PvP is slowly dying

Just wanted to say I couldnt agree with you more, and I have been saying this is a problem in similiar posts for over a year. Anet needs to think about how the things they implement into the game will effect the game. The PvP title and emote reward is really very nice but unfortunately the attitudes of the PvP community and they way they have used it has ruined the game. The chest was reward enough really. Rewards that promote this kind of superiority feeling and attitude among long time players or to show off which is not what I think A net intended but what the community has turned it into should be steered away from in GW2. Supercool chest drops, the announcement that your team has won the in the Hall of Heros and that the gods have bestowed favor on them (maybe not with UW or FoW depending on it, but maybe everyone in the region could have some benefit like an aura while they have favor, enable benefits from pve shrines, maybe improved chestdrops everywhere for that region while they have favor) would be good.

What has killed PvP is the attitudes of the people that play there, Forming R6 whatever, meet under bridge with title on, blah blah blah..... Basically if your new to it you cant get in which is ridiculous because its not like you need to have 1000 hours under belt playing PvP to understand any GW team strategy or concept, 321 spike or whatver, lol. Its not that hard, but thats what has been going on there since A net added the perks to the titles (which are nice imo and there is nothing wrong with that. Its the general attitude of the pvp community that has turned it into the ugly thing that it is and resulted in this "Backfire" [mesmers pwn] lol. So as more and more people that been playing for tha gotten tired of guildwars and move on which is going to happen, its very difficult and frustrating for new people to get into PvP (and most realistic people that go their and try to are going to just say forget this, i dont have this much time on my hands to waste playing with the * that play here and go right back to PvE where PvE is played because it is fun to play.) I have tried to do HA and Get into GvG guilds several times and because I dont have the rank it takes to get into these guilds or groups I am turned away and I can play any class/build or team role in the game just as good as a rank 6. The problem there is that because of all the emphasis placed on the title system, tournaments, etc. most of the people there just take it too seriously and it takes all the fun out of the game. You have people that want to win every time and get upset if the team loses, they start blaming stuff on others and the whole situation just becomes too tense. You have the new people their playing against the ranked people due to the fact that you cant get into a ranked group unless you are ranked so everyone wants to get rank as fast as they can (also naturally they are going to get beat just because they are new to it) and if they dont win they go hopping looking for a new group thinking they will do better. Ultimately if you are new there you end up spending more time looking for a group than you actually do playing the game. For several reasons most of which I think stem from the attitudes of the PvP community in general PvP has died.



Adding real money or prize tournaments only makes people take more seriously and I think that is a bad idea. Most people play games as a hobby because it is fun to do in free time. They dont play games for to win prize money unless they are hardcore gamers which is not the case for the vast majority of people playing this game.

who cares if its balanced or not......there's nothing balanced about random arenas yet people play it.
i think 1vs1 is what people would get into first....just look at how norn fights and polymock are succesful in pve.
why not makin matches vs human beings instead of AI?
its about fun.....and i'd love to see how weel my solo builds work vs other human beings.

No.

And seriously, in PvE it does't really matter what skills you have on your bar, you'll succeed. Balance should be done almost exclusively with PvP in mind, because that;s the only arena in which skill balance will ever matter. I don't see why you don't understand this.

I suggest you try to clear the Domain of Anguish using a random set of skills.

PvE requires good builds designed for the place they're being used in, unlike PvP where the majority of the players just use wiki builds.

Because it is wrong?

Duh.

Skill selection matters more in PvE than it does in PvP if for no better reason than that you know what you're going up against in PvE and can prepare for it. PvP is just a selection of people / teams thrown together rather randomly... You can't plan that stuff. It is down to luck as much as anything... unless one side or other just outright sucks.
And all your "skill balances" end up doing is kicking off the top-dog and replacing it with some other skill set. No matter what the PvP skills, someone will find some way to use them that p!sses everyone else off. It is an exercise in futility.


And why did I even make this post?
Because elitist PvPtards make me sick... not least because they have nothing to be elitist about.

I lost respect for GW PvP a long time agon when factions released... from there, I think it got worse and worse. New skills and new professions kinda imbalanced the game. But worse, I think is the introduction of heroes. One really sad memory in PvP was a match between WM and some unknown crappy unknown team which was playing discord pre-nerf gimmick H+H style. WM lost that match real bad. This exactly demostrates how so unbalanced the game became. Was no longer a matter of skill. And Heroes are an eyesore to PvP IMO.

In the end, I think Anet tried too hard to please everyone.

Truth, my guild faced a team with 2 thumpers, Olias, Olias Number 2, Livia, Livia Number 2 and a monk (I think one of their other thumpers dropped).

Get Heroes out of PvP except for Hero Battles.

Who uses wiki builds in high end GvG, really?

I honestly don't get why you're complaining about nerfs coming to skills that were incredibly, ridiculously overpowered to an extent where they spoiled gameplay. I'm pretty sure ArenaNet are forking out money based on the PvP aspect of the game, and as such it is the only real area in which balance is regarded as a high priority.

