Curse

krakenstar · Mar 25, 2007, 09:15 PM // 21:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Don't forget the $120+ investment needed to get a skill bar that doesn't suck. Trading card games have similar phenomena, but part of a key part of GW's appeal was that it wasn't a cash sink like other MMOs, and now I'm having a very hard time recommending it to other people because it has turned into one.

That is mostly true, for trying to bring new people into PvP. But you don't have to tell them that! If they really are competitive PvP players with a head for details, they can play semi competitively with simple yet effective builds from Nightfalls only, especially if they play the nightfall classes. They already understand the need to move; field awareness, range, rush timing, flag capturing, momentum, etc etc. It is much harder to teach that than what the skills actually do. Something as simple as kiting for example, is very hard to teach someone who have played too much PvE only. If and when they get hooked, they will shell out the rest of the money on their own :P Just tell them that there are no monthly fees, there are no hacked aim bots, and they get to keep their rankings world wide.

Alleji · Mar 25, 2007, 10:20 PM // 22:20

/agree with basically the entire thread.

The estimates of the number of PvP players might be a bit low... there is *a lot* of guilds between 1010 and 990 rating, and they aren't just 5-1 and 1-5 records. They're active guilds of mediocre players who naturally win about as much as they lose and maintain their rating. So the GvG community might be quite a bit larger, as Squidget said. Plus, there are HA guilds. Not too many people still play HA, but some serious PvP players are there. (I'm still calling HA "serious" because we're comparing it to PvE and Alliance Battles here)

But even a ten-fold increase (2%) is still almost a negligible number for anet when it comes to sales... especially if you can compensate for those 2% by putting more hours into development of PvE.

I also agree that anet's one-game-every-six-months model makes balancing PvP problematic, even if they decide to put an appropriate number of people to the task. This isn't a new idea, but I think the best they could do is have core+prophecies only GvG (this includes maps), but then what exactly is the incentive to buy new chapters for a PvP player when he can just play in a balanced environment indefinitely for $50?

DreamWind · Mar 25, 2007, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

Frankly, a lot of type 2 constructed decks don't require all that much skill to play. The mistakes made when playing many decks are objective matters of forgetfulness/attention and not mere judgement errors. About the only thing you have to think about in most aggro decks from the beginning to now is when to save some critters in your hand to survive a Wrath. As much as people whine about BuildWars, it really is 90% of constructed MTG which is a lot more than GW. That means copying good decks will get you pretty far, and the rest is knowing how to predict the local metagame and tune your deck appropriately.

I used to be able to compare MTG to Guild Wars but I can't do it anymore. Wizards clearly knows how to promote and run a competitive game and Anet doesn't. Wizards has gone out of their way to promote the Pro Tour, offering millions of dollars and even promoting the best pro players in starter boxes they sell. They know that the Pro Tour says "Magic is skill" and they show it to the masses. I completely disagree with your Magic is buildwars comment, but thats besides the point.

Most importantly, Wizards BALANCES THEIR GAME FOR COMPETITIVE PLAY. They have a large team of guys working on each set to look for stuff like this. If a broken card is ever accidently released, it is instabanned. Simple. Exactly what Guild Wars should have, but it doesn't because too much time is being put into PvE that the competitive aspect of the game cannot shine like it should.

To compare, it would be like saying...ok Pro Tour magic players! We are now going to take all the money and prestige off the table, release hundreds of broken cards (that we will fix in a few months maybe), and we MIGHT offer a tournament in the future but it will get delayed. Oh and as for those broken cards, after we ban them, there will be new broken cards released so sorry. Oh and we are releasing Magic the Gathering 2 also that you should all buy, which is going to contain thousands of cards dealing with goblins and elves and set to a great story!!

Guess what...most of the competitive players would run screaming and never look back. Which is exactly what happened (is happening) to Guild Wars. It was said earlier that Anet doesn't know how a competitive game is driven (I think by squidget) and that is clearly correct to me now. So we can no longer compare Magic and Guild Wars.

See the thing that sucks about all of this is that Guild Wars PvP was GREAT. It was unique and awesome. Now it isn't, and shows no indication of ever becoming that way again in Guild Wars 1 or 2.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scrimbul

The players that have indeed come into their own with groups of people who are willing to make the effort to unlock skills, become UAX without using the unbearably slow PvE, and entered the mid to high level PvP arenas are now at the top of the plateau.

