Curse

Missing HB · Nov 30, 2010, 11:06 AM // 11:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

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.

Nothing wrong here , but point is that you probably started GvG years ago when it was way more active. You can't deny the fact that 90% of active guilds now are top150 guilds. If you consider 5% of rest is used as quest farm , plus the fact that it's not really easy to find a same level opponent for newcomers , it's probably not worth trying to start a GvG guild right now , except if a lot of people do it ( thus they will fight themselves..)

Azazello · Nov 30, 2010, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Well that is exactly the point I thought I was making lemming. That first post must have been way too obscure sorry. The idea is for everyone who gvgs and cares about trying to improve it to open recruiting to 'entry guilds'. That way you get a whole bunch of them happening.

I mean, that's the whole idea. It's pointless to try to start with a new guild, as I explained in detail. Anyone who is really interested has their best hope for personal success resting with destroying the teams prospects by having one of their best players abandon them, which will typically take them out of the ladder. Which is why there is no bottom of the ladder, which is why its so hard for new players, ad nauseum.

Elo has been proven to fail when the lower ranked players would prefer to stop competing (admittedly it takes years, but in gws case, it's had years). If you don't have systems in place to encourage them to keep playing, your ladder falls to bits. What I am suggesting with recruitment guilds is a system designed to encourage the lower end of the ladder to keep playing. It becomes more acceptable to them to leave their guilds if they do get a better offer, because everyone in the guild is trying to get a better offer. The focus is taken off winning and ranking, and put onto learning, which is where it should be anyway for a new player, but never is.

If anyone out there in 'the pvp community' is genuine about this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by The PvP Community

collectively will do anything possible to attract new players

then I think you should be considering whether or not this idea has a better chance of attracting new players than doing what you are currently doing, which, as near as I can tell, is asking pve players to do what almost none of you were able, start a team and keep it competing. Not blaming any of you of course, you have to do what is best for you personally, and I'm sure many of your old teams kept at the gvg for quite some time.

I just don't see how opening the doors to anyone who wants to try gvg, without affecting your rank, without taking a serious time investment, without really much effort at all, is going to hurt your chances of improving the state of things. You're simply offering them a carrot they want, and a clear, although difficult, path to it. All you have to do is recruit and keep an alt in the guild to observe their matches every once in a while.

It's fine to pretend the path is already there, but it currently relies on each of them finding at least seven likeminded people, the chances of which are very, very low, which is of course made obvious by the simple fact that we are having this discussion. It's also more difficult due to the fact that not only do they need seven likeminded people, without several other whole guilds in the same mindset, they have to face the 'losing for a hundred games' phenomenon that people seem to be fine with having as a barrier to entry, despite the fact that it's likely the main hurdle that has been keeping most of the fresh blood out for years. In all honesty, some of the arguments being presented here make me wonder if a few of you might prefer to keep the barriers in place. Do you want to be part of some kind of exclusive internet club, or do you want a healthy ladder? I'm fine with either truthfully, so I apologise if anyone is going to take that as a rhetorical question. I just get the impression that it's something a few of you need to be honest with yourselves about.

Of course some of you may consider the ladder healthy now, in which case the whole discussion is obviously pointless

Space · Nov 30, 2010, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missing HB

Nothing wrong here , but point is that you probably started GvG years ago when it was way more active. You can't deny the fact that 90% of active guilds now are top150 guilds. If you consider 5% of rest is used as quest farm , plus the fact that it's not really easy to find a same level opponent for newcomers , it's probably not worth trying to start a GvG guild right now , except if a lot of people do it ( thus they will fight themselves..)

Indeed.

I feel our experiences are fairly relevant to this topic. We recently started up gvg agian partly due to the recent threads on guru and mumble commentary on the Monthlies. This compromised of 2-3 experienced friends and 4-5 fresh faced enthusiastic newcomers to gvg after a month of recruiting.

From firsthand experience I can say that the main problem we have encountered as a 'new' gvg guild is 95% of the matches are vs smurfs. There just isn't the lower end playerbase for close / interesting matches. Gvging on zquest day is particularly painful.

The newer players get disheartened by constantly losing, which leads to them dropping out of games / not wanting to play. I believe we are getting better as we tend to get into match winning positions at some point in the games, however the rewards and incentives are pretty much non existant.

Ah well, onwards and upwards!