I'm not being elitist in posting this - if anything I would argue that you think you have a divine right to having things the way you want it, regardless of the effect it has on another area of the game. With any PvP balances, what is the negative effect on PvE? That you need to find another way to spam 25 energy skills?

That, hands down, has to be one of the stupidist things I've read in a while. That is exactly what makes skill selection matter so much in PvP. It's a massive trade off where you can't just run anything, and need to be balanced in your skill choice. The fact you aren't tied to such a trade off in PvE, coupled with the fact the AI you are up against will not alter their behaviour at all, means that you can quite easily complete it without any hassle.

Clearly this is a waste of a time though, as you quite obviously will never understand how game balance and mechanics function. You won't ever realise why reacting in a dynamic and diverse way is far more entertaining than running a single thing for ever and ever to farm that pretty skin that has no reflection upon player skill or accomplishment in this game.

Let's leave low tier arenas for PvP out of this. No Jade Quarry, Aspenwood, Alliance Battles, or RA. I'm talking exclusively about the competitive areas of the game. No successful team will look on wikipedia for their Builds. To think so is naive to such an extreme that you really shouldn't post about something for which you're so ignorant.

Clearing DoA with a random skillset, is actually easier than you'd think, purely because of the reaction the mobs will have. That reaction is not going to change in any area of PvE. They are coded to do the same thing when the situation arises. They will not alter their behaviour. It's a simple concept, yet you seem to have trouble grasping it.

PvE is not complex to play because of that sheer fact, and as such any balance to skills will not have a big impact on it, unless it's giving mobs a skillset that can't ever be interrupted and deal ten thousand damage to every player.

The simple fact is, PvE players, quite often, want it incredibly easy. I mean, just last week there was a post where someone cried about the Sunspear Monk skill getting toned down - why? Do you not realise this was incredibly overpowered (still is)? You want it to be easy mode to farm your green/gold skin, requiring little to no effort to be successful.

Dear Guild Wars Guru, can this be my sig?

Sincerely,

~Bryant

The fact that I can earn masters with Battle Rage, Mending and Galrath Slash on my bar says a lot. Vanquisher has a point.

Isn't that what makes it actually challenging? Not knowing what your up against and having to best adapt to these unknown challenges?

Ignorant PvE players make me sicker.

Anyways, here's my like seriouzly seriuoz suggestion to revitalize PvP: Remove all professions and create only one new profession, the Marine. Turn all matches into Deathmatches/Team Deatmatches and litter the area with Super Shotguns. Then rename the game Doom. YEAH!!!111

(If you didn't get that, then I'm saying that PvP is screwed.)

The sole reason PvP in GW died is because of "Elitism".

The player pool shrank every time new chapters were added. With unbalanced skills and game mechanics, a sect of players got opportunities to rank higher up than the rest simply because of "connections" and "time at hand". Most of the people tried whatever they could to get a glowing tiger and left HA as soon as they got it. If they allowed PvE players to get glowing emotes, HA would have been empty LONG time back. Fact is -- if any aspect of the game caters to a special sect of people who are a general minority in the game, that aspect will shrink over time. When I say minority, I mean elitists. The reason Starcraft was so successful at this and lived for so long was because there was no apparent elitism.

At this point, I believe ANET is done with PvP in GW and won't even spend a dime to do anything about it. Their focus will be on GW2. And rightly so. I, however, do hope they take their folder of "lessons learned" notes from GW and use that while developing GW2.