Ok next point...both PvE and PvP cannot be great if they are both going to be mixed into the same game. It is like the old video games that used to have like 3 different sports on them. Every sport on the game sucked because they took away from each other. That is what we have in Guild Wars. We have a PvP system that is tied onto PvE mechanics (unlocks).

Lastly, the money cost that is added on by all the new PvE content is another ruining factor. Let's go back to our friend Magic. That game costs more than Guild Wars to play competitively, but people still play it because of how well the game is run and because it is fun. Guild Wars is currently not run well and is not fun because of it. Sorry Anet, I used to love you guys. I bought 4 collectors editions (1 for a friend even) because I loved your damn game. But I lost so much respect for you guys its not even funny. If you are going to release a competitive game, run the frikken thing properly or just give up and say Guild Wars 2 is going to be 100% PvE. That is all.

Riotgear · Mar 25, 2007, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

both PvE and PvP cannot be great if they are both going to be mixed into the same game.

EN is getting a significant number of PvE-only skills, which is a huge step in the right direction.

Quote:

Lastly, the money cost that is added on by all the new PvE content is another ruining factor. Let's go back to our friend Magic. That game costs more than Guild Wars to play competitively, but people still play it because of how well the game is run and because it is fun.

GW's PvP is competing in a different market, largely against RTSes that cost no more than $50, or $80 if you include the first expansion, purchased the day it came out. GW's cost has continued to rise, what used to be a $50 barrier to entry is now $110.

More-competitive pricing would be something like $50 for a unified PvP edition, and a $10-20 upgrade to any PvE chapter that makes the other chapters' skills available for unlock.

dgb · Mar 26, 2007, 01:29 AM // 01:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

The reason GW2's promotion is so heavily PvE-oriented should be obvious, it's not because GW's PvE community is bigger or even that people buy GW for PvE.

I'm not talking about GW2 at all. I'm talking about maintaining a good PVP game for GW1, at least until GW2 turns up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Various

Your numbers are wrong!!!1!!1!

So rework them yourself. I made very clear that they were rough estimates. I think they're on the generous side, you think they're on the low side, whatever works for you. At least I bothered to try and do it rather than mindlessly yelling out "you're wrong". And when you come back with your numbers, you'll still be by far the minority of the playerbase if you're being anywhere near realistic. *Alleji, this isn't aimed at you, given you didn't base your entire argument around it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex the Great

if anet was to cut high level pvp i for one would be extreamly angry.
You are forgeting that the vast majority of players arn't one way or the other.
I love the story of pve......but killing midless enemies gets boring so my guild and I have some fun gvg marathons every once in a while.

Do you honestly think they haven't cut it yet? If Squidget's post is anything to beleive, a lot of the PVP things that have gone on recently have come out of the charity of Arena Net employees willing to put in their own time to the game. That doesn't sound to me like a company that is supporting PVP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

Here is another way to look at it drawing the age old Magic the Gathering comparison...

Magic has several million active players worldwide. They have about 150 players who are full time professions and another 1000 or so who are on the cusp. The rest are casual "scrub" players. Yet Magic drops millions of dollars into the professional tour.

Why? They have figured out that the pro tour is what drives the game even at the casual level. For whatever reason, Anet hasnt been able to connect high level pvp to the casual player's interest and it has been to their detriment.

That's an interesting twist on the marketing argument and I hadn't thought about it in that way but I'll have a look into it. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sol Is Pyrrhus

I feel like everyone who is arguing about the numbers is missing the entire point. The fact is that dedicated PvP players are in the vast minority (OXYMORON). That is all the OP is trying to get at. There are not 10k active guilds on the ladder, unless you consider records like 10-8 an active guild... I'm in an active GvG guild, and we did 10 GvGs just last NIGHT. If a guild in the top 1000 has a 10-8 record, then what is going on with guilds at rank 10,000? Just because there are players who have played in a GvG doesn't mean they're active PvP players. It means they're PvErs who wanted to try out GvG, end of story. I simply refuse to believe that anyone who calls themselves an "active PvPer" has a GvG record of 10-8.

