GvG in Crisis.

Some things would be easy to set up to teach people. Others such as nailing bulls and weapswaps can be easily learned by doing RA/Ab and other casual formats. The largest issue/boundry i see is the overall calling of tactics. Who splits where, when do you run the flag, etc. So basically i think that there is no shortage of good players, but a shortage of players that understand the overall tactics.

How about we just make a list of everyone that would be interested to GvG just for fun, experienced people and new people, and try set up a few teams? In an ideal scenario we get 16 people and we can relaxedly 8 vs 8. Dont see this happening offcourse, but can try to get 2 equally sized teams and fill with henchies. 4 people and we can GvG henchway, 8 people and we can 8 vs 8 with henchies ^^ (yes im getting excited )

don't expect to win? so why would someone do it if they didn't expect to win at least some of the time. how would that be the fun side of things? i guess you meant that it would be the fun side of things for you but not necessarily them.

i think this post has an admirable goal in mind but i don't think it will work out. i don't think people will want to play it just to try it out or whatever you want to call it cause eventually the frustration will kick in of not winning and they leave again. so in the end you will have solved nothing. and by having "experienced" gvgers group with others... how long do you think it will take before the experienced person gets frustrated with the lack of progress of the team he is trying to help? then when that happens he/she abandons them and again you have solved nothing.

Eh, would love to get to play GvG at some point, as I've always been interested in the PvP side of things. However, I've never been able to find a guild that is willing to do it, and in the five or so years I've played the game, I've only ever got to play 3 or 4 GvG matches. And as far as the PvE side of things is concerned, I like my guild (as I did my previous guild before it that eventually died) and so would not want to change guild just to get to play some GvG.

Never even had a chance to try HA much, due to the rank discrimination that goes on there (how on earth can I get r8 in HA to get accepted into a group if nobody will let me player HA in the first place, eh?). So unfourtunetly as far as PvP goes I've always more or less been stuck shoehorned into RA, JQ, FA or AB if I'm lucky.

But what I said in my first paragraph, I think it's the prime reason why you don't find many doing GvG - while there is almost certainly players in each guild that want to GvG, there is never enough in a single guild to get one going - and nobody wants to give up the benefit of a good guilld for the PvE side of things just to get a shot at GvG.

Guesting is easier said than done; And I'm pretty sure 80% of people on my friend's list are no longer active players, and the other 20% don't remember me.

It will work. This is a good initiative. If you get enough players try it out, there will be at least a few that will go through and continue playing. Posting this here on gwg, will reach alot of people. This could be just that nudge that alot of people need to start gvging. If enough people participate, this could really help the gvg community and the game as a whole.

Good post! I am tired of seeing the same 24 people all the time!

I got HA rank 7 in the last 7 or so months, started at zero. formed my own hexway teams r5+, till i got rank 3

Then i started forming some other game types till i was r5

Made some friends joined sexy and got r7

So, if you amke the team theres no rank discrimination.

And for GvG: You dont need to leave your guild, you can just be guested. edit: You can also just leave your guild for some GvG's and then rejoin it a few hours later

Not everyone who gives GvG/PvP a chance as a result of this move will continue to PvP. Also consider that an influx of new players will result in a greater chance of new players combating each other as opposed to the current system where only a few "elite" teams are on at any given time. As for mentors getting frustrated, that is inevitable. It is my hope that enough players will donate some of their time that if someone is unhappy with the help that they are receiving, there will be others to take them in. Likewise, those interested in mentoring should have enough players interested that they can find a good fit. Some groups/mentors will simply not be happy with the process and move on to something else. Anyone who decides to go back to what they were doing before is of course entitled to their own opinion. Anyone who wasn't PvPing previously that stops will not result in a net decrease in the PvP population.

I'm planning on running my tournament with 3 tiers, one of which meant specifically for new(ish) PvPers. Since most new PvPers don't have established connections or a PvP guild, this tier would consist of 4 player + 4 hench teams. How would you all feel about having the option to form partial groups (1-3 people) that the tournament staff would pair with other partial groups to create a full team of 4? While you will not have a history with all of your teammates, this should make it easier for small groups and lone players to enter in, and meet some new friends on the way!

That sucks, like many other players that was where I learned GvG.

Of course you don't need a starter guild to GvG, just get a few people, fill up the rest of the party with henchmen and go. Sure you'll lose a lot but it is a decent way to get an understanding of what's going on and most importantly fun.

Unfortunately I think a lot of PvE players were turned off to PvP altogether trying to play RA or HA. Those formats are cesspools filled with the worst players and trash talk. There are some bad apples in GvG but for the most part opponents will just say GG and you might even meet some new people.

