GvG in Crisis.

Sure, i'm not disagreeing with you i just don't get the point in making that distinction. I mean who cares, really.

No, but they simply contain more PvE elements than they do PvP ones, and such being succesfull at these formats doesn't mean you have the right attitude to be succesfull at actual PvP. Heck, I personally don't even concider RA PvP anymore, and even HA is borderline PvE: Go in, bash some buttons and pray you win.

It's been said a million times before, but some people always find a way to avoid it regardless, so I'm just going to throw it out there:

PvP is definatly elitist, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. As floor pointed out, try and join a UWSC guild as a wammo and watch you get laughed at by their players. When you're going to compete against other players, it's only a natural consequence the better players (For GW, read: builds) will win most of the time. As such, players who have shown themselves incapable of opening up to criticism, and even complete overhauls on their playstyles, simply can not expect guilds aiming to win in PvP to take them, Bassma seems to be a good example of the previous.

Elitism, in a way, is what defintes PvP in such that you simply need a baseline of skill which you simply can not recruit below. If a player is bad, and refuses to change his playstyle and learn, he simply does not belong in a PvP guild, but rather in a PvE guild that does casual PvP. (And will loose all the time, but don't mind it)

Now, don't get me wrong, there definatly is some negative elitism in GvG aswell, quite alot actually. Simply reading through QQ-forum threads shows what I'm talking about, but this elitism is usually only directed at other elitist people. Essentially, the majority of the players left now are bad (Which is why they still play, as they couldn't achieve anything 4 years ago, and thus they achieved their personal "dream" of being good at high-end GvG and wanna live it as long as possible), and as Floor pointed out, the worse people are, the worse their attitude is. (Some kind of psychological defence: If I flame everyone, people might not notice how bad I actually am)

So you got all these "top" players flaming eachother, but rarely ever do new players get targetted or kicked out of the GvG scene. It only really happens when they truly ask for it, such as recently shown by the PvE HA'ers (Shadow, Banane, all those bbsway clowns) who get flamed, simply because they're acting so retarded. But again, that's not reason to call the GvG scene uninviting. The gurucup alone has shown the GvG scene is opening their arms, embracing any new player that wants to join it. (Altough I have already explained my personal problems with the gurucup, the incentive is there)

If anything, PvE'ers simply aren't motivated enough. If you want more people to GvG, the first question you have to ask yourself is: "WHY" would more people want to GvG. And the truth is that, aside from byob, GvG isn't fun anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. The fact that the community is so small is already part of the problem (you essentially got the top tier, and the bottom one, but no middle one for people to improve) because newer players will simply get rolled by smurfs over and over again.

So "fun" definatly will not be a motivation, and as such, the only other option we have is Anet throwing out rewards. (Or completely rebalancing Tie-breaker, almost every skill getting used now and even some maps, which simply won't happen)

History has shown time and time again that if the rewards are right, people will swarm it. And then it's just a matter of tweaking the rewards in such way they're definatly worth getting, but not farmable. (Cool guild hall shit, for example) Look at GW at it's prime time. Throw real life money (which is the ultimate reward) at people and your game will be active.

And yet another typical Elistist response to what is PVP. PVP stands for "Player vs Player" all arena's are that no matter what YOUR interpretation is. Player vs Player is just that and just because there are added NPC's in two of the Arenas JQ and FA doesn't make them any less Player vs Player. Then we have RA and by Elitist standards it's not PVP either lol. But, yet again this just proves my point more of why GvG is dying. Until the elitists wakeup (which really it's too late) then it will continue to spiral downward until there's nothing left but the diehards Elitists.

I remember the good old days when GW was new and nobody tried to tell you what to do or how to play. We had loads of fun playing HA and GvG then. Then all of a sudden these Elitists started to appear and take over and try to tell everyone how to play and to synergize and to maximize blah blah. Then the spiraling downward started. Casual players don't want such as that. They just want to have fun, try out all kinds of builds and just laugh at some of the ones that are being used but still play and have fun. It was the Elitists that ruined all that for the GvG engine and much of HA as well though not nearly as bad as GvG.

