Arena.Net and PvP

Please read all the points, Please respond to these points and not with anger. If I can do it, please can you?


This is the exact post of Alex Weekes unaltered.

Anyways here is a constructive, *ahem this is a slight twist for me*, post.

First I would like to outline some parts of the post

1. He starts off calling us a "Vocal Minority", brushing us off.

I am sure PVP in guildwars is not just for a "vocal minority"

2. There is a concern several top guilds has left the game

In fact here is a partial list:

Club G
NOXi
Vanguard
Blood Eagle
Fianna
Eight Versus Eight
Nuclear launch detected Nu
Spirits of War
LE
Elitist Jerks
LLJK
DrkH
LtH (ladder to hell)
BBB
Te
PANK
We are Godzilla You are Japan
DFx
Bleeding Edge
The Grind
RRKM (rock and Roll Killing Machine)
AOU
Legion of shadow
PIE
PUG
LotD (officially)
Havoc Legion
CoR

I too would be concerned if all the guilds where leaving.



okay instead of addressing individual posts, I am going to make this post unique to GWguru


I am upset that A.net will brush us off as a "small minority" of gamers that play PVP, and want fair access to skills and abilities.

I believe PVP is for everyone, I believe A.Net Promised a game that rewarded skill not timespent.

There entire attitude towards this is the opposite.

They Protect PVE characters and players at the expense of the ENTIRE PVP community and will make no Compromises.

They will continue to let guilds leave by doing nothing.

It is time for "actions to speak louder then words", where is the action Arena.Net

Faction was a broken system which barely rewarded most PVP players, only the best of the best.



I offer a solution:

and would love mannered responses only. Please ARGUE THE TOPIC.

increase faction so every 10 minutes of PVP time unlocks a skill, every 25 minutes an elite, every hour a random rune (of all types)

This can be done by increasing the ammount of faction gained, or lowering the cost of items and runes down by a factor of 25x for arena, 15x for tombs and 10x for GvG.


Increase the ammount of skills on vendors and include 80% of elites on vendors. So we can actually choose what build we want in PVE at early stages of the game and be unique.

Increase the ammount of skill points PVE characters get so they can compete with more available skills and make use of secondary switches.

The increase should be 5x to PVE skill availability and skill points.

These are my figures.

600 hours of grind to unlock things

will turn into 120 hours.

Which will allow casual players a hefty access to skills, and veterans the ability to play the game how they want. With every counter available and the ability to play without restraints.

It would make PVP more accessible too, and more varied.

I would also call for an END to spirit spamming and FERTILE SEASON stacking with Ritual's health.

I agree that this was just a bit silly of Alex. However he does not mean PVP is a minority I think. He means that the TOP pvp guilds are a minority on the masses of players. But calling it a vocal minority is just silly. Offcourse they are a minority on the masses, but a very important minority at that. Just silly. case closed.

yeah, i read from someone that he thought Alex didn't get the scope of the problem, because 'several means 2 or 3'. By my own interpretation of words, several would indeed be the number of guilds you list here.


understandable, see point 1.

yep. the grind is bigger then expected. agreed.

Just to put this in perspective: the PvE -ers from Europe are being denied two PvE maps because of the PvP situation there. So don't give me this one sided approach of pve lovers, there are troubles on both sides of the pvp-pve spectrum. I do however see that the withholding of UAS seems a way to protect the PvE crowd. And personally I have no objections to UAS. It is fair game, since anyone can make a PvP char.


speculative, you can not see in the future.

there is much in pvp that needs improvement, agreed.

the reward is a bit slow, but looking from positive side for a change: it is better then it used to be. But granted: you can get skillpoints faster in pve then pvp. But the unlocks for max weaponupgrades might be faster in pvp....

/SIGNED

there is a slight problem here: if I have all runes unlocked, the hourly bonus is useless for me, i'd rather spend it on something else...

since UAS is out of the question, adjustment of faction system is the most likely option. I'm not going to argument about the modifier. I've seen calculations, but still will refrain myself from this tricky part.


that is trick: I don't think they want the PvE made easier by allowing elites early.

yes, currently, this is mostly...well let's say you have one secondary for playing, and 4 others for getting atributepoints back and unlocking of a few (not enough to warrant playing) skills if you have skillpoints.

