GvG

Thank you, I will keep that in mind! Thank you to all of the nice people who've whispered me this evening, actually. Got err7'd mid conversation /sigh, but it is nice knowing people are willing to help and put up with complete gvg noobs, heh. wannaplaywannaplaywannaplaaaaay.

not when the R/A's were fussing around in the meta :P

I'd say the biggest help to people wanting to enter GvG would be for experienced people to do some sort of mentoring. Either along the lines of KiSu or even just having one person helping out a few gvgs a week in a new/"bad"/inexperienced guild with strat/spike calling and generally helping people see how to improve.

We were lucky enough to have someone experienced helping us out and I really don't think we would've improved anywhere near the same rate (and thus have lost a lot more players) without him.

That last paragraph is where you're wrong.

I can say from own experience in mentoring projects that a large difficulty is indeed logistics.
I and a couple friends tried to get as many people as possible in a single-nation guild into pvp and specificall gvg as possible.

It wasn't too hard to get people interested.
It was pretty hard to schedule it even thought everyone lived within the same time zone.
Unlocks played a large role since basically noone was UAX, meaning wasted time and weak links.

Apart from needing the people, you also need the right blend of people who like and are capable of playing the different roles properly.

These two for me. I normally just have a guild of a few friends, so not joining proper GvG guilds is stopping me, but i'm not too bothered. And most of my friendslist don't login anymore

For me the biggest problem always seems to be finding the "right" type of people; the mature and non-competitive ones. Maybe because I'm old (30+) I just don't see the need to take GvG seriously at all. I honestly couldn't care less about rank or any of that stuff. So we lost 10 games in a row, so what? It doesn't affect my health, salary or taxes in any way, big deal... About 18 months ago I briefly played in a guild that was r340 or something but I honestly can't say that it was more fun than playing in a r1000+ guild. I'm just not a competitive person I guess. The atmosphere of the guild is much more important to me (and balanced-ish builds).

Usually when I join a guild, it seems that they don't really play GvG at all or there are a couple of people who are far from relaxed. And sometimes, sadly, people don't seem to understand what the term mature means. Because of that I've mostly been an on and off player, I'd like to play more though.

ps. I'm euro but felt like I wanted to answer anyway.

I'd like to request to keep the heated arguments in the thread down a minimum. I wouldn't want this thread to get locked without seeing more answers from people. ):

It's funny because I was actually thinking about making a thread just like this, but Canon beat me to it.

It's interesting seeing the various answers people have, and I really do hope that somehow through the unveiling of why more people don't get into GvG, the GvG community/player base will expand from it by changes made within the community itself. Or at least, ANet can use this for future reference on how to draw more attention to high-end PvP in their games.

i started to play gvg recently, ant its rly hard to get into gvg if u dont have pvp friends, and only done PvE and casual RA/TA

first off i vent into RA and get some basic skills there, got glad rank up, unlocked all skills, and tried TA with organized groups, and then when i got glad rank up, i still coudn't find find active gvg guild who is willing to learn "new" players...

finaly got into low ranked gvg guild, and started playing regulary, made pvp friends list, started to guest and higher ranked guilds, learning more and more each day...

my point is ... if u wanna get into gvg u gotta have some basic skills for start, and get lucky to get into team from which u can learn, and they will have a bit patience with u, a lot of guild dont wanna have anything with new players, and thats just sad, because gvg community is just getting smaller

To the OP, I just don't enjoy the PvP element of GW. Glad you do though, hope you get some more people involved

for me, the requirement of vent(mic) and elitism is the deterrent ;o

I think one reason, that hasn't been mentioned yet, for what makes guilds hard to get to gvg scene is guilds like mine. We have very experienced gvg players, but we play very casually and our rank goes around 500 to 2000 depending how seriously we play. We face lots of inexperienced and bad guilds who we rape with 3-4 heroes on our team. That can't encourage those guilds to continue if they lose a lot to guilds like mine.

edit: Also it seems that most and I really mean most players who are trying to get to pvp/gvg are not willing to listen what more experienced pvp players say and are not willing to learn.

I used to GvG quite often and managed to work my way into a guild that won a bronze trim. I have played in 2 mAT's (one was for my last competitive guild I ever played for, the other was as a guest for some friends). The months in which I played at my highest (competed in AT's and mAT's) was the most fun I ever had in Guild Wars hands down. Unfortunately last November my guild disbanded and everyone but me and one other player stopped playing for about 2 months.

