Curse

JoDiamonds · Jun 20, 2005, 04:28 AM // 04:28

This was originally in reply to a post in a different thread, but it would have been increasingly off topic in that thread. So I'm putting it here, where I think it's most appropriate.

My apologies to everyone who is sick of this discussion. I'm not sick of it yet, and in fact still undecided on how I'd vote if Arena Net held a public poll on whether or not PvP should be Totally Unlocked compared to PvE. Also, I know this is kind of long, so I've tried to at least highlight points with bold.

Original thread here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...5&postcount=93
(You can click on the top right of that page if you want the full original thread.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by squakMix

The fact that play time inpacts pvp competitability SEVERELY (ONLY because it's severe) makes it a problem; Making it not significant would eliminate the problem (because if it's not severe it's not a problem).

Let's say you do make everything unlocked for pvp right away. Then there will be people with 100+ hours of Pvp that are very good at it, organized and in a guild that have whole routines set down. You would still be able to jump in and say "The game has a problem because they've played longer than me and can beat me easily. You need to do things besides start a pvp character and play once to be able to compete in pvp. "

You get my point.

I absolutely get your point. I hope that you do still understand mine. Either PvP is completely about skill and not about grinding, or it's at least partially about grinding and therefore not completely about skill. That's a big part of my issue, which different people care about a different amount. Making the issue less severe is good (and important to this discussion), but PvP will not be completely about skill unless grinding doesn't matter at all.

Goals
Here's what I hope to accomplish with this post:

- Help Arena Net make a better game. Hopefully, they've thought about all of this a lot, but if they've missed anything, maybe we here at GuildwarsGurus (or elsewhere) can help them explore all the options, pros, and cons.

- Find more pros and cons and mistakes in my logic. I've obviously spent some time thinking about this, but not a ton, and a thousand heads are better than one. I'm not even sure if I personally like grind or not in the game. I'm leaning towards disliking it, but I could be convinced otherwise, and it's not a clear cut issue in any case.

- Help people generally understand the issue. This has been a hot issue since the game came out, and ArenaNet has obviously been interested in exactly how much grind there is, and the effects on people playing the game. I don't think anyone fully understands it all, but maybe this will help everyone understand it a little more. (Anyone who cares, anyway.)

I'm still not sure whether or not I'm in favor of a "full unlock" for PvP. I'm just trying to verbally and publicly explore the options.

It's a good thing that players who practice a game or are naturally talented excel at that game

In nearly any game or sport, people rarely complain that other people are just better, whether it is because of practice or natural talent. Some people claim that if there were a Full Unlock in GuildWars, people would complain anyway. I have two responses to that: (1) It's not true. (2) It doesn't matter if it is true.

(1) People would not seriously complain that opponents who practiced more also won more

When a team is defeated in a game, any game, it's generally because the other team was better, that day. It's rarely because someone else had more money (though I won't deny it's true sometimes, and in those cases that's a fine complaint).

Seriously, I am interested to hear about other games (not Massive Online games) where people say, "Other people have *practiced* more than me and therefore they can beat me, and that's no good!" It's just not a legitimate complaint, and people KNOW that. If I practice a lot of chess, or tennis, and can beat someone who I couldn't before, no one complains about that. Or maybe I'm just naturally talented (at either game), and no one complains about that (or if they do, they complain that life isn't fair, but I think that's outside the realm of this discussion.)

If the rules of chess or tennis inherently gave an advantage to the person who played more, that would be absurd. Imagine getting a single extra pawn in chess because you had logged more hours, or you got an extra "bad" serve in tennis because you'd spent longer playing it.

Or, in the case of chess, imagine that you only could choose to play with up to four Bishops or four Knights (which are generally considered roughly equal value pieces), at your choice, simply because you had "grinded" more. Even though this is theoretically "different but equal", I claim that it's clearly an advantage to one player to be able to have these different options when the other player doesn't also get all these options.

(2) It doesn't matter if people complained that people who practice more also win more

Let's be clear: Who cares a whit about anyone who complains that people who practice win more? That's obviously a GOOD THING to hope for in a game. If the goal is for skill to not matter, people can go play whatever random games of chance they want.

Skill vs. Chance
(This is kind of an aside and easily skipped.)

There is a balance between skill and chance in any game, within the rules of the game. (Players randomly getting tired, or Acts of God, like weather, don't count within the rules of the game.) Chess is all skill; there is no luck. Tic-Tac-Toe is *also* all skill, for a simpler example. Flipping a coin is all luck, obviously. Poker is an obvious mix of skill and luck; in the long run, skill matters a great deal, but it's obvious that anyone might get lucky and win in the short term. Even in tennis, things like the rotation of the ball as it hits the court are essentially luck. If the ball hits on the line of the stitch, it bounces slightly differently than otherwise. (At least, I think most modern tennis players can't consciously account for this on either hitting or predicting.)

There are definite advantages to including both skill and luck in any game. Including skill as a major factor in who wins allows people to practice to get better, or even just enjoy their natural talents, which everyone has. (And hence are better at different games.) Skill based games also encourage competition, which chance can't really do. Including chance is inherently exciting for most people, and also allows a weaker team to sometimes defeat a stronger team, which is good for everyone involved. (If the best player or team ALWAYS won, it would be very boring. Also, it's not much fun to feel like you have no chance at winning, even if you know it's a low chance.)