Here's my numbers:

600 hours of playing over 3 months (PvE and PvP)
4 ascended characters (2 deleted for room)
366 skills unlocked (~80% of all skills)
all minor runes but 1
all major runes but 11
2 superior runes
approx 50% of upgrades (many lowest values)
125 hours estimated to unlock the rest of the skills


I started GW in retail as a PvP player who enjoyed PvE. Now that I've ascended 4 characters I can unlock the rest of the skills with the help of a 5th char who is on the way.

I like the unlocking sytem and the faction system but they take much too long to unlock items. I do not support UAS but I do fully support an unlcokign system that allows us to unlock much faster. Below are my ideas.

1. Increase faction gained in PvP by10x (or more) OR reduce faction prices by 10x. Also put priests of Blathzar in all Tombs, Competition Arenas, Random Arenas, and Guild Hall so that we can unlock with a PvP char instead of having to relogin on a PvE char to unlock items.

2. Remove skill points completely. They do nothgin but add grind to an otherwise enjoyable game.

3. Increase drops in all areas instead of nerfing the high drop areas. I had 1 gold drop while leveling my latest RP char. In addition to this, make teal armor drops salvage into minor runes, purple in major runes, and gold into superior runes, ALL THE TIME.

PvP is still very enjoyable for me (now that I have enough skills to make most builds needed) but the path to this point was much longer than I had hoped.

Across all characters, I have played for 580 hours 15 minutes over the past 3 months

Within that time, I have unlocked about 85% of my skills and a measly 30% of all runes and weapon upgrades.

What can be done to encourage me to finish this off?

Nothing, its too late. I'd rather slit my throat than play in Post Ascalon again

How many topics like this have you made? I'm just curious...
Because every time I look here, I see a post by you that is closed within an hour or two and you seem to really want to annoy the admins here. Your lucky they have such great patience because if it were up to me, I would have banned you a while ago.

Now onto the topic discussed.

Your suggestion to find a way to stop spirit spamming is simple. THINK!
My guild and I have come up with a pretty simple, though overlooked, build that destroys those who simply spirit spam when on the HoH. It is also versatile enough to compete in the other types in Tombs. Fertile Season + ritual is not overpowered. If I must, I will post this build in the Campfire on Friday just to see if we can get the spirit spammers to stop.

Secondly, I agree that faction must be increased or the cost decreased.

"I believe PVP is for everyone, I believe A.Net Promised a game that rewarded skill not timespent."
People exaggerate. Welcome to the real world.

"Increase the ammount of skill points PVE characters get so they can compete with more available skills and make use of secondary switches."

Perhaps lower the exp requirement to 10k / skillpoint?

I dont understand people that demand UAS.
PvP players should know skills good enough to be able to get 40k experience every 40 minutes in the underworld, maybe even in half the time if they do it really good.
Thats basically UAS.

1.071 hours play time /age (last 2 months)
5 players trough the game. (2 deleted)
456 skills unlocked (thats all of them including Signet of capture and ressurection signet)
all minor runes unlocked
16 mayor runes unlocked
4 superior runes unlocked
(im giving away free unidentified runes in ascalon if i know i already identified all of that kind, no matter what rune it is.)
I dont know how much upgrades I have unlocked and how far, actually i barely care right now.

just 1 a 2 weeks ago, i was probably on the same level as you.
partly solution:
farm --> buy unid runes
in high level areas, the xp should be good enough to get a skillpoint or two also every few runes. it worked for me.
the weaponugrades also comes faster when you farm. i'm not a farmlover, but if i have to unlock fast, i'll do it.

around 625 hours played last 3 months
still to unlock:
24 skills
1 major war
4 sup war; 2 sup ele
some weaponupgrades minor, most of the maxed out weaponupgrades

a guild can succeed at pvp but not organize farming nights so they can buy the unid'ed stuff? cmon.

I've tried farming and it bored me to death. I don't want to spend my leisure time preparing to have fun in a video game.

Most guilds are around to have fun, not work

Also please post a more thought out post, not knocking your argument but more then a one liner would be nice.

Here was BE's problem with farming. It would be hard to get 4-6 players on the same spot in GW, most of the time everyone has characters in different areas. For instance a secondary in Nolani and a main who has beat the game. In order to quickly get unlocks, they would rush the secondary.... Basically everyone was spread out thin and it was hard to organize a guild run.... and we did do UW and FOW runs.. but in the end if there are 8 of us on, we will not PVE over PVP.

