PvP vs PvE Pros - Help Me Out

After I learned that PvP characters would soon be able to unlock PvE skins, I looked back on why I've made most of my PvE characters. It was mainly to get a hold of better looking armor. I also liked some of the weaponry. In some cases, it was to take advantage of PvE environments. For instance, I made my Ranger for the sole purpose of UW trapper farming. Of course, she doesn't do that much anymore, as I neither find it fun nor lucrative, but I digress. Generally, I made my characters for the sole purpose of making them better looking, or to have fun in some environment within PvE. Arguably, also to unlock the non-elite skills at a faster rate than I could in PvP.

Now, looking back on that, I don't have much reason to continue playing my PvE characters. I've grown worn out taking all of my characters through each campaign, arduously farming for thousands, perhaps millions of gold so that I can purchase basic skills and buy armor. In recent months this has become even more difficult due to how difficult it is to make money now.

So, this might sound silly, but I sat down and made a short list of the advantages, or Pros, of creating a PvP character, or a PvE character. I avoid the Cons because I feel like the list would be too long and biased.

PvP

Can instantly recreate armor at no cost
Can recreate character appearance at any point
Can recreate character name at any point
Can use any skill unlocked by any character at any time
Can create, and customize, any type of item at will
Is always level 20 with maximum attributes
Has free access to any rune at no cost

PvE
Can interact with the PvE and PvP world
Has access to PvE-exclusive items and armor (soon to be removed)
Has access to more advanced dyes / dye mixes (will this be removed too?)
Unlocks PvP items and skills more quickly

That last one doesn't make a lot of sense to me, now that I think about it. You would think that unlocking PvP items would come more quickly in PvP, but...

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone can add to the list without getting too much into details. Because right now, I see little reason for me not to delete some of my PvE characters (my Elementalist or Mesmer, Dervish, Ritualist and Assassin would be quick to leave) in favor of creating PvP characters using the same appearance and armor (when that option presents itself).

I say this because it would, for one, give me the ability to concentrate on just one or two PvE characters instead of carrying half a dozen+ of them through all three campaigns AND a new expansion. (I'm still not done taking even my first character completely through all of them, quests and all.) Having to play through each campaign just to hit every outpost marker (so I can get to armor / resources more easily) has worn me out. I find myself playing PvP more and more due to this, just to "get away from the home."

Really, all I want from PvE for most of my characters (not all) is 15k armor and some fancy weapons. That's all. I don't want to be the richest man in Guild Wars, I just want to look nice and have access to any skills that I'd like to have.

I'm very near having every skill, item and accessory upgrade in the game unlocked. Unfortunately, when I play PvP, I often am forced to create an entirely new character.

For example, I was playing around recently and wanted to see what would happen when I made a Dervish / Assassin that used Avatar of Lyssa in combination with some Assassin Dagger Mastery skills. I brought out my PvE Dervish, because he's a fine-looking-man. He has a unique weapon and full 15k Primeval armor. (Well, minus the 1.5k shoes that no one ever notices.) I quickly realized I couldn't do this with him because he was a D/Mo, and did not even have D/A "unlocked" for himself. In order to try the build, I would have to farm gold, travel across multiple continents buying skills, possibly capturing elites that I already have on other characters. I can easily grab Melonni and create the build on her first. To me, that's ridiculous. It would take hours to create the build on my Dervish. Actually, it might take days, due to the fact that he would also need new armor and runes to make the most of the build.

On a related note, I still do not have a Superior Vigor on any of my PvE characters, for obvious reasons. Of course, on any PvP character I create, it's a simple matter, as I unlocked it months ago. I remember being excited that I had enough money to purchase a Superior Absorption for my Warrior's 15k Canthan chest piece.

But you get the idea. PvE characters often make a PvP life very difficult. It's a simple matter to create a copy of the character with a new name and aesthetically-challenged armor, but to me, that's just silly. I know it's not a right to own 15k armor, even Obsidian, but I still see no reason for this difficulty.

For any developers, hopefully you understand where I'm coming from. Is anything being done to resolve this? Perhaps giving PvE characters the ability to wear PvP-only armor that they can create at a whim in PvP arenas? I know Tomes and such are being introduced to try to ease the pain regarding things like this, but honestly, it's not working very well. I've still only seen a single non-elite Mesmer tome drop in all my time playing Guild Wars, so I can't say that's the golden road to PvE-driven PvP equality.

Long post, possibly a rant, but I think most of you guys know what I'm talking about.

Do NOT go there.

Seriously.
Do not do this....

This is top-quality flame-bait...

