Curse

Bryant Again · Jul 08, 2008, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigtime102

I never played those games anyway and they might be bad examples for my point but the point is still true, most gamers are solo players who dont have gangs or cliques on the internet, having that as a requirment to PVP you shouldnt be surprised no one is.

Your original point, unless I misread, were that "teamwork focused games fail". I simply showed you that isn't the case.

PvP is not an endgame. You do can access it at anytime you wish. You do not need gangs or cliques. You only need the keys L, F, and G and after a bit of time you're all set.

bigtime102 · Jul 08, 2008, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

Your original point, unless I misread, were that "teamwork focused games fail". I simply showed you that isn't the case.

PvP is not an endgame. You do can access it at anytime you wish. You do not need gangs or cliques. You only need the keys L, F, and G and after a bit of time you're all set.

Yeah easy for u, but I dont have that time, well i do have lots of spare time by my time attention span is short, I dont have time to wammo LFG id rather not play than do that, some people enjoy that and thats fine youll always have the option to spend all the time you want planning and strategizing and waiting if you want, no stops you from doing that. What about the rest of us? We want the option not to have to wait and not have to be that commited like in BF2, and if they cant accommodate our style into pvp then dont, no ones complaining. We're happily playing PVE with lots of things to do and get our PVP fix somewhere else. Just dont bring that garbage to PVE and the best thing they ever did was by taking most of it out when they added heroes.

Fril Estelin · Jul 08, 2008, 08:10 PM // 20:10

A different point of view on this issue: rather than moving from PvE to PvP, Anet thought that they could make a more open game where you can freely choose between PvE and PvP. And they did. But the way it's designed, the gap between the two "sides" grew bigger, even with attempts to bridge it as seen in Factions' AB, FA and JQ.

That's why I'm really excited about GW2, I hope Anet will allow us to move freely between the two, and thus BEYOND the two. The game is supposed to be fun, not put players in "layers" as it's happening now. Many PvP players think too highly of themselves because their "side" is more demanding (no offense to PvPers, it's also where you find the most amazing GW players, see GWG tournie). I hope that the community will be able to "socially" evolve in GW2 into a more fun community where we enjoy playing the game in whatever way we like.

(this reminds me of the cult movie Avalon, a must-see for any MMO-er, where the endgame content is Class Real II ... in other words: real-life!)

Div · Jul 08, 2008, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by EPO Bot

I always had more fun trying to win with the craziest possible builds. Too bad that is NEVER allowed in pvp since everyone only wants to win and if that takes using the same build over and over untill it is nerfed then that makes the winning pointless.

There's a difference between crazy builds and shit builds. When dR balance with the fire ele ganker came out, it was a crazy build. When you try to put a defy pain guild lord tank as a PvP player, it is a shit build.

Learn to tell the difference before QQing.

Skitsefrenik · Jul 08, 2008, 08:48 PM // 20:48

I do not have vent. I do not have the gaming iq. I do not have all the skills. I do not have the patience to sway anymore. I do not have the rank.

PvE is just quicker to set up and more attainable goals D:

DreamWind · Jul 08, 2008, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

The original question was: Why didn't PvP turn into the endgame content like ArenaNet originally envisioned?

I think that the answer is very easy: ArenaNet simply did not understand the wants of the gaming community when they developed their game.

Wrong. The players did not understand what they were buying with Guild Wars. Guild Wars was NOT meant to be an MMO!! It was a CORPG! Big difference. This is something people need to get into their brains. Guild Wars was meant to be a normal video game! You go through the PvE content and buy the next content that arrives if you liked the game just like a normal video game. The thing to keep you busy in between content was PvP or to play another game waiting for the next content to be released. With the way Anets marketing model is set up, it made perfect sense and worked perfectly.

It doesn't matter WHY people bought the game. It matters that millions bought a game with higher goals in mind. Anet caved in and no longer goes with these goals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

As everybody can tell, all successful MMOs have a strong PvE component because that's what people want. If you try going all-out PvP, then you end up with a game like Fury. Look how great that game turned out to be.

