PvE to PvP - The Actual State of The Game

In the beginning when GuildWars was young, transitioning between PvE and PvP was actually an enjoyable experience.

Along the way, there were arenas for low-level characters, where you could practice your skills, experiment and learn. There was the occasional low-level character with a Droknar armour and Elites, but they were rare.
Then PvP rewards got introduced and all hell broke lose: the low-level arenas became place where smurfs ganked the unwary beginners. This could have been fixed easily in a whole variety of ways, but wasn't. The same PvP rewards and PvP titles ruined the fun of Random Areas, which used to be a form of laid-back PvP were you could try out things, after the rewards, they became leavers-fest, where everyone quits if there is no monk, or if there are too many monks on your team.

In the early days, PvE characters could actually be competitive in PvP arenas, at that time multiple weapon sets and being able to change armour could give you an edge over PvP toons. Of course you had to pay for it in Droknar armours, Elite capturing and weapon purchases, but it was kinda rewarding to get the character you had worked for in a competitive environment.
Then PvP toon creation got expanded, faction unlocks were introduced. PvE characters became mostly irrelevant in PvP unless you made a huge time investment, which had to be repeated for each PvE character.

In the early days HA was... well HA never was a beginner friendly place however back I can think of. HA was always a FotM place, where builds revolving around skill abuses were always the norm. Further worsening the situation there was the Rank emote.
The game designers attempted to tie HA to PvE via the whole favour and access to FoW/UW debacle. At this point it is obvious that this only resulted in intercontinental and interracial griefing.

Then there is case of Factions PvP arenas, which were very successful at introducing AFK PvP farming. For some reason AFK farming was considered as part of the game by the game designers and never fixed. What were good ideas (Jade Quary, Aspenwood) never really took up because of map balance issues that were never truly fixed... and AFK farmers.
Alliance battles on the other hand managed to pick up some steam, but being somewhat "out of the way", many PvE players didn't even knew they existed. To the hardcore PvP crowds, Alliance Battles are a bit special, and do not reflect true PvP, which is true, they're more melees than anything else. That said having them accessible in a more obvious fashion would probably have helped PvEers get into PvP.

Guild battles, I won't get into, the requirements of 8 people online at the same times, several days of the week for hours on end makes it irrelevant as a PvP mode for the vast majority of players out there.

The last PvE and PvP barriers is made of the PVPers coming to PvE... PvPers playing PvE are easy to spot: they're cussing and whining whenever someone isn't using the right skills, or doing missions the right way. If they were to change their attitude and instead help beginners see why the skills they have aren't good, if they could point which skills are desirable, this would be a whole lot more helpful than /rank'ing then ragequitting.

Finally, a lot of the trouble arises from game design and skills introduction: this isn't Prophecies anymore, beginner characters have a gigantic assortment of skills at their disposition (most of them useless), they don't get skills for free, they have to buy them or unlock them. Players that started with Prophecies had 2 years to familiarize themselves with skills mechanics and core skills, not only do faction/nightfall players don't have that luxury, but they're thrown in a more hostile environment (see points above).

So yeah, of course the transition isn't going to be a simple affair.

PS: Author has been around since a month after Prophecies launch, he has UAS'ed the PvE way, and has what is those days the luxury of 3 PvP-ready PvE toons, but, alas!, unlike many fellow PvPers, he realizes that most players don't even have the luxury of having UAS *and* read/tried most of the skills (Elite or not) out there (let alone a PvP-ready toon). He also realizes that the introductions to PvP those days are not what they used to be, and he would never /rank anyone, as that's the GW equivalent of showing the middle finger.

You're simply saying that: Because Anet fixed some major problems of PvP (no rewards, PvE-dependencies, and PvE equipment advantages), the game got worse?

No.

You "can" pvp with your pve character. But if you expect your char to get everything you want fast and free, go make a pvp char.

[QUOTE=Zorglubb]
The last PvE and PvP barriers is made of the PVPers coming to PvE... PvPers playing PvE are easy to spot: they're cussing and whining whenever someone isn't using the right skills, or doing missions the right way. If they were to change their attitude and instead help beginners see why the skills they have aren't good, if they could point which skills are desirable, this would be a whole lot more helpful than /rank'ing then ragequitting.
QUOTE]

I agree that there is a barrier between pvpers going to pve. I think that the main issue is that they are unable to form their own strategies and adapt to the dynamic world of pve. They are used to having their build and gameplan fed to them through some forum or build directory. When all the other party members are dying they are unable to improvise because they're "U3er L33t RanXing" build doesnt include any kind of rez.

