At the apex of Guild Wars popularity, Anet had constructed one of the best, and most comprehensive PvP formats of any MMO going. There have always been malcontents, but there was something for everyone. From the instant gratification of RA, to the highly structured and orchestrated GvG and HA with TA, HB and AB in between.
Along the way, through a number of seemingly nonsensical decisions and inconsistent administrative practices, every PvP format in the game has degraded to near ruin.
My question … are the decisions actually nonsensical, or is the game being degraded on purpose? They knew before they axed TA and HB that RA syncing was going to be a deal breaker. Does anyone actually believe they couldn’t do anything about it other than mix districts? If you do, you’re crazy. They just didn’t want to. You think they couldn’t do anything to make CA less cumbersome? BS!
When they were still making expansions and people were buying games, Anet touted the Free2Play format as a huge success. They said they would continue to support it as long as people played it. Now, nobody is buying games, they are losing money. I think the degradation of the game is actually their exit strategy. Try and nurse people on a dry teat long enough to get out the cash cow of GW2. It’s very frustrating.
The downward spiral of PvP
IninefingersI
Moonlit Azure
Your being really over dramatic, but you have a point, sort of.
Anet just doesn't feel the obligation to bring the same quality of gaming that they did previously now that GW2 is in the works.
Anet just doesn't feel the obligation to bring the same quality of gaming that they did previously now that GW2 is in the works.
axe
I often wondered about this myself, but to me its more of a timing thing. Why would they ruin the game too soon, as they did in the case of HA, they basically ruined it when they implemented 6v6.... that would be TOO early in my opinion to start getting people to leave.
I want to believe they are trying to get people to leave, but I dont think its the case.
I just dont believe that they would spend money to lose money, in that it took some resources to ruin PvP.
Also I remember how excited they were that 6v6 was here to stay, they were also pretty jazzed about this PvP "Love" update lol.
When all is said and done, its the players that are ruining PvP
I want to believe they are trying to get people to leave, but I dont think its the case.
I just dont believe that they would spend money to lose money, in that it took some resources to ruin PvP.
Also I remember how excited they were that 6v6 was here to stay, they were also pretty jazzed about this PvP "Love" update lol.
When all is said and done, its the players that are ruining PvP
Sweets to the Sweet
I think the addition of titles contributed the most to the degradation of pvp. All pvp formats now have a title to 'grind' so it is no longer about tactics and playing to win, its about who can farm the most title points the fastest. This is why Tombs/HA was so degenerate for so long. It simply took the addition of titiles to GvG, TA, etc. to lead to the demise of the rest.
On the other hand without titles many players have no incenetive to continue playing the specific formats. I don't think there is a correct answer at this point.
On the other hand without titles many players have no incenetive to continue playing the specific formats. I don't think there is a correct answer at this point.
Killed u man
I think it's definatly a posibility that Anet is trying to exit out of GW by ruining their own game. Note, posibility tough, because I don't see WHY they would want to do it.
They spent resources on the updates that put GW in that downwards spiral, so as said before, they SPEND money to save money.
On top of that, I'm sure a major company such as Anet (NCSoft) must have realized the pro's and cons of doing such a thing:
*Pros:
-They save money on server costs
*Cons:
-They need to spend money on these "ruining" updates. -Less than they gain from reduced servers obviously-
-They give themselves a bad reputation, not because they ruin their game, but because people now believe Anet is incapable of managing a PvP game. (And hence, a large part of the community won't buy GW2)
-People quit to other MMO's, and won't return for GW2 . (Partially point 2)
So, I really don't see why Anet would want to screw themselves for GW2. It's already become blatantly obvious that a really large part of the -ex- GW community will NOT buy GW2, simply because they lost all faith in Anet.
I think it's more the generally accepted "Anet simply doesn't know how to keep their game fun" arguement which is believed to be the reason why updates suck. (or sucked anyways, they have been doing better lately, but too little, too late)
They spent resources on the updates that put GW in that downwards spiral, so as said before, they SPEND money to save money.
On top of that, I'm sure a major company such as Anet (NCSoft) must have realized the pro's and cons of doing such a thing:
*Pros:
-They save money on server costs
*Cons:
-They need to spend money on these "ruining" updates. -Less than they gain from reduced servers obviously-
-They give themselves a bad reputation, not because they ruin their game, but because people now believe Anet is incapable of managing a PvP game. (And hence, a large part of the community won't buy GW2)
-People quit to other MMO's, and won't return for GW2 . (Partially point 2)
So, I really don't see why Anet would want to screw themselves for GW2. It's already become blatantly obvious that a really large part of the -ex- GW community will NOT buy GW2, simply because they lost all faith in Anet.
