NEWS FLASH: ANET puts NAIL in PvP Coffin...

If you played PvP in the hopes the HoM rewards will be greater because you pvp'd, then you should have realized that something that can only be access by PvE, and where 3/4 of the monuments can only be filled by things earned by playing PvP, would reward PvE play over PvP.

From that logic, the 4 others professions won't be a primary focus of the game.
What I mean is that we have very few infos aside from the lore and some things from PvE (loot, dyes, travel and some skills...so from all of that the point of the game is to travel, kill things and dye your loot >_< ).

At least that's one title I already maxed xD.

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

...what? The only real info we have about the competitive "formats" they've given us is that they'll all be 5v5, and at least the lower-level formats will be hot-joinable. Onos, it's 5v5 instead of 8v8, ALL HOPE IS LOST!

Are you kidding?
The only thing Hardcore pvpers care about is their egos/image and status (rank).
Failure by anet to make 100 levels of meaningless titles with half of them being only for PvP'ers was the last straw

Wait, what?

I payed $50 per game for the game, for the storyline, and for playing with other people, of which pvp makes up a very small part. If the game was very much more pvp oriented (like wow), then these complaints would be valid.

But the game was sold with pve content in mind. Pve is the focus of the game. Pvp is optional if you bought the games instead of just a pvp access account (which im sure 99% of us did).

So whats the big deal? You want pve rewards, go pve.

Well, really we can't draw any conclusion from the PvP of GW2, so to assume it'd be worse or better is moot.

The point is that so far, GW2 is a predominantly PvE game. I think that's fine, and probably going to help Anet get some money and a good population. It hurts the PvP fanbase of GW1, but that's not a huge player-base, so it's not as big of a deal. (speaking as a PvP'er)

lolwut? You've never played WoW, huh?

If you're as serious about PvP as you seem to be then you'd easily have obtained several of the title levels necessary for a good amount of points in the HoM. And some of them on the way to 30 are so sickeningly easy you barely have to play at all.

Plus, I can't imagine you never even finished the campaigns, or with all your PvP experience didn't get r4 K/L. Did you unpackage GW and go "OH MAN, AM GONNA BE PVP STARRRR"?

No, you didn't. 30 is pie even if all you ever did was play through the campaigns once for the lulz and PvP the rest of the time. And what did you expect from the rewards? You can take your items to PvP as well. Just because they're universal and not PvP specific you're gonna whine about it?

Waaaahhh.

They tried to steer people more into pvp when they released Factions, and failed, likely why NF is alot more like prophecies. They can try and try all they like, pve will always far out weigh pvp for mmorpg type games. PvP is a little bit of fun different to the norm, which most of us care little about, but agree is a nice "small" part of the game that they made a half decent job of. Personally i would hazard a guess that less than 5% of those who claim to be hardcore pvpers actually are, most decent hardcore pvpers don't play these type of games much. You've got what 8 pvp titles that you don't need to anywhere need max out to get a statue, 5 of those statues will get you 11 points, 3 more points that a pve player will get from their 5 statues. What you whining about you got a good deal? and PvE players actually have to max their titles to get most of their statues. You seem to be under some sort of illusion that hardcore pvpers deserve more but fail to back it up, why do they deserve more?

Maybe i should start whining for a GWAMM statue, meh who cares i don't need it muwahaha

Makes sense, cause gw2 seems to be made for PvE'ers.

What the OP failed to do is explain what could be done to make PvP more viable for these rewards.

Unfortunately, no one explains anymore. They just GO RED ENGINEing complain.

In my opinion, arena net did not include pvp heavily in HoM rewards because they wanted their definition of casual players to be able to obtain these rewards easily.... Most casual players do not have the rank to participate in such highly discriminatory areas of the game.

Pvp is not dead because arena net killed it... It is dead because nobody in the PvP community is willing to accept low ranks or new players. Many players want to pvp, but because of the barriers of entry that have existed for years, It does not seem worth it to most, even thou there are high prestige title and rewards associated with with PvP more so than PvE. High player discrimination does not fall under the definition of casual play in any since.

Being a PvP player does not exclude you from playing PvE as you say... even if you can not find a group or a guild (which is impossible you walk into LA or Kamadan pve guild recruiters only smack you in the face)... Heroes and Henches are more than enough to get you threw areas. You can still get PvE rewards and still play PvP.

Sure the HoM rewards did not help stimulate PvP play... but it didn't hurt it either.. Just left is as the pvp community made it.

Everyone who hasn't already seen the parallel thread in Sardelac should at least read Shayne's post.

Indeed.