I have been playing since 3 months after prophecies was released and I miss the days of gradual introduction to pvp. I've played alot of pve and now I'm a pvper. I too miss the days when roleplaying characters were useful in pvp. This whole problem would be resolved if there were no "pvp only" characters, but only roleplaying characters. This would provide a dramatic boost in economy and force the pvp geared players to learn the mechanics of the game and be a part of the community rather than just plugging their character into some formula. This would break down the barrier and through this pvp\pve harmony people would learn alot skills for use on both playing fields.

I didn't bother reading all of that (just the first few paragraphs), so I'm going off Chach's post, mainly on the last part, lol.

I first got into the ranger when I made a PvP ranger and had a lot of fun with it just in RA. So I decided to try a hand at a PvE ranger for two reasons. To learn the class, and to get the gear so I could PvP with him and not look like everyone else while doing it. I've got any type of bow I need, sets of armor for different roles, even have a couple hammers for the occasional thumper build. And I wouldn't do it any other way, and I personally feel a little more accomplished than just some random guy who made a PvP char and BAM, insta-gear.

I see that I am not the only one that feels the same about the PvE to PvP transition. I made a similar post to Zorglubb's in another thread. You did have the arenas in different areas and 'levels' of the game. Early after the release of the game, most people were about the same level, both in experience, skills and armor, with rare exceptions. Being able to buy or get guildmates to run to Droks to get the better armor and skills, made the 'low level' arenas slaughterhouses for the new people. I was one of those new people. No fun laying on the ground in Ascalon Arena with a level 7 in full Grotto gladiator armor dancing on your corpse saying "I pwned you." Who knows what was on his skill bar, but my Sever Artery, Gash and Frenzy were useless.

I remember thinking, "If that is PvP, I want none of it." First impressions take a LONG time to go away.

The problem with PvE -> PvP is far bigger than GW itself.

The truth is many PvErs are not comfortable and/or familiar with a truly competitive environment - like GW GvG. The dynamic and high competitive nature of PvP forces you to evolve in a way that many PvErs are not comfortable with.

Trash talking and taunting is nature of any human competitive endeavor - be it RA or NBA or Superbowl or Word Cup( or even MIT vs Harvard). It is not limited to scrubs, in fact many great athletes are known trash talkers (Baby Ruth, Ty Cobb, Michael Jordan, etc).

But many of us has never experienced this kind of competition except for some touch football or soccer at the school yard. So when they are faced with such for the first time, they are intimidated, shocked, insulted, angered, etc.

Most of us will stop and keep playing in a casual friendly environment while some will stay and learn to raise their game and fight back.

Seriously, if competition is not your thing it is fine. But to take some 'condescension' personally is really rather silly.

Get over it. Your girlfriend is not going to break up with you because 1% of the GW population don't think you are 'leet.'

It's sad, but the OP has hit some nails on their head. Almost all he is writing expresses the opinion of me and my guild and is the part of the reason why my guild broke down to less than eight active members and is not recruiting any new members anymore. Maybe it's because we are also playing the game since its release.
I also share the view, that pvponly characters, handy as they are, in the long term were more a bane than a boon to the game. (Same goes to several others things that have been changed, like the complete removal of pvprelated content from the rpg-side of the game)

You can almost call this THE root of all evil, the reason why so many don't want to bother with pvp again. Took me more than half a year to get the negative feelings out of the head of a guildmate. He simply did not want to play it anymore since he experienced the twinkers problem in the ascalon arena. even if it was jsut the lowlvl arena, he did not want to deal with "the lame people playing pvp". A generalization, I know, but it has happened this way.
It's the same with afk-farming in aspenwood, the leavers, etc.
Unfortunately none of the responsible persons see this as a problem. They wonder why HA is dying? Well, that's also influenced by these problems.
It's one of the spots they have to take action or pvp will get more and more into problems.

pveplayers usually, at least ALL I know, go, if interested in pvp at all, from RA/TA/AB/... over HA to gvg. You don't fix problems in the "lower" modes, you slam the door for many players to enter the higher modes and reduce the influx of new people into these modes.

I cannot speak for other countries, but where I live, "trash talking" is solely limitted to scrubs! Mature people are, no matter where they encounter it, offended by it.
A competetive environment is never based on trashtalking. Just some people want to believe it is. Regarding online games it is a direct result of the ever increasing amount of younger and younger people entering onlinegames. It's always a problem of the community evolving around the sport and not the sport itself.

