Guildwars: Pvp game or Pve game?

PvP has nothing to do in MMORPGs or similar games, as GW is not a fully fledged MMO.

It never worked out, and GW is no exception.

From the days of Ultima Online over Everquest and Everquest II, PvP was always wanted by the players, and in the end we had the same situation:

Almost all were not pvping.

In UO, there was a split in a PvE and a PvP land. You could travel through a gate and in the "mirror" world you could PvP, in the other you could not. Besides that, everything was similar. 90% chose the PvE side and PvP players were begging for others to come to Felucca, the PvP facet, to have some fun. Then they started threads about PvP being dead on most servers and so on.

EQ had no real PvP, EQ2 got some, and people downright rejected it. Only a small fraction really enjoys PvP, it seems. The majority plays MMO's for other reasons, whatever they might be, it is for sure not PvP.

Dark Age of Camelot and World of Warcraft might have the best PvP implementation of any MMO. Age of Conan is in development, let's see how it will turn out.

Realm vs. Realm combat was basically a separation of PvE and PvP, too. But it worked, as it was almost two completely different games you could switch between. And it was really cool and interesting.

World of Warcraft has open PvP and Battlegrounds. Open PvP rarely takes place, even on PvP servers. If it happens, it is mostly ganking of lower levels. It is not all that great. People usually go on questing or grinding, if they do not get into a personal feud with another player that backstabbed them. But there is at least the choice to PvP and getting attacked, which makes people look at their back at times.

Battlegrounds on the other hand are completely messy PvP, but people love them. They are similar to AB in some way, maybe they are the example for World Battles in GW2. Now they also got Arena combat, where the 2-3 man arenas are quite popular.


I guess 8 people for GvG are just too much for the majority of people to get together?? We have 3x4 teams in ABs maybe for this reason.



GW is at its heart a mix of an MMO with Diablo. Competitive PvP on e-sports level is possible, too, and all balancing is centered around it. But it simply does not take off. Most people just do not seem to play a game that looks like GW like that.

GW2 will be even more standard-MMOish. Do people really expect PvP will get better? It will be the same as in GW, plus the new World Battles. And those will be very "casual", or does one think they will be a more sophisticated pvp mode?


Bottom Line:

ANet should make a pure pvp game.
They did not do in GW, and they do not seem to believe enough people would play a pure pvp GW2.

On the other hand they could follow the standard MMO examples how to implement PvP in a by default PvE MMO world, and I think this is the direction they are taking.

And I think that will lose them a lot of players, players that come online to relaxe, I for one have enough of competiton at work (Athleate).
Many players have stated here on Guru the same thing, they don't want to be competing, they play for relaxation and will not accept being forced into PvP.
A-Net is likely to know by now through their servers the % of players that prefer one over the other or both, even if they don't publish the numbers.

Though it is not related to the topic, I fear they are creating just another grinder that might piss off everyone, pvper or pve player alike.

But there is always hope that GW:EN was only a crude idea sketch and GW2 much more refined and less grindy and repetitive.

I agree with the high school graduate who would be a good role model for many adults here tbh: (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=118)


On some other points, I don't know anything about the top100 guilds today but up to a year ago (maybe two? pre-Nightfall) most of the players were pretty cool. Some would pm after game with advice or congrats or just to clown around but never with any drama or bs, even after losing a chunk of rating to a bunch of unknowns. HA was usually a different story but the retardedness there was at a level where you couldn't help but laugh or feel sorry for some of the players. It was also fairly satisfying to stomp those very same morons out.

IMO though, some people just don't have the right attitude for pvp or any competitive situation where there might be criticism, failure, conflict, immaturity, abrasive personalities, or just other people with plain ole social/psycological issues. If you can't properly deal with any of the above and have a desire to improve at the game then pvp will probably lead to some miserable experiences for you. You'll also need to have a lot of free time to get/keep everyone together

Since when did personal experiences with one friend define what the masses should do? Undoubtedly skill does make a difference, theres reasons like guilds like War Machine made it to the top. I know theres also the strategy and tactics involved in GW and thats technically the creativity. Theres still creativity to be found within the tactics aspect, knowing who to attack, what direction to approach from and when to spike. But within strategy (the builds and over all team set ups) are not creative anymore. So theres my point further defined for you, but on the other hand still I'm sure that one friend of yours is already in a very friendly setup in a guild. Once again the little comfort zone is present, do you really think a n00b with the potential of his same skill would have such an easy time getting in there?

