Lessons from Guild Wars

Even though only a few received the cash, I always felt the cash incentive created more general interest and drew in more players. The automated tournaments were a step back imo.

I can see that point. The high profile tournaments did a lot to cement Guild Wars as a competitive game early on, if nothing else did.

I would love to see a similar idea for GW2. Maybe large annual tournaments held at one of the big conventions, with a decent cash prize. It would generate a lot of hype, potentially pulling in a lot of competitive gamers who are attracted to the idea.

I have no idea how feasible that is though.

Or get the yearly tournies back up and running

Had they implemented them correctly, and not lost 1/3 of their playerbase in the wait time for them, they would have had the opposite effect. They could have led to bigger and much more profitable (player perspective wise) outcome than the bs we actually got.

Eh, still giving the PvE community to much credit. Ensign and a few other dR members walked right into DoA, played with SMS, and dominated the area back before PvE-Only skills and all that shit. However, SMS could never walk into GvG and expect to do even close to half as well as dR.

The knowledge players gain in PvP is useful in all areas of Guild Wars. Unfortunately, the knowledge gained in PvE (especially after the release of NF/EoTN) teaches players nothing but gimmicks and shit play. People may say the PvE crowd isn't ignorant, but I'd beg them to take a second look.

your 100% right, but the problem is the arrogant nature that the PvP community as a whole has, especially to the pvE community that they see as beneath them, rather than seeing them as another part of the community and offering help


hell, how much better would the game community as a whole be if the PvP community actually took time in PvE areas to Pug and help PvE'ers whilst not PvP'ing? or hell, even shared build knowledge more

and I'mnot flaming the PvP community, I have a lot of people I consider friendsnow in that community, but especially around the first World Championship the divide was so massive all the communities had left was bile and hatred for each other... PvE considered PvP a burden for skill changes that affected them and PvP'ers considered PvE to be a killing blow to the game

Mainly because the PvE community never wants anything nerfed. The PvE community as a whole is literally quite content to blow up the most difficult areas in the game with characters that are invincible. Of course a community of people who play the game for the challenge are going to look down on them. PvPers are better skill-wise, so thus they're arrogant. PvE'ers who can clear FoW in 20 seconds are going to be arrogant towards PvE'ers who still use Searing Flames for their heroes.

PvPers do pug. They're often horrified at their terrible builds that the PvE'ers (who claim to have equal skill) come up with. For quite some time now, the PvE meta has come directly from the PvP, all up until Shadow Form's ridiculous buffs. Look at most build archetypes and you can see where PvP's influence has been there - Splinter Weapon, WoH hybrids, Imbagons, sabway...PvPers came up with the backgrounds for all of this.

The notoriously thin skin PvE'ers have when it comes to criticism is one of the reasons PvPers don't care for them.

Unfortunately also all very true

but the biggest thing PvP'ers need with PvE'ers in general is patience, as very soon the arrogant PvE'ers will be weeded out and the others will look upto the PvP'ers for help and guidance

hell, my guild used to run in guild gvg to show build strategy and placing to new PvE'ers... its amazing how quickly they started heading over to the battle isles after we had too

I'd rather rits be kept in GW and necros removed. I'd also like to see some spirits that move with the rit instead of all of them being fixed in location.

I agree with this to a degree. Humans and intelligent mobs should be mixed at times (sometimes a group of a single class would be acceptable like ranger spike or el spike). However dumber monsters shouldn't be given different classes if they are grouped. If you run across a pack of wolves, they shouldn't be running balanced.

I wish that so many people who play PvE weren't of the whiny/no nerfs EVAR/never willing to learn type, as they make those of us who aren't look bad :P

Also, yeah, anyone running a Sabway/WoHProt/etc build (or hero) has to both thank the PvP players who came up with the builds, and facepalm at themselves for not thinking outside of their own 8-skill boxes and looking instead at the 64 skills they're charging into battle with. It's even criminally easy to make a good team build that doesn't have gimmicks, because you already know wtf you're going to be fighting in any area.

Balanced mobs would be wonderful. It seems like a game of chase your tail.... make the mobs hard to beat, give PvE imbalanced PvE skills to beat them, make the mobs even harder, give the PvE players consumables, etc. and where does it eventually stop? With permasins and cryway/jesusbeam/wtfever? Meh.