As stated earlier, Guild Wars was not an MMO, but Anet has now (since Nightfall I'd say) made a very half assed attempt to turn it into one. Guild Wars 2 will be an MMO entirely. Your point is moot. Guild Wars did not need to be an MMO to provide a fun PvE campaign. Also, the Fury argument is bad (as JR pointed out).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

Needless to say, the whole "merging the sides" attempt was a total failure. You can't force somebody to play in a way that they don't like.

Prophecies was essentially a "merging the sides" chapter, and as far as I know that was the most successful (and most people agree) that is was the best chapter of Guild Wars. It never forced you to do anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

Most players come to an MMO (and I consider Guild Wars an MMO because it is quite massive, it is multiplayer only, and cannot be played without an internet connection, so it's also online. The difference from other MMOs is that the rest of the player base isn't forced on you) expecting PvE. Grind. Safety. So the majority of players buying this game are buying it for PvE. Some of them try PvP and find out that they like it more than PvE. Others stay with PvE. The majority choose PvE.

Addressed this above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

Guild Wars may have been intended to have PvP as endgame content, but it's really more like a separate parallel game that uses the same mechanics, servers, characters, etc. Guild Wars has its own endgame: Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Realm of Torment, Urgoz' Warren, The Deep, Slaver's Exile, and dungeons. So there is presently no notable incentive to play PvP as there is already a PvE endgame.

It is now because of how bad Anet has disfigured their game. One of the ridiculous things is that Anet could easily get more people to play PvP if they wanted to...they just choose not to or don't know how to. Guild Wars PvP is unlike (or WAS unlike) anything else in gaming. If Anet played their cards right, there would be more PvP players today than PvE players, especially considering how generic PvE is now. But they didn't play it right...and now their entire hand rests on Guild Wars 2, and they know it. That is the one and only reason HoM exists.

DutchSmurf · Jul 08, 2008, 09:47 PM // 21:47

In my opinion, a huge reason for the current bad state of the pvp part of the game is caused by features that should have been included at release, but are either still missing, added late and if added, often added poorly. The only feature that has been added later that works well is the J menu. The rest all has flaws. This is just a short list of things that held back/killed the pvp part.

Observermode was added later and as a result is really limited. Options to save a match and a pause/fast-forward button would have made it far better then it is now.
Balthazar Faction was included to give PvP players a way to unlock skills without playing PvE. It has been changed many times since then. Some might remember how few points you actually got for killing someone back then (believe it was 1 point for a long time). However, there should just have been an UAX button.
Guilds have a whole format for them alone. But on the same time, there are exactly 0 ways to find a guild in game. This alone adds a huge barrier most people will never get past.
As a slightly different point, the high end PvP formats are very inaccessible. Not only the 8 player requirement and the lacking party system have something to do with this. Rank discrimination didn't make it any better, but is understandable.
Complete lack of support for TA. TA could have been a perfect format to get people to play PvP, but instead is an area only a very small amount of people care about.
Automatic tournaments that are very unfriendly to new guilds. It kinda works for hero battles if enough people sign up to form multiple copies, but for gvg it is a huge failure. I still don't understand why Anet found it needed to include such a high k-factor for them. In my opinion, switching the k value of ladder play and the tournaments would give more guilds a reason to use both. You still need to play tournaments to get your 20QP, but low ranked guilds won't suffer a huge rating loss if they do decide to join them. If playing in a tournament setting isn't enough to encourage people to use them, then add more rewards to them. With the increased k value of the ladder, more guilds will be interested in using them. You can also think of things like the highest 8 guilds go to version A, the next 8 to B, etc, etc. Again encouraging guilds to sign up.
Skill balances happened far too slow, effect far too less skills, push the game in the wrong direction and often completely miss the point. Nobody has been waiting for certain buffs might the last year and most had absolutely no effect. Except that some monsters using them got slightly more irritating.
And last but not least, the current GvG format is in my opinion a nice example of how a pvp format shouldn't look. The more npcs you have, the more important the PvE part of your PvP match becomes. If you are more worried about luring knights then about what the other team is doing, then something is wrong. Also a format that needs extra systems to bring the game to an end has problems. If playing not to lose ends up being the way to win, your format is seriously flawed. VoD got added to at least bring matches to an end in a reasonable time, but does nothing to solve the problem. Fact is, there is nothing that can be done to solve the problem. Simply because the format itself is the problem, not the skills or VoD. This made the GvG format both boring to watch and, at times, boring to play. Which of course doesn't help to attract new people.

