News for PvP Players

Because PvP is competitve, everyone should be on a level playing field when creating their builds. PvE is not, a level playing field is not needed at all.

It's been said before...Anet never forces you to buy your skills. It's the player's wish (and IMO, their loss) if they wish to buy their unlocks.

And I highly doubt Anet is relying on these skill packs...they're just widening their customer base by catering to lazy players. But for me, I'll continue doing things the old-fashioned, money-free way . I have time after all.

i now understand

you were not playing pvp for the fun of enjoying a game

you were working hard just to unlock skills instead of playing a game

now somebody can duplicate your work by purchasing the same skills you had to work so hard for and your accomplishment is turned to virtual pixilated dust

very sad indeed

This is by far the best argument yet, and I feel I should therefore state it once more.

Anet, GREAT job on the unlock packs. It's the best update so far but I'm not sure if I'll use it because I've unlocked quite a pack of skills already in the past 15 months. I would consider buying it for nightfall if it's released right after the 'normal' version of nightfall. If not, I'll just buy Nightfall and cap/buy the skills.
I would like to say it one more time:
ARENANET, GREAT IDEA, GREAT JOB, I APPLAUDE YOU

Remember this is the same people who subscribe to the 4+4=6 theory

Gaile, where does Anet stand in terms of releasing "PVP editions" of new chapters in line, or soon after a new chapter is released?

The problem for competative players here, is that a competative player needs to keep up on new skills, teams need to evolve with the metagame. If there happens to be months worth of delay between the release of a chapter and the release of a pvp edition PVP players will need to buy both, doubling the price for a product in which they're using only half of the content, whilst they grind for skills in the mean time.

Also, i'd hope Anet will consider a lower price, because $40 (Which is actually more than what I'm paying for the full game from my local store) seems pretty rediculous.

/signed

pvp character creation needs serious updating imo, but i think it will come

The past two weeks has shown what seems like a large change in direction from ArenaNet.

I had been concerned that they were letting the PvP portion of the game slip into a state of atrophy, with minimum development time being dedicated to it. However recent events such as this, the PuPs, and a discussion with one of the dev members has led me to believe that I was misled.

I have high hopes for where PvP in this game could go, but at the same time respect that there is also a PvE side of the game which has fans and players also valuable to Anet. However; the 'divide' mentality does nothing but strike me as childish. I think mostly it probably stems from the arrogance and superiority complex found in large number of PvP players, and the frustration of PvE players who struggle to get a foot in the door of PvP. I'm sure people could try and be a little more mature about it, and realise it helps nobody. Ranting and raving on a forum certainly isn't going to hold the attention of Anet staff.

I have confidence in Anet to keep producing for both sides, fresh content that you simply can't find in any other game at the moment. There was a while where I looked seriously at other competitive games that could prove a worthy alternative, but the way it stands Guild Wars offers competitive players something truly unique and fun. I have great respect for the Anet team, especially as of recently with this excellent news. And for all of the PvE players who feel slighted by a PvP update, just look forward to the entire new campaign you will get in Nightfall and take one for the team.

Guild Wars is a game of two parts, and both will get updates. The faster you come to terms with this and accept that Anet does not cater to your every need, the faster you can get on with just enjoying the game. Have some faith, and remember that you keep playing this game for a reason.

Regards,
-JR

If you played this game since it was released and got to UAX by now, you'll notice the excruciating pain of unlocking. Before balthazar pts, there was pve. Farm gold, buy skills, buy signet of capture and getting elite skills from bosses was harder compared to now. Say you're trying to cap powerblock. You have to wait until the skill is used before you use signet of capture. yea, i survived all of that shit.

This PUP and TE (if implemented) is a grand leap from what i've experienced and is good in general. New players (like you ^^) will always try the game and play it and denying them with options that will make them at par with the old timers stalls the growth of the pvp community. I want more talents in the ladder. not just EvIL, WM, iQ, Te, EW, Fish and other old players under new guilds. They are good but they are old. I want fresh blood. I wanna see new faces.