The OP is correct on all counts here and has an accurate description of the problem and the history to boot. This is why I do not PvP anymore and essentially closed (no longer use) my PvP account.

When GW first came out there was a aura of warm comrade either be new or veteran. Rank Emotes were not there and people generally worked as a team for HA for both new players and veterans.

Thank you Zorglubb for your post.

The difference between trash talking in real life and via the internet is that if your trash talking gets out of hand in real life, you get your face bashed in. Ask Rudy Tomjanovich about the hard lesson he learned.

That, in and of itself, puts some restraints on what you feel comfortable in saying in real life. Unfortunately, the internet doesn't allow that same luxury.

Several of my guild mates have been put off pvp by random arenas where they get spawned with a w/e with firestorm a minionmaster ect and got destroyed their first few attempts. Now i'm slowly using AB to get people back to pvp after they were so put off to begin with.

excuse me? pvp players are use to builds from forums and websites? gtfo

pve is all stupid mindless builds, why else do they say "GFL 1 NUKER 1 MM", those are builds and believe me, they arnt innovative. pvp is the most innovative place for builds, the meta is always shifting and counters are always being found.

The shear volume of skills now must make PvP initiation pretty rough for new people.

Suggesting that removing PvP characters would be any kind of good thing is ignorant. For future reference, any idea that "forces" people to do something or not do something, is a bad suggestion.

@OP-Honestly, it doesn't look like you have listed any ideas or ways to lessen the gap of PvE<->PvP, and really looks like a long list of complaints with the game, and a healthy amount of generalizations.

If you're saying that there is a "cookie-cutter" mentality in PvE, I agree (You could've said it in a nicer way, though). It's a sad state of affairs, too. Especially for characters who aren't MM necros, Monks, Tanks or Nukers.

Not an easy concept to grasp for the cookie-cutter mentality. I've gotta admit, you may be on to something here as for one of the reasons for the dispairity between PvP and PvE.

PvP is the place where PVP builds are made up. PvE is where PVE builds are made up. PvE doesn't change much, since the monsters don't change skill bars every day or so, so PvE player builds don't change much and don't need to change much. PvP builds have to change or they will be easily beaten. I come up with new builds for PvE all the time, just to see which works the best and which is the most fun. I do the same in PvP.

I dont like the concept of trash talking. I played competetive hockey for 7 years and not once would I trash talk and the trash talking was really almost non existent.

To excuse trash talking here cause sports icons do it I dont agree with. A sports icon gets payed hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars a year. More then doctors who save lives and such. So yeah im sympathetic that minor trashtalking is nothing. However in here people are playing a game for fun.
They respect other players(for the most part) and thus deserve it in the same.
A lot of people are new and thus are trying to learn. Trash talking and insulting them is counter productive. Instead of mocking, trash talking, insulting, and putting down someone who seems to be struggling, why not leave them be in the game then after whisper them and teach them some tricks of the trade that made you so UBER so that maybe you could have some competition? Or is it that the people who simply want to trash talk new people afriad that new person might 1 day become better then them with a bit of training?

For the most part ive been better recieved in PVE then PVP. Ive found the PVErs more polite and respectful letting me be in a place that has an air of competition but is fun and respectful and ultimatly nice. PVP I found was more aggressive to borderline insulting. To me from what ive read in and out of the game PVP has become a closed door elite society where its incredibly hard to get in and accepted to near impossible these days. Ultimatly losing more players then it can bring in to keep it to a healthy balance. At least this is my oppinion on it from personal experience of myself and others ive talked to so im sorry if its offensive.

To the person kinda discrediting PVE builds like MMs and such I think thats unfair. People want a Minnion Master in there party cause there effective in the PvP enviroment because unlike PVP your facing lots of waves of mobs so the minnion master has plenty of ammunition to keep a healthy supply of attacking walls of meat. However there not staples parties can live without em. Same with nukers for similar reasons.
In the end the argument goes both ways. There are builds in PVE that dont belong in PVP and vice versa. Its a 2 way street.

I think the problem that really lies in getting more people willing to try and play PVP and such is the attitudes and enviroments. Its not everyones cup of tea but its not fair or right to basically make someone feel like crap. There only gonna leave, never come back and promote to others not to go in.

