Curse

IlikeGW · Oct 15, 2010, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Being a drone in a HA pug is no representation of what good competitive PvP is about.

PvP is about being in a team of equally skilled and experienced people, working in perfect synergy toward an incredibly challenging and ever shifting goal. It's about struggling to the top. It's about winning because of your collective talents.

Yeah and that's maybe less than 1% of the playerbase that can play with that kind of synergy because few people care to put the kind of extreme experience into the PVP format that you need to get there. Hell they even made a cash tournament which is even worse in emphasizing "this is something that requires you to have a constant level of awareness and training for the sport."

People aren't picking up a videogame to train for the Olympics this week, and train again next week when all the rules change. It was way, way too hardcore to ever make sense for the overall casualness of the game. I'm glad some people enjoyed it but the irony of them wanting to get Anet to get more people "into" something that hardcore is lost on them. You can't get people into it because it's too hardcore, not because it's lacking a HoM goody or what have you.

doomfodder · Oct 15, 2010, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gennadios

It's not so much the getting owned that bothers me, as the fact that even PvP success doesn't seem to be as profitable as PvE.

After 2 months of RA I ended up with a grand total of 76 points, 40 of those were from a double faction weekend where we rolled an extremely good team and got the 25 streak.

That's pretty much the whole story of PvP.

GvG for a month with a guild that's just trying to learn the basics, maybe you'll earn 30k balth faction and you'll be EXTREMELY lucky to earn one or two champ points.

RA for a month, expect to wade through a ton of rudeness, pricks that leave the team at the end of the counter so you get to face the next group 3/4, and even if you end up with an average team, it's a crapshoot whether you'll limp past 5 consecutive wins. Maybe you'll earn 20 glad points in that time.

Nty, in an hour of PvEing I can earn more zkeys than I'll get in a month of PvP.

And you, my friend can go back to the PvP forums and complain about the degenerate meta, the rank based lock-out of new players, and the slow death of most PvP formats.

Edit: Typo

This poster (from another thread) illuminates the current PvP “reward” structure clearly. If ANET chooses not to alter the incentives, then it’s reasonable to infer that ANET chooses have the player base participate in PvE rather than PvP. The HoM PvP requirement only serves to emphasize the obvious... structure creates behavior!

Godefridus · Oct 15, 2010, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Uhm... do you see anywhere in the Honor section of the HoM calculator the reward:
1 PvE statue: 3 points?

I don"t think so!

So whereas all other titles/statues in the HoM all count as 1 each (regardless if they are pve or pvp), you only get a BONUS if at least one of those is a PvP title.

So driving people away from PvP? ANet might have done that way back when they created all the titles and created more PvE titles than PvP, but actually with the point calculation now for the HoM they might even drive PvE-ers towards PvP as these now require at least one PvP title. And we PvE players sure are title junks

Besides, from the earlier reactions here it seems that the true PvP-ers apparently don't care about the flashy PvE rewards for GW2, so ANet is surely not driving them towards PvE.

*lemming* · Oct 15, 2010, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roen

Reminds me of a time long long ago, when I was at university. There was a foosball table in a common area and my best friend and I hung out there and played every day. We were the best players, by far. (Some accomplishment, eh?)

He insisted on pummeling EVERY opponent EVERY time. I tried to reason with him that if we were unwilling to teach other players, unwilling to help our competitors and give them a chance, the competition would dry up and we'd be left with nobody to play with but ourselves. But no. He would only accept complete annihilation and high fiving and smack talking opponents for sucking so bad.

Lo and behold, the people willing to step up to the table and challenge us dwindled. They were sick of his attitude. They'd pony up money to play and get slammed 15-0 in two minutes or less. IT WAS NOT FUN FOR THEM. Eventually, nobody played anymore.

The social dynamic of a dorm is just a bit different from that of an international online team game.

Vazze · Oct 15, 2010, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roen

Nice attitude. Casual players are lazy. Chicken. Wussies who can't handle the embarrassment. That's how your post reads. Whether that's your true opinion or not I don't know. But that's how it comes across. And it's one of the reasons I don't play PvP. Because that's the way a lot of PvPers come across.