During those 2 months I tried to look for a guild, but no guild that I was interested in was interested in me. I may have played at a top 150 level, have mAT experience, and have one trim (even though it is only bronze) on my resume, but because I really wasn't known outside of my guild, I couldn't get anywhere. After experiencing mAT's and playing at a respectable level, it is no longer fun just to play casually. I tried it for a few months, but I really wanted to compete in mAT's again, and unfortunately, I couldn't find a guild with whom I could do that.

So I left Guild Wars and as of right now really have no interest in coming back. There is no incentive to playing ladder, because waiting 20 minutes for a lord damage battle isn't worth it. I can't find a guild I want to play with because none of my references play this game so I have no one to vouch for my abilities. I don't want to play below my level because there is no reward in it anymore. I don't have the time to dedicate multiple hours every single night to prove myself to people who want to see If I could be an asset to their guild or not. The meta really hasn't been fun to play, so GvG has lost a lot of that "wow" factor.

Those are pretty much the things keeping me from getting back into GvG. After spending so much time away from Guild Wars I simply found better ways to spend my time. Now I really only wish I was GvGing when I have absolutely nothing to do but stare at my wall. And considering it takes 8 people to be on at the same time, the chances of me being able to play GvG when I feel like it and not on a set schedule are pretty much 0.

There really isn't anything any player can do at this point in time to bring in a large influx of new GvGers. A project similar to KiSu could bring in new people, but it isn't going to increase the competition. Unless the mentor is actually very good at teaching, people don't get better by having a great player hold their hand. You can learn things from top players, but you get better by taking what you learned and implementing it when those top players aren't there, not while they are playing with you.

There is no way to bring back players who used to GvG but have left, unless you bring back live tournaments with real life rewards. There is no way to get PvErs or casual PvPers/HAers to come GvG unless you make the title more accessible, add a flashy emote to it, and give them rewards besides balth faction for winning. It all comes down to, time put in vs rewards paid out. For some of us, just enjoying the game isn't enough anymore. We need that extra incentive.

I'm one of those who are trying to pass from PvE to PvP (i'm stuck at the RA level by now ). At this moment my biggest problem is the lack of friends willing to join me in this project (and another year at the university coming..). I've done a few TA and HA matches, but i've always been into PvE guilds, and it has been always a pain to convince other people to try arenas, and those few who would be interested, needed a lot of practice (and i need it too TBH) before we could form a decent party.

I don't really know PvP so well to say what are the best things to do to bring people into GvG, or into PvP in general. I joined some discussions here on guru and i read some interesting arguments, but i need more to listen than to speak^^

Another point that hasn't been brought up is Ping Wars.

You can't be fully effective at a LOT of slots in conventional GvG builds without an obnoxiously low ping. Forget about playing Ranger, Mesmer and Infuse at a high level if your ping isn't amazing. Melee and Prot are very difficult to play with poor ping. (Melee characters with poor ping tend to desynch and lose ground moving through groups of players.)

This, combined with continued server deterioration, result in a glut of experienced midliners and a shortage of players for other slots. Lots of players had the ping to play reaction slots at a high level at some time in the past, but no longer do.

Why do I not gvg anymore?

Because the gvg system is all screwed up now. Once they took away VoD, its been gimmick after gimmick.

latency is certainly an issue, especially for me. my ping fluctuates between 76 all the way up to around 400. i can deal with consistent ping around 250-350, simply because i'll adapt to it. there's no way i can ever adapt to a ping that fluctuates from 76-400.

anet really needs to look into how their servers are implemented.

I don't GvG for a similar reason, although the group of players I look for are mature and highly competitive/skilled. Over time, and especially concentrated a couple years back, the community started skewing younger as previous players left for various reasons (some from game balance, a lot just graduating college). I've actively avoided/left big pvp alliances, and consequently never did enough networking to keep actively moving on from dead guilds.

From my viewpoint, a huge part of making headway into the gvg community (other than obviously be willing to work toward getting better) is having high tolerance for the overwhelming personality of that community, in order to avoid self-imposed restrictions on who you want to play with when joining a guild, guesting, etc., and essentially be able to treat your progression as ladder theory (the purpose is moving up the 'ladder' by upgrading to the best guild you can at any point, instead of valuing intangibles that hold you back).