Everyone was a noob at one point, even these l33t PVPers. You were all noobs at one point but you learned from others ultimatly to be better so why not show other new players the same curtosy and teach them the ropes rather then insult them away?

Oh damn another PvE vs PvP thread! What a shocking discovery!

quoted for truth.

As a player of both PvP and PvE equally, I have to agree with this post more than the ones before it regarding PvP as a bunch of forum builds people are fed. I don't know what forums you're looking at, but I'm willing to bet the better PvP builds out there arn't going to be floating around like that. Simmilarily the strong PvE builds will be enviroment-specific with certain roles, but it's far more cookie cutter than your general PvP builds. As stated before the monsters dont change in pve, but the meta-game does change in pvp.

I am not the OP, but here are some suggestions.

Prophesies:

1. Bring back the low and middle level arenas;
2. Leave them random teams, increasing in team size as you advance thru the game;
3. Restrict the armor, weapons, and skills used to the ones available to the areas while following the storyline/quests;

This is just a start, may think of more.

I really do hope your kidding, most PvP'ers can't and wont play PvE for most of the same reason's PvE'ers wont PvP because they get owned almost everytime because they are not hip to newest most effective build

Low-level arenas are beside the point, and any serious argument stemming from them are red herring at best. PvP is at lvl20, with elite skills and max armor. Any PvP conducted without those characteristics will not prepare you for the real thing. Going to the Ascalon arena at lvl7 wasn't going to teach you anything significant about PvP anyway. Furthermore, arenas at any level teach you very little about the high-end competition of GvG.

The biggest roadblock to GvG is simply the 8-player requirement. It isn't even a matter of just getting 8 people together on a consistent basis - these have to be 8 people that actually care about GvG, and have the intelligence and willingness to improve their play.

Take a look around, fellow GW players. Is the average GW player a person with the intelligence and willingness to improve? And something else to think about: if any amount of trashtalk could turn you off to PvP, I argue that you never wanted to PvP in the first place. Before you start pointing fingers at the game and at other people, take some time and think about what's actually going on.

I won't deny that the PvP environment isn't newbie-friendly. In fact, as I've argued in several other threads in the past, I don't believe that newbie-friendliness is necessary or even beneficial. A competitive environment can't cater to people's feelings if you want to foster truly top-level play. Persistant, merciless competition is what produces our highest-quality players, and it's that high quality that continues to evolve the competitive landscape.

Oh, and finally: stop throwing around the "the good players should help the newbies" bit. If you want to get better, you'll help yourself, rather than sitting around waiting for someone to hold your hand. Observer mode is right there, all of the tricks and builds are available to you 24/7. Pick a top-level match and watch it. Figure it out. I'm tired of people claiming "everyone was a noob once, and someone taught you", and all of the infinite variations. It's bullshit, because many GvG players were never taught by anyone. You scrape together all the information you can from forums, you absorb/steal whatever you can from Observer mode, and you go out and just play until you figure it out.

Nobody has the time to sit there and hold a newbie's hand, and nobody should have to. The top-level players want to compete and hone their own skills, not spend their time teaching newbies. There's nothing wrong with that because there are so many other sources of information. Forums and Observer *spoonfeed* information to you - all you have to do is swallow. But you guys are telling me you're too stupid to even do that.

I like this last part.

PvP'ers get owned almost everything in pve because they are not hip to newest most effective build?

that is the funniest *edit*POOP i've ever heard. pve'ing is mindless, there's no challenege, you can beat the game with heroes (which have subpar gear) and subpar gear on yourself... ? how is this a challenge?

Excuse me? Most PVPers play efficent builds in PVE. Just the fact that most of them solo PVE with heroes/henchies so you rarely find them in PVE PUG groups.

Plus PVPers are most likely to be found in elite PVE areas because elite missions are the only challenging/interesting PVE areas in the game.

To me, PVE can be relaxing or boring depending on my mood.

Wow, any self repecting pvper would not start a thread with such completely unvalid points. PVP is made for lvl 20. If you can't see that, quit the game.

I don't play PVE unless I have to (level char up, buy stuff and go PVP) but that's because PVP makes more money for me. In a week of PVP I can get enough money to buy FoW.

In a week of PVE I can't make that same ammount of money, unless I get lucky and/or bore myself to death. I think I'd run out of music^^.

As for the old system. Hmm, I wanted to play warrior, superiour absorption was around 60k back then (maybe more?). It only worked on one bit of armour... Then it changed to global (good game).

