Curse

john little · Jul 24, 2005, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Quote:

Imagine a well seasoned PvP player/team as a randomly spawning mob who can counter everything you do, like your doppelganger but harder. They know about the game, they know how to counter certain things.

I think it's about time that an NPC should be a randomly spawning mob who can counter everything you do, rather than being a set of stats and skills on a website with easy ways to solo them... If only more NPC's were like the doppelganger (except without the sometimes bizzare usage of skills and lack of mobility) PvE might actually be interesting/a challenge.

PieXags · Jul 24, 2005, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linkie

Shouldn't have bought a PvP oriented game then, eh?

It's not that he doesn't like the idea of PvP, hell when I first bought the game I was expecting some great battles PvPin' in GuildWars, but when you buy the game you don't know just how small-scale and...bland, the PvP actually is. I bought the game thinking of some much cooler PvP battles than a simple 8vs8 guild skirmish...that doesn't even have reason or backing, and that's about the most fun PvP that's provided right now. Point being, you can enjoy the idea of PvP in GuildWars, and still disagree with the way it's implemented in the game.

Also, quit saying it's a PvP oriented game, it's a mixture of both PvP and PvE, not one or the other.

Numa Pompilius · Jul 24, 2005, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

Deadweight = people without skill = skill matters

Yeah, but what kind of skill?
If you take the 8 best guildwars players in the world, and give them random builds, and set them up against a decent but not great team who've got an actual strategy and complementing builds...I'd say the all-stars will almost certainly lose.

The skill is mainly in your build, and how it complements the others in your team, not so much in how you play once in the arena. And that's why random groups will always be at a disadvantage.

PieXags · Jul 24, 2005, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Yeah I know what you mean, Numa. Most of the battle's wins and loses have been decided by the time the start timer hits 00:00, it's mostly in the overall build of your team that decides the match. Your build can either counter and beat the builds of others or it can't, personal skill in this game only requires you to -basically- be familiar with your build. There's mostly just strategy in this game, (before battle planning), hardly any tactics executed in the midst of battle unless something odd and unexpected happens (which is...rare).

NotACommunist · Jul 24, 2005, 09:47 PM // 21:47

I consider myself to be mainly a PvE'er. I just enjoy that aspect of the game more. Though I do also like PvP too, but my first taste of PvP was the Tombs and it left me hating PvP at first. A combination of my lack of experience in PvP and the many rude people you encounter in the Tombs pretty much made me even more into a PvE'er. So I played the game through with a few different characters, trying the different classes available. I learned more about the game, and how it works. This didn't turn me into a hardcore PvP'er or anything, but it definetly made me more able to compete in PvP. I'm still not too big a fan of the Tombs, as it's way too difficult to assemble a random group of people that will work well together. Oddly enough, I really enjoy the random PvP arenas. To each his own.

Edge Martinez · Jul 24, 2005, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Denny, I know folks might disagree with this, but I'd say start small. Sure, you may be the weak link in a team at first, but as you build on what you learn each time, you will start to think more about effective ways of running your skills. You'll eventually learn each map by heart and know what blinds you can use to cast safely from, or what route is the best one to trap. The Mesmer you are trying is an awesome build for learning and improving. I'd say next time just concentrate on shutting down one enemy caster, maybe a monk or an elemental. Win or lose, your fault or not, I'm a firm believer that you have to know your own limits before you can really effectively help a team. So yeah... whoever suggested GvG first? I agree. Get your feet wet there.

On a side note, I prefer PvE to PvP also, but UW and FoW gets dull after the third or fourth time each day.

-z|o- · Jul 24, 2005, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Individual skill in this game = be able to make right decisions at the right moments.

You wont get far with just "before battle planing". Be able to adjust ftw.

Racthoh · Jul 24, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Hardcore PvEer, touched PvP a bit once I got to the tombs. Played a little bit beforehand in the arenas and wasn't too impressed. Same battle field over and over... boring really.

Tombs was fun when I got there. People would actually take my W/N with them despite my complete lack of PvP skills. Spent a lot of time there, always bringing the same build, gained a total of 33 fame. Finally those 0s on my character screen were gone so I was happy.

At which point I beat the game, farmed like crazy, getting close to one piece of fissure armour. Since America didn't have the favour, I figured I'd try to get back on the PvP horse and try to win the HoH (afterall, I did it once before and now I had 2 million experience under my belt). Boy, what a waste of time.

IMPOSSIBLE for me to get in a group. Impossible to even get one person to even join me in an attempt to start a group. Every district I went to, "LF Rank 3+ people with TS/Vent", or "Group needs monk (as alwasy), at least Rank 4". What the hell is this? I want to test my build but I have no way of seeing how good it would do in a somewhat organized group.

And I don't want to make a monk character. Sorry, I don't want to be the bitch of the group, pardon my language. 4v4 arenas are dumb, everyone is an ass, flaming is just as bad as the racism in the ToPK. How you can stand the same scenary battle after battle is beyond me.