Mr Whomp · Dec 01, 2010, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Please excuse me and my comments if they've already been alluded to previously as I wasn't going to sift through 14 pages before I made my post.

While the notion of expanding the GvG community in the OP's post is a noble goal to strive for, I can't help but feel that it's too little, too late. At this point in the game, there's no real reason for anyone outside the realm of GvG to want to compete in the GvG scene. What's the point? I GvG'd within the middle levels of competitiveness for about 2 years, and even I don't see why anyone would want to play it anymore. I can't even begin to imagine why anyone who has no prior GvG experience would want to either. GvG had its day, and unfortunately that day has passed. GvG along with the other forms of organized PvP are pretty much irrelevant at this point in the game. The focus has shifted to players wanting to fill out their HoM statues before GW2. Pretty much no one outside of the GvG community cares about the GvG community.

Maybe if something like this was done years ago it might have had an affect, but at this point in the game's lifespan it's practically useless. New players aren't going to be attracted to GvG because they're not going to enjoy losing the majority of their games, and even if they did have the motivation to improve to a level where they were able to compete with the best, it comes back to the fact that there are no rewards left in the game. Why go through all of the bullshit of becoming good if you're not going to get anything out of it? The fact that the GvG community is on a rapid decline is even more reason to not try to get into the scene. How are you supposed to improve if you only get like one game every hour because you're stuck in limbo waiting for matches for a half of an hour?

A better strategy than trying to superficially appeal to new members, perhaps, would be to try to hold on the remaining members of the GvG community, and maybe even try appealing to former members of the GvG community. Nevertheless, there will not be a significant influx of new GvG players, let alone even a blip on the radar--they'll be gone before you even realise they were there.

As of now this 'open invitation' to new members is merely empty words and empty promises with nothing to back them up.

xhappy feetx · Dec 04, 2010, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Empty words and promises? I will guest for any guild as long as I am not busy, and I will speak for all of my friends that all of them would do the same, we will help people who are looking to improve, we will not go out and drag them to PvE and hold their hand all day, iniative on their part is good.

Lord Mip · Dec 04, 2010, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Indeed. I"m in a still-not-so-well-playing GvG guild but a lot of good players have guested for us. It really helps getting things together and practising.

xhappy feetx · Dec 04, 2010, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Mip

Indeed. I"m in a still-not-so-well-playing GvG guild but a lot of good players have guested for us. It really helps getting things together and practising.

Thanks for posting this, feedback is something we really value, and this will be highlighted in some of our future ideas that will be revealed after the mAT.

Ka Tet · Dec 05, 2010, 01:35 AM // 01:35

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.

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.

Many moons ago when I still played GW, my guild tried this. We thought people would jump at the chance, since we would have loved to have been given that sort of help when we just started.
Note: It was in HA, not GVG, but the principles are the same.
We provided the GH, the essential GH NPC's, vent channel and smurf tag and cape. We put them under our aegis and lent our name for recruiting purposes. The promises made were open access to builds and a wealth of advice. People from the main roster would play in the training guild from time to time to help them grow. When we were short of people, we would tap the training guild before going to friend list.
It lasted about 2 weeks and involved constant repetition of the question, "When are you inviting me to the main guild." We found that no one really wanted to avail themselves of the opportunity; they were only interested in getting into the main guild so that we could farm fame for them.

Azazello · Dec 07, 2010, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka Tet

Many moons ago when I still played GW, my guild tried this. We thought people would jump at the chance, since we would have loved to have been given that sort of help when we just started.
Note: It was in HA, not GVG, but the principles are the same.
We provided the GH, the essential GH NPC's, vent channel and smurf tag and cape. We put them under our aegis and lent our name for recruiting purposes. The promises made were open access to builds and a wealth of advice. People from the main roster would play in the training guild from time to time to help them grow. When we were short of people, we would tap the training guild before going to friend list.
It lasted about 2 weeks and involved constant repetition of the question, "When are you inviting me to the main guild." We found that no one really wanted to avail themselves of the opportunity; they were only interested in getting into the main guild so that we could farm fame for them.

