Why don't you PvP?

No we can't agree that everything about pvp is about elitisism

Why i do pvp

1) I don't do it because I want to show off rank or insult new players. I'd rather help guildmates and friends get into PvP (GvG in particular) as its a whole added dimension to the game that can be a lot of fun. When we play a guild that is obviously new and just giving it a whirl our guild tries to be friendly. I don't want to make someones first experience a bad one.

2) After playing Pve to death there weren't many challenges left. PvP offered new challenges that exceeded anything in the pve realm. This is not to say its better as some people just might prefer something more relaxed, but I don't think there is a reasonable measure on which anything in PvE can even remotely compare to the strategy and skill that goes into competative GvG building and playing. I have a tonne of fun working on builds with my guild, practicing, and seeing them put into practice. There is a definite rush and thrill when playing a tense match against a good team, pulling out a close win, losing a thirller.

3) I've always loved competition. Sports, ccg's, and so on. GW is another avenue for this. But enjoying competition doesn't mean being a jerk about it. I've met some jerks, I've also met some other guilds who were a lot of fun to play with. I still think that in the end, I've had as many bad pve experiences as pvp ones. Some of the worst have been in pve. People fighting and complaining and then intentionally screwing everyone over by running and aggroing everything on the map. I've heard as many people call others noobs.

Its been said before, but I have to repeat it. If you want to give PvP a fair shake try out a guild that does pvp or if you are interested try and get people in your guild to give it a try. It makes the transition worlds easier. Do some reading up on it and so on. You may not want to invest the time to get into it and thats fine, but you should know that the it can be very rewarding if you ever decide to give it a shot.

Last, about restrictions on joining groups because of skills and roles- I'm completely fine with not getting on a pvp team because I lack an important skill or am not familiar with the role they need. Its a good reason that will effect gameplay. What I can't stand is the pointless filters in most of Pve PUG group fromation. Not letting someone in because they are a mesmer, or the group has 2 wars already or, "needs" an mm and other random stuff that people seem to think matters is just silly. Give me a good reason for the restrictions and I'll be happy. Most of the time it doesn't matter.

Yea the battle isles get very boring after a wile but AB is the most fun I have had on this game.

Also about the not knowing the builds and the steep learning curve i think thats stupid. all the builds that were out there had to be made by someone, make one yourself. Find an already made build and tweak it. You werent born knowing how to PvE you had to learn. Spend the (little time I think) to learn how to effectivly PvP and have fun.

1. PvPers is what caused all my unique PvE items to be nerfed and my skills to be nerfed non-stop. PvP has really hurt PvE, no unique items besides skin pretty much makes the game suck. Used to be nice to have a rare hod sword, old rock molder, which provided a very small advantage but was still fun to get those rare items.

2. If u run on a IWAY or FoTM build to try and learn how to PvP you are called noobs, yet you have to be r6-9+ to get a group other than the FoTM. Where's the logic?

3. The attitude of people in PvP. I can only go from my experience but after a year of playing I have found the rudest people to be in PvP by FAR. I hope it makes the 12yr old feel better irl when "omg wtf n00bs owned *******, go get some ****** skill". I have heard things similar to that so many times after a match, I don't get it.... Does pressing 5437732416 make u feel superior to the world?

4. I have fps which i prefer for pvp. Also have a couple other games that I prefer the pvp system of, I like aiming not auto lock on player

5. The people in PvE areas using their PvP emote towards me. Like anyone lfg at THK thinks OMG rank 9 grab him he is pro.... I wish you could only emote in PvP areas or give PvE emotes, that would show your experienced in PvE and would be relivant in towns..

6. Most of my friends play PvE only so I would rather play with them rather than random ppl.

7. Runners. I know you can bring a speed buff/snare etc, its just annoying and ruins alot of ppls fun.

8. I log on to play not sit in a town lfg, then get in a group and be told exactly what skills to use, spend 15 min talking about exactly every move you should take when you enter. Go in map and lose in just a couple minutes and get spammed with noob comments and team breaks up. Great there was a waste of 1hour or more.

I really just wish they would make PvE and PvP seperate. If they want make weapon/items have no advantage fine, just make ppl create a PvP toon when they wana PvP and let PvE toons only be for PvE. That way we could have unique/rare weapon stats and PvP could have their perfectly balanced equipment matches.

