Curse

Winstar · Jul 23, 2006, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Over the past few months our guild has been pushing GvG a lot more and we've steadily improved as players and builders. We want to be able to be at home in the sub 200 range which is reasonable goal if we play the builds we trust and have people in positions they are familiar with. On the other hand we generally don't like to restrict who gets to play (though on occasion we restrict what positions they can play, in particular ganking assassins) as the bottom line is that we want everyone to enjoy themselves. We also want to be open to try out different ideas that people put forward. This of course leads to inconsistant results as we oscillate between 200ish-900ish range. We have a few builds that put us in a position to win in any given match but we also run a lot of untested builds and often have lots of moving parts filling the slots.

I'm curious as to how other guilds in a similar position to us balance the desire for a degree of success and keeping a fun and open guild environment.

cheers

pigdestroyer · Jul 23, 2006, 09:12 PM // 21:12

i think you should really have what will be your 8 guys roster if you guys want to be in the top 200.. and of course a bench with good replacements.

its difficult at first because maybe a lot of people want to gvg..

Winstar · Jul 23, 2006, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Thats the part of it. We have about 16 or more people who want to GvG and about 8 people who want to build. Its to have the best of both worlds it seems.

Mr Fizzle · Jul 23, 2006, 11:33 PM // 23:33

Basically you should choose maybe 2-3 builds to only run,8 people that GvG mainly and maybe 4-5 backup players,also assigned times to GvG 6-8 Central ext.To make sure everyone is there and not just gvging at random times.

BTW 6-8 is just a example

.

glenn_rolfe · Jul 23, 2006, 11:34 PM // 23:34

settle your builds and settle players into roles - make specialists

Vindexus · Jul 24, 2006, 04:55 AM // 04:55

You can't be consistent while allowing 16 people to rotate in and out in my opinion.

For builds you should stick to 2-3 good builds.

Red Locust · Jul 24, 2006, 06:09 AM // 06:09

Unless you're usually running some non-standard build, I'd say it's important to keep the same people as your warriors and monks. The coordination between the two (or more) people in those roles can make all the difference in the heat of GvG. Other spots tend to be relatively solo, so you can cycle people in and out depending on need/availability.

Morganas · Jul 24, 2006, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Problems like this in past guilds is why I'm glad my current guild's leader keeps the guild very small. On rare occasion we have to invite a guest to GvG with us, but that's better than having too big a guild and either leaving some people out of the fun, which is kinda wrong, or having a crap team all the time because you're not used to each others play style.

If you're afraid of leaving people out, form a gvg group of your top tier players, and have everyone else who wants to gvg form separate "child" guilds, based on experience or just who works well with who. Also, if you need backups, you can always just use someone from the child guild. Best solution IMO, everyone gets to GvG without impacting rank.

Wasteland Squidget · Jul 24, 2006, 07:50 AM // 07:50

A couple months ago we were in a similar situation, constantly switching builds and players around. Our ladder ranking fluctuated constantly and we never really got any team coordination going.

What really needs to happen is for your guild to put its foot down and get organized. Organize a roster in such a way that you get the good reliable players on your A team - once you've got your main team of 8, set up specific times to play and work out a build you can all enjoy running. If you have enough active GvGers you could try setting up two teams, but getting 16 good reliable players is a pretty massive undertaking. For every three players who say they'll show up at the specified time, you'll usually only get one who actually does.

Don't be afraid to move people off the roster quickly if they are constantly screwing up the rest of the team, or if they just aren't showing up. It only takes a few nights of not GvGing, or GvGing badly, to throw teams into turmoil and create a chain reaction where more and more people don't show up for the specified time.

Pick a basic build that you think fits your style (steal from Obs Mode or design your own), discuss it on your guilds' forums, and STICK WITH IT. It's very tempting to change up entire characters after every battle based on what you just got rolled by, but don't do this. Changing a skill here and there is fine, and if there are really obvious weaknesses in the build you might want to stick with it. Once you've played your build a bit, figure out how to define its concept in a couple of words ("Energy Denial", "Degen Pressure", "Split for VoD", ect) and identify any parts of the build that aren't working towards that goal.

Just as important as having the same players is having the same players in the same positions. You generally want to be running the same warrior squad, the same monk squad, the same mesmers, ect. An occasional change is okay, but don't change up every night or you won't get the coordination you need.

