[State of the Game]: PvE to PvP

Really, it isn't as cut and dry as you make it out to be. That's why I posted in an earlier comment that legal maneuvering in civil suits aren't the best way to determine objective reality. For the opposing side of the Stella Liebeck and the McDonald's coffee case click here.

So, it's a bad example because it will just spark further debate as the facts of the case will indicate.

Adam Sunstrom isn't guilty of slander or libel, so expectations of some form redress are entirely unfounded.

*Warning: Editorials contain opinions!

The thing is, its a case of wording...

You can say the exact same thing two different ways, one way will offend, one way will flatter and enlighten... Adam did the first and thats whats blown this out of proportion...

I personally agree with some of the statements in teh article, i, however, disagree witht he way they were written and the easily inflamitary way they can be taken... Oh and they were taken that way too, this thread proves it

I just don't understand the concept that every person that buys a copy of Guild Wars can not be considered a novice.

A big selling point for Guild Wars is PvP. People are enticed to play Guild Wars for PvP. It can't be out of the question that some players are going to fit some of the categories:

-have never played any online game before

-have never played PvP

-do not know skills and skill chains yet

-reluctant to try PvP

-are the type of people that have to learn for themselves first

Really, it's a big assumption that there can't be people that fit any of those criteria when it comes to playing the game.

I personally never set down and "studied" skills. I thought Mending was a damn cool skill, every other game a I played having a health regen buff was an awesome thing.

A lot of things look reasonable on the face of things. I think it's ignorant to suggest there aren't poor/inexperienced players in Guild Wars.

Many people who may have an interest in PvP will first try PvE to get a feel for the game, it's not unreasonable to conclude that these people may migrate over to PvP at some point.

Purchasing skill unlocks aside, some people try PvE in order to acquire these things. As a beginner player, that seemed to me to be a reasonable way to proceed before attempting to go wild in PvP.

20 months later, I still haven't done anything more than random arenas, lol.

My guildies and I started out in PvE, but the PvE / PvP tension has always been very palpable, imo this is because being good at PvE gives you very little advantage at being good in PvP, other than knowledge of + exposure to a variety of skills / builds (assuming you like to experiment in PvE).

You really do have to "unlearn" PvE ideas such as tanking, aoe nuking without snares etc - and the particle does provide explanations why these tactics are less useful in PvP, which i would find helpful if i were a casual gw player. IMO while PvE does teach you a lot about game mechanics, there is little emphasis on teamwork + build coordination outside guild groups because you can beat most missions in proph, factions and NF with PUGs (or better yet, Heroes FTW).

When Anet adds areas that require such coordination (such as FoW, UW, DoA, Urgoz/Deep and some of the harder mission areas) we end up with some people complaining its "too hard". Its really not, if you have the time + build + a modicum of skill. PvP, just like high-end PvE, is all about skill synergy and teamwork. Thats it.

This article is not the way to get that done...tripple faction,fame, etc will not do it either. It is sooooo simple if that is really what they want to do. Make PvP rewards that are attainable by casual players and there will be 20 districts all the time in all PvP areas. XX gold for a win in RA + xx gold for flawless and xx gold for 10 in a row... xx gold for win in TA (higher than the gold in RA), same for halls and gvg with increasing value from ra, ta, ha, gvg. There is just no reason to PvP for me because there is such little reward. I know that there are HUGE rewards for that .0001% that are good enough to win all the time but if I have to play for a year or more and find enough like minded people to get them to play for that length of time to get good enough to get the high end "prizes" then it is pointless. Think about how long it would take average player to get good enough and get a good enough team to get those prizes...now think of all the gold that same player could have farmed in that same amount of time if they just stuck with PvE.

Competition? Dunno about you but to me killing the same thing over and over again and knowing what to expect each time is quite dull. My biggest reward is the challenge and defeat in PvP.

On a side note I did a little PvE the other day as a monk. I was in a group and they asked what kind of monk am I. I said standard zb prot. They argued and argued saying that prot is useless... I finally left the group and did the bonus mission with heros and henchies. I guess they wanted another healing breeze, HP spammer.

Nearly ever time I go do some pve mission I see subpar players with subpar builds. When I get bored enough to pve, I almost always PUG... just for the pure comedy of the experience.