Foe · Jul 08, 2008, 11:31 PM // 23:31

Occam's razor

Pve is ez
Pvp is less ez

Why risk failure when they have a sure thing.

Solas · Jul 09, 2008, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by RotteN

This statement does show you have indeed never put any serious tought into PvP. It's about MUCH more than just the 8 skills on your skillbar.

that's a given, Never said i did much pvp, just go by what i hear.
The only real pvp i've done is HB (near r3), used a wiki build as i play for funbut as the roll weekends come i see sadly how easy it is to get.
look at any pvp forum(at least before there was,not sure about now) and you'll hear moaning about X-way, and button bashing hear enough and iy sinks in.

I have put some thought into PvP just without a backing it hardly seems worthwhile, Start cooking when you have the ingrediants and knowledge.you know?

Quote:

Would it help if Anet would decide to make high-end PvE more like PvP ? (better (balanced) groups, more synergy, possibly better AI. Would take longer to kill one group, but they'd just put less foes in the entire area). While that wouldn't solve the atmosphere problem, it would prepare new players better for PvP, so maybe the skill-gap wouldn't be that big.

Only way i could see it happening is if it turned out into a tank and spank, as you couldn't artificially create the experiance.
i would like to see maybe a seperate class in Ta,Ha nad GvG class C or along the lines only open to unranked players, (HA would be rank 3 cap) alowing unranked players get exp. and giving them a stepping stone into pvp.

Zorrilo Gw · Jul 09, 2008, 12:55 AM // 00:55

The reason I largely neglected pvp (only played some in the summer of 05) is the time it takes to play. Pve and other fps games I play are easy to jump into even if you only have a short amount of time. With pvp between the setup and match it can take a while. Also, being a student, it's difficult to know if I'd be available for a match on a particular date/time.

The gist is that many are likely unable to (or want to) commit to being online at certain times, which many serious pvp guilds require. This would limit you more to random pugs to play with, which gives a sour impression of pvp. This is nothing you can fix, just a fact.

Coraline Jones · Jul 09, 2008, 01:06 AM // 01:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Wrong. The players did not understand what they were buying with Guild Wars. Guild Wars was NOT meant to be an MMO!! It was a CORPG! Big difference. This is something people need to get into their brains. Guild Wars was meant to be a normal video game! You go through the PvE content and buy the next content that arrives if you liked the game just like a normal video game. The thing to keep you busy in between content was PvP or to play another game waiting for the next content to be released. With the way Anets marketing model is set up, it made perfect sense and worked perfectly.

I haven't seen anybody outside of the ArenaNet marketing machine seriously call Guild Wars a "CORPG". When car companies use the term "crossover vehicle", it doesn't mean that it's not a SUV. In fact as far as the government is concerned, it's still a SUV.

You know, it's not like I was making that crap up. When Factions was released, it was heavily advertised as a method of merging PvP and PvE together. They even said crazy things like: "The best guilds will be a mixture of top PvP and PvE players."

Those were all empty words and it looks like really bad planning in retrospect.

I don't even know why we have these forums, because people just want to shut down any kind of commentary if it doesn't agree with their point of view.

Yoshikuni Mahsu · Jul 09, 2008, 02:14 AM // 02:14

I think one of the things that contributed to it was that Anet made PvE too easy.

PvE wasnt easy when you were fresh out of prophecies and your best skill was healsig and you did a whopping 20dmg with flare. In theory, however, it would be correctly scaled as that flare did more damage and that healsig healed for more, as the levels of enemies increased.

However I think its mainly the unique nature of 10000 billion skills available, choose 8, and the unique nature of the way those skills intertwine, combine, and synergize, that led to guild wars becoming easy. It was only a matter of time until the experienced "pro" players figured out the most devastating combinations of skills. New players could easily get the build, skills, weapons/armor/attributes and rickroll through pve.