I just want to use my sword and shield, and fight other players. But apparently, the HoH is not the place. Arena's aren't the place. GvG, maybe. But I haven't found anyone I'd want to recruit and I don't want to join a guild that would kick me out because I don't want to GvG 24/7. Well, I got my guild hall despite the lack of sigil rewarded from holding the HoH. I don't need PvP anymore, it sucks, it isn't fun at all. And I couldn't be more thorughly displeased that I have to wait for the PvP players to win the damn favour for me to enjoy what I enjoy doing.

Gwenhywar · Jul 24, 2005, 10:09 PM // 22:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Denny Pace

No, I'm not in a guild.

You have answered your question yourself. Join a medium sized guild with like-minded people, and you'll have reliable people to form teams with, discuss strategies, etc ... random PUGs suck. 80% of the time. There's nothing you can do to change that.

Besides guild battles (on teamspeak/vent) is THE most fun part of the whole game anyway, and you have to be in a guild to experience those

Zeru · Jul 24, 2005, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Builds are a big deal yes but you're dead wrong if you think that teamplay and individual skill are not just as important. Because I have spent most of retail onward trying to raise a guild full of inexperienced and green pvpers I have some insight in this. We once ran a build with several buff stacked warriors, soh/ji and double orders, but because the players playing the warriors were so bad they got outkited horribly or just spent half the time pounding on a target with prot spirit on, doing half the damage they should. The build was very solid, and the teams we lost to didn't have much good anti-warrior hate even, but the players were just so bad at it we couldn't score any sustained kills. Training people was simply too hard, combined with the fact that most of them couldn't play more than 1 class setup; the guild got trashed eventually.

Tactical team movements, especially in GvG, are a huge importance but it is a very subtle thing. I have seen one team actually use them to their advantage and they absolutely destroyed my guild despite the fact that we seemed to have a superior build overall. This is extremely difficult to convey in concept and even harder to understand, but the basic gist (one use of it anyway) is that your team keeps moving the people who are being targeted away from the people targeting them, by doing so you impair their effectiveness to do damage and can create a window of opportunity where a unit is too far ahead of it's healers, where your whole team snares and ganks him before he can be healed. It's way more than that; that's just the simplest way I can think of to put it into words. When playing that team it felt like I was in a starcraft game, trying to micro m&m vs lurker ling. I am not in a good guild so I can't confirm this but I imagine that the best guilds out there make heavy use of such team tactics to achieve advantages even where their builds are weaker overall.

Divinitys Creature · Jul 24, 2005, 10:46 PM // 22:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by john little

I think it's about time that an NPC should be a randomly spawning mob who can counter everything you do, rather than being a set of stats and skills on a website with easy ways to solo them... If only more NPC's were like the doppelganger (except without the sometimes bizzare usage of skills and lack of mobility) PvE might actually be interesting/a challenge.

Great idea. That would add a fair bit of replayability, for when you want to play through again or are gathering skill points.
-------

There is a fault with the PvP character creation IMO. Under the arena option it just sends you to the random arenas. I think many new players or people new to PvP might not realise there are team arenas where you can select your team and plan builds etc. Before a patch you could choose which PvP only arena you wanted to go to but now you can only do that with RP chars. Having a choice of map meant people could get good at one, and enjoy it, and test a new idea in a more controlled environment. So a player could make a map specific build, get proficient at it and then move on when they were ready. Maps like The Crag didn't get much attention though and were often deserted (wonder why).

Denny Pace · Jul 25, 2005, 12:24 AM // 00:24

I want to thank everyone who's given their opinion on this so far. Lots of good ideas, lots to think about. As forums are generally very negative places, it's a nice surprise to see the mostly positive tone of the responses here.

I should mention to those who noted that I tried a M/W for PvP that I spent most of my time in PvP using my W/N (curses Necro). It didn't seem to make much of a difference, with the exception that my Monk was always in demand, and my warrior was hardly ever in demand.

I think, in the end, I'm going to have to find a laid-back guild somehow, one that wouldn't mind taking someone who can't be there five nights a week and is pretty much at a n00b level when it comes to PvP.

Finally, feel free to look me up in-game (American). Mention the GW Guru forums and I'll be happy to join up with you in your adventures.

Sarus · Jul 25, 2005, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

If you take the 8 best guildwars players in the world, and give them random builds, and set them up against a decent but not great team who've got an actual strategy and complementing builds

Having a strategy is part of having skill (at least in my own definition). Skill means knowing how to make a good build on an individual level, how to make a good team build, and how to play your build. There aren't very many people who that know how to do all 3 of those well. The most important thing in my opinion is knowing how to play your build well. After all, someone else can tell you what to play but they can't play it for you. You only need 1 really great build designer but you need 8 people that can play the builds designed. I'm not quite sure just how much playing skill can make up for a crappy build but obviously even if you give the best guildwars players in the world a horrible build they won't win against good player with a good build.

