Guildwars: Pvp game or Pve game?

Guild Wars is neither PvE nor PvP. Given the deplorable status of the player community, it is PwH/H (Player with Heroes/Henchmen). Interacting with other players, particularly strangers, requires a level of tolerance I no longer possess after nearly three years of playing the same old game.

In my humblest of all opinions, Guild Wars started out as a rather PvP-centered game with a PvE side dish.

Closed Alpha (and Beta) were usually all about PvP-balancing and PvP testing sessions. PvE balancing/feedback sessions were rather rare (although when release came closer, PvE and PvP sessions almost evened out).
Still, GW was clearly a PvP-centered game when it was released.

One year later, Factions brought both, new PvP AND PvE elements. While at that time often considered as a "PvP-based Chapter" I find that only half-true. Let's not forget that Factions also brought us what nowadays is the main incentive for PvE players: Titles.

Then Nightfall was released. Supposedly a more PvE-centric chapter, and that it was. Hero Battles aside, it brought us tons of PvE-only content. And with the new Hero system, PvE became more and more popular.
No more relying on crappy PUGs. No more uncontrollable Henchies. No more waiting in empty Isles of Fire outposts for hours to do the last 3 missions (of course, at this point GW not only turned into a PvE-centered game, but also to a single player game).
And then the DoA and more important the Hard Mode were introduced, and PvE became yet even more popular.

GW:EN finally brought another crapload of PvE-ONLY content. Including the Hall of Monuments, to import all your PvE achievements into the upcoming Guild Wars 2.


So yes, in my opinion Guild Wars did a classic 180°.
From a PvP-focused game with some PvE, to a PvE-focused game with some PvP.

The thing with PvP in Guild Wars is, that it is heavily group based. Without a good guild it's not only hard to succeed, it's impossible to even *start* PvPing in the first place.
All you can do as a solo player (or a player who is new to the game) is doing Hero Battles (which are no "real" PvP at all) and Random Arena (which is just a testing playground). Probably Team Arena, but that's about it.


I guess that's one of the reasons why A.Net decided to go for Guild Wars 2.
To create an environment that allows for a more PvE-centric game (more persistent areas, higher level cap) since that's obviously what the majority of GW players wanted.
And to allow open PvP, which is highly popular and more casual/solo gamer friendly.

GW started off as a mainly PvP game. However, PvE became way more popular with the playerbase, so that is where they concentrated their efforts.

I'm not even going to lie. How did people get Rank 3 Champion? I'd like to know.

We all started out somewhere. Yes, there are 12 year olds running around with R12 accts they purchased illegally. But they don't get anywhere, because they can't perform at their rank.

Competition and supplication are part of honest progress. You think Apple creates highly innovative software because they feel like it? No, they strive to produce superior hardware because they desire to be the best.

It's why I hate it when I see these pathetic no-name guilds as Guild of the Week. Who cares about the 'Knights of Vicious Valour" or whatever they're called. Who cares that they can farm? Everyone can. The best GotW was when [cow] was interviewed, and one of the comments was: to make a mess out of every other player in this game. Such tenacity. That's what gets you places.

/sigh, I'm out. People obviously don't understand how progress works.

I don't know where you got the notion that PvPers are generally rude - they're not. Maybe in the scrub arenas they are, but the majority of PvPers I know aren't the people you're describing. People don't become top PvPers by trash talking - they get there by getting good at the game. Being good doesn't lead to being arrogant, nor is the opposite true.

While I'm quite sure there are assholes in PvP, the same can be said for PvE. I run into them when I'm trading in Kamadan, on the rare occasions that I pug, or just plain spamming in local chat of some town I'm passing by. Arrogance (or people spamming you) isn't confined to just PvP, so I not really convinced that's a good reason to avoid PvP.

I think most of us know that the worst of the PvPers are in Heroes' Ascent.

121212121212

I got this from here
QFT.
High-end PvP players think that this game revolves around PvP, High-end PvE players think it revolves around PvE. Imho, neither one of them is playing the game for fun, but just to feel better about themselves.
Personally, I think the game was made for both.

I think GW can now be played 100% PvE or 100% PvP. I think the majority of the players play 80-90% of one, while fewer people straddle both aspects equally.

What do you want to play?

QFT. Personally I would like to know what "role playing aspects" they found in GW!

Very, very slowly.
We all started somewhere, but these days you have to have rank 6 before you can get a group. You need a group to get fame. You need fame to get rank 6. You see where I'm going? What do you expect us to do, wind back the clock a couple years and fame farm from there?
Do you think Apple verbally abuses Microsoft?
I've never cared for GotW. And that [cow] guild sounds like the arrogant PvP trash that people complain about. This is a game we were meant to enjoy together not some turf war where you stamp everyone else out.

