Why don't you PvP?

simple solution : stop doing HA :P it's full of "rank nazi's" and while rank displays a certain amount of experience, it says nothing about skill or knowledge.

I started playing pvp after i finished pve, being in a wellknown pvp guild at that time (Dynasty Warriors) it wasn't that hard to get started, first build i played was chain air spike, cause i only had ele skills unlocked . After that it's just a matter of keeping up the pace. The more you play something, the better you'll understand the roll, and the better you'll be at playing it.

Sounds like a lot of people are basing their experience from RA games and pugging in HA.

I can't honestly think of a worse way to experience PvP. Team Arenas with friends, and GvG. The only two kinds worth the time, in my opinion.

Don't even get me started on rank...

i regularly play with people in HA without my guild
i said that at the bottom of my post
and i didn't start at playing in rank 500 plus gvgs when i first got this game.
i started at the very bottom and i mean very bottom, as in was rank 0, and in guild which had a guild rank off about 7000, over the months i worked my way up through guilds and made the guilds that was in play better and win more often around about that time i went into halls Rank 0 like every other nobody and played in halls, got some fame went back to playing gvg again.
i have been there.
just because i play in the rank 500 sort of area of gvg atm, doesn't mean i have always been there, i am now rank 3 thanks to a former guild which taught my basically how to play in halls and pvp in genreal, needless to say once i actually had a clue of what to do i went there with PUGs and won.
its a slow and steady progression.
so in essance i have PUG'd halls many a time and still do.
it helps me ironcailly get away from all the pve that i have been doing since the release of factions.
all in all,
the guilds i have been in taught me what i needed.
i know the frustion of beening turned down by a team beacuse i am not rank 3. i have been there and done it and now (hopefully) past it.
to conclude:
i am not a big fan off halls,
it mainly comes down to 3,2,1 spike and/or space bar
slash slash slash.
but it is posssible,
you can't sit in the dulldroms forever.

Rofl.

NO RANK FOR YOU !

j/k

I find it just stresses me out, and real life is supposed to do that not my video games. Everyone seems to want to win rather than just getting 4 or 8 people together and having fun.

PvP looks very much like some kind of real time MtG. Combining good skills is of the essence, but a fast reaction is most important. I like MtG because you can take your time to create a deck and think over the moves you make in game. In a real time environment there's no time to start considering what your next move will be. As an alternative I could practice some 'standard moves' but for the same reason I like to take my time to think over things, I highly dislike to watch and to interpret all kinds of skill icons coming up and rapidly take action on it.

As for teams: I'm not the person who likes to justify himself and have all kinds of obligations. Its take it or leave it. So I'm always relieved when a vital PvE mission has come to a good end and I can go my own way again...

You play the game like you want.
Guild Wars is a CORPG, designated by its own developpers like this, I don't lie. Check the Guild Wars Official Website Synopsis, and interviews of the devs. It is intentionnally developped and its mechanics tuned toward PvP. That's the truth. Maybe you're playing the wrong game if you didn't know this. Guild Wars was never intended to be PVE-oriented. It has become (to my displeasure) really PVE oriented because the community begged for; this community being, at last for half of it, composed by PVEers.
Seriously, I wonder where you got these numbers. If you were right, then everyone using EW premades would win over other buids.
The build is something. But personnal skill is everything. A party with a monk with a poor build but knowing the importance of positionning and kiting will own a party with a boonprot but completely unaware of its mechanics and the basics of the game (if he does not kite, he will loose quickly).
About your 65% skill team... Sorry, i'm bothered. And tempted to say that you're talking crap. The team skill is simply the addition of the personnal skill of each of its component. You cannot have a team of 2 morons and believe the others will save the team by their own.
GW promotes teamplay and team strategies, true. Was it designed in another way? No. Every update trend go towards the eradication of soloing and teamplay promoting. That's the way the game is intended. Teamplay, communication and friendship over personnal. Play another game if you don't like this.
The team composition is very important, yes, as the build of each character is.
What bothers me is your "i'm a star player at FPS and i'm all solo" attitude.
I'm very sorry. BtB's victory at the World video games Championship (Paris Bercy, ESWC 2006) was not due to "personnal skilll ooooh I solo 4vs1" (BtB is a french girl team who got a gold medal at Counter Strike Women). Sorry. They had a great team play and were not acting solo. Team Play and Communication are central in FPS as well as in GW. At least, if you plan to do "serious" tournaments and to win.
I'm done with this.
You want to increase sportsmanship and PvP level? Work for this.