Same thing happened to the PVE game as well though. Smug PVE players who thought their chit doesn't stink began to try to infiltrate and tell others how to even play PVE. Thank goodness for HEROES and now we have 7 thank goodness for Anet understanding most of us don't want to play with Elitist players in any game.

Just remember the title of this thread. It is the GvG crowd that is suffering not us socalled non-pvppvepvp players. We get all the fun of PVP we want, how we want and when we want. We don't have to wait for 30 minutes of jump through hoops to get a tournament started or even care to. Plus it surely doesn't help your cause the way some of you GvG players are STILL acting with that Elitist nose up in the air. You aren't going to gain recruit that way for sure.

I will ask again, why would someone start playing GvG when there has been almost 0 support the past 3 years? To make it worse almost every balance update manages to make the game more imbalanced. Their time is better spent doing to speed clears or working on titles for their HoM.

Without some massive update for GvG there is no saving it. That update would need to include some skill updates aimed at keeping physicals in check too. You cannot expect players new to GvG to handle triple melee with 2 copies of guardian, it isn't going to happen.

When was that? I'm pretty sure this started the day that GW was released. Take off the nostalgia glasses.

The base argument for JQ/FA/RA/AB not being PvP is based around team synergy. Team synergy is the heart of PvP in Guild Wars and it is just not possible with a random team formation that is a part of those arenas.

As far as not being forced to run one build (aka not being a unique snowflake) look at it from the other perspective. According to your argument it is not okay for 7 people to ask you to bring a build, but it is ok for one person (you) to make those 7 people change their team build. If you are joining 7 other people are you asking to join and making demands of them is awfully selfish.

Running standard meta builds is largely about efficiency. Most "new" builds don't work out. Usually the problem lies at the core of the build, but even when it doesn't new builds must be finely tuned before they can perform at great efficiency. It takes time for new builds to be fine tuned enough to be as effective as existing builds; during that adjustment time there is going to be a lot of losses and no one like losing. With less players it takes longer to form teams and it takes longer to get matches so this loss time is going to eat up a much larger part of playtime. Is it really that hard to understand that most players don't want to spend hours and hours testing a new build where most likely they are going to end up losing all the time?

Aside from that the #1 indicator of success in PvP is attitude. With that type of attitude you are just not going to get anywhere.

I'm not wearing any and still manage to recollect that ancient time Bassma speaks of. My very first gvg was me playing with a level 16 elementalist. Guildie with a lvl 20 toon was regarded as a pro. Everyone ran pve skillbars. We managed to wipe all but one of our enemies. That last one kept casting some crazy enchantments that actually healed him when he was attacked. The shock! The horror!

I remember my very first GvG. None of us had ever done it before and had no idea what was going on, but it was still a good time. I thought I was a genius for making a W/Me warriors endurance blackout sword war. It actually worked pretty well. I didn't even switch targets, I locked onto a monk and just kept using blackout on recharge. About a week later I was using my favorite build of all time, water trident sword war. Thinking back I also remember how much I hated evade and block.

You wiped a whole team, less one player, with only one level 20 character. This is relevant anecdotal evidence that proves me wrong.

I don't care if it proves your wrong or not. My intention was proving you to be condescending and rude towards Bassma.


I think we can both agree I pulled it off with ease.

You didn't. What's fun or memorable about GvGing with sub-level 20 characters and PvE bars - besides the nostalgia factor?

(Please note that when I say "you", I do not mean any one person in particular, simply the player who complains about elitism)

When there were more players, it was possible to play with bad bars and no real setup, becuase there were enough others like you that fair games would happen. Sure, this was great.

The reality is that now there are not enough players to do this anymore. If you run crappy bars, or are simply a bad player, you WILL lose. You will lose every single time. This will continue until you quit, you change your bar, or you get good enough that your bad bar can beat worse players with better bars. Now, picture those so called "elitists" who seem to be the number one target in this thread. If you come along with your bad bar and say that there is no way you are going to change it, what possible incentive do they have to play with you? They are playing to have fun, just like you, and their idea of fun involves winning. You demonstration of a holier-than-thou isn't going to make you any friends. Even nice and super-relaxed people will not play with you, when that is your attitude. Simply put, from the perspective of the elitists, it is not worth bringing you. By bringing you, they will have less fun.