Once you're pretty good at running whatever build you chose and can handle just about any situation with it, switch to a completely different build concept and start again. It will go much faster this time, since your players are already skilled at working with one another.

If you do all of this, you will be amazed at how fast your team begins improving, and how much coordination there really is to a strong Guild Wars team. You'll also be amazed at how much E-drama results from turning GvG into a serious thing rather than a "Grab 8 and Go" sort of event. It's ultimately worth it, just be prepared to catch a fair bit of hell from your guild along the way.

JR · Jul 24, 2006, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Pick a basic build that you think fits your style (steal from Obs Mode or design your own), discuss it on your guilds' forums, and STICK WITH IT.

Don't forget to post it here aswell.

And I pretty much agree with everything else Squidget said.

Maagus · Jul 24, 2006, 04:11 PM // 16:11

I agree with Morganas. Making team of 8 people in large guild as is Wasteland suggesting won´t do much good. Other people would be angry and envy why they couldn´t play etc. This is my experience from my first guild when about a year ago we left and made new guild with only 10 - 12 active people.
Having the same goal (doing your best and keep the fun in game) is the first step to success. Keep training with the same people.

About the builds, I agree what has been said.

Patrograd · Jul 26, 2006, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

You'll also be amazed at how much E-drama results from turning GvG into a serious thing rather than a "Grab 8 and Go" sort of event. It's ultimately worth it, just be prepared to catch a fair bit of hell from your guild along the way.

Excellent post. Agree 100%

Corn Sword · Jul 26, 2006, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Well, we have roughly a 20 person core gvg team (lol) so we do something like this: Everyone who wants to participate come to gh, first people to re-roll to their proper positions get to play, others wait, and we rotate out every 2 games...ta da.

Winstar · Jul 27, 2006, 07:01 AM // 07:01

Its not a matter of getting people orgnazied, thats easy as we do sign up sheets on our website a couple days in advance. The problem is finding a balance between consistency in results by placing restrictions on who plays and what they play and maintaining a fun environment where we open to let people have a hand in building and playing.

Thanks for the posts eveyone, we haven't made any big changes yet, but we're at 261..wohoo (until the next slump night when we will plummet again).

Wasteland Squidget · Jul 27, 2006, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corn Sword

Well, we have roughly a 20 person core gvg team (lol) so we do something like this: Everyone who wants to participate come to gh, first people to re-roll to their proper positions get to play, others wait, and we rotate out every 2 games...ta da.

Don't you guys mostly run a spike build though? I can see this sort of play working out with a spike, because individual spikers don't need to coordinate that much. So long as everyone's roughly in sync with the caller, spiker #3 doesn't have to worry that much about what spiker #5 is doing. IMO, this style tends to be a lot less successful with a non-spike build.

Stixxx · Jul 30, 2006, 06:37 PM // 18:37

we have a guild of 10-12 members. 8 of em are the "core" team, and the others are replacements. Every player plays the same character every time, so that we always have the same team with players that are getting better in their routine build.

By doing this and keeping always the same build we managed to get in the top 250 last season, and have now the potential to be a top 100 guild, since we can and have beaten high rankers before.

moriz · Aug 05, 2006, 03:40 AM // 03:40

my guild is pretty laidback about the gvg team. we generally have a signup thread on our forums a few days in advance of the actual gvg time. the thread will provide detail to what we're running and how to run it. the positions are assigned on a first come, first serve basis. anyone else will be listed as backup. since this is all done ahead of the time, we can afford to schedule in the match (to ensure there are no conflicts), as well as practice our roles in RA/TA/PVE. when the time comes, we group up, do a few coordinated unrated matches, and we go.

this works for my guild because we are all confident in each other's playing ability. we have no real aspirations on reaching any significant rank, because we know we won't be able to play every day. what counts is having fun.

Wasteland Squidget · Aug 05, 2006, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

this works for my guild because we are all confident in each other's playing ability. we have no real aspirations on reaching any significant rank, because we know we won't be able to play every day. what counts is having fun.

While this is a perfectly reasonable goal, I would like to note for others' sake that you don't need to play every day to hold a decent rank. Top 50 can be held pretty consistently playing as little as 3 times a week, in my experience.

