Curse

Derelict Daily · Apr 17, 2009, 12:49 AM // 00:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

Find a way to bring back a middle tier of competition and fix the meta and the game will be the best it has been in years.

The only way to bring back a "middle tier" would be an infusion of new players into GvG - and that's just not realistic in GW. The learning curve is pretty steep, and a new PvPer would need a substantial cash investment to have access to all skills, inscriptions, etc.

moriz · Apr 17, 2009, 01:59 AM // 01:59

the minimum cash investment for a full pvp account is $20 these days, so price is generally a nonfactor. everything else you've said about the learning curve is true.

Scarn · Apr 17, 2009, 02:07 AM // 02:07

I miss vod. It generally provided for epic battles, and I like epic.

MMSDome · Apr 17, 2009, 03:07 AM // 03:07

GvG is fukking gay right now

Apok Omen · Apr 17, 2009, 04:49 AM // 04:49

In a balanced view, getting rid of VoD altogether was a great idea. It didn't matter how many times Anet nerfed skills that used the NPCs to their advantage; people were still going to find a way to abuse it. At least now, there is no real mechanic to abuse besides the map itself.

However, LC, PnH, FF+PS, WE, PwK, EBlast, EPrism, FastCasting, and MB are the only real problem skills and nerfing them accordingly will help the metagame alot. But, apparently, a better aniversery present is more useless storage, a pet place, and PvP quests....

IMMORTAlMITCH · Apr 17, 2009, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

many split teams as well as byob won matches by sealing off their own base while going to town on the other team's base.

And many more lost cause their thief got killed (repeatedly).

Derelict Daily · Apr 17, 2009, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by valence

VoD wasn't bad.

Just the AI.

But VoD was all about the AI, and no matter what you do to it, it was bad for PvP. It rewards a team who just figures out a faster way to kill all the stupid archers.

Derelict Daily · Apr 17, 2009, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

the minimum cash investment for a full pvp account is $20 these days, so price is generally a nonfactor. everything else you've said about the learning curve is true.

I guess that PvP Access Kit can get you started, but it still only has 40 skills and 20 items.

valence · Apr 17, 2009, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derelict Daily

But VoD was all about the AI, and no matter what you do to it, it was bad for PvP. It rewards a team who just figures out a faster way to kill all the stupid archers.

Took me 3 words to say the same.

Still Number One · Apr 17, 2009, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derelict Daily

The only way to bring back a "middle tier" would be an infusion of new players into GvG - and that's just not realistic in GW. The learning curve is pretty steep, and a new PvPer would need a substantial cash investment to have access to all skills, inscriptions, etc.

Which is why they could make ladder actually meaningful again and just make it so PvP only characters are all UaX. They will never do the latter because they feel they will be losing out on money. Honestly though, how many people waste money on that crap? If people were willing to spend money on equipment and skill unlock packs we wouldn't turn people away from pvp for not having the proper skills to compete.

So yes, I agree with what you are saying, and just adding a possible way to bring new players into the game. It is this games biggest problem atm. Even larger than the skill balancing which is extremely bad.

Reverend Dr · Apr 18, 2009, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derelict Daily

I guess that PvP Access Kit can get you started, but it still only has 40 skills and 20 items.

getting started =! being able to play

The actual investment is access + core unlock + proph unlock + faction unlock + NF unlock + EotN unlock + item unlock or $20+10+10+10+10+10+10 = $80. Okay EotN should be easy enough to unlock via faction $70. $70 for a game that has been out for 4 years is way too much. So its either that or face a huge grind wall. Either way it is entirely unfriendly to legitimately new players.

Quote:

They will never do the latter because they feel they will be losing out on money.

This is unfortunately the problem. I am afraid they are stuck in the midset of "this is how much it is worth" such that if they ever dropped the prices for anything they would always feel that they were owed so much more money; this is very often the attitude traditional businessmen have towards online services. Of course having far more unlocks makes the $20 access kit far more valuable and would see an increase in sales, but obviously those people would have bought it at the $80 price tag anyway, so we'll focus on the 'lost' profits rather than the increase in sales.

