Curse

Legendary Shiz · Jun 13, 2008, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lykan

Most wont actually ask for a screenshot as proof tbh.

Quoted For Truth

Guillaume De Sonoma · Jun 13, 2008, 07:19 AM // 07:19

Sorry for your predicament, its a shame that pvp is so unfriendly to new players.

Kibokun · Jun 13, 2008, 01:24 PM // 13:24

hrm, I think I've reached a solution although it's pretty cheesy. When I started running a Glass arrow/Conjure flame ranger, I could single handedly turn the tide for the team as well as spike. In 12 hours of RA I made it out with 12k faction. I was getting MUCH more from doing competitives/AB so I think I'm going to forsake RA for a bit until I can find quality players to run TA with. Hopefully then I'll have a more productive day.

Question to the experienced players though. Would I be gimping skills by playing AB and Competitives? So far I don't feel like I've learned much from either except how to zerg and basics of builds. If I'd be basically wasting my time with AB, I'd probably just split my time between RA (for the actual experience) and AB for faction.

And thanks for telling me about [kiSu], Moriz. I've been browsing their forums and they seem very nice and I love their setup. Too bad I stepped on my mic yesterday, so that'll have to wait until I get a new one. haha.

Overall I guess I'll take away from this thread:
-Everyone has bad days
-I have no faction, but it'll come eventually?
-Keep at it
-Make friends with good players

Thanks!

deya · Jun 13, 2008, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Balt Faction is no indication of your skill level, just another stupid idea of stupid people to ask around for your faction count.

Reminds me of early days of Guild Wars when Age count was the *thing* and people just started to idle over nights, blah.

moriz · Jun 13, 2008, 02:00 PM // 14:00

you'll need a mic a lot more than you need 500k factions. trust me on that one.

playing a "spike" build is generally not very good for player development. that's generally because you're not really improving anything while playing them. right now you can achieve good results, because opposing players are generally not good enough to counter it. once you hit a certain point, you'll find yourself running face first into a brick wall, when opposing backlines can stop your spike effortlessly and you go from being gamebreaking to being uselesss.

since you want to break into gvg, i'd say spend more time in AB. AB is a lot closer to gvg than any other arena available. it is the only arena other than gvg, where there are overarching goals that go beyond "kill the other team".

Billiard · Jun 13, 2008, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Faction is a requirement by folks I guess because it typically means you have more experience. When you consider that you'll be playing with and against people who have thousands of hours of PvP experience, it means you have a lot of catching up to do. It's not impossible, but it is more than just a couple days or even a couple weeks work to get even the basics down enough so that you are not a drain on the rest of the team. This is why most guilds want some evidence of experience before they even look at you.

Problem. · Jun 13, 2008, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Having Balth Faction is like the requirement of taking SATs.

The SATs, although it may not be a true measure of aptitude, its a reason not to accept someone in a college.

You can apply that notion to Balth Faction/Guilds.

Div · Jun 13, 2008, 06:31 PM // 18:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kibokun

Question to the experienced players though. Would I be gimping skills by playing AB and Competitives? So far I don't feel like I've learned much from either except how to zerg and basics of builds. If I'd be basically wasting my time with AB, I'd probably just split my time between RA (for the actual experience) and AB for faction.

It depends what you play. If you decide to play a split type character (I used to play the exact same dR balance mind-blast splitter in AB), you get a good sense of what 1v1 or 1v2 situations you can handle, which ones you should wait for the team to come and help, and when you can push the other players and when you should retreat. If you run something like a warrior bar, you can see when to hit frenzy, when not cancel with rush, how KD chains work, etc. On monk you can practice handling different types of pressure (usually in the form of your team being bad and tanking the enemy team), but you also learn basics of weapon-swapping and seeing how you can most efficiently heal/prot your bad teammates. The list goes on for every profession. It's not like you learn that much more in RA, and plus, AB's more fun and you get to kill suxons

Quote:

Overall I guess I'll take away from this thread:
-I have no faction, but it'll come eventually?
-Keep at it
-Make friends with good players

Yeah, it's tough to start out when everyone already has 2-3 years and hundreds if not thousands of hours of PvP experience. Even if you do 5 hours a day for a month, that's still only 150 hours, a tiny fraction of time compared to most experienced PvPers, which is why the reqs seem so high to you at this point.

axe · Jun 13, 2008, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kibokun

Overall I guess I'll take away from this thread:
-Everyone has bad days
-I have no faction, but it'll come eventually?
-Keep at it
-Make friends with good players

Thanks!

The point I was trying to make is that by the time you get 1 Mil. balth faction you will have titles that far surpass the level of guild you are probably trying to join.

As in you will have rank 7 hero, Glad 3+ etc. unless you farm the zaishen for all your faction or however they award Pve balth faction. So the 1 mil faction will be completely irrelevant. I have seen R3 HA guilds require 1 mil balth faction which I didnt even have at Rank 7.

Just a different way to look at it. And by comparison of PvP vets 1 mil faction is tiny, but its way too high of a req. for the type of guild requiring it. I hope this makes sense.

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 13, 2008, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by axe

The point I was trying to make is that by the time you get 1 Mil. balth faction you will have titles that far surpass the level of guild you are probably trying to join.