That is true, which is why if anyone hear would care to read in gladiators arena there are people willing to help which is one reason why i am getting frustrated theres a whole thread dedicated to finding groups... It is just a matter for reading, and in all honesty pvp is not very difficult to learn. Dedicate a week-two reading guides or reading up on other things or simply doing it. hell iway it will teach you something about it if you must.

You know what bothers me the most in discussions like this? People telling other people to go play another game because they don't enjoy PvP. It takes me a bit of effort to stay civil in the face of that.

And please don't tell me what kind of game GW is. Even ANet can't make up their minds. CORPG? 'C' for competitive? Not when I started. It was 'C' for Cooperative back then.

*sigh*

I'm with ya there jack.

I allready have a Job, don't need another one.

Some people don't pvp because I just saw a whammo and a whamme on a Mo/W with SoJ killing themselves. The Mo/w had 2 boon prots and a mesmer.

the thing i hate about PvP the most is that it cannot only rely on your own skills but you also have to rely on other people to make a win.

and they always leave during a damn fight !

guyz this one time i went into ra and i cast mending right? cuz its what i do all the time when entering a game? yeah and this monk on my team called me a n00b and it just pissed me off what an elitest!

I like character development, exploration, co-operative play, friendly players, being able to joke around a little while playing, the sense of accomplishment from building a character, and story if applicable.

PvP has never interested me long enough to get any sense of co-operative play from it (which it obviously has) being so centered fundamentally on winning and defeating the opponent. I find it usually devolves into fairly non-creative insults and the use of win counts to show the sense of accomplishment, which promotes a bit of arrogance on behalf of some. I find that in FPS and most internet gaming based on primarily competitive play and frankly, I play games to avoid that sort of thing. I'm sure PvP can be fun, and I do play competitive gaming (used to play M:tG both casual and tournament), but the internet seems to bring an added wrinkle I dont like. I just dont need that aspect of it. Its probably fun in a really good PvP-based guild where you are working together with a decent team with whom you get along really well, but alas, the RA work it would take to get to that level does not in any way motivate me to try.

Quite obviusly I pulled them out of my butt. That's my estimate.
If there was such a thing as a universally best build, and the EW premades were that, and your entire team ran that best build, yeah. There isn't, due to the rock-scissors-bag effect; the only times there exists a best build is when there are broken builds, like the D/Mo spike build, and ANet fixes those ASAP.

OK, grab yourself a flashbot and I'll grab a touch necro, and let's see if you can beat me. Or you can have the touch necro and I'll take a crippling anguish mesmer.

THIS is truth, however:
Yeah, it's pretty much *everything*. There is no "I" in GW PvP.

But that is exactly my point. Personal skill is (nearly) irrelevant. You can't be a complete moron, but you don't need to be a star in GW.

In fact, you can't have stars in GW, because the scissors-bag-rock effect means you're only as good as your build and your team build. That's why GW doesn't have and will never have "rail-gods" or someone like Thrasher, individual people with near magical skill and the ability to turn matches.

This thread asked the question why I don't PvP. Well, I don't PvP (much) because in GW my personal skill is irrelevant, and I'm not a team player.

Actually it pretty simple.I like pve.I puttered with pvp but it isnt something I enjoy so why do it.In D you use to have those 90 levels that use to jump 30..40 levs so I build a anti pker.In GW you dont have that silliness.
In GW I played with it but it isnt something that it is fun for me. So why should I do it.It isnt about win or losing but I like playing agaist the game.
Oh just a note:I notice in some guilds they try to push you into in it.Wrong answer.Before I join a guild I let them know strictly PVE.Doesnt seem to sink in.So I leave the guild.Why push a person into it.If you like to pvp more power to you but if someone likes pve then that is their right.
Also in pve there are plenty of rage quitters,prima donna's,afkers,people who bail during the game...oh well

I don't PvP in GW cause of the way it plays out. It's rushed and yet boring at the same time. I'll try and make that make since:

I love Rome Total War PvP with teams. Having to keep watch of the flanks and the enemy movement as they march towards your city (for example) and setting your armies for the defence is slow enough to allow some actual thought, yet keeps you busy thinking and trying to out think your foes. Add another person on your team trying to defend or attack and it becomes a great effort of strategy.

PvP was something I did on the side while I completed my missions and quests, but after I finished Prophecies on my second character I took PvP a lot more seriously. I now have rank3 and over 221k balthazar faction on my main account, and am going to start working on my second account now. PvP is a great break from the grind of PvE, until you realize it has a grind of its own, and is much less rewarding.