Trying to make lots of PvP rewards in the Hall would be ridiculous. Could you imagine a rush of people attempting to gain fame due to a Must Have This Emote To Complete The Hall reward? Or a GvG based design that resulted in thousands of players suddenly crying for a group that could play well? It would be an utter disaster, because PvP, random arena aside, is an exclusive club with exclusive members, and they're vastly outnumbered by the casual players.

The game went to PvE. PvP has its place, but it hasn't been the focus for years. PvE pays the bills; its players love new content, it allows the designers to explore their creativity, and new campaigns and new continents push the business forward. PvP loves stability; they like the skills remaining balanced without any new quirks gumming up everything, they like the game types they enjoy as they are, and they like a very strict hierarchy.

The latter just didn't sell. The former did. Don't blame Anet, blame the players. We pushed the game in the direction that it went.

10/10 Trolling.

Also, it is unfair that all of the pts are PvE based for the HoM, but it'd also be unfair that a PvE player or a PvP player should be forced to step out of what they want to do.

They should have done a pool of 100 points and a max reward of of idk...50? points, so you'd have options to choose from equal amounts of PvP/PvE and fullfill your max 50 without ever having to do the area of the game you don't like/want.

I don't claim to know when you started playing, but that's not entirely true. Those of us who started playing on Launch Day or during the Open Beta know that the game had a reasonable amount of PvP-focus from 2005 - 2006 when Guilds like War Machine (WM), The Last Pride (Evil), Idiot Savants (iQ), Treacherous Empires (Te), Rifts, Lamers Ultimate Minority (LuM), etc. were around. I'm sure old timers remember how big of a deal the two $100,000 World Championship GvG tournaments were and so on.

It's obviously up for debate who let PvP degrade to where it is now, but the point still remains that Guild Wars was never launched as a purely PvE game. If anything, your WoW analogy is a bit off since WoW is considered heavily PvE oriented with Arenas/PvP added quite a few years later. Guild Wars launched with quite a few PvP options, hype and hell, the name of the game is GUILD Wars which in itself implies PvP.

You are however (unfortunately) right that *currently* the game is heavily PvE-focused and frankly I can't blame A.net for doing that since that is where the money and players are. I am by no means debating that. Only the historical perspective.

Arenanet is doing something that doesnt specifically apply to my play style? It must be a conspiracy! They hate us!

Actually I can imagine that.

IF ANET had decided to create HoM PvP incentive by making more (say 4 for example) HoM PvP titles mandatory in order to achieve GW "max rewards" in GW2, then almost assuredly the PvE player community would balk (why wouldn't they?). 4 PvP titles??? pffft... To the majority of GW players, that would mean Lux, Kurz, Zaishen & one other.

The fundemental question is: Would that be adequate incentive for PvE players to participte in PvP (RA,GvG,HA,Codex)? Very hard to predict... Is it possible in this hypothetical HoM requirement that some PvE'rs would just quit GW entirely becuase they feel they would NEVER achieve that requirement for GW "max rewards" in GW2? Also very hard to predict... Is it also possible in this hypothetical scenario that more PvE would try PvP, then give up & go back to PvE while just accepting that they woulnd't ever achieve GW "max rewards" in GW2? Also very hard to predict...

Something that is even more difficult to imagine is say 5 full HA districts with oodles of ads that read "GLF balanced -any rank accepted". Would that mean that there's a likelihood that low ranked balanced teams would compete against other low ranked balanced teams? Probably. But in that scenario, it is also FAR LESS LIKELY that low ranked teams would get rolled by the "hardcore PvP'ers" that are only "rank farming". As was noted in the quote above "...PvP, random arena aside, is an exclusive club with exclusive members, and they're vastly outnumbered by the casual players."

Ultimately after GW2 comes out, anyone will still be able to play PvE (presuming the servers are still up) because of H/H (Elite areas not withstanding). However, the likelyhood of participating in GW PvP can't be predicted (assumed by me to be extremely low probability) because it REQUIRES ENOUGH HUMANS in order to participate.

So it comes back to incentive... the OP identified a possible incentive (earn $ for each PvP kill). But as was pointed out by other posters in this thread, players could still earn $ in PvE so how does $ create incentive to PvP? Agreed, the $ reward in PvP would have to outweigh by some margin what could be gained in PvE to influence even a small migration from PvE to PvP.