I bought a chaos axe which I think was like, 600platinum. 15%50 was a lot then (no idea how much it is now). Then half a day later I realised I needed loads of other axe's. So I spent millions. Then later wanted to try monking anyway.

I made PVP char, messed up one thing and had to go re-roll which was boring...

So in terms of setting up a char. Hmm, it was always expensive if you wanted perfect stuff. I'd say there's more greens about now, at a cheaper price. Which actually makes it easier, not harder. Runes have generally(?) dropped in price.

PVP characters are easier and much better to setup.

So I like that side of the game now...

This must be quoted again because it is the dumbest thing I have read in a long time.

If pvpplayers are found in elitemissions then they aren't pvpplayers, but hybridplayers. And good players are good players, but bad players are bad ones. bad pvpplayers suck in pve just the same like bad pveplayers suck in pvp.
Elitemissions are challenging/interesting? PvP is challenging/interesting? It all boils down to personal preferences. I personally think the elitemissions are boring. And PvP? Challenging? Yes. Interesting? No, infact I find it pretty boring. Can't play it for longer periods. I somehow like it but can't play it more than a few hours before taking a break from it. Pure buildexecution in a slow environment with few maps and even fewer victoryconditions. But that's my opinion and that's not what this thread is about

It's about a shrinking pvppopulation. A trend that is not good for guild wars. This thread is about what changes are possible/needed to attract more players to this playing mode! To make the move from pve (the large community) to pvp (the small community) more succesful and inviting! Basically the players just playing one of the modes were supposed to be the minority, unfortunately they are quite numerous.

Somebody mentioned lowlvl arenas don't help you learn how to play pvp. That's true and that's good. It's the first possible pvpencounter you can have and you don't need much knowledge. They are there to attract people and I know quite some people who started their pvpcareer right there. If gw did not have those arenas they would have been still pure pveplayers.

In my opinion one of the major problems why (for example) HA is in trouble, is that there is a missing link between the casual playmodes and the noncasual ones. 4vs4 casual modes, 6vs6 semicasual (does anybody remember Fort Koga?), 8vs8 HA (pugs possible), 8vs8 gvg (no pugs).

Thank you i try very hard at saying dumb things

*round of applause*

No. GW, more specifically ANET, creates the problem by linking PvE areas to PvP outcomes, and by trying to force a side of the game that some people don't want down their throats, calling it 'part of the experience.' Furthermore, skill nerfing... I seriously doubt the majority of skills are nerfed because some PUGs completed Thunderhead Keep, but those same people have to deal with nerfs because of the mecca of innovation that is PvP.

Many. Good term. Many PvEers and PvPers don't consider GW PvP competitive. However, realising that some do, I'll just point out to you that 'gamers' in general are competitive. GW PvP is a very different kind of game. To say that PvE players have not gamed in a truly competitive environment is ridiculous. I know of a group of PvEers that were sponsored players in another game. I, personally, have played in truly competitive video game environments longer than some people playing GW have been alive. We all know the changing dynamics of PvP. Player vs. Player. Guild Wars did not coin that term, TYVM.

Really? I always figured trash talking was due to shortcomings elsewhere. You see, in years of playing competitive video games, while there were a select few idiots, the match always started with people typing something along the lines of gl, gh (good luck, good hunting... even though you wanted to beat them) and it always ended with gg (good game, no matter how loud you were screaming on comms). Perhaps the tell-tale sign is that those videogames were much more successful at PvP 4 years after release, than GW is right now 2 years into production. People and attitude make a difference.

Intimidated, shocked, insulted, angered? No, more like unimpressed, repulsed, left trying to figure out leet, and realizing that life throws enough hassles at you to bother with idiots who use the internet to channel John Wayne, etc.

Some folks learn to stoop the the lowest level. Yay. As stated earlier, GW PvP is not the kind of competition some people like. We're just affected by it on at least two levels. Areas and nerfs.

She, like me, doesn't give a rodents posterior about the leet people.

ANET could solve the whole PvE vs PvP fiasco with a few easy moves, but they only seem interested in listening to the PvP crowd... btw, nice PvP only game. The latest State of the Game was only just another kick in the pants. Gaile mentioned they ran the article past 3 editors who were attuned to the GW community. Heck... I've seen better attunement in... in video games.

And this is the part where Unien pretends to be surprised that a PvP vs PvE thread erupted into ignorant flaming. Well, erupted would imply it didn't start that way. But you know what I mean. Closed.