This really only began around nightfall with SF ele heroes, then HM really brought it to the fore. Before then people were happy to play triple meteor shower, echo SS, tank warriors, etc. I've tried thinking about the reasons and there's just too many and it's too complex, but the main factor is that the bar for success is not set that high. You don't need the absolute best build for an area until you start caring about clear times- and that's when the real PvE innovations called "farming" happen, and those builds can and often do look completely different from anything in PvP. But until you set an additional challenge like that before yourself, you can "get by" with any meta PvP build just because it's at least half-decent.

I think JR does have a point about most of GW's flaws. I would like to add to that a bit more.

The Misdirection.

I think the entire game itself was a massive misdirection by a certain type of modern game development process. It still succeeds where others have failed though (like having order to chaos). Basically GW (from the very beginning) faced what we call an “identity crisis,” and made itself twisted in a way, where we both loved the game and hated it equally. I think the whole problem actually is apart of only half-fixing mistakes (like you have stated). We all should know by now that the original intentions for GW was to make it a PvP based game, and the PvE side was kind of thrown together at the last minute.

From that very first step in making the game, they made a huge mistake. If you are going to work on something, then you never want to use a type of half-bake method for your work. In which everyone can see the initial flaws from the very foundation of the game. Everyone knew at that point that the plot behind GW was necessarily weak minded, in which some portion of the game felt as if it getting anti-climatic. People just stopped caring and the only character that stuck with them since the very beginning was Gwen (location: pre-searing). As we know that storyline line went flat, with the tragedy that became EotN plotline.

Core Professions are also broken.

Going into the sheer mechanics of the game itself; I will take it even further and say that even the core classes were poorly thought out. Maybe everyone thinks they were fine, because they were nostalgic to any fantasy RPG that is out there. However I feel that some of them were completely overlooked during their time.

Let’s look at the Monk as an example of this, in which his/her system of healing or protecting fellow teammates from harm would seem fine on paper. However what is truly the reward into helping other people as a monk? The answer is almost completely nothing, since you don’t get any points in keeping you team alive. Yes, you have the satisfaction of doing so, but it generally feels less rewarding. The other problem is that usually if the team fails the first primary fault of that particular failure is put upon the monk first. So this mechanic was supposed to address via the Smiting attribute line, but never was fully fleshed out into working attribute. Most people will say that the Smiting skills are a joke outside of PvE.

Useless Skills.

This brings me to one of the other major problem with the game, in which some skills are totally and absolutely ignored once they are made. Even when they were developed about 1/5 of the overall skill base of each campaign, would sometimes be used on a practical basis. Yes, they tried to address this by buffing some while nerfing others, but even that in itself played out poorly. Don’t get me started on the sheer amount of duplicate skills that are out there now, since the supposed “buffing of useless elite skills.”

Poor Communication.

Every problem can be addressed to this type of misdirection of the game. I see this problem growing at a dramatic rate; thanks to poor communication skills on both sides of the deployment team, the community, and the press. Unfortunately I think GW 2 will suffer because of this problem. If they were suppose to learn anything from the work from before hand, then it certainly did not show in their last effort: EotN.

Even now they are continuing this bad practice of poor communication. They have left everyone in the dark, when it comes to the processes of working on their next project(s) (given it in being GW 1 or GW 2 related). They only talk about certain efforts when it suet their needs. This has started when they worked of the first campaign for GW, and into present terms; in which can start to see a pattern. They only talk about their work at the very beginning of their development process (pre-production) and at the end (post production). There seems to be no middle into what they are actually doing with that work. It’s like they are gambling every time a game goes out the door. I don’t know why they do this, but it’s hurting them more then it’s helping.

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The notoriously thin skin PvE'ers have when it comes to criticism is one of the reasons PvPers don't care for them.

That may be true but a reason why PvE'ers may seem to have a thin skin and unwilling to learn is by the quality of the criticism of the critic.

Many times a PvP'ers version of a critique is nothing more than, "Dude your build sux why are you here?" This puts the person on the defensive and angrily tries to defend the faulty build.

A good critic always calmly tries to see what the person is trying to do and suggest alternatives. Sadly you just don't see that type of quality in most PvP areas.

It's been a long time since someone who bothered to write a wall of text with good formatting and grammar, and yet be completely wrong about everything. I'm disappointed actually.

- Yes PvE was not as much of a focus at the beginming as it later turned out to be. But the prophecies campaign is pretty freaking big compared to the PvP maps- it wasn't a mere tutorial the way an RTS campaign is. Even though the "endgame" was supposed to be largely PvP, the whole idea really existing in a middle zone- in Strain's words "after you've spent all this time conquering monsters and building up your character, what's better than going an owning your friends with those cool gear?" Factions was a better attempt at getting the two integrated - but ultimately didn't succeed for various reasons.