You might need to play a 'fast-winning' build to hold a high rank without playing a lot, but it can be done.

Frantic-Sheep · Aug 06, 2006, 03:41 PM // 15:41

I agree with everything said here I guess.. but there's one thing I like to add because I have the same 'problem' in my guild.

You should also try what do you want more. Be in that top 200 or just let everyone has his/her turn and just have fun playing with all of them. A set roster and some rules can lead you to it, but might not make everyone happy. So I think you gotta make a choice between getting everyone happy to let them all play troughout the week, or just get a fixed team and get higher up

Phelann · Aug 07, 2006, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by pigdestroyer

i think you should really have what will be your 8 guys roster if you guys want to be in the top 200.. and of course a bench with good replacements.

its difficult at first because maybe a lot of people want to gvg..

I heavily disagree that a set 8 is needed to be successful.

I am now going to point out what all I disagree with and agree with in wastelands very informative post, come off slightly as just someone who likes to argue at first, then try and explain what MH does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

A couple months ago we were in a similar situation, constantly switching builds and players around. Our ladder ranking fluctuated constantly and we never really got any team coordination going.

What really needs to happen is for your guild to put its foot down and get organized. Organize a roster in such a way that you get the good reliable players on your A team - once you've got your main team of 8, set up specific times to play and work out a build you can all enjoy running. If you have enough active GvGers you could try setting up two teams, but getting 16 good reliable players is a pretty massive undertaking. For every three players who say they'll show up at the specified time, you'll usually only get one who actually does.

I agree with a need to get organized, I disagree with a need to have a set team of 8, and to have specific play times. It does not matter how many people are in your guild (well, up to say 15/16+ members), as long as all those members in your guild are all interested in improving and correcting their mistakes. Set play times really aren't that great either, because they make people enjoy the game less and treat it more like a job, which makes them less enthusiastic about the game and more likely to not care about improving.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Don't be afraid to move people off the roster quickly if they are constantly screwing up the rest of the team, or if they just aren't showing up. It only takes a few nights of not GvGing, or GvGing badly, to throw teams into turmoil and create a chain reaction where more and more people don't show up for the specified time.

If you are going purely for the WE MUST IMMEDIATELY IMPROVE QUICKLY I WANT TO GET GOOD OMG then this might be the way to do it, but over time I really feel this is flawed. Keeping the same people together is important. If someone sucks, they should only booted if they are unwilling to improve. If they are willing to improve, if they are willing to work to get better, that is someone you want on your team whether they are amazing at that particular moment or not. Have them observe themselves after matches, or if you aren't in top 100, scrim against yourselves and point out to that person in real time what they are doing wrong and can improve on. Another thing we did at one point: make a thread on your guild forum where everyone says what they think their teammates worst flaws are, so those people can always work on those flaws. Since everyone is being criticized by everyone, no single person is going to feel like they were being bullied.

Of course, if someone is super defensive, unwilling to improve, and does suck, they should be booted with haste~

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Pick a basic build that you think fits your style (steal from Obs Mode or design your own), discuss it on your guilds' forums, and STICK WITH IT. It's very tempting to change up entire characters after every battle based on what you just got rolled by, but don't do this. Changing a skill here and there is fine, and if there are really obvious weaknesses in the build you might want to stick with it. Once you've played your build a bit, figure out how to define its concept in a couple of words ("Energy Denial", "Degen Pressure", "Split for VoD", ect) and identify any parts of the build that aren't working towards that goal.

I disagree with the last part of this post (the need to simplify a build) but agree with the first part (to an extent). You definately need to get a build and continue to play that build. But if you arent a top 100 team (and naturallly aren't) please, for gods sakes, do not make your own build. Copy one of the top 50 teams (or ideally top 20) that you think would fit your playstyle and stick with THAT one. When you have a build that you know can be successful and that you can watch another team own with [interjection: when copying a top teams build its great to have everyone in your team join observer and observe the character they are most likely to play, so you can see what they do] you can only blame losses on yourselves, and thats the first step to getting better.

But mainly: sticking with a single build is the most important thing you can do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Just as important as having the same players is having the same players in the same positions. You generally want to be running the same warrior squad, the same monk squad, the same mesmers, ect. An occasional change is okay, but don't change up every night or you won't get the coordination you need.