The big difference is, if you play PvE with a happy-go-lucky group, you can still win. You will still win, if the players are skilled. In fact, playing PvE with less obvious team- and individual builds is what makes it fun. Sure, some missions will take you literally ten times as long to complete, but to me, GW isn't a game about the prize, but how you get there.

And then there's PvP, where this approach can never work at all.

I have to say that in my experience I have had a direct opposite of what many people are complaining about.

PvP holds lots of shorter faster paced games. If you can only be on for half and hour, that is enough for a couple of runs or maybe a GvG. Whereas most high end PvE places actually takes hours to do properly, not just farming oro and stuff.

There is so very little variation in PvE, same stuff different day syndrome. Agro > Echo+SS > Well > Recharge > Agro > .... or QZ > EW > Trap > ... > Trap > Gather > repeat.
PvP is ever evolving. Sure you do get the FotM builds, but you don't have to use them. Half the fun is devising a build to kick their sorry behinds for not knowing how to properly use the builds they lifted off the internet. Having said that, I see a lot of people worrying about not being able to get into groups and whatnot. If every person that replied with that just went into HA once a week, the place will be swarming with rankless people pugging a few games through. Sure you might get your ass handed to you a couple of times, but thats to be expected. You gain more experience and boom you get better.

I beat Urgoz last night... it took 3+ hours. It mostly involved me spamming heal party and the trappers trapping and the eles launching AoE attacks. That was pretty much it. It was neither interesting nor difficult.


I think the main problem is that people who come to pvp will lose. But if somebody wins, others have to lose. I think the appeal about PvE is that in general, everybody wins, its the NPCs that lose so you can win. If you guys can just accept that sometimes you will lose, and not get caught up about it, you'll find PvP to be much more rewarding.

This gets me too. Most groups are wanting 6-9 ranked players. Meanwhile, an IWAY group takes the time to tell you about the build and help you get set up. I'd say 40 of my meager 55 fame came from IWAY. The rest came with a mesmer.

Either way, RA and AB are more fun to me... sort of PvP, minus the egos.

The fact that rank hardly doesn't mean anything anymore, but that it is 'required' to get in a decent group.... is reason enough to not go as much anymore as i used to.
I've taken a break from HA for 3 months (focussing on Canthan PvE), so when i started playing again (last week), i had absolutely no idea what people were talking about with their dual smite, triple smite, opp gaze, etc.

Yet somehow, i managed to hit HoH twice in less than one hour, with an unranked pug, with ViM! (The second time was after having beaten 2 guild teams (1 balanced build, 1 bspike), 1 iway pug and then we flawlessed Scarred Earth (the map with 4 teams.).
And we did that run with the healer hench and the Ele hench (first someone timed out at the zaishen, then we had a ragequitter in the Underworld round).
I don't call that luck. I knew what our team was capable of, and adapted it to our opponents. Apparantly the mentality hasn't changed THAT much in there.

I'm just playing both PvE and PvP nowadays, sometimes concentrating on my title track, sometimes pvp'ing (i don't do HA for rank or a feeling of elitism, i just want a cute tiger), sometimes just helping old friends.


I DO like pvp... but the people doing it annoy me at times. (Not that PvE has less nooblets... but you get the point... i hope.)

I'm gonna quote this because everything I am reading is about AB and puging in HA.

That is strictly RA.

The rank system was screwed up a very long time ago by spirit spamming but is a nessicary evil because it shows you have been to HA to a certain amount. And you could always start a group. It isn't hard to hit N and pick up a few friends who might want to PvP. PUGing recommended in HA though at low ranks. And so what if people call you noobs? Does it really affect you? IWAY is a build I will not play, but if you want to get rank 5/6 quickly so you can PUG succesfully then go ahead and do it.

You have many PvE titles, use them. Proctor of whatever comes to mind.

I understand this. I hate puging anywhere. When I PvE I usually will hench anything. But you do have a friends list and a list of Guildies that are online. You can find those of your friends who are open to PvP and get together with them.

You can always start a group and state the roles you need filled. Maybe this would be a good example:

Player 1: We need two healer characters, two more who can apply sustained pressure (basicly warriors), 1 character to shut down a monk and some utility, 1 flag running character with more utility, and two more characters who can function on thier own and at the flagstand.

