why do more people PvE than PvP??

i'm sorry this is a semi-noob question, but whats the point of PvE.

I went to kamadan and there are like 12 servers, and other towns have multiple servers too, while random and team arenas has only like 4, and even HA has only 3.

It seems like pve is a really big deal, but i can't figure out why. I come from games that the main point of grinding was to PvP (but soon found out the main point of grinding was to grind some more b/c theyre pvp systems suck). I made a NF PvE character before i made a pvp character, so I could get skills to pvp. Around level 16 it got to a point where it was much more effecient to get skills from pvp than grinding for it in pve (and you learn much more about the game from it too)

Im not flaming PvE, but i don't see what the big deal is. I mean after level 20 what is there to do? I guess you aim to finish the game, grind for skill points, and do dungeon raids or something like that (UW FoW). Also there is elite armor you can get, but its a bummer because no one can see them in the "instanced" world. The instanced part of the game is interesting because it makes things diablo-like, but its dumb that no one can see your tight armor, team up with you, or help you deal with an extremely hard part of the game.

The story is actually insanely good (nightfall) for a mmorpg, but most of the time it feels like im playing a one player (or 12 player co-op )console game, so in those terms it sucks because of the insane down time... collecting god-forsaken sunspear points (of course its much worse for a level 20 character who doesn't get ANYTHING from a quest other than sunspear points). The quests as a whole seem to drag the game down, since unlike most other games, they don't offer items or unlocks for completing quests... just experience and skill points ( i think it would have been more interesting if I got prophecies because they give skills, which you don't have to buy with all your money like nightfall)

I'm not bashing PvE or anything, I just feel like I'm missing out on something but i don't know what.

EDIT:
i deleted my edit about how inventory clutter is annoying, because all the pve people think i'm an imbacile, i'll compact the post into one sentence: "inventory clutter is very annoying for casual pve 'ers"

(btw, i understand you get money for doing quests. Well otherwise everyone would be dirt poor, but you don't get anything cool like in other games, but w/e money is ok i guess.)

Simply put, more people prefer to pve be they casual or not. Some people like completing quests, missions and high end area's, finding rare loot and saving for armour, Even on multiple characters even if to a few it is to repetative.

You may not enjoy it or understand why, but other's do and its nice to have the option.

Its also nice to see someone asking why in a polite manner rather than insulting those interested in a different part of the game than them.

cause anet has done everything in their power to destory HA

Reaching L20 is more of a tutorial. Once you ding it, you're in the game proper.

Skill points? I barely use them unless I need to switch to skills I don't have, and as a result, I always have enough points, so no grind there.

One-player game? Try making an effort to form a full human party then! /sigh

The SS points? Meh, fun to get if you bother picking up the quests, and you might learn a few things, like Koss's origins.

As for the FoW armour, you can see it in towns, and if you join someone - a HUMAN player - with it and go monster bashing, you will see it in full quality.

Oh, and you get GOLD from most quests, in case you ain't noticed



Oh please... do you really think ANet would willingly destroy their baby? :s

yes and they have.
I cant begin to recall all of the people that have quit due to this.

people like PvE more than PvP so ther play PvE.

It's because people find it fun. Why do people go on to Halo with their friends and play Co-Op mode instead of deathmatch? It's fun.

I personaly like to play SOF 2 deathmatches, no to be different but I just like to kill thingsd without getting in trouble for it. I realy enjoy the PVE part of GW because getting a particulary hard quest done gives a feeling of accomplishment to me, where HA and PVP just don't don't.

Mega Mouse

Well, I play PvE not only because I find it fun, but because I've found PvP ridiculous. Please don't get me wrong, I am very much interested in PvPing. Here's the problem. It's harder to get in a group than any pve mission. That is, if you're a r3 noob like me or lower. Just today, I got totally turned off the elitism/stupidity of of pvping.