Edit: You really have to step into those players shoes and see things from their perspective. Because like stated before, the process can be done gaining the skill, practicing, getting rank up and alas finding a great guild but its strenuous. Not to say titles are any better, but they sure do look more inviting. They're obviously already decent at PvE, so those big titles really aren't that big of a deal to them. They don't really require the same effort as PvP does- although it can be said that they do require more time. (Not including PvP titles, which take forever to get hands down)

I'm not the one pretending.

And for the record, I never said PvE was bad, I said the sad excuses that PvE only players use to bash PvP was bad. They are consistently ignorant responses. All I addressed is that the same reasons to hate on PvP also exist in PvE. Jerks, title grinding, farming, etc. It exists in both sides of this game.

I feel justified in pointing this out because I actually play BOTH sides of this game. And every PvPer, even the hardcore ones have played through all the campaigns at least once (aside from maybe a few rare freaks).

So if I'm an A-hole because now I refuse to listen to ignorant PvE only players call me and other PvPers jerks for "ruining this game" because of BALANCED updates that make things like farming more difficult (in an already ridiculously easy game), so be it. You all have your prescious ursan way now and that will never be effected by PvP skill updates, so win/win right?

Lastly I'd like to address all this HA talk. WTF does HA have to do with PvP? Seriously. GvG go go. Death to Victory is Ours!

I do feel sorry for the majority of GW players, who have really never ever touched upon the best thing this game has to offer, and that's GvG...

Honestly, most people who have issues with PvP are not talking about GvG. GvG is "easy" in terms of the number of annoying arseholes you are subjected to, since they would primarily be in your guild.

HA is a totally different story, and, while you may not consider HA to be PvP, it is the most populated PvP facet of GW. It's also the facet which gives PvP it's reputation for being full of arseholes, specifically via pugs in HA.

I should also say that your view of PVE players is, frankly, stupid. Many of us treat GW in the exact same manner as we would a Single Player RPG like Oblivion. It has the side benefit of a built in chat client. I know many people who intend to get GW2 solely because their GW friends are, and it thus makes a convenient method of chatting to someone who may actually be interested in the game, even when you aren't.

Started as 90% pvp 10% pve, now it is something like 70% pve 30% pvp. Can't blame arenanet, Pve sells and adresses a much larger crowd, sadly.

EDIT- I also wanna express my thumbs up for Van Gogh's Ear's post.

Hehe, agree with that.

QFT

The excuses solely pve players use to excuse themselves are really rather invalid. If you're a mother of four, and play on the weekends, then sure, you play GW casually.

But if you're some guy in FoW wearing your People Know Me title, complaining about PvP elitism, look in the mirror.

PvP is competitive. It breeds an attitude, that of competition. PvE can be conquered with any build, in a lot of cases, no build, an empty skillbar. PvP cannot be beaten this way, and demands a knowledge of skills and attributes and how they synergize.

PvP requires that you understand mechanics, and that you have a desire to win. You can't win a GvG with 60% death penalty, but you can beat most PvE with DP. PvP elitism is players' knowledge of their abilities in the game. Most 'elitist' pvpers were lowly players when they started, and had to endure a lot of fairly flippant criticism and rejection before they became gradually accepted.

Thus, PvP condescension towards PvE'ers unwilling to put forth the same efforts is natural.

Again, you are associating PvP with purely GvG. This may be how you see the game, but most people view HA as the primary form of PvP. As I have said, I GvG and still condsider myself a PVE player, since our GvG is lighthearted. It's more about having fun with friends and working as a team than winning. Do we like to win? Sure. Is winning the be all to us? No.

The PvP I, and most people I suspect, have issues with is HA and it's extremely serious nature. All that crap about competition, for what purpose? Win in real life, it makes money (tangible reward) and has real risks. There is no risk involved in GvG, as there is no tangible penalty for loosing. Virtual competition is for people who don't have enough RL challenges.

