type of sealed deck play on GW

...

Vaga · Nov 07, 2007, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Get rid of daily AT's as a way of qualifying for anything in gvg, they just don't work very well in practice. I wouldn't mind if say the top 50 or 100 at the end of every month are eligible for the monthly AT that way the actual real contenders will easily qualify but will mean you have to be somewhat decent to qualify.

Whilst the GWWC's promoted great competition I think there are a lot better ways of going about doing that. 3rd party run leagues/tournaments in addition to monthlies with good prizes would be pretty good.

Whilst a lot of people like HB I think it would be better to scale back the prizes or not support it competitively, realistically anyone good at the rts type micro isn't going to be playing HB they'll be in SC, SC2, WC3 etc... GW should be promoting the team aspect of the game.

I wouldn't mind TA being supported more if they can get maps etc... that work well there. Not that I expect PvP to grow much but getting 8 people on and improving to be competitive at gvg is a pretty tough thing to ask, TA would be much easier to get into.

Reverend Dr · Nov 07, 2007, 04:56 AM // 04:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razz L Dazzle

PvP Game Pack
Is this too late in the game to have any impact?

Prettymuch its too late. Also, no one bought the PvP packs. You prettymuch have to have all of the expansions unlocked to pvp compeditively (well really to pvp at all) and dropping enough for all of the unlocks at once is way too much of an initial investment.

My suggestion first unlock everything for the expansions purchased. The grind to unlock skills is painful unless you grind pve, which is exactly what the pvp crowd wants to do, or are already established in pvp, in which case you have a flow of faction and are probably already fully unlocked.

Allow balth faction purchase for expansions not purchased. Yes, allow someone to unlock skills for expansions that they have not purchased. It would still gives an incentive to purchase the expansion as it would automatically be fully unlocked. Before someone yells about it hurting Anet's business model consider this. Originally Anet's claim was that each was standalone and one could still be compedative without all of the expansions, which in actuality you are gimped beyond repair; this action will fully legitimize this original claim and allow new blood getting into pvp to only have to buy one game instead of spending $150 at start. There is no illusions, it is the PvE crowd that supports the company the most and one would still need to buy the expansion to play the expansion. The PvP crowd likes to use their PvE characters with all of the nice equipment and armor, and getting skills on a PvE character would still require owning the expansion. It would be a large change to the current business model (as far as its attitude towards PvP), but I cannot see how, from the current state, would cost money and instead this would actually encourage new players and help the current state of PvP; it would actually do what the PvP unlock packs intended to do.

Then again haven't we said them not making UAX at day one the thing that really killed the pvp game? Haven't we reiterated this over and over?

twicky_kid · Nov 07, 2007, 05:12 AM // 05:12

Daily ATs on a schedule is a huge mistake. People have jobs and real lives. Being able to sit 3-4 hours in front of my computer even once a week is a challenge. This has also contributed to the avg age of players being younger and younger.

The old system allowed players to play the game when their scheduled allowed. I can imaging now much of a factor this was in people leaving pvp in droves.

No ladder resets is a huge mistake as well. It gives the players nothing to strive for. My job for instance resets every month. On the 1st of every month everything I did the previous month is wiped clean and I have to start all over. This pushes me everyday to match or beat what I did the previous month.

Kaon · Nov 07, 2007, 11:34 AM // 11:34

Drop gw1 and start alpha of gw2 with some neato stuff!

