Has Guild Wars focus shifted from PvP to PvE? Opinions.

I think that Arena Nets main focus on PvP when the game was developed and what made it such a large hit has shifted to PvE. I will post a couple things to support my arguement of course:

RA - This place is completely un-mantained and/or thought of during updates, has become a breeding ground for epic stupid.
TA - This place ate the boot because it was RA, except you didn't have to sync, but then your normal failure would fail because neither did the other team.
CA - Codex Arena. Possible skills to use change every 6 hours. Wait wut?
HA - Use this build on PvX wiki or get out of our group.
AB - Well instead of buffing AB or making it worth playing, we're going to completely destroy the purpose of it (Farming faction) by buffing FA/JQ so greatly that we can already fill Alliance Battles grave.
FA/JQ - You can't call this PvP. You really can't. This is press 123,run to nearest shrine, make sure enchants stay on, press 45, use 678 to run faster or heal. PvE with a twist.

Now most updates and things are related to PvE content, which is silly in my opinion. This game has always had Rigged builds to beat everything, and in return for that they nerfed the build AND make the area harder, meaning that random pugs and new people couldn't beat it, completely rejecting the idea that most MMO's follow - Large groups of people hanging out and doing random stuff together to try and succeed. Now its - Your pro or your noob.

TA got removed, so why whine about that? and you want the Guildwars staff to shut down PVX lol?
what would you do with PVP then?

Fixed that for you.

I said TA got removed because it was basically dead from suck people getting owned by people who knew how to play and there was more suck then know, so it was dead.

I never asked GW staff to shut down PvX, If you understand Sarcasm you'd know that it means I'm asking when HA will require any type of skill to play.

What would I do with PvP if HA required skill or TA wasn't removed? I dont know, I might actually feel a little bit of competition comming on.

Well, Anet dropped GW and started building GW2, a MMO with a persistent world, crafting and different races. So I'd say yes, Anet's attention shifted from PvP to PvE. I think this already happened somewhere during Factions, when they stopped hosting Championships/tournaments. Also, the latest expansion didn't offer anything for PvP.

Yes, it did. 2 years ago. A lot of people are just now seeing the major fallout from it.....

Oh, and yeah, pve is the new focus. and in my opinion, i believe it's because a majority of players would rather have boring repetition as long as they always win, rather than play against enemies that think and provide a genuine challenge.

Yes, And the ritual was complete when Nightfall launched.

The reason why you feel that PvP folks are jerks is because you actually get to play with people.
Who is going to be a jerk in PvE?
Cynn?
Dude, that girl only opens her mouth when she needs to take in Menhy's RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO.

Slightly more on topic:
Of course it has.
A.Net followed the money trail.

When Anet realized they couldn't handle the maintain-issues with a PvP community (The game needs to be top notch, servers top notch, etc), as it simply was too much effort/too costly, or atleast for not having monthly fees, they started converging to a PvE game. NF was the ultimate step in this, at is had introduced PvE only mechanics, and pretty much completely neglecting PvP balance.

Anyone who can't see GW is PvE based is either blind, has never played PvP before or has an IQ < 80.

I would say, though, as of recent, Anet is starting to realize they already lost alot of money and integrity by doing what they did (So much people left PvP, and a large part that plays now won't even bother to by GW2 upfront, but rather wait to see how the PvP plays out, and then chooses wether or not to buy it).

Because the truth is, the PvP is the ONLY THING GW has over other games in the market such as WoW, runescape, or xx other MMO. And the more people leave, the more Anet is starting to realize their next game WILL be just another WoW clone, unless they can gear up the PvP like in GW1 proph release.


TL;DR:

Yes, GW obviously shifted from PvP based to PvE based, somewhere around the time of NF-release and the discontinuing of real-life rewards for PvP. However, Anet now is starting to realize what a mistake they made in completely abandoning PvP, and are now trying save as much out of sinking ship as possible, if only to regain some integrity for GW2 release.

Dead on. As a business owner with a free-to-play business model, would you rather cater to:

a) A small niche of sophisticated players that isn't brand loyal, plays a lot of games and by and large isn't willing to spend money on micro-transactions?
b) A large niche of less sophisticated players that is brand loyal, wants to play a single game extensively and is more willing to spend money on micro-transactions?

The answer is obvious.

Note: by "sophistication" I refer to gaming experience and the resulting demands.

Simplified for the Less Sophisticated. Would you rather sell to crowd

A: 'Pros' that enjoy and are able to do alot of things due to their brain capacity. Will not spend extra money for things that dont mean anything.
B: 'Noobs' who will go for the same thing over and over again. Will pay extra money to feel important.

Martin you've posted the most significant post in my thread so far. Thank you. And review my posts that are waiting to be posted for the Update Revision if possible. No Ass kissing, but he just made the point that broke the camels back.

Well don't think it has shifted really. I always felt that skill changes as they happened before had a negative effect on PvE because they had to take PvP into account. Because skills can now have separate version for each game type a lot more could be done to fix things in PvE.
And to be honest, when I started playing almost 5 years ago PvP was already about cookie cutter builds and finding exploits for teambuilds. The whole -way is the result of that.
But GW is not the main priority anymore. GW2 is. And for new people there's a lot of PvE content out there and so that is still important as well. It's not only about balance but also about game enjoyment I guess.
And the whole pro vs noob stuff and elitist behaviour was there in the beginning too. I started playing when the game was only out for a few weeks and it was already happening. So no, nothing new there I'm afraid.