Irrespective, I think a lot of people are missing the point of a casual gamer. I've been playing GW 28 months and have just over 2000 hrs of playtime. That's basically 2 hours a day, including weekends. Significant portions of this time have been AFK on 9 rings, standing around selling stuff, or just AFK on forums.

I do think you'd have to go a long way to find a purely PVE player who has more time logged than that, though I could be wrong.

Edit: That was another 18 minutes to the total, right there.

There is no money involved in HA. GvG is the most serious form of GW PvP.

True, but many PvP Haters are hating on HA, not GvG.

Is water for drinking or washing in?

Ugh, lol. I HAD to weigh in on this after reading all the arguments

I also agree with most people not being able to gvg. It definitely has always been the most fun pvp 'arena' in the game, at least in my opinion. I personally feel the ATs (or well the 6 month lack of any sort of proper gvging) hurt the pvp community. Then the learning curve got way too high, etc etc,

As to the original question? It's what you make of it :P I started this game pveing in a Diablo-esque sort of way. Then I found team arena, gvg and tombs and it sucked me in So I went from like 90% pve / 10% pvp to the complete opposite.

I know the state of the game isn't so great right now (pvp especially), but people need to stop complaining, you've been playing this game for what 3 years? I can't think of many games that provided that much satisfaction for such a length of time.

I hope GW2 has some sort of comparable pvp play ! That would make me happy

I think the majority of players started out PvE-ing because it's really a starting point in GW(learn how to fight & play the game), jump right into PvP and you're missing out on alot *thinks about the W/Mo + H/H AB days*(Eh...actually they still exist...scary).

Which was the reason why I asked, did they make any market research before starting on GW? On when you read about their ideas for the World PvP in GW2, you actually get the idea, that they are convinced they can persuade PvE players to play PvP. Sad, after the failure of GW to do that.

Have you ever stopped to think that some people just don't want to compete against others? What is safe and predictable to you is fun and adventurous to others. You make comments like above and wonder why many people have low opinions of the PvP community in GW.

QFT

And I am feeling pity towards you and all those that agree with that post, because of your inability to understand even the smallest thing about people, namely that different people have different ideas of what they consider to be fun. Looking to all those that agreed to VanGoghsEar´s intolerant, condescending, insulting and fullfilling any cliches about the mindset of PvPers post, too. If cliches are true, are they still cliches?

QFT

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley

As much as I'd love to GvG, it's usually a major hassle to start if you're a PvE'er.

There's a reason why AB/RA/Aspenwood are popular - they're random entry gametypes that can be started within seconds by anyone. AB actually happens to be popular among PvE'ers (though I hate shrines so i avoid it). It's kinda the same thing with people that H/H everything in pve - no one wants to spend ages standing around "lfg". People turn on this game to have fun, not to spend ages just to start something. If I wanted to GvG right now, I imagine it would take 40 mins at the least just to get one going. I've GvG'd before and it's good fun but seriously, if it's gonna take that much time just to start one, then screw it ill do something else.

I've brought this up to Andrew before, making PvP easier to access for casual players - I was told by a few to just find guests to team with, which I thought was a joke. If I did form a random GvG team in ToB, which would probably take long to do, it's likely that after the team loses (which is likely to happen), there's gonna be players that get discouraged and bail. That encourages even more players to leave, then you end up with hardly anyone left. The only options available casual players are low-quality PvP types. If there was a random entry outpost for GvG similar to RA, I'd be hooked and I'm sure it'd gain popularity fast. A quick team setup similar to TA would be very good also. It's honestly just alot easier for most people to just go to some place where they can click the "Enter" button and wait to start.

That was my biggest gripe about GvG: How hard it is to access. I strongly and fully believe that it is the most well-balanced and structured thing in the game, and this is coming from someone who's PvE'd 95% of his GW time. It's just that getting into it is terribly difficult, and PvP in GW is somewhat punishing.

gvg really isnt hard to get into or have a high learnign curve. if u get owned, find ur mistakes and correct them. if u suck, play more and learn why u suck, then learn to play better. if u wanna jsut mess aroudn in gvg and have light hearted battles, thats great! if you want serious competition but dont want to get owned, remember that other players in top guilds once sucked too.

anybody else find the bolded statement funny?

