Curse

moonshadow · Oct 05, 2005, 01:31 PM // 13:31

Thanks for the chuckle, OP. Very well written and amusing.

TomD22 · Oct 05, 2005, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Wow. A literate poster. That story was actually well written

Plus my few GvG matches have been very much like that. I find it easier to learn PvP in the Tomb of the Unknown King, and have actually managed to win a few fights in there.

Sigil · Oct 05, 2005, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duly Thankful

The sight of my Leroy character has always brought tears of joy to the eyes of the opposition, but I will continue to try and improve, however slowly!

Great post and follow up. A pleasure to read.

Sofonisba · Oct 05, 2005, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Take the tour from Lion's Arch of all the other islands - each guild hall has different features, and you don't want to be completely lost when you arrive on someone else's island.

Also, try and set up some unranked GvG. Recently, we teamed up with some GvG newbies (newbies = the good kind!) from a friendly guild. We challenged them to unranked, but members from BOTH guilds got on TS together, we walked them through what happens during a match. Now they are a formidable opponent, but still friendly!

Hoyt · Oct 05, 2005, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Dearest Duly Thankful,

Your post is the archetype of what a forum submission should be.
I laughed, I cried…it became a part of me.
Do you have a fan club?

With Sincere Appreciation,
Hoyt

P.S. I get what you are saying & I feel your pain.

Sir Skullcrasher · Oct 05, 2005, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Yeah this kind of GvG happened to me before. And yes targeting enemy monks is one of the tactics (for me that is) in GvG. Sometime i would see everyone (6 players) attacking one monk at the same time.

This post by far is funny and i truly felt your pain in GvG.

crimsonfilms · Oct 05, 2005, 09:17 PM // 21:17

HILARIOUS. Loved it.

IMO -
Simple solution - RANDOM UNRANKED.

Like Starcraft - play the game, it does not count for anything - no faction, maybe experience points.

The only other solution is a practice guild. Most elite, if not all elite guilds, have one.

You get less faction, but the freedom is well worth it.

It works best with a second account, but for you just rotating one of the officers as guild leader of the 2nd guild will work.

And get Teamspeak or Ventrillo. Pretty sure there are free servers out there.
Best thing we did for our guild.

Charcoal Ann · Oct 05, 2005, 09:36 PM // 21:36

when we got our guild the creater decided to have a bit of a go at GvG. no people in the guild? just use henchies!
only 4 henchies? 5 is enough!
10 minutes for a battle? 2 seconds sill suffice!

dead.

also i did the UW thing as well. i admit it.

Numa Pompilius · Oct 06, 2005, 08:02 AM // 08:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shinsei

First of all, if you're calling me an elitist, I'd like you to back that up.

Oh come on, of course you're elitist. Everything you ever write is from the POV that one plays to be good. Being an elitist isn't inherently bad (being 1337 is, though), it means that you're serious about what you're doing. However, it also means that your POV isn't shared by people who do something just for fun.

I think we can all agree that while repeatedly losing, badly, against top teams may be a good opportunity to study their strategy, it isn't in itself fun. This is a problem if you're not playing to get better, but just to have fun.

And it waters down the challenge for the good teams too.

This is why most sports have ranking systems/divisions/leagues, to keep the "hobbyists" from getting slaughtered by the "pros".

I'm not sure how big & active the GW "world series" is, if it's big enough to support several partitioned tiers of players, but I can certainly see the point. Ideally you'd have the X top teams of lower tiers moving up each month or so, and the bottom X teams of higher tiers moving down.

Quote:

I can see how losing can hurt a team's moral, but when getting into a competetive activity, one should always be prepared to lose.

Yeah, but the thing is, some people are not very competitive. They're not in it for the competition. That alone means they're chanceless against top guilds - and it's frankly unfair to match them against them. It's the whole difference between a friendly office match of softball in the park and a professional baseball match.

Quote:

I disagree with you that new players are being held back by the more experienced. --- It's never constant losing unless you simply lack the self respect to pull yourself back up.

As someone who started testing PvP at the "weekend event" a month or so ago, I can testify that the entry threshhold is infact quite high now, and yes a fresh guild without PvP experience WILL be constantly losing. For days. Probably weeks. Because they're necessarily at the very bottom of the scale wrt skill simply because they're newbies and the others aren't.

It doesn't help that the random arenas (which presumably exist as a place for newbies to get their feet wet in PvP before moving on to GvG/ladder) are systematically farmed for faction by experienced & twinked players.