I'll start with the stupidity, not of the whole player vs. player mechanic, but of the players who are using. I went o AB, just to grind out some Balt faction, and have fun (hopefully winning). After 10-15 minutes of the timer counting down, we finally get in. After we do that, the stupidity starts. 5, count em, FIVE people are afkrs! So that leaves 7 people against 12 Luxons. WE are already at a disadvantage, but being competitive, I still want to do my best. Unfortunately, the majority of my side didn't really care, so they just ran around making jokes and what not. I can't really blame them for giving up, but hell, that's still annoying.

So then i say, screw it, I'll try my chances in HA. I knew this was like the creme de la creme of pvp so to speak, and getting in a group would be hard. I didn't know how hard until an hour later of "LFG I will try my best to do whatever you want me to" without even a "get out noob". Totally ignored.

Eh, whatever, I figured I'd try my luck in TA. See HA paragraph.

Ooookay, down to RA, hell, at least I don't actually have to form the group here. Press Enter Battle, get in a match right away. Almost as quick as we get into the match, two people from my team leave. Of course, no one leaves on the other side. I chalked it up to bad luck, and tried again. 6 games in a row where someone left I said screw it.

So what's left for me? PvE that's what. Can't find a group? Cool, Koss, Dunkoro, Olias saddle up. Find a PUG but it's got leavers and Leeroys? Cool, Sousuke, Master of Whispers, Norgu, let's ride fellas. PvE is the only thing for me at this point.

PvE was fun until they introduced the heroes.

I was accustomed to typing " Forming mission bonus group self invite" and i receive invite, play the game and finish the mission bonus back in prophecies hey day. Now, i wanna do the poghan mission so i can ride those wurms in gates of desolation but all of the 25 RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOin guys there have 8 on top of their character and only 1 guy looking for a group. Sad.

Please remove heroes from PvE and throw them back in HA please. Heroes are dumbing down the PvE experience. HAers need heroes more so they can get fame easily.

haha dude I used to LOVE SOF 2 multi player. That used to really get my adrenaline going. That was pure fun, and it was simple enough that balancing was nearly a non-issue.

Anyways, the reason I believe more people PvE than PvP is because PvP is more time consuming -- you generally need to be in a PvP-oriented guild, and they'll size you up in terms of your skill, which has a lot to do with time put in.

PvE is very much like a traditional offline single player game (nowaways at least) -- you can put it away for a few weeks and are none the worse. That's more convenient for folks who have a job, family, and/or school and not a whole lot of free time that they don't have to dedicate to/with others.

No judgments there, and those are just my thoughts.

For the same reason I play other PvE games - I like being a part of that world, doings quests/missions, and finally just killing things. Between the chapters there is plenty to do with titles, quests, and missions. Each character plays a bit different so, while each time the story/goals are the same, the gameplay isn't.

Personally I've never understood PvP. Other than a /rank emote there is little to gain from PvP'ing unless you are one of the top guilds - everyone has the same items, armor, and looks. The only titles are account wide ones. If you are in one of the top guilds - yes I can see liking my name coming up if I were holding halls or having people want to watch me play with observer mode. But how many really can say that happens - very very few.

At least from a personal point of view, I rather suspect some of the attitudes had/have something to do with it. First off, I haven't given PvP a go since well before Factions, so things may be different now. I got flamed too much - if you did well then you typically got "cheater" thrown at you all the time - if you lost then you got "you suck" whispers a lot. If you ran your own build you were called an idiot, if you ran a current build then you sucked and didn't know how to play - only copy those that did. I play for fun, getting flamed for every possible thing you could do isn't fun. I enjoy PvE immensely and you can avoid that type of thing (note, same reason I only play with either friends or computer AI), I do not have the time to put in to a guild where you can play PvP without running into that all the time.

Of course, that is why there is different things for different people.

You might not be familiar with them, but there are these crazy things called "opinions" and "preferences". Neat stuff.

PvE is more acessible as a whole....which is why I've spent a majority of my time there.
It's a good starting ground to understand what your profession is capable of, and what profession is suitable to your playstyle.

Many people have started in PvE (Including myself) and have expanded into PvP, and have done very well, while, some are still grasping the aspects, and finer points of being successful in a PvP setting....and Vice Versa...no flaming.