I'm going to assume that when you mentioned the given statement to be funny as if fire Elementalist is not an efficient build in HA. As you should have noticed, there was a time frame going through the narration I have previous mentioned. I would like to point out there was a time period, which fire Elementalists were efficient in HA balanced builds, and I would like to add when I used such build in HA, fire Elementalists were efficient. I have no idea if fire Elementalists can be used in HA nowadays, which may result to be funny if it is ineffecient, but with the specific reference I had for the time frame I presented, it's really not considered to be funny.

thats exactly the mentality that drives new people away from PvP.

Thank you, maraxusofk. you have just shown the Guru forum the grief most PvE peeps have with PvP Peeps.

When did I ever correlate my post towards his? Congrats calling on my inability to understand anything besides my own view, quite the contrary. All I said, is that in my eyes certain players have missed out on a certain aspect of Guild Wars. Which I think is fun and better represents the best aspect of which the GW series represents.


Oh I understand don't think I don't. When GW was first released the only way to PvP and actually be successful was to grind/pimp out your PVE character all armor runes/weapons you name it. A while after they released PvP chars with the ability to create whatever you wanted, although still during that time grinding balth faction and the rate at which you could gain it was pretty much on par with just making another PVE char. Been there done that 2x fold, never held me back, and I'm pretty sure at one point in time the majority of GvG/PvP players all went through that grind, beat the game and farmed. I do agree that PvP as a whole needs a much easier access than currently, but be thankful to ANET that things still aren't the same as in 2005. Pretty much all I've seen on various forums boards is that PvP is just TOO MUCH to get into, too much work and dedication involved, although as someone else already pointed out in the time that others spent farming ecto, or grinding for pointless PVE titles others choose to give their time towards other things, caugh...

Tsk, your skin must be thinner than thread (not the forum sense of thread) If you cannot handle some harmless crap talk, online games are not for you.

One more? keep them coming,
This is like fishing with dynamite.

- But there lies the problem:
1) If enemy has competent Monk, it's almost impossible to kill
2) If your team doesn't have competent Monk, it's almost impossible to stay alive against power creep of Nightfall skills.
So big is the difference between dedicated protection and self-healing skills of professions. This is why no one takes Random Arenas seriously. It's just random people running around with no intention to learn the game or win. Luck decides games for you, not your skill. Luck in getting balanced team combination by accident.

I used to GvG a couple of years ago. I monked for our guild and although we were a low ranked guild we never lost a match when I was there (probably just luck).

I'll tell you why I don't like GvG (or other forms of PvP for that matter). I'm here to relax, and sometimes I just feel like getting up to strecth my legs, get something to drink, or go to the "chamber of secrets". I can do that in PvE, even if I'm with a guild/alliance group. We get to somewhere safe and "let's take a break" is always met with "yeh, me too".

Bottom line: GW has PvE and PvP. Why can't we all just play what we want without the insults and name calling? There is another post about "how old do you have to be to play GW?" Show how mature you are by expressing opinions without insult and inuendo.

~Peace

Funny, I was thinking the same thing, it's easy to get hardcore PvErs to respond when you talk about PvP needing more skill.

Copycat, Dynamite is my built get your own.

Shuuda, get a job or something. Your'e talking way too much in this forum without saying anything.

To the opp: It's not important. You can play both PvP or PvE and have lots of fun, or just play only PvP or PvE and have lots of fun too (although for PvE the fun increases if you have Eye of the North and Nightfall).

You didn´t say that! You said: "I do feel sorry for..." Which gives the impression of pity.

8 pages arguing about an aspect of the same game being better, turned into a flame fest about pve being care bear or pvp being full of assholes.

