Interview with Team Paradigm: Is GW2 a viable eSport?

I recently had a chance to talk to some of the best Guild Wars PvPers around, Xeph and Azshene of Team Paradigm. The Topic of discussion was whether Guild Wars 2 has a chance at breaking into the professional eSports scene, and if not, what needs to change to make it a viable eSport. I have transcribed an abridged version of the above interview for the sake of those unable to watch a large video.

The first thing I am going to ask you guys is the main topic of this interview. Following on from other MMOs like WoW and the original Guild Wars trying to have a professional scene, do you think that Guild Wars 2 can break through and be as popular as the big eSport games (LoL/Starcraft)?

Azshene: I think that it absolutely has the potential and for an MMO like Guild Wars to not be based on subscription is really good for it. It’s the same way that LoL operates and even Starcraft get their main incomes from casual players and appealing to that market to draw people into the game. Will it get competitive as an eSport? I think for balance, at release, I think the game is really polished.

So what you’re saying is that the spectators are casual players, appealing to that market is good for the scene and the game is already good balance wise. Do you think the player base is going to be mostly casual players?

Azshene: I think it will because Guild Wars itself appeals to casual players, the majority of people playing games these days are casual players, that’s just the fact of it, and the more people you can get to watch these events the more popular the game will be.

So casual players are a good thing for the professional scene, but you need the high level players too, does it have enough high level players at the moment? Does it have a skill cap high enough for a professional game?

Azshene: You already see a lot of teams out there wanting to do well in the game.

Xeph: Yeah, also guild wars has done a good job with their actual interface, it’s very clean, very simple, it helps a lot of viewers as well.

So it’s already good spectator wise, it’s not like WoW with innumerable skills and abilities?

Xeph: Yeah, also they’ve done a good job with the animation. The animations of skills are very clear so people can see them, the points system makes matches very easy to follow so people can just look up at the points. Sort of like StarCraft with their resources and supply, you can tell who’s winning from that, just by looking, the games easy to pick up but difficult to master.

Do you think it will harm the game having (at the time of this writing) only one structured PvP mode? Do you think this will be enough for a professional scene to develop from or do you think they will introduce something like a death match mode i.e. WoW’s arenas?

Xeph: Even though its one it’s just like League of Legends or DoTA, it’s just one mode, and that’s what you do. In LoL and DoTA it’s just about destroying the enemy’s base, this is just the same thing except its capping points. I don’t see the problem with having one mode because most people just view one mode in every other game

Would that not encourage the development of one ideal team comp that would be the only thing you could really play in structured teams because it’s built for capping points, holding points and defending points? Do you think with more modes it might allow for more varied play styles to emerge?

Azshene: I think that’s a good thing in the first place because you can make builds based upon not killing people like you would have to in a death match, you could make it about ability and about control.

In terms of spectatorship are they going to have to introduce a spectator mode or will player screens be sufficient with the map?

Xeph: Definitely spectator mode, they are going to need to have one. They did have one in Guild Wars 1 and it was really nice, very responsive. It was one of the best spectator modes I’ve ever seen.

It’s not impossible then, they’ve done it before so it’s a feature we can probably look forward to because obviously it is very early days. We’ve discussed the difference between Tournament play and solo queue in terms of viability of burst specs, would you agree they are only effective in Solo queue?

Azshene: I think it comes down to people. When they first join the game they only notice the abilities that hit hard for instance with quickness you can just press two buttons and it will be sufficient to kill people and when people first join they don’t realise what it does and why it kills them so fast.

Xeph: I think at the moment they do seem more valuable to the casual player, but I think once you get into the game you realise specs in the middle where you can deal good damage but you survive a lot are actually a lot more valuable. It’s always like that in a game, at the start, everybody wants to do the biggest damage, because otherwise you don’t really show up on the scoreboard, there’s less glory in it.

Do you think in response to that Arenanet could add more varied methods of getting on that scoreboard? More varied methods of achieving the points that rank you higher on there.

Xeph: Yeah, I believe there is an issue with the ranking system at the moment, the glory system, because it doesn’t promote you standing on a point. The person who stands on a point the whole game is going to get the least amount of points and the least amount of glory. People want to cap points to get more glory so defending a point becomes counterproductive for them so people are more encouraged to play the roamer that kills everyone. You can only have one or two roamers, any more than that you have a weak defence.

So in terms of team comp is there a generally accepted comp that works very well?

Xeph: It tends to be you can have one or two roamers. I think our preference is one roamer and one semi roamer. A semi roamer is a class that has a little mobility, like a Mesmer. I don’t have much mobility I can’t get across the map like an elementalist or a thief can, but I do have my own swiftness and I can get from one objective to another, I sometimes tend to stay there if, let’s say, another points getting assaulted and I’m with the roamer, the roamer would leave and I would have to stay on the point.

Mobility seems to be the key word when it comes to roaming, do you think the key to solo queue games is to be the guy on the point, the defender, since it tends to be the whole team roaming.

Xeph: Maybe because it’s just released and people aren’t aware yet, they haven’t grasped what the games about and how the matches work but eventually you’ll see more people running bunker specs. I don’t really think it’s a problem with the game, I just think they should address the issue of people getting less glory for standing on a point because effectively you’re getting your teams most points because your holding that objective.