You probably don't know many PvPers. The last time I did HA for earnest, we lost in Underworld and instead of "gg" we got "This way to ascalon" "pve moar scrubz" "lol fail" and tiger spiked. My group ran... oh, about 7, 8 times... and only once did we get an honest "gg and gl" from the opposing team. The other teams were foulmouthed, arrogant, and just plain rude.

There was this PvP guild I was once in, a few of the people were quite nice... Except for this corrupt little asstard. He got some offer "Kick the pve scrubs out of your guild and you'll get a place in my r9+ hardcore pvp guild" and went through with it. What makes you think I can like PvPers after that?
They become trash talkers when they become top PvPers, I'd say. It's like the deal you get with those online FPS games, there's a bigger ego boost when you know that you just beat down real people and rub their faces in the dirt.
Yeah, but in PvE you can just map away, zone into the district, turn off chat... with PvP you'll have to face the same egomaniacs over and over again.
It's not confined to PvP. It's mostly in PvP. I get enough verbal abuse in real life. I don't want to put up with any arrogant 12 year old's crap online. I play GW to succeed, not win, and PvP is pretty much the You Lose arena.

QFT*10.
89012

Just gonna point out a few things:

She lives for HA.

See, now I rarely have experiences with assholes in online shooters. In Counter-Strike I've only had like 10 servers where assholeness was prominent but they were usually bad players. In TF2 I've had about one bad experience like this, and again the players sucked.

Experiences vary. I'll say myself that some of the worst people I've known in GW have come from PUGs in PvE.

Poor, poor her.
Well, I used to play Legends of Might and Magic... man, the community was bad. Couldn't go around without rude statements, bad jokes, teabagging, and immature jerks.

I also heard that Halo 3 has a lot of jerks, but I've never played it.
What goes for you, might not go for everyone else. Personally I find most of the jerks in HA/RA. I find the PvE community to be quite nice, because it's easier to see who will be immature in PvE than PvP.

No, it didn't take me very very slowly, it took me a relatively short while Taurucis. You get your friends to HA/GvG with you and get better together. That way you grow a core group of adept players.

You farmed hours to get your armbraces. I waited hours to get into HA groups and gain fame. What has appreciated over time? Your armbraces have gone down in value, as has pretty much everything in PvE, while most people still acknowledge my /rank as something worthwhile.

Yes, they do.

I enjoy stamping everyone else out. Playing together with my friends. Competition is fierce, but relatively friendly.


You really haven't been in enough PvE alliances to know where the hubris of the playerbase lies.





Oh, and to say Sab doesn't know many PvPers really shows how little you know.

Most people would probably give up before you got too far. I, for one, wouldn't care to spend months of my life trying to get a title that the higher-ups will still disregard.
A year ago, it used to be that you had to be r3+ before you could get a group. Now it's r6+.

I farm armbraces to get what I want, not what I want to sell. I get items that I think will look good, so I'll probably trade in my Armbrace for a tormented shield that I'll be using, not selling. I bought a Miniature Mallyx for 100k, 36e, and 6 lockpicks, the price has gone down a little but I don't care - I'm keeping the little Margonite Monkey, I like him and I don't plan to sell him.
Does Apple really send people to Microsoft with hate mail, verbal abuse, and post advertisements saying that Microsoft is a bunch of no-good losers? Isn't that libel?
Whatever boosts your ego. I'm not one who enjoys pushing others down in order to raise myself up.
Actually, I have.
^ Attitudes like this are the main reason why people hate Pvpers.

I don't know Sab personally, what do you think I do, stalk people? It doesn't matter to me if she plays HA, GvG, or farms Maguuma Jungle for plant fiber.

i.e. She plays a lot of PvP, and knows a shit load about it.

...Which is essentially why you can't make such broad comments about how certain communities act.

Tell you what dear, you go to all the PvPers who say that anyone who plays PvE is a scrub and tell them that <3

You didn't actually say anything.

But whatever. You keep making broad generalizations about Pvpers. This discussion is fairly hopeless.



Most PvPers PvE frequently. That's why you see them running around in high-end GvG with FoW and bandanas.


I'll continue pushing down others to push myself up. It's normally the way you go around successfully elevating yourself. It's how balance is kept.

When about 90% of the community acts a certain way, I'd say it's roughly fair to generalize...

They just farm enough to get that stuff, flash their ebayed tigers, and run back off to PvP land.

So basically, you'd beat a homeless person up in order to take the 70 cents that he/she has? I see. That's very balanced. About as balanced as Guild Wars is.

So much for all that GVG talk, hey?

Your /rank is as worthless, pointless and annoying as those Kurzick/Luxon titles you despise. So you HA a lot? It proves nothing about you or your abilities, which you should damn well know, given how many r9+ scrubs you must have encountered in HA. Oh, and the reason most people still think your /rank is worthwhile? Most of humanity is mindbogglingly stupid, and GW players are no exception.