Interesting question:
How do you think that those people got to be elitists in the first place? Did they magically appear out of nowhere? Have they all been there since the beginning of the game? (No) The great thing about a video game is that everyone starts off on equal footing. There is absolutely nothing that can hold you back from succeding but yourself. Look at the person you claim is an elitist. He was just like you at one point: no PvP experience, but dreams of winning etc. What makes him different than you, is that rather than complaining that other elitists wont take him under their wings and teach him to be good, is that he went out and learned to be good. It is a long road to get to the top, and compaining about elitism is just complaining about not being able to take a shortcut. You want to win Halls? Start unranked and work your way through the ranks, getting better at the game, playing in better teams until you win more than you lose. Want to win a gold cape? Start GvG'ing, keep moving up the ranks, getting better at the game, playing in better guilds until you finally get there. Anyone who is unwilling to take the long way to get where they want will be viewed with contempt by the people who took the time to do so.

I'll throw myself out there as an example. I have considerable HA and GvG experience, but I am nowhere near the top of either format, and am still a long way from being able to compete with the best of them. Sure, I would love it if a top 5 guild were to take me on and teach me everything they know, but I don't expect that. I expect that if I want to go anywhere, I will have to earn it all by myself. Which is why you will find me playing the game, actively trying to make my goals a reality.

it was fun. ^elitist

I totally did. Check it out:

I admit it was all too easy because he decided to base his condescending attitude on a wrong premise but there you have it. If I were a mod, people would not be getting away with these kind of things and I sure wouldn't be trying to derail the thread by holding on to that same wrong premise. But that's just me. About to get some more infraction in Riverside. And I wasn't even agreeing with anyone. Go figure. XD

My first post in this thread wasn't about elitists. It was about retards so full of themselves that they couldn't be wrong. Ever. Would you call a leader who kicks his officer out of the guild because said officer happend to know how much Healing Seed healed at 16 attribute elitist or an idiot brat? Honest answer please. Not what your friends want to hear.

He never claimed EVERYONE had those requirements, just that they did exist from the beginning.

I am sorry but I had to lol at your last statement, that really happened?

You giving an example about your inexperienced guild facing another inexperienced guild does not prove him wrong. Even today there are teams that don't play meta bars and do whatever they please. His point was that even at the beginning of the game there were teams that sought perfection and would demand certain builds from their members. You didn't disprove him, and you can't because what he said is a proven fact. Exceptions don't disprove him unless he said every single guild did it, which he did not. all he said was that it occurred even back then, which it did.

Again, I wasn't talking directly to you. I am sorry if you took personal offense to any of my statements.

That person who kicked out an officer for knowing Healing Seed at 16 is either on crack, 12, or both.

He said that and there I was proving him it wasn't so. No one raged, no one trolled, no one insisted on having a shield set or QQing how PvErs get all the nice armor and weapon skins, boohoo. We teamed up and played for the fun of playing together and exploring the game. In conclusion to this debate: No. Condescending attitude was not prevalnt in GW pvp since day one.

Yes, that really happened. I lol'd too. The guy was a narcissistic douche who had to have everything his way. Most people I've pvp'ed with were... Well, similar. And since I'd rather be alone than in bad company I quit pvp. Douches in pve are easily avoided. And replaced by henchmen.

Dude, it's basic logic. Google it if you don't believe me. But first let's try this with pictures:

Person A: "All crows are black."
Person B: "Ohai, A. Please meet my white crow pet."
Person C: "B, you're wrong. He said all crows are black."

Sounds retarded, doesn't it?

It's cool, don't worry. For me to take a personal offense anywhere on an internet forum would be the day I cancel my ISP account. I can be dumb at times, but not that dumb.