FoxBat · Apr 18, 2009, 07:46 PM // 19:46

I'm not going to downplay the ridiculous grind that UAXing is, but seriously. Let's say you could get full UAX PvP-only access for $20. What new player would actually buy that, and of those who do, who would actually stick with it? Yay I can go get pounded in RA for a bunch of rounds with no monk on the crap starter warrior while still trying to figure out what a hex or condition is, let alone having zero idea about how to put a good build together with all those skills. Or I can go to the easier Factions modes and grind lux/kurz faction that is useless outside of PvE. Or I can check out HA and find I can't get a single team being unranked. And how long will it take to even find a crummy PvP guild to join?

Or say you refer your FPS buddy to the game. How long do you honestly think it's going to take before they could do anything other than pull down your srs business guild? They'd probably be costing you BYOB matches for a long time. They can start UAX but they likely still have months of work to do before being useful.

I'm all for UAX but let's be realistic, the pvp kit is not going to bring in any new players regardless. However boring GW's PvE is, it's an essential start point, hook, and tutorial that pretty much every decent player has gone through.

moriz · Apr 18, 2009, 08:56 PM // 20:56

you bring up a good point. the learning curve for pvp was very steep to begin with, and has been getting steeper as the game got older, and the current community collectively gotten better. for us, learning a new trick/strategy/tactic is as simple as that: one more thing on top of the hundreds we've already learned and internalized.

for a brand new player, even a player who's played the pve portion extensively but never touched pvp, the learning curve is now a moving target. that player will have to learn AND internalize all the "tricks of the trade" that we've had the time to develop and learn over the years, they'll have to achieve everything we've done in a fraction of the time AND learn new stuff on top of that.

RotteN · Apr 18, 2009, 10:00 PM // 22:00

No VoD is nice. Although making over 9000 things explode was pretty RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing awesome aswell. But the potential for abuse far outweighs the awesomeness. So no VoD it is.

The tie-breaker needs work though. Right now it's just "stabbing in the dark". A way to track it is a must realy.

Skill-balance still needs a ton of work, but let's be honest, they've failed miserably for 4 years already. It's not suddenly going to change. The obvious overpowered stuff should be fixed though.

Still Number One · Apr 19, 2009, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

I'm not going to downplay the ridiculous grind that UAXing is, but seriously. Let's say you could get full UAX PvP-only access for $20. What new player would actually buy that, and of those who do, who would actually stick with it? Yay I can go get pounded in RA for a bunch of rounds with no monk on the crap starter warrior while still trying to figure out what a hex or condition is, let alone having zero idea about how to put a good build together with all those skills. Or I can go to the easier Factions modes and grind lux/kurz faction that is useless outside of PvE. Or I can check out HA and find I can't get a single team being unranked. And how long will it take to even find a crummy PvP guild to join?

Or say you refer your FPS buddy to the game. How long do you honestly think it's going to take before they could do anything other than pull down your srs business guild? They'd probably be costing you BYOB matches for a long time. They can start UAX but they likely still have months of work to do before being useful.

I'm all for UAX but let's be realistic, the pvp kit is not going to bring in any new players regardless. However boring GW's PvE is, it's an essential start point, hook, and tutorial that pretty much every decent player has gone through.

You make good points but it isn't really the losing that a lot of people are worried about. When you try to teach people who want to learn how to gvg, you are going to lose a lot. Anyone who is in the mentoring position knows this, and I have been suffering losses this way for my entire guild wars playtime. I'm always grabbing kids from guilds I know who are done with PvE and want to start playing the only aspect of guild wars left that seems worth playing to them (gvg). Getting my shit stomped in is the least of my worries.

It is when the person doesn't have the proper skills to form an adequate bar that is the problem. You can't teach someone to fire a gun with a knife, and you cant teach someone to play a role in gvg if they don't have the skill to run the bar. When they don't have the skills to meet the bar they get discouraged. They offer to run a bar that they use in pve all the time and then you have to explain to them why that bar will not work in the pvp aspect of the game. It really just turns players away and makes it not only harder for them to get into a guild and play, but makes them lose interest because they don't want to spend the time unlocking all the skills.

All pvp only characters (not just accounts) should be UaX. It may seem like a useless change to those of us who pvp competitively already, but it eliminates one of the largest hurdles for new players when trying to break into this environment.

FoxBat · Apr 19, 2009, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

stuff

I don't disagree, my main point is that no-one is going to start or stay with this game from just the pvp kit, UAX or not. Heck your own example is pointing to people who have PvE access. Regardless the trilogy can be found as cheap as $30 so the monetary break-in isn't the huge factor it used to be.

