Curse

Vonruss · Oct 03, 2007, 09:36 AM // 09:36

HI, I am GL and AL of a reasonably Large Guild Alliance. Our Guild (Order of Celestial Guardians [OCG]) spans across 3 of the guilds in our alliance with over 200+ active members (3 weeks) the majority of which is PvE based. For the past 8 months or so we have been doing GvG nights every Tuesday and Saturday nights that has had some mixed results.

The hardest part of these nights was getting the people to come and participate in our GvG nights. On our forum we asked the question "Why dont you all join in for GvG" the most resounding answer was - I dont want to let the team down, not good at PvP etc.

We are not an elite PvP guild by any means, GvG nights was simply something different that a few of us enjoyed playing and was a good regular guild activity. We also hoped to use it as a screening process to be able to start a GvG ladder guild within the alliance. So in response to the "Not good at PvP" and "dont want to let the team down" answers I decided to start up a GvG Training nights. On these nights I want to go over various GvG essentials, Guild halls, Character builds (Monk 1 week, Elle another etc) Ganking, Flag running, Zaishen Training and facton farming for unlocking skills, Team builds, Target calling practice and most importantly I hoped to contact some Experienced PvP'ers and GvG'ers and (finger's crossed) perhaps even some top GvG ladder guilds and beg for a guest speaker to come and offer us "newbies to GvG" some hints, tips and advice.

So what I would like from all of you out there reading this, is...

Do you know anyone that can help?
Can you direct anyone to this thread to offer advice?
Do you know anyone that can contact me that may be interested in offering there experience to our Large friendly guild?
Would anyone else from outside the guild be interested in taking part?

Ideally I would like to have a different guest speaker every 2nd week or something but depends on other's willingness to help.

If you have any other suggestion regarding running these nights, or formats or anything at all really please drop me a line on forum.

You can find out more about our guild here (www.ocggw.com)

My IGN is Eva Vonruss (add me to your friends list as I often chop and change chars)

Thanks and good luck

josarian · Oct 03, 2007, 01:57 PM // 13:57

Well we have the same problems....not enought activity we tried everything Forum topics ingame announcemets and so on.We are not big guild but the normal situation is 14+ ppl active and we are 6-7 players for GvG and noone wants to come.WTF guys?!?!?
There are plenty of topics here,with guides and so on use them for starting PvP players they will do just great especially if you manage to learn and use the things written there.The best thing to do is to practise teamplay and communication atleast that worked for us.We still cant manage to enter top 1k but we managed to reach 1017 rating and keep it there with occasional changes both negative and positive.

Good luck with your tries guys.

Vonruss · Oct 03, 2007, 02:25 PM // 14:25

we dont have a activity issue though... we are large enough that there is always 40+ members on at any given time, just no one interested in GvG or a little nervous about doing it.

Byron · Oct 03, 2007, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Starting a new gvg guild now is harder than ever, because experienced players make new teams all the time, and you'll be fighting veterans even when you are low on the ladder. But, it's admirable to see newer players trying to get into the fun competitve sphere of guild battles.

I'm not exactly a seasoned veteran myself, but there are a few things that a leader should realize:
You are going to lose, and often. It usually takes months for a guild to really solidify and play well together.
Experience counts for a lot. The best players are the ones who have been playing the longest, for the most part.
Playstyle is important. Don't try to run hexes and sins just because you saw RenO do it; instead do what suits your team's playstyle.

Feel free to contact me in-game, Byron Germanicus. I could probably help you get started, or direct you to some good friendly players. Good luck.

Zui · Oct 03, 2007, 10:45 PM // 22:45

I'd direct you to search guru for PvP-related posts and articles, and share them with your guild. There's really a lot of great information here for beginners, if you look hard enough.

Feel free to PM me with random questions. Please note, I haven't actually played for several months, and know nothing of the current metagame except what I hear from other players. If you want, I could hop on your guilds vent and answer random questions sometime, too! Just as long as it was basic and fairly universal stuff like "Should our monks be up in the opposing teams midline whacking away with their cool new sword?" I can totally answer those questions still! Then again, you could just post them here at guru, and someone who still plays the game and understands the metagame can answer them too. Although, if you do invite me as a guest speaker, I'll probably spend a fair amount of time ranting about how you should just quit now...