Saddest part is - he wasn't any of those things. That's what made it funny. So is this flak I'm receiving and I haven't even mentioned all the screaming, cussing, threats, rage quitting and other fun stuff I managed to witness both in HA and GvG. Don't get me wrong - I had some great times in pvp but the majority was just way too awful and stressful for me to deal with. Especially in an enviroment that I was visiting to relax, play and have fun.

Gonna go to bed now as I need some sleep. I wish you all good night and sweet dreams and I shall see you when my ban expires. nn

There is a serious misenterpretation going on in this thread.

Bassima said
In the beginning, nobody was elitist/condescending.

Rev Dr. said
Yes, there were such people in the beginning.

Cataphract said
In my experience, there were no such people

Rev never said anything about "everyone" being an elitist.

Treating "some x are y" statements as "all x are y" statements is incorrect

Good on you! Too many people do forget that it is just a game.

I feel like we've gotten enough off topic now. Can we get back to the point?

Bassmas post Reverend Dr quoted:
Reverend Dr being a condescending douche:
Me siding with Bassma because I was there and I saw that what Bassma said was true:

The point I think Bassma was trying to make is this: In those early days no one told anyone how to play. Somewhat experienced players were a lot more friendlier and guided and suggested how to improve your character and his skillbar. Remember that they too were still discovering the game, its mechanics and skills. While there may have been a douche in Reverend Dr's early play days, that would most likely be an isolated incident. I mean, between a couple of million players you're bound to find several thousand douches, amirite?


Bed time. srsly

That attitude was prevalent early on, you just didn't see it unless you were in a serious PvP guild, or you were in ToPK. GW is also just more competitive by design then most other games, it was designed to be an e-sport. There were also the world championships which paid RL money. Serious guilds had that attitude because they had a reason to want to win beyond some colorful pixels. Plus some people are just control freaks.

You should give the GvG community another chance, they are more helpful then ever, doing whatever they can to get new players to compete.

Oh look a throwaway sentence gets quoted and the meat of my post ignored


"Hey guys I would like to learn to play PvP, can you help?" <- awesome attitude

"Hey guys I don't like this bar, I am going to run something else instead." <- terrible attitude

"Hey guys I don't like this bar, do we have time to discuss options?" <- awesome attitude

"Hey guys the problem is all your fault for being elitists" <- terrible attitude

*Listen to ideas, take them constructively* <- awesome attitude

*Listen to ideas, ignore them without trying to understand anything* <- terrible attitude

I'd argue that's because no one really knew how to play. If everyone's a noob, there can't be elitists.

However, I find the whole shunning of elitists pretty interesting. I'm sure you'd flaunt your experience at your job on an application. Businesses only accept and hire "elite" people (ideally), that's how life works. Either you're good, and you are in, or you are not and either work on it, complain about it, or go home.

While GW is a game, and it should be fun and "elitist free", the reality is that some people take this game more seriously than others. If you want to play a serious game type, it's expected that you have a serious attitude.

While I'm not trying to dish on you personally, it just seems like a lot of people dismiss PvP because they are not up to par and go ahead and point the finger at "elitists". Guild Wars flipped the MMO model around when it first came out. It put the focus on PLAYER development over CHARACTER development. With each successive release of campaigns, it's slowly turned into a weird ass in between. At the end of the day, there are elitists in both game-types, and they both work the same way: if you don't cut it, go home and try again.

The difference between PvP and PvE (so far) is that in PvE, failure has largely been mitigated by PvE skills, PvE items, and heroes. In PvP, you are afforded no such luxury.

I've had a discussion about this before here (really old thread):
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10434502

yea, I'm totally an elitist. even my guild is for elitists...

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/n...ght=%5BBAAA%5D

ohwait...

on topic. Definitely considering setting [BAAA] back up again, just gonna wait till i get all my uni work out the way first, then the PvE resurrection train is on it's way :3

You know , elitist is a big word.... I thought GW elitism was one of the worse ( especially considering HA part , not really about GvG) , but that was until i played starcraft 2. Really , if people get angry just because they get called " noob " or " go back to PvE " i advice to chat in sc2 channels and have fun....( Most likely kids completly clueless spamming you about your league rank , relating adventures with your parents, insulting for no reason ( nothing even close to " stfu " or " noob " ),.....)
Compared to that , i think that GW community was still ok to be honest and changed my mind a lot ....