I'll throw this question out to the hardore & casual PvE community that's reading this thread. What would incent you to participate in PvP? HoM requirement? $ rewards? more zkeys? more balth? something else? Or is there no incentive at all because you absolutely hate the venues themselves? Or no incentive at all because you refuse to participate due to the rank discrimination?

what's wrong with creating incentive to pvp? people have incentive to farm pve hours on end which i think is the most boring thing you can do. surely rewarding pvp can't be that bad. "omg pvp is 2 hard and i don't want 2 lern" is not a valid excuse.

the whole elitist pvp'rs keeping new people out isn't an excuse either. if anet creates enough incentive, there will be enough people that new people will be able to play with other new people.

Its not that there is anything wrong with PvP... its just that there isn't anything casual about it with all the Metas and what not.... new players playing with new players are just going to get whaled on.

That being said.... don't think they should of counted z-rank as pvp.... you should have to at least codex or RA.

@OP (cba reading comments although i may read what KJ put.)

PvP Characters still get mini pets.

PvP Characters can earn money... (and therefore put weapons in)

PvP Characters can still max:
Luxon
Kurzick
Glad
Fame
Codex
Commander (Back in the day)
Zaishen... ect.

PvP Characters aren't as disadvantaged as you make them out to be. Anyway they're PvE rewards by the looks of it, so...

Reasonable access to reasonable fun.

At its core, as Ye Olde PvE Common Man, I don't PvP because it is simply too much of a hassle. The only way to get into a group is to have a high title or high fame. The only way to get high fame or high titles is to get a good group. There's more to it than that, of course, but at the end of the day, there is simply too much effort that goes into getting through the starting gate. To really play PvP, you have to do a hell of a lot of networking, and most of the established norms of who is good team material and who should be ignored were established years ago.

It's no accident that Aspenwood/JQ are more amusing to me than any of the advanced PvP realms. Not only can I play when I want to play, joining a match whenever I want, but there's plenty of room to screw around a little and try new things. It's not perfect, of course (it's full of noobs! Noobs, I tell you! ), but the ability to pick up and play makes it far more attractive than spending an hour trying to find a team just for ten minutes of game time using a boring meta build. And when the only possibility for avoiding that is giving up my current guild to find one that likes PvP and is somehow willing to bring me into the fold, the yield isn't worth the demand.

Would greater rewards bring me into PvP? No. Only a better experience would do that.

PvP can be fun, sure. But at the end of the day, I could get a good, albeit different PvP experience by playing one of the other games I own that lets me utilize that pick-up-and-play style in its own venue. And it would be far less hassle, which makes my experience all the more enjoyable.

I think a lot of pve guys in this thread don't understand how empty pvp arenas are. Here, this screenshot is maybe a week old:



That's 5 hours of NOONE playing! Any new players are welcome!

Sure, the game is old, but if Anet actually made an effort to promote pvp like they had a chance with this HoM calculator maybe someone new would try it and like it.
And to anyone mentioning elitism/whatever, that's just an excuse for being too lazy to form your own guilds/groups with people of equal (in)experience. All you need to suceed in pvp are players that are willing to put in the time and effort, to listen and learn from mistakes as a team. And not give up at the first dump in the road!

This brings up a question.

Will getting more people to participate in PvP improve the format overall? At first glance yes. More people = more competition = more games played = less wait time, etc.

But if you think about it further you start to ask the question, would I rather play 10 lackluster games or 1 amazing game? If you want quantity over quality, then getting more people to play no matter what the cost is a good thing. If you prefer quality, you have to think about this further.

You can give them an incentive to start playing, but can you give them the incentive to keep on playing after they have started? Is the incentive high enough for them to want to endure the growing pains, and beat the learning curve to eventually play high end PvP (where you actually can earn more money now then PvE). If they can get to that level then you increase the amount of guilds participating in AT's and mAT's (the premiere PvP) and thus hopefully making it a more enjoyable experience.

Or will this influx of new players end up being bottom feeders who simply stay at the bottom, have no interest in getting better, and will only play as long as there are enough people in the exact same situation that they can farm eachother and make money off of beating players just as bad as them. IMO this doesn't add anything to PvP at all. There is no change in AT's and mAT's and ladders are now filled with a bunch of guilds farming eachother to make quick money.

In fact if you dive into this deeper, I think GvG would be relatively unchanged. HA participation would rise, and RA would become even worse. RA is already overpopulated with terrible players using terrible builds which is frustrating to deal with as an experienced player being held back by others inadequacies. HA wait times will drop, but really the only people gaining from this are the people currently farming it because they have more bad teams to beat up on. Meanwhile these newer players will only be able to beat each other and eventually get fed up and want to play with better players. They will then find out better players don't want to play with them because they dramatically decrease their chance of winning (You are only as good as your weakest link). Then we get tons of posts on this forum screaming about PvP Elitism and how everyone who PvP's is an asshole because they refuse to gimp themselves to accommodate bad players.

