[Spotlight Concept #5] Improving and Expanding PvP

Hey all, time for a new spotlight.

The last one was focused on improving the challenge of PvE ([Spotlight Concept #4] Improve the Challenge of PvE). Naturally, I thought turning the attention to the 'other side' for the following spotlight would be a good idea.

So, the title's the topic. How can we improve and expand the PvP of Guild Wars?

I know that people like to discuss builds and strategies and what guilds are doing well and how they are doing it in the Gladiator's Arena section. Therefore, please keep that kind of discussion over there, and do not smother this thread with it. We are here to discuss what can be improved, what can be changed, and what can be added to or expanded in the realm of Guild Wars Player versus Player gameplay.

No simple skill ideas or profession concepts (unless you want to suggest briefly that it might be good to add a profession that would play a certain role in team battles, or something like that). No build-bashing or guild-bashing.

Now, on to the fun part.

What must we consider of fundamental importance in this discussion?

• Balance
• Compatibility
• The ability for gameplay to adapt
• Respect for other players/forumers

What might our ideas include?

• New Arena/Heroes' Ascent maps
• New Guild Halls, and more diversity in them
• New match types
• More different-number-team battles
• New types of arena, e.g. random 8 vs 8, 'Colosseum' with public seating to observe from
• Changes or improvements to the rank system (not getting rid of it altogether!)
• PvPvE gameplay? (i.e. humans vs humans vs AI)
• Battles with restrictions on skills
• Random skillbar arenas?
• Let us be the monsters (transform into Mergoyles and Bone Dragons and try to use those pathetic skill combos)

Yeah, that's the most my brain will throw out for now. So let's hear your ideas. Go into as much detail as you like - just remember the rules.

Happy posting.

Id say the format also needs to be improved. Mostly pvp involve grinding. For example higher rank in HA means you are playing longer than lower rank (emotes/titles). Winning/Losing ratio (GvG has this) might be needed to show your skill in pvp rather than just show your grind.

I belive that what the Guild Wars PvP system needs is more risks. As it is now for example if i were to enter a Random Arena battle right now and loose it would be no big deal and I would enter again untill I get a good team. And as far as the whole ranking and title rewards, all that these seem to do is add a grind to the game of just joining teams without care just going for that fancy emote. But if there was an arena where i could risk some cash and Items i think it would add a whole new exictement to the game. One way we could do this without having one class dominate all (Mesmers for example) is by giving each participant a randomized skillbar sort of like sealed deck play.

Balance PvP charactars in relation to PvE charactars.

i have the solution to everything:

ADD RECONNECTS FFS!

Random 1v1 Arena and Challenge

1v1 challenge can happen in town where people are watching.

I'd like something more epic.
The idea behind factions was okay, but the way it was introduced was awful. No matter how often you have won it never felt like achieving something, simply because everyone else could be losing their battles.
So i'm suggesting a mixture of GvG and Alliance Battles with an added "Construct" mode i'll explain later.

The actual battle would be divided into several parts (and maps). Let's go by the example of two Guild fighting it out. The Mission goal is to succesfully siege and capture a castle. One Guild is defending while the other one is attacking.

The first part of the battle is the challenge.
To start the Siege you must succesfully challenge the defending party. To do this, you must win in a direct 8 versus 8 Battle against them. The twist is, your skillset at this point is a fixed one. No way to change it, even your attributes will be allocated to a certain point. This is to make sure that the challenge is not won by builds but moreover by teamwork. Both sides will be using the exact same build. To make this possible, you take control over a NPC.
Winning conditions are: Either take the enemy team out or manage to activate a scripted serious of events. If you've played Unreal Tournament in Assault Mode, you'll know what i'm speaking about.

Just an example for a challenge map. You start with a broad river and a simple bridge. The defenders want to destroy it to cut down your offense. To achieve this there is an invisible but clickable object that needs to be destroyed but has huge hitpoints. The bridge is quite narrow as well.
From that point on, the rest of the battle is completely up to the players. The bridge is quite easy to take, semi hard to destroy. There is another way across the river but it will take you some time to get there, it is far away from your spawnpoint and passing will slow you down.
Go for the bridge? Go for the passage? The defenders have teleports between the two, you don't. The teleporter works every 15 seconds, once. You could head straight for the passage and just ignore the bridge. Or you could go straight for the bridge. Or you might send a single scout. If the passage is clear, he will pass through and claim the next spawnpoint. If it isn't. Well, he has hit the wasps nest. But guess what? That means the bridge is weakened and you can go there with full power (if it's still fully functional that is).

Once you've claimed the next spawnpoint, the defenders get a bonus "Defenders Panic" giving them a 50% Movement Bonus but 50% Slower Recharge for 20 seconds. This is to allow them to regather at the next chokepoint. Agressors get a +10% Morale Boost if they manage to take a Chokepoint. Defenders get a +2% Morale Boost for every two minutes they defend a chokepoint.
Etc, etc, etc.

After a fixed time of twenty minutes the battle is over. If the aggresors were not able to make it through, they're out and the defenders net a win. If they were not, the next part of the battle starts and both parties are beamed to the next step.

