Bridging the great divide. PvE and PvP.

Right, if you're going to complain about someone whining, please at least do the favor of reading their post.

I do not PvP. I don't want to PvP. I was simply pointing out something that I always see as being a common complaint and why I think it's a bit crap.

Due to the group-system nature of Guild Wars, I think there will always be difficulties trying to get people to move from PvE to PvP. The gameplay mindset shift from PvE to PvP is enormous.. You are moving from a gameplay system where everyone wins to where a large number of people lose a lot, all the time, and a few win, a lot of the time.

It's ok to be a scrub who wants to win, but many people cry about how they can't get into it, without putting in the requisite 'work' involved. The people who actually want to PvP will do several things:
1. Put in the hours
2. Form connections (this is the hardest part, namely because if you suck no one will want to play with you, and a lot of players have difficulty accepting this)
3. Be critical of your own performance and improve yourself (a lot of players will not do this either ie. wahh stop criticizing my build i'm a unique snowflake)
As I said in the previous paragraph, the group-nature of Guild Wars forces it so that people have to go through steps 1 and 2. It's difficult, it's a bitch, and it's not all that fun, particularly when you start to PvP when the game's been out awhile. But you either really want to be involved in competitive play or you don't.

No one in PvP is going to hold your hand. Hell, most pve'ers dont even want to play with each other anyways, so what makes you think PvP'ers will take random newbies? PvP is a meritocracy. There is a bottom, and there is a top. There's too many whiny babies and carebears too involved with their pompous ego and emotions to allow themselves to go through the humbling process of getting their face ground into the dust after hours of effort, nevermind take criticism from others. The gulf that exists between pvp and pve lies within each player. Some bridge it because they get it, and others will just whine incessantly about rank and some perceived unfairness never using that time to find their way to the other side. Maybe they don't want to, maybe they can't, cause they just suck. Whatever the reason, there's nothing to 'fix'.

IMO, Alliance Battles were Anet's attempt at bridging the gap. In some ways, it works. There are an incredible amount of players that would probably not dabble with PvP at all if it weren't for AB. But, of course, AB isn't recognized as any kind of serious PvP, and rightfully so with no real skill level required. It's just a free-for-all, jump in and have fun -kind of environment; a slight change from grindy, static PvE.

The idea of "World PvP" in GW2 will probably be very much like this, and is yet another attempt at building bridges. Still, high-end PvP just doesn't ever seem like an attractive choice for those who primarily play PvE. It is two different games with similar mechanics, and simply put, many people would rather play one or the other. Yes, I am aware that most of the top players have also played [and conquered] much of PvE - but chances are all of these players prefer PvP any day to it.


On a personal note, I would likely enjoy high-end PvP. What little PvP I have done outside of ABing I have really enjoyed. However, I don't think I could muster up the time needed to devote myself. Not to mention, none of my friends that play GW do any kind of PvP (except occasional AB), and I'd much rather have fun with them then go off on my own and try to find online war-buddies. Besides, I prefer to do most of my killings in FPSs...

Get a guild, the majority of unranked's suck. I was kinda lucky I guess in that I tried out for a HA guild and even though I sucked they still took me on because I was dedicated and made them laugh over vent. The prot was r9 so he knew what he was talking about - he explained to me what basic mistakes I was doing and I went away and worked on it. That would never happen in a PUG, I mean the guy might be nice and say one or two things which I needed work on but he wouldn't consistently help like that guild did.

If it wasn't for that guild i'd probably still be an unranked playing randomways.

PvE brings people together. Ideally they play in a social and friendly environment. When random groups start PvE their success rate is around 100%. The more people progress through the game, the harder it gets. The success rate with random people sinks, which the players compensate by creating stronger bonds to play with their guild. In the end, the rate of success is pleasantly high (80%+), the atmosphere is friendly and social, the game has great recreational abilities. Good community even further pushes the success rate by trading good builds.

PvP pits players against each other. During their first match in RA, people are thrown not only against another team, but most likely face ridicule and hostility coming from their own team after the unavoidable loss. In contrast to the high success rate in early PvE, the success rate in PvP usually starts at 0%. Since most people play to win and not play to compete this is a problem right there. You have to be in a certain mindset to put up with such a fact. The game makes not attempt to make your efforts worthwhile, it only rewards winners, further escalating the problem. It's a fatal psychological setup for entertainment!