Yeah I can see that being an issue. You gotta accept some of the responsibility for making that an acceptable question though. The culture of a guild you set up is determined by you. They need to be well aware that they're going to start out a long long way from ready, and it's going to take a LOT of games before it's even worth your time to give them some help and training, let alone a spot in a team. If you get irritated, take it out on them in a scrimmage, that should remind them exactly how far they have to go :P

*queue kung fu movie sequence, 'if you think you are ready, show me!'*

If it really comes to it you just make it a hard rule not to ask. Might help to let it be known that there will be no hard feelings if anyone gets an offer and decides they wish to move into a more midrange guild to continue learning, because that's the likely course most will need to take at some point.

It's not going to work if only one guild does it anyway, and at this stage it doesn't look like anyone will. Trying to come up with other ideas. The commentary games are good, but I don't see them overcoming the main barrier to entry which is getting rolled hard for so many games. Think about ratings atm, 1250 is top 100, compared to what, 1500-1700 a few years ago? Now 1700 is #1, and by a large margin. Low end teams leave, the ladder is deflated, and you end up in a situation where todays newbies are expected to face guilds that newbies from three years ago would never have been matched against unless they were smurfing.

You need something that gets a ton of teams involved at the same time, even if it's just for a few days, because then they get to compete against other newbies. That is all it will take to make most of them stick, which means they get to keep competing against other newbies, etc. Right now you can get a whole new team involved every second day, and each of them will have quit before the next comes in. You could probably get a team involved every few hours and see half of them quit before the next comes in.

If you get a system in place that encourages a bunch of new teams, and that encourages even the losers from those teams to stick with it, you've got a self sustaining ladder.

Still Number One · Dec 07, 2010, 06:32 AM // 06:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

Yeah I can see that being an issue. You gotta accept some of the responsibility for making that an acceptable question though. The culture of a guild you set up is determined by you. They need to be well aware that they're going to start out a long long way from ready, and it's going to take a LOT of games before it's even worth your time to give them some help and training, let alone a spot in a team. If you get irritated, take it out on them in a scrimmage, that should remind them exactly how far they have to go :P

*queue kung fu movie sequence, 'if you think you are ready, show me!'*

If it really comes to it you just make it a hard rule not to ask. Might help to let it be known that there will be no hard feelings if anyone gets an offer and decides they wish to move into a more midrange guild to continue learning, because that's the likely course most will need to take at some point.

The problem is once they realize it will take more than a few weeks to get a chance to play at the level they desire, most will quit. If most quit you are left with less than half a team and have to refill the roster. Most of the replacements will come to the same realization and quit. After a while those who stayed will quit because they are tired of getting a new roster every other week which basically starts their growth over from scratch.

If you give people the false presumption that they will be able to play for you someday, then that becomes their sole reason for playing. If it didn't matter to them, they would have already found a guild.

Also the assumptions that even two years ago you hardly had to face top guilds is completely false. Back when I played low to mid tier GvG over half the guilds I'd face where ranked at least top 300, which is equivalent to top 100 nowadays. While there were more guilds at lower range back then, the situation wasn't that much better then it currently is. The difference is people back then were actually patient and didn't mind losing 30 games in row. My guild went through a period every 2 weeks or so where we would lose a minimum of 10 games in a row. The difference is, none of us cared. It didn't bother us. We kept playing. We knew we'd break out of the slump eventually and we did. We'd gain all the rating back (which didn't matter then and still doesn't) and then some. It was more about just enjoying the 7 other guys you were playing with and less about the outcome.

Nowadays well over half the newcomers have their farming mentality where they have to win, they have to win fast, they have to win easily, and they have to win often. It won't happen. It never did. The game won't change because the player base's approach to it does. I'm honestly convinced the people who were cut out for PvP have tried it and have come and gone. There is a decent sized player base out there who would like to try GvG. But very few of them are actually cut out for it. And not nearly enough to actually get the bottom of the ladder rolling again.

The game is old and the influx of suitable PvPers is dead. The things the community is doing to try to keep it alive are nice and admirable, but I don't expect them to even leave a visible dent. If you disagree with me, then I wish you the best of luck and would like to urge you to keep on trying. But unfortunately I really don't see anything being successful.

Azazello · Dec 07, 2010, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Yeah, it's natural decay. Although you're mistaken about it only being nowadays players who want to come in and win, that's always been the case, or you wouldn't have a problem at all. It's just that nowadays it's even harder, and there is less population entering. Even if the same percentage of players are willing to stick with it like you guys, you're still going to get less people who actually do. You don't get the same percentage though, because, as I said, it's even harder now. I mean top 300? That's 1077 rating atm. Almost every single match a brand new team plays is against top 300, because, as always, teams below 1077 aren't that active, and teams below 1000 barely play at all.