While I don't disagree with the sentiments and opinions in your previous post, I think its a bit unfair to say that the PvP community isn't willing to spend money on micro-transactions when the vast majority of packages that may have actually improved their ability to short-cut portions of the game weren't released until ArenaNet had already dropped the PvP ball. Eg PvP account, unlock packs etc.

You don't think an AAA title without monthly fees is a serious draw?

The "great" GW PvP community at it's height was still always dwarfed by the PvE. They tried their damndest to bridge the gap in factions and it failed, so they finally gave in with nightfall and gave the majority what they wanted.

This post is 100% true in it's own context, but for GW:

a) Who says PvP'ers aren't brand loyal? If anything, you've got it mixed up because when Guild Wars PvP was at it's prime, there was NOTHING like it, which is also why it enjoyed so much succes anyways. It's true that in a PvE game, you can do more non-cosmetic micro-transitions than in PvP games, but why would the same be true for cosmetic updates? As long as it doesn't hinder the nature of PvP (profession specific armor, see if someone is on 40/40, ...), that statement is taken out of thin air and is based on nothing.

b) Who says PvE'ers are brand loyal? As I recall, there are better PvE games out there, (cough, WoW, cough) and will cather that majority alot better than Anet ever will. The truth is that a large part of GW PvE DID leave (Look at how empty outposts are), and the few people that didn't leave, didn't do it because they are "loyal", but rather because they already invested a fair share of time into their acounts, and wouldn't want to see all of it go to waste. (Rather than start a new WoW, xx other MMO, acount)

And again, the only few micro-transactions GW has to offer, are mainly PvE based. Look at how much succes (as I recall, alot of people bought them) PvP-only acounts, PvP unlock packs, etc have.

Whilst your whole post is obviously true (more money > less money), the statements in it referring to the GW community aren't. The PvE community isn't more loyal to the game, and they don't invest more money into micro-transactions.

The only reason why the PvE community is "bigger" nowadays, is because Anet strayed far from their intital plan to have PvP as their PvE-endgame. Cuz if that were the truth, there wouldn't be no PvE community right now.

1. WoW is an inferior game. I played it once. It sucked.

2. If these games are superior and so many of us are still here in GW, then yes, that makes us brand loyal. The PvE player base still vastly outnumbers the PvP player base, though you might think otherwise because PvE is spread out over a lot more towns/outposts and PvP is concentrated on a few.

You're misunderstanding the concept of brand loyalty.

You were loyal to PvP because there was nothing like it. The game had intrinsic value to you that you couldn't find elsewhere because it was different.

Brand loyalty means that people stick with something because they are loyal to the brand/company that produced the product, not because the company produced a superior product. If GW PvP starts to suck, you switch games. You already play a lot of games, so you just go find something else to play.

The PvE crowd has more investment in the game and their characters. They stick with the game due to items like community, sunk costs, and developing their characters. All of these factors converge to produce a degree of brand loyalty, where the players will tolerate the game being subpar for a while. It's a bigger decision for a PvE player to decide to abandon their past efforts and make a switch to something else for the long haul.

PvP-ers tend to know more about games and the value of their gaming dollar by virtue of being players that naturally tend to play a lot of games. They also tend to be less interested in cosmetic items like costumes that don't directly affect gameplay. I'll give you that the unlock packs were popular. But there's a limited set of things that you can market to a PvP player via micro-transactions without killing the game's integrity. The set of things you can market to PvE players is more or less infinite.

The reason that ANet strayed from the original plan to have PvP be the endgame is that it just didn't work. Most of the players that stuck with the PvE side of things will never make it in PvP. They're just different gamers than the PvP crowd. They want different things from a game, and they're not willing to put up with the stress, e-drama and rage that you have to tolerate in order to play with the 16-25 set in a competitive environment.

In short, ANet made a marketing mistake in the original design. They built a game that was designed to appeal to hardcore gamers and address some of Diablo 2's flaws. But they underestimated the size of the casual gaming market, as well as the importance of the casual gaming market to the survival of the F2P model. It's very difficult to keep hardcore gamers happy, and it takes a lot of resources that their revenues just couldn't cover. Once they realized that the real profit source was going to derive from microtransactions going forward, they changed the design of the game.

Foshizzle. i've been having more fun vanquishing than HAing with my guild because every time i bother someone rages and complains when we lose, so i can generally see why many people find pve more appealing.

EoTN was the ultimate pvp killer. the number of consumables and farming skills was unbeleiveable. Don;t tell me that glyph of swiftness with its low air magic pre-requiste wasn;t designed to perma-form or perma-OF. I made my perma-flesh day one of EoTN release.

it also was quite obvious that ursan was there for the taking. i joined an unnamed guild that had unnamed members from the GWs team who were ursan farming UW and DoA literally weeks before it caught on with the rest of the community... you can;t say that there was a change towards PVE.

and you can;t really argue that GW;s didn;t shift towards PVE when they stopped real life prizes for GvG and HB. This is about the time that literally a horde of pro gamers left GW's to go play other games with rewards.

in order to succeed, ANet :"NEED" to offer tournaments for GvG in GW2. This is what will bring people to the game and re-focus the PvP aspect of the game.