Besides... couldn't you find somewhere better to complain about your sudden attack of teh-lazy?
PvP characters aren't supposed to look good; they're just supposed to be an easy and practical way of using new builds. Guild Wars is set up so if you want the fancy asthetics, you have to work for them! There is no reason why PvE should be r4ped of its unique features just because you want everything served up to you on a plate while you piddle about in games of schoolyard tag.

PvE gets crapped on...what's new...nothing.

All advantages are given to PvP as they ask for them...meanwhile pve makes similar requests that would do the reverse (such as break the tie to pvp for the realms of the gods....pvp got their tie to pve broken...and now it's being taken even further)...and we get ignored.

nothing new...just business as usual...

You want your PvP guys to look good? Start earning some reward points already.

That was the sound of this thread crashing and burning.

WTB passage scroll?

Exactly, not to mention PvE will soon get a good amount of skills (on top of the three already there) that are exclusive to just PvE.

This is the dawn of the official, Anet-enforced Guild Wars split, instead of the superficial split created by the community over the past two years. PvP and PvE are finally acknowledged as two seperate beasts, lightly teathered by game mechanics.

If the good skins are offered as rewards, there's pretty much zero advantage to PvPing with PvE characters, other than sentimental value or something. Hell, it's already impossible to Hero Battle with PvE chars unless you're so dedicated that you bought all the proper runes (vigor) and such for the necessary heroes.

I honestly do not see the big deal with this.....At first yes I was rather angry but after thinking about it I really do not care......In order to unlock these skins PvP players will have to compete in tournaments meaning only those who have at least some level of skill will even have a shot at unlocking the skins.....As it has been said in many other threads you should play PvE because it is fun and you like it not just in order to unlock the best armor.....I personally think that many people will still use PvE characters in PvP matches because that is what they are accustomed to.....but for those who don't want to use PvE characters in order to look nice there is now the Automated tournament system where they will still have to WORK in order to get there fancy skins.....

/end rant

I don't get what the big deal is, you can't do PvE on a PvP character. If you're primarily a PvE player, what should it matter if a few people look shiny on obs mode.

PvP gets crapped on far, far more than PvE. Stop crying when you have nothing to cry about.

That's another thing I forgot about... I tried Hero Battles and it wasn't for me, though. I didn't much care for being required to bother with the shrines. It sort of turned into micromanaging flags instead of playing the game.

This thread did not end up being what I thought it would.

Most people are never going to earn any reward points from ATs, and hence are never going to get nice skins for PvP chars.

If you can't even place in an HvH tourney, you don't PvP enough to care anyway. I suppose whether you *want* to even play the mode is another matter though...

I'm in a similar situation, 10 characters for pve and 1 for pvp, pvp can use most any skills, nearly have all unlocked, but not one pve has all unlocked on them, my mesmer, main charactre, has all mesmer skills, but hardly any others. this does make pvp more difficult as to get a really good charcater you need to have all choices, and leads to deleating the pvp one for change

However, I do play pve more, and I'm enjoying going throught the campaigns earnign gold and unlockign skills as i see fit, It may be a pain to deleate the pvp and change if i want to do something, but its nto that bad, personaly i woudlnt delate any pve, at least i get my birthday presents on them

And I have found it easier unlocking stuff with them,

However the game is designed to be playable under many methods, if you no longer enjoy pve then i would do as you think and delete the non-fun pve characters, and make pvp, at least that way enjoying pvp, more you will have an easier time to alternate characters when playing, and if you are in a pvp guild will not slow them down, by deleting the one pvp you have to make another.

I usually lurk GwG looking for threads like these. What I bolded, I love, and is a great idea.

It allows PvE players to stop being babies and saying PvP can create armors on a whim and they can't.

What do you think it would be then? Everyone holding hands and signing what a wonderful world or mercy mercy me?

For those of you who honestly believe that the ability of PvP characters to obtain PvE skins for weapons will steal away from your experience,I only have one thing to say to you.

QQ MOAR.

Be a REAL man and play both PvE and PvP.

exactly.....

Yes! I love that song.

To everyone who just blabs that idiotic "QQ" bullshit:

This equation used to be the other way around, with PvE chars having the advantage in PvP due to superior equipment choices/armor choices.

We complained. They fixed it (eventually). Now PvP chars are up to par and even better than PvE chars now.

So we cant complain for them to fix PvE for PvP now?

PvE characters caused an actual balance issue, because certain PvE items gave notable advantages.

Item skins do absolutely nothing. What on earth are you trying to prove with that point?

The OP's post isnt really about skins, as i see it, its about how difficult it is to make a PvE char ready for PvP.

My point towards Narcism. Im glad he agrees with me about this:

But its that "stop crying" attitude i cant stand.

Its a legit complaint with legit ideas. Can we stop saying "QQ Moar"? Thats just annoying and non-productive.

And yes complaining about other people complaining is hypocritical. Im aware of the irony.