When the game is new, people start playing gvg. Some win, some lose, others break even. Rating points begin to transfer from the losing teams to the winning teams. 1200 teams beat 1100 teams beat 1000 teams beat 900 teams. What happens when some of the 900 teams think 'well this is kinda pointless' and start leaving faster than new teams join? The 1000 teams don't have anyone to beat, they keep losing rating but they can't win any. They're the new 900 team. The 1100 teams, who were previously above average, are now the 1000 teams, who new teams have to face. Repeat the cycle for five years to find where we're at today. New teams are playing every game against teams that will utterly smash them, because the average skill level of the competition relative to rating has gone up, not only due to experience, but due to ladder decay. If you think ratings are lower now because the competition is weaker, you've got elo systems backwards.

Elo is great when low end players are exactly as motivated to stick around as high end players. New players still lose a few games to lack of experience, but they quickly find a level they can compete at and start improving from. When the players on their level are not there anymore, you get a mess. Inflation of the mean, deflation of the median.

Rating floors might have helped years ago, but they open the door to a lot of griefing. Basically you need an elo system that accounts for activity in some way. Or one that starts players low and injects rating using some other method. Maybe there's other solutions, I don't know. The ultimate aim is to improve the chances newbies have of vsing newbies, rather than 'average players', who tend to be a lot better than newbies, with the gap widening as the ladder ages.

shoyon456 · Dec 07, 2010, 07:35 AM // 07:35

I empathize with the OP's message. However, the time commitment to PvP is pretty high. Other than this, I would love to be reintroduced to GvG.

Artisan Archer · Dec 07, 2010, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Azazello is right that the skill gaps are just pretty big in the ladder. Newbies will lose to guild's with 950 rating (that have been playing at that rating for a while) all the time. The fact you start at 1000 rating and lose to guilds 50 rating lower than you is pretty depressing I can imagine. I don't know what you could do about this besides telling people they have to lose a 100 rating before they're at their actual rating they 'should be' at.

Azazello · Dec 08, 2010, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artisan Archer

Azazello is right that the skill gaps are just pretty big in the ladder. Newbies will lose to guild's with 950 rating (that have been playing at that rating for a while) all the time. The fact you start at 1000 rating and lose to guilds 50 rating lower than you is pretty depressing I can imagine. I don't know what you could do about this besides telling people they have to lose a 100 rating before they're at their actual rating they 'should be' at.

I think that's generous. Most newbies will still be getting crushed without a chance at 900, if not for the reasons I suggested regarding the median rating, then for the fact that there aren't even any 900 rated teams active, they quit. I saw the rank #8 guild on obs the other day vs an unranked team with 3 players and 4 henchies. IDK how that even started, I guess someone dropped.

Call me a pessimist though, maybe there's tons of 900 rated guilds playing, I haven't sifted through each teams activity on the ladder site to find out.

Missing HB · Dec 08, 2010, 09:16 AM // 09:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazello

I think that's generous. Most newbies will still be getting crushed without a chance at 900, if not for the reasons I suggested regarding the median rating, then for the fact that there aren't even any 900 rated teams active, they quit. I saw the rank #8 guild on obs the other day vs an unranked team with 3 players and 4 henchies. IDK how that even started, I guess someone dropped.

Call me a pessimist though, maybe there's tons of 900 rated guilds playing, I haven't sifted through each teams activity on the ladder site to find out.

There aren't . Upon the few fights i did 3 days ago , i fought only 1 real guild rating 1020 , rest were either top150 either smurf guilds ( mine was newguilds , thus 1000)

fowlero · Dec 08, 2010, 09:49 AM // 09:49

In general experience of my guesting 2 low rank guilds about 6 times the past month or so there are a large number of people playing low ranks each time i guested, we only faced 1 top 250 guild who we almost beat as well.

Most days there are plenty of guilds playing around the 900 mark, perhaps you got unlucky or was it quest day?

Artisan Archer · Dec 08, 2010, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by fowlero

In general experience of my guesting 2 low rank guilds about 6 times the past month or so there are a large number of people playing low ranks each time i guested, we only faced 1 top 250 guild who we almost beat as well.