This is called the siege.
During the siege there will be a full 5 Minutes "Preperation" Time with an alternate Skillbar. This alternate Skillbar is actually something novel to GuildWars.
This skillbar allows you to spawn Groups of NPCs, fighting for you. Each skill is a one shot skill only. Examples could be:

Spawn Archers
Spawns a group of 4 NPC Archers at your location.

Spawn Soldiers
Spawns a group of 4 NPC Warriors at your location.

Spawn Battering Ram
Spawns one battering ram, a battering ram has high hitpoints and defense but no offense against any enemy, except the castle gates.

etc etc
They will abide to the Henchmen Control of your Radar once the battle starts.


The defenders have a similiar skillbar with different skills though. Like for example instead of a Battering Ram, they get "Fortify Gate". Or "Block Passage".

Once the preperation time is up, the map gets reloaded with everyone spawning at their set locations. The agressors don't know how the defenders planned and vice versa. And now the players fight with their personal skillbar they decided to bring into the battle beforehand. What now starts is a massive battle of AI versus AI versus Player versus Player. To keep this fluently, the NPCs will use a somewhat low poly, low res model.
And once again there are several ways into the castle. Break the maingate? Enter through the hidden but visible for the defenders passage which leads through acidic water? Or just lumber that tree to let it fall into the wall and walk up.
And the defenders will of course also have a few things to do. Block the hidden passage? Or take care of the massive army storming the Gate?

Should the aggressors manage to get to the Throne Room, they win. Should the defenders manage to take out the players or hold out another 15 minutes they win.
The reward for winning is a special chest. This chest spawns one item for every person on the team. But, the loot it contains varies due to a certain factor. The amount of times you've won against other teams. If you take the chest, you're out of the castle and can't recapture it for 24 hours (account based) If you're kicked out by the enemy you can recapture it and try again.

Fighting another battle puts you at a disadvantage. For each player on your team, one "Siege Skill" is deactivated. There is also a maximum of 10 wins, until you're automatically out.

So this means.
You've just won the battle and enter the Throne Room for the first time.
The chest spawns 8 purple items. Ugh. You decide to leave the chest alone for now and start defending. 8 Full Siege Skills.

You easily kick their in the challenge. They lose so horribly it's just not funny anymore. You get another win. The chest now has a 50/50 Chance of a purple or a gold item dropping. Still meh. You take another shot. One siege skill gets deactivated.

You manage to kill the players in Siege Mode. You've won again. The chest will spawn a gold item. Great. But it could be a crappy one, tough luck, tough call. You go again. Two siege skills deactivated.

And like this, the content of the chest gets better and better each time you forfeit it's content. The ultimate challenge will then be to fight a 8 versus all battle against the whole army of the enemy. Well your only chance to win is to go for their player team.

And the content of the chest could be vanity items that only drop there. They get automatically assigned to your character, but you can chose the type of drop you want to get after your 7.th win. So it's like saying "I want a sword from the chest!". And the chest will spawn a sword for you, instantly binding it to you, naming it after your character and randomly assigning its mods (though they should by now never be useless). Another option could be an "Avatar Item". This item can't be sold either. And it's only working for a month after you've picked it up. It creates a 1.5 as large glowing Avatar of yourself. Just for show off that is :P

The best improvements would be the obvious imo: a) add reconnects, b) fix the "stuck" bug.

I don't know why Anet hasn't taken care of these, as they are pretty darned obvious fixes. Even if a player would be auto-60 dp'ed on reconnect to prevent abuse, it'd still be a hell of a lot better than the way err7's = an autowin now.

BALANCE PVE AND PVP CHARACTERS PLEASE!!

All they really need to do is add 4 weapon slots and 2 sets of armor to the PvP character creation and add in some of the PvE wepaons that aren't seen there and we're good enough .

On the other note, HA maps need a total overhaul. Currently, the game is just too focused on defending a non-kiting NPC trying to capture an altar while 2 other teams beat on him. HA needs more control points, more positions that matter, and more ways to outplay and enemy that might outbuild you. In short, HA needs to have at least some semblance of strategy and movement, rather than SEED THE GHOSTLY NOW type of gameplay.

I would like to see more competitive type missions that steer you toward fighting other players rather than ganking NPCs. Give it enough of a goal so that it's not just annihilation, but remove the AB incentive to just bring speed buffs so you can avoid other players while running from NPC gank to NPC gank. I agree something like Assault mode from UT would be entertaining.

I was kinda bored by the notion that they are adding new Challenge missions in CH3 but no word of any Competitive ones. I guess that's to be expected given Jade Quarry is a ghost town... but I think part of that is there are too many separate hubs for the same gametypes. I'd rather see each of the 4vs4 arenas/8vs8 competitive/12vs12 alliance expanded on (more maps/modes in rotation) with a single entry hub each, instead of each new map or mode having its own hub to the point that you can't enter any of them due to lack of player concentration.