Player 1: I'll take a monk and I really want to try out this new Mo/A BL monk.

Player 2: Cool, theres this new shutdown mesmer with arcane langour. You know I'll go Mes/Mo and bring a hard rez and a remove Hex to help our monks.

Player 3: Warrior is always cool for me, I want to go W/E with a sword and shock.

Player 1: Ok cool we still need more though.

Player 4: I can monk, I am getting good with this Boon Prot thing!

Player 5: I always like being a warrior too. I'll go with that Shock Axe build, would you mind if I call targets and spikes?

Player 3: Oh most certainly not.

Player 6: I think I can flag run. I keep seeing these Ele/mo's running flags in obsever mode. I think I'll try that.

Player 7: Well that just leaves us too. I guess I'll play cripshot ranger so we can have some independent characters who can split.

Player 8: And I'll go with a cool A/E with shock!
_________________________________________

That would be how it would idealy work. But it might be something like player 8 saying:

"I want to try that As/Mes with shadow form."

And someone responding:

"That won't work in this build because you need two A/Mes for that to work.

"Oh well, I'll just try A/E so the cripshot can stay the way he is.



I really like this thread despite all its bashing and name calling. It makes me want to help others get into PvP.


Edit:

This is true but it must be said that this approach will never work in any organized team game. You cannot go out to a basketball match and just say:

"Well just go do whatever you want. I, as the coach, don't care about winning I only want you to have a good time. That attitude does not work and will never work. Honestly I don't know how little league baseball coaches do it. I would feel bad from all the lying.

Titles don't mean squat if you've been run through missions, areas, etc. They are there to give a sense of accomplishment if you got them the hard way, but are in no way a sign of expertise.

Somebody likened this to M:tG earlier, but I like this better, because basketball is obviously dependent on skill. A lot of people don't want to play in a tournament though, they'd rather be down the street from that basketball match playing a little streetball. And have you ever heard of the original Harlem Globetrotters? They did a lot of unorthodox stuff to win their games, not just doing what everybody else was doing(ya know cookie cutter versus original build). Try getting into a group with an unorthodox build(even if you've tested and proven it in the random arenas). They won, they still got that nice orange ball in that nice round hoop; the main thing is that they had fun doing it.
If you make PvP too serious, it takes the fun out of it for a lot of people. Instead of being on a formal team where everybody has a specific job to do, they'd rather walk down the street and do meet some random joes playing basketball. And you'd be surprised how many of those uncoached, random teams could kick the tar out of an "official" basketball team.
Everybody just needs to remember its a game. If someone doesn't want to be uber-competitive, don't mock them for it.(And the same goes for pve'rs who've developed a superiority complex toward pvp'ers) If those highly competitive pvp matches are your cup of tea, then go right ahead. I'll be off somewhere having fun my own way.

/edit Can we please stop harping at each other and simply get back on topic(The part where you state why you don't pvp)?

Cookie-cutter and FotM builds... and I also hate Competetive gaming in most of it's forms.

i have say rent,

mending sucks

i would have left to,
but maybe were all just eliteist scumbags
i don't know.

Totaly QFT there. If you take everything so seriously it does take the fun out of it. I find that running something like wammoway or the build the Zashien use just rejuvinates you a little. Can I say though that Skull Crack is ftw.


Also I why do people complain about Fotm builds so much? They work and thats why they are used. Would a boon prot be consider Fotm because everyone uses it? What about a Shock Axe? These things work so why critsize them?

Heh, I have absolutly no idea. So many PvErs seem to complain about how everyone uses the same builds in PvP, and so on, and how PvE you can use whatever build you want... Of course, if you actualy look at PvE builds, you essentialy see Fire Nukers, Minion Masters, SS Necros, Stance Tanks, Healing-Based Monks... Just about everyone uses the same general build in PvE too, because no one is arguing that stacking Spiteful Spirit on masses of stupid balled up mobs is a very effective way to kill them.

I think you'll find that the people who complain about PvP cookie-cutters are pretty much the same people who complain about the same thing in PvE.

As I posted before, you can play PvE without using the popular builds. You can play pretty much every build you like. PvP is much less forgiving.