Most days there are plenty of guilds playing around the 900 mark, perhaps you got unlucky or was it quest day?

I have the same experience. There are plenty of guilds inbetween the 850-1000 rating that are playing pretty consistently. Not to say that complete newbies wouldn't lose to 75% of those teams.

diabiosx · Dec 08, 2010, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Well I dont gvg because I dont have a stable schedule where I can be online at the same time everyday. Alot of players are in the same boat as me. To get 8people plus a bunch of benchwarmers who can be online at the same time everyday is a tough accomplishment. Shit happens in real life and people have to leave the game to do things. Imo one reason of what brought the downfall of GvG is its 8player based team combat. It is really hard to maintain 8people in your team. And I do agree when one leaves, you have to start from scratch and usually the entire team dynamic changes with 1new player. GvG couldve easily been a 5v5game if the skill balancing was geared toward it and im pretty sure it wouldve been just as complex if skill balancing made it possible to 5v5 gvg. heal/prot couldve easily been combined, frontlines whos main role is DPS couldve easily be balanced with more utility skills while making their DPS viable can remove the need for more midliners. Anyways what I am getting at is its easier to build a team of 5(gw2's magic number) than team of 8.

Look at the meta build of gvg atm
1DPS
2DPS
3DPS/splitter
4DPS/rupt/movement control
5DPS/some with little bit of movement control
6keep team alive
7keep team alive
8run flag/keep team alive

most of these single player builds just serve the same function

ManaCraft · Dec 08, 2010, 03:00 PM // 15:00

I don't know. I couldn't get into a group in most PvP formats for love or money five years ago, and I doubt I could today. Case in point, I've played the game since release, and to this day I've been able to accumulate 149 fame. To anyone who has ever played regularly in HA that probably doesn't sound like much, but I consider it quite an accomplishment. Not because I think 149 fame is a lot - quite the opposite in fact – but because I know about the countless hours of sitting around spamming LFG that it represents. Getting that fame is the most grueling, difficult, frustrating thing I've ever done during all my time in Guild Wars. And I'll never do it again. I did have fun when I eventually got to play, but was it worth the investment? No, not by a longshot.

Even with A.Nets latest invention, the Codex Arena, rank discrimination thrived from day one, and it was entirely impossible to make any progress toward the title so that you could actually get into better groups and get to that ever elusive tipping point where the snowball effect takes over (though I believe this was mostly A.Nets own fault for designing what in my opinion is a flawed reward system). In fact, I never got as much as a single honor point.

As for actual GvG, English-speaking European guilds were always a relatively rare commodity in my experience, and the time zones make it difficult to hook up with US ones since most of them play during the evening, which is in the middle of the night for me. I did get to play some GvG from time to time, but mostly on a casual basis. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to play even more (casual GvG can only teach you so much), but it's difficult when you come from a guild that is mostly PvE-based and don't know anyone who's a permanent part of the GvG scene.

I'll also add a positive note though. The one PvP format that I did get to play during my time in GW, alliance battles, was also the one I enjoyed the most. I played them like crazy ever since the release of factions, and eventually managed to play my way to a maxed kurzick title from scratch, almost exclusively through ABs. That, of course, was a couple of years ago and these days I hardly ever touch GW anymore, but it's the most PvP I've ever played and the most fun I've ever had in the game.

The bottom line, though, is that in my experience it has never been easy for new players to get into PvP, and I don't think that's about to change. I wholeheartedly invite you to prove me wrong, and I applaud the initiative. In the meantime, PvP has made its own bed coffin, and now it must lie in it. Also, the very nature of the guild setup means that historically GvG just hasn't taken very well to the concept of inclusion – which is a shame, because it remains the crown jewel of the whole PvP system. And even if you get past all that, as has already been mentioned many times over, the game is just too old, and you're too late.

newbie_of_doom · Dec 09, 2010, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

I approve of this message.

As do I.
I would also like to add that it while it may be frustrating to lose a lot at the start, it is a lot of fun to see yourself, and your guild improve over time.
If you read guides and get understand the basic mathematics your skill will improve very significantly.

As for adressing it's inaccessabillity:
It's not too bad. You just have to find 7 players who will stick by you. If you do the same in HA, you will improve and automatically gain more fame. The most PvE'ers have a PUG-idea of high-end PvP. This is something that stops them from ever playing it.
PUGs are however annoying and barely ever decent.