The additions of Factions, NF, and EoTN, mainly the new skills/proffesions, made this much worse. The massive numbers of skills and combinations of skills are far more powerful than any monster or AI Anet could muster in any campaign, that, and while you could say the chapters got harder according to player capability, EoTN and the previous (now easy) campaigns are still there, leading to the main point:

easily 95% of people anywhere you go want to win, or would atleast prefer to. Maybe you're not driven to win, but in a videogame your options are win or lose. Nobody WANTS to lose, plenty of people want to win, those who dont care im sure would have a preference to winning. So at the end of the day, while your average PvE'er might take a stab at PvP (serious pvp) and get they're ass handed to them, they're going to go back to PvE, throw on some overpowered build, and dominate everything.

So to wrap that all up: its the people that prefer winning to competitive play, and while PvE is expected to be easier than PvP, its the massive difficulty gap between the two that cause the problems.

AshenX · Jul 09, 2008, 02:34 AM // 02:34

I am primarily a PVE player but I do enjoy PVP as well. I have been lucky in that I am part of an alliance that has players that have been pursuing PVP since GW was released. Even more luckily they have been willing to teach the rest of us. On the other hand I know that not everyone has the luxury of having an in game tutor for PVP.

The simple fact of the matter is that PVP is much less forgiving of mistakes than PVE. There is a limit to exactly how much you can learn from your mistakes if you dont understand what went wrong. The lack of a tiered system for PVP meant that many PVE players trying PVP out for the first time were rolled so fast by teams that had been playing for years that they still dont know what happened.

I honestly think that another significant part of the problem with drawing new players into PVP has as much to do with these forums as anything else. Most PVE'rs know that they have to lose in order to learn how to win. They died learning PVE and gradually figured it out. But when they come here to learn about PVP they found a strong bias against, "PVE scrubs." Such trash talking is found in matches and in attempts to find a group as well.

As an ex marine I understand the whole idea of messing with the new guy, make him earn respect before you give it, etc. On the other hand this is a game. It is meant to be fun. Being treated like crap is not fun.

PVE requires new content in order to remain fresh and interesting. PVP requires new players. New players bring new ideas, builds, and play styles to keep everyone on their toes. If you fight the same team using the same builds repeatedly then PVP is no more interesting than the one millionth time you beat the same mob in FOW. But if the PVP community holds new players, almost all of them coming from PVE, in disdain and treat them like red-headed step children then the new players wont stay. Theyll go back to PVE where even if there are obnoxious people you can avoid them. The worst part about this is the fact that most PVPers are respectful players who act with sportsmanship and, dare I say it, honor. But if there is a perception of PVPers as obnoxious jerks by the PVE community then any hope of a significant influx of new PVP blood from PVE is shot.

In summary I think that the biggest problem stopping more PVEers from coming over to PVP is bad PR. Every "PVE scrubs go home," post on Guru or, "learn to play the game noob," comment in a match is repeated a hundred times to every friend and guuildie until the general assumption is that such behavior is the rule rather than the exception. Sad fact of life...people remember the bad experience and talk about it more than the good. People expect to have to learn how to PVP, but they dont want to be harrassed during the process.

To all of you who still type GL and HF before a match an GG after, I salute you.

Spazzer · Jul 09, 2008, 04:44 AM // 04:44

When did a too-cool guy like JR end up in a way-cool guild like MH?

Celestial_Kitsune · Jul 09, 2008, 05:08 AM // 05:08

Some people will never play PvP because they don't like this mode of play - nothing is wrong with that.

http://www.gamerdna.com/bartle.php

DreamWind · Jul 09, 2008, 07:06 AM // 07:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

I haven't seen anybody outside of the ArenaNet marketing machine seriously call Guild Wars a "CORPG". When car companies use the term "crossover vehicle", it doesn't mean that it's not a SUV. In fact as far as the government is concerned, it's still a SUV.