Anyway, best of luck to you guys! May you enjoy playing Guild Wars for much time to come.

Div · Oct 04, 2007, 07:12 AM // 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Starting a new gvg guild now is harder than ever, because experienced players make new teams all the time, and you'll be fighting veterans even when you are low on the ladder. But, it's admirable to see newer players trying to get into the fun competitve sphere of guild battles.

Very true. It's very difficult to start a new gvg guild when you're not a reform of some top guild. However, I've seen many new guilds start up lately and do fairly well, learning both basics and more advanced strategies for gvg. There are examples of newly started guilds that spiked up the ladder (kF was one of them until they exploded), but most guilds have a steady increase (we got to ~rank 150 by our 3rd week, then failed to have 8 for monthly, but steadily climbing again). Just don't expect to be a fast riser. You should understand losses are going to come, and at the start there will probably be more losses than wins. There won't appear to be any obvious gains, but in reality by taking those losses and learning from them, you're getting better as a player and as a team.

What kills a new guild is disappointment and giving up. If you keep at it, you'll eventually get better and start to climb the ladder. In 6 rounds during the last monthly, we faced 4 guilds that eventually got silver and 2 that got bronze. We didn't give up because we were facing great guilds with top experience. We fought all the matches out and it served as good learning and experience for us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

I'd direct you to search guru for PvP-related posts and articles, and share them with your guild. There's really a lot of great information here for beginners, if you look hard enough.

Yeah, let your guildies know about these great posts. There are some great tips to monking (usually linked to tommy's posts on QQ forums), as well as overall strategy.

Some good links:
- Overall gvg strategy: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10172205
- Monking (follow links in there): http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10204471

That said, if I'm not GvGing, feel free to contact me if you need a guest to explain some stuff. I can also get a third or fourth account to join the guild and obs a game, going over things you guys did right/wrong if I have the time.

Byron · Oct 04, 2007, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

There are examples of newly started guilds that spiked up the ladder (kF was one of them until they exploded)

To be fair, much of kF was Just a Minor Threat [Meh], and as they climbed the ladder, they were able to recruit more experienced players. The talent was there with Divine, Soren, and Casey. But they did a lot more than most new guilds, for sure.

Quote:

What kills a new guild is disappointment and giving up. If you keep at it, you'll eventually get better and start to climb the ladder.

That goes for any level of gameplay, imo. For a common example, look at rawr - for a while they were struggling to get into the top 20 (albeit, teams like cow and QQ kept them at bay back then). Now, months later, they win tournaments and are the shining example of balanced tactics.

Andrew Patrick · Oct 04, 2007, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Unrated GvG or Scrimmages are a low-stress way to break into GvG. Sometimes the whole "If I screw up my guild loses rating" thing is what makes new players hesitant to GvG, so if you offer them a "for fun" way to get started into GvG, it may build up their confidence enough to try out rated GvG.

DutchSmurf · Oct 04, 2007, 07:06 PM // 19:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Unrated GvG or Scrimmages are a low-stress way to break into GvG. Sometimes the whole "If I screw up my guild loses rating" thing is what makes new players hesitant to GvG, so if you offer them a "for fun" way to get started into GvG, it may build up their confidence enough to try out rated GvG.

You then only either need 16 people or a guild you can do an unrated match with. He already has problems getting 8 people and finding guilds for regular unrated matches is hard if you don't have lots of friends in other guilds.

DIH49 · Oct 04, 2007, 08:10 PM // 20:10

I'm always up for guesting with low ranked teams to help out. If you think that would be useful to you, you can PM me in game on David The Hammer.

LifesRestorer · Oct 04, 2007, 09:07 PM // 21:07

For me, actually playing GvG is the best way of learning how to play GvG. it's all very well looking at it on paper but you need to go out there and do it yourself.

Convince your guildies that at the lower ends of GvG (for example, just playing for the first time) doesn't pair you up against high ranked opponents (usually) and i am guessing you guys are just gonna be playing casually until you really get the hang of it.

