Curse

Venla · Nov 20, 2010, 04:39 AM // 04:39

For those who are reading the thread and are interested in trying out GvG, I'm still looking for some new recruits. I'm also looking for an alliance, preferably pvp newbs like us but more experienced people are good too

I've given up on the daily GvG goal since it's pretty much impossible to meet at this point and gives new members false expectations but I'm aiming for some weekend GvGs. No experience or vent needed, just a pvp slot and a good attitude, you know the drill.

After an initial wave of new members though, my guild roster is practically empty right now, and a few people haven't logged on for days. I have a day job and other hobbies and I can't really afford to spend whole days recruiting on GW. I'm thinking that the obstacles in the way of a vibrant pvp communities are logistical at this point - there just aren't enough new players, and not enough active players, left in the game.

Missing HB · Nov 20, 2010, 06:53 PM // 18:53

I don't really think it's worth playing GvG " for competition " , as tournaments , etc due to players mentality + restrictions on it + point that most teams you are facing are much more experienced than you ( to give an example , Les Disciples de Baal[Ball] r500 getting 0/5 in mat at the moment ..).
However , it's still fun playing some Byob with friends when quest day ( not coz of reward , coz of more opponents..) ... It's less fun after you lost 4 times to same triple melee ranger necro , but well , still a fun moment ...

Btw , it's nice asking many new players to just give a shot to GvG , but when all top players just guest on low rating guild to farm quest , it's not like many players are going to appreciate ( right now fought many people from [wtf] , from [mojo] , [buho] and so.., al lfights were usually 4-5 of those guilds )..
This just looks like asking low players to get farmed ...

xhappy feetx · Nov 24, 2010, 08:32 PM // 20:32

More activity across the board makes it easier for the Ladder system to actually work, where as when people are inactive you will get alot of unfair pairings.

anonymous · Nov 24, 2010, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Ah all the memories of GvG from 4 years ago. Makes me want to come back and play this game. =( Too bad none of my friends play anymore.

xhappy feetx · Nov 25, 2010, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymous

Ah all the memories of GvG from 4 years ago. Makes me want to come back and play this game. =( Too bad none of my friends play anymore.

Make new friends? Lemming is always on the lookout

Azazello · Nov 25, 2010, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Not sure if this has been mentioned as I only read 3 pages of posts, but the first and only real difficulty that pops into my mind is keeping 8 peoples motivation up when they're getting their collective rears handed to them repeatedly. It's hard enough keeping people motivated when they're on top, let alone average, and it's difficult to imagine what it's like to try to lead a team that just keeps losing.

I used to have the kind of energy it takes to do something like that. I'd love to beat my own chest and give a few examples but it's pointless. All I will say is it is exceedingly rare to find someone who can take a losing team and turn them into a competitive force, let alone winners, even if the team has the potential. Incredibly rare. I pretty much just pve now due to disappointment with joining 'startup' gvg guilds that collapsed after less than 3 matches. If my guild started doing some gvg, I'd be there, but I wouldn't expect them to play many matches before they started really struggling to fill a team.

I Angra I · Nov 25, 2010, 04:07 PM // 16:07

One thing I want to point out that I'm not sure if it's been addressed in this thread yet or not is this:

GvG is a format in Guild Wars that - until you are at the highest level of its play and have people with you who are playing at the highest level - is a personal competition for improvement, not a team one.

It's great to play with friends, and it's great to see your own team improve. But more than 99% of the time, if you see yourself wanting to play competitively and being successful at the higher levels, you are not going to end up with the same first, second, third, fourth, and maybe even tenth group of people at all from which you started with. It is your own personal improvement/understanding/knowledge that is going to get you to higher levels. The second (and possibly even more important) aspect is making contacts and friends in better guilds than the one you are currently in. The unfortunate truth is that while you are still in the process of getting better, friends and teammates need to become separate things. Now I'm not saying swap from guild to guild once a week and be a jerk about it, abandoning people. Obviously you want to stay with each group of people who you enjoy playing with for as long as possible. But eventually, the time will come where you will just know when it's time to move on.