DutchSmurf · Nov 07, 2007, 02:06 PM // 14:06

At this point most resources are going to GW2. That means that for GW1, Anet needs to think of a direction that keeps as many people happy as possible (and as a result buying GW2), but at a minimum cost. Like the current AT seasons. They don't cost Anet anything at all as far as I can see. You program it once, maybe change the maps once a month and you are done with it. The sponsors (ATI and Creative Labs) pay for the prices. So it looks like that is a way to keep the tournaments going, but for 0 money.
What this means is that if we want to come up with a suggestion in this thread, we have to keep that 0 cost in mind. That also means that a GWWC is out of the question. I know lots of people would love to have another one of these, but I think discussing it is just a waste of time. So it has to be something that takes care of itself. Program it once and never look at it again until the next time you need to come up with something.
Now take a look at what we currently have. First a round of Swiss competition followed by single elimination. Although the Swiss competition is in my opinion a horrible format, it does have some advantages. Most of all that it makes people play more then 1 match. Which I think is an important point for Anet. Thanks to that it also allows people to make up for a bad match up or a mistake made in the first 1-2 rounds. On the other hand, it result in a big mess both for the people playing and for the people watching the tournament. Most of all for something like the monthly tournament I would like to be able to have an idea which guild is doing well. But I still want to observe some interesting matches too. Only way to follow the Swiss competition is using the npc, while the interesting matches either don't show up most of the time. Like rawr lost twice in the Swiss competition, but I don't think anyone got a chance to observe those matches. Another bad thing of the Swiss competition is that the results of your opponents can decide if you make it to the single elimination.
So what I would like to see is some kind of automatic tournament without Swiss competition. That basically leaves 3 other options. Round-robin, single elimination and double elimination. Round-robin doesn't work for GW and single elimination has as disadvantage that bad and/or unlucky guilds only get to play one match. Leaves double elimination. Double elimination has a long history of use in computer gaming. It has as advantage that you can lose once and still win the tournament. It also lets even the worst guild play at least 2 matches. The time needed for the monthly tournament should stay about the same as it is now. With 64 guilds, each guild will have to play 7-8 matches (if I got the math right that is). Which is actually less then the current amount needed. Also, if Anet keeps some days without daily tournaments before the start of it and posts the brackets on the site, the predictions actually will be predictions and not guessing.

About the other points, the PvP-packs are 'only' 2 years late. Although UAX for the complete PvP game for only $50 is a good idea, I doubt it will help much. Unless it is combined with a new kind of PvP and lots of marketing. However, as I wrote earlier, Anet is doing things at a low cost profile. So that won't happen. Meaning PvP-packs now are a waste of time for PvP players and only nice for PvE players who want their heroes fully unlocked.
The ladder as it currently is, is completely useless for anything. The normal rated matches don't work, finding an interesting match at the top is almost impossible and half of the guilds on the ladder are inactive. Thanks to the different rating systems middle ranked guilds are also discouraged to enter the AT's. I would suggest removing the rating gain from the AT's and make those all about getting to the monthly tournament. At the same time, increase the rating gain for normal matches to what it once was. Also include a system that removes inactive guilds. Either by ranking decay or by hiding them until they play again.

Short summary, keep the AT's, but make them more interesting and easier to follow. Money issues probably don't allow for anything more then that. PvP-packs are useless now and so is the current ladder.

Snow Bunny · Nov 07, 2007, 03:45 PM // 15:45

World Champions....that'd be nice to see.

Some nice rivalries too

AlexGuildDrama · Nov 08, 2007, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Automated Tournaments
I think the popularity of tournaments will decline once the $100,000 tournaments disappear. I believe it can be improved if there were tournaments more often, such as every few hours, after all, it is automated so people are not confined to certain time constraints. What I would like see to changed is the number of rounds fought calculated with forfeits, because towards the end, many more unnecessary rounds are fought. Ties aren't cool. Cape trims should be bound to characters and not entire guilds, perhaps to hero battles too, and any other future type of systems of tournaments.

If A-Net wants more involvement with the community, they would actually need communities to be involved with. Despite the declining popularity in Guild Wars, there pretty much is no established way for communities to be built, other than advertising in all chat in some random place or trying to network through very strange impractical social ladders. They would also have to get involved with the community opposed to their strange distant and secretive relationship with their own customers, by perhaps having their own forum much like most other MMOs do.

Guild Ladder
Guilds should be hidden from the ladder if they are inactive for a given time, and perhaps re-established when they are active again.

Guild Tournaments
The latest system is the most efficient.

PvP Game Pack
I don't believe the game pack idea was to improve PvP involvement, but rather another way to increase revenue. Many similar schemes can be found in many other MMOs.

notrich · Nov 08, 2007, 01:39 PM // 13:39

I think the difficulty for the average guild is getting people to commit to the time needed for AT's

I would recommend that they implement one of the following:

a: create a 4 team gvg tourney event (with a playoff after 3 rounds)

b: allow guilds to make their own ELO by having it be the multiple of the number of tournament tokens that they put up for a match (example: Guild A puts up 10 tokens and waits until somebody else puts up ten tokens - their match will have an elo of 10.)

c. 4 high elo matches per hour. Offer to the highest token bidders:10, 25, 50, 100. The two guilds with the highest token totals get the 100, the next gets the 50 and so on.

The token bidding match up could be facilitated by having a merchant create matches in the EOTN. Guilds can meet and challenge each other there and then enter into the match at the appropriate guildhall. I would also recommend in game gold be tied to this system. Maybe 5 plat to enter a bid?