(I dunno if this will work but...) Maybe try taking your group into a PvE area, somewhere not too strong such as Hells Precipice and DONT play spank 'n' tank. just rush in, aggro on everything, everything can happen. It is no longer a controlled invironment and (i think) this may help get your players into the PvP mindset whereas anything can happen and your monks will have to read the battefield as of where enemies are moving ect.

Just PM me ingame if you got any questions or need a simple build template for GvG. Feel free even to ask if i wanna guest for you guys if you need someone to sorta lead and say what the basic idea is as you guys just start up. IGN is on your left

Yichi · Oct 04, 2007, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Unrated GvG or Scrimmages are a low-stress way to break into GvG. Sometimes the whole "If I screw up my guild loses rating" thing is what makes new players hesitant to GvG, so if you offer them a "for fun" way to get started into GvG, it may build up their confidence enough to try out rated GvG.

WTH an anet employee that makes a useful PvP post? /faint...

In all honesty hes right. Unranked and scrimages are a great way to break into the gvg scene. Find a lower ranked guild similar to your own in one of the many places that PvP guilds post or recruit for scrims and alliances.

Vonruss · Oct 07, 2007, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Wow! first off thanks guys for all your replies and your offers of help, both on this forum and in game.

I will be contacting a few of ye very shortly. AS a guild we have been doing GvG for around the past 8 months, with some mixed results,some weeks we have no one, others we have to turn some away. We have gone through patches of being invincible but for the most part it has been loss after loss. Which we don't take as a negitive for those of us that compete because we want to get good at GvG we take from those losses and learn from them. However, when we have a someone who is new to GvG join us and give it a try they tend to get very disheartened with the losses, on the same hand those so called "experienced" PvP'ers that join our guild and want to take part in our GvG we tend to find they end up quitting as we have to many losses or simply aint good enough |

(which I find infuriating as surely "experienced" PvP'ers would understand the work and effort invloved in developing a good competitive team!!!)

This is where the idea came from for GvG training nights. Currently we did GvG nights on a Tuesday and a Saturday nights at 8pm GMT but I have now changed this to Training nights instead so that we can gently introduce PvE'ers to the world of GvG and PvP. I plan on starting this up on Tuesday the 23rd of October so it gives me time to decide on a format and structure for running these nights. If anyone from outside the guild would like to also join in by all means do so, just contact me in game for a guest invite.

There are some very good suggestions in there from you all so thanks allot for that. I will be looking for someone to come to our Guild Hall on the 23'rd and giving like a leature style brief on the world of GvG. If anyone would be interested in departing some of there worldly knowledge, some hints and tips on this topic and is available say 9.00GMT Tuesday the 23rd of OCtober please contact me. email: [email protected] IGN: Eva Vonruss or go to our website www.ocggw.com and check out the posts in the forum.

Thanks again all.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2007, 10:56 AM // 10:56

If members of your guild have 4 second accounts that they're willing to loan, it can be helpful to make a secondary guild for GvG training purposes. This allows you to play freely on the ladder, without fear of losing valuable rating on your main guild. This solves a lot of the psychological problems newer players have, and makes GvG a relatively risk-free environment.

When playing with your team, make note of the players who talk a lot during the match. Players who don't talk are almost always the weakest on your team. If someone's very communicative about their actions during the match ("Pushing on the flagger", "LoD D-shotted", "Going into high energy set"), they're going to get more done and learn more quickly. From the communicative players, think about building a core, and try to play with that core as much as possible. After you take a loss, you can then discuss what caused the loss, without having to worry about missing some critical bit of information. Don't go in again until you see at least one or two major mistakes your team made that led to losing the match. Could you have pulled back earlier? Could you have split? What skills needed to be disrupted to keep their offense from rolling you, or to allow your offense to force kills? Make sure to get everyone's input, and don't harp on a player's mistake once its been acknowledged. Players need to be willing to admit their mistakes so they can improve them in later matches.

Try out several different styles and find one that suits you, even if more experienced players call it "gimmicky." At your level, any build will teach you more about GvG. You will be forced to learn the mechanics, how to handle defensive splits, how to force kills, and how to move effectively. A relatively 'easy' build, like hexes, assassins, or a canned split, may be the best choice initially. It will allow you to rack up some wins, and when you take a loss, it will be easier to understand why.