So there is a problem in terms of the rewards, but in time burst specs will just phase out as people begin to learn what’s going on. How do you think people should learn the game, is there any good learning resources out there or is experience the key?

Xeph: Both, I think reading guides and watching videos of players you think are better than yourself is a good way to pick up pointers when you’re just starting out. You can’t fully grasp the class just by playing that would take you a very long time but if you spend 30 minutes watching an experience player play your new class you’ve already significantly improved without having to play.

Was there anything you were having trouble with when you started out, like burst specs, that you had a realisation about and could suddenly deal with easily?

Xeph: With my class I didn’t have any resources in the time I started playing it, in the beta weekend, I wish there was more resources. I tried to look around but I played the newest class, the last class to be released in Guild Wars, so it was all a learning experience when the class came out, no one had played it previously. I did look at some videos, looked at the ideas people had and melded them with the ideas I had and it really helped me out.

When you watch gameplay and are trying to learn, what do you take most notice of, an associate of mine recently noted that the sounds are very important queues that most people don’t pay attention too, what do you focus on?

Xeph: Yeah it’s very important, take Kyhlo for example you can hear the trebuchet shot coming, you even get a warning.

Azshene: It’s actually gotten to the point where I can hear the shot being fired and I can time in my head when it’s going to hit and dodge without even looking at it. Things like that can really help you out.

Xeph: Also animations, I think learning animations is one of the most important things because in this game, specifically in this game, you can dodge every single ability.

In that case would you suggest that people just gain as much on hand experience against other classes or go and try out the other classes to learn the animations and structure first hand?

Xeph: I would suggest they play other classes, it’s easier in this game than it is in other games because you get instant level 80 and you can try out all the classes and you really got nothing lose you don’t have to level anything.

Would you recommend people do some PvE first, go get some levels to get the feel for the class or just jump right in to PvP if structured PvP is their only real interest?

Xeph: No, to be honest with you there’s no point doing PvE if you want to PvP, you won’t learn anything in PvE that you won’t learn in PvP faster if you’re only goal is to PvP.

We have already said the game has the potential to be a competitive game, is there anything you think the developers need to change besides the addition of a spectator mode?

Azshene: A few things I’ve definitely noticed missing are private servers. You want to be able to go duel or have private scrims and you need to be able to practice against the better opponents. Also a separation in the ranking system between people queuing solo and a premade team. It’s unfair for people trying to learn the game and the better players don’t learn much from it either, so a ranking system definitely. Also, private tournaments. Right now if you are trying to set up a tournament you can’t, you can either use the free tournaments or the paid tournaments, you can’t control who you face in those, you can’t invite specific teams, those three things are just as important as spectator mode.

Xeph: On top of rating I would like to see a team rating as this is a team oriented game so I want there to be team ratings along with individual ratings.

You mentioned prior to the interview an issue with WvWvW right now is “Karma/Glory Trains,” large groups of people running around circularly capping and uncapping objectives, does this break the system? What can be done to fix it?

Xeph: yeah I really think that should be addressed at some point, these battlegrounds have a set amount of people able to enter them at any one time and it seems like people are totally ignoring the objective of it and just getting on these trains that are just for XP and Karma, it takes away from the epic-ness of it. I think there should be some kind of diminishing reward if you keep getting it, like every half an hour you get the full reward and after that you get less, it would mean that people aren’t get as much as they want out of it.

Azshene: I think something that would be easier to communicate would be a straight up daily cap like you have with daily achievements and such, that would be easier to understand for a casual player, instead of I can do this much then in another hour from now I can get more, it’s hard to communicate how much the diminishing factor is.

Do you think that there’s a big enough pool of talented players that if companies where to come in and start sponsoring right now, there would be enough people for competition?

Xeph: Personally I think that it could work, because more teams have sprung up and I was taken aback by the amount of people prepared to play this game at a competitive level, there’s teams springing up everywhere and everyone’s scouting players. I can’t count the amount of teams that we have seen come up. There’s definitely player interest but it will all depend on how Arenanet handles it now.

Do you think the audience is there too? Would there be a big enough following to make it worth Arenanet putting resources into it or would it be more of a niche thing?

Xeph: I think it will be popular, if you’ve been noticing on twitch there aren’t a lot of PvE streams, everyone is watching PvP, everybody’s interested in the PvP in this game, it’s really really fun. It’s easy to pick up and hard to master and a lot of people enjoy that, they don’t come into PvP feeling absolutely useless . Everybody has a fighting chance and the gear normalization caters perfectly to a competitive scene and the casual players, no one goes in feeling like they have an inherent disadvantage.

 

In summary, Guild Wars definitely has the opportunity to carve a path into the eSports scene, a few additions and a bit of support and the community will build itself. The game allows for people just jump in and out of very well balanced PvP with startling fluidity and no downtime and this should allow for an inclusive experience that allows skilled players to show there worth immediately!

Thank you to Team Paradigm for allowing me to talk to them on the subject, when I asked if they had any shoutouts all they said was “We are both giving our one shoutout to our teammate, Teldo” so, shoutouts to Teldo and shoutouts to the incredibly supportive GW2 community
GLHF
@Neonhowl
@TeamParadigmNet