As players continue, they face even more PvP challenges. The social group they have to join in order to advance their PvP efforts is usually cut throat relentless. Liabilities get kicked from the team. But let's assume you even got through that. So then you are part of an 8-man crack commando team playing GvG. The matchmaking is such, that you will most likely play against equal teams. So either your team is a bit better, then you win, or your team is worse, in which case you loose. The Win/Loss ratio is 50% AT BEST for 99% of all players on the PvP circuit.

Now you take the amount of people playing games to have fun and the amount of people playing games to suffer through something and you get the great PvE-PvP divide. The two game modes are designed for two different customers with two radically different views on the game. Them hating each other it the natural result.

Alliance Battles is worse than RA nowadays. PvP-level wise.

As a game grows older, it is inevitably going to be harder and harder to find players who want to play with the little newbie, isn't it. If that applies in PvE, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't apply in PvP. People don't like failing in either format, and they don't want to take people who could compromise their chance of success, and if you come into a game or game format late, you have to accept that there is going to be that barrier.

It's already there in PvE with people complaining about how just about everyone can get through HM even though they technically don't have the skill. Of course it applies in PvP, and I wouldn't expect it to be otherwise - and I'm saying this as a PvE person whose only PvP indulgence is in AB. Which I know some of you people don't even consider PvP, but that's not the issue at hand.

This is one of the failings on A-Net's part in their desire to have players transition from PvE to PvP. The arenas in PvE outposts (Ascalon arena, Shiverpeaks Arena, etc) were meant to help introduce new players to PvP, but they ended up discouraging new players from playing PvP because of the use of max armor and elite skills by folks who have been around long enough to be able to afford runs to LA & Droks to get those things. A-Net didn't respond to the problem fast enough and those low-level arenas ended up as ghost towns. The arenas in Amnoon Oasis (I beleive it was a 6vs6 arena) and Droks never had a chance, and ended up on the scrap heap! (Not sure if the one at the Henge of Denravi made it into the game at release or not.)

Another big turn-off is the elitism run amok in PvP. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me, that once you reach a certian point, you're not going to become any more skilled, just more experienced. And if that is indeed the case, then how much more skilled is a rank 6 player than a rank 3 player? But I'm not just talking about rank discrimination. Another problem seems to be the arrogance (know-it-all) of many PvP players.

True story: I was doing AB's one day (yes, it's PvP, so shut up! ), using a build given to me by a long-time PvP player, who happened to be in one of the higher ranked guilds at the time, and I had been using the build quite successfully for a while, (it hadn't been hit with the nerf bat,either) and I got kicked from two different groups - the first one called me a "PvX wiki noob" and the second one kicked me because "that's not a PvX build, noob!" (elitism run amok)

Well, honestly, it's always been like that. At least, if they were both played 'correctly.' In AB, the primary goal is capping, which involves almost entirely killing AI. In RA, you're at least constantly fighting other players, and can test out builds in a [very rough and random] team setting.

Regardless, the point is that AB attracts PvE players and is at least is a step up toward PvP, therefore bridging the gap a bit. At least, that was the intention. I think it's on the right track.

I like how you are calling the bad PvP players "elitists". The majority of high end PvPers are actually very nice and open to helping people. Now that doesn't mean they are going to let you in their guild, but they will still give you advice or guest for your guild if you ask them. The snobby elitist attitude comes from the people who have not been able to prove themselves as good players and consistently stay in the lower tier of PvP because they have terrible attitudes and no one wants to play with them. Ignore the crappy PvPers and if you want help pm the actual good ones. If they aren't busy, they will indulge you (similar to the guy who gave you the build in the first place).

I agree with this because AB is how I bridged the gap. I always enjoyed watching GvG's and I would browse Team Quitter Forums (back when it was actually helpful) and learn a lot about PvP. My friends and I all wanted to get into GvG and we used AB as our training grounds. We played builds we saw our favorite GvG players run and we learned the basics to everything. We gained a lot of experience and when we finally started to GvG, had a very good base of preparation underneath us.

But the key is having the work ethic and the desire to be the best. If you don't you won't make it.

Well the biggest failure was that A.Net never did a good job providing enjoyable PvP for the masses.

The percentage of players who have no desire to ever do anything PvP related under any circumstances is fairly small; but the sorts of PvP that most players want is very accessible, requires minimal organization, allows some amount of contribution regardless of skill level, and provides rewards. Guild Wars did not do a particularly good job at this - instead most of the PvP development effort went into GvG and HA, which are very inaccessible, requires a lot of organization, leaves weaker players as liabilities, and is unrewarding for all but the most successful players. That sort of design splits your community hard, and that's exactly what happened.