Thankyou.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The thing is, in a strong PvP game, the top of the competitive scene will inspire the rest. I've guested for sub-1000 guilds, and in almost every case they've had at least some knowledge of the high-end competition. They know who iQ and QQ are, they know the difference between balanced and gimmick, and they have a general idea of whether the high end community is in a good or bad place.

That's not my experience. They know what the guilds are but don't know much more beyond that. I suspect if QQ, iQ, EW et al. dropped off the top and were replaced by spike guilds such as "We Play Ranger [Spik]" or "We Abuse Soul Reaping [LoL]" it wouldn't matter. They'd know the names and that's it. Math has something of a cult following in PVE because they won halls a lot. So does Power. Both ran gimmicks exclusively.

This one may be an agree to disagree as we have different experiences. I'll agree that the high end-community does have strong potential to influence the low-mid range but from my point of view there has been a serious disconnect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

If the PvP side of the game didn't suck for casual players, the competitive players would mean a lot more, because everyone looks up to them and their tactics.

This is important. Read it Arena Net.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

This is going to be long, and I'm not even the best person to ask. I haven't played this game seriously for about a month, so most of this is going to be information from my time in alpha, more recent chats with devs and high-end players, and reading forums. Take it with a grain of salt.

Sorry, I meant it in a more general sense as an opening for any high level PVP-er, rather than just you. Looking back it was a badly written question that way but thanks for answering it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I think the question is too simplistic, because it implies that Arenanet has a single overarching goal or vision for the PvP side of the game. Certainly there are individuals in Arenanet who care very much about improving PvP. The there are individuals like Gaile, who care about PvP abstractly, but really have no idea what the high-end PvP community needs to survive.

The thing to understand is that, working at Arenanet, when you want something done you have to do it yourself. We got reconnects because a programmer did them in his free time. We got the celestial tournament because Mike Gills wanted the PvP community to have something to do while waiting for the ATs. Mike is working on weekends and staying up late because he's had to organize everything himself, and deal with the questions and disputes from every single guild in the tournament. You don't get that kind of dedication from someone who doesn't care.

So the amount of effort that's being put into the PvP game varies on which employee you ask. There is no management figuring out priorities or assigning people to tasks. One employee will make a serious effort, while another will make a token effort, and there is nothing to unite the efforts of many employees into the large projects this game really needs.

You paint the picture of a company that has shambolic goals where things get done by how programmers prioritise them, not how management prioritises them. Looking at what you've said, if the above is true re. Mike Gills and the CT, ie. it's of his own volition and own time mostly, then I think you've confirmed to me that Arena Net management neither understands the high end PVP scene, nor does it want to support it.

The base level of commitment to PVP comes out of a management decision. If management says PVP is important, then PVP is important for everyone. If it says it is unimportant, then it is unimportant for some but important for others (Mike Gills).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

So why, if there are still people in Arenanet who care about PvP, has the game been allowed to sink this low? A lot of people are quick to blame skill balance and to a point they're correct, but the real reason has more to do with the overall increase in player skill.

At release, Guild Wars was an incredibly unbalanced game with all kinds of broken skills. Spirit spam, Ether Renewal, chained ranger interrupts, Diversion, Fragility, and god knows what else, all waiting to break the meta. However, it took months for each of these imbalances to be discovered, and each balance update would have months before the next overpowered combination was discovered. Now, general build-making skill has improved and people know what to look for, so they find the broken combinations in weeks rather than months. Thus, we get the current meta where broken skill combinations run rampant, before and after balance updates. The game isn't that much worse than it was at release, but the community is much better at creating powerful gimmicks.

It's the same on a player skill level. Back in 'the day', you could throw weak spike teams into a panic with basic splits and collapses, allowing you to triumph in the face of a build advantage. Now, even the bad gimmick teams have a basic idea of what to send back and when, and everyone is familiar with split maps and builds. This makes outplaying a team much more difficult.

As players on both sides get better, build or map advantage means a lot more, and it eventually becomes overpowering. There are still a few teams capable of consistently outplaying Jade Isle gimmicks, but eventually the community will improve to the point where even the top teams can't do it.