Guest better players to play with your current guilds, make friends with them, ask them for advice, and most importantly see if they could take you along sometime with a better group, maybe a pug of better players or something. Try to guest for guilds who are significantly better than you are. The fastest way to improve at GvG is to play with better players. Of course don't just go out and expect better teams to take you in for the sake of being nice. They don't owe anything to you. You need to prove that you are competent enough to be able to play with them. If that involves talking yourself up to more than you actually are, then so be it. Rarely will a player go from nowhere to a top guild without a little lying here and there about how good they are. But when you do start being able to play with better players, it's one of the best assets you can have. It makes your own mistakes much more obvious to yourself when the people around you aren't making the same types of mistakes, and it allows you to correct them instantly, sometimes mid-match, by watching what other people do and don't do. Some understanding of the game will just come from playing, and by being in situations before that you have experienced to know what to do. A large majority of it though is knowledge acquired through information that you gain from better players; by watching how they play, by hearing what they say on vent, and by straight up asking them questions.

If you want to stay playing with the same group of people that you are with now forever, that's great. It's awesome to be able to play a game that you enjoy, with friends who you enjoy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just keep in mind that you are not going to all of a sudden start winning MAT's with them, and probably never will. As stated earlier, until you are within a top team and every single person is incredibly good at the game, GvG is a personal challenge for improving yourself and your placement within it, not a team one - and it is a very challenging one at that.

It's comparable to any competitive videogame - Starcraft 1 and 2, Counterstrike, Quake Live, DotA, etc. I know it's been stated before, but I want to state it again for emphasis: On the most popular Starcraft 1 ladder, it's EXPECTED that you lose your first 50-100 games, if you're new to the game. While not as extreme, and while SC is a 1v1 game, it's exactly the same for GvG. Only when you start to improve at GvG, it's not your team improving - it's yourself improving (and maybe 1 or 2 others on their own), and moving onto better, more talented guilds if you choose to do so. Why do people even do it then? What motivates someone to not have fun for such a long time at a videogame which is supposed to be entertaining? Well, for most people it definitely isn't worth it, and it most definitely isn't fun. But for a minority of people who have a competitive spirit, the drive to improve, and a hunger to be the best, winning serious GvG matches can be just as rewarding as dominating a big Starcraft tournament, pulling off a highly intricate Counterstrike match with your team, or winning at any real sport that you care about being good at.

Azazello · Nov 25, 2010, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Err, Angra, you seem to be talking to people who already GvG about ways to find themselves a better team if they're unhappy with the one they're in. I think this thread is more about people who don't GvG.

I Angra I · Nov 25, 2010, 09:44 PM // 21:44

I'm talking to the people who have been saying that they want to GvG but have been discouraged from losing and from their teams/guilds not doing well or improving, which skimming through this thread, have been kind of a lot.

Azazello · Nov 25, 2010, 09:53 PM // 21:53

oh sorry I hadn't noticed any I better read my way through the whole thing haha

... hmm I guess maybe a couple of posters could be interpreted that way.

What I mostly see is people saying their teams get discouraged, and no team, no gvg. They're talking about being discouraged after one or two nights, 1-8 matches, and not having learned very much at all. Not exactly a shining resume to start applying elsewhere, nor much of a chance to build contacts.

If I was going to start something like this I'd title the thread 'New GvG guild recruiting'. Right away you filter out the climbers who want to take the path of least resistance (since that tends to be a personality trait rather than a one off thing) and leech off a team above their skill/experience level.

Then I'd filter out those who can't commit by opening with something like:

'You will lose. Try to learn from it. Then you will lose more. Learn from that too.'

Next you want to get rid of Commander Keen, who likes to destroy team cohesion by acting like he knows just a little bit more than anyone else with his 'friendly advice' (read: constant criticism of everyone but himself).

'You are expected to take responsibility for your own improvement, not your teammates. If people think your play is good enough to value your advice, they'll ask for it.'

Then you want to make sure people actually read and comprehended that.

'These are rules, not guidelines. You will be asked to leave if you lose interest after a few losses. You will be kicked if you offer unasked for advice. You will not be kicked or denied a team place because someone thinks you're not good enough. Please restate these two rules in your own words at the top of your application to demonstrate your understanding of them'.

After that I wouldn't care if the guy was a 10 year old kid with severe adhd and only two fingers on his left hand, or a fighter pilot with ten years experience at high end pvp in twenty different games. You get people who are willing to improve, they improve.

I'm sure there would be a few more things I'd want to know (playtimes for example), but off the top of my head, I'd say those two are the most important characteristics for someone to be able to learn something new in a competitive team environment. The ability to take personal responsibility rather than shift the focus onto what other people are doing wrong, and the ability to understand that improvement comes with experience, rather than getting all butthurt over a few losses in a video game.