IMO this has mostly to do with the incredible integrity of GW's PvP system- even if it took some ridiculous grind to get there, there really was a level tier where you stopped and were equal to everyone else- something you don't find much in most MMOs. No-one in WoW gets away with just playing PvP all the time for example. This is also compounded by the original introductory PvP method (RA) being complete garbage.

- It's interesting to think what could have been done better about the 5 core (the necro is recognizably broken in PvP as the mesmer was in PvE) - unfortunately your example is ridiculous and doesn't begin to address anything. GW awards everyone on the team equally for kills, so monks get just as many points as anything else. Some people like that style of play, some don't, but enough do because you can find plenty healers around.

- Communication could be better but it's laughable as a large-scale issue. Most customers don't visit forums and fansites or care what the devs/PR have to say about anything. It's just not on the same level as any of these other considerations.

The project has been bit of a cluster**** since the Factions expansion.

1. Think what you want to accomplish. It's not possible to make competitive PvP game and MMO game at the same time. Think how to spend your budget effectively. We have ten aspects (e.g. level system, equipment system) which are there just because adventure game is supposed to have them, but none of them are anything to tell others about.

2. Rigidness. Before we get to talk about what particular skill mechanics cause imbalance, we should address the system which makes effective balancing impossible. When every character except Warriors, Rangers and Paragons have same energy pool, same energy regain rate and skills which "cost" just the same, we have already taken away one good factor for balancing. Another glaring lack is percentage-based skill use. Let me show what I'm talking about:

Shadow Shroud:
For x...y seconds, target cannot cast spells.

It's either conditionally the most overpowered skill ever, or if you nerf duration, the most useless thing ever. So why not...

Shadow Shroud:
For 5 seconds, x...y% of target's spells will fail.

Point is not what the numbers are, point is that this is a great method to balance skills which have really powerful effect when applied. In GW1, the only handicaps are duration, power, energy cost, casting time and recharge. Things which generally place most of the skills to "crap" category when another skill does same trick for cheaper. Why there can't be factors like proximity to target, duration of targeting, not moving/attacking, slower movement, casting bonuses...? Again let's look at Shadow Shroud.

Shadow Shroud:
Applies hex to target enemy and causes -x energy degeneration to caster. Whenever you stand next to target, he/she cannot cast spells. Hex can last maximum of 30 seconds.

A way to counter by moving away from enemy, which depends on player's attentiveness. Stuff that makes games interesting and varied.

PvP and PvE skills should be completely different to begin with because they have completely different play style...The whole game is labeled as an RPG but in reality only PvE is and PvP is mostly RTS with a RPG like cover.

Of course the most efficient way of playing PvE was never PvP style - was farming style.

That is why there is a rift between the communities.

PvP players want PvE players, some that have 0 interest on moving to PvP, to play PvE in a PvP style and despise them for not doing so. But, PvE, for long has been about making money, hasn't it? And that revolves around farming.

And I don't see farming builds coming out of GvG, although I've seen VwK farm builds used on GvG.

So here we have - people that play PvP (any type of game) are generally interested on the challenge of defeating other human beings. People that play RPGs are generally interested in stuff like history, seeing their characters stats improve and collect stuff, then some people that play MMO like to be there doing something while chatting with people or mess about.

So people that are interested in PvP only, or mostly, laughing at people that couldn't care less about what they think of them is quite laughable too.

Especially because the most efficient way to achieve the goal of PvE, which is (for some) acquire stuff or chat/mess about (for others) isn't achieved with PvP tactics.

Yes, PvP require skills and abilities PvE doesn't and a player slow to learn them will have a hard time and be under pressure to learn them fast or lose.

But people that don't play it, don't need it. And if they don't play it why should they learn it?

So I agree with JR, that makes perfect sense to separate the game, because the community is diverse in their objectives, while sharing some or most of the same mechanics, allowing players that enjoy THE different aspects SIMULTANEOUSLY to do so.

Anet strategy to make a game that unified PvE and PvP, and mingled them, IMO, failed.

But a PvP starcraft player laughing at someone because he/she only plays the campaigns where he/she has all those special units and faces retarded AI is silly. Actually its more like a PvP starcraft player laughing at a PvP GW player cause he knows shit about starcraft PvP.