Reminds me of a time long long ago, when I was at university. There was a foosball table in a common area and my best friend and I hung out there and played every day. We were the best players, by far. (Some accomplishment, eh?)

He insisted on pummeling EVERY opponent EVERY time. I tried to reason with him that if we were unwilling to teach other players, unwilling to help our competitors and give them a chance, the competition would dry up and we'd be left with nobody to play with but ourselves. But no. He would only accept complete annihilation and high fiving and smack talking opponents for sucking so bad.

Lo and behold, the people willing to step up to the table and challenge us dwindled. They were sick of his attitude. They'd pony up money to play and get slammed 15-0 in two minutes or less. IT WAS NOT FUN FOR THEM. Eventually, nobody played anymore.

So yeah, lots of people prefer cooperative play of PvE over PvP. For very good reasons. But that doesn't make them lazy. Just less anti-social.

Indeed, that is part of the reason why the pvp population collapsed in most of the arenas. Sadly, this has happened as recently as a year ago when codex was introduced, which tells me that they don't have a clue about relationship between rewards and motivation.
Reward can mean a whole lot of things but it is mostly WINNING, in some form. The kind who is willing to lose for years to get to an imaginary "top", is special and rare. It is definitely not worth the money to develop a major game for them.

Ninja Ninja · Oct 15, 2010, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roen

Nice attitude. Casual players are lazy. Chicken. Wussies who can't handle the embarrassment. That's how your post reads. Whether that's your true opinion or not I don't know. But that's how it comes across. And it's one of the reasons I don't play PvP. Because that's the way a lot of PvPers come across.

Its funny because its true, casuals spend more time talking about something than actual doing it and the hom rewards stopping at 30/50 reflect that.

Swahnee · Oct 15, 2010, 10:23 PM // 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krill

You can learn the basics of PvP in random arena and by observing matches. All I was saying is don't make "but if only I could play it my way" excuses. You either take the plunge or sit on the sidelines waiting for something that will never happen.

I don't understand this. I'm not asking to "play it my way". I'm simply saying that a lot of people don't care about being the best players of all the GW universe, they would only like a low-level environment where to play PvP without being tremendously serious about it. Like. Every. Sport. Then, about ANet doing something to change the state of things, that's another problem.

Quote:

Indeed many people don't like being slaughtered. Many moons ago when I played my first online game (Unreal Tournament) it took at least a whole summer of being wrecked before I could even hope for a remotely decent round, let alone flag carry or top score. It was still fun as hell though even if I was being repeatedly spawned killed with an amped mini. Satisfaction only comes from accomplishing something that's actually difficult.

Well, congratulations to you. I mean, seriously. The fact is that not everyone is wanting to put all this effort into a game, like not everyone wants to go through 6 hours of daily training to play a RL sport. To enjoy any sport you can train 4 hours a week and play in a non-professional torunament with other people of the same level. And you still have fun, i assure you.

Quote:

When GW launched it was supposed to be the anti-MMO, all competitive and no grind. Here we are 5 years later and it's completely non-competitive with most of the players grinding pointless PvE titles that only require X amount of time and gold. Mission accomplished I guess.

I agree with this. But i don't se how it fits in the point we are making.

[/QUOTE]And for the record there are few PvP players that will help, but you have to put some sort of effort into it first (UAX, learning the basics in RA, observing). It doesn't take long to sort out lazy players from those that have a brain and want to get something done.[/QUOTE]

You are making it way too simple imho.

Ninja Ninja · Oct 15, 2010, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

I don't understand this. I'm not asking to "play it my way". I'm simply saying that a lot of people don't care about being the best players of all the GW universe, they would only like a low-level environment where to play PvP without being tremendously serious about it. Like. Every. Sport. Then, about ANet doing something to change the state of things, that's another problem.