What!!?? If you seen a w/mo with an FDS and one holding a small knife like Gladius. Who would you be more scared of?

The "point" of a PvE character....is that YOU CAN PLAY PVE. That's it. Stop comparing PVE and PVP, because no matter what they give PvP chars, they STILL won't be able to play PvE, which (theoretically) is the reason why people make PvE chars.

If you DON'T like PvE, you soon will not be troubled by making a PvE char; you'll be able to grind to outfit your PvP chars pretty-like instead.

Well from skinwise...id know the FDS has a fiery mod, so obviously i could use Mantra of Flame or Elemental Resistance.

the gladius is more mysterious, could be vamp, could be sundering, could be icy....i dont know.

Skins do matter sometimes.

Before factions, you could kinda guess what builds people had based on the armor they wore, with only Obsidian armor being the only armor that "hid your stats".

So if you see a monk with wanderers or tattoos, you could decide to e-deny or use elemental damage.

There was a tactic to it.

Yes, please don't let PvP characters have skins because IF someone uses a FDS skin it will be more easily countered. Wait, what? You bothered pointing this out, when it actually affects 'balance' (oh so minimally) in the opposite direction to what you really need to support your stupid arguements?

You'd think it would be pretty clear these threads aren't getting anywhere after the third or fourth, maybe it's time to just suck it up and accept the fact you're all crying like little babies over something that doesn't really matter.

P.S. What is with the annoying and stupid short story in your profile info lyra_song? I'm sick of having some teenage drama in my face whenever I open one of these threads (which you're bound to post on, as you seem to feature on at least every other page when there's crying to be done).

Guys....please read the OP. Please.

Its.not.about.skins.

P.S.
My profile is not your business. If you dont like it. Theres an ignore option on the forum.

I play both equally and know that this is a horrible change. Maybe if you did you would agree.

It punishes people for PvPing with PvE characters- in other words, it punishes people for putting more time into something. No, you shouldn't get an advantage, but you shouldn't get punished either (you can earn a million reward points on a PvE toon, but your PvE toon can't reap the rewards while a PvP one can. That just doesn't make any sense.).

How has this b!tch-fest of a thread not been closed yet?

I'm not pointing fingers here.... but there is no way anything good can come of a blatant PvE versus PvP thread like this...


On the whole though... asthetics don't matter squat in PvP. If you're making a PvP character at all, it is because you're too damned impatient to go earn all the necessary gear manually, so why should you be rewarded with the fancy-looking stuff for a complete lack of input? PvP gear does exactly what it is supposed to, and to ask for more in exchange for no input at all is just ridiculous.
This doesn't need any further mentioning.
Things in this respect need only stay where they are..... with PvE'ers putting in the time and effort to earn their fancy armour and weapons.... and PvPers making do with the perfect runes on boring-looking armour.

Quit your whining. It's not going to hurt you in any way if PvP gets to look pretty.

Also, consider the matra you're preaching: I had to work hard, so you should have to work hard too. With that mentality, why bother using machines to harvest grain? I mean, the people before machines came had to do it by hand, so why should these fancy machines make things easy? Take pride in that when you show off your pretty armor in Shing Jea, no one will even consider that the armor had been "given" in PvP.

If it takes "skill" to "show up" and get the unlocks for free... then these Pvp players have a lot of skill.

Take a look at the tournament NPC in your guild hall. The top 8 finishers all get reward points, and its rare to see even 8 guilds that bothered to compete in the tournament. Heck you could get these reward points, until very recently, for free just by entering the tournament and forfeiting every match.

Here is the thing, we have NO idea how much these armor skins in PvP will "cost." It might take you weeks to get your PvE character to get 15K luxon armor (or whatever) but if it takes many months longer of grinding on the ATS tournament to get that armor for a PvP character, your arguement is null and void.

Lets at least wait till we can see the relative "costs" of these new PvP skins before we start flipping out about it.

Then all my PvE characters should gain Faction and Fame 10x faster than your PvP characters.

Crap, this is gonna explode - if it hasn't already - into another thread about the ATS PvP armor skins. Not liking the looks of things right now...

I think the problem is a lot of people read the first paragraph of the OP.

Then click reply. They dont read the whole thing or the rest of the thread.

His post isnt really about ATS skins -.o He starts with that and rambles on to his actual point which is about PvE chars and their difficulty of making them fully loaded for PvP.

great reasoning, great post. have you considered a life as a game designer?

Yes PVE characters are difficult to load and make completely ready for PVP, but its not as expensive as it used to be. Prices are gradually lowered every day on items that are staple in many builds and situations.