You don't need the same 8 players imo, but yes, if someone normally plays a monk, they should always play a monk. If three monk players are on and they only play monk, then a monk player should sit oiut.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

If you do all of this, you will be amazed at how fast your team begins improving, and how much coordination there really is to a strong Guild Wars team. You'll also be amazed at how much E-drama results from turning GvG into a serious thing rather than a "Grab 8 and Go" sort of event. It's ultimately worth it, just be prepared to catch a fair bit of hell from your guild along the way.

Don't need to catch hell from your guild, don't need that e drama, don't need to make it too serious. You just need like minded people.

This is what MH did to go from mediocre guild to a top guild, and it is still how we operate.

First, we copied a top team's build (treacherous empire). We then played with the build some to get to know it, and then we went and (this is important) watched them play it some more to master some of the fine points of the build. Originally we only spiked with it, but then we watched them pressure and learned how to do that also (this was key in making us good). We also watched how they steamrolled (killed one monk and used blackouts to cause the entire team to collapse) and learned to do that. Once we mastered all that, we really began to understand the build and, more importantly, we understood why they ran it. Once we could understand why it was so important to have both pressure and spiking ability in the build, and why that steamroll was so great, once we could actually think like te, we became good players. And all that happenned because we chose a build and stuck with it.

That is just from the build side. Now we run alot of builds, some of which we come up with ourselves, some which we modified from top teams, some which we copied blatantly. But aside from sticking with a build, we do/did other things.

First off, we have a forum. On this forum we had alot of topics, from build discussions (including one "enemy builds" thread, where we talked about which ones looked best to copy) to more specific things ("on kiting") and even nightly topics if we do bad (where we just list the date, month/day, and in that thread talk about what went wrong that night). We used that to constantly talk about things we could improve on and stuff like that. This way at no time did we just log on and say "oh lets make up a build on the spot" or something like that. The forum made sure everyone in our guild knew what was going on, how the guild was progressing, and the like.

semi edit: reading back through this post, I feel I did not emphasize the forum enough. GET A FORUM, IT HELPS SO MUCH.

We also have 13 regular gvg members. Only one member in our group is always there: our overlord. Hes the only person in the group who can say something that whoever he is addressing listens to without question. No one else can order others around, everyone else just suggests. He keeps things controlled in a battle, so we basically rely on him.

Every other spot rotates.

We have 2 pure monk players, and then 2 others that can rotate between a monk and another class (one rotates between monk and runner, the other can play anything because hes just amazing). We have 5 people who can play warrior, but only 3 that can ONLY play warrior (one of whom is our main target caller, but 2 of them that rotate in can also call targets). We have 2 person who play center ele (one of whom is the overlord, the other can play runner or center ele). We have 3 people who can play runner, but only one who absolutely has to. And we have 4 people who can play mesmer, only 2 of which always must play that, as well as 2 people that play crip shot.

So you see how it works. We don't have set 8, but we can generally keep a similar composition, so someone is always familiar with their role (and if its been modified or we found a way to improve it, the forum spreads that information to someone who hadn't played the day before). Everyone in the group is willing to improve. We constructively criticise alot - when we first started out there were people who were defensive or (on the opposite end of the spectrum) might yell at someone, but we stomped that out, to the point of making it obvious that someone who showed either trait wouldn't be grouped anymore.

We dont have set log in times. If the overlord is here and 7 other people are here we gvg. If we have too much of a certain role, that person sits out for a bit, maybe for the whole night, but no big deal since things rotate in. We rarely have more than 9 or 10 on a time, and generally it really is only 8, since we form up as soon as we have 7 people available + overlord. We can keep gvging for quite awhile, since people generally show up, while others have to leave to sleep early if they work, or have to go out, or whatever. We also have no problem with anyone not showing up, since our rotating roster keeps us in 8.

We did pick a set 8 for the playoffs, but we have never made any effort to stick with that except for the week of those playoffs.

Now, I know we are not the norm in top guilds. Other top guilds have a set 8 that they group over others, but I don't really think thats necessary. I think we've found a perfect way of doing it that allows everyone to have fun, makes sure we can play alot, and allows us to perform great.