We believe in FUN not PAIN. While this is oppinion I hope you respect the fact that PVP guilds, like to PVP.

Agreed. This is reasonable, and jives with a statement made by Jeff Strain in which he said he wanted players to be able log on to Guild Wars for even so much as ten minutes before dinner, play that small amount, and still feel they accomplished something.

Yes. Please. I absolutely despise how the PvE channels you through a specific path for your character, diminishing your build options. Look at Elementalists: I'm not going to argue that Fire isn't amazing for PvP. It is, flat out. But I'm sure there are a few people out there who would like to try the other elements. Unfortunately, they're waiting till at least Lion's Arch to pick up useful Earth and Air Magics.

I also remember when Elites were obtainable pre Desert in early release. I never saw how this was particularly broken. You still had to hunt down and obtain said Elites.

I also wholeheartedly support anything that makes PvE players switch over into PvP easier. Its a hell of a gut punch for most, and it can prove very very discouraging.

With regards to Spirits, several points:

1) Fertile needs to not add Health to other spirits. Fertile + Wards + A Ranger with Oath Shot throwing them back up means you're never going to make any progress.
2) Nature's Renewal needs to be heavily reworked so that it doesn't completely obliterate the use of Enchantments and Hexes in a build. Side by side with this is the fact that Enchantment Removal as a whole needs to be reworked so that Nature's Renewal is not the only viable option for efficient and/or mass Enchantment removal. Recharge rates need reductions.
3) Oath Shot itself could probably stand to be scrutinized, as well.

Furthermore, on a general skills note:

Ether Renewal: I'm sorry, it should not be possible to regain 90 energy in 10 seconds through usage of this skill

Word of Healing: Could we please fix this so that it calculates the healing in the correct, -useful- order? Its completely ridiculous that it heals first, then checks to see if the target is under 50% HP, then applies the second heal. On a high Divine Favor Monk (Read: Any Healing Monk), the first heal is almost guranteed to shoot all but the most battered targets above 50% Health, making the second half of the spell useless and reducing this Elite to little more a slightly buffed Orison.

Draw Conditions and Divine Boon: These need recharge times. As Ensign said in another thread, 0 second recharge spells are just asking to be abused in combos.

Last I checked, this thread was about issues and fixes, not UAS.

Furthermore, 1000+ hours to unlock skills is ludicrous and you're still missing a ton of superior and major runes. This is a problem.

Oh people did that.

It's called PANK.

Organized gvg ladder farming in order to earn huge amounts of faction in a short amount of time. Gee that's really needed with our good skill acquisition setup that anet has blessed us with

How people can think everything is okay when they see that list of a large number of top guilds leaving is just beyond the vast depths of stupidity. Even fanboyism can only go so far...

The top tier of players cannot be replaced. They represent the culmination of year(s) of experience and information that the 'new' top tier will not inherit. The hardcore pvp community is what keeps games alive with the least amount of company effort and losing them is the biggest deathblow to the game there can be for the future. Current sales are not everything; reputation also means a big deal. Blizzard proves that perfectly. Their enormous successes with starcraft and diablo is what got their huge sales for wow/wc3, even though those 2 games were a pos in comparison to the former two.

Changes need to be immediate and decisive. Minor faction tweaks like we saw last time simply isn't enough. People need access, most of all the casual player. Renewal needs to be balanced (remove the enchant/hex removal effect completely; 2x cast times is very strong). Fertile should not affect other spirits. It was even worse when fertiles stacked so people had 5 digit hp numbers but it's still abysmal now with how long it takes to kill fertile powered spirits. Enchant removal needs to be buffed or with renewal gone everyone good will be cross stacking enchants left and right. KOR did not dominate the last bwe just because they had really good players/teamwork.

Thats the best philosophy ive heard all day. We all don't have hours every day to prepare to have fun in a video game. Yoshi's Cookie video game for the Regular Nintendo = best game ever.

Well, that is because there's a lot of thought right there in just one sentence. You can say a lot without 1,000 word essays. But since you like lots of words, here we go

Before I go on, I am not a fanboi, I come from the 'broken home' of pvp, Ultima Online. Great game, horribly unbalanced zerg fest player vs player. I have also tried out SB, Eve, SWG, DAOC. They aren't so great either. WoW, yah right, successful yes, but the online game equivilent of wearing one of those colored bracelets. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a T-Mobile commerical where Snoop Dog is texting other celebs how to defeat so and so boss. Then Paris goes "Snoop plays a necro in WoW? That's so hot!"