Ascalon arena, Shiverpeak arena, Shing jea arena, Sunspear arena, there's you're low level pvp environment.

*lemming* · Oct 16, 2010, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krill

And for the record there are few PvP players that will help, but you have to put some sort of effort into it first (UAX, learning the basics in RA, observing). It doesn't take long to sort out lazy players from those that have a brain and want to get something done.

Most competent players are perfectly happy to help out new guilds with advice, commentary on observer mode, or guests. How many aspiring guilds actually take advantage?

dwchang · Oct 16, 2010, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

Most competent players are perfectly happy to help out new guilds with advice, commentary on observer mode, or guests. How many aspiring guilds actually take advantage?

I don't claim to know how PvP is now, but back in the day we used to mentor quite a few Guilds and scrimmed them when they asked and afterwards provided advice. Similarly a few months after launch, guilds like Treacherous Empires and Nuclear Launch Detected mentored us.

I understand where this "elitism" talk is coming from, but just like politics, folks are generalizing an entire community based on the loud minority. After so many years of playing, I know quite a few nice and friendly PvP players just as I"m sure PvE players have met nice and friendly PvE players.

Most competent PvP players realize that helping others is how you keep the community growing and more competition is great. Someone's analogy regarding foosball is a great example. It's unfortunate it's reached the low levels it has now, but oh well. I had fun while it lasted and at least for me, I can always PvE. It's never been this "division" for me.

*lemming* · Oct 16, 2010, 01:38 AM // 01:38

Some of you may recall the community effort known as Team Love [kiSu], which was conceptualized as a place for low-mid level aspiring GvGers to get hands-on training and feedback from high-level players.

What happened?

Very few of the "students," especially after the initial couple of months, actually put any effort into trying to learn anything. In fact, in the final months of gvg in the organization, there were incidents of mentors being insulted and their advice being completely disregarded.

It's not a problem of help being unavailable.

Krill · Oct 16, 2010, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

Well, congratulations to you. I mean, seriously. The fact is that not everyone is wanting to put all this effort into a game, like not everyone wants to go through 6 hours of daily training to play a RL sport. To enjoy any sport you can train 4 hours a week and play in a non-professional torunament with other people of the same level. And you still have fun, i assure you.

My point was you shouldn't expect instant success with anything and there's already low end PvP. Why are players discouraged instead of looking at is as a challenge? The first few times I went into tombs (now HA if you don't know) I was completely clueless but the fun was intoxicating even when we were beat by iway or spikes every time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

Most competent players are perfectly happy to help out new guilds with advice, commentary on observer mode, or guests. How many aspiring guilds actually take advantage?

Not many, apparently it's much easier to whine about how it's too hard on a forum. In the past many top tier GvG players freely gave their time to help out learning guilds like kisu and guesting with nobodies. But like I said to get anything out of it there has to be a desire to learn and willingness to park your ego at the enter battle button.

ilr · Oct 16, 2010, 01:55 AM // 01:55

A PvP format that doesn't leave any room for inexperience(read: creativity) will always wither down to a niche group of hardcores incapable of attracting a positive growth trend. Comp has always been like this is any game that has ever supported a rigid enough ruleset to exclude anyone on the basis of said inexperience. It's a philosophical difference in mindsets where playing only at the highest skill level becomes the definition of fun which might be miles away from everyone else's definition of fun. ...thus begets the divide.

It's quite the interesting little conundrum. ...without that dedication and sacrifice of individuality, there's no highlight reels to inspire the newer generations. But without the selfish incentives of individual conquest (I did it MY way), the bar of entry might as well be looped in razorwire and dead fish.

YunSooJin · Oct 16, 2010, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rocky Raccoon

I think the players, for all the various reasons mentioned in the posts above. are the ones who drove the stake and nailed the coffin of PvP in GW.

any competitive format will not coddle bad players, 'mentor' them and shit feel good rainbows so your collective egos will be assuaged.