PvErs are 'new' when then start the transition to PvP, and are often 'poor' at it - if only at first. I fail to see your point.

You'll see tons of this stuff in PvE too. Bad players are everywhere and they outnumber the good ones by a lot. I tend to hero/hench everything now. I consider heroes/hench bad players with good bars while I consider anyone I would pick up in the outpost a bad player with a bad bar.

I've seen fire monks in PvE (trying to do a rotscale run and wondering why we were dying.) Tanks are a dime a dozen, seriously one copy of watch yourself, maybe 1 stance, then 3 attack skills! Mending has waned in popularity, but is still around.

If you want to find bad players in PvE go to thunderhead keep, invite some random players, and watch the trainwreck happen. If you want to find bad players in PvP visit HA.

>Make PvP rewards that are attainable by casual players
>and there will be 20 districts all the time in all PvP areas

Rewards are *not* going to do any good to PvP IMO, if anything they're part of the problem.

All other successful forms of PvP gameplay (FPS, RTS, MMOSG etc.) don't have rewards beyond a global ranking system (not a /rank!). What they do have however, is something that IMO GuildWars sorely misses: a punishment system. Something that punishes players for ruining others gameplay experience, be it teamkills, penalties for leaving/disconnecting, votekicking, etc.

IMO removing the PvP rewards and instating punishments would probably do a whole lot more towards reviving GW PvP than adding yet more rewards that lend themselves to AFK farming, leeching and quit-griefing. It works in all other PvP games, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work in GW.

The other part of the equation would be making PvP introductions, via lower level arenas and in-game channels. There are hundredth and hundredth of skills, that a an awful lot. Similarly there are dozens of hexes and conditions, whose mechanics *aren't* explicited in-game! There is not even a description of how much degen "poison" causes, or what the effects of "dazed" really are, etc. All the info has to be found online, and off-game, which is intrinsically not player friendly.

Here's a thought.

Has anyone considered that players who are new to PvP might be using crap skills because those are the skills they were handed while they worked their ways toward the Battle Isles? Make a new account in Cantha, play until you reach Kaineng City and try go PvP from there. You won't get far.

What Adam is really saying is, you haven't played enough PvE if you bring crap PvE skills to PvP. "Don't PvP, you silly bugger, go get some good skills! See you in a few months."

EDIT: cleaned up a typo.

This topic has gotten quite hostile and dull from different people, and after reading what has just happened I am not mad at the article insulting PvE to the extent of being "n00b"

What I am most angry about atm is just how Anet/Gaile has handled this issue.

Now Gaile I am truly not telling you how to do your job, but that should not have been said which is why this outcry from a few notable players and people I have discussed over ventrilo this issue with all come to agree.

You have insulted these people. Intentional or not, it has happened.

Then what I bolded in your quote is a response, your not kicking out someone for stealing in your grocery store, you're telling them to leave when they innocently wanted to purchase milk and bread.

I know you listen to us, and we are thankful. Although I have seen some good arguments here as much as you do not agree with me or others here.

Conclusion: A type of Apology must be given, it is political not personal.

While I am not sure I agree with the beginning of your post - I wholeheartedly believe that this suggesstion would help a great deal.

An in-game tutorial/walk-through of the various maps in GvG/HA with commentary would be very beneficial. Being able to access PvP matches within these tutorials would be very helpful. Actually having playable templates for new players would be very helpful.

I think if ANet really wants to help new players transition from PvE to PvP or from bad PvP to decent or good PvP - they need to take the steps to create new content that will help them do this. Changing the content we already have is clearly not the answer. I still see people in HA running terrible build, Warriors with Life Transfer, Monks with Healing Breeze, Assassins with Vigorous Spirit. I almost feel bad for them because they don't know any better and get turned off from PvP because everyone LOL's them out of the arenas. I am just as guilty in this regard. However, I have also had the priviledge to help people out that listened. (Like the monk using mending and vig spirit. He actually listened to me when I told him other monk bars. He didn't have Nightfall so I shared a Blessed Light build. He still PM's me occassionally to get additional info). And that is the other half of the battle. Most "noob" PvPer's don't want to listen. They don't want to use the same build others are using. They try to be creative and then fail because they don't understand PvP enough to know why certain skills are crap - or why Rangers running Elementalist spells isn't going to get you very far.

