Curse

Xenomortis · Mar 30, 2011, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Take a look here and get a sample of PvE. Unfortunately if people do not like grouping in PvE, chances are they will be even less likely to try PvP.

Not necessarily. People you team up with in PvE seldom have any desire to improve themselves once they hit a point where they think they're "good"; they're typically horrible to have as part of your team so you fall back to AI allies. Such players get ripped to pieces in a true competitive setting and are hence much easier to avoid (but is also possibly part of the reason why the format is emptier).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

The costs of joining are just greater than the benefits that can be received.

What costs? A time effort?

floor · Mar 30, 2011, 09:48 PM // 21:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

The time it takes to intially set up a group for PvP is horrendous imo..and has left a foul taste in my mouth.

for me personally, i find setting up very easy. My guild is a gvg guild, and we like to play the daily tournaments when possible. So each day the first person online puts in status for example : "tournament tonight 8pm, here?"

those people who come on and would like to play put their name in the status, if there is enough interest we meet in the gh 5 mins before start, and play. if not enough interest we go off and do other things.

Our system is quite simplistic, and im aware of a lot of other guilds that do something similar, because its pretty effective, and saves us a lot of organisational time

I also dont see why so many people are suggesting better rewards for gvg (again!), the fact is that even in its current state, there are still a lot of people who would be interested in playing gvg or other pvp formats, who are not really sure how to get involved.

It has been mentioned before, a gvg outpost where u can search for pugs would be awesome, kinda like HA or AB where you could find the players you need to fill empty slots on your team, this would also give new players somewhere to go in order to get involved with the action. There is not a lack of players willing to get involved, there is just a lack of oppurtunity.

Given the size of the playerbase on gw taken as a whole, it would not be unrealistic to say for example 1000 people would be interested in trying out gvg. If 100 of those people decided to make a guild, then 800 people have the chance to get involved, unfortunately in reality only 1 person tries to make a guild, so 8/1000 get the chance, leaving 992 not participating.....

I think you can see my point.

sorry that was quite a wall of text

ItsJustMe · Mar 30, 2011, 11:01 PM // 23:01

If I may be so bold:

Simply stating, 'We want you to gvg!' is not going to cut it.
Starting a thread and saying, go here and try to group up with others is not enough either.
Nor is the issue rewards.

I think people are shy and/or self-conscience and don't want to 'put themselves out there' because they might fail. There are other reasons as well, time/hassle/et al.

In addition, folks don't want to go through the pains of putting a group together of varying degrees of skill and knowledge just to lose their first 10 matches and watch half the team rage-quit.

Honestly, I think you'd have to open up your guilds, and actively invite people in (and maybe you are).

It's much easier to bring in people from the thread Happy posted and sprinkle them into your guilds and 'bring them along'. Everyone knows its more fun when you win, and its much easier to understand why you're winning when you're with folks who can tell you what you did right and what you did wrong.

It's easier and far more effective to build from within.

I don't want to put this entirely on the shoulders of the gvg gang (and I know it sounds like I have), but I think this would be a more successful initiative then what you've put forth to-date. In the end, there are those who don't want to gvg, those that do and those who might. GvG is an experience. You can't just watch it or listen to moderators talk about it, it's really something you need to get folks to experience for themselves. The easier you make that first step the more successful you will be.

Or, this might just be a wall of horse%$#.

-i

Still Number One · Mar 31, 2011, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

What costs? A time effort?

Time is certainly one of the large costs involved. It takes time to find a guild. It takes time to build up a friends list. It takes time before you can find a match. It takes time before you start seeing positive improvements in your play.

The large time investment highly influences the opportunity cost of GvGing. It is the reason I haven't GvGed since '08. For a lot of the PvE crowd, GvGing takes time away from farming. Every second away from farming is gold lost. Gold that they do not make up by GvGing because the rewards are lacking for them. GvG can offer other rewards than gold, mainly enjoyment, but the majority of people who give feedback have stated they did not really enjoy their time in GvG because of the long wait times, and then getting beaten by better guilds over and over again. So not only do they not get the monetary reward they would have gotten spending that time farming, it ended up being stressful and unenjoyable for them because of losing.

There is another cost that a lot of PvEers have expressed as being too high to get over, in leaving their current guilds. Most are just not willing to leave behind their current guilds and can not seem to find 7 other people within their guild or alliance who would like to GvG with them. Sure for the tournament they could leave their guild for a day or so just to participate in it and go right back to it afterwards, but most still seem to not be willing to do this. Not to mention if they actually are going to perform well they will need to practice with their group a lot which would require a lot of guesting or joining the guild well before the tournament.