You're the one who mentioned your /rank as being important, not me. All I was doing is pointing out exactly why it's not. Ability comes before /rank. As you clearly get teams for PVP often, I suspect that your ability far outweighs any PVP titles you may have, as is the case for most decent players.

Many in the GW community who started early in the game are nothing special in pvp terms and yet have very high rank. Many R9's basically IWAY their way there. /Rank is not the determinant of a good or even average player, though it is understandably valued by those who earned it the right way.

As for the shot about GvG, well, that you whole heartedly earned from your posts earlier in this thread.

Also, I have to give you kudos for patience waiting for teams in HA @ low ranks, and actually playing with some of those people. I just don't have the patience for that.

I agree, but there's a lot of players who don't take that in consideration. They see you're lower ranked, will rank you, tell you you're a noob without them even seeing what you've done, and you what THEY have done... and take this to their advantages.

I remember running with R9 Hero guy who sucked at the PvE part of the game, but kept saying that everyone else sucked but him in the team (typical mending wammo mentality). And I meet those condescending people every now and then; not as much because I don't PUG as much. A R6 orders in my ToPK group who refused to use self-healing, claiming the monk should have his back constantly, telling us how much he had done orders in HA groups and whatnot... ABs where I see a lot of rank flashing when someone kills another... my old r7 GL who kept playing with her friends instead of her guildies because we were "PvE noobs", etc.

I can recognize high titles when I see them - If you're a good player, good! If not, don't start saying how everyone else sucks to boost your ego because you have a high Hero rank. You're in my team and not doing a good job in it... well I won't give a crap about your R9.

I would love to see PvP without the PvE section ..

Huh ; how do you activate skills Oo ? wtf haxor i'm tank no assasin kill me ; wtf ? huh ? how do you attack ? xD

So you're justifying a generalization off of a generalization?

It's the best I can do, unless you can create a little device that will let me have a chat with every single pvp player out there.

Actually, the best thing you could do is to not generalize.

I don't think I could mention every PvPer I've met by name, either.

There's no point in trying to defend the point of elitists who thump their noses at PvE'ers.

If you cannot prove a point with resorting to generalisations, don't make a point.

Thank you, Shuuda.

thx 4 failure

I'm not even trying to prove a point. I'm giving an account of my experiences.

Your using personal experience to say that most PvPers are cocky trash talkers, still not enough evidence.

"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."

This thread has reached its critical mass. Time to close it.

...Must I really spell it out...

I was sharing my personal experience - and the personal experience was about most of the PvPers that I've met are trash talkers. I did not say that all PvPers are like that. I am saying that the ones I met are rude and immature. Understand it now?

I can't believe that this thread hasn't been closed yet. All I see is 2 sides that will never agree with each other, with people on each side who refuse to try and understand each other. This isn't an international crisis it's a game which is supposed to been fun.

It's merely a matter of denial, but it would be wrong of me to say who's. But yeah. this topic needs lockin', nothin' but headaches can come out of it.

Shuuda is right, you are arguing your view that pvpers are elitist bastards. Every bit of 'evidence' you have put forth villinizes the pvp playerbase and makes pve players look sweet and innocent.

Odd that grouping in PvE is worse than grouping in PvP. In PvP at least there are pugs forming in HA/TA. In PvE you dont even see that for 99% of the game.

As for saying R9s have IWAYed thier fame, I have 10k of fame, only 1k of that I played bspike for, thats 9k fames from balanced.

As for being elitist trash talkers, I kick people from my guild/teams for trash talking, so nope, your wrong there.

And before this degenerates further into a rank discrimiation thread as its starting to, rank doesnt mean anything, I dont care how good you are, or if you are r13+. If a player doesnt have a brain to help win a match, then he is no better than an unranked player or low ranked player that has never seen maps past unholy temples. Intelligence + Experience is what matters. Not just experience.

So should I tell blatant lies about what I see instead?
There are pugs forming in the Deep and DoA. As well as Temple of Ages.

PvE is much bigger than PvP so everything is more spread out.
There are probably some R9's that IWAY/buy all their fame. Just cause a couple people do it legit doesn't mean everyone does.
Your guild might be one that doesn't stand for trash talking, but there's plenty more out there that stand for it, even encourage it.
I suggest standing in HA ID1, and saying that rank doesn't mean anything

People say,"I don't want to have to deal with arrogant eleven year-olds, etc."
However, people inextricably bring their personalities and behaviours into games, especially mmo-type games.

Lock this thread if you will, but there remain certain facts that remain solidly true.

One of these facts is that experience in PvP will give you better knowledge of the game and the mechanics behind it, and make you into a better player.

Experience in PvE will not; it will teach you to formulate a specific strategy/gimmick to conquer something if it is not already conquerable by your baseline build.