Quote:

The skill is mainly in your build, and how it complements the others in your team, not so much in how you play once in the arena. And that's why random groups will always be at a disadvantage.

Very untrue ... knowing how to make a good build and knowing how to play it are two different things and both are vital in having success in tombs or any type of PvP for that matter. Like I said previously, give 8 nubs the iQ tombs build (which is a very good build in my humble opinion hehe) and I doubt they would have the same success. Same goes for any of the top guilds out there and their respective builds. Good builds are hard to play correctly in every situation (holding the dais, running the relic, against air spike, against spirit spammers, against 2 team ganks etc.) and how you play the build is very very important.

Arturo02 · Jul 25, 2005, 02:59 AM // 02:59

oh man, so far this seems to be one of the most balanced pvp systems I have ever seen. I played UO for five years and began getting into pvp there but it is so fubared. And there's all kinds of alliances and truces so I'm limited who to actually fight without it coming back on my guild.

I think you should really give it a full commitment. If there was a game to do pvp in, your in the best spot. Going to another game means less balance and starting over again too.

Do like I did. I got here a month ago and I decided if I was to be good at pvp the first thing is get a lot of fights under my belt. When I hit lev 8 with Cunnito, I sat in ascalon arena for a week, fighting 2-3 hours a night. Then I did some missions, worked my way up to Shiv last week. My plan is to go back and forth, arena time once I make it to one, then to missions to get to next arena or comp fighting area. Pve to get to the pvp I guess you could say.

Becoming an arena rat won't make you the best. But I do think it will help you improve. Just get out once you stop learning and move onto harder competition.

Aria · Jul 25, 2005, 03:00 AM // 03:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

Good builds are hard to play correctly in every situation (holding the dais, running the relic, against air spike, against spirit spammers, against 2 team ganks etc.) and how you play the build is very very important.

Exactly. And, some of the pvp basics (as in not even being skill specific) include knowing when to call snares, to call hexes, to NOT cast through backfire, to not overlap skills (or in certain situations, to overlap), to call for rends and know actually when to use a rend, to watch for massive enchantment barriers and know how to switch targets, to kite, to get out of meteor showers, to watch for resurrects, to interrupts those resurrects when you see them happening, to interrupt the enemy ghostly heroes when capturing a dias, to coordinate resurrects and prioritize team resurrects depending on the speed of the resurrects being used, to focus swap, to use line of sight when it's needed, etc.

And that doesn't even include all of the basics. There are skill specific things that you also need to pay attention to -- such as on which member to throw the prot. spirit on and when, knowing how to get the most out of channeling, etc. If you want a more detailed example, you can take the premade boon healer. 75% of the players that I've played with don't know how to use it. They top off at every single opportunity, and when the mass healing is needed, they're out of energy despite offering of blood.

That said, to everyone else, please don't get scared of PvP.

I started out playing entirely pve, and gradually moved onto arenas and haunted that spot for a while. When I felt comfortable, I started GvGing with my old guild.

A tip though -- if you want to be serious at PvP, and want to dip your toes into tombs, definitely find a team with either Ventrilo or Teamspeak. Not having fast communication in GW PvP is not only a huge cripple, but also often makes 8v8 more confusing and random at best.

Phades · Jul 25, 2005, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

Deadweight = people without skill = skill matters

Skill of the group > skill of the individual. It makes playing the game without skilled backing pointless, which in turn makes for trying to organize from an unestablished playerbase frustrating and tedious opposed to trying to bandwagon with something established. Apply this to the OP's post and i think it would complete the perspective.

Sarus · Jul 25, 2005, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Quote:

Skill of the group > skill of the individual

What do you mean by that exactly? That makes no sense to me. The skill of the group is directly corellated with the skill of the individuals. If individually everyone sucks then the group sucks. You can't have a skilled group without skilled individuals. I think we're saying the same thing though ....

PieXags · Jul 25, 2005, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Perhaps he means...

Skill and ability to work with your group > skill and ability to work independently...? I'd have to say that's true as well.

Phades · Jul 25, 2005, 03:40 AM // 03:40

It is a little of both to be honest. Being able to prepare properly and follow directions is not quite the same as situational awareness and intuition. They are both skills in a sense, but on very different levels. Typically when people talk about skill, i find that it is more in the reference to the maniupulation of something involved rather than the preperation and general ability to be organized.

I dont mean to create confusion, but usually i think alot faster than i type, so i can leave things out.

Sarus · Jul 25, 2005, 03:45 AM // 03:45

Quote:

Skill and ability to work with your group > skill and ability to work independently

I've never really thought of them as seperate. I've always considered both of them to be under the overarching concept of "skill". Probably getting a little off topic at this point though hehe.

I think we all agree that "skill" however you define it is an important part of being succesful in PvP along with your build.