It's truly logistics more than anything. I love playing GvG, but with time commitments and taking an hour to get stuff set up it's too much of a hassle.

On the other end, any PvE'er who says the same thing and enjoys FoWing/UWing or such shouldn't comment because setup for that malarkey takes the same amount of time.

Anyone who thinks GvG can't be fun is pretty stupid.

I can say that the only reason I have or will be getting into GvG EVER AGAIN is because I have a very good friend who decided to come back and play again and his friends list extends from people in gold caped gvg guilds to some of the best HA only guilds(oxymoron?lol) and ON TOP OF THIS I am a fairly decent player. This is my way back in when faced by a system where even if you want to get in a top 9000 guild you need recommendations, titles and a guild history. For someone who came back to the game on a new account, I had none of that because all my friends quit and my guild history spanned a whopping 1-2 guilds that no one probably would know now(Our Infuser Is At Taco[Bell], GL with that).

No one wants to join a guild that is like, recruiting anyone for GvG guild(no ladder rank aspirations), if they want to play it seriously. The only way to get into a guild that is serious is to either make it yourself or have the recommendations, titles and a guild history as of right now. You might see guilds like that pop up here and there who aren't a smurf where you say something like, who are these people and where did they come from?, but the problem is the likelihood of that happening to any random PvE'r or r3 HA'r is very slim.

So basically, how do u overcome the process of grinding out your titles and hoping you find some friends that can get u some guild history without doing so? I don't think it's possible unless you know someone like me. On top of that, the only reason I know said person is because I HA'd with him a lot and we had plenty of mutual friends who all came together to make my previously mentioned guild, and to go even farther together making/joining more guilds together until they eventually go to the top. And I'd also like to mention all these people were r9+ at a time where saying HA rank doesn't matter wasn't so widely accepted. It is simply too tough of a process to join into GvG as of right now when starting from scratch. Even with all of this that I've said I never got into GvG enough and all the players I knew pretty much quit so getting back into it is still an impossibility for me until my friend becomes active again.

Sad truth - GvG is possibly my favorite mode, but to get a guild commited enough to play 3-4 times a week at evenings, to set up and choose a build quickly and start and play fast? It's almost impossible.

Are there more people who want to play competitively, but lack the tools (knowledge, builds, etc) to do so, or people who want to play casually, but fail at the logistics (enough people, all on at same time, etc.)?

As a pve'er trying to shift into pvp, it's quite fustrating to try and find a serious pvp guild that takes beginners. Everytime I go to the pvp districts, everyone always wants ranked people. I've gotten to glad4 and hb2, but there wasn't any "skill" into achieving those at all and it shows. I wish there was a larger playerbase in GvG so the beginners would have a place to start...right now it's pretty exclusive.

He was looking for a guild in the wrong place for one thing. You will never see a serious GvG guild recruiting in places like GToB, RA, TA, and the like. They recruit on forums like here at Guru and on Team Quitter. Serious guilds are selective in who they choose because they have to be if they want to actually be serious. Making a forum post allows to explain in detail what type of player you want for your guild and allows any potential recruits to fill out a detailed application on what they can bring to the table for your guild.

The only way to get around that is to know people who know what you are capable of and will add you based off prior knowledge of you. The whole elitism thing is really quite retarded, because elitism really doesn't exist. People just say it does because they were rejected from a guild for not being good enough or not being a right fit. That is not elitism, that is proper recruitment. Google isn't going to hire someone with no knowledge of computers to work in their IT department. Google isn't being elitist because of that, they are simply looking for their best options and that person wasn't cut out for the work.

In most situations where people bring up "Elitism" the guild or group rejecting someone isn't the problem. It is the player trying to get into a group or guild he doesn't have the qualifications for.

If you are looking to get into GvG with no prior experience, don't look to join a guild with established players. You have to play with people at the EXACT same level you are. You can guest better players and ask top players for advice all you want, but you aren't cut out to join their guild. People need to realize that and that right there is no the number one reason why there is such a small influx of players coming into GvG. A lot of players feel they deserve things they do not. They want to be accepted into an already established guild and expect people to teach them how to improve rather than learn on their own. Join or make a guild with 8-10 players who are committed to breaking into GvG. Set your playtimes, set your core, and talk to top players and ask them to guest for you. There is a thread on QQ updated every month of people willing to guest.