And so is PvP GW players laughing at PvE players because they play PvE and don't care about PvP. Laugh at those that think they are something special for beating AI, but by the same token, loads of PvP players that think they are all the shit are pretty crappy too.

Sometimes I think the side of the community that only cares about PvP is deep inside jealous of the attention and the goodies the PvE side of the game get and just wish the PvE side of the game disappeared (and fortunately for the players that only want to PvP, they don't have to play PvE these days as opposed to the earlier days) so they could get all the goodies instead of having to share them (someone will say GW was a "PvP" game - of course that by magic it hit stores with a PvE side).

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About GvG balance.

The game is balanced between player/guilds. They all have access to the same skills and builds options.

What is imbalanced is the relation between skills and builds available or tactics.

Believing that in a game where you have so many choices as GWs there will be loads of different tactics and you can pretty much pick any skill to put in your team pool of skills and have a chance to win, is pure utopia.

A monk has for example 35 elites to choose from his primary profession only. Sorry, but unless they all do the same, a few of them will be stronger than the others and in relation to the total pool of skills played.

PnH is one of the skills everyone talks about. Yes it is ubber powerful killing all hexes and conditions. Yet, if someone could hex the entire opposing team (lets say compass range energy degeneration) with a 5e casting cost hex with 5 seconds recharge and pretty hard to interrupt, this version of Pnh would be shit to stop it and would drop of the pool of playable skills. Or maybe make PnH 2 seconds casting time and it will be cannon fodder for d-shot and it will disappear from the game.

GWs skills are like a pool of genes - some are better suited for the present conditions than others, even if the others are quite good too or just plain crap.

The way the game is designed the best it can be achieved is a revamp of the meta every so few other months with buffs and nerfs.

When people ask for balance in GvG what they really mean is that they want the match to be played in a certain different way.

Games like starcraft are balanced in a different way - you need to make every race have a fair chance of beating the others in the maps available (you never heard about ZvZ, PvP or TvT being imbalanced though since they were the mirrors). But if you go look at a replay from the last WCG and then go see a replay of the WCG a year before and a replay of the WCG 2 years before, the matchups play exactly the same.

In a game that was built around the end game being PvP combat, this is actually wrong, but with ANET's decision to flop 180 degrees after implementation of the game, it flopped even more as it allowed the gap to widen between PvE players and PVP players, and with the limited exposure or training towards PvP in this game, its either a "I want to PvP" or not decision, thus in lies the biggest problem.

Probably the biggest problem within the game is that there is no direction or encouragement in the natural state of the game, nor has there been, to actually draw and attract new players. The only reason that many recent additions to the PvP scene or the "Casual" PvP scene is that with nothing else left to do in PvE, they figure why not. There is no real and true interaction towards PvP in a PvE environment, with even just limited exposure to different types of Tombs format styles (Now called Heroes Ascent), some of which have been completely changed in the rules and functions since conception. In a game that the end game was the original design to have players migrate into the PvP aspect of the game, ANET has done a very piss poor job of drawing and attracting new players towards this community and their game fails to do so as well. Now instead of migrating into the PvP community, players have the option to "Grind" as within other mmo's, one aspect of guildwars that gave it it's originality to begin with.

You will always have 3 distinct types of players in this game. The Hardcore PvP players that practice and train to advance themselves and will actually devote the time to study and advance their play. Guilds like [rawr], [iQ], [Te], [QQ], [PnH], [EvIL], [WM], etc... all did this and have done it very effectively. Then you have the "Casual" Crowd that either has stopped playing competitively, or is good but doesn't have the time to dedicate to take their game to the next level so is satisfied with where they are currently at. And then you will have the No, I only want the fantasy storylines and nothing to do with killing other players, only the story and quests matter, the traditional RPG Player.

Sadly, while at one time the game had the power to, Guild Wars no longer can sway the opinion of either the Hardcore players nor the Traditional players, and the Casual players are the ones that are forcing new life into the system by being the only ones to advance. The Hardcore have almost all left, the Traditional expand as most RPG games will, and the casual becomes an innocent bystander, but a casualty of the game none the less.

- I have to agree with this, but later you state that RPG players and competitive players are whole different audiences. That is also true, so the migration plan was a failure to begin with. Same problems with grouping in PvE aspect plague PvP aspect as well. Instead of quitting grouping altogether, players in PvP have been practicing discrimination, which can understandably alienate new players. Leavers and ragequitters were common in RA before dishonorable update.