Back on topic , i think then there should be a way to help people improving better. Isle of nameless has potential , maybe some series of quests there could help ( i.e interupt master of xx 3 times , deal target 500 damage in 3 sec , survive to x chars for 20 sec , etc....)

I don't see why you would ever want to chat in SC2. Chatting in a MMO and in a RTS are 2 completely different things. For starters, in an RPG, a virtual world gets created to escape in from real life, and as such social behaviour is to be expected, if even to trade items and/or ask for information.

This is why RPG's (MMO obv) have the biggest problem with addicted kids/adults, because living (and thus socializing) in the virtual world is such a large part of the experience.

In SC2 people are very elitist, but there are several reasons why it doesn't really matter:

- They usually are, in fact, the better player, as unlike in GW, you can clearly distinguish one player from the other based on their skill. Simply put: Let them 1v1 and the best player will win the majority of the matches.

- It doesn't hurt anyone. If you're one of those players that gets upset when called out over an online game, you probably shouldn't be playing online anyways, but first get your real life straightened out by going to a shrink or something. Words (real life is something different) should not hurt over the internet, if they do it's you who needs to change, not the people throwing them. -Not playing the devil's advocate here, as I obviously don't see the point in using "fcuk" every second sentence, but I rarely (if at all) get offended by online chatter.


In GW, elitist has a direct impact on the game experience, which is people not getting accepted in groups, etc etc. But again, as said before, it's not as bad as the couple of carebears here make it out to be. As pointed out by Reverent and Lemming, it's not the communities fault not every individual gets picked up, but rather those individuals themselves who believe everything and everyone should bend around their will.

yeah, or if you're one of those players that screams in local "uninstall" if you lose, or squeals on vent, hmmm yes, if you're one of those players ^^

yes, maybe that kinda player should give advice about straightening their lives out, oh yes.....ah the advice of children, amusing

I rarely every rage at people in a serious matter: "Uninstall", I do often use it as a joke: "Lol, uninstall", with a big fat wink following it.

I do get frustrated when playing in RA, and bad players (read: PvE'ers who don't know what they're doing) refuse any form of communication, and actually start shouting at the rest of the team.

The only times when I shout: "Go back to PvE" are those occassions when people reach the level of bad, and an unwillingness to listen, they simply do not belong in a team game. If then they start flaming me (for being bad), I usually do go all-out on them.

Just yesterday, I had this PvE warrior with Charge (no biggy, just a new player), and as I pointed out he had a bad bar (which is the truth, no more, no less), he replied with: "Stfu". Good enough for me, we went in, and he got hexed up with SS and Insidious. Needless to say, my one veil wasn't enough to keep him clean, and thus he killed himself in a matter of seconds, initiating a flamefest from his side calling me a "retarded monk" telling me to "stop suck" and other things.

Again, people with that attitude, no matter how much you want to stick up for them, do not belong in PvP. Either they stick to PvE, or they mature another year or 5, and then try again, but they simply do not belong in competitive PvP.

It amazes me at how many non-PvP'ers stick with the "elitist" theory of pvp.

I understand where it comes from: frustration. PvP is not PvE, in PvE there is one bar that never changes and everyone can win at PvE every time they enter. Simply not true for PvP. Half the teams that enter must lose and there is no set bar other than the ability of the opposing team; as such it is necessary to make your own team as efficient as possible. This creates a very different dynamic when selecting and forming groups.

First ventures into anything are usually PuG's. This is simply a practical matter. It is also not unexpected that a PvP PuG would be particularly harsh and unaccepting. After seeing this a couple of times and perhaps seeing other people's posts on the subject, it understandable how the "all PvP players are elitist jerkoffs" attitude emerges. To me its just amazing at how once this attitude is adopted that people will go out of their way to discredit or ignore anything to the contrary.