If you want to play GvG, then YOU have to do something about it. No one else should be expected to help you.

You have to think of it from a PvE'ers standpoint

- they want to play some organized PvP? That's fine. However, they have X hours (let's say 2, fair number) to play GvG. It will take about an hour to get everyone rounded up, equipment/skills in order, and it will take 5-10 min to find a match. They might end up against a r2000 guild, a r43 guild, or some shitty r300 bspikers. They will probably lose, possibly one of them might rage, then they spend another 20 min getting someone else, then 10 more min...

etc.

etc.

It's a logistics, not rewards or skill, issue.

I remember when i started out the largest problem we had (aside from logistics of getting 8 players online), was the plain ability for players to have the 64 skills we wanted.

Make pvp unlocks easier to attain, with the introduction of zquests i believe zcoins should be made usable for unlocks very cheaply.

This way pveers can do their thing if they fancy doing pve zquests and earn their way into more skill unlocks etc, without being forced to pvp it. Sounds counterproductive but they're not gonna learn a lot tossing around in RA, if anything i think it'd put them off as there's simply no incentive to gvg for pveers. Plus it's gonna take a lot to say to you're average pveer, dont spend 5kbalt on a zkey, spend it on some skills.

Other than that it's just a question of how much effort the players feel they can put in to get around the logistics nightmare.

Yes, a million times yes. Being tenaciously determined to play will hopefully pay off for my guild in the end. If we rounded up all of the people here who have expressed interest and made them into GvG guilds, we'd get people playing instead of whining about how they're not playing.

People are willing to help, and guest. I'm learning this :P

as long as your guild has 8 people dedicated to playing the game and improving, who get along with each other and actually enjoy playing, then there is no reason to believe it won't all work out for you and your guild.

I always find it funny that whenever PvP "Elitism" is brought up you get about 10 people popping in and saying yea so and so won't let me play cause of this. And they are usually different people every single time. I have no idea why these people don't pm eachother and say hey, I see you are in a similar situation as me, maybe we can form a guild together with other people in our situation and we can play.

I also don't see The Drunkard with a post in the Player looking for PvP Guild section of this forum. How can you say you are actively looking for a guild if you don't even have an application set up for everyone to see. How is anyone supposed to know you are looking for a guild and know what type of guild you belong in without that? There are a lot of resources available to you, so use them.

Sorry for sorta getting off-topic, but this whole PvPers are Elitists attitude is really getting on my nerves.

Some of these may be repeats:

1) Outgrowing the stereotypical gaming environment and behaviors after college (no more cram gaming sessions, finding what used to be funny to not be).
2) Not compatible with the crowd that wants an ‘ideal’ skillset/personality, instead of the crowd that wants a compatible but different skillset/personality.
3) Playing on a wireless connection with lag spikes (up to 20-30 seconds at times).
4) Not making the continual gaming investment (mice, keyboards, rememorizing the scripted actions to take in combat sequences, relearning skill graphics and animations). These are the basics by which higher level play is learned on top of.
5) 8v8 PvP is something you have to follow throughout, by being active in GvG, Team Arena, or at least Heroes Ascent and Observer; reforming the people networks that get lost from absences. There’s a lot of ground lost by quitting for a year, and then regularly quitting for months/weeks when something comes up. There is no training ground for shedding rust, just PvE and competition that has continually progressed.
6) Learned too much about the strategy aspect that playing the game wasn't fun. For some reason I have fun doing analysis and not going through the motions.

Just to say something extra, do not underestimate how much is gained from experience within a single meta, how much is not gained by missing out on a single meta.

Here's a quick comment for PvErs;

You CANNOT base your failings on trying to get into PvP as being because of 'elitism'.

Blaming it on 'elitism' is a cop out, and poor excuse for your own inability to play. There are plenty of avenues to get into PvP, but just because you're a PvE superstar doesn't mean you should be handed a top guild spot on a silver platter.

In fact, I find the entire 'elitism' thing to be a ridiculous joke. If you want elitism, try to get into ANY speed clear groups.