From what I've seen in this thread, they aren't. They present the 'cookie-cutter' mentality as a flaw in PvP, as though it doesn't effect PvE, too. The difference is that PvE cookie-cutters never change. The PvP cookie-cutters evolve as people begin to run counters to the present FotM. Case in point, Boon-prots. They're slowly being replaced by Blessed Light monks, as they're not as vulnerable to a lot of the anti-enchantment abilities people are bringing to combat boon-prots.

Gli, I don't suppose you've ever considered playing scrimmages, have you?

Just for fun, try silly little scrimmages in your Guild Hall. Make your own victory conditions such as 'first morale boost wins' and such. You can even try Dodgeball*. PvP doesn't have to be against complete strangers or serious business. Get your feet wet, have fun.

*Fast-cast Mesmers with Lightning Orb, Shock, Windborne Speed and 105hp.

lol?

Because being prepared to play the game/watch observer mode 24/7 gives you a massive advantage over someone who has a job/social life.
Because they are patient enough and are prepared/able to commit the time to play with each other enough for a sustained long amount of time.

A lot of the time your team's coordination and experience playing with each other is far more important than any player skill. The fact that Guild Wars' unlocking system basically means that new players haven't a chance in hell of being competitive goes against the 'skill against time spent' ethos of the game packaging.

If you honestly tell me that everyone in a top guild is an awesome gamer and all pve-ers are scrubs who don't understand pvp at all I would just laugh at you. I have a few friends who are extremely good at other person vs person games but just aren't motivated to get into GW because it requires such a huge time commitment. The top of this game is filled with scrubs who aren't particularly talented gamers, they've just spent a lot of time playing.

EDIT: Oh and for the people saying you can pvp casually and be competitive.... erm, you're wrong

You can hold a spot in the top 50 without much trouble by playing 3-4 nights a week. You can hold a spot in the top 100 playing 2-3 times a week. I think that sounds pretty casual to me, and I think most everyone would agree that top 100 is fairly competitive, and no one can argue that top 50 certainly is competitive.

How is this wrong?

Many who are in the top 100 - 20, came there with thumpers, touchers, blood spike or an other overpowered build. That is not competetive PvP, just faction farming. When they reach top 20, they'll drop fast back to where they belong (Top 500ish). If you call these build casual, I'd rather not play casual.
Balanced players have a very hard time getting that high, and the ones who manage it, are definitely not casual.
I watch GvG every day, and casual players are not higher than top 200ish.

1) I've actually read nearly all posts, believe it or not, and I think I've found one pretty good reason why PvE'ers avoid PvP: Random Arena.
Most PvE'ers, myself included, who want to try out PvP will do so in RA. Most of those PvE'ers will be running their PvE builds, or design self-reliant builds (e.g. with mending). And will frequently forget rez.

Now, every real PvP'er knows that PvP in guild wars isn't about personal skill, and only to a pretty small part about personal skills, it's about teamwork and teambuild, and that, in turn, means that RA is so rubbish it's hardly PvP at all. There can not be disciplined teamwork in RA, and the teambuild is a random disaster.
Hence real PvP'ers treat RA like the joke it is: they drop out if someone uses mending, or if the random teambuild isn't similar to a real organized teambuild, they lambaste PvE'ers/newbies for bringing the wrong skills.

Basically you get an RA where many PvE'ers perform poorly because they're inexperienced, and many PvP'ers behave badly because they view the whole venue as a joke.

I think maybe PvP'ers should realize that RA (and the low-level arenas) are neither jokes nor free-faction-gank-city, but training-wheel areas for newbies. And that newbies will fark up a lot.


2) Zui: A guild which plays only 2-3 times a week and doesn't train can hold a spot in the top 100? If that is really true, I'd say that the level of competition in GW is much lower than I thought.

Ok, a couple of things to start of my pvp opinion...

1.It's the only thing thats keeping me playing this game..ive gotten my fow armor..beat the missions..pve=massave waste of space and underdevelopement.

2.Whoever says that there is no reward from pvp should really get slapped
.If those crystallines and dwarvens dont count as rewards...well dam it, i dont know what does lol.