Allow me to propose a different theory. Since PvP is based around creating the most effective team, which includes teamwork and team familiarity which cannot exist in a PuG environment, the more adept PvP players do not ever go into the PuG environment and instead form groups based upon guild/alliance/friend list. The only people that exist in the PuG environment were the ones that are so harsh, abrasive, or otherwise undesirable that they have no other recourse but to exist in the PuG environment. "The PuG environment is filled with the jerkoffs that have been kicked out of all the other circles of PvP players."

It still just amazes me at the number of people that do not in any way attempt to understand the PvP environment or the people that participate in it. Whether or not it is justified, there are certainly reasons that a particular community ends up in its current state. Not even attempting to understand those reasons before criticizing the result is ignorant. But furthermore dismissing anyone that speaks contrary to this "elitist" theory as being an elitist themselves and thus not worthy of being listen to, is even more ignorant.





To tie this back to the original purpose of the thread: To enjoy PvE is perfectly ok. To not enjoy the current incarnation of PvP is perfectly ok. To not enjoy PvP in any format is ok. But if someone is not ever going to enjoy PvP (which is ok) and subscribes exclusively and irrefutably to an "elitist" theory, then being in such a discussion here serves no point (unless the point is to troll, in which case hypocrisy is present). Right now Guru is reaching out to the community to include new and old players in PvP. Let them. See for yourself what the real community and PvP is like for yourself. If this ends up being something you don't want to be a part of, that's fine, but see for yourself rather than listening to "elitist" arguments that are based out of frustration and ignorance.

As an anecdote when #buildwars and #gwgpickup were started I participated in several PuG GvG's. Technically I do have top 20 experience as monk, but that was back during Prophecies. Boon protting at a very high level was quite demanding, but boot protting at an acceptable level was quite easy. Even then the skill level of the general playerbase was far lower, so to excel not nearly as much skill was required as current day. So with "top 20 experience" I was put on prot monk. I'd like to think of myself as knowledgeable and I do tend to 'know' what to do, but actually performing in battle is a far different story. Yet these groups 'put up with' my poor performance and there was never bad feelings or any of the "elitist" mindset. Instead we all generally enjoyed ourselves and had a good time.

Indeed.

I wish I had done this before it got out of hand.

it amazes me you bother explaining the whole 'deal' behind it.

in a nutshell, i'm all for giving helpful advice and tips on how and what to play when it comes to nablets (and i did so in the past when the player would actually show signs of trying to improve and ADMITTING they were nab)...but since i mostly come across scrubs and wanna-bes and general baddies beyond any hopes of improving, i just trash the hell out of them if they start an argument. or screw up my team, for that matter.

on a side note, another contributing factor to an increasingly harder transition form pve to pvp is the fact pve had become a LOT easier to play than it used to be.

This, although I agree in it probably being too late.

You're right, the gap between PvP and PvE is larger than ever. And it's not just that some skills function differently. As I point out, heroes, pve skills, and pve items increase the rift exponentially.

If you take a look at most "high-end" pve today, a lot of it is based either heavily on gimmick mechanics or PvE skills (generally a combination of both). This doesn't necessarily encourage the development of skill sets that PvP in this game demands. The differences between Factions and Nightfall (at each of their own releases) demonstrates this issue is structural. Factions encouraged PvP (albeit on a less coordinated level, AB JQ FA, etc) while Nightfall heavily focused on the PvE experience. Additionally, Nightfall added permanent PvE skills to the game (Capture Signets are by definition pve only skills, and the Celestial skills in factions only lasted for the duration of the mission). These skills were introduced June 15, 2007. On May 22, 2008 the skill lists were split, introducing PvP versions of skills. There are very few PvP only skills, and most of the PvP only skills are monster skills. The introduction of GWEN did not help matters, introducing yet even more PvE only skills (a lot of them fairly powerful). I play plenty of PvE now, and it is astounding to me how ineffective some bars are. Some PvE bars are effective (indeed, very effective) but rely on PvE skills and PvE items (see all the speed clearing builds basically built around the assumption that a "con set" will be in play). This does not help the transition, and in fact, discourages exploration of PvP as a game type. I would say those that take the "but there are elitists and assholes" line of argument are forgetting another major hurdle to the development of a vibrant GvG community.