Feel free to PM me in game if you need a guest. I'll play if I'm free.

Iotan · Oct 07, 2007, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

When playing with your team, make note of the players who talk a lot during the match. Players who don't talk are almost always the weakest on your team. If someone's very communicative about their actions during the match ("Pushing on the flagger", "LoD D-shotted", "Going into high energy set"), they're going to get more done and learn more quickly.

Adding to what Squidget said, teaching your players what to say and what not to say is important as well. The examples he gave are things that need to be said but if someone speaks every time he uses Drain Enchantment it's just going to get confusing during difficult times.

If you have a fairly regular group of people showing up for GvGs then make sure they specialize in a role. Try to spot who will be good as frontline, midline and backline and then try to get them to play those positions often. It's invaluable for everyone to know how every position is played but you're not going to be the best Warrior, Mesmer and Monk.

The most important thing is to make your people understand that you aren't trying to make the playoffs so losses aren't a big deal. Playing as much as you can on your 2 GvG nights will help you more than teaching sessions as implementing tactics at your own pace is easy but playing against someone is much different.

Lozi01 · Oct 08, 2007, 11:59 AM // 11:59

OCG has great friendly members and a fun atmosphere. We would like to GVG as a fun alternative. We aren't worried about rank (we screwed our rank ages ago :P). We would however like to work more effectively as a team. If you can help us...we need it! Please talk to Eva Vonruss or myself in game

Loz (Ikle Salva)

Khyman · Oct 14, 2007, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lozi01

(we screwed our rank ages ago :P)

TBH we only screwed our rank up because we were just bringing in random people to play GVG. I know it was only just for fun but we didnt keep an eye on the builds that worked well together we just had a new team each week. When people started seeing us go down they thought that there was no point playing anymore because we were so far down already there was no way we were getting back up.

With the new training sessions though this could boost the guild back up. If we do play some decent matches it will only be against rubbish guilds (hopefully) just to get the confidence of other guildies back up once again

Khy

Vonruss · Oct 14, 2007, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khyman

TBH we only screwed our rank up because we were just bringing in random people to play GVG.

Not entirely true Khy, we have another guild that we intend on playing GvG with once we have a solid team. When we started GvG'ing with OCG originally it became very obvious very fast that for a PvE based guild to make the transition to GvG successfully, rank could not be of concern and having a platform for people to learn and practice GvG from was more important than any rank.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khyman

If we do play some decent matches it will only be against rubbish guilds (hopefully) just to get the confidence of other guildies back up once again

Khy

I do not believe there are any rubbish Guilds out there personally.... Only Guilds in the same position as we are. Also as previously stated in this thread above, top ranked GvG guilds are often disbanding and reforming so at lower ranks you are not always playing lower ranks guilds with no XP.

I have had some great feed back from this thread both on here and in game.

I will be posting again (hopefully tomorrow) with my plans regarding these GvG training sessions. Stay Tuned :P

Vonruss · Oct 15, 2007, 10:44 AM // 10:44

OK after some thought and suggestions I would like to outline my intentions for these GvG training nights that I intend on holding.

First off I just want to make clear that I myself am no GvG expert by any means. I have been playing for a while, but never really competitively. I consider myself a good player with loads of potential but I myself still have loads to learn.

Thanks for all the help offered and suggestions I have received. I will be contacting allot of you over the next few weeks so be warned :P First off however I will be looking for someone to be our first Guest Speaker. What I would like to have is someone come and do a basic introduction to GvG, common mistakes, misconceptions that they have seen through there experience. Nothing to heavy, just a Basic light introduction, I will write below things i wish to cover in the first GvG training session I will be holding so you should be able to get an idea of what I'm looking for from that. So I am looking for a kind soul to offer there services on the 23rd of October and be our first Guest Speaker.. any takers? Will be around 8.30-9.00 GMT time. Will be done Over Teamspeak if this is easiest or if you prefer to type then by all means be my guest.