You get 15-20 guys like that who can be on at the same time for a couple of hours every couple of days and are willing to play whatever bar the team needs (something else that should be in the app I guess, although I'd also make it clear that I wasn't going to ask someone with 500 ping to play interrupts or infuse or something unless they turned out to be pvp jesus), and you've got a daily gvg group going. If the times are more spread out, or some can only play every 3 days or so, you need more. You don't call it a daily gvg though, or people get upset when you have just one low attendance day where it doesn't get off the ground. You also want to set yourself a bit of a buffer to try and avoid that ever happening obviously.

Also, if you have people waiting to get in, rotate after every match, don't make exceptions even if it lasts 3 minutes. You're trying to cover the basics, not build a #1 team. Get everyone a bit of experience, you could have pvp jesus in the queue, and he's going elsewhere if he never gets a look in. The primary team will form itself, some players will be there every. single. day. and will thus naturally spend more time playing together.

Even then it still wouldn't be easy. No matter how motivated people are, they do get discouraged when they're losing regularly, and that can form a vicious circle in a couple of different ways. It's a constant struggle to keep motivation up. You're running hard just to stay in place, so I wouldn't recommend trying it unless you are really up for a challenge like nothing you've ever faced before. If you think getting into a number one team is hard work, this is not for you. Getting good enough at a game to join a number one team is absolute cake compared to leading a team even to the middle from the bottom. If you have any doubts about that, take another look through this thread and notice one of the things that has been discussed is how all the experienced players give up on trying to teach new players. Props to some of them who stuck it out for a very long time. Also consider how almost all of them left struggling teams for better ones rather than try to keep the team active and improving. Probably the biggest problem you'll face is your better players jumping ship tbh, because it's just so much harder to help a team get better than it is to help yourself get better. As for leading a team to the top from the bottom.... well, guild wars 2 is out soon.

Tearz1993 · Nov 26, 2010, 02:10 AM // 02:10

If you have 15-20 guys, do scrims against each other to get the feel of things. Trying to ladder asap is like trying to join competitive soccer leagues without knowing what you're doing.

Azazello · Nov 26, 2010, 03:20 AM // 03:20

I was talking about 15-20 guys who can be on every couple of days = 7-10 daily. But yeah you do make a good point if you can get 15-20 on at once.

ErrantVenture · Nov 26, 2010, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Don't forget about obs mode either guys. Obs mode is an outstanding tool for learning builds & maps & how to play specific maps. It's also great for learning tactics. Really the only thing obs mode can't help with is improving your technical ability. Almost everything else can be learned by watching the best players play.

Missing HB · Nov 26, 2010, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

I'm talking to the people who have been saying that they want to GvG but have been discouraged from losing and from their teams/guilds not doing well or improving, which skimming through this thread, have been kind of a lot.

The point is that people mentionned that reason because of top players rerolling on low rating guilds when zquest , thus leaving no chances to new/less experienced players , and as usual , those posts were deleted for no reason...
I don't have much problem here , fighting pro players can make you better , but fighting ONLY pro players will make you bored and you won't learn really fast how to play/enjoy GvG ....
Fact is that in HA , there are much more players from correct level and a few from top level , thus even if top players are holding hall, on normal hours , rest can still have fights against people from their level...
In GvG , there are too many players from top level , and every new comer keeps getting rolled by those guilds , due to the fact that there are NO other players....

So , this thread was a good idea at least , but that zquest abuse wasn't at all a good idea to support it ...

ps : hope this won't be deleted......

Azazello · Nov 28, 2010, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Here's a suggestion that might work a bit better since it would be a lot easier: All you regular gvgers need to start feeder guilds. Then you can go out and spam 'rank x gvg guild recruiting, no experience needed, just be willing to learn gvg'. If you're a highly ranked guild I think you would find yourself inundated with apps.

You put the recruits in their own guild and tell them they need to practice if they want to move into the main guild. They'll go out and play a ton of matches, win or lose. They'll get better, and hell, you might even get yourselves a good recruit or two out of it. You can guest for them and give some advice if you want, but there's no pressure to do so, which obviously makes it a much more enjoyable thing to do.

If every guild had a feeder guild full of people with no experience playing daily to try and earn a spot in the main guild, the bottom comes back into the elo system, and gvg would take off since there would be a starting point for people where they could come in and compete against people of their own skill level instead of being matched against much more experienced players for their first game.