It's much more difficult to balance a PvP game when your players know what they're doing. Every mistake Izzy makes if magnified tenfold, because the people who play his game are so much better at it than he is. The same number of employees are working to balance PvP, but the community breaks the game much faster and more effectively than it used too.

As the community continues to improve, the game will become shallower and Build Wars will be steadily more important. Even if all the broken skills were removed tomorrow, player improvement would continue to make build counters more and more relevant.

Comes back to the idea of strong versatile skills and weak gimmick skills that encourage you to jump through hoops that Ensign posted a while back doesn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

To tie this back into your question - Arenanet employees might be serious about making PvP work, but their own game is working against them. The PvP community needs more people working to get the same result, and we haven't gotten it. Trying to support a PvP game with constant balance patches is a losing battle, and I hope Arenanet will take that lesson to heart with the release of GW2.

The questions is, not are line-employees serious about making PVP work but is management serious about it? I agree that it's a losing battle on balance, however killing anything outrageous whenever it pops up woud be a good start, and stop buffing underused lines unless there is an extremely good reason. We had ritspike meta come out of some buffs to Channeling, because Izzy thought that it was under-used. There's a key point to take away here. Channeling being underused did nothing to hurt the PVP scene.

If you think balance patches are a losing battle, how would you deal with maintaining a strong high end community given the problems that we have, or, do you think that it is unsalvageable?

Riotgear · Mar 26, 2007, 03:45 AM // 03:45

Quote:

Trying to support a PvP game with constant balance patches is a losing battle, and I hope Arenanet will take that lesson to heart with the release of GW2.

It's a losing battle with the current system. One mammoth update at the end of the ladder season is a bad system that produces too many overbuffs and lets too many other things slip through the cracks. The meta adapts much too quickly for the current patching process, and it needs to be made MORE frequent with more-gradual updates.

Balance is not a battle to be won, it is an ongoing process, and it needs attention more than ever because of the sheer amount of imbalanced crap and I Win buttons added by Nightfall. It's not so much that the community is getting better at abusing balance flaws, it's that Nightfall handed down tons of hard-counters (i.e. Divert, Grenth, Mending Touch) and abilities that perform too many desirable effects for one skill slot (i.e. Shadow Prison, RaO, Melandru, Natural Stride), giving the abuse plenty of fuel. If they want to start winning the balance "battle," the first thing they need to do is realize which skills reek of abuse potential, and just shitcan them. As the Discord buff shows, they have yet to master that art.

Div · Mar 26, 2007, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

I can see this argument, it does generate sales holding the tournaments. But at the same time, spending that money sunk into the tournments could be used in other, more focused and controllable ways to generate interest. Also there's a risk involved with tournaments. I mean if I'm wandering past in Leipzig and I sit and watch iQ sit in their Guild Lord area for 15 minutes I'm going to write the game off as being boring as hell.

Essentially you're telling me that maintaining a game area (mid-high end PVP) is all some sort of elaborate marketing campaign. I just can't see it. Given how much it would cost, you're better off running an *actual* campaign instead.

It is part of their market plan, whether you see it or not. Anet first announced this to be a PvP oriented game that doesn't require a lot of grind to reach the maximum level and to have the best items. That basically dug them their own grave, as it means that PvE content will be heavily tied to this low level cap and low damage items. They are unable to turn back now and ignore PvP since they originally promoted the game as that. If they did not host these tournaments and try to further promote this as a PvP game, it would not work. Similarly, if they spent the money to promote the PvE aspect of this game, it would not work as well. This is simply due to the fact that there is very little to do outside of title farming (or if you really want to be rich) after obtaining the easily obtainable level 20. Compare this to WoW, where the level cap is much higher and naturally takes longer to obtain, and there is always "better" loot to be farmed in raids, and you'll see why Guild Wars is stuck promoting its PvP.

Critical Cal · Mar 26, 2007, 05:24 AM // 05:24

If You Will Allow ME?:
The answer to your issues? Has been right in front of you the whole time!

The Real reason that the PvP Aspect of G.W.'s is in decline is / can be traced back to one SOURCE!: E L I T I S M ! And furthermore? You have only yourselves to Blame!