There are plenty of more smaller costs, but they generally vary more on an individual basis.

Reverend Dr · Mar 31, 2011, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

Did some gvg today for the first time in weeks, It baffles me that people can play that tripe atm. SO BORING, build diversity is zero, all derv cspace pressure, zzzzzzzzzzz. Not gonna bother with it till they fix dervs.

Before dervs it was sins, before sins it was hexes, before that it was primal, before that it was Warrior's Endurance, before that...

And this continues on back. I'm not trying to say that at one point GW was balanced, because it has always suffered from balance issues, but a history of buffing then slight nerfing and the final nerfs come along with another round of dartboard buffs. Its history is nothing but powercreep.

More than that the nerfs to skills and combinations that are universally accepted as overpowered come very slow. If a new meta does not support your personal or your guild's playstyle, too bad, come back in 6 months and maybe things have changed. Should not be too surprised that when this happens a guild is likely to go inactive; should also not be too surprised when after years of this many guilds have quit or gone inactive.

Powercreep itself is also very bad for new players. It should be as no surprise that experienced players will beat new players. With more powercreep new players end up losing (curbstomped) far faster. It is disheartening. Valve has had several blog posts on this. The kill cam a la TF2 was an answer to this. It shows you where you opponent was standing so you can find camping spots (snipers, demos, gun turrets, etc) and it lets you see their health and seeing health around 50% or so leave a feeling of "I could have done that." Both of thesemake people far more likely to rejoin with the attitude that they can do it this time, which is a necessary attitude to keep a PvP population active.

Why does no one want to play? You are fighting against 5 years of bad balance decisions.

Corporeal Ghost · Apr 17, 2011, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

And this continues on back. I'm not trying to say that at one point GW was balanced, because it has always suffered from balance issues, but a history of buffing then slight nerfing and the final nerfs come along with another round of dartboard buffs. Its history is nothing but powercreep.

People often forget there is a difference between good balance, bad balance, and imbalance. Imbalance can still present an incredibly enjoyable game, so long as it is imbalanced in the correct direction. Obviously there is some preference here, but there is general consensus that a few eras, despite being driven by ludicrously overpowered skills (IE, Gale), were much more fun to play in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Powercreep itself is also very bad for new players. It should be as no surprise that experienced players will beat new players. With more powercreep new players end up losing (curbstomped) far faster.

I'm not sure this is correct either. It depends largely on the nature of the power creep. There have been metagames I've experienced in which my guild simply could not close a game (short of tiebreaker) against an obviously weaker team simply because they had an incredible amount of defense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Why does no one want to play? You are fighting against 5 years of bad balance decisions.

Can't argue with this, though.

Reverend Dr · Apr 17, 2011, 07:05 PM // 19:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

I'm not sure this is correct either. It depends largely on the nature of the power creep. There have been metagames I've experienced in which my guild simply could not close a game (short of tiebreaker) against an obviously weaker team simply because they had an incredible amount of defense.

The problem I have with powercreep is that while both offense and defense have been buffed for a net zero game, the hit points of players has remained largely the same. Spikes have gotten stronger and required reaction times have gotten smaller. In the old days of prophecies playing a boon prot at very high efficiency was just as difficult as today, but playing boon prot at an acceptable level was very easy while playing a modern monk at an acceptable level requires a whole lot more player ability.

At the same time offensive bars seem to have done the complete opposite. Shock axe has largely stayed the same (though a team can much more easily support a warrior, so being clean and able to pressure/spike is easier), but hammers playstyle is far more forgiving with flail instead of frenzy. A new hammer bar is far less energy intensive than the old and poor use of IAS doesn't present nearly as much of a danger. Add to this the development of other melee characters (RaO, assassins, dervishes) which have a very low skill requirement, yet even at that low skill level produce very effective results.

Now at top level play the balance between offense and defense was very good in both prophecies and now (and most metas inbetween), so I'm not talking about nerfing one class in relation to another or changing interclass balance; but I do strongly feel that the game must be satisfying beyond just the top end play or else the community can never really grow beyond people that can play at the top end.

I do favor lowering monk skill requirements while raising that of offense and midline. I do this because I subscribe to Ensign's thought that GW pvp revolves around warriors (though more generally melee dps). If a game revolves around a class, that class should have the more difficult role, not the easier one. Its also an issue of 2v6 (non backline vs backline, though I guess one could argue its 3v5 or 2v5 depending on how you want to count a flagger). Requiring more skill for the less represented role is just not a good thing for a team-based game. If we swap out a monk for a B-string player there is just a vast difference than if we swap out a front/midline for a B-string. And at the end of the day currently the degree of skill required to play an acceptable front/midline is much lower than the skill required to play a backline.