So you have 2 sides. PvP players that scrutinize and make game play lousy for people that don't know any better. And then the people that don't know any better not wanting to listen or be helped. This is why I think a tutorial would be an excellent choice. Show the common builds, how to beat them, how to run them, what common tactics people use... Just provide more help for players.

I would highly suggest that ANet not try and accomplish this on their own. Based on what we have seen as a community, I don't think that they have as good of a grasp on the current state of the game as some of the veteran players do. I think that a cooperative effort between the two, done well, would yield excellent results and improve the state of PvP in general.

I know this topic has spiraled out of control but I for one would like to get in back on path.

First of all I agree with many of his statements with PvE'ers. I'm sorry as many people on these boards might be very good at PvE'ing, but I've played with guildies and friends who have PvE'ed and tried to PvP with them and they have done a lot of those things. The sad thing is a lot of PvE'ers dismiss PvP right out, because they try to play with pubbers and things to terribly for them. I for one offer my condolences to you, as I often stay away from HA PvP for that one reason. Still look at PvP in all other MMO games (not RTS and FPS, those are different) and you will find many wild west systems such as Ultima Online where people can simply attack other people. Guild Wars has a very nice PvP system and it's a shame more people don't take advantage of it.

Look guys n gals, the controversy/tension whatever is only there because people are ignorant. People can be great players and still only enjoy pve and vice versa. The problem is that when some one who is rightfully proud of their skills in whichever game they play gets taken out of context it becomes the macho who's got a bigger hammer game. This article points at the rift from the perspective of a *very* immature pvper (thank goodness there aren't very many of them) and everyone's getting bent out of shape just because the guy forgot to echo mending (the greatest skill in the world!). This rift is in y'alls heads, it's not real unless you act like a 13 year old and give it fuel.
Just play the game YOU enjoy and quit flaming each other (noobs ).
apology? for what stating his 13 year old opinion? do you ask or demand an apology from every tard in RA?

Is this thing still alive? Man...

They made a mistake and pissed people off. We all know already. As do they. You can bet all your shiny pencils it won't happen again. So is there any point of continuing this steam-roller? It's out of juice guys. Seriously...

I demand reparations Nothing less that 40 ectos and a mini-mule will do

The article was aimed at really bad pve players. If that's not you, then it shouldn't offend you.

I run into a lot of bad pve'ers when pugging (which I enjoy more than NPC companionship). I often have take my own heroes to fill out the group after I get my teammates to ding their heroes' skillbars. I like to call Mending when the wammo puts it on himself, usually get a chuckle from the others. However, we can get through missions/quests just fine.

This reminds me of the Mohammed crisis here in Denmark.
Some people are just emotional.

But... But I still didnt get my tropical fruit smoothy
Sorry couldnt resist that was the first thought that came to my head when I read that last bit

In seriousness though to echo thoughts and such. After pondering some new info.

Im pretty sure I put whatever malice/anger I felt to Anet/the author.
In the end what people said is all we can hope for, that A net and the author take to heart how upset that artical made people feel so in the future these frayed feelings dont resurface

I do think its time to put this to bed now and look into just moving on and let bygones be bygones. Both sides have there share of "noobs" and "l33t pros" and to me personally both sides are equal players. No side should look down upon the other and embrace both sides and help each other out fairly. I think you need to allow both sides to try each others side out and if you notice there struggling, i dont think a "QQ L2P" is in order. It shouldnt be that hard to say somethign along the lines of "Instead of mending on you warrior id recomend these skills instead..." This way the person trying to learn a transition instead of being turned off is instead thankful.

I guess in the end the moral of this bad bit is for us to be more careful with how we word things.

Now cant we all just............ get along. GROUP HUG YALL!!!!

Joking

Eh that wasn't really the main point of my post. The main point was people shouldn't have been offended and Anet shouldn't offer an apology. I just put that example in because somebody earlier mentioned McDonalds like they offer apologies for everything and that clearly isn't the case. Just look at their food...

My, what a large gathering of carebears we have in this thread.

More than 10% of RA teams would contain an appalling build of some sort, and yet the numbers in PvE are low enough that you can play the game through without ever encountering them. I personally am 80% pve and 20%pvp and have racked up > 4k hours of playing time. If all these mistakes are being made by pve'ers and not new/poor players, what do you think the statistical probability is that I would have seen them more times than I can in PvP arenas but never in a pve context?