My personal favorite quote from a movie is very appropriate: "Stop Hating and Start Participating!"

All I have heard from the vast majority of PvP Player's is : Woe is Me / Us , A-Net doesn't give a Damn about us , & of course Ole' faithful: "I'm outta here, I'll go somewhere that they care about Real PvP Play!"

If the PvP Side of G.W.'s makes a comeback? It'll be because of 1 simple reason: The PvP Community MUST: take an active role in looking for, finding, and encouraging New Players! And ? after you find these people: Show them the Basics! .......................Instead of making some poor Bastard stand around in a PvP Area yelling: "Un-Ranked Player LFG!" ( <--Laugh, This is Not The Kind of HELP I'm talking about! ) or "Ele LFG can Be almost any Build!" and 30 - 45 mins later? The same guy is still there LFG!

Imagine how much better The PvP Aspect of this Game could / would be IF: The Pvp Community were to stop expecting A-net to Fix everything for YOU!

That's RIGHT, I SAID IT!: No matter how much money, blood, sweat or tears A-net throws at this? They CAN'T fix this Alone! (IF YOU ASK ME?: A-NET IS DOING A GREAT JOB OVER-ALL!) Go look in the mirror: <Now you should see> An Individual ..Who CAN: Starting right now: Help make this (Pvp) World a better Place!

Sincerely,
Critical Cal!

twicky_kid · Mar 26, 2007, 05:53 AM // 05:53

PvP was never ment to carry the game. It was simply an advertising strategy to get people to play the game to see if a no monthly fee game could survive vs wow.

If you saw a game advertising $100k tournaments wouldn't you play it too?

We all know that pvp is a very small community. It always has been. After seeing GW2 info and split of pvp and pve it even cements my assumption that GW1 was just an experiment for GW2.

My question is still will there be a monthly fee for GW2? That will either make or break GW.

Anarkii · Mar 26, 2007, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

My question is still will there be a monthly fee for GW2? That will either make or break GW.

No, has been answered too many times in the other threads. No monthly fee.

DreamWind · Mar 26, 2007, 06:36 AM // 06:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Critical Cal

If the PvP Side of G.W.'s makes a comeback? It'll be because of 1 simple reason: The PvP Community MUST: take an active role in looking for, finding, and encouraging New Players!

Imagine how much better The PvP Aspect of this Game could / would be IF: The Pvp Community were to stop expecting A-net to Fix everything for YOU!

Oh for the love of...

Here is the problem with your theory. If a game sucks, you don't recommend it to new players. If the game was great like it was say...before Factions came out, then I would recommend it to more people. Not to mention telling people that they have to grind out a bunch of skills or pay a ton of cash to get started. Sounds appealing.

And Anet DOES have to fix everything. We don't want to play a broken game (like it is right now). Real companies fix their games. That is all.

(Sorry for getting this thread a little off topic).

JodoKast · Mar 26, 2007, 09:47 AM // 09:47

The numbers presented in this thread are rather stupid in my opinion.

Claiming out of the box that anything past rank 750 is not worth mentionning is Elitist crap.

Look at the ladder last page and see teams with rating 1005 (meaning positive) and having played 200 gvg games : those are entirely part of the pvp community, regardless of their success...

Balance and pvp attention is not there only to fit the top 20 people. If anything, gimmicks and unbalanced build are abused just as much, if not more in middle tier pvp than in high tier.

JoeKnowMo · Mar 26, 2007, 09:47 AM // 09:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

It is part of their market plan, whether you see it or not. Anet first announced this to be a PvP oriented game that doesn't require a lot of grind to reach the maximum level and to have the best items.

Their marketing strategy also attracted a lot of casual gamers. Players who want a relaxed, low stress, casual gaming experience. And pvp is anything but casual.

dgb · Mar 26, 2007, 12:36 PM // 12:36

I'm getting a bit frustrated here, because people insist on attacking the numbers when I've allready stated they are estimates, designed to provide a sense of scale. If you disagree with the numbers, good for you, I hope it makes your day that you could tell someone that he's wrong for making an honest go at it. I'm not sure I am actually wrong, but nobody here can confirm or deny that.