Pve...is easier to be successful...simply put.

I will, agree with tomcruisejr, that Heroes have made a signifcent impact on PvE, as they are for the most part..."more skilled" than 75% of the people you could pick up at an outpost...and for the most part, a better option.

Here's a few good reasons:

- Making a competent high-ranked team in PVP can take between 1 - 3 hours, only for it to then lose 2 rounds in and disband, thus wasting a ton of real-time for no gain whatsoever

- Making a competent team of low-ranked players is virtually impossible

- Any serious PVP requires hardcore third party voicechat software

- The three above points make participating in PVP a major headache

- Sigils have become worthless for eons so there's no way to gain anything from PVP to gain other than emotes or titles. Hence there is little motivation to get into PVP. Most players who want emotes or titles got them eons ago hence there is nothing left to gain from PVP.

- Non-hardcore players will have virtually no chance of success in PVP

- Not nearly enough PVP maps to sustain the game for the ~2 years it's been out

- Most of the common/popular builds in PVP - especially any and all that don't require hardcore players on third party voicechat to be effective - end up getting bashed to smithereens with the nerf bat, which makes the game unfun for players who like to play their favorite builds whenever they want and don't like their favorite builds to get nerfed into oblivion every few months; and casual players who aren't interested in making the leap to hardcore gamer

I don't get why you crime.mob, say that you don't get anything from PVE when in fact the opposite is true and it is PVP that you don't get anything from once you have a tiger. You can't even change your armor or weapons in PVP from the few default skins.

From what I can tell people don't PVE to grind out skill points (which are largely considered to be pointless from all the players I've talked to), but rather they farm to get money for better-looking items, which is more than can be said for what can be done via PVP, other than the emotes.

I can agree with you that there isn't much to do in PVE after level 20 other than get Fissure armor, but I don't see how a case can be made that there is more to do on the PVP side of the game. Both areas are very lacking in end-game rewards.

I play PvE to relax, have some fun. I grew out of the competitive nature of games. It became too stressy too serious and I'm too old for that sh1t. I find my pleasure now in farming stuff, get nice items and armor etc.

I much prefer PvE to PvP simply because its much more fun imo , and I dont like using teamspeak.

That and the state of the metagame of PvP puts me off nowadays anyway , not to mention the elitism etc , so that if you arent in a like minded guild of players , who are all your friends , who want to put the hrs in , then forget about it lol , PvP aint happening.

Heroes ascent etc , they dont just pick players up , and The challenge missions in Cantha are always and will always be full of leechers , aka wastes of space.

So as far as I see it Pvp simply isnt worth it , not anymore at any rate. No real incentive to put in that effort now.

Because PvE is easier. (Both to play and to get into)

I'll quote that, I come from a long competitive fps experience. That was too much.


And I'll add that in PvE I don't have to wait to form a group, since I generally play solo farming builds. I would say I don't actually like PvE, I just like to solo things

You don't get so much of "so long losers" or "pwnz noobs" in Pve as compared to Pvp. Like someone said before, Pve is a laidback kind of experience for you to immerse yourself in. While else Pvp... i really couldn't find anything good to say about it right now, as there are lots of uncivilised behaviour on-going in the Pvp scene.

Ha ha , oh I think you do.

Most of what PvE is about has already been stated at least once in this thread, but ill throw in my two cents.

More people PvE than PvP because a large majority of people are casual players. Casual meaning they didnt buy the game to climb to the tops of teh GvG ranks, or hold HA for hours on end. As well, many casual players, spend lots of time socializing and making friends and having random conversations with sometimes competent people in the all chat. After casual players, there is a middle class that dabbles in both pve and pvp. Sometimes these are ex-casual players that made enough friends or got in a guild and were introduced to pvp. Then they decided they liked it and so now they play both pve and pvp. Then on your end of the spectrum, you have the pvp players that never go anywhere besides HA or the Guild Hall. But if the go to the pve world its probably to farm for the colossal scimitar so they can show their elite-ness in HA by running around with it on their monk.