== Skill vs. Playing Time (Grind) ==
Many online games, especially Massive Online games, introduce a factor in which your equipment is better the more you play. It's not your skill which is increasing (necessarily, though admittedly it often does), it's just a free bonus you get for playing more. If you grind more, you get an advantage.

It's clearly good to reward skilled players. Skilled players should win more often. It's not clearly better to reward players who grind more.

There are reasons to reward grinding. I'm trying to list the ones I can think of, and welcome anyone else adding to the list. This is a general list, to try to capture reasons people might bring up, even if they don't pertain to Guild Wars.

== REASONS TO ENCOURAGE GRINDING == (or: Why players who grind more should win more)

Subscriptions
In games with a subscription fee, anything that makes players spend more time playing is good for the manufacturers. This is not relevant to Guild Wars.

Player Activity
If potential players look online and see no one playing, they will likely assume the game is terrible and not play. This is definitely relevant to Guild Wars. When a player first makes a PvE character (it probably won't be a PvP to start with), there really had better be a bunch of people in Ascalon, or new players won't stick around. This needs to hold up as true throughout the game, too, or players may quit.

While this is bad for the manufacturers, it would also obviously be bad for players. The current system does make experienced players want to keep playing, and even to make new characters to play with. So that's a clear and positive reason to encourage grinding, in my opinion.

Enhances PvE experience for some players
If a player can create a PvP character and see every possible item and magic in the game, it loses some of the appeal of seeing it for the first time in PvE (whether the player finds it or sees someone else using it). I suspect that many or even most players will at least experiment with making PvP characters before "finishing the game", whatever you call that, so this is relevant.

Personally, I don't find this particular argument to be a compelling reason, but it is a reason to lock skills in GuildWars (which is inherently related to Grinding).

== REASONS TO DISCOURAGE GRINDING == (or: Why players who grind more should not win more)

Fairness of Competition
The most obvious reason to discourage grinding is to ensure a fair playing field. My highest level character is maximum level, has "finished" the game in some definition (trying to avoid spoilers), and has taken 126 hours. I'm still looking for most of the elite skills for this character.

This is a lot of time for one character, and is still only two of the character classes. I'd have to play some less desirable (by me, anyway) character combinations to make sure I covered them all in just three times through the game, which is still a long time. (To be fair, I enjoy PvE, and so far it's not felt much like grinding... but this is my first character, first time through.)

For the purposes of PvP, I don't think most players could justify playing hundreds of hours of gametime just to get started on a mostly-level playing field. That's when you can start practicing real PvP. Even then, only with the character class combinations you've used. (Unlocking for PvP still won't let the PvP characters acquire all of the items for PvP: Every PvP Elementalist should, in theory, have four sets of armor ready in PvP to switch between them, but making a PvP character doesn't allow that.)

Whether or not people care about the issue of fairness varies greatly from person to person. In particular, people with no interest in PvP probably don't care whether or not PvP is fair. At the same time, they might care about there being an Unlock Everything in PvP (even if they shouldn't, really.)

PvE rewards PvP
In GuildWars, for the purposes of PvP, more options (sometimes simply better ones, in the case of things like multiple armor sets for switching during combat) are available to people who play more. More specifically, they get it for playing PvE, which is only somewhat related to PvP. That would be like giving a chess player more pieces for playing a lot of checkers.

I hope this at least makes some people think. =]

Spark · Jun 20, 2005, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Good post. I find the grinding really restrictive because you have to unlock many different skill sets to be complete as a player. For example, I have made some builds for my guild but the problem is say for example, noone plays a ranger, noone has elite mesmer skills, and they don't want to run another character all the way to Southern Shiverpeaks/Ring of Fire to get them. It's really restrictive and the teams that can freely have people change characters to fit builds are at a real advantage because they arn't stuck in a single strategy due to what they have unlocked.

The problem isn't that you need to finish the game once, which isn't THAT hard, but that you have to do it at least 3 times to get all the necessary skills. I find this unacceptable and takes far too much time to allow people freedom to play in PvP.

If PvE lost some of its interest due to losing the PvP unlocking aspect, you could possibly add more cosmetic changes like 15k armor, Dyes, to keep people interested. Make it 'really cool' but give no inherant advantage. That, AND there is the fact that many play PvE for the fun of it.

As a primary PvPer, I'll admit that the fact that I am forced to play PvE has ruined it for me. I have to buy skills I will never use in PvE, I have to keep switching between professions to pick up more skills, and grind for runes that I could easily buy once from the rune trader. If I could simply enjoy PvE for what it is, I would! But I don't have the time to play PvE for fun, grind PvE for PvP, AND PvP. The unlocking really ruins it for me.

arredondo · Jun 20, 2005, 05:03 AM // 05:03

I loved the PvE game, and as long as you are only asked to do 100+ hours of PvE once (play all quests, missions, bonuses), I have no problem with the relationship between the two modes. It is a balanced approach rather than having two purely separate components that they obviously don't want.

But once I go through the missions once, any other forced attempts for the purpose of fully enjoying unrelated PvP action is 100% pure grind.... and THAT is what should be changed. PvE-only crowds would scream bloody murder if they were forced to play PvP for 100+ hours just to enjoy their mode, such is the same for what we're asking.