I think it's more the generally accepted "Anet simply doesn't know how to keep their game fun" arguement which is believed to be the reason why updates suck. (or sucked anyways, they have been doing better lately, but too little, too late)
I Angra I
ANet originally made GW with it being a competitive game in mind, to be played in tournaments and such like Counterstrike and Starcraft. Once released, the PvE market was so much bigger that they decided they would make more money catering to that, rather than pursuing it as a competitive game.
The two biggest faults that killed competitive GvG were lack of tournament support by Anet (no more world championships, automated tournaments that they don't have to be involved with), and the extreme difficulty for 3rd parties to organize tournaments/ladder/leagues because of the way obs mode, the servers, etc. were structured and made everything so proprietary and difficult to watch and broadcast. No spectator slots, no replays, not able to view games in general besides 15 minutes after the fact on obs mode (which is frequently bugged).
I don't think they're intentionally trying to deaden the game in preparation for GW2 though, they just realized that they will have the most success with GW2 by keeping the PvE market happy above all else.
The two biggest faults that killed competitive GvG were lack of tournament support by Anet (no more world championships, automated tournaments that they don't have to be involved with), and the extreme difficulty for 3rd parties to organize tournaments/ladder/leagues because of the way obs mode, the servers, etc. were structured and made everything so proprietary and difficult to watch and broadcast. No spectator slots, no replays, not able to view games in general besides 15 minutes after the fact on obs mode (which is frequently bugged).
I don't think they're intentionally trying to deaden the game in preparation for GW2 though, they just realized that they will have the most success with GW2 by keeping the PvE market happy above all else.
Kaon
First of all i'm going to have to say that players are apparantly more interested in PvE than PvP. I don't know why.
In any case PvP was professionally killed off at release by forcing players to unlock an insane amount of skills through pve. Half the competitive beta community never actually played the game after release anymore. The apex of guild wars was actually beta because back then there was much more interest in pvp. Even at the height of post release pvp only a very, very small fraction of guild wars players (1-5%) played pvp.
Imagine if it was the other way around. Do pvp to unlock stuff in pve. Amazing.
In any case PvP was professionally killed off at release by forcing players to unlock an insane amount of skills through pve. Half the competitive beta community never actually played the game after release anymore. The apex of guild wars was actually beta because back then there was much more interest in pvp. Even at the height of post release pvp only a very, very small fraction of guild wars players (1-5%) played pvp.
Imagine if it was the other way around. Do pvp to unlock stuff in pve. Amazing.
Kenzo Skunk
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Originally Posted by IninefingersI
Quote: Originally Posted by IninefingersI
Along the way, through a number of seemingly nonsensical decisions and inconsistent administrative practices, every PvP format in the game has degraded to near ruin.
Wrong.
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Originally Posted by Highlander of Alba
Remember the outcry make pve/pvp seperate there were pages screaming for this. They did it and guys still complain.
I certainly wasn't one of those screaming. If anything I'd put the split on my top5 worst decisions in the history of the game.Quote:
Most of the PvP community HAS stopped playing, and that is exactly the problem.
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I don't think so. I think it was a good idea. The championships were the height of the game.|
Originally Posted by Highlander of Alba
Some guys are so ungrateful you paid once and its free .I have a few accounts slots ect ..overhall this game cost me nothing for time played
I hear this alot and it is so stupid...."it is a one time pay game you got your money's worth now go away and be happy". That is so completely off topic and doesn't even address the question. So since it is a one time pay game that justifies them failing to maintain it and justifies them completely downgrading it? Since it is a one time pay game that justifies a mass exodus of PvP leavers with only a small PvP community left? So since it is a one time pay game that justifies complete competitive game incompetence? Please get back to me with valid responses to the topic at hand.
kirafangblade
ta and hb were the place to go when u dont have time and/or people for ha and gvg. especially TA. i know that as soon as i say this, people would be like: kira fangblade missed shove spiking LOLOLOLOLOL. well, yea, thats true. but i'm sure i wont be the only one missing TA and HB though. it was fun, more fun than RA and codex, even when i wasnt running shove spike. like when i ran trap way and gets some glad points with it, its hilarious, but it ll never happen again :[
ruemere
My belief is that Guild Wars as a game fails with regard to accidental socializing aspect, and, as a consequence, fails to please PvP fans.