I know you put alot of work and thought into this but

/yawn

PvP at high levels is about builds, shatterring all creativity in this area is, well, lame.

Fight over a bridge, not my concept of pvp.

Please can we have a game that is less npc centric.

My proposal is that we have an allegence based pvp zone, with safe areas to set your skills and attribs. You can venture out into the zone alone or with a party, 8 people max. A new type of faction would be made to show your exp in this zone. Dying in this zone would result in the normal dp, as well as, a deduction in factions. The faction is a prorated amount proportional to the amount of damage you or your party inflicted, with a mininal req of 20% to ensure no KSing.

Basically a free for all, no holds barred, PvP slaughter house. If you have alot of friends and can make a 56 man build that runs in waves, more power to ya. This is about the only thing I miss from games I played in the past.

A few things off the top of my head...
General
.Buy some decent servers, tired of good runs ruined by err7s.
.Add some feature to "unglitch" yourself.
.Stop adding 2 new professions every 6 months

Hero's Ascent
.Make it 6v6
.Add a few new maps.
.Make courtyard timer shorter.
.Remove skips
.REMOVE SCARRED EARTH FROM THE GAME ENTIRELY. I'm tired of this damn map, tired of waiting 30 mins while the other teams "play", then running in and demolishing them both. Put in some other kind of map.

GvG
.Can't really think of anything atm

Yea Im gonna have to agree, this isnt exactly what GW is about. No offense tou you, its a good idea but not for this game. I hope they dont put it in because it will just add to the problems theyalready have i.e. ERR7

So pls dont add games and such, just fix the one u already have.

As for balancing pve and pvp char... why would u ever pve then? i thnk thats the idea behind it, if you want all the armor swaps and stuff, spend a week whil ur not pvping and do some pve, and you will have all the thngs u could need... its really not that hard, and trust me, i hate pve.

i think the idea of a colosseum is good but have 4v4v4v4 to add a completely new aspect. with more than just two teams you'd have to worry about defending against other teams. plus your team would have to be well-rounded but more importantly, skilled.

i like the idea of longer GvGs too. maybe even add weather effects on each map. this is more of a general guild wars thing but weather affecting different things like storms increasing air and water power and decreasing fire's effectiveness, while a drought-like condition would add to fire AND air and weaken water. and natural earthen maps would make movement and accuracy different in a storm or snowstorm.

You aren't supposed to have to. You would be able to play pve if you wanted to, which most hardcore pvp'ers dont.

I think some sort of "Explorable Area" where both Factions could fight each other at will would be awesome. Something similar to what Just Rude said, I know Knight-Online has something like that and it is awesome.

Of course, it would have to be on a smaller scale to conserve bandwidth, but I still think it would be awesome to have PvP encounters in a PvE environment.

NERF EVRYTHING
jk

i was hoping for something like humans vs monsters, where the monsters are controlled by players, exept they have fixed skillbars, dont get dp, and so to win their biggest advantage is numbers (u die, u respawn), or a sort of onslaught mode where blue team is human vs a red monster team, humans have to last as long as possible, when defeated they switch sides, and now the previously monster team is human, and must last longer than their opponents

random skillbars will never work, it would never have a learning curve, u could have 2 skills from each of 4/5 different attributes and never be able to put attribute points like normal builds

The "sealed play" tournament idea sounds pretty good. Maybe implementing something like that in PvP would be nice.

Not with TOTALLY random skills, as the OP suggested, but giving each player a random pick (out of EVERY skill, not just the ones unlocked) of:
-13 primay skills;
-7 secondary skills;
-2 primary elites;
-1 secondary elite;
-Ressurection sig (or one random hard-ress, if class permits)
-Charm animal (if ranger primary/secondary profession is present)

Then, the game should give everyone some time (100-150 seconds should be enough) to choose and set up skills. The match would begin after a 60-second countdown so everyone could load the map and discuss a quick team strategy (Teams would consist of 6 or 8 players, in groups formed beforehand).

===

Another idea would be "Chaos Arena". Would be mostly for the fun of it rather than for any show of skill, so it shouldnt yield great rewards, but it would consist of:
-A random secondary class (among those to which the account has access to)
-Random skills (no res: ressurection would be automated, as in FA)

After that, it would (randomly) drop the player into one of the following:

-Random 8-man team in 8v8 match
-Random 4-man team in a 4v4v4v4 match
-Free for all! Each man for himself!

(so yea, it's a pretty crazy idea, and I doubt anything of the sort would be implemented -maybe for a weeked event?-... but it sounds fun, and it's definitely something I'd play every once in a while just to get some stress relief)

I fully agree with this idea get rid of the pve all together!

I cannot see the reasoning in coming out with two new professions and reducing the number of people in HA to 6 v 6.There will be so much less variety in builds when you reduce the number of players.For example the utter pile of degen ranger builds over the last 6 vs 6 event.May as well throw support classes out the window as well as there will not be room for them in 6 vs 6.Only constructive idea that i have to solve this problem is have a separate 6 vs 6 and 8 vs 8 HA.Im sure this will be a major discussion.