I can understand experienced players' reasons for this discrimination. It's just that there's deep-rooted problems with the whole grouping aspect if you're forced to do so. Just have a look at what difference new players make in any server in FPS games. Simple plugin will fix team balance in a jiffy and no one will feel like they're in losing team.

Likewise I feel you miss the point completely and you are trying to compensate for the games lack of proper content.

If one feature is solely focused upon then something is sure to suffer in GW.

Sure the PvP side of the content was pretty well sound to a point. However if you look at the whole PvE section, it’s basically chaotic in Prophecies. It really had no point; other then to get that “better gear,” as you clearly had stated before hand. The reward system was still terrible back then, compared to some of the recent content. Which makes you wonder how hard was it to really implement that into the game in the first place.

To the point of Prophecies being the better campaign is a matter of opinion to some. However I do see the flaws that came with that campaign. My first question is: If people did love the PvE side so much then why did they get these so called “runs” from place to place?” By doing so they would be cutting the campaign itself down to a measly 45%? I have posed this question to many different GW players including some old and some new. A good majority of them tell me that it’s boring in itself, and they just want the endgame content.

Prophecies is really not that big of a campaign compared to some of the single player RPG’s that have been on the market even before hand. Most of the campaign itself is copy and paste content from other fantasy games and novels of that genre; I have seen in recent years. The plot to me was poorly executed and it did not get any better until maybe Nightfall came along. Even the quests themselves left more to be desired. Remember the whole bit about, “We won’t make a whole bunch of fetch quests in EotN like we did in the previous campaigns.” Unfortunately that did not turn out exactly that way, for a good portion of EotN quests.

My point was basically if your going to make a full fledged game then don’t leave out the other 50% to the drawing board. If you want to take your time in making a better game then so be it. Guild Wars felt a little rushed when it came to the overall focus of that particular campaign, while other half suffered because of it.

Prophecies was better in focusing on PvP aspect then the PvE feature. Factions tried to combine the two and failed. Nightfall buffed the PvE aspect of the game, while the PvP was in the back seat. EotN tired desperately to fill in a gap of nostalgic Prophecies moments and failed miserably (PvP side was completely absent).

Why the Monk?

I would have probably agreed with you (2 years ago), about saying that I gave a ridiculous example by using that particular profession. However after taking the monk profession for a “spin,” as my first character; I have to still disagree with you at this point. I originally loved my monk, when I used him for the first year and a half. However the profession itself became highly repetitive like most of the professions.

I started to notice why the monk was on such high demand, and that was because of his/her high dependency level. If you were any other profession you would have a lower chance of being used on a team. In which I never cared for the fact that the profession itself became such a crutch to the core mechanics of the game itself. The monk also became the primary target in crippling the team as a whole. You might as well stick a red bull’s-eye on you and ask for your last rights.

It became even less rewarding when I started to really become better at using the profession. Why is it that only less then 15% of the healing reasonability is on the rest of the team while the monk takes the other 85%? No one profession should ever have that high of a dependence level, then to the other classes that come by it. All the professions should be almost completely equal to each other; so it does not feel like work, but instead feels genuinely entertaining.

The smiting attribute line was a perfect example, in which the profession was never fully drawn out. The only way this particular attribute comes in handy is when you’re farming in PvE. The profession that was supposed to fill in this gap was the Dervish; instead of actually trying to fix most the skills in a way where they would be useful to the Monk. Do you really think that the profession is so perfect that there is no need to fix anything for it? There is always room for improvement.

Poor communication does hurt the business.

I brought up the point of poor communication because it’s been argument that has been beaten to death in this very community. Yes, maybe it’s become a tad bit better with some things in GW 1. Nevertheless there are only a couple of people (plus those who interpret) giving out detailed information about this work at the moment, which includes Linsey and Regina.

However who is really acknowledgeable about the work that is being done on GW 2, besides the information that was first given to us back in July 2007? Have there been any really new hints of information to let on about what is going on with that development process, other then “yes, we are working on it” cliché? This has been repeated with the other GW campaigns/expansion that has come before it. In which I come to almost accept this type of stance on it until the game actually arrives whenever it does.

Your point about that the game really does not matter to the masses is a poor argument. If A-net really wants to pull in more business they have to start looking towards engaging some better press. I am not talking about just reviews, but instead useful information that could tease at the things yet to come. More Q&A sessions with the development team and more resources being pulled to at least acknowledge the game itself, just before it hit’s the retail shelves.