*lemming* · Nov 28, 2010, 11:28 AM // 11:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

Here's a suggestion that might work a bit better since it would be a lot easier: All you regular gvgers need to start feeder guilds. Then you can go out and spam 'rank x gvg guild recruiting, no experience needed, just be willing to learn gvg'. If you're a highly ranked guild I think you would find yourself inundated with apps.

You put the recruits in their own guild and tell them they need to practice if they want to move into the main guild. They'll go out and play a ton of matches, win or lose. They'll get better, and hell, you might even get yourselves a good recruit or two out of it. You can guest for them and give some advice if you want, but there's no pressure to do so, which obviously makes it a much more enjoyable thing to do.

If every guild had a feeder guild full of people with no experience playing daily to try and earn a spot in the main guild, the bottom comes back into the elo system, and gvg would take off since there would be a starting point for people where they could come in and compete against people of their own skill level instead of being matched against much more experienced players for their first game.

The entire training guild system has been tried before. For various reasons that have been brought up in this thread, they weren't particularly successful.

Are you honestly expecting top guilds to expand their rosters or bench players to offer spots to fresh trainees? That's painfully unfeasible. At this point in the game, the process of ascending from zero experience to competitive play has been visibly accelerated. All it takes is the right attitude coupled with a couple of breaks to get in. The point of having experienced players offer their expertise is to provide more opportunities to make the connections that lead to the breaks, not to provide a fast-track to a core spot.

Azazello · Nov 28, 2010, 12:46 PM // 12:46

I'm not sure you understood what I said lemming.

I'm actually not even sure how you managed to interpret that as 'expecting guilds to bench players' tbh, but no, that's not the idea. I'm a bit unsure how to make it any easier to understand. Reading over the post, it's fairly clear I think. I'll try though.

1. Start a guild, call it X
2. Recruit people for it by making sure they know that your high ranked guild watches guild X for potential recruits.
3. Explain that they need to play if they want to get better.

That's it. The recruits go out and gvg on their own, with a view to improving their skills in order to find a place in a high ranked guild. They may or may not improve enough for that to happen, irrelevant. They don't care about losses or their rating since 'it's just training anyway'. So rather than playing 3 games and giving up, they keep playing and fill out the bottom of the ladder.

One of the problems with elo is that the people at the bottom often just quit, and that brings everyone else down, and raises large barriers to entry, which in turn makes new players quit faster, etc. I've actually put some thought into how you would go about developing an elo system that encourages the lower ranked competitors to keep competing, but that's not the point here. The point here is that if you want a healthy ladder, you need some way to keep the players at the bottom interested. This is one way you could go about that. It's basically just a motivational tool.

The concept of feeder guilds is a pretty old one btw. There used to be high end guilds in a couple of games (eq1 and shadowbane spring to mind, I'm sure some gw guilds have done the same) that you couldn't actually apply to, they only recruited from their 'entry guilds'. If you wanted, you could even ask all your apps to join the feeder guild so you can observe them playing a few matches as a trial before they actually become a member, but it's not necessary. It's certainly a good way to gauge them though.

razor39999 · Nov 28, 2010, 12:52 PM // 12:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

One thing I want to point out that I'm not sure if it's been addressed in this thread yet or not is this:

GvG is a format in Guild Wars that - until you are at the highest level of its play and have people with you who are playing at the highest level - is a personal competition for improvement, not a team one.

That's one of the reasons why I stopped with GvG. I knew that after improving to a certain point, there were 3 or 4 of us in the team that could carry on and get higher than 400-500 rank (which was the highest we got with our guild) but the rest were just at their peak and probably couldn't improve further, or at least not in the team that we were playing in. Also the drama that we weren't going ahead any longer was unbearable. But I didn't have that much motivation to go further without all of my buddies. So in the end I just stopped GvG-ing all together and most of us are just jerking off playing PvE nowadays, and only 2 are still trying with GvG (and still being at 400 max with their current guild). It's a pretty big roadblock when you have to ditch your regular team and just go on for yourself. I'm not that kind of a person and really like the people I play this game with, and for me games are meant to be fun and being competitive above all else was just not something I could do.

*lemming* · Nov 30, 2010, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

I'm not sure you understood what I said lemming.

I'm actually not even sure how you managed to interpret that as 'expecting guilds to bench players' tbh, but no, that's not the idea. I'm a bit unsure how to make it any easier to understand. Reading over the post, it's fairly clear I think. I'll try though.