Kazahana · Oct 06, 2005, 08:33 AM // 08:33

only way to get better is to play if you lose a few times shrug it off your rank will eventually get low enough to be going against other teams of your current skill level. then, after playing teams near your level for a while you will begin to get better and start moving back up in rank its the only way to get better if you dont naturaly do well at games

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 06, 2005, 08:36 AM // 08:36

Ironically (by the views of them on this board) - FoTM builds have great use in this sort of scenario.

Say, your guild picks up a build for IWAY off a forum and begins running it. You quickly find that you can steamroll over some teams simply by charging forward without heavy regard for tactics, but others flatten you with ease. You'll win some without too much skill at the game, and likewise lose some against more experienced teams.

From here you can start to look at what's making you win or lose. Is the enemy team blocking or evading you with enchantments? Are they using Wards? Are you running into traps and dying to conditions and degen? Maybe it's not enough to do your own team build yet, but you'll start to see the sorts of teams people use, and get a feel for the tactics winning teams use against builds like IWAY.

Now try another FoTM build with the faction your guild has made - say, traps. Make a trapper team and start trapping defensively, again examining what causes you to win and lose. Note that trapping requires more skill than charging in with IWAY, so you'll lose a few more games at first, but eventually find the build to be considerably more effective as you pick up on the tactics.

Again, you'll start to see what counters your build, and what sorts of tactics the winning teams use. It usually won't be over in a couple seconds, and you'll at least get long enough to see why you lost.

From there, start modifying the FoTMs to account for what was beating you. Maybe start using enchantment stripping with your IWAY, or offensive trapping. Maybe mix in some monks. Maybe make a build off of one that countered your own and see if you can't find anyone else running FoTM builds to beat.

Finally, advance to the point where you can make your own builds completely free of the FoTM side of the game - viola, you've been introduced to PvP in a way that allows you to do something other than be flattened, and provided some new competition among the upper teirs.

Good luck!

aron searle · Oct 06, 2005, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Yup i found that as well.

The second game i had was prob the best ever. It was with a team who were equaly mathced, lasted about 20 ish minutes. Lots of pulling back, attacking changing tactics and learning. after that we had 2 games in a row were we were just owned in seconds (not the whole match of course but the actual fighting). After that most of the team just didnt have the heart to go on so there was only 4 of us left, so we moved onto team arenas.

As a team we were ok (tactics, calling sticking together ect), but it was our first attemp. The long game was good learning expirence, the others happend so quick we were simply not ready for that level of competition.

I have found it can take a bit of paitence to go back in after dying so quick, but some casual gamers just dont find that fun, which is the whole point of the game.

Quote:

Yeah, but the thing is, some people are not very competitive. They're not in it for the competition. That alone means they're chanceless against top guilds - and it's frankly unfair to match them against them. It's the whole difference between a friendly office match of softball in the park and a professional baseball match.

Couldnt have said it better.

again, first class post OP.

coolsti · Oct 06, 2005, 10:19 AM // 10:19

I vote for a strict rating system combined with a well functioning separation of experienced and inexperienced PVP groups. The few times I tried PVP have been with mixed degree of pleasure/dissappointment. I play GW for fun, not for extreme competition, but I find the concept of PVP fun and exciting. The problem is, I am still a learner, and I most likely never will make an effort to become highly skilled in PVP. But I would like to do it for the fun of it.

So it isn't any fun for me to be thrown up against a PVP group that is really experienced and good. Neither is it any fun to be put together with elite players in the random arenas, who will then complain about my talents not being good enough. And it doesn't help for me to be put up against a group that is so good that I am dead in no time whatsoever - I might see what wacked me, but I won't learn about how to counter it or how to effectively use my own skills.

Would be nice if parties are put against each other according to the average ranking of all the party members.

KaPe · Oct 06, 2005, 11:28 AM // 11:28

That was my exactly like my first GvG - minus the "let's just kill them" part. We got matched against guild *way* higher than us, so, while we were wondering "So, what are we supposed to do here", they already captured tower - "So? Maybe it's just like tombs, so it doesn't matter". I don't even remember what they were using, was too busy healing - and dying. Still, it was obvious that they were a lot better than us - that wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't our first game. When you enter competition, you don't expect to face top (insert number here) right in your first match, do you?

burai · Oct 06, 2005, 11:49 AM // 11:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sofonisba

Recently, we teamed up with some GvG newbies (newbies = the good kind!) from a friendly guild. We challenged them to unranked, but members from BOTH guilds got on TS together, we walked them through what happens during a match. Now they are a formidable opponent, but still friendly!