I really don't think the problem with PvP is incentives. Well actually it is, but not the incentives you are talking about. The incentive that is lacking is time. The influx of new GvGers really took its toll around EOTN release. This is when it was announced they were giving up on their original business plan and now making GW2. Now all the sudden the newer players no longer want to take the time to learn and grow in the game. They think GW2 is right around the horizon so by the time I get good GW2 will be here so it won't matter. The incentive to get better and improve is gone, because they feel there isn't enough time. So they want to take shortcuts. Unfortunately for them, those shortcuts do not exist (unless you are a girl). Players then get mad, make threads badmouthing PvP, other people read thread, get a bad idea about PvP, and now your influx of new players is gone.

Old players keep leaving because the game is old. They have found better ways to use their time then continue playing guild wars. New players don't come in because they don't feel like it is worth it to go through the learning curve. All the sudden the entire middle tier of competition is gone (either by quitting or filling the void of the high end players) and there is no longer anyway for people to improve even if they want to.

TLDR: I doubt adding monetary incentives will fix PvP.

incentive to pvp, if implemented correctly, would definitely help pvp. perhaps not fix it, but definitely help it.

glad title is a joke. 'pvp love' update is a joke. zrank is a joke. codex arena is a joke. skill balancing is a joke.

anet is just doing it wrong.

PvP itself had its rewards already in GW1, if you are good enough. But if you take a look at most of these PvE titles, there are no rewards in GW1 for them.

I agree that there is no route into PvP for a PvE player aside from RA. (Silly PvP'ers and their rank discrimination) owait... showstoens.

However,
My guild did spend a few nights doing HA (Jaggedway). Sure, we're noobs. But it was fun and we all earned 5-20 fame .

well since you seem to be so certain that its all anets fault and rank discrimination and high party wait times as a result is not what made pvp what is it now... what should anet do to fix it?

I realize you're being sarcastic, but PvE players actually do have Gold capes and it's quite easy to achieve. They just buy it. Frankly most of the old "famous" Guilds are now in the hands of PvE-only Guilds that bought them. I think it's pretty hilarious seeing them in Spamdan being all high and mighty when they didn't actually earn it and thus no one actually respects them.

Then again, the Guild did sell it so you can't blame a person for wanting to buy "fame" or "prestige" I guess.

Real hardcore PvPers could care less about little HoM rewards. Especially when getting to 30 is easy...

While it isn't all A.nets fault, they do take up a very large chunk of blame. Not all players who left, quit because they did everything they wanted to and decided to ride off into the sunset. A lot of players quit out of frustration due to A.Nets complete lack of understanding the game they created, and the horrible updates that resulted because of the fact. It is pretty frustrating to have the people in charge of the game show a complete lack of understanding time and time again, and when help and advice is offered, have your words fall on deaf ears.

rank discrimination isn't a problem. There is supposed to be rank discrimination. It is part of the competitive world. The best play with the best, middle tier play with the middle tier, and lower tier play with the lower tier. This is how every single form of competition works, not just guild wars. Really the only exception is when professional sports require players to attend at least a year of University rather then moving straight into the Pros even if they are ready Athletically.

You don't need rank to get rank. You need rank to play with people who have rank. People with no rank are supposed to play with other people with no rank. Then you get rank, get noticed and move on when someone thinks your abilities are up to par. Don't try to tell me it isn't possible because it is. It only takes 8 players to form a team and there are a lot more than 8 people constantly complaining about rank discrimination. Go play with them. If you refuse to, the problem isn't the PvPers with the rank, it is you for looking for a shortcut rather than taking the beaten path. Stop pointing fingers at others when the real problem is yourself. Only then will you learn to improve.

High party wait times however, is a valid problem. Which is caused by the lack of incoming players. There is way too much to write about why that occurs, but as I stated in my last point, I believe the main reason is the lack of the incentive to take the time to improve. A lot of people don't like PvP because that sort of competition doesn't interest them. But those people have always existed. It wasn't until a few years back that the people who actually do flock to that sort of competition deemed it not worth it anymore to attempt to beat the learning curve, and I believe the main culprit as to why is GW2. And if I happen to be correct in my assumption then there is absolutely nothing that can be done to change the lack of an influx of newer players.