Admittedly, I may have misinterpreted your post, but the following line seemed pretty clear:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

You put the recruits in their own guild and tell them they need to practice if they want to move into the main guild.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

1. Start a guild, call it X
2. Recruit people for it by making sure they know that your high ranked guild watches guild X for potential recruits.
3. Explain that they need to play if they want to get better.

That's it. The recruits go out and gvg on their own, with a view to improving their skills in order to find a place in a high ranked guild. They may or may not improve enough for that to happen, irrelevant. They don't care about losses or their rating since 'it's just training anyway'. So rather than playing 3 games and giving up, they keep playing and fill out the bottom of the ladder.

As can be seen by testimonials in this thread, new players run into a couple of recurring problems when starting out - losing, and not being able to identify why they're losing. What purpose would throwing a full team of new players into the deep end accomplish?

If there could be some way of securing a population of several guilds to play against each other, this could potentially be made to work. Unfortunately, as of now, there's just not enough interest. Judging from the relatively tepid response to attempts to reach out, there's not a whole lot of people to work with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

One of the problems with ELO is that the people at the bottom often just quit, and that brings everyone else down, and raises large barriers to entry, which in turn makes new players quit faster, etc. I've actually put some thought into how you would go about developing an ELO system that encourages the lower ranked competitors to keep competing, but that's not the point here. The point here is that if you want a healthy ladder, you need some way to keep the players at the bottom interested. This is one way you could go about that. It's basically just a motivational tool.

There's already plenty of incentive to play ladder, if you're interested in the long run of pvping - not only gaining experience, but also making the connections that give you more opportunities in the future. Promising something unfeasible doesn't seem like it'll help - those motivated enough to actually have a chance under that kind of program are going to be succeeding even without that kind of incentive, and those who aren't going to won't get anywhere regardless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

The concept of feeder guilds is a pretty old one btw. There used to be high end guilds in a couple of games (eq1 and shadowbane spring to mind) that you couldn't actually apply to, they only recruited from their 'entry guilds'. If you wanted, you could even ask all your apps to join the feeder guild so you can observe them playing a few matches as a trial before they actually become a member, but it's not necessary. It's certainly a good way to gauge them though.

I know. I just can't see it working in this application.

Quote:

Originally Posted by razor39999

That's one of the reasons why I stopped with GvG. I knew that after improving to a certain point, there were 3 or 4 of us in the team that could carry on and get higher than 400-500 rank (which was the highest we got with our guild) but the rest were just at their peak and probably couldn't improve further, or at least not in the team that we were playing in. Also the drama that we weren't going ahead any longer was unbearable. But I didn't have that much motivation to go further without all of my buddies. So in the end I just stopped GvG-ing all together and most of us are just jerking off playing PvE nowadays, and only 2 are still trying with GvG (and still being at 400 max with their current guild). It's a pretty big roadblock when you have to ditch your regular team and just go on for yourself. I'm not that kind of a person and really like the people I play this game with, and for me games are meant to be fun and being competitive above all else was just not something I could do.

I went through the same process when I first decided I wanted to get into GvG. Some people are just going to be more driven than others; it's unavoidable.

Those who find that they like it might decide that exploring further is worth going on alone. Naturally, this won't be normal for everyone.

Artisan Archer · Nov 30, 2010, 10:19 AM // 10:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by razor39999

That's one of the reasons why I stopped with GvG. I knew that after improving to a certain point, there were 3 or 4 of us in the team that could carry on and get higher than 400-500 rank (which was the highest we got with our guild) but the rest were just at their peak and probably couldn't improve further, or at least not in the team that we were playing in. Also the drama that we weren't going ahead any longer was unbearable. But I didn't have that much motivation to go further without all of my buddies. So in the end I just stopped GvG-ing all together and most of us are just jerking off playing PvE nowadays, and only 2 are still trying with GvG (and still being at 400 max with their current guild). It's a pretty big roadblock when you have to ditch your regular team and just go on for yourself. I'm not that kind of a person and really like the people I play this game with, and for me games are meant to be fun and being competitive above all else was just not something I could do.

I had the same problem when I started out gvging. I stayed in the same guild for a year and it did help me get better yeah, but near the end it just wasn't going anywhere and you just have to leave them in order to move up. You still have them on your friendslist, you can guest for them, you can play with them. You could leave a second account in the guild, but if you really want to get better, you have to play for yourself, not for your friends. It works the same in any other competitive sport.