I was away from GvG for about 2 years before getting back into it in the last month. The main reason for me was I had a lot of success and a lot of fun with my original guild and knew that wouldn't come with a different guild. Although I know this absolutely isn't the case for the pve type.

The pve people I've observed tend to have a few common things against GvG.
1. "It's not fun". Many of us know that's not true, but a lot of PvErs played 1 GvG, probably on bad builds with bad armor/equipment and got facestomped and never tried again.
2. Not competitive people. Would rather do some carefree raptor farming (no risk, small reward) than anything competitive (some risk, larger reward). Not a whole lot can be done to get people like this to GvG.
3. Recognition. Aside from ladder and capes (which few will ever get) there's nothing to show off to others. I assume this is why people who faction farm, UWSC, etc. don't GvG.
4. Playing times. This is true for all GvGers, but there are pretty simple ways around it. Guests and alliance are useful, and are out there for people who look.

See, all the whole "get 8 people your own level and go" argument may have worked before but in this day and age it's not working anymore. The game is no longer in the state where that is an option.

People are simply not up for that anymore, I've dabbled in GvG/HA and all those other formats btw. A group of people who gather up for a GvG after hours of looking for people will go in, get curbstomped a few times and just never do it again, and they won't even KNOW where they went wrong.

It's like HA, we are past the point where simple trial and error will help, there's an established formation of play and people are going to need to either mentor or post some sort of good guide to GvG that is easy to follow otherwise they'll lose interest and bugger off back to whatever they normally do. Maybe once the GvG community (shock) grows through this getting others into it will be easier. Another thing that can help people into GvG is better rewards, the more people that get into GvG, the easier it'll be to get a high rating (I.e not running into smurfs around the 1200 mark, if they don't show up before then) as someone said, no recognition before that point.


You can bleat "Learn from your own mistakes" all you want, but some people just won't figure out what mistakes they are making on their own.

If you actually look for these guides you'll find they already exist, although this one is a bit outdated it still very much applies largely.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10172205

Then there's the moderated section on QQ too which has some good guides.

OK so looking at it from a distance, this is what I think :

To put it simply the lack of new GvG players is like what happens to the major leagues when the minor/college leagues aren't feeding players into the elite game.

As GW gets older and the general player base reduces, there are less and less entry-level and mid-level GvG players and guilds. The GvG player base is mostly veteran players who have been around for a while. So without the lower "leagues" for new players to rise up through it becomes very difficult to play in ATs and MATs.

(And no, HA is not really a feeder for GvG any more - that was back in 2005/6)

Also I think the lack of players in absolute numbers means that there are less players with the aptitude and dedication needed for high level play.

Now looking at it from my PoV - I left the game for a couple of years and only started logging into GW again early this year. I've been playing enough TA/HA to get UAX a long time ago. However between my guildies and friends I haven't been able to find a group of 8 who have time to regularly GvG - this includes myself. I don't think I have the time to commit to GvG properly.

I would be interested to know what most current GvG players are (or more correctly what they did when they were most active in GvG). I bet a good percentage of them are/were highscool or college. There aren't many other demographics with the time available to play.

I play sport because I find competition fun. Same goes for GvG.

Who are you to say what's fun for PvE'ers? You guys enjoy GvG and that's great, but don't assume that because you're having a good time that it's fun for everyone. Most PvE type players aren't playing PvE because they're afraid of GvG competition (or because of any PvP related reason for that matter), they do it because they enjoy that facet of the game. You love your part, and we'll love ours.

"Guests and alliances" turns group related goals into individual ones, and I think that's what keeps a chunk of PvE'ers from trying PvP. We don't want to play with your friends. We don't want to seek out help and advice from people we don't know. And, most importantly, we dont' want to break away from our circles of friends in order to join competitive PvP. I'm sure I'm not alone, being in the same guild as my friends for the last 3-4 years. Why would I want to leave my certainty for a complete unknown? This is fine for the new or bored PvE'er, who either doesn't have the community ties or wants to try something new, but the casual PvE'er would rather hang out with friends than move up the ladder.

The above is the example of elitism trying to tell others how they should think and feel about GVG. Typical elitist activity here. Everyone has the right to determine what and how they think about the game, GVG or whatever and no one such as yourself has the right to tell them how they should think or feel about it. There are 1000's of players who don't GVG and there are many reasons why. Elitist GVGers is just one of the reasons.

