PvP and PvE are incompatable?

It seems the answer is yes. ANets made mistakes by trying to do this by balancing skills that made PvE people unhappy and trying to interweave the two forcefully. ANet learned from these mistakes and made PvE skills, titles that confer benefits and seems to be intent on a reworking to make them more divorced in GW2.

But thats not what I bought the game for.

I bought the game because I was wanted a game where items or level didn't determine what I could do in the game. I wanted a game where I could take my awesome roleplaying character I spent a lot of time with and give my friends characters some dirt naps where skill was more of a determining factor then how long I played or how lucky I was. These two sentiments are largely accomplished in Guild Wars and the main reason I bought , continue to play it, and look forward to Guild Wars 2. But these two sentiments are deeper than they seem. I wanted to use the exact same character, same skills and everything. For that to happen PvE and PvP need to be nearly identical. A game that does that is very exciting, a game with PvE that has unique and diverse challenges. Its not really possible though, AI has limitations that make it so and its also not fun all the time. PvE is all about being a hero, killing a big undefeatable monster or slaying scores of weaker ones and thats not entirely cohesive with PvP. But beyond that they should be similar as possible; a lot more than it is currently in Guild Wars. PvE that is balanced around PvP isn't only necessary for the PvP in a joined game it also makes the PvE better (as long as the skills are still viable in PvE).

ANets real mistakes where making monsters more different from players than they had to be, and laying barriers to allow PvE characters advantage in PvP. The latter I think is a response to one of the reasons I wanted the game, to take out friends with my awesome monster slaying character, they wanted barriers to encourage that kind of gameplay particularly the unlocking system so that it wouldn't seem my investment of time was in pointless. But that style of gameplay has rewards of its own (a lot of people with fully outfitted characters do pvp with them) so it really doesn't merit those barriers at all and those barriers became simply barriers to PvP in a general sense.

Unfortunately it seems that I might be in the minority here, especially when soul reaping or the ai updates for aoe and held items or other similar changes. I hope that they're flash reactions from creatures of habit but I fear that they really want a different game then I do and that ANet has started lean that way as well. They've changed things in GW and GW2 seems like its going to add things that are against the mindset of a joined game in a general sense, a larger level system and titles for example. Grinding for cosmetic changes are great but far less rewarding than stat changes. In fact it was a major reason I left the game for a while, grinding a long time to be able to boast to others and play Barbie with your character better is hard to justify. But the reason they exist in other games (and now starting to exist in guild wars) because its rewards for playing the game become rewards from grinding when the gameplay becomes grind, when its no longer fun and aren't necessary. While this change from play to grind is different for everybody its only really damaging when there are rewards attached that grant real changes, because then optional becomes required and people are forced to play when they don't want to. This is obviously bad for PvP, but it is also bad for PvE for the same reasons. Changes in strength of characters are necessarily required in both, no matter how small when trying to make the best character possible and play the best possible.

A game with joined PvE and PvP is a game of skill not time spent with fun diverse and challenging encounters and is a game where you are free to do what you want at all times. Its what Guild Wars attempted to be and should continue to try and be.

They are incompatible if "skill" is taken out and replaced by time spent.

WoW has killed off any hope of skill-based PvE, showing that more prefer time spent.

The GW's execution may have been lacking at times, but the original concept wasn't flawed by itself.

But until GW:EN, mobs didn't even have reasonable builds, they relied on sheer numbers, and to toughen it, they needed to add absurd environmental effects and unbalancing skills, requiring unnatural gameplay and builds.

I think the idea behind GW:EN's mob design is good. But it comes 2 years too late, and is made completely obsolete through PvE-only skills and consumables.

If PvE were designed as more challenging (not time-consuming) from the start, the barrier between the PvE and PvP would have been much lesser, possibly non-existent.

But the way they both diverged, good practices in one were the worst in another, thereby increasing the conflict.

No they arent incompatiable, its just Anerf made it that way long ago. They screwed up when they allowed the creation of PvP only chars. Thats when the true and start of all incompatibilities came in.

I heard forcing people to play a side of the game they don't want to in order to play the side of the game they do want to is the way forward.

Confirm/Deny?