If you want a transition, you need to have very accessible, voluntary, and well supported world PvP, that players can simply drop into and contribute. You need to pair that with a slight step up to random team-based scenarios, ala Alliance Battles / Battlegrounds, that people can pick up and play but also introduce the team and organization elements as well. The entire PvP-pyramid, Arenas and HA and GvG and whatever else you want needs to be built upon that base of accessible, casual PvP.

Splitting your community is terrible, since the player base bleeds between PvP and PvE in a variety of ratios, and the more it bleeds the wider the audience for your game is. That Guild Wars eventually split the PvE and PvP explicitly is a testament in just how hard they failed in that arena.

Just curious, but what kind of format would you have recommended the devs implement for their shortcomings?

I guess RA was the least organized, most accessible.. but what else could they do? I toyed with the thought that ANET could have premade templates (bars and equipment) with teams, so that players could choose a position in a team and simply wait for it to fill up (a kind of a twist in RA) before going in to play.. but yeah.

From the sound of it, there will be many types of scenarios in the world pvp. This would be a very accessable way to train people for the different full fledged pvp game types. Not to mention world vs world will encourage people banding together and forming friendships, which can lead to more pvp guilds.

I disagree with your supposition the GW was a PvP game with PvE introduction. Certainly the marketing material and reviews didn't present this view of the game, nor does my anecdotal experience.

Four years into the game, I don't think you are going to be getting too many more people dedicating themselves to become very good PvP players. I do see getting more people playing casually PvE (for example, my 63 year old mother just started playing with her grand kids and she loves Prophecies and there is zero chance she will become good enough at PvP to satisfy the typical poster in these forums).

I do think you could get more people playing casual PvP, but there just isn't a place to do that. Maybe something like a rank based RA where each district is of people of the same rank and rank is account based. In any case, you need some way of getting casual players to only interact with casual players until they decide to move up. They should be encouraged to play with builds that they like and think might be fun even if they aren't on PvXWiki. Currently the only place I see this happening is within guilds. Overall if you want new people playing PvP then it needs to be fun for new people. Right now, it isn't.

Having read through this thread, which is very enlightening from my point of view as a non-PvPer, I decided to post a rather radical idea...

OK, disclaimer:- I don't PvP, I have no rank, so I can accept any flames or criticism of my idea as long as it's backed up by a solid reason as to why the idea won't work...

Arenanet needs to do something to force the issue at this point and attempt to include less-experienced players in high-end PvP. My suggestion is a rank cap, similar to the salary cap employed in American Football.

If an 8v8 team was forced to take some lower-ranked members, it would mean those members would eventually gain the experience and rank necessary to include them in HA.

Obviously to implement this directly in HA at the present would be unfair, as established teams would be forced to disband because they exceed the rank cap, so perhaps an intermediate arena (with similar rules/maps/conditions to HA) is necessary?

I'm certain people would have thrown fits if ursan groups were rank capped.

The only thing the developers working on GW2 have to do is simplify the game.

Probably never gonna go into PvP solely for the fact that I despise rank discrimination. If there was for truly fun experience and not so bloody serious it seem to be, I would have been in PvP long time ago. In my opinion that's the Great Divide right there.

Play BYOB GvG, it's fun and improves individual skill!

For a pve player, the biggest hurdle to transitioning into pvp would be the social barrier more than anything else. People are individuals first, team players second. Grouping is a big problem for a new pvp player and the game doesn't really help much in that regard. One of the earliest pvp formats, RA, also doesn't help, in that it enforces the individual mentality instead of the group mentality.

There is also the issue of the different formats being so different. Everything you learn from RA you have to unlearn when you progress to TA, which you would again have to unlearn when you progress to HA and again when you go on to GVG.

Why the need to unlearn you ask? Because the mindset and playstyles are so different across the different formats that without unlearning, you bring a lot of bad habits picked up in a previous format that inhibits your performance in the next. All these adds to the learning curve that a new pvp player would have to go through and doesn't really help.

I guess the real reason plenty of new pvp players never get anywhere is because they are unable to find a support guild to get them into pvp, i.e. they fail at socializing rather than being bad players. Without that pvp guild to get these new pvp players eased into the game, the learning curve can be very daunting for them, which is why for some, they just don't bother and give up, staying forever in pve or only dabbling in casual pvp.