Thats certainly the case for me, I've never seen so many obnoxious arseholes in one place as in RA.

Whilst I very much doubt I'll ever try this GvG lark, this idea looks well thought out and I'll wish you folks the best of luck and hope it works out well for you.

Same for me, having being called a "noob", "U are pathetic" "go back to Pve" by some respectable Guilds in RA (yes, top guild in RA messing around calling others noobcake for the fun of whatever reason) is more than enough to turn me off this GVG lark.

Idea is good though, wish u folks best of luck

Whilst there are of course exceptions, very few core players from "respectable" guilds will talk any of that crap in RA.

They could well have been leechers, don't take guild tag/trim to mean anything.

Good post, OP. In the early days of GW, I did PvP... it was even fun. But then it became like this:
And not just in RA either. Asshats, and your own team-mates, giving you a constant stream of verbal abuse.

At least with GvG, you play with guild-mates and stand a chance of some friendly cooperation, advice and coaching, and a bit of fun. I still won't bother though, because my guild has too few people left, I don't think any of them are inclined to GvG, and I'm not keen on switching guilds.

Roll on GW2. Then you can be in more than one guild, and - for a time at least - the majority will be noobs, with no cookie-cutter FotM builds or ranks to comply with.

Hm. I'd consider myself slightly better than the average PvPer. I can weapon swap decently, and I always note positioning of myself and my enemies. Still, I've never been able to bridge the gap into HA/GvG. I've got r2 HA but that's worthless, and I've done a few GvGs but never really did well.

Maybe I'll try it out on ZQ day, and maybe I'll PM some people on Obs just for fun.

Still, The PvP Community really has no one but themselves to blame for making the entry-barrier so high. I understand the steep learning curve, that's natural for this, but the willingness to take a few risks to introduce new people or help newbies has been sadly lacking over the last several years. The rage noobs in RA (and even AB) don't help either, but by and large there's nothing you (legitimate players) can do about that.

What puts me off is the mirror matches. GvG has become so refined to one team build (with minor midline variances).

I miss There Is Not Cow Level and that necro guild (forgot the name).

EditL Necro Raiders

I had been wanting to get into GvG for a while but it's mostly I'm not on consistently enough to really get a hold of GvG.

But hopefully this thread does help GvG out.

Good luck. I know there is a lot of players who has been PvPing for a long time but can only play every now and then (too inconsistent to be in a guild) who loves playing GvG.
These are players who are not new to PvP or GvG even, and who could help teaching others too.

This thread is a nice gesture but unfortunately I don't see it doing a lot of good.

The best way to get people to try to GvG is to hold a giant event. GvG needs another Guru Tournament/rawr tournament. And it needs to provide incentives to play. The rewards have to be enticing enough to grab people's attention and hopefully some guilds and players will have a good enough time that they will stick with it and do it more often, even if just casually.

Hosting another guru tourney solves many of the deterrents newer players have. For the most part they will face people of their own experience. The last tourney had a few guilds here and there sneak by the people setting up the leagues and trying to make sure no one snuck in a division that they were above, but for the most part, it was very well managed.

It gives players something to aim for. They aren't just aiming for some title or the possibility to win a cape trim a year down the road. They are looking at a real prize they can win just for participating in a 1 day tourney against people of their own skill level. That provides an incentive to at the very least, consider participating.

The original guru tourney also had a live radio broadcast highlighting matches with commentary from Joe Hostile and Rusty (if I remember correctly). Not to mention Asp getting on all hyper from a sugar rush or something and talking a mile a minute. That was entertaining. It got people more interested in GvG then they had been in recent memory. Even if you didn't participate there are still plenty of great matches to watch, with guilds of every skill level, and live commentary to go along with them.

Would it work? I have no clue. I don't know how hard it would be to put it on, what kind of rewards could be offered, who would be willing to monitor the leagues, whether or not A.Net will support it and put it on obs, etc. I don't even know if the interest in it would be as large as it was during the first (I doubt it, but some interest is better then no interest right?).

Basically GvG needs outside help. It needs help that the PvP community can't give it. It needs outside promotion from A.Net and fansites like Guru. Is it worth it? To the GvGers yes. To A.Net and Guru? That is for them to decide.

been there. always hated having to transfer GL to alts so i could leave my mostly dead guild of 4-5yr tightknit pve pros so i could get my pvp on :/

Thank you for all the support, collectively I believe we are all somewhat surprised by the interest level out there. I will try to help Lem compile a list of IGNs to refer to for all GvG related questions, etc.

Any questions can be directed to him, indirectly to us through me, or to the community on TeamQuitter.com, if some idiot makes a mean remark, I can assure you the mods will take it down and give that user a talking to.