It certainly was not meant to be an MMO. Thats a very big misconception. A lot of people bought Guild Wars with the idea in their head "oh cool a FREE MMO!!" Unfortunately Guild Wars did not fit into that category at all. Guild Wars was meant to be more of a normal video game with PvP content plain and simple. It was designed that way. Nowadays Anet is trying to fit in with what people thought it was rather than what it should have been, and I honestly believe its going to backfire one day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

When Factions was released, it was heavily advertised as a method of merging PvP and PvE together. They even said crazy things like: "The best guilds will be a mixture of top PvP and PvE players."

Thats true, and in many respects they failed. That is why people like me argue that the Prophecies system was flawless. There was no "pushing" of the two sides together (like Factions) or complete seperation of the two (like Nightfall and EOTN). Prophecies just existed, and that is why many people feel it was the pinnicle of Guild Wars design even though it was missing many features we have come to expect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

I don't even know why we have these forums, because people just want to shut down any kind of commentary if it doesn't agree with their point of view.

I am just pointing out the facts. Guild Wars was supposed to be a PvP focused game. It was marketed and sold as one. Then it changed, and now nothing of its former self remains.

DarkNecrid · Jul 09, 2008, 08:13 AM // 08:13

Yeah Guild Wars is really just an ORPG, just like Diablo II. People who call it an MMO are pretty much wrong.

Angelic Upstart · Jul 09, 2008, 08:26 AM // 08:26

Personally for me it was the limited access to PvP , the elitism and sneering and whatever dont worry me, but the access to 'higher ' echelons of PvP for me i found limited, plus RA bored the hell out of me.

DreamWind · Jul 09, 2008, 10:16 AM // 10:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

So how does GW fail to be an MMO? Unless you see MMO solely as games where the world is fully shared as in WoW? Or where you can't solo the game and must team?

Because by the definition you gave, any online game ever made can be considered an MMO as long as it supports thousands of players that can interact. Ask anybody at Anet. Guild Wars was not originally an MMO. It was a regular play through video game with PvP content.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

No one thinks, as I said above, that Anet only realised (may be by mistake...) that it'd be stupid from a business point of view to limit the game by forcing people to play in only one way (do the PvE content then do PvP)? It seems to me a better option (in particular if you want to be f2p) to give more options to players, despite the fact that it split the community.

Nobody was forced to do anything. This is one of the ridiculous arguments I hear a lot. "Oh people were forced to do PvP and that didn't work". No...people weren't forced to do anything.

It would be like if you bought Halo 3 and said "oh the endgame is online PvP and I don't want to be forced to do that". Good...you aren't forced to do it even though the game was made for it. You do whatever everybody else who doesn't want to PvP does...play through the PvE campaign and wait for Halo 4.

DarkNecrid · Jul 09, 2008, 10:29 AM // 10:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Technically, it seems you're wrong, the wiki definition of MMO says:

So how does GW fail to be an MMO? Unless you see MMO solely as games where the world is fully shared as in WoW? Or where you can't solo the game and must team?

No one thinks, as I said above, that Anet only realised (may be by mistake...) that it'd be stupid from a business point of view to limit the game by forcing people to play in only one way (do the PvE content then do PvP)? It seems to me a better option (in particular if you want to be f2p) to give more options to players, despite the fact that it split the community.

I like how you skipped the part right after it.

Quote:

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMOG or simply MMO) is a video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature at least one persistent world.

Guild Wars does not have 1 persistent world, or any persistent worlds. Why? Because the world only exists if there are people there. If every single person on World of Warcraft quit playing right now, there would still be "a world".

If every single Guild Wars player left, there would be 0 (ie: nonexistant) districts of every place in the game, ergo causing there to be "no world". The game server only generates a place if someone is there (but the mapping system allows you to generate a place if no one is there, but it technically doesn't exist until you go there.)

Therefore, it is not persistent. Therefore, it is not an MMO.

Quote:

So how does GW fail to be an MMO? Unless you see MMO solely as games where the world is fully shared as in WoW?

Yes, this is the definition of an MMO and what it is. GW is not this. It is an online RPG. big difference.