Also worth asking is whether or not a team loading up on defense at the loss of damage lasting longer is really an issue. Sure it is annoying to play against and they aren't going to win many matches in that type of fashion. But that is also those players not acknowledging an early loss. Same thing has happened in split builds vs 8-man builds, a split build can force an entire team back into base and have them closed off, yet if the 8-man team refuses to leave a match can still last to tiebreaker. This is really independent upon powercreep.

Our Virus · Apr 18, 2011, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Didn't feel like getting all my guildes mailing addresses. Oops

I Jonas I · Apr 18, 2011, 04:42 PM // 16:42

The reason why I didn't do the guru cup is because vaidin would let me =(

Killed u man · Apr 18, 2011, 05:28 PM // 17:28

I didn't play bc I dind't have 7 quality friends to form a team with. Dead game is dead

I did get kicked from bronze to silver with an HA team, so I probably would've played if it wasn't for that.

tealspikes · Apr 19, 2011, 04:48 PM // 16:48

GvG requires long term commitment to be successful. Most people just want to PvP casually on and off.

Div · Apr 19, 2011, 08:16 PM // 20:16

I love how clueless people still blame smurfs for the death of GvG. It's been explained many times before that at the hours you find smurfs, you would've had to play those same players anyway, regardless of if they're in a rank 500 smurf or their original rank 50 guild. As opposed to waiting 5-10 minutes to get shitstomped by a rank 50 guild in a minute, you wait for a minute to get a match, lose to the rank 500 smurf, and then be on your way again for another match. A lot of the times, the guilds people are calling "smurfs" are simply a group of friends who might be in 4-5 different guilds playing together, and they need a place to play in. Do you seriously expect people to play on rawr, dR, yumy, gear, or gold when there's only one or two people from each of those guilds? It's ironically coincidental that it's people who never tried much or were never good in GvG that just randomly points the finger at smurfs.

The issue here is that people can't put in the commitment they think they need from GvG and feel insecure because they haven't done it before. There are a lot less lower level guilds to face and practice their way up, which makes the learning curve even harder. The guru cup is a great place to face similar competition (though there are its flaws as well with some teams who were never caught playing in lower brackets) without much pressure.

floor · Apr 20, 2011, 02:51 PM // 14:51

the sooner people realise that just because a team has 1 or 2 decent guests playing for them, its not a smurf, the better. I have no idea why people cant understand this simple concept.

Its these rather frustrating false truths about gvg or pvp in general that keep so many ppl away.

*Wait times are not 10 minutes for a match as long as u dont try and play when the majority of the playerbase is at work/school.
*1 or 2 guests is not a smurf.
*It does not take anywhere near an hour to set up a team.
*Most people do not rage.
*Most people are not elitists.
*Most people do not care about titles.

Unfortunately the wider population of guild wars believes all of the above are true, and simply refuses to change their opinion on the matter.

noughtyous · Apr 28, 2011, 05:28 PM // 17:28

For me.. even though I personally would have liked to join.
Its kinda extremely hard to motivate 8 guildies/ally's to get them too GvG with the endgoal of becoming 'descent' at best, if ever, winning once in a while. Getting myself and them to dedicate time on a daily basis for months, with the only reward... a very steep learning curve (if at all).
Keeping roughly 10 people interrested for months on end, seems impossible to me, as none of us have any desire to do GvG for anything other then casual fun, weekly at best. Dedicating 3 or 4 evenings a week, just to get anywhere at all, simply doesnt feel casual.

I suppose it would be possible to get into GvG, if I joined a starter guild of people dedicated too spending their time improving themselves in PvP. But I am not leaving my guild of which I know some for 5 years, just to become 'descent' at GvG. Sorry thats simply not appealing.
What would I say in GW2. I left my guild full of friends just to become 'descent at best' in GvG, aint that awesome! Sorry GWAMM would seem more appealing to me.

I suppose that probably makes me unfit material for competative PvP. But that doesn't change the fact I have very fond memories of GvG and its people back in 2006. And if it would have the large casual player base that it seemed to have back then, I would be in.

Tearz1993 · May 01, 2011, 04:33 PM // 16:33

pretty much everyone who was willing to become "vulnerable" and enter the world of competitive PvP has by now, the rest are people who aren't motivated enough or simply don't want to / have the time.

the majority is the people who aren't motivated enough.