To all those who think PvP is hard to get into, don't just jump right in and think you're going to have success. It takes months before you pick up and what works and what doesn't.

Normally my Guild is as easy going as they come, but whenever we GvG things get out-of-hand. "GG noob, you overextended", WTF, you're out of energy??" Great Job, because of your #$&@-up we lost"

Just takes the fun out of the whole thing.

For a long time I avoided PVP for the same reason so many others do, the flaming, the elitism, and the losing all the time. I figured I might like it more if I knew what I was doing, so I put together a standard boon prot build and started practicing in RA (with local and team chat off, of course.) I got decent at it, but never really enjoyed it. To me it was somehow boring and stressful at the same time. I hoped it would eventually stop being a job and become fun, but no. So now I avoid it again.

Except for AB's. Those are fun - a totally different low-stress PVP/PVE hybrid experience.

Im sorry, and mean no offence, but thats not true....

Theres no top-team in neither CS nor any other FPS game that has only "team-play". Ive played lots of years to many of them (Lot of time in Day of Defeat and CS) at top competition level and every and each of the top-teams have average or fairly good team-play and superb personal-skill. Ive played in many teams and squad, and the team-play, altough its an important skill its not the top one.

Apart from that, u coud have chosen any other FPS.. theres plenty more team-play based than CS. But not CS, CS is, was, and will forever be AIM. Its true u must have nice team play and work well with ur team mates but there are LOTS of teams with that. The players who breaks a match and set the difference between good teams and top teams are the genius who can make a brilliant decision or a brilliant move at the right instant.

That its precisely what i like from GW PvP. The build (Both personal and team) its more than a half of the work. (Altough the personal skill its important too, in some classes more, in some classes less..).

I dont Play pvp much because there are no drops. There are no monsters, and most importantly, I am not very good at it.

where is bloodspike/rangerspike trash build in your list?

"GG Noobs, get a real build"

Thats why. Theres something about competition + internet + anonyminity (sp) = total asshole with 0 sportsmanship.

I really only RA or AB for fun. You still get GG noob etc there. Especially in AB "omg pwned noob!" yeah like me a lone ranger is supposed to be able to solo 6 people and 8 minions...if I could solo that I wouldnt be in AB would I?

i don't pvp now because i can't put in enough time to play competitively.

and casual pvp (pug HA, AB, RA) / pve just sucks, so i don't know what i'm gonna do...

First I disagree about the jerk level. There are loads of idiots in pve ( not including the monsters...)

In terms of practise you're wrong and simply don't seem to know much about PvP if you think its a matter of slamming buttons. (btw, touch rangers are not very good). Have you ever tried to build a GvG team? Have you ever tried to coordinate a match? Builds get popular because they are good, not because they're easy. Look, if your really want to have a fair assesment of PvP join a guild with people you like and play GvG, some TA, some HA. As I said, Pugging and RA are the worst way to go about PvPing. And If you're in a guild with the kind of people who will starting insulting you the moment things go sour, then get a new one. Those people are jerks.

I'd play PvP a Lot more if they had 6v6.

TA gets old after a while, and 8v8 takes too long to organize. 12v12 can be fun but is too random to feel like real balls-to-the-wall GW PvP.

I play mainly PvE becuase they don't have 6v6. That's my answer.

I'd kick you too, it sounds like you can barely speak English. "no im experincing a new build!" What the heck does that even mean? I'd be afraid that I'd try to ask you basic questions about your build that you wouldn't even be able to answer. Either becuase you'd answer me in random internet hack-grammar or would just ignore me completely becuase you didn't understand the question.

this sort of proves that pvp needs to be reworked.



its only like 20% of the entire gw population who just cares about pvp a little.

probably only 5% who play it regularly.


if the fighting was more action based like dark messiah it would be more popular.

the underlying issue is not how hard pvp is but rather that most people don't get to play with other people who are experienced in it.

PvP is just one of those things that is easier to learn if someone is teaching you combined with experience in matches. There is just far too much to learn on your own and the competitive enviroment makes it that much more distracting and difficult.

If the learning curve is your reason for not pvp'ing seek out a guild that does pvp that takes in people who want to learn but get turned off by having to learn as you go. It could take time but it will be worth it.

Or not. Just throwing that out there.

Yes, because 1v1 means so much in the GW metagame.

No matter what build you play, you still need practice to be good at playing it.

To continue with the M:tG comparison, what you're implying is that any random new Magic player can grab a netdeck and place 1st at PT qualifiers. Obviously, barring extremely broken decks, this isn't the case.