But more or less it comes down to the fact that most people play games to escape from the stress and responsibilties of real life, and its whole lot less stressful and complicated to play the pve game. That and not that many people yell at you in pve compared to pvp. :-p

i have tried to get into PvP but the problems is this elitism bullshit. If you dont have rank you dont get a group, If you dont get a group you dont get rank!

Its a cycle of stupidity

went to HA other day to get into pvp. full dis and there was no one talking whatsoever. There wasnt anything in party window either.


PvP = Pointless unless you have a hardcore PvP guild, and even they are hard to find, let alone get into

I've been through alot of guilds, but all of them focused on HA and GvG, and didn't care about rank once you'd proven yourself in guest scrimms. These same guilds, wisely, would only take high ranked pickups, but within the guild anyone could come.

If it's random pickups, correct, it's not even worth trying. Join a guild that's at your level of experience and skill, and play and get better with them.

Yeah, so what?

All solved by joining a guild.

Unless you actually, god forbid, like the game. If, on the other hand, you don't like gameplay but pointless virtual rewards, feel free to be a rat in a maze and chase your cheese in WoW.

Hell no. We have players who log in twice a week on average for schedules gvg, and they're awesome players, who just happen to have lives and can't play the game that much. They generally make enough faction from 1 night of gvging to purchase any skill changes we make in the next night they play.

There's alot to learn about all maps, both gvg and HA, and adding more would make the learning curve damn steep for new players.

If you don't like gameplay, and just want to watch rank slowly climb, I'm sure you love IWAY and zergway, but if you like that, I recommend you google for a game called "Progress Quest." Also, why the hate on voice software? Any skill based coop competive game absolutely requires it. If it didn't , the game is probably simplistic and sucky.

Unlocks, titles, guild rank. If you need more, you probably just don't enjoy the game itself and need to find something you like more.

Judging from your take on PVP and rewards, it looks like you're not looking for a fun, involved game, where playing it is the reward, but a mindless addiction. Sorry that GW isn't the no monthly payment MMORPG you're looking for, but most of us like it that way.

I think its simply cause the Pvp in Guildwars cannot compare to games like say UT or CS. Not in the mechanics itself but in the things around the Pvp experience. Let me give you some examples;

-Rewards
Who had the stupid idea to give rewards in Pvp? This just promotes leechers and grievers. There are no rewards except the place on the ladder in UT or Quake, once the map finishes everyone is back at zero and people love those games. People should join the game only if they want to play the game not to get rich farming luxxon/kurzick/rank points.

-Server browsers and instant join
Usually you can see all the running games in other products and join one that has a free spot. This assures that if there are leavers their place is taken by another player and the teams stay even. In guild wars a leaver screws the entire team ruining the fun for up to 11 people.

-Missing game modes
Why is there no Capture the flag? No Assault? No Domination and double Domination? No King of the hill? There are similar modes but they are usually only accessible to a very small group of players namely Guilds wich leads us to the next problem.

-Bad casual Pvp
In other games if you enter a server alone you get access to the same content as guilds so you play the same modes and maps as the top guilds. This brings new blood into the game while in Guild wars you can only GvG and HA if you have a guild or at least 6 other people. Where is the Random GvG/HA arena where casuals can press enter, get 6/8 other players and play the GvG and HA maps? Its too hard to get into Pvp in guild wars cause you can´t access the good content without a guild/friendlist. No chance for casuals to show off at GvG and get invited into a guild or make some friends like in those other games.

-No customization
In other games if you open a server you can choose the maps and player count and such things. In Guildwars you cannot choose on wich maps to play and the maps are unbalanced on purpose in AB. No fun attacking the last map in AB since it is heavily biased towards the defending team. And what if you don´t like the fire isle map in RA? You´re screwed, you have to play it since there is no server browser so you see what map is running and join where there is one you like or take a map out of the list if you´re a server operator.

There are simply to many flaws and funkillers in GW Pvp to lure the casual Pvpers and without them there is no pool to recruit future top players since everyone was a casual at first and so the Pvp community is way smaller than it could be.