Hang on! Isn't community spirit illegal? I think we could all learn something here - and I don't just mean in-game.

If I see community spirit round here, I want it shot ... now!

octaviancmb · Oct 06, 2005, 01:10 PM // 13:10

What a great post! I laughed, I cried.

I think you note the frustrations and experiences of many with your summary of your GvG experience. I'll offer you the following suggestions, if your guild would *like* to continue with PvP:

Advice for complete PvP newbies: Ask that the members of your guild who have no experience at all with PvP try out whatever build they're considering in the random high-level arena. If they're frustrated there (with completly random teams, anyway) and unable to do anything (against completely random teams), then suggest ways of improving their build and send them back in again until they get some experience under their belt.
Advice for improving team tactics: Take three other members of your guild into the organized team arena. This is great for practicing tactics like "protect the squishies" or "pounce on the squishies." You'll also figure out if your group's builds complement one another or fail, how to build defences into your own build, and how to work together. You'll develop tactics.
Advice for testing the build: So you manage to get 5-8 people together, but you don't want to risk a GvG loss before you test out what your guys can do. Head down to the Tombs for some good times. You'll quickly face various "flavors of the month and/or past months," some very good opponents, and get a "free" education in how to survive and thrive in a wide spectrum of situations. It would be wrong of me to suggest that a strong Tombs build is going to be successful in GvG, and I'm not suggesting that, but if you take your GvG build down into Tombs, you'll learn its strengths and weaknesses. You'll also be able to tweak it, have fun, and (maybe) show some progress through fame and rank while you're at it.

So I guess my only real advice is to not jump headfirst into GvG without first wetting your guild members' feet a little in the other flavors of PvP. I hope you and your guild can recover from your crushing losses and one day return, stronger, better, and able to have fun together again.

Good luck with that, and thanks for the great read,
cmb

kawaii_bat · Oct 06, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

I STILL don't get GvG.
What are we supposed to do and stuff and I've never won one either with my guildies

T_T.

Guess I,m just not bright enough to understand it

Fantus · Oct 06, 2005, 01:53 PM // 13:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

Oh come on, of course you're elitist. Everything you ever write is from the POV that one plays to be good. Being an elitist isn't inherently bad (being 1337 is, though), it means that you're serious about what you're doing. However, it also means that your POV isn't shared by people who do something just for fun.

I think we can all agree that while repeatedly losing, badly, against top teams may be a good opportunity to study their strategy, it isn't in itself fun. This is a problem if you're not playing to get better, but just to have fun.

Quoted for truth!

There is a HUGE difference between those who play they game to win (like Shinsei obviously does) and those who play for fun (like me). It is utterly unfun to get repeatedly slaughtered by a team of highly competitive players in 1 minute 30. And the main problem is that you don't even learn much from getting whacked that quickly. On the contrary, it's quite possible that the difference in skill between highly experienced PvPers and newcomers is so great that the new players don't even UNDERSTAND what killed them so quickly. It won't lead to the newcomers trying hard to learn and improve. It will lead to them quit trying because all they ever experience is frustration. To keep people motivated to learn and improve, they sometimes need some small degree of success. Which is the main reason why there should be some kind of league system in GW. It would ensure that new PvPers will fight the good teams when they are ready for it.

lakmethemud · Oct 06, 2005, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duly Thankful

I believe at one point I was killed by a stone pillar.

Thanks for making me snort up my drink laughing.

User Name · Oct 06, 2005, 02:18 PM // 14:18

I love how everyone jumps on Shinsei's back saying he's an elitest.

He's well spoken(obviously an elitest) and knows how to play(obviously on a high horse)...so let's just ignore him and his benificial advice in favor of ignorance and the right to suck. YAY!

The OP made some serious mistakes(the first of which was not organizing his group and the last of which was trying to be both the healing monk and the protection monk at the same time)...Shinsei offered some advice that could have helped the OP while still realizing that the topic was light hearted(note how short his post was)...allowing the OP to come to him(via PM) if he wanted to know more. I just don't get it sometimes...maybe it's that iQ has a history(even if it's unfounded) of being elitests...but flaming the people that know what they're talking about isn't the greatest way to make a forum survive.