Also want to note, I came here specifically for the pvp. I make it a point to spend two levels in each applicable arena as I go along because I want to be good at pvp. I applauded the changes to xp and factions. This is what this game is about. Competition on a level playing field.

Is there unbalance with some having everything unlocked and everyone else not? Of course, now. But that won't last long and it is not hard to do it to get caught up. And anyone starting the game now is at the same disadvantage.

It is a hell of a lot harder to be in the top rankings as a group for pvp then it is to farm as a guild for a little bit and get everyone's needs unlocked. And those top guilds were not all over the place in the game like yours was. I am thinking they were all ascended. And for them to be successful, they had to have at least 8 people playing a lot. We aren't talking average guild here we are talking the elite. The best. They are so because they go above and beyond to strive to be the best.

That's why I don't get it that a guild that can achieve that can't spend a week farming to get what they need unlocked. I know I know, that's a lot of great pvp fights missed, but still.

The problem here is patience, not UAS.

Now is that thought out enough for yah? har!

Yes a UAS button is not the answer.

Basically the only thing I'm not happy about this the fact the older group of PvP people seems to continue to blame newcomers (Such as myself) and PvE for the decline of PvP overall.

It's like their saying... "well it not our fault, it's theirs... so there!"

The faction point system is fine, however as the Opening Poster said, its too overkill at the moment, a reduction in the overall number of points needed in PvP to lock things could be the answer. Since as it stands getting 3000 points for an elite takes ages.

Personally with my PvE ranger I have gained 4145 points, but all have been spent on weapon upgrades so far.

None the less Guild Wars remains ONE of the most popular onlines games at the moment, here is the list of best online games, based on player numbers as stated in the lastest copy of PC Zone magazine:

These figures are correct as of July 2005 - "PC Zone Magazine Semptember Issue"

1. Lineage 2 ( appox 2.2 million players)
2. World of Warcraft (appox 2 million players)
3. Lineage 1 (appox 1.9 million players)
4. Final Fantasy XI Online (appox 500,000 players)
5. Guild Wars (appox 400,000 players)

Guild Wars has more players then, Everquest 2, City of Heros, Planetside (which is last) and Dark Age of Camelot!

So tell me, how is Guild Wars dying?

First off im feeling a thread dejavu.

Anyhow more importantly
Those figures would most likely be accurate by total copies sold, which has no indication for region % of playerbase or current active users. Although, EQ1 before they stopped showing server populations would have ranked higher than the current listing for FFXI. Im a bit hazy on how popular UO became over time, but it pre-dates all of those as well. Longevity speaks volumes for a game, while copies sold are more like box office sales, not tracking multiple copies per user. Also looking at the list bias, it wouldnt include such things as console games or other genre of PC games. Although your numbers remind me of a discussion i had awhile back regarding the state of tribes nearly a year ago.

I just thought of something else.

If these top guilds were around for so long why haven't they unlocked what they needed to at this point? Zeru said they have 'year(s) of experience and information', so why are they the ones who want UAS? They should have unlocked what they needed by this point.

The only thing UAS helps are people who are new to GW or haven't unlocked anything. New as in recruits for a guild. Can get someone up to speed very quickly if they have UAS.

This game was supposed to be close to grindless for PvP players. Continous farming and doing the game 3 times when you don't want is grind.

These figures were provided to the mag by the guy who runs MMOGChart.com

They are based on not sales, but subcribers to the game. And since its one of the most accurate sites on the web (If not the best), I say they are accurate.

He hasn't added Guild Wars to the live charts on site right, but the magazine figures don't lie.

A few things:

Poor unlocking system means a stagnant ladder without much competition. People don't find waiting many minutes for ladder matches fun and it's not hard to figure out that many people don't ladder due to lack of skills. Raising newbie guilds to fame is one of the hardest things possible in this game and a huge reason is because of a bad unlocking system. GvG isn't as luck based as tombs is (blame the bad maps) but the lack of competition makes it just as bad. Lack of competition is never a good thing, and it's impossible to deny that lacking skills is not correlated at all to this.

I doubt every top player wants to grind an insane amount. Some probably simply said forget it and didn't bother putting in hundreds of hours going at it. Many probably didn't put in the tons of needed hours grinding at the arid sea, ettins, giants, zealots, or tengu and they're just as behind as the rest.