Yes it is. It has always been the best option and it always will be the best option. The option will never go away.

Here is the problem:
That attitude. That is the problem. You aren't up for starting at the bottom? Well I guess you didn't want to play GvG then did you? If you actually wanted to GvG, then you would welcome starting at the bottom and working your way up.

The problem is no one seems to want to work for anything anymore. Everyone wants things to be handed to them, and I'm not just talking about Guild Wars, I'm talking about life in general. Everywhere I go I see people looking for free handouts, looking for favors and thinking everyone owes them something when in reality no one owes you jack. There are a lot of students at the University I go to who think they deserve a passing grade just because they are paying for class. They don't view it as paying for the oppurtunity to learn and earn a degree. They look at it as they are paying for the degree.

And that is the attitude I have seen from a lot (I'd even go as far to say the majority) of players looking to get into GvG. They feel that because they have the game, they are entitled to do whatever they want in it. They think that they should be entitled to join a rank 500 guild even though they have no prior experience at all. The reality of it is, you aren't entitled to it. You aren't entitled to a damn thing. It isn't the job of the established GvGers to come find you and welcome you into the community with open arms, just as it isn't the job of Google or Aflac or Disney to come find business majors and recruit them to their workforce. It is your job to find those companies and tell them how you are going to make them better.

And 9 times out of 10 you aren't going to be able to. So you set your goals, and you start small. You take what you have, and you work to improve yourself. You go out of your way to find information to help improve yourself (there are timeless guides on QQ forums and rawr forums to help people learn). You go out of your way to find those who are the top dogs in your field and you try to talk to them. You ask them about what they do and why they are so successful at it, and I guarantee you if that person has a moment they will happily indulge you.

If you want to use the term "Elitist", then you better start pointing the finger at yourself. It is your duty to get noticed and become as good as you want to be. It isn't anyone's job to give you a free pass there.

So if anyone wants to get into GvG, you need to suck it up, and start low.

if no one has the right to tell others what they feel about the game, then why are you telling us how you feel about the game? wouldn't that be a violation of your own principles?

at the end of the day, you either got what it takes, or you don't. nobody is obligated to include you just because you want to; you have to be able to perform. if you can't perform, either quit or come back when you've learned how. it's quite simple. there's no "elitism" involved here.

GvGing is hard to do. Back in the day (pre-Factions), there were tons of people just starting to GvG. As a result, even though you might get rolled by War Machine and Nuclear Launch Detected, you'd also get 8-10 guilds just like yourselves and it would be fairly even. Strategies and builds were pretty simple, so anyone could just jump in and learn on the fly.

Now though, to start from scratch is very, very difficult. I have worked with probably over 1000 new PvP players between my time leading Xen of Onslaught and Team Love. One of the hardest things to convey to new players is that even if you work your ass off for 2 or 3 weeks straight, that might give you 100 hours of GvG experience, while you are going against players with thousands of hours of GvG experience. There are no shortcuts that allow you to pick things up in a night or a week - you have to put in the time if you want to get better. And because of the nature of GvG, it is very hard for a team to carry someone as they are trying to sort things out - competing teams will exploit any weak links.

Even though new GvG players might know skills and understand game mechanics, they are extremely slow in evaluating situations and making decisions - and then more often then not they make the wrong decision. What results then is that newer players have a 30-60 second lag between when they should be doing something, and when they actually do it, as they either have to figure it out or someone else has to explain to them what to do. With more experience this lag time decreases, to the point where top players can near instantaneously do the right thing at the right time to the right person.

So what often results is that new GvGers don't realize how slow they are reacting, and why the more experienced GvGers are loudly urging them to do specific things in a very expeditious manner. Trying to accelerate the learning curve of the new GvGers in match and with post-match discussions can often get very critical, and I am sure many people perceive the behavior of the experienced folks as "elitist."

In any event, GvGing is fairly complex and is not something easily explained and learned. It also requires more intrinsic motivation because there are really few external rewards associated with it. I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to help build up the GvG community over the past several years, and have yet to come up with any good solution to the problem.

and this complexity is what i like in it so much billiard, but i can understand that this may be a drawback for new players