Siraena Vairidean · Oct 16, 2010, 03:25 AM // 03:25

It's like your PS3 or 360. You buy these consoles because of the main games they release for them. The dvd player and the little arcade downloads are little sidebars. They're nice to have and enjoy, but they're not the main purpose of the systems.

Guild Wars is a story. That story is told through PvE.

MithranArkanere · Oct 16, 2010, 03:25 AM // 03:25

PvP population mechanics are simple.

The more specialized and the better players you have, the fewer the most specialized will be, and the less interested the rest of the players are.
Because it's just not fun when you lose 99% of the time.
It's fun when you can have fun even when you lose, and 25..75% of the time is fine, but not losing 99% of the time.

Which PvP mode is currently more populated?
I think most people would agree that it is RA.
Why? Because people can quickly join, and fight, and do stuff even if they are really bad, and learn (or not) and be teamed not just against the best, but against all kinds of people.
It's like in most FPS servers. You may have fun even when you get sniped in the head a lot.

Which is the less populated?
Codex.
Why? Because you have to convince 3 people to join with you. And even if you are good in PvP, it's still hard to find people.
Make CA random like RA, and I bet the number of people that join will at least double.

So, I think they should leave teams for tournaments and GvG, and let people join in random teams in all the 3 arenas in the battle isles.
That should take care of the entry resistance, remove too specialized 64-skill builds, while letting in lots and lots of people that is cannot get teams for whatever the reason.
If you want to play seriously with a team, you train with scrimmages and wait for the next tournament and the 'team' version of those arenas.

I can't help but smirk when I think of HA with random teams. Hee hee hee... that would be fun.

Ka Tet · Oct 16, 2010, 05:49 AM // 05:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

While it isn't all A.nets fault, they do take up a very large chunk of blame. Not all players who left, quit because they did everything they wanted to and decided to ride off into the sunset. A lot of players quit out of frustration due to A.Nets complete lack of understanding the game they created, and the horrible updates that resulted because of the fact. It is pretty frustrating to have the people in charge of the game show a complete lack of understanding time and time again, and when help and advice is offered, have your words fall on deaf ears.

^^TRUTH
GW pvp had the potential to be great. It really would not have taken much to make it that way. However, it was entirely ignored for long stretches of time, and when efforts were made to 'fix' it, the efforts weren't made by people competent for the task [think dentist fixing a car as opposed to a mechanic fixing a car].
It's too late to salvage it now anyway.

*lemming* · Oct 16, 2010, 06:11 AM // 06:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grimhild The Queen

It's like your PS3 or 360. You buy these consoles because of the main games they release for them. The dvd player and the little arcade downloads are little sidebars. They're nice to have and enjoy, but they're not the main purpose of the systems.

Guild Wars is a story. That story is told through PvE.

Your analogy is terrible.

Vazze · Oct 16, 2010, 07:09 AM // 07:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

Which PvP mode is currently more populated?
I think most people would agree that it is RA.
Why? Because people can quickly join, and fight, and do stuff even if they are really bad, and learn (or not) and be teamed not just against the best, but against all kinds of people.
It's like in most FPS servers. You may have fun even when you get sniped in the head a lot.

I read somewhere on a League of Legends forum that their soloQ is about 5 times more populated than their premade (for the same arena). No idea about fps games like L4D but I am fairly certain that the ratio is even bigger there. This of course does not mean that organized pvp has no place in gw, it's just that they had the wrong approach building it up.

I Angra I · Oct 16, 2010, 09:48 AM // 09:48

I don't understand the point of this thread.

Every post I've skimmed through is just stating facts rather than actual discussion going on.

I can't even comment on anything because everyone is just stating obvious things (or is stating wildly ridiculous things that I don't want to bother with).

Also, concerning the last page or two, with people saying that nobody wants to help anyone get into competitive pvp.. Gear has tried helping out people quite a lot, and I'm willing to talk to/give advice to anyone who pms me in game or on forums or anything if they want to learn about pvp. In fact there's a lot of high end pvpers who are perfectly willing to help out. Most people just either don't try to seek help, or are too stubborn to.