As in you will have rank 7 hero, Glad 3+ etc. unless you farm the zaishen for all your faction or however they award Pve balth faction. So the 1 mil faction will be completely irrelevant. I have seen R3 HA guilds require 1 mil balth faction which I didnt even have at Rank 7.

Just a different way to look at it. And by comparison of PvP vets 1 mil faction is tiny, but its way too high of a req. for the type of guild requiring it. I hope this makes sense.

titles? lol

unless you mean champ

deya · Jun 13, 2008, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhamia Darigaz

titles? lol

unless you mean champ

None of the titles means anything, not even champ title.

red orc · Jun 13, 2008, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Most guilds that I see requires some title, not just faction.
The starting point is glad1 or r3.
Try to get those first, using your favorit character.
Working on your titles will actualy make you better at the basic skills of that character. So it will do you right.
Then you can join a guild for gvg.
Dont expect that guild to be very good, but you will learn with it the basics of GVG. Get yourself some friends in that guild, and when they drop, join the guild they join. Or find a better guild yourself and continue.
At some point you can start your own guild and run your own builds - btw most such guilds fail, but dont miss the option to do so.
Then you can join a competitive guild or join a fiendly casual GVG guild......

Deleet · Jun 13, 2008, 11:02 PM // 23:02

I agree with the OP. It's extremely hard to get started. GW is not very newbie friendly. I would encourage joining a guild like team love and get some more experience--especially non-AB non-RA experience. Most PvPers don't consider that to be true PvP.

I'm @ 1.000.000 bfaction.

erk · Jun 14, 2008, 02:04 AM // 02:04

It takes like 550k+ faction to UAX if you don't PvE much and don't buy any of the A.net PvP packs, so asking for 500k+ as a qualification is not much and probably quite a reasonable starting point.

Div · Jun 14, 2008, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deleet

I agree with the OP. It's extremely hard to get started. GW is not very newbie friendly.

Any competitive "sport"-type event is not going to be very newbie friendly. Imagine if you've never played basketball before. Of course you're not going to get into the Celtics or Lakers. In fact you won't even make the minor leagues. People want it easy, but the matter of the fact is, everyone's worked hard to get to where they are, so it's not going to be easy starting late, and you have to be prepared to work extra hard.

Quote:

I would encourage joining a guild like team love and get some more experience

The different divisions are great for getting experience. From there you might meet some friends to make your own guild or whatnot.

Quote:

--especially non-AB non-RA experience. Most PvPers don't consider that to be true PvP.

A player that takes AB seriously is going to get more out of it than someone who "plays" HA or GvG. Obviously, it wont *show* in your records, but people will see it when they play with you.

Riotgear · Jun 14, 2008, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Any competitive "sport"-type event is not going to be very newbie friendly. Imagine if you've never played basketball before. Of course you're not going to get into the Celtics or Lakers. In fact you won't even make the minor leagues. People want it easy, but the matter of the fact is, everyone's worked hard to get to where they are, so it's not going to be easy starting late, and you have to be prepared to work extra hard.

The problem this is more like basket ball if you removed the basketball hoops from parks and driveways, removed high school gyms, and removed the NCAA.

This is kind of what laddering is for, it makes for an easier-to-learn game without removing any of the challenge from higher levels of play. What doesn't work is frustrating the newbies by pairing them in unfair matches until they quit.

Farin · Jun 14, 2008, 10:17 AM // 10:17

I only have 4.6 mill faction which I got in 4600 hours. This is of course taking into account the fact that I PvE'd and unlocked everything first, meaning I stopped earning any faction for like 6 months. Everyone knows I own so I guess it doesn't matter.

Div · Jun 14, 2008, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

The problem this is more like basket ball if you removed the basketball hoops from parks and driveways, removed high school gyms, and removed the NCAA.

I tend to see it from an individual's point of view. The first year of GW is equivalent to high school, second year to NCAA, and third year to NBA. If you missed out the first two years, you're at an age where it's not possible to play in the high school or NCAA leagues. All you're left with are the bad ladder play, similar to parks.

erk · Jun 15, 2008, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I tend to see it from an individual's point of view. The first year of GW is equivalent to high school, second year to NCAA, and third year to NBA. If you missed out the first two years, you're at an age where it's not possible to play in the high school or NCAA leagues. All you're left with are the bad ladder play, similar to parks.

Trouble with that analogy is that in the basketball early years, there are teachers and coaches. In GW early years there are not, you have to explore the game with your peers and learn what you can.

Riotgear · Jun 15, 2008, 07:40 AM // 07:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I tend to see it from an individual's point of view. The first year of GW is equivalent to high school, second year to NCAA, and third year to NBA. If you missed out the first two years, you're at an age where it's not possible to play in the high school or NCAA leagues. All you're left with are the bad ladder play, similar to parks.

Right, but these milestones should be reached as players progress, not as the game grows older. Having a game dominated by experts that is completely impenetrable to newbies frustrates them out of the game, the existing population stagnates and then declines. Personally, I see the failure to address the increasingly-steep learning curve before it got out of control to be the biggest mistake they made with the PvP portion of the game, even more than the power creep and shitty balance updates.