If you disagree with the implications of those numbers (who knows, we may have someone coming and saying that they are certain that PVP players make up more than half of the GW population), then go ahead, I'm interested in discussion it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JodoKast

The numbers presented in this thread are rather stupid in my opinion.

Claiming out of the box that anything past rank 750 is not worth mentionning is Elitist crap.

Look at the ladder last page and see teams with rating 1005 (meaning positive) and having played 200 gvg games : those are entirely part of the pvp community, regardless of their success...

Balance and pvp attention is not there only to fit the top 20 people. If anything, gimmicks and unbalanced build are abused just as much, if not more in middle tier pvp than in high tier.

Forgive me for being elitist here, but I have never, in what I would estimate to be around 100 gvgs between rank 1000 and 6000 (friends guilds etc.), not once seen a single build abusing whatever, is floating around broken in the meta. Quite frankly, if you're abusing something you're going to last about three GVGs before you start moving beyond that range because you're going to instawin no matter how bad you are. GVGs below rank 750 (arbitrary cutoff, I'm so elitist), as far as I can tell are not impacted by balances.

As for the numbers, stop being dense. I've stated that htey are estimates, if you don't like them go do them yourself. If you're going to argue that the primary PVP community is anything other than a tiny minority, then it's worth arguing about. It's easy to snipe from the sides when you're not brave enough to put up anything that can be critcised yourself.

Critical Cal, beleive what you want about the PVP community being elitist. It's actually not. What it is, is not charitable. It doesn't give something away for free. Hence, the guy shouting in HA that he's unranked and looking for a group doesn't get anything. He's not actually engaging, he's just broadcasting in the hope that some sap will take pity on him. I don't want to know, I'm not looking for unranked players as a general rule.

However, the guy who PMs me saying he's unranked but he knows the bar, has an idea what to do and will listen to advice does get help. The guy who I drop into a random arenas game with, who looks to be a pretty decent player but is unranked goes on the friends list and gets asked to play. The warrior who for some reason I pugged with in PVE, who was impressed by the hero title and asked would I give him a hand getting started because he's not sure of exactly what to do but is willing to listen gets helped. It's why a friend and I when we've got nothing better to do go start unranked pugs. They actually have a decent success rate at winning halls. It's why I've played stupid amounts of low ranked GVGs.

You can beleive it's elitist all you want. Next time you try to PVP, demonstrate some intelligence and willingness to engage and learn and you'll find that it isn't. Most people who PVP actually prefer to play than sit around doing nothing. Very few people will turn down helping out a low-end guild or an unranked pug, in favour of sitting around in PVE. Some will, but hell, I'd take GVG at rank 6000 any day to mapping out the jade sea.

I also fail to see how we can stop wanting Arena Net to fix it for us. Quite frankly, beyond making suggestions, there is utterly nothing I can do to nerf a skill that is overpowered back to a balanced state. NOTHING. Even if both teams took the view that a skill is overpowered and would like a nerf to it before the game, we can't adjust it. Arena Net has to fix imbalances, because there is no other way to fix them. It is that simple. They control the database of skills.

tomcruisejr · Mar 26, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Thing about pvp is that the harshness of losing. You log in game, coming from the stress of real life, to have fun, relax and kill time. You form your team and then your team loses and gives you frustration. You feel angry to the point that you wanna smash your keyboard. You wanna get good but you only play once a week or once a month because your guild cannot field 8 dedicated players and get good together OR your guildmates prefer doing farming all the time and do pvp when they feel like it. And it's now the stress of real life PLUS the stress from playing the game. And it sucks.

So you should understand why there should be PVE in any game or viable fotm builds for casual players.

Yes, fotm builds and other builds. They are needed. Whatever-way and whatever-spike and whatever-balanced, A.net should keep maintaining them because each of those have community base. There are players who wanna play those builds. With crapzillions skills on your GW client, different builds SHOULD be viable. Build Wars is essential. This is not chess that you have the same pieces and only player tactics matter. Killing a build will kill a portion of "PvP" players. If A.NET wants to have a quality PVP base where ONLY player skill matters, they should release GW PvP only edition in which all of the competitors will only have fixed numbers of skills to use. And they should make it pay to play

so they can implement the 100k$ tourneys without eyebrows being raised..