A PVE character is supposed to be difficult to outfit for PVP. The reason being is because the metagame in PVP will always change. If you have the build and equipment for whats currently being run, than you can take your PVE character, if not than thats what PVP only characters were created for. No one forces you to be able to run a PVE only character, or a PVP only character. If youre going to play both PVE and PVP, its beneficial not to fill your account with PVE onyl characters and leave open 1 PVP char slot, incase you dont have what you need to run a certian build or character, than you can go make one to run for the situation really quickly.

MOST pvp players created their chars when PVE characters actually had an advantage in items/armor swapping/multiple equipped weaps over a PVP only character. Some have PVE characters because they want to look different from the standard robot. Some make them so they can use them and expierence them in both aspect of the game. Some have them over pvp characters because they were already made and all it takes is to load a template into them, thus (even though it takes like 2 minutes to make a char and load a template) not having to constantly re-roll characters.

It's dumb ass comments like this that make threads in the riverside inn mostly a joke.I think you should head over to gwonline.

Once, a while back, PvE characters had distinct, mechanical advantages over PvP-only characters in PvP. Armor switching was one example, as was certain mods that could not be created for PvP-only characters. And it was imbalanced and unfair.

The PvP players complained, and rightly so. PvP is supposed to be about skill against skill, not about who has the best gear or who can change gear at will. The post Lyra_Song pointed to in her first reply here brought up these issues, and both have since been fixed, in order to provide balance to the PvP environments.

That post ALSO brought up a third imbalance: that PvP-only characters have access to account-wide unlocks for PvP play, while PvE characters do not. This is an imbalance in the system, and should be fixed. I've been a proponent of allowing any character, PvE or PvP, access to ALL account-based unlocks while in a PvP area. Everyone starts from the same base. Any skill that is unlocked for PvP should be available for PvP across all characters on an account.

I'd personally take it a step further and allow PvE characters to actually LEARN skills through Balthazar faction. Non-Elites, at 3k Balth faction, that would be carried over into PvE as a skill unlocked on that character. I wouldn't want to see Elites learnable in this way, though.

As for the skins, it's a side-issue for me. I consider them "nice to have" but not "unbalancing" in any way. While it would be NICE to allow PvE characters to create weapons with perfect mods and stats for PvP use only, most PvE characters can get those easily, even if they don't have rare skins. This IS PvP after all. As long as the weapon used is functional, looks are a very distant second consideration.

The OP wasn't really asking about skins. He was asking why anyone would play a PvE character for PvP. I'm always disappointed to read that people want to make that difficult, or disallow it as an option entirely. Taking a PvE character into a PvP area shouldn't be a frustrating or futile exercise. The option to bring PvE characters into PvP should be EXACTLY as viable as the option of bringing a PvP-only character to the same match.

The current system discourages people from playing PvP with their PvE characters. For a lot of PvE players, this brings out the question, "why bother?" To get more people playing PvP, ArenaNet needs to make it EASIER to break into PvP, and account-based unlocks while in PvP areas is the best thing I can think of to make the transition easier.

I know I'm gonna hear about one sentence, so I'll explain it now:

The option to bring PvE characters into PvP should be EXACTLY as viable as the option of bringing a PvP-only character to the same match.

It gets back to player skill, which is what PvP is supposed to be about. Assume a player has 2 characters, both warriors. Character 1 is PvE, character 2 is PvP-only. There is no reason, in my opinion, that the player, whose skill level is constant across characters, should be WORSE playing one character than another, and yet, unless account-based unlocks are implemented for all characters in all PvP areas, the PvE character is at a distinct disadvantage regardless of player skill.

PvP-only characters should not have any advantages over PvE characters, and vice-versa. A player's knowledge, experience, and skill should be the important thing. PvE characters are handicapped by being limited to character-based unlocks, while PvP characters have a much wider selection. Either one should be perfectly viable in an area that is, according to much of the PvP community, supposed to be about "skill against skill."

It is.. except.. wait.. PvE characters are better. (I run a pve warrior in gvg)

Believe it or not, a pve character with the weapons of a pvp character is not at a distinct disadvantage. Observe high end matches, you'll see alot of pve chars.

And they don't, a well equipped PvE has the advantage.
pvp characters are very limited without unlocks.

great, pve characters are still better then pvp characters.
what was this thread about?

Narcism, i watch alot of obs and i do see a lot of PvE chars (fow or 15k kurzick warriors with Tyrian longswords, etc.).

But please do enlighten me, as to what is still the distinct advantage of PvE characters over PvP characters. You really didnt give any reasons as to why in your post. It left me confused.

Provided an account is fully UAXed, a PvP char can switch primaries by rerolling... Thats quiet a distinct advantage id say.

The PvE char needs to be built from scratch, even if you have UAX, which is rather time consuming to get all secondary skills + elite skills and weapons and armors, just to match a PvP char who has access to everything with UAX.