Try joining the military, like the Evil gang. When you get into the elite, be it Rangers, Marines, or especially SEALs, Recon, or SF, you get a different mentality. You have people who know they are the best of the best, not because of the badge they wear, but because of what they had to put into it to get it. It's the same with any special group that has achieved a special recognition for their abilities. Sure, you may have the rare altruistic being who is able to get beyond their ego and help others achieve better. Most, however, remember how they were treated like crap coming up, and think it's their turn to treat others the same way. Some think it's a way to make sure those wanting to attain their level will have what it takes, and not crap themselves when they get to that level. Just as SEALs have to go through 26 weeks of hell and 6 more months of training before they can wear the Budweiser, a person wanting to achieve the higher levels of PvP might have to deal with the crap and abuse while building themselves up to that higher level.

It doesn't mean, however, that you are any less of a person for not going Recon, or even joining the military, altogether. Most of you will never wear a uniform, yet still lead full, happy lives no less significant, and maybe in some cases more so, than those in service. Pve isn't "worse" than PvP. You can argue, very successful, that if it weren't for PvE, there would be no Guild Wars. Look at Fury. All PvP, no chance for RP or casual play. How is that game doing? Oh yeah, it isn't! See when they have separate PvP/PvE servers, and see how many they need for PvP. I don't think they will be taxed. It's not a good idea to crap on those who are your bread and butter. Of course, this is a 13 and up game, and teenagers tend for the most part not to think past their own face.

Just using the military as a familiar analogy to me. This is just a game, after all. It's about as important to your life as a game of checkers. Of course, if you want a true PvP challenge, try facing a game where there is no safe outpost or city, where when you die, there is no res shrine, and you can't just go to another game.

This is largely turning into an argument that was very familiar on the Gametrailers forums. The Wii "casual gamers" vs Xbox 360/PS3 "hardcore gamers" = PvEr's vs PvPr's? The larger portion that think less of the game itself versus the smaller portion which think they're more important than the game itself, I'll leave it to you to see the correlation.

In the end it doesn't really matter, because the majority will always be pleased first and foremost. Not to say PvPers are doomed, just that PvP will be most likely made more fitting to the casual gamer in GW2- Thus blurring the division to the point where arguments like PvP vs PvE won't exist.

And to Shuuda, we're all sorry that were not experts in internet forum flame warfare, with hardened experience from days hunched at a keyboard in front of a monitor.

Edit: Clarissa wins the offtopic award. j/k j/k j/k For real though, the whole "its just a game" argument doesn't really have place in a forum thats meant to be for discussion/debates/even arguments about the game being played.

GW2 will have World PvP, which will be a nice mode for anyone to enjoy, and it will also have structured PvP similar to what we have now in GvG. Important change that we'll see in GW2 PvP is UAX from the very beginning. "Emergent complexity" will be there too, but I am not sure how that system would turn out. I hope it will be easier to get into PvP in GW2 than in GW1.

Nor does Shuuda, his argument boils down to "I r Masterchief, I r 1337. U got na 5ki11z PVE noob. lollollol"

Oh, and the best part is so many PvP people disowning HA, that's actually funny.

I'd say that Guild Wars is a PvE game, although Anet still thinks it's a PvP game.

The reason why most people stay with PvE is the PvP'ers mentality. Basically if your account doesn't start with instant r6 and r3 champion, you can't find a group and you'll just get farmed for fame. No one says "GG" after a match, it's only "Pve this way scrubs" or "lawl pve moar" and insults.

We have real life if we want arrogant, rude people thumping their noses down at us. Why should we put up with 7+ months of verbal abuse just so that we can join the group of the people who abuse the newbies?

It's like high school cliques. You've got the top dogs who will go out of their way to bully anything and everything they can get. To join them, you have to like what they like, do what they do, think how they think, and agree with what they believe.

My main problem with PvP is what happens when guildies/friends leave PvE behind, and run off with PvP friends. They spam up your whisper/GC/AC with "LOL we're against this guild!" or "LOL WE GOT SPIKED" or "Woot I'm almost r6!" or "Yay, another fame!" or "Look we're in halls!" when frankly the majority of us don't care.

no im not saying that fire eles are bad. u look at a group of balled up enemies and u press 1-2-3. im just saying that being a good fire ele in ha isnt exactly an accomplishment. maybe in gvg where u hafta split off and know wut ur doing like in a sin split, but in ha its mostly 1-2-3. maybe ur a great player, but citing fire eles as proof is not a good example.