With the recent introduction of full hero parties, not only are PvE players discouraged from developing the skill sets that GvG demands (maximization of utility, efficiency, etc), but they are also discouraged from playing the game with other people. In effect, by allowing players to rely on heroes, three things are happening.

1) Heroes are good at certain things that most players are not good at (interrupting being the major example). This sets up (imo) unrealistic expectations for other players. Granted, there are excellent disruption players (I've played enough GvG to see really good mesmers and rangers at work), but the frequency of those players is fairly low.

2) Players no longer possess the capacity to play with others. Increasingly, I find that trying to form groups in PvE is futile, as most people lack the communication and leadership skills required to run even basic PvE builds in some coordinated and effective manner (not to mention the builds are fairly lacklustre in the first place). Of course, this is much less a problem in guild or alliance environments.

3) There is no player development. The key benefit to playing with others, and especially those you look up to, is that they can shed light on how you can improve. This is the essence of player development, and is exactly how GvG will continue to thrive. I've gotten my ass busted (and I still remember this) for asking why we have to kill the body guard first in GvG before the Guild Lord. I didn't know better, and then I did. Without people telling you how you're doing badly, you will only pick up on such things much later. Compounded with problem number 2 and the problem of lowered challenge in PvE (ie, the false sense of skill), is it really a wonder the PvP community has dwindled?

The structural barrier to development of the PvP community (in particular, heavily competitive GvG) has been fully realized. The climate of GvG and in general pvp today is a result of this structural transition barrier.

While I wholeheartedly agree with what OP is saying, I feel that getting PvE orientated players to play is not the only problem.

I played GvG years ago at a variety of ranks and loved it, yet today there seems to be no guilds catering for players who do have GvG experience yet are just average players like myself. Every guild I join are "new-comers" with great motivation but little knowledge of what they are doing.(I'm not talking these people down btw, I've been around long enough to know many of these with decent practice and games, will become great players)
Every other guild I see recruiting are housing "big-name" players who's skills and experience far exceeds my own and simply put, I'd be wasting my time (and theirs) asking to join.

Perhaps it's just a result of the game being around for so long, but there seems a huge gap in the gvg playerbase. I keep joining the various pvp guilds I see recruiting in hope of meeting similar players, yet I'm starting to think the "middle ground" has completely disappeared.

The mentor program run out of QQ boards was an attempt to fix this. You're right though, in that there's no bridge from clueless -> top of the ladder.

Quite simply, there is no longer a vibrant mid-range GvG community. I think some of the problems I've articulated above contribute heavily to this gap.

PvP has one big problem that can't really be solved, and that's wait times. JQ is frustrating enough, but trying to assemble an organised team just takes too long. Frankly, PVP is at least 70% waiting, either for a match or while the team forms, and that's just too long and too boring. Essentially, PVP is tldr.

That's partially right. The main reason of this is players behaviour. You know , i would probably not care waiting 1 hour to form if i was sure people won't all leave after 1 lose...
HA has probably one of the worst mentality and that's also leading to the same problem for GvG when you play with HA'ers. People instant ragequitting when someone dies in UW , people joining group whereas they only have 20mn to play , people afking without saying anything . And you know , most of time , 1 leave = all party leaves.....( and that concerns especially high ranked teams , aka r11+...)

So that's why there isn't mid range GvG'ers ....It's either beginners that won't especially leave since they're discovering , either top players that play GvG for long... Mid range would be HA'ers but it's pointless playing with them...

yes, its another known problem that there is few to no middle gvg experience guilds, or player base, for that record. cba to discuss the reasons behind that thou, it has been done before too many times already.

Wait times for matches are a symptom, not an inherent problem.

As for wait times imposed by players, that's a function of their interest. It's most evident with PvE guilds trying to dabble with any kind of PvP format - they go in with minimal prepwork and take forever to roll anything. In my experience, people are a lot more willing to play more when it takes 5 mins instead of 30 mins for initial setup.