Before I elaborate on reasons for this opinion, a quick explanation of accidental socializing. Accidental socializing happens when you meet someone by accident and start socializing. It could be during random ganking session, mass PvP event, farming or kill stealing conflict... in other MMO games. Socializing with random people forms basis for alliances, friendships and trading. It provides a solid foundation for many communities in more MMO-oriented games. Reasons why Guild Wars fail in this regard: instancing, the rush, unforgiving gameplay. Instancing without region channels, multiple safe-zone locations and loneliness during arena / mission play. People do not bother to talk or explain things. You're lucky if someone pings anything or draws a line on a compass. Even typical l33t talk, LoLing or plz are too rare to form any bonds between random strangers. The only way to get anyone to talk to, is to visit one of unformal social centers (like Kamadan or Random Arena safe zones) and troll or trade. The rush aspect of the game is the next reason - you're expected to do your stuff, do it quickly and do it perfectly. No time is left for random chitchat. Whenever you try to strike a conversation, you're risking wellbeing of your team. So, you either rush or wait for your turn to act, but you're not going to have time to talk... Unforgiving gameplay - you break the silence and you make a mistake. You're a toast. Your team is finished. And instead of new friends, you've got a group of people who're going to /resign, ragequit or flame you the moment they see you again. Why does this affect whole game experience? Why does this hurt PvP? Every game has a learning curve - you need to walk before you can run. The PvP part of Guild Wars both invites you to experiment and at the same time punishes you if you try to do new things recklessly. Due to problems with socializing, you're unlikely to learn from other players directly - there is no time to observe or explain. Wiki-reading, Guildwarsguru.com visiting are poor replacements for online contact. And there is little to none fun if you have to both play and read docs. The final result is a mass of clueless people who do not want to read docs, some partly enlightened amateurs (like me) who are never going to be any good at PvP because they like to talk to people too much, and a small elite of players who are going to feel besieged by dilettantes. Things I'd like to see, stuff I'd like to be able to do Here is a list of things I was able to do in other games, which could benefit GW experience: 1. Built-in voice communication mode with automatic room creation for any instanced team 2. Continent chat rooms (Tyria, Elona, etc) with highly developed filter engine - "Hello, I cannot do this quest... and I cannot see anyone nearby. Any advice please?" - "I want to start PVP, where can I do that" 3. Continent announcement boards. - "New guild is looking for players..." - "A player is looking for some mass event..." 4. Widely accessible non-random, one-on-one and 4-vs-4 arenas with bots or players without any rewards - to try builds, learn basics or have fun with friend. 5. Mass PvP. Mass as in hundreds of people inolved. 6. Spike nerfing. - square root type of limit to damage/health loss/mana loss within short period of time (i.e. for a given time period, if a number of attacks against a single target is exceeded, subsequent attacks are becoming progressively weaker). - decrease resource regeneration rate (i.e. slower energy and health recovery rates) At this moment, 4x4 health loss spike is very different from 8x8 health loss spike due to the number of attacks occurring simultaneously. The same goes for healing and resource recovery. However, if the spike nerfing was introduced, winning would require more tactical approach to resource depletion. And spiking isn't just about doing damage - the same principle could be applied to healing, hexing, regenerating resources. Regards, Ruemere
moriz
don't know about you, but i'd turn off voice chat just so i don't have to listen to pip-squeak 10 year olds trying to act "gangsta". most of your other ideas won't work, particularly "spike nerfing". you are essentially trying to punish coordination.
anet's main failings here was not introducing proper systems in place when they were needed (full pvp characters, a good built-in tournament system), and not providing enough support for the lower end arenas so they can act as feeder arenas into higher levels of pvp. random arena was particularly bad; you can't have a truly random arena in a team-based RPG. it should be random in the sense that you don't organize a team yourself, instead, the system should have good enough matchmaking ability to ensure you don't get into lame duck situations right from the get go. and yeah, bad skill balancing is another thing, but we've all know about this one. Vazze
why lol?
- the game is static, no meaningful changes, no new content - mini-skill balance in every 2 months? lmao - since GW proph 3 huge pve area has been added. What did pvp get? 4 professions and HB..lol? - apparently they don't know how to structure a playerbase to have constant flow of recruits - gw2 is in the works, the strategy is to keep gw1 running with minimal/no effort until gw2 is out
Nimble Night
Guild Wars in regards to PvP has failed in serveral ways.