And think about this. If Guild Wars is basically "funded" by PvE players, why the 100k$ tourneys? They should've allocated 1/2 or 3/4 of that prize money and improve PvE and implement quality in-game measures to make PVP fun and enjoyable for casual players/pvers.

red orc · Mar 26, 2007, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Some ppl here live the "godd old days" and those ppl are not even 20.
I remember those days. I remember 8 trappers turtling step by step, so dont go crying there is no balance. The game now is as balanced as it has ever been.
About gvg: Since they opened the ladder, no short season that only hard core play. All kind of ppl joined the pvp comunity. Sure many are low ranked, but hey, it's always a piramid. To have a small amount of ppl at the top you need many at the bottom. The question is not how skilled are those at the bottom, but are there enough at the botton to sustain the game.
Also remember that as more ppl join, more have good time beating the newcomers and finding thier place in the ladder.
What I would do now, it create classes for pvp according to rank and have guilds advanced from class to class. This way you will not be guild number 30,000 but guild 300 of class C guilds. Now you have something to look for. Gat better and you will advance to class B guild.

Div · Mar 26, 2007, 02:56 PM // 14:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

I'm getting a bit frustrated here, because people insist on attacking the numbers when I've allready stated they are estimates, designed to provide a sense of scale. If you disagree with the numbers, good for you, I hope it makes your day that you could tell someone that he's wrong for making an honest go at it. I'm not sure I am actually wrong, but nobody here can confirm or deny that.

Forgive me for being elitist here, but I have never, in what I would estimate to be around 100 gvgs between rank 1000 and 6000 (friends guilds etc.), not once seen a single build abusing whatever, is floating around broken in the meta. Quite frankly, if you're abusing something you're going to last about three GVGs before you start moving beyond that range because you're going to instawin no matter how bad you are. GVGs below rank 750 (arbitrary cutoff, I'm so elitist), as far as I can tell are not impacted by balances.

As for the numbers, stop being dense. I've stated that htey are estimates, if you don't like them go do them yourself. If you're going to argue that the primary PVP community is anything other than a tiny minority, then it's worth arguing about. It's easy to snipe from the sides when you're not brave enough to put up anything that can be critcised yourself.

Critical Cal, beleive what you want about the PVP community being elitist. It's actually not. What it is, is not charitable. It doesn't give something away for free. Hence, the guy shouting in HA that he's unranked and looking for a group doesn't get anything. He's not actually engaging, he's just broadcasting in the hope that some sap will take pity on him. I don't want to know, I'm not looking for unranked players as a general rule.

However, the guy who PMs me saying he's unranked but he knows the bar, has an idea what to do and will listen to advice does get help. The guy who I drop into a random arenas game with, who looks to be a pretty decent player but is unranked goes on the friends list and gets asked to play. The warrior who for some reason I pugged with in PVE, who was impressed by the hero title and asked would I give him a hand getting started because he's not sure of exactly what to do but is willing to listen gets helped. It's why a friend and I when we've got nothing better to do go start unranked pugs. They actually have a decent success rate at winning halls. It's why I've played stupid amounts of low ranked GVGs.

You can beleive it's elitist all you want. Next time you try to PVP, demonstrate some intelligence and willingness to engage and learn and you'll find that it isn't. Most people who PVP actually prefer to play than sit around doing nothing. Very few people will turn down helping out a low-end guild or an unranked pug, in favour of sitting around in PVE. Some will, but hell, I'd take GVG at rank 6000 any day to mapping out the jade sea.

I think what people are saying is that your "estimate" is completely off, and that you can't just use the excuse of it being an estimate to solve all problems. If I "estimate" the US population to be 50 million people, of course I'd be criticized because it's way off, even if I claim it's an estimate. I can sympathize with the guilds 750-1500 (who sometimes pop in and out of the ladder) and have played 100+ games. Despite their below mediocre PvP ability, they are still part of the community.