If anything, pve is set in the same "cookie cutter" team mentality that is more prevelant in the higher forms of pvp.

PVE'ers are not the same as new players. A new player will continue to wack at a target through empathy, a pve'er won't. An PvE'er entering RA for the first time will generally be entering as a "mediocre" RA player, certainly not poor. They understand what all the skills, they know how to kite and snare, they understand what all the little icons do. They won't kill themselves on hexes like spoil victor, or try to run while crippled. They certainly won't be entering with firestorm on a monk's bar because they've already all of this learned this from thousands of hours of PVE.

Why can't we accept that new PvP players can be:

-new to the game

-new to computer gaming online

-new to PvP from PvE

-new to thinking in a tactical manner

Any number of other variations of newness.

There's enough people out there that aren't highly skilled at PvE or PvP to make the benefit of any basic lessons useful.

How is this an issue?

Isn't enough to say, "In this article I'll try to point out the most common mistakes PvE players make when trying PvP, as well as basic concepts a lot of beginner players don't immediately grasp"?

Doesn't that get us in the ballpark and into a place of mutual understanding as to the author's intent?

Yet, somehow, the actual text is ignored and a metaphysical meaning comes across to confound of us all.

Why do you need to have PvE mentioned at all? Whether or not a player enjoys pve has nothing to do with how them having difficulty grasping the basics of the game.

"In this article I'll try to point out the most common mistakes inexperienced players make when trying PvP"
Much better.

All I'm saying is that nearly every time I venture into pve I see bad players using silly builds. I'm not saying all pvers are like this, but this has been my observation. I see bad players and builds in pvp as well.

Perhaps we have different ideas of what's bad though.
I don't see what this has to do with anything. People use what works; you'd have to be a scrub not to.



That's funny, everytime I go into RA i get paired up with some of the worst players in the game. These people attack though Empathy, attack through SS while standing next to team mates, cast through Spoil Victor, walk through traps they just watched a ranger lay, don't kite or 'kite' away from monks and often seem confused as to why they died.

My point was that when a pve player moves over into pvp they're 'new' in the sense that they lack the experience for that game mode. They may know some common sense things, but they will make newbie mistakes and often lose without knowing why. These players will also be 'poor' pvpers for at least a little while. This is what the article was addressing. You're taking this out of context and making sensationalist claims.

I don't have problem using cookie cutters - the point being almost every pve'er [i]and[i] pvp'er I encounter does and this means that, they're not using doing the things that the article claims they are.


So when you see bad play in a pvp arena, this means pve'er don't know how to play - nice logic you have there.

And I'm saying that no pve player would make any of the mistakes presented in the article, and to address such remedial "tips" at pve'er is blatantly insulting.

An analogy would be a Professional Java programmer presenting a Professional C# programmer with an "learn to code" book and saying "here this will help you code better".

And I would say that most of them do from experience. Maybe not as bad as things such as using fire skills on a monk (which I agree was stupid), but using skills such as mending and healing breeze on a warrior is commonplace. Anybody who plays pve with any consistency will find that out. So of course if these players transfer over to PvP they will use the same skills.

I am still trying to grasp my mind around why people are being offended. I pointed out why people shouldn't be offended earlier, but I can't believe I am still talking about it. I read the article again, and the main idea I got from the article was "PvE and PvP are different animals and here are some differences". That is all.

And the article does not mention all PvE players or that all bad players in PvP are PvE players. I don't know where people are getting this. The article speaks to a majority of players (who are PvE players) so it is mathematically true that most of the players who use those skills are PvE players. I don't see what the problem is here. If you aren't one of those players who uses those skills, plays PvE, and wants to PvP, then the article is not for you. End.

The people you see using these skills in pve are the same poor/inexperienced players you see using them in pvp. By the same token, you will never see an experienced warrior using these skills in pve or pvp. These are skills that and mistakes that apply to people new to the game regardless of whether they are pvp players or pve players

If the following was presented in a pvp to pve article you'd have exactly the same uproar from the pvp comunity.

True, but the article had two purposes. One, to speak to a majority of Guild Wars players (hence why PvE player was used instead of new player). Two, to promote the natural progression of the game. Most players start with PvE and then MIGHT play PvP or might not. Those two things are who the article targeted and I think it did that just fine.