As an avid PvPer I have similar interests when it comes to PvE. Unfortunately GW and other MMORPGs (haven't found one yet) don't have any of those things.

Character development from what I've seen in MMOs is leveling and gaining stat points, and if you consider that to be character development, well you've been playing MMOs for far too long.

Exploration usually consists of travelling from room_1a with mobs_2g to room_1b with mobs_2h. With some nice eye candy along the way, and thats really about it. In other words, extremely linear and/or limited. Interestingly enough, I found the MMO that really encouraged exploration was old UO.

Cooperative play in PvE, is often extremely shallow, pull, tank, heal, nuke with some mezzing (enchanter, shaman, mesmer, debuff_class01 take your pick) thrown in. And in GW in particular, its C + Spacebar.

I often find the largest population of friendly players in PvE to be among the lowest levels, which ironically enough, often has the largest population of less-than friendly people. The higher you go, the larger the egos. Until you reach the frontier with the raiding guilds where the ego is so thick you can stab your swordofuber_01 with it. GW ameliorates this a great deal by not having any form of raid dynamics whatsoever, which I am somewhat great for. But I still see people lambasting others for not having 15k or FoW armor or some zodiac whatnot. Not to say that PvP doesn't have its fair share of folks with large egos (and the oh so wonderful edrama that comes with it) but really its everywhere.

Sense of accomplishment... meh. This is where I start to disagree, I get a sense of accomplshment from, well accomplishing something. Rather than C + Spacebar for several hundred hours on end.

And "story if applicable", well thats where I really disagree, story, lore and the environment, is what is most important to me. Lest you have a shallow world that is more akin to a glorified chatroom with a really dull minigame attached to it. Oh wait thats what most MMOs are.

I'd just say other people turn pvp off for me...

I did get back into it kind of with FA, but every now and then you run into people who just ruin it for you by barking orders, complaining, and calling everyone n00bs.

In most cases people on the team I'm on just annoy me when they get all upset. I enjoy playful banter with the other team. But spoiled sports just ruin it for everyone.

But I'm always happy that after everymatch, wether win or lose, I see a bunch of GG's appear on my chat screen soon after all the complainers mapped out.

Still, it proves three things:
1) Skill isn't "everything".
2) Individual skill is insignificant in importance compared to build.
3) GW is not at all about individual skill. It's about builds and teamwork, not at all individual skill.

M:tG has an additional factor GW does not: luck. Luck is HUGELY important in M:tG, more so even than games like Poker; luck out and you've won, be unlucky and it doesn't matter what deck you have.

We don't have such an enormous element of luck in GW, as we chose our skills before the battle, we don't draw them in random order from a deck.

Unfortunately that makes GW matches even more susceptible to the FOTM disease, where an optimal build is found and dominates until rules change, because unlike in M:tG and Counterstrike, respectively, luck and personal skill can not compensate for a poorer build.

i disagree. individual skill is the basis of a good team/teamwork.

good reflexes, thorough knowledge of the skills and superb performance of his assigned role, realtime reliable decision making, ability to change tactics on the fly. these things are a part of individual skill and and are highlighted in builds that have classes that arent too much dependent on each other. (most gvg builds, iway).

yes, any spikes not included coz they all depend on a caller. once the caller(s) errored the spike team is trash whilst a balanced team can still function if a monk or a warder is out of the game. spikes don't develop individual skill.

This is probably one of the better topics of discussion I've seen here in awhile.

Anyway, it's interesting to see how many people pretty much give up on PvP after a bad first experience.

When I first played PvP, I had only played PvE up until post-toast Ascalon. I had seen a few games on observer mode, which naturally meant next to nothing to me as they were so confusing at the time. But, I had Gale, those Warriors had Gale... So I chose the Abominable Snowman pre-made, took out the water-skills and threw in gale (with only 4 Air Magic, hah) and went at it in RA. I was kind of nervous and I get chatty when I'm nervous... So, my team knew it was my first ever game and luckily for me they were all decent people. We won 7 in a row. I even got special mention as "that crazy hammer lady" by an opposing team. So, a little buzzed but too afraid to ruin the good streak of luck, I headed off back to PvE to unlock some more skills to play with.

One month later, after finally completing GW:Prophecies...
Now, as you can imagine, after all that PvE my ego was rather disproportionate to my skill. I was used to beating the snot out of anything in my way. I was the chosen! I was like he-man only cooler and with bewbs and longer ha--... wait, nevermind.