I do agree with the fact that most of the PvP community can be categorized as "non-charitable" as opposed to elitist, though there is still a fair share of people that are elitist. It's their only way of filtering through the "millions" of GW players to find the right ones for their guild/team. They simply don't have the time to test out every player that wants to join the guild/team, and they need a screening process. However, some high ranked players are still willing to help our lower ranked players (though I don't believe a rank 10 will take a rank 1 usually). I don't see why people complain about the system when they are too lazy to make their own groups and get out of being unranked. All it takes is some initiative. Go play the FOTM for a bit, get some fame. Then start testing out newer builds once you get to rank 3 and can obtain better players.

Byron · Mar 26, 2007, 03:26 PM // 15:26

I wish I had the energy to read all of these essays.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

Thing about pvp is that the harshness of losing. You log in game, coming from the stress of real life, to have fun, relax and kill time. You form your team and then your team loses and gives you frustration. You feel angry to the point that you wanna smash your keyboard. You wanna get good but you only play once a week or once a month because your guild cannot field 8 dedicated players and get good together OR your guildmates prefer doing farming all the time and do pvp when they feel like it.

There's a nice chunk of reality. You need dedicated and patient people in order to field a decent team. The nature of competition itself might hold the blame. It's no fun to lose, and that might be the reason why people pve. Pve has very simple direct rewards: higher levels, gold, cool items. The rewards of pvp are much harder to realize: the thrills of competition, the pride of victory, the "fame" of being in a top team.

TheOneMephisto · Mar 26, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I think what people are saying is that your "estimate" is completely off, and that you can't just use the excuse of it being an estimate to solve all problems. If I "estimate" the US population to be 50 million people, of course I'd be criticized because it's way off, even if I claim it's an estimate. I can sympathize with the guilds 750-1500 (who sometimes pop in and out of the ladder) and have played 100+ games. Despite their below mediocre PvP ability, they are still part of the community.

Whether I estimate that the amount of 26 year old Asian males wearing a white shirt on monday morning is 50 or 5000, it still doesn't change the fact that it's an extremely small percentage of Americans. If I estimate that the amount of 1-90 year olds in the world is 6.2 or 6.4 billion, it still doesn't change the fact that it's the vast majority of the world population. Don't be dense, the difference is maybe between .2% and 2%, it doesn't change the fact that the PvP part of the game is an extremely small percentage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I do agree with the fact that most of the PvP community can be categorized as "non-charitable" as opposed to elitist, though there is still a fair share of people that are elitist. It's their only way of filtering through the "millions" of GW players to find the right ones for their guild/team. They simply don't have the time to test out every player that wants to join the guild/team, and they need a screening process. However, some high ranked players are still willing to help our lower ranked players (though I don't believe a rank 10 will take a rank 1 usually). I don't see why people complain about the system when they are too lazy to make their own groups and get out of being unranked. All it takes is some initiative. Go play the FOTM for a bit, get some fame. Then start testing out newer builds once you get to rank 3 and can obtain better players.

My theory is that most people believe that things should come fairly easily to them in video games, as they play them to get away from the stress and work that life takes. However, GUILD WARS PVP IS NOT LIKE THIS, if you want to get good at PvP, it takes a lot of time, dedication, patience, and hard work. It isn't easy, and not every high-ranked person has to help you. Very few high-level PvPers will actually discourage a new wannabe-PvPer who is willing to learn, and many will go out of their way to help them. However, they aren't required to help noobies, and many will go into the "non-charitable" category you speak of.

dgb · Mar 26, 2007, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I think what people are saying is that your "estimate" is completely off, and that you can't just use the excuse of it being an estimate to solve all problems. If I "estimate" the US population to be 50 million people, of course I'd be criticized because it's way off, even if I claim it's an estimate. I can sympathize with the guilds 750-1500 (who sometimes pop in and out of the ladder) and have played 100+ games. Despite their below mediocre PvP ability, they are still part of the community.

This is going to be quick, because I'm getting ready for work.

If my estimate is completely off in your opinion, don't just say it, give numbers. As I noted, I almost doubled the amount of guilds in the CT so I had a large margin for error. I don't think it's that far off but if you have a better way to build an estimate go for it.

If my estimate is completely off but it doesn't materially change the fact (ie. the PVP population is actually 1.5% instead of 0.2% of the community), it doesn't actually matter how much you argue over it.

I am not saying that low end PVP groups are not a community, or even not part of the greater PVP community. However they have different needs in respect to rebalancing of the game.