Many different people outside the hardcore regions of the community still ask me all sorts of questions concerning Guild Wars. They ask me things like: Is there any new information of another campaign coming out for GW? How is GW 2 coming along now? Anything new that’s worth coming back to GW 1? These types of questions which I used to get quite frequently in which they have started to die down recently, because I would have to give out some rather disappointing answers.

However at the same time I would have to ward off the “doom/gloom people” who have told me that Guild Wars 2 is vaporware (or is cancelled) and Guild Wars 1 is dead. I tell them that the Guild Wars 1 is still functional and that Guild Wars 2 is still being worked on. I tell them that A-net does not do a whole bunch of press, because they might not like the hype train (a poor answer, since I don’t know).

My arguments are actually repeats from past problems that never were fully addresses. Furthermore some of these problems have been brought up in Guru before (don’t have the time to look up the threads), and have drawn much debate. I have even asked other people who do play or used to play GW about some of these critiques, and most of them agree with me on one level or another. It’s interesting to see how many hardcore GW fans have moved on away from the game, and become so bitter over the last couple of years to a point where they just don’t care anymore.

A classic argument from people with little understanding of the game.

Your offensive line killing things quickly is as important to the groups survival as you doing a good job with healing and prot, as is having a midline that disrupts and supports efficiently. People don't get that because it's far simpler to say 'look at those red bars going down' and blame the person supposed to be bumping them back up.

I agree with most of your points (thought I wouldnt when I first saw the topic tbh ). The thing with goal based vs grind based is that ultimately, grind based requires no effort from the developer - you make an area (be it PvE or PvP), successful execution of this area grants the player some useless points for a title (erhhmm, /Rank ) and you just let them grind for years.
Goal based means that no matter how hard these tasks are, they will be fulfilled by people sooner or later (if at all doable, which they have to be..). Then the ways get posted on forums, and soon everyone completes the tasks.
Obviously, as a developer, you need to add content at that point, or else people will start losing interest.

Dont get me wrong, I'd love it to be like that, I always found the little updates around the times of Prophecies awsome and made the impression of a living world, evolving as the players play it - tombs got infested with corrupter monsters, Heroes ascent got moved as a result, Sorrows furnace got added, the small PvE nerfs/new monsters (Kephet?).. All this really added a nice feel to it. However I dont see it happening with Anets business model, they simply cannot afford to add stuff all the time to old chapters, can they?

And I agree yet again, Prophecies PvP was best - I believe it was the only times that players had to think about stuff, not just smash buttons. The way a simple skillbar was used meant a lot back in the days

Exactly

Remember kids, only use the band aid if you cut yourselves...

the trick is NOT TO CUT YOURSELF!!!

Huh? PvE'er's want stuff nerfed all the time to "balance" pve, they hide behind this "balance" notiion because the player base only starts to get very vocal when a build allows what people call "noobs" to farm "elite areas" or areas people deem they shouldn't.

Ursan, shadow form etc etc is all a big unbalance but the 55/invici monk back in the day and the many variations of it today is completely fine?

The same goes for PvP in some cases why bother trying to counter a build when its just easier to come cry on the fourms, even better if you have top pvp'ers rallying behind these skill changes also. It makes the person seem more knowledgeable, cool and in with the pvp crowd, also anyone who disagrees with you can be safe knowing that you're better then them and they're a pve scrub.



I've pug' with PvP'ers also that have pinged builds that where completely terrible and guess what? They claim they have skill and know what they're doing because they pvp and think they're the s**t. Someone asks them to change the build and they start getting all angsty, claiming they're in such and such guild with x rank on the ladder then start spamming their HA emote, what im trying to say both sides of PvE/PvP are just as bad as each other.

As much as the pvp community complains about they're being no new blood this statement completely alienates the people the pvp community wants to pvp

Not to mention Snow Bunny is off the mark again.

I haven't met many PvPers that could handle blatantly obvious truths and suggestions. Criticising a PvPer is masochism at its purest. There is a culture of narcissism that woven into the very fabric of every PvPer out there. They feed upon thrashing and bashing others just for the sake of their own over-inflated egos.

And when they come to PvE their narcissism level increases ten-fold. As well as their ego.