I play GW for fun and PvE is relaxing and fun for me. I have enough challenges and stress IRL that I don't want more of it in a game.

PvE gives me the freedom to play at my own pace. If I have 20 mins free, I can get a little bit of quest done, return to my real life and come back in an hour and finish the quest.

PvE also allows me to experiment with builds (thanks to heroes) without any pressure or hassle if it results in a party wipe. There are a ton more viable PvE builds than PvP builds. PvP builds are extremely restricted and experimentation is often disastrous.

Another feature I like about PvE is helping guildies through missions/quests.

As far as PvP goes:
- Hero Battles are not enjoyable for me, esp with all the shrine capping.
- RA is awful b/c everyone leaves unless there's a monk in the group.
- TA takes a little too long to form a team and you may not be able to find the team build you're looking for.
- HA again takes ages for teams to form and if it's low rank will die and disband quickly making it a time sink.
- GvG... well, I can forget about that. It's all a little too serious for my taste.

The only pvp I do now is Aspenwood or ABs. The leechers are annoying, but otherwise it's a laid back atmosphere.

Bottom Line: I play for FUN and relaxation. PvE gives me those things.

{NOTE: This is not a dig at PvP. It's just my opinion. I think PvP is fun to watch but not play.}
PvP has too much inflexibility in builds, too much emphasis on timing and awareness of your surroundings, too great a time investment (consecutive hours), too much hate and moaning for me to find it fun.

The PvP'ers are like the Michael Jordans and Kobe Bryants of the game, while I'm more like a weekend warrior scrub pickup ball player who likes to get fat and doesn't like to workout.

Oh yeah, I don't like having to use Vent or TS either.

Going to have to disagree here. Heroes have made it possible to do a mission that was near impossible with henchies when no-one else was around. When I got to Crystal Desert, there was practically no one there, not enough to form a PUG anyway. Heroes saved me then.

On-topic, I prefer PvE because of the storyline. Although I do occassionally PvP (with one of my PvE chars), it's only ever in RA when I'm really bored. If I were really into competative gameing, I'd play some FPSs. I agree that it seems like a co-op console game, but that's exactly what I like about GW. Other MMORPGs just don't have that story that makes it feel like you're actually making a difference to the world.

I was wishing there will be a merger of districts when it comes to looking for members to form a party for a mission. Otherwise, it will be the same old process of spamming "LF healers, prots, MMs...", in the end utilising heroes to overcome the absence of the required roles, which some people hate when you are playing a game to socialise with people.

That's. Why. They. Made. Party. Search.
USE IT

I used to think more people (clearly by several orders of magnitude) played PvE than PvP because more people liked playing with others than against others. I found that heartening, it isn't often one so clearly finds cooperation beating out competition.

Unfortunately the introduction of heroes has taught me the foolishness of that belief. Clearly the real reason is that more people like playing with themselves, and frankly that should hardly come as a shock to much of anyone...

I like PvP better than PvE but yet I still PvE more. The reason is because I can only do pickup games (my guild consists of only 6 real-life friends) and some of the best PvP stuff isn't good to do with a PuG (HA and of course GvG.) I love to do AB and even some RA, but unfortunately I burn out on them if I play them too much.

pvp generally take greater understanding of the game mechanics and battlefield awareness than pve, and most casual players do not develop it. if they try to go into pvp without that knowledge, they will either:

a: fail miserably and go back to pve
b: get flamed for running around like headless chickens, and go back to pve

so yeah, there will always be more people playing pve than pvp, simply because pve is easier and doesn't require you to think as much.

Look at this thread and guess why.
Generally the majority of players doesn't want to deal with inflated Egos and while PVE is infested with it, PVP is completely down the drain when it comes to Ego and superioty complexes.

i think thats quickly changing, those with the inflated ego's are either slowly coming round or quickly leaving the game...

We played a top 50 guild the other day, although we help them firm until VoD, they were actually really sportsman like and GG'd us when they beat us... The Ego landed a long time ago, thankfuly its ready to take off and leave again though

Truthfully I don't PvP because GW PvP isn't the kind that I favor and because I don't feel like unlocking the skills necessary to do so. I like futuristic space pirate PvP. Nah, I just like FPS PvP.