I dont see the new things implemented as means to devalue what i painfully earned but to make it easy for other players that may become my future guildmates or partymates sooner.

All I have to say is that this is total bullshit, the truth is both PvP and PvE are currently equal as far as the game goes.

PvE gets updates and new chapters

PvP get contests and a chance to compete for prizes and money.

So why cater to one and not the other, why not offer an collectors addition that both has all skills unlocked, and extra items solely for PvE, yes it may cost more, but what collectors addition doesn't.

Most of your so called whinners are kids who play the game and feel slited by changes that they don't understand. The players who are mature and there are just as many of them out there as the kids, understand, but some don't like change either. They earn their money, so they know what it feels like to buget for something, while the kids just ask mommy or daddy to buy me this or that.

What really sucks is that less then 1% of the players truely get to compete for prizes in any way as regaurds to PvP, consider that around the world there are 3 million players who own GW, let's say 1.5 million just play PvP, only maybe 150 to 250 players ever make it to the point of competing for prizes.

That is a very small number, and a lot of them are repeats players, will giving player the option to buy skills change this, I doubt it.

They competion system is unbalenced, sorry but I do not have 2 to 3 hours a day to just play PvP maybe 4 times a week, just to get in the range to compete with some players, face it Anet is doing this because they know people will buy their products simply on the blind hope that they will be able to compete to win prize money, and oh yes please a very small percentage of players who think the idea is cool, how could I forget about them.

Well good luck Anet with your indevors, I will still buy your products and enjoy your upgrades, and keep up the good work so the rest of us have something to look forward too.

Sorry about the rant, but I hope it gives you something to think about, I don't mean to sound either negative or sarcastic, it's just my perception of what I think is going on, that is all, no offence.

Nice post, but this very line makes me wonder if you have actually read the replies. The part that likes this idea is not a "small percentage"

"Hi! I'm bitter and jealous about not being in a position to compete for prizes in PVP, yet aren't willing to put in the effort to get there anyway!"

If you want to win tournaments, you have to be good. Sorry if that bursts your bubble. The reason why there are a lot of repeat guilds in tournaments is they simply are the guilds with a realistic view of how to get in a qualifying position, and the talent to do it. As time goes on, more guilds will be challenging for these positions. Take the recent tournament for example; SoTW should have gone to Leipzig, but had to give up their position due to unexpected circumstances.

would you care to explain how the time availability should be equalized?

perhaps only letting others have as much time to practice as you do?

lets hear your idea of how to balance this game to YOUR satisifaction as to fairness.

Thank you ANet. Don't listen to these complainers--you've really made a good move here.

I have no interest in a PVP unlock pack if it doesn't include weapon upgrades and runes. The price would have to be magnificently low in order to be worth only partial unlocks.

I have no interest in a PVP unlock pack if I can't pick certain professions to unlock. The price for all six classes combined would have to be magnificently low because I will never USE all six classes.

The value of any unlock pack will be decreased if it doesn't contain the Core unlocks. The current C1 skill pack does include the Core unlocks. (FYI: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Core are three DIFFERENT skill sets. You get access to Core with every chapter.) Future chapter unlock packs should also include the Core skills.

The value of any unlock pack is decreased when it is for a game that is 6 months or a year or more old. If you're only trying to gouge new players with unlock packs, this might work. But the selling of year-old skills to existing players does not interest me at all.

I would buy gold on ebay for $15 before I would pay $15 to unlock all skills from C1. That's how little I (as a year-long player of GW) care about unlocking skills from a year-old game. You don't need many skills unlocked to PVP with the popular builds. If I primarily PVP with two classes and have played casually for a year, I have already (long ago) unlocked the useful C1 skills. Even if that wasn't the case, it's easy to unlock 20 skills for a couple popular builds and be done with it. For PVE on the other hand I need plenty of gold because there is a constant drain on my two characters as I play.

first question was just a guess on my part.

second is that I have a life and a family and do other things besides play games all day, now I don't know what it is like in south east asia, or europe, or certain parts of the usa, but I know this, that it is talent and good reponse skills with practice that determines who is the best. Yes you need to practice, but not everyone has the time. So maybe they should orginize guilds or clubs that you can join where you can belong to a set of guilds that compete, and start teams that way.