I play PvP sometimes, but I'm not what you would call a serious PvP player. I spend most of my time in PvE. I do PvP when I'm bored with PvE.

You aren't competitive just by picking up the game and grabbing 8 randoms to gvg 4 nights a week with, which for me is still a fairly large time commitment. There is so much more to pvp then just doing a gvg, you have to discuss builds, tactics, etc and watch observer mode to be in touch with what other guilds are running. I said that you can't be competitive without sacrificing your rl, which is a point that stands.

amen to that

I play gw pvp too tho, I think you should give it a shot, its far from the experience quake or ut offers u (i'm/was a ut player), but its still good and can be nice for killing time/having fun with friends. it certainly requires less things to keep in check anyway

Its a lot better if you play/start playing pvp with friends, it makes it about 100 times more fun

Yea, I miss goold old CounterStrike, used to play that sooooo much. I wish GW had something like a "headshot" or something. I know it's probably taken into consideration when calculating damage, but it would just be soooo cool if you can hear a voice saying "Headshot!"

I just can't get in to it. Sometimes it can be fun, but for most of the time it's just the same thing, over and over. I do it occasionally but I prefer PvE much more.

I think what type of PvP you are referring to needs to be specified. RA is getting mixed up with tombs here!

Because I'm a materialist and get much more satisfaction in finding something shiny.

I don't pvp casue it just so BORING. That and all the morons who will insult you if you beat then or get beaten by them.

No one presents it as if it doesn't happen in PvE as well. No one at all.

As I've mentioned in my first post in this thread, I've played every kind of PvP this game offers. I don't need to get my feet wet, I'm perfectly happy having dried them off. I don't mind the complete strangers or the serious business. It's just that I have zero interest in it. I consider it at best a huge waste of time and at worst boring, repetitive and annoying. Certainly not fun.

We've tried scrimmages. File under waste of time. I might be interested if it didn't take up to a full minute before there's even any kind of contact between the opposing parties. Scrimmages shouldn't take place on a GvG map if you ask me.

quoted for the truth...this is the basic reason why PvE is more attractive to some ppl including me...money makes the world turn

Consider me another person who is big in both PvE and PvP.

I can understand where alot of the PvP haters are coming from since the reason they don't PvP is the reason why I don't do HA. I find people in there to be rude and pretty elitist sounding, and it makes me have to go out of my way to contact them, so they can have all the social high ground to smash my ego with.

But i'm lucky that pretty much 90% of my real life friends play GW with me, so I always have a guilds worth of people to play with in any mode of PvE or PvP. We may get angry at each other,but we are still goofing off. I can tell my friend that he sucks at warding, and instead of getting butthurt, he'll just tell me I suck at E-drain or warrior or whatever.

I think alot of things in here are alittle mixed up though. PvE has the biggest cookie cutter problem. The biggest positive of PvP is that you can try to think up new and attractive builds to try out with your guild in GvG. You'd be suprised how much room for innovation some proffessions have, I enjoy Mesmer especially because regardless of the build I am running, I will usually have 2-3 spaces on my bar that I can choose for the occasion. Maybe today I wanna Death's Charge + Blackout, or Maybe i'll bring a few interupts and some Extra enchant hate.

To me, PvP is not about the personal kill, this is a misconception garnered from RA and TA where there are few people, and maybe you did get a 1v1 or 1v2 fight with someone.

but in GvG, it is a team effort. Each of you have banded together to make your skills work, and together you might, just might, overcome your opponents tactics and skill to defeat them. The difference between you and your opponent comes not only in your overall builds, but in your preparedness and your ability to overcome adversity.

I'll admit that it is hard to understand some of the words thrown around by PvPers, which gives the illusion of elitism (I personally hate all forms of acronyms for this reason, in all aspects of life) But like many PvE players, PvPers are just looking for that next cool rush. You find a cool little mountainside hidden away, and we find the next cool combo of skills that helps us beat a strong guild.

In summary. PvPers are anything but cookie cutting elitist that lord over you because you could not defeat them. Everyone has to change their build with time, and new people come and go. And Every person in PvP dies... alot.

I like the thrill of finding and acquiring cool weapons and such. PvE has tangible benefits while PvP rewards are basically bragging rights (Rank, Fame, Emote). I have no problem with people who PvP, it is just a different type of reward.