1)I like pvp , but sometimes i get huge lag spikes and ruins the experience... in pve this happerns only in Tyria at the ring of fire missions where you fight mursaats (some of these missions can get you 40sec lag and disconnect)... but you survive.
2)Pvp means afkers, leavers and people that play only predefined builds(HA) and this is boring. In Pve you can try everything.
3)Hero controll made pve the absolute experience.
4)Got myself taking screenshots in pve enviroments and leaving the char on specific enviroments just for the sound effects (lake,animal sounds etc). In pve no such things.

Do not forget that there is little immersion in GW PvP.

It is like playing Dust or Dust_2 over and over in CS.
Tiny arenas, somewhat bigger guild halls, always the same maps in HoH.

The PvE world is simply bigger and more beautiful, there is more adventure and enjoyment there. You fight for drops and gold, this has some more personal gain than a PvP environment. You can play it all the time without having to wait for 5-6 buddies.


HA is dead for a reason, it is boring as hell. If GW shall really be a CORPG, they need to add some more spice to it. Random arena and Hero Arena are the only form of PvP you can join all the time without preparations, and many people I tried to excite for GW simply found the arenas and the whole game simply boring. Including PvE, unfortunately.

I personally love RPG's. The story lines and creativity behind them is what intrigues me. Folowing a character from his dawn as newblet till his dusk as hero.
Also, ALOT of players love to look sexy. Let's face it, you just can't with a pvp made character. The only way to make money to get that way is to PvE. Unless of course u wanna spend every waking second of your ife FFF'ing. Just to buy one item. But guess what, that is still PvE.

PvP > PvE for me... PvE > PvP for pve players -_-
It just depends what u like... if there are more pve players it means that more ppl like pve, duh?

Backwards. You don't play PvP for the gameplay, you play for the rewards. That's true for ALL games. The rewards vary from game to game, but if you don't get rewarded when you do well, you wouldn't play. If you had to PAY ArenaNet $10 everytime you won a GvG, you think you'd still play because "the gameplay is awesome" and "you love it so much"? Well, I'm safely betting you wouldn't. Therefore, people who play PvP play PvP for the same reasons that people who play PvE play PvE: They enjoy it. You can try to make yourself look like a "true" gamer by being "hardcore", but you just look silly and immature. If you enjoy PvP, play PvP.

lol, that makes me think of this:

Simplistic does not equal "sucky". Simplistic is just that: Simplistic. Tetris, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Space Invaders, etc. All simplistic. Are you saying all those games suck? Have you ever even played video games prior to the Playstation era?

Hmm. Guild rank is your submission of a PvP reward, then you say that simply playing PvP is reward enough. So even if you GvG and you lose every time, you'd be incredibly happy 'cause, well, you're playing? I doubt it. You play PvP because it suits you: You're competitive and you enjoy winning, especially when your victory comes over someone else.

There's nothing wrong with it, I'm not saying you're bad, or you suck, or anything. But not everybody shares your personality, and yes, not everyone shares the personality of those who enjoy PvE more. It's all preference and opinion, as Kakumei mentioned earlier. They enjoy PvE, you and plenty of others enjoy PvP. I find both to be enjoyable in small amounts, myself. I can't stand a long session of PvE... it's mind-numbing, in my opinion. On the other hand a long session of PvP is equally as mind-numbing. I enjoy games that employ more puzzle type play rather than knee-jerk key-pressing. (That's not just GW, it's... quite a few MMOs, if not most.)

But, in short spurts, I can have a great time in PvE with friends, and then hop right into a little PvP and have just as much fun. One is not better than the other in my opinion, they're just different.


[To Morganas: Sorry I used your post as a platform to enter my opinion in this thread. I initially just wanted to make one comment in response to you, but then realized I could simply re-structure it and base it as a reply to your post. It kept me coherent and prevented me from rambling from area to area on my own. Sorry if it seems like I'm picking an e-fight or something, I'm truly not. ]