Our GvG training nights Outline and intended structure:

Important Notes:

People wanting to take part in the GvG trainging nights are to meet in the OCG1 guild hall at 8.15. Training will start at 8.30 sharp.
You will need to have Teamspeak. I will post the details of our server closer to the time.
Anyone from outside the Guild wanting to take part please contact me in game and i will send you a guest invite on the day.
Mature and Courteous players need only attend. I have no tollerence for rudeness or show boats. We are here to learn, not grow our egos.
Our guild has a ban on the word "noob" so please refrain from using

Structure

Faction farming - in teams of 4 I would like to head off to Zashien Challenge and Zashien Elite to hit the daily quota for Balthazar Faction farming. For those making the transition from PvE to PvP gaining this faction to help unlock skills for builds can be invaluable.
Guild Hall Overview - running through the various landmarks and important areas in various Guild Halls. For our first Training session I would like to go over our own guild hall map, the Isle of Meditation.
Target Calling practice - the basics of calling targets, and following calls.
GvG terms and language - some common terms and names used in GvG and what they mean.
Guest Speaker - Introduction to GvG.
GvG Battle (fun match for those who have never played GvG before to get an idea of everything mentioned in practice hopefully we will have enough for a scrimmage if not then we will do a ranked battled - I am unconcerned about OCG's rank)

I will no doubt be editing this list as I go along, but for know this is what comes to mind.

Any feedback or suggestions is not only welcome but encouraged

Thanks to the GvG community in advance for your help.

On a side note.. our Guild has a competition on at the moment to design a new Cape for our Guild. The prize is 50K gold and anyone is eligable to enter. Visit the thread on our forum to enter1

xhappy feetx · Oct 15, 2007, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vonruss

OK after some thought and suggestions I would like to outline my intentions for these GvG training nights that I intend on holding.

First off I just want to make clear that I myself am no GvG expert by any means. I have been playing for a while, but never really competitively. I consider myself a good player with loads of potential but I myself still have loads to learn.

Thanks for all the help offered and suggestions I have received. I will be contacting allot of you over the next few weeks so be warned :P First off however I will be looking for someone to be our first Guest Speaker. What I would like to have is someone come and do a basic introduction to GvG, common mistakes, misconceptions that they have seen through there experience. Nothing to heavy, just a Basic light introduction, I will write below things i wish to cover in the first GvG training session I will be holding so you should be able to get an idea of what I'm looking for from that. So I am looking for a kind soul to offer there services on the 23rd of October and be our first Guest Speaker.. any takers? Will be around 8.30-9.00 GMT time. Will be done Over Teamspeak if this is easiest or if you prefer to type then by all means be my guest.

Our GvG training nights Outline and intended structure:

Important Notes:

People wanting to take part in the GvG trainging nights are to meet in the OCG1 guild hall at 8.15. Training will start at 8.30 sharp.
You will need to have Teamspeak. I will post the details of our server closer to the time.
Anyone from outside the Guild wanting to take part please contact me in game and i will send you a guest invite on the day.
Mature and Courteous players need only attend. I have no tollerence for rudeness or show boats. We are here to learn, not grow our egos.
Our guild has a ban on the word "noob" so please refrain from using

Structure

Faction farming - in teams of 4 I would like to head off to Zashien Challenge and Zashien Elite to hit the daily quota for Balthazar Faction farming. For those making the transition from PvE to PvP gaining this faction to help unlock skills for builds can be invaluable.
Guild Hall Overview - running through the various landmarks and important areas in various Guild Halls. For our first Training session I would like to go over our own guild hall map, the Isle of Meditation.
Target Calling practice - the basics of calling targets, and following calls.
GvG terms and language - some common terms and names used in GvG and what they mean.
Guest Speaker - Introduction to GvG.
GvG Battle (fun match for those who have never played GvG before to get an idea of everything mentioned in practice hopefully we will have enough for a scrimmage if not then we will do a ranked battled - I am unconcerned about OCG's rank)

I will no doubt be editing this list as I go along, but for know this is what comes to mind.

Any feedback or suggestions is not only welcome but encouraged

Thanks to the GvG community in advance for your help.

On a side note.. our Guild has a competition on at the moment to design a new Cape for our Guild. The prize is 50K gold and anyone is eligable to enter. Visit the thread on our forum to enter1

Vonruss, see your PM box, I have sent you something you should consider.......