Other wize it will alway be this way, and maybe the sponsors should only allow players not guilds but players to compete everyother season, to allow other a chance to compete. with in the same guild or other guilds. goes the same way in pro sports, they trade and allow new players all the time as well as rotate players, yes they have stars, and perhaps the sponsor will only require that you rotate half the team.

It makes me warm and fuzzy to see Anet acting on the players ideas and suggestions, its so rare in games these days, but more importantly

Did you have a lemonade stand ^ ^?

OK, now it is actually worth what your charging, if what I'm grasping is right... You can play said chapters PvP portion of the game with all of their skills for 40 dollars instead of paying 50 dollars to just buy the game.

Do you need to have at least one version of the game in order to use this? or can people just buy the PvP pack and play with them instead of buying the original game at all?

I think it is a revolution in the way the game is offered, a now fully functional PvP package which allows players who only want to play PvP the ability to join GW for it's PvP gameplay only. I would suggest 2 other additions, one would be PvP package exclusive armors, for players who have bought the PvP only pack to dress in style and look good, and either unlock the weapon mods, or grant them a PvP only unique Weapon for each class. This would allow them to put together a total package PvP character and play in PvP with pretty much all the same or equivalent perks.

will they add an option where you can buy all weapon upgrades ect?...to make a completely even playing field this would need to be done.

I don't really have any problem with these unlock packs, as I do agree they're a great way for new players to jump in on pvp action but....
I don't know.. I feel like I've wasted the past 1.3 years of Guild Wars...

It's a complicated emotion :[

dude, there can be nothing better than a bigger divide between pve and pvp players, lol. will make the missions easier to finish the first time. i'm one of the people that like to pve and pvp and i'd always had difficulty understanding why people would buy a $50 game and then play only $25 of it so this seems to be a viable solution.

people shouldn't get too hung up over balance issues since it takes (if factions can be an example) about a week and a half to unlock everything in a new campaign (unless you really go nuts getting it done).

i'm glad the pvp-only folks are so excited about it. either it's a game at twice the price or they get every chapter 6 months later than everyone else. guess that would reason to release it concurrently with the full game though that might make me a little uncomfortable.

who knows. yay team!

don't know how many people are familiar with this word but it generally means that the "whiners" have been asked to voice their concerns and the people who are posting all the "omfg quit whining, complainer!" stuff are out of line.

that being said, those of us to which this doesn't apply don't need to worry about it as it won't affect us in the least as we will have the proverbally "pimped out" green and 15k characters with all the skills long before these come out. let the people be happy man. that's all i'm saying.

I really don't like the idea of players being able to unlock skills in PVP by paying for them, until now I actually thought the unlock packs allready releaed where for owners of factions to have the opertunity to unlock skills of the prophecies chapter. Now I realise they where not but you are going to give these players the original prophecies skills handed on a plate.

The only problem I really have with this is the fact it makes balthazar faction obsolete to the pvp only players who choose to by the packs. When balthazar faction has no place at all other than in PVP.

I really dont understand why buyers of the PVP packs will get everything pre unlocked while the pvp/pve players will either have to unlock through faction or pay the extra to get all the unlocks.

Wouldn't it be fairer just to either eliminate faction and give all players access to every skill and weapon etc, instantly wether they be a purchaser of the full game or a pvp pack and releasing the pvp packs at same time as the full game. That way the PVP players dont have to pay for the PVE content they dont want and get their new skills instantly and the pve/pvp players dont get a disadvantage in PVP and dont have to grind away getting faction or gold to unlock all the pvp skills.

The other option would be not giving the PVP packs instant access to all skills but instead just reducing faction to something like 100faction a skill 300 an elite so all players be pvp packers or full gamers could quickly unlock skills even newer players wouldnt strugle getting skills they need.