Jensy · Apr 19, 2009, 07:33 AM // 07:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

It is when the person doesn't have the proper skills to form an adequate bar that is the problem. You can't teach someone to fire a gun with a knife, and you cant teach someone to play a role in gvg if they don't have the skill to run the bar. When they don't have the skills to meet the bar they get discouraged. They offer to run a bar that they use in pve all the time and then you have to explain to them why that bar will not work in the pvp aspect of the game. It really just turns players away and makes it not only harder for them to get into a guild and play, but makes them lose interest because they don't want to spend the time unlocking all the skills.

Not all of us who have stuck mainly to PvE are like this, I promise

I am a compulsive obs watcher, and I'd have to say that they hardest part for me not the fact that I don't have the skills (leg skill hunter + nearly UAX on the rest but for the weird obscure shit nobody uses -_-), but putting together right away WHY someone is using certain things. I need to see it in action a few times before I make the connection. Yet, for you guys, it's just 'oh, blah was nerfed, let's run X, Y, Z because of A, B, C'.

Of course, like someone said above, it's just another bump in the learning curve. I'm more likely to steal bars from PvP to use in PvE, than I am trying to take my PvE bars into PvP /no. I haven't done a GvG in just about a year now, so I did play before VoD was removed. It was generally when my guild exploded into shiny pixels at the flag stand x_x I'd love to play now for comparison's sake, but my guild isn't interested in GvG atm :/

I enjoy watching matches now, as people tend to play the whole time. There's not 17 minutes of doot de doot, runnnnn around the GH, randomly smacking things in the face... followed by 5 minutes of LOL BOOM.

Right, rambling now. Now, if only they'd toss out this meta that had an expiration date of March 31; it's stinking up the fridge. -_-

Derelict Daily · Apr 19, 2009, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still Number One

All pvp only characters (not just accounts) should be UaX. It may seem like a useless change to those of us who pvp competitively already, but it eliminates one of the largest hurdles for new players when trying to break into this environment.

I suppose this would help some, but still I couldn't imagine installing the game for the first time, then rolling a UaX PvP character and jumping into PvP. Unless they are a savant or something, I think most people would be totally lost. When I started, PvP was like the end-game reward for playing through the game, capping skills, etc. That was even before balthazar faction. I've encountered a few players in the Balthazar Temple who are literally brand new and they are standing there with a freshly-rolled PvP character saying, "where do I start?" Heh, the temptation is to say, "Dude, make an RP character and learn the game before you start PvP."

Darth The Xx · Apr 22, 2009, 10:51 AM // 10:51

This is exactly my problem. I got GW about a year and a half ago after quitting WoW when they announced u get to grind to lvl 80. I got factions cause I thought AB looked really cool, and BGs were my favourite part of WoW. Now I still think AB is one of the funnest parts of the game, and I cant stand pve, its sooo boring, so I joined a guild for GvG. Now that guild disbanded so I decided to try HA,

oh whats this! I cant join any groups and I cant join any guilds cause I have no rank! The only groups I can join are some crappy PuGs who lose 8 times and win 1. So then I go to join a GvG guild but cant join one either so now I'm just in a guild with an IRL friend and we AB all the time, we would like to get into HA and back into GvG but no1 wants to accept us. I find this as kind of odd as for one, how can you hope to gain people if you dont want to take on noobs? people will just kind of circle around the guilds with no real people getting added.

Now I dont have UaX but I do have most skills unlocked that are commonly used (minus war skills) So I ask how can the game move on, when the people who PvP are stuck in this elitist mindset? theres virtually no new people coming into HA and GvG, not because theres nobody willing, but because those in GvG and HA dont want to take on noobs. They have made themselves the harbingers of their own destruction.

Anyway I agree that the game is better without VoD, skill balance isn't that big of an issue since everybody has the access to the same skills. Granted there are some seriously OP skills that need to be brought down cough*lc*cough the real problem with GvG now is what I just said, no new people allowed, so its basically just the same people hammering away at eachother.

/rant off now ima go do some AB

kedde · Apr 22, 2009, 11:06 AM // 11:06

People are selfish, simple.
People with experience want to not waste time with people without, so they do what they can by announcing they only want to play with people who have experience and markers of said experience at their own level.

Now if you see this as selfish, you're right, but people like yourself are selfish too.
You have much less experience and no way of proving you even have any at all, yet you still feel you're entitled to play with those people who are vastly more experienced than you.

gg.