Eh...most pvp players I know wouldn't care. They have been getting generalized as arrogant unhelpful rankflashers for years. One article wouldn't do much.

Ok, I think we're getting to why there's a miscomunication in why there's a perceived problem - This insult was anet sanctioned and hosted on an anet site. If the same thing was in a fan forum - I would say no big deal, the problem comes when there's a statement on the guildwars site effectively saying "all pve'ers are newbs that don't know how the game works"

But it wasn't Anets opinion. It was somebody elses. And Anet can put whatever they want on their site that nobody is paying for. We pay for game content, not game opinions.

It didn't say that...not even close. Oh well.

For a very simple and obvious reason:

Most people, especially those new to a game, will play PvE before attempting PvP.

Rolling a level 20 PvP-only character is much less inviting to a beginner for a variety of reasons.

So, by statistics alone, most players that start PvP will be coming from the PvE side of the game.

It may be insensitive to say it, but it's rather petty to be so sensitive about the very mention of PvE in an article that's titled From PvE to PvP.

What? It seems that you're taking my comments out of context as well.

Obviously people do make these mistakes; I see it every time I go into RA. That was the point I was making with my comments about RA. There is a certain portion of the Guild Wars population that do these ridiculous things, and yes, they're mostly pve players. The article was intended for those pvers who may think mending or healing breeze are useful skills. If you have a basic understanding of the game then that portion of the article wasn't meant for you - that should've been obvious from the start.

What I don't understand is, if you're not one of those mending wammos, why take issue with this?

I am an arrogant unhelpful rankflasher.

Nub.

>I am an arrogant unhelpful rankflasher.

Go play "The Sims 2" please, that's more appropriate to your state of mind.

It's a joke, but whatever.

Learn to quote IMO.

You've just followed exactly the same flawed logic again. No they're not PvEers they're NEW PLAYERS!!!! You seem to think that everyone that makes rudimentary mistakes is a pve'er. The simple fact is they don't because the same mistakes get you killed in pve too. Take FoW for example - a warrior that doesn't quickly learn not to attack through spitefu spiteful will get the group killed. By the time they learned to be a pve'er they have also learned most things needed in pvp.

Then address the article to new players, don't patronise pve'ers who already by telling things they learned 18 months ago - just like pvpers. Its obvious you're not going to understand without a picture so here you go.


The Magenta section contains PvPers. They would breeze through any of the elite missions if they were the least bit interested in the game. Generally these are the pvp'ers that would recognise and complain about poor players.

The Red Section contains PvE'ers. They would be earning Glad points within an hour of trying RA for the first time. It is this group of players this article is offensive to.

The green section we're not concerned with, because they've just bought the game to chat in the great temple.

The 3 blue sections contain your mending wammos and firestorm monks. They suck at playing regardless of what flavour guildwars they choose because they haven't learned how things work yet. These people might actually benefit from what is in the article.

The article is actually aimed at the blue section, but addressed to red section and thats the problem. If they wanted to actually create an article which was aimed at making a pve to pvp transistion they would look at address things like focus swapping, stance cancelling and positioning.

I'm in the pink section so no I'm not a mending wammo - I take issue because I think it is inappropriate for Anet to have an article that insults a large proportion of its gamers with its condescending attitude and tone on the official site.

So why did I see a Fissure armoured warrior light up with mending ten minutes ago in RA? When a comment was made, he insisted that he knew how to play and he had "Protector of Tyria" to prove it.

This is just one example, but it's actually pretty common. I cringe when I see fissure armour in RA as it generally means that the guy is about to do something stupid.

I can guarentee you he sucks at pve too - thats what people in the blue section do.

That is the kind of person who bought their account on eBay. Believe it or not, there are a LOT of those out there.

I read the short article and there is nothing really new or interesting about it. It is like PvP 101 which most average players would have known by now.

I thought he would talk about split strategies and such, but the article is really basic even though I consider myself to be a PvE player mostly and only dabble in PvP from time to time. It is obvious that PvP and PvE are different and certain skills are not as effective in PvP as they are in PvE and vice versa.

And what he said about warriors and tanks etc. is so obvious, nothing new or interesting.