Of course with these 2 options you wouldn't make as much profit from the people who have bought prophecies but havn't unlocked all the skills and dont want to grind.

I just fill that if you choose to release pvp versions they should be limited versions of the PVE+PVP game and not have the added unlock bonus I'd peffer the abolishment of balth faction as it is not really necessary and doesn't make pvp that much more fun.

Arenanet and NCSoft are giving away $200,000+ US Dollars per year in the form of the Guild Wars World Championships. Of course they are going to balance the game around PvP. If something adversely affects PvP, it could look bad for Arenanet trying to sell a balanced PvP game when a self hosted World Championship is won by the abuse of obviously broken skills. Even Izzy said on WoC - If a skill works too well in PvP and PvE, it's going to get rebalanced so it's balanced for PvP, not PvE. PvP is the competitive portion of the game, which is what the skills/mods/etc are balanced towards.

Hear me out before I am shunned.

Reasons this update benefits PvP players:

1. The PvP only player won't have to purchase the full game and will save $.
2. They won't have to grind in PvE to give themselves the edge in PvP.
3. They will have more competition since this option will attract more PvP players.

Reason this update benefits PvE players:

1. Less people in PvE that don't want to be there. With only people populating PvE that want to be there, the general atmosphere in-game will be more friendly.

2. *READ THIS IT'S IMPORTANT*

With the separation of PvP from the main game this means that all future campaigns should be PvE based. There is no reason to make another chapter like Factions where PvEers are forced to PvP. Arena Net heard the numerous complaints about this and turned lemons into lemonade.

This Marks an important victory for all guild wars players. I never believed that Arena Net could pull it off but this is why I am in Guildwars for life. In one swift stroke the developers have solved the biggest negative issues in my mind.




Thankyou Arena Net,

I also like this addition to GW.

I've played through the GW:P campaign a few times already and I don't have any intention of playing through the Factions campaign more than once. For now, I only play PVE to go through the campaign. After that, no more than I have to (for items and skills).

I hope that NightFall PVP skills will soon be added to the in game store soon after NightFalls release.

This will all pretty much be true if they fix the problems between PvP and PvE characters. PvE characters still get too many advantages for you to not use one in a competitive match (multiple armour sets, multiple headgears, more than 2 weapon slots, easier rerolling, etc). Until then, the PvP edition is nice, but doesn't solve all the problems. You are still going to see PvP players getting the normal edition (especially since unlocking a new chapter for PvP players that have been playing this long doesn't take too long).

Gah! I love the transitional half-PvP from Factions! It's innovative, interesting, plays like virtually nothing else in PvP OR PvE, and the teams are just randomly-generated enough that you don't have to waste time getting in a team or fighting rank elitism.

Down with unlock packs on the grounds that they might peripherally lead to a game less like Factions according to some obscure reasoning on the part of the poster I just quoted.

/the more PvP and PvE are divided, the more us 50/50 types suffer in our experience of the dillution of the game's design coherency.

If you are a PvE player that likes to occasionally PvP, or a PvP player that doesn't mind PvP, then there is no reason why you wouldn't be happy with the 'classic' version. Unlock skills the way you always have, and have access to both sides of the game. Unlock packs in no way negate that, as you are going to unlock skills rapidly through PvE anyway.

These 'PvP versions' are really aimed at the PvP players who simpy don't want to PvE, and therefore will suffer very slow unlocks. Anyone else shouldn't feel that they have to buy them to keep up. Hell even I may buy the PvE version, if Anet doesn't balance PvP and PvE characters; or I just fancy getting my monk a 15k version of the latest armor.

I was one of the ones who suggested a PvP Edition and it's good to see that's been taken on board.

The current system means you must buy Prophecies, and then buy PvP unlocks essentially paying twice to save some time. No matter how you cut it that's a vastly overpriced way of doing things.

I'd say it's still a little overpriced for what it is (or, rather, will be) now, but if they release PvP Edition in the real life stores they won't really be able to do much about the price I suspect.