Firstly, before you can play PvP you need to unlock a very large amount of skills, this takes a very large amount of time and simply puts people off bothering. Why you simply don't have all skills unlocked when you enter a PvP outpost is a mystery to me, simply implementing this would boost the numbers of players getting into PvP, as they would not have to endure the hours of boring grind in random arenas. There is not a good enough incentive to play GvG. On top of this skill balances are so bad and infrequent it simply is not fun to play. Playing ladder has absolutely no purpose any more, besides grinding a champion rank and has therefore become dead. GvG needs some sort of reward system that gives a direct incentive to play ladder. Tournament reward points were nice, but not enough. The game is called guild wars, so playing guild battles should have a pretty substantial reward. Heroes Ascent is ruined by the halls objectives. Simply removing relic runs from halls would fix a lot of problems with that format. They are boring and spending a whole match standing still saying 'you're stuck' on vent gets tedious fast. The main problem with PvP is of course the terrible skill balances. How many attempts did it take to nerf lingering curse? That whole update should have been reverted within hours and the fact it took so long to be acknowledged as a problem made Anet look ridiculous. Currently there has been a problem with paragon defensive shouts and featherfoot grace for some time now. I don't hold much faith that the next balance will actually fix anything. IninefingersI
I have thought many times that GW should have integrated voice chat. The more I think about it, though, I don't know if it would be all that great of an idea. Free2Play games generally have a much lower maturity level than subscription games. Granted, online gaming doesnt have a good rep for well mannered players, ( Ethernet routers have a built in device that filters out class & good manners and amplifies assholishness & bravado.) but GW is one of the worst of the bunch. People aren't friendly or helpful in GW because of lack of communication options. Its because most are immature kids and immature kids will always behave like immature kids. Giving them integrated voice chat would just amplify their already poor behavior. I think the best thing they could have done for the game is make it subscription from the start.
Einherj3r
DreamWind
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Originally Posted by Gladiator Motoko
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Personally I think the competitors would have been fine without the prizes and just the trip.
I don't. The moment people realized that there was no longer any objective reason to play the game, the true competive community died.
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Originally Posted by Gladiator Motoko
They did it backwords, and they've finally figured it out. The whole game is moving from PvE to PvP. This is how the marketing needs to be run and they've understood that with EoTN.
GW2 is essentially a "Hey we fked up GW 1, so we are gonna make another one." Hopefully they've learned from their mistakes. Yes they did it backwards, but I fail to see how anything has changed. They are still doing it backwards, and they are going to continue doing it backwards in 2 because they most likely see no reason why they should change. ruemere
To address some points raised by esteemed predecessors:
Built-in voice chat would lead to kids spamming the channels. - not necessarily, turning the sounds off is always an option just like ticking off "voice chat" checkbox. Microtransactions break the game. - GW is probably the only online game where buying stuff does not make you more powerful than other players. Unlocking skills scares people away from PVP. - Agreed. However, there is a sense of accomplishment in farming stuff and then investing it. It would be simpler if the unlocking costs were decreased for beginner characters to fraction of current Balthasar points cost. - Beginner players need to have their choice restricted somehow (so that they are not overwhelmed by number of options), but it should be possible for them to get a decent training PVP course (with recommended skills provided for free). I'd like to stress my final point - spiking needs to be nerfed because ganging up on a single target is too effective. With spiking nerfed, healing and resource recovery could be weakened to the point where resource management would require planning ahead for minutes instead of seconds. Regards, Ruemere
moriz
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I'd like to stress my final point - spiking needs to be nerfed because ganging up on a single target is too effective. With spiking nerfed, healing and resource recovery could be weakened to the point where resource management would require planning ahead for minutes instead of seconds.
coordination vs uncoordinated opponents tends to be very effective. the correct response is to become coordinated yourself, so you don't get rolled over by coordinated opponents. you are essentially trying to nerf basic coordination out of the game, and then subsequently slow the game down even more. so no.
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Ec]-[oMaN
I wouldn't go as far to say the PvP in Guild Wars failed, sure there could have been various things changed earlier to market it as a more PvP orientated game. There was a point in time where I could say it has been one of the most enjoyable PvP games I've played in the last 10 years.
Guild Wars went from...point a to c, with point b being the height/peak of a relatively good PvP game. To a boring, mis-guided, untrue to the original design as a whole, imbalanced, dead one. Sad. |
![Ec]-[oMaN](/static/static/../Img/avatar8384_2.gif){kind=avatar}