I fear many pvpers live in a box, you seriously underestimate how many pvers have no interest in pvp whatsoever. Adding more points to the HoM calculator "may" encourage some casual PvPers to do a little more, but for the vast majority who have no interest and know to get a statue would mean spending alot of hours doing something you really don't like, well we'd just live with missing out on a few points. PvP is a small part of mmorpg's, likely because the player base is of a higher age than FPS' and care more about friends and community than leetism. You've been very well looked after here in GWs despite the continuous whining since day 1 and being a minority.

Start from scratch. Remove ranks and emotes. Then I'll consider it.

I'm fairly sure that if not for HoM rewards, most PvEers would have minimal interest in crafting a half dozen destroyer items they'd never use.

QFT

Odds are nobody will even care about the GW1 "imported" items or titles, there will probably be WAY better looking/rare items in GW2 alone.

Get over it, PvP has sucked since factions came out...in fact...who even plays this game for PvP anyways? If you want PvP there are many better games out there.

PvP's time has come and gone, who cares.

Funny thing about it, though. Everyone says Anet never listens, but no one ever has the exact same viewpoint. The "words fall on deaf ears" because there are a thousand words from a thousand different opinions about what is balanced, what is unfair, what needs to be changed, and how it should be.

If anything, that's one of the reasons PvE won the big struggle. That crowd was just easier to please. That's not a bad thing, mind you. It allowed Anet to cater to a base and explore their creative sides, rather than regress to constantly retreading the same ground, shuffling skills around to the continuous complaints of a belligerent bunch. I don't mean to be rude to the PvP crowd, mind you. But historically speaking, they aren't happy campers. Combine that with the fact that PvE sells better, and Anet's move seems quite understanding indeed.

Sure, it's possible. It's just not worth it.

Look, I could spend a few months fighting against the status quo to work my way up there, and maybe I'd actually manage to GvG in a nice group after about one third to half a year. But quite frankly, I've got better things to do with my time.


You know what would fix PvP? A reasonably balanced playing field, lots of fun options that allow both casual environments and hardcore play, all within a good system that encouraged teamwork of all types rather than devolving into two or three working metagame setups. In other words, hopefully what GW2 will be. WvW, the new weapon system, and the breaking of the trinity mean a whole lot more for both PvE and PvP alike.

So if my choices are slogging through all the negativity to barely achieve a passable game through ridiculous amounts of time and effort, or go play another game with a better matchmaking system while waiting for the new hotness to come out.....well, I'd say that choice isn't difficult.

Organized GW1 pvp has been dead for some time (actually it did not really live too long). "Solo" pvp is still alive but largely ignored as it always has been. This is a nail hammered into a new coffin: GW2 pvp, albeit a very small one.

PvP is not played for "the sake of playing" it. Players still need to feel rewarded. Pvpers not having their own "connect" does show what we can expect from GW2.

As speculated by some the PvP in GW2 might end being rather weak and PvPers will probably stick to GW1.

That's not exactly a comforting thought given the state of GW1. But at least there will probably be less lag due to no other players

GW is PvE centered these days, and GW2 also appears to be very PvE centered. It should be no surprise that the HoM is also very PvE centered.

The real concern, if any, is that the HoM doesn't actually require you to do any PvP whatsoever, which I believe is a terrible mistake.

Huh?

I hope I'm just tired and not reading this right. What does gender have to do with it?

I won't go into PvP is better than PvE or vice-versa. PvP in GW is great and so is PvE.

Now, look from outside the box. PvP = mindless killing w/o much storyline (not saying that pvpers are mindless!). Kinda like a deathmatch, team deathmactch etc in some FPS games. Gladiatorial pits with no story. Indeed, there are some nice PvP variants with nice PvP rewards and nice PvP titles. But in the end, it's still PvP, it's still killing each other in rounds for the pleasure of the gods.

From another perspective comes PvE, where everything you do in game is connected somehow to the main story. Quests have awesome little stories and bigger ones unfold in the campaigns. Cutscenes and various NPCs to name some things that move mobkilling to another level, the epic one (the literature genre here). If we try hard enough we can squeeze VQ in there too, in all the campaigns except Proph where you get no reputation or faction.

This may upset some PvPers, and I'm sorry if it does because that's not my intention, but PvP, no matter in what you're wrapping it into, it's still man vs man in an arena lacking almost the whole storyline. To make the crossing from PvP to PvE (just like we did the other way around with VQ and PvE to PvP) we have things like JQ, FA, AB. The PvP monument still gives 3 points out of 50. No other PvE gives 3 points except 5 statues in Honor and the simple "linking" of accounts.

Oh! And I forgot to mention.
Even if you completely ignored PvE (Stuck on an island killing other people stuck on an island), you'd still be able to get 13/18 for Honor and 30/30 for rewards.