Another thing is the initial grinding you have to do to get Rank 3.... and the hours upon hours spent trying to find a group because you are inexperienced. Newbies spend much more time finding a group than actually playing, unless you do IWAY.

What used to stop me was not having a pvp slot (I just didn't and still don't fell like my pve chars should be doing pvp ). Now that I finally have one (yay character slots! ) I pvp regularly.

You can. There is a program called... I forgot, but some Te guy made it. You can hear Unreal Tournament announcer voices while you play PvP. Very amusing.

PvE chars are good for PvP because of the multipule weapon slots, armor, and rune combos. I wish I had the money to deck out my warrior with PvP equipment. Also items like the nolami wand provide minor benifits, and I do mean minor.

GW stats by Te Kuntz I believe. It pings when something dies so if you modify the file it could verywell say Headshot!

You couldn't be more wrong. PvE doesn't have a cookie-cutter problem AT ALL, because you are 100% in control of the people who share your game instances with you. There's only as much 'cookie-cutterism' in PvE as you allow there to be. That means there's no problem whatsoever. There's the option to use cookie-cutter (team)builds, and there's the option not to. No problem there at all. Not even a hint of a problem. (Except for a couple of missions in Cantha.)

In PvP, you are at best able to chose 50% of your fellow players, and at worst only 12.5%. That leaves a lot of room for cookie-cutters.

Yes, I was wrong. I was obviously hallucinating when I read people mention FotMs as a problem for PvP without acknowledging that PvE has it's own, too.

Anyway... Your favourite point about PvE, it seems, is that you can use practically anything and it can work. The reason I mentioned scrimmages in response to that is that you can play with two full teams of people using whatever rules you like, such as using SoFs 'sealed deck' system. Yet, you write that off because the trip to the flag stand is too long...

Why I don't pvp (anymore)?

Well, the reasons are:
RA: I dislike it, too much luck involved, not my playingstyle
TA: played it with guildies quite some time, as we were lacking anough members for 8vs8. But TA got extremely boring and repetetive after a while.

HA: Should be the next step after the TA, but it isn't, at least not if your guild lacks enough pvp-players. In fact it's the most idiotic designed pvp-part of guildwars. You either grind and farm fame (it's the ugliest and most boring grind there is in guildwars) to play with rank 6+ etc. iwaymorons playing their first mesmer or you keep standing there, taking hours to form a group that disbands after the first lost match (regularly the first map).

GvG: never had enough people in my guild willing to pvp, but from observermode and the talks in forums I can pretty sure assume, that I won't like it. It seems to be far too slow and stale to be my style of PvP.

Hmmm, there still was something....Alliance battles? Competitive missions?
Duh, Factions drove me off guild wars, currently I'm not playing, just waiting for the next chapter to buy if it turns out to be worth the bucks. Can't say something about those playmodes. Just that it's a pity they introduced 12vs12 but no form of 6vs6.

All in all its always the same, pvp gets boring and repetitive as fast as pve, but pve has more maps. The tactical component of guildwars' pvp is pretty much limitted to designing the right teambuild and forming tactics. During a match it's just the right execution that matters. That's it. If at least ANet would remove fame from the game and would live up to their promise to shake up skillbalance every time the buildcreativity and diversity gets stale.

Indeed, you were wrong. Firstly, pointing out something one sees as a problem doesn't require one to point out every single problem in the game in the same post. And as I posted before, PvE has no cookie-cutter problem so it bears no acknowledging to begin with. PvE has a cookie-cutter option, not a problem. The cookie-cutter problem lies solely with PvP.

Well, it is too long.

My other beef with PvP is that you can't play it without immersing yourself in the metagame and doing a lot of standing around not playing, organizing, coordinating and whatnot. If this 'sealed deck' stuff were a part of the game and it took only a press of a button to enter a GUI with randomized pre-set skill collections, I might try it, once. Then I would complain that it takes far too long for 2 teams to pass the skills around and I would never play it again. I don't have a lot of hours to spend on gaming, I want to spend them playing the game, not socializing and playing a boring metagame.

I'm the guy whose main reason for not playing Random Arenas are the boring countdown timers. All the other crap I can live with, as long as I'm doing something other than standing around doing nothing.