Do what you say, say what you do, don't hide anything, internal communication must be good so everyone give the same responses to your players/customers instead of one person saying A another person saying B, otherwise its best not to say anything until you have all the details ready :P~

I agree the person who balance the skills need to play the pvp of the game, but he/she must not belong to a guild actively involve in any competition, conflict of interest :P

I quite agree with that, but it must be said that PvP has also some of the most generous, kind and friendly people of the whole community. I think it's a complete shame that there aren't more, in particular on fansites (Guru, as QQ, suffers from a phenomenon of total misrepresentation of this side of the community). Sorry for the slight derail JR, but this also allows me to say thanks for the thread and say you're part of the nice PvP guys.

I'll throw a suggestion in this thread: PvP needs more role models. Seeing the GWFC got me really excited about PvP a while ago, recently there was this thread with a warm reception. Although you can't correct Anet's big mistakes, you can make a significant difference.

Definately. I think misrepresentation/stereotyping is a problem all around.

There are PvE players out there with a fantastic understanding of the game. Take Racthoh for one example of someone who (as far as I know) has never gotten into PvP, he has always impressed me with his insight and knowledge of the game.

Then there's the ridiculous notion that 'PvP players' have some innate sense of how a game should be balanced. For every one PvP player who can reason out and put forth a good argument for game balance you have twenty unpleasant idiots who give the rest a bad name and sink interesting feedback threads with trolling and ego.

I'll tell you one thing. When I think of the people who have consistently been at the top of their game in discussing the finer points of balance and game mechanics, I don't think many of them would categorize themselves as 'PvP players' or 'PvE players'.

As a PvE'er I do understand the need for a delicate regular 'hands on' approach coupled with actual PvP player feedback to make micro updates so that the entire PvP side is kept fresh and enjoyable.This is one of the most important things needed for the GW2 PvP format.

I didn't like the split and introduction of PvE only skills but given how I have seen skills have vastly different effect between PvE and PvP i think its pretty inevitable that there will be a split for GW2. Also less skills overall would help keep the balance i think.

I like this idea. I never liked that players can buy into a guild and get a trim. These are earned for outstanding performance in a tournament and as such should be tied to the person who has actually played well.

Hard Mode was a stupid design for me. Basically it added some extra monsters and raised their levels a bit rather than making it more challenging.

Mobs in PvE should be more PvP like with a better mix and better skillbars. Each monster group should have a random class makeup and within that group each class should have a list of potential builds and secondaries that it can spawn with.

Better monster AI with more random monster Party Mix coupled with variable Skill Bar possibilities would lead to more balanced well designed challenge for players than our current HM implementation i think.

Expansion Classes
I agree with alot of what you have said but would favour having less classes overall. I don't see the actual need for Paragons/Dervishes/Assassins and Ritualists and would instead merge them into the existing 6 core classes rather than reworking them in such a way as to make them more viable. I'm thinking more along the lines of a more D2ish type setup. Bows/Spear/Pets as the 'standard' weapons for Rangers , Swords/Axe/Hammer/Dagger/Scythe for Warrior's , Rit Spirits move to Necro , Channeling/Resto to Monks etc (havent completely though that out and how it would affect the class designs , just threw those out to give an rough idea of what i would consider)

Well put. Every time I get interested in trying PvP, all it takes is a few minutes in the match staging area to realize "Hey, nevermind. I'm content with the size of my man-bits"

I wasn't really arguing that those classes should be reworked, we all know it's long past that ever happening. I was just pointing out that their late addition to the game meant that they were trying to squeeze into roles already filled by the core classes.

That said, I do like your solution of merging them into the core classes. Were ArenaNet were ever to come to the conclusion that the expansion classes were a mistake that needed solving, that would be a very interesting one to discuss.

I don't think any one group is going to agree with another group or an individuals idea of "BALANCE" in this game. I never believed balance could be achieved in the first place after I saw all the skills and then the added characters and all their skills thrown into the bowl. I believe it is impossible to balance a game like this. Now CHANGING things for the sake of CHANGE now that I can believe in. But, there will never be any balance to this game past, present or future. Therefore while the OP ideas are valid enough for ideas they are no way all inclusive of a balanced form of play and never will be. The only thing we can rely on is CHANGE once a month, once every 3 months whatever, but, that is all.

Balance is not a black and white issue. A game is never simply balanced or unbalanced, but always in a fluctuating state of balance. Updates are not there to try and reach perfection, but to keep the game fun and interesting.

JR, you need to remember too that a lot of the guys here haven't worked in a Dev team doing what we're talking about and don't have the same understanding you have

However, maybe you could explain a little more about it on the show tonight, as that would be easier than a long drawn out essay on skill balancing

Please do not take this the wrong way, but judging by your response to this I am going to take it that you play Primarily PvE, due to this being a typical PvE only type of response.