If PvP and PvE didn't use some similar skills, they might as well make 2 different games. One aspect will always have an influence over the other.

I think these miss the real question. A game with both doesn't prove they're compatible, but is it possible to focus on both without damaging the other?

Confirm.

It's been working so well for them so far, it must be the way forward.

Well, he's half there. Allowing more freedom for PvP was a good idea, but using temporary and impersonal characters for this was a bad way to go about it. Since they can now ban PvE only skills in PvP, characters should start with all skills unlocked by default, but then have any skills banned in PvE if that character hasn't unlocked them in PvE yet, allowing them to use any skill in PvP with their roleplaying character. Obviously none of this infrastructure was in place at the time. Hindsight, and all that.

Certain people just need to realise how important skill balancing is to PvP, and how little it matters in PvE.

This is too hard for me to comprehend. Please simplify it.

Why was Soul Reaping nerfed? Now I can't have more than 10 Minions and it's harder for me to raise them without infinate energy provided from Spirits

Its perfectly possible. You focus skill balance on PvP, because it has no real influence on PvE
and you give all the people who play PvE cool LOOKING things, you don't need to look good to pvp so who cares?

PvE is easy for 1 single reason: it is almost 100% predictable, there are very few variables.
PvP is somewhat predictable too, because people get locked into 1 type of build because its better. and thats where skill balance comes in.

Everything in the game has been beat several times in several different ways, and for that reason alone. PvE is balanced. in the sense that its possible, in more than 1 way.

You can still use your PvE char in PvP as some do.I wouldn't worry to much about what armour you have just get some good weapons.There are lots of guilds who do this and use their RP char to PvP with as they only have say 1 free slot open.1K armour will do just get some decent weapons.

LIES!

Nothing wrong with pvp rewards. I still used a PvE in most cases because I liked the look better than generic pvp toons.

Basically the more autonomous PvP becomes from PvE the better. It gives each greater freedom to develop to fit the needs of the particular groups of people who play them, and the needs of the format to make it functon as ideally as possible.

That which is broken in PvP is usually just as borked in PvE.The only differance is that Monsters dont have accounts to complain.

Soul reaping was the most borked form of emanagement around. It always has been, and many of us have always known it. It just took till someone decided to abuse it in PvP for it to be nerfed because almost no one complains about PvE IMBA and the ones that do are usually n00bs who cant beat mallyx because their too lazy to break away from the standard farm-o-matic builds.

This is probably the most blatant lie and bullshit answer that has been posted in this thread. The PvP character creation aspect of the game was what allowed players to be able to become more active and take a more PvP orientated role in this game. The problem was that the PvP creation screen and aspects were inferior to the PvE character creation. Armor swapping, the +5 energy weapons, more available character equips... all played a huge role in determining as to why most PvP players ran a PvE character in PvP.

The biggest problem that anet did with PvP was there was no full uax at the beginning of PvP for PvP characters only. All item upgrades, runes, and skills had to be unlocked either through faction, or before that through PvE. Forcing players to grind to unlock or grind through an aspect of the game they have little to no interest in playing was what made the PvP only characters and option a failure.

PvP used to be a valuable aspect to this game and as the OP suggested was a reason why a lot of people did purchase the game. The PvP in Guildwars used to be the best form of competitive PvP in a game there was. The style of gameplay, the skill and determination of the community, the prizes and tournaments they used to offer to compete on the "Big Stage" against players from around the world, are now all but gone and the PvP community and PvP as a competitive game has now but all gone and is only a mere shell of whats left.

The PvE game that a lot of people want (grind grind grind for ever more power) is incompatible with PvP. The original PvE game was pretty compatible with PvP, though it was a bit confused by trying to add grindy elements into what should have been a 'pick up and play with your friends' kind of game.

Now it's this messy hodgepodge game that isn't the no grind skill based game that it was originally envisioned at, but similarly fails pretty spectacularly at the grindy elements it does have. This is entirely unrelated to the PvE/PvP relationship in the game, really just 'A.Net made some really bad PvE design decisions'.

sounds like the OP is complaining that his PVE build doesnt work in PVP....

I can't believe that it took over 2 1/2 years for someone to make a thread about the incompatibility of PvE and PvP.

Clearly you haven't seen the multitude of ones before.