- Vel

Why PvP is dying?
I may have some answers.
- Titles.
Titles kill everything where they are put. Titles means the end of skill>time played and the birth of Grind. For HA, when titles and emotes were introduced, people stopped worrying about winning halls and started farming scrubs. HA went into a farming spot for PvP titles, i.e. people with no will to improve their skills but only to farm, so they copy pasted the "best " builds/ exploits, as long as it provided an efficient way to accumulate many wins in a short amount of time, without any will nor skill to hold halls. When these titles were introduced to other forms of PvP, even the lowest like RA, it brought the same kind of farming/exploiting behavior, like leavers, synching, Olias GvG ladder farming, etc...
-Community
PvP community is harsh. Unfriendly. And with giant e-peens. PVE community is single minded. Unable to admit that they may need some experience before climbing the ladder. Therefore the wall between PvE and PvP. Therefore the lack of fresh blood in the PvP community, who quitted the one after another without being correctly replaced. But who's faulty? A-Net? No, only people playing.
-Automated Tournaments.
They suck. End of story.
-A-net focuses.
Why did they bring so much to hero battles ? Why did they do nothing to TA, the starting battleground of any serious teamplay? Do they care what people are saying? Such kind of PvP community denegation frustrates. And they are less believed when they say they care and listen their customers.
-Observer Mode
That led people to copy paste builds instead being creative. It introduced an incredible form of laziness among players. Before, the PvP community designed their builds and modified them as they were fighting better and better guilds. Now, you look the best guilds, take their builds and fight with it.
-Skill balances.
No, I won't say the game is imbalanced. Balance is quite a matter of perception. Actually I find the game pretty balanced. People will call this Build Wars. But Build Wars isn't exactly the definition of a balanced game? That means that you can't come with a build that will roll over everything. Only skill will make you do so.You can be countered by the right build. Isn't it the definition of balance, when there is no overpowered build/meta spread over all the guilds? Do you really miss the Gale warriors meta? They were overpowered. So overpowered there was not place for anything else than a warrior for offense. Aegis was nerfed not long ago. But until the end of Factions, it was really powerful, but not used that much. Why ? because there was no way for a monk to cope with its cost. They nerfed Aegis when they shouldn't have boosted Glyph of lesser energy in the first place.
If there is a powerful meta rolling over any builds you could come with (say an overpowered build and its counter), people will say it's overpowered (Iway). If you have many builds with none of them able to roll over all the other's one people will say Build Wars balance plz. I seriously understand A-net desperation about this. I quite agree A-net balances are too brutal. But whatever they do about this there will be whining. Do you want an overpowered meta, so everything's left is either use the build or loose (so what's left is a matter of skill about using this overpowered build (see Hero battles and Ekhelion's posts)), or a Build Wars meta, where a build can win many other's, but will be defeated for sure by some others? You can't have the two. I prefer the second solution.

Another Truth, elitism drives people running away screaming from trying to get into PvP. Been saying it for a long time now.

can anyone tell me whats so great about polymock? o.o
i mean, its a nice add, but its too short.
i played all the polymock quests, but it ends there...or is there a place to play it against other people or smth?

There will be more to it in coming months, I am sure. However, if GW PvP future is Polymock, I will be very very very very very very.................very sad.

- Vel

this questions makes me very sad, really
this even more

people thought its impossible to break pve and skills were balanced for the sake of pvp, however every overnerfed skill created new problems and reduced diversity due lack of alternatives, even mesmer had trouble finding groups until people got pissed, anyways pvp died because I cursed it

People only realized that PvP is dead? PvP died by simply because Anet didn't put enough focus on the PvP community. If you are going to add more skills to to a game, then be prepared for more work. Its obvious that Anet didn't care much or didn't get enough information simply because of the lack of attention towards the PvP community. I do wonder why oh why did it take so long to nerf greneth dervs or hexway. I thought that anet might have learned by now when Factions was released when the meta changed so dramatically. It nearly always turned into VoD because of the rits. But I was wrong that anet learned from its mistake and found it quite amazing that the impact nightfall had, not to mention how much of a screw up anet was when it was released. D\Mo's anyone?

Nice, and examples are? If you're going to bring up Spiritual Pain, I can do nothing but laugh because Mesmer spike was one of the most overpowered spikes to ever grace this game.

I prefer actually playing a match and having a chance to win, which build wars isn't. Gale Warriors were extremely overpowered, but due to this everyone ran them and it was a fun meta to play in. When everyone runs the same build skill and experience is the victor. Teams that make mistakes will lose, teams that don't will win. Simple. There are exceptions. Playing a defense ball until VoD and then exploding NPC's is not fun, but seems to be the direction the game has gone now. This is where the game needs balancing. Sure, it needed Gale to be toned down also, and it was, but that doesn't mean it should let other things that are ridiculous to go ahead and win all matches because NPC AI sucks and the point of the game is keeping your Guild Lord alive.

When the game once again becomes about winning a match, rather than having victory flash on your screen, it could be fun. However now the playerbase has deteriorated so much that its not actually that fun.

The best 3 metas I've ever played in were Gale Warriors and Dom Mesmers, then Blackout-Push, and then KGYU-esque degen Builds. The game was a lot more about player skill than counting from 3 to 1 and focusing damage exclusively.

Just an idea: remove pvxwiki and observer mode.

*Casts [skill=text]Frigid Armor[/skill]

You can succeed in PvE with 0 skills on your bar if you got your hero's and hench set up, but would that be any fun? Hell no it isn't. We have just as much "right" to the skill as PvP players do, I don't see why you don't understand this. Also lots of people in this thread talking about how much better it was before Factions, well let me tell you a little secret....that is because there were far less skills to use. I still cannot figure out why they will not go to a closed deck of skills for PvP. I mean, they did things backwards with the PvE only skills, they should have done PvP only skills and made them the only ones you could use in PvP. That way it would be "balanced" and seperate from PvE. I just started PvP (teams unless we can get 8 guildies who want to GvG then we do that) And the attitude of PvP players has improved since I last tried to get into it but the "GLF Rank X" groups are the ones killing PvP and most of the poeple on here crying that PvP is dying are the people who are killing it.

Perfectly fine, sadly PvXWiki is not owned by Anet and thus it's up to the runners of that to do so.