While in theory this may sound well and good and simple enough, the fact is that PvP builds are never static and rarely repeat themselves. You cannot go in to a match and know exactically skill for skill what another team is possibly running, thus lies the problem with this thought. In a PvE setting, you have the luxury of the environment never changing. The mobs don;t change, the skillset dont change, the way they attack or use skills doesnt change, they will not try to outthink you, they will not try to outmanuver you, they will not try to build against you. Hence the term of PvE being a "Static" playingfield. PvP on the otherhand is almost never the same. While yes there are not nearly the number of viable builds being ran as in earlier times, there are still variants that you will not fully be able to predict until the match starts. Map choice, build choice, player strategy, server ping (this should die in a fire btw), skill selection, equipment selection can all play a huge role in determining the outcome of a game. You cannot go into a PvP match expecting to face the same thing match after match after match as each match, even if it is something as simple as map choice with the same build from 2 different teams, will inherently play different, thus PvP being a more "Dynamic" playingfield.

But this has been discussed in great length and detail prior to this and this argument should not even be taking place here.

if PvP playing field is never the same, why then does it need skill balancing?

sorry and nerf this and that all the time?

God, no. I have to say that I absolutely hate that idea. If Dervish were folded into Warrior, or Ritualist folded into Necro, then I'd be left with only one class I really enjoy playing (as I can't stand warriors or necros. Boring AND ugly professions).

Also, re: PvE/PvP split...I mostly play PvE. The few times I've tried PvP, I've found myself put off very quickly by the attitudes of people. PvP is just as gimmicky as PvE. How often do we see people complaining about the current meta and people running crap meta gimmick builds? Yes, I find idiots among the PvE crowd all the time (obviously playing a Dervish in Prophecies means I want to be in everyone's party or something and they don't like taking no for an answer), but for the most part my experience with the PvE community has been a lot better than with the PvP community.

Also, people always complain about balance. Balance is extremely difficult to achieve and most games are never fully balanced. A change to one skill has knock-on effects on pretty much everything else. It'll change the way NPC and monster AI works. It'll chance the way other skills that synergize with it end up working. And so on.

PvP needs balancing to keep from giving one build a clear advantage over another, thus prohibiting the previous from being ran.

Any team build (not like a farming team build, but a true PvP orientated team build) on any given map should always have its strengths and weaknesses. The idea of "Balancing" PvP is to try to get each build on a level playing field for each map. The different build types will be better at certain aspects such as split or 8v8 play, but will have a slight disadvantage against builds set up for one thing, ie. spike builds. The goal is to have most builds viable and the outcome of the game not be determined by a simple game of chance in that you happen to get the right map against the right build, but rather have the outcome be determined by team play and player knowledge/skill.
The attitudes of some players wil lalways have a put off effect for some, but this cannot be the sole judgement of PvP players as a whole due to the size of the community you were exposed too. I can guarentee that the PvP community is far smaller that the PvP community, so inevitably your encounters with the bad players will show up as more drastic and make the community as a whole seem more arrogant as there isn't the diversity and expanse of players that the PvE community has. I would be willing to bet that if you were exposed to the same amount of PvE Players as PvP players in a given area, you would find just as many ignorant or bad attitude players as that were on the PvP side.

As the old saying goes, size matters...

if you do that, then the pvp playing field will always be static. meaning, without the "chance" factor, the game will become static, you will encounter players with the "same because they are now all usable in all map an all situation" build all the time.

if the team play and its players are knowledgeable and skillful, they do not need to be afraid of that off chance of getting a "current most used spiking or what ever gimmick" build in pvp and they still will triumph over these build. no?

Yes and no. I never said to make the builds all identical. In certain maps and situations, even under the most balanced equasions, there will always be one side that will have a slight advantage build wise. This is made up for in game strategy and player/team skill. The game would end up being less static and more dynamic because that the "chance" will still be there, yet now you have brought back the evolution of the match in its playstyle. Each team will constantly be having to adapt to each other in both build, map, and playstyle, instead of it currently being more lopsided towards build.

Most of your PvP players with enough playtime actually don't worry about whatever gimmick or fotm is being ran, because they have enough exposure towards it and know how to play against it, or wether to even bother with it because they know that no matter what they do, they will not defeat that build on that map. Therein lies the problem. A game should not be determined by a diceroll because one build on one map is more blatantly overpowered than another.