Anyway... When I went back to PvP and got slapped around it was the most fun I'd had in ages. For the first time in a looong time, I was having to actually think. It was a challenge, it was fun. It didn't matter if I lost, because I expected to lose.

The weird part is, I was never a PvP-lover in other games I've played. I came from Warcraft III and didn't like playing melee (fog of war doesn't mix very well with paranoia). I didn't like losing, basically. For some reason, this fear of losing never developed in Guildwars.

@Reza: The whole 'skill' thing is definately there. When I started playing again after I got back from vacation, the knowledge was still there... but my battlefield awareness had all but vanished. Perhaps 'battlefield awareness' wouldn't be considered 'skill' by many, but to me it's 'skill'. Processing a lot of information at once and acting appropriately definately takes practice and how accomplished players are at this REALLY shows when they play.

@Numa Pompilius: Although team-based, there is a lot of personal skill in the way players read their allies/enemies and naturally apply themselves to the battle outside of broad tactical calls. If you take out the rest of the teams, of course you'll have a very 'skill-less' game of rock-paper-scissors.

@Seissor: I'm sorry you keep running into those kinds of people. Try not to let it bother you. They usually stand out because all the sane people keep to themselves. Perhaps you should try to be more extroverted with your team, you'd be surprised how many good people play this game, both PvE and PvP.

As far as 1v1 goes.

You guys should really try playing a Mesmer. Mesmer duels are some of the coolest PvP I've ever seen in a game. As in there is a mesmer on each team and you have to figure out how to shut him down before he shuts you down. And skill plays a huge factor in those encounters, it isn't just "run skills 1,2,3,4 in order".

The fact that luck has less of a role to play in GW is actually an improvement imo over the unfortunate need for things like mulligans and such in MTG. The fact that you are always going to have access to the skills on you bar rather than having to depend on top-decking adds to the skill factor of GW pvp rather than detracting from it. Luck ideally shouldn't ever be a factor in winning and the fact that a poorer build can win via luck is a drawback. The best decks in magic are built to try and overcome the luck factor by either using library manipulation (tutors, draw engines etc) and search or increased redundacny to insure that you are drawing useful cards (beatdown carrying 4 of x 4 of y 4 of z).

In regards to dominating GW builds the situation is basically the same in competative magic and has in my experience been worse there than anything I've seen in GW. The metagame of magic has always been about 1 or 2 tier 1 decks and a slew of tier 2 and 3 ones.

Skill is essential to success. 1 v 1 situations don't shed any light on balance since the PvP aspect of the game is not intended in its current incarnation to support 1v1. A good build in GvG isn't about 1 individuals skill bar but rather the skill bars of the team working in coordination in a strategy. The success of that strategy depends on every member skillfully executing their role in the build. For example, the other night my team was running a fairly balanced build with 3 melee up front while the other team was running a spike which they were quite good at executing. We were also playing on a map that prohibited a reasonable spilt. The problem for them was that their monks weren't very good. We managed to DP them out, and then the rest of the team of spikers were easy pickings. There are lots of similar situations that occur. If your mesmers are intended to shut down monks in order to facilitate a more effective adren spike and they can't do their job then the adren spike suffers and so on and so on. Like others have said, its ones ability to skillfully play their role as part of a whole that matters.

1) My wife likes RPG's and various non-combat types of games. I like RPG's, shooters, and simulations. We got GW as a game we could play together. She doesn't like PvP, so we rarely play it.

2) GvG - Is fun, I played it a number of times in previous guilds, won some, lost some, had a decent time.

3) HoH - Spent a couple hours with some more experienced guildies and random pick-ups to fill out the group doing HoH. IIRC I have 3 fame (lol). Other than getting the /rank emotes, HoH never really interested me. And since I primarily PvE (see #1), the /rank emote is pretty irrelevant.

4) RA - Tried it once or twice, it's OK I guess, but nothing all that exciting.

5) AB's - My last guild did a lot of AB's (minimum-per-day faction requirements). I did several, won some, lost some, but they got pretty boring pretty quickly for me, and my wife didn't like them - we ended up leaving the guild since their primary focus was PvP and ours was PvE.

6) Mechwarrior4 - Probably my all-time favorite vid game, I've been playing in competitive leagues online for years. I still greatly prefer MW4 over GW for PvP for various reasons that boil down to a personal preference, not an objective judgment of which game is "better."

Conclusion: Under different circumstances I'd probably be much more into GW for PvP, but as it is, I play MW4 for PvP and GW for PvE.