A-Net, I love you.

Excellent move.

Really!

Edit: I hope you will release the Nightfall PUP soon after the Nighfall PVE campaign release. Most casual PvPers have already unlocked most of Prophecies Skills, and don't need to purchase the Prophecies PUP.

Thank you again!

I see some sense in this being a PvEr, but this is a one sided assumption and should the PvP portion generate more revenue (which i suspect will be the case further down the line) it would be likely that instead of more time being spend on PvE component of the game, the reverse would be case should Guild Wars (slaps own head /doh) becomes a even more PvP focused game with the PvE lost forever as a additional attraction than it already is.

Even though these PvP packs updates dont really affect me as a PvE player, i can understand some of the emotions the old timer PvPers feels towards their hard work now being sold out to accomodate newer sources of revenue. And the divide between the PvP and PvE has even widen even more significantly and what ever which will be the consequences will depend on those who will stay long enough to see it despite all the arguements between players ourselves and Galie from this thread.

I think by doing this they are just looking for ways to reach into our pockets really, if you cant just unlock eg "Monk" skills anymore you will be forced to buy all of them.

I think this is a great idea I have alot of people at my work that want to play Guild Wars just for HOH but say that they dont have the time to get all the skills that they need.

You have to think about it by the 4th chapter you will have people that have just started hardcore pvp or have been playing for along time to higher ranks in both fame and Alliance faction.So the new people coming in in the 4th chapter would be so far behind some that they would never get a group.

So all in all i think this is a great idea to get more people into Guild Wars.

I am perfectly happy with the classic version, thanks.

My point was a bit more abstract than that - I think design coherence is an important thing to maintain for the long-term enjoyment value of the game. Look at what happened to Star Wars: Galaxies when they re-launched and essentially drove their original userbase away*!

I'm still on-average OK with the unlock packs though - my previous post was only intended half seriously, as a counterbalance to the "well, we all know Factions sucked for PvE, right?" attitude that gets flung around a lot.


*Regardless of the original merits of SW:G, of wich I understand there weren't that many. Not my area of interest!

I think its a good idea overall by Anet. It pleases the audience its aimed at: the PVP-only players.

Making your customers happy is good.

But...it saddens me that it HAS to come to this. T_T
I like PvE. I like PvP. Why cant everyone else like both? ._.
Why are people so stuck on one side or the other?

< romantic illusion > I wish everyone liked PvE and PvP equally. < /romantic illusion >

I think if you guys are going to do this, then you mine as well go the whole nine yards and offer pvp only packs as a "game module". Example: Going to the store and picking a PVP version of the game or buying it online. Therefore offering the "individual profession packs" for people ONLY that already own a campaign. Basically, if you go out to the store and buy a pvp version (or buy it online) then you would have no use to bother unlocking individual packs anyway, nor would offering those packs require "recoding" anything more then what you already have. This also opens up those pvp folks to future updades to buy the individual packs when new releases come out with skills and profs. Just say on the individual PUP *requires ownership of a full campaign*. This way pvp'ers can still have the unlock packs for individual professions as they do now and those that just want to pvp can buy a PVP versions. Pretty simple really.

On another note, grrrrrr. Why can't you guys offer a *upgrade* to collectors? I want glowy hands, and/or back up dancers, dammit! With the outright mess that collectors for factions was to acquire, there really needs to be a way to upgrade your account to collectors for the $20 difference. Sorry I digress, for this isn't the thread...

some ppl like me dont have the time needed to put into serious PvP, i have a business to run and other activities to do.

Not really the thread but still a valid point, but would then upset the original purchasers of the CE (dont know why when after all it's only a emote, and people are showing the same dedication to the game if they buy it ) like these packs have some of the PvP people who worked hard to unlock the skills and feel they've been sold out.

I don't PvP myself but think this is a good idea and will save people a lot of time if they want to reroll a different profession PvP char.

So is it confirmed that these unlocks don't affect skill trainers in Prophecies?

Otherwise I don't see how people can say this doesn't affect PVE.