~The GvG Community

As already stated the game is old. Most competitive groups have already left the game. What is left in the game is small groups of pvpers, pvers, and mixed. the key word is small groups. I would guess 90% of the games guilds have 3-10 active members at most. Over the years more pvpers have left the game leaving most of these small groups as pve groups. There are lots of people out there that wanna pvp, but they are in guilds/ alliances w/o the intrest. The problem lies in that these people who would take the leap to join your cuase wont take the leap to leave the friend ( guild) they have been in for years. I am in the same situation. I just recently came back to the game and after finishing my HoM will probably do nothing but PvP, however my alliance is mainly PvE and I wont leave so I'll be stuck with RA and the occasionally HA. GvG takes time to be descent. Time for pvp is just not really high on people list right now. Once HoM rush has passed more will be in GvG. To attempt to rebuild that aspect of the game to what it was is admirable, its just not feasible.

On a good note Anet is aware of the things they did right and wrong in PvP in GW. I am expecting very high things from GW2 on the pvp side.

I can attest to this being an extremely common case, as I too went through it. I joined a guild because I wanted to GvG (I was originally just guildless playing PvE and watching Obs). They were in Shing Jea Monastery saying that they wanted to start up GvG. Within a week I took the initiative to start a GvG team with the most active members of that guild and we played about 4 days out of the week. Eventually activity dropped and one of our best players (GvGers should know Skittles from GG) left. I should have followed suit and left with him, but I was loyal to those guys because I was the one allowing them to GvG.

When I finally did leave is when I started to improve and eventually had the most fun in Guild Wars I ever had. I moved from barely rank 800 PvX guild to a rank 400 mid-tier guild that battled guilds like GeAr every single night. Once again though my guild became inactive and I was forced to leave my friends behind and join a new guild.

With a new guild came a new opportunity. I joined a pretty good American guild that AT'd on a regular basis and was at a level I had never played at before. I got in because of connections I made at mid tier GvG play. 2 months after joining I helped them win a bronze trim. Yea its only bronze but it was my first, so I was proud. Unfortunately we disbanded after a month and instead of moving on and finding a new guild I just quit.

I look at the game now and people I used to play with at lower levels have endured and are now Past winners of mAT's. I used to play with Skittles back when we were both just learning to warrior. He kept playing and kept pushing through the inactivity and eventually won a gold trim. I used to play against GeAr on a nightly basis, and we probably won more than we lost. In the end GeAr has won gold trims and the best I've done was a bronze trim on a "bitch bar".

But I don't regret it. Leaving those inactive guilds was the best thing I ever did. I wanted to GvG, and by leaving them I got to. Maybe my story doesn't have a Magical Happy ending of achieving the highest of rewards, but people I know did. And I met some great people along the way, and am proud to have played with them.

Basically if you want something, you have to take the plunge. You just have to go out and do it. Don't sit around saying "what if", or making excuses. If you want it, just do it. It won't be the best decision for everyone, maybe not even most. But you never know unless you do it.

I will throw this up on QQ forums just so people know whats going on.

as far as i know billiard would like kisu to come back (this was 1-2months ago).

That's a valid point. However, the hostility from the PvE side of things seems to be a lot stronger now than it was two years ago. If some of that is diffused, perhaps more people will be interested.

Even in this thread, people have been complaining about intolerance and insularity, which I think is a shame considering what the thread is about. I just hope that it reaches through to enough people to make it worthwhile.
Keep in mind that even NR ran nothing but eurospike by the time of the Winterfest tournament.

I loved GvG and would play for rank 200ish guilds at 4am in the morning with 250ish ping(I lived in HK). Ironically since I moved to college in the US I have a ping under 100 and the right timezone to play, however I no longer have time to play video games as much as I did back then. If GvG is still alive, id be willing to get into it again...over winter/summer break...

I'd absolutely love to get into GvG again. Unfortunately, I have memories of 1-2 hour set up times for the old PvP guilds I was in. I just don't have time for that anymore. PvE allows me to do random little things for spurts at a time. 'high-end' PvP is too much time for too little result.

I feel like one of the purposes for this thread is just to let people know that, if you want to GvG, and are put off by perceived problems, just know that there are tons of people like you.

If everyone who didn't want to gvg because of wait times just formed up and went, wait times wouldn't be too bad.

A year ago when I still played the worst part was just finding people to play. It's hard to just ask strangers to play with you, but if you have 4 (or anything more than 2 lol) just throw out PMs, and don't make people come until you've gotten 8 people to say yes. Then tell everyone to form up, and you should be good.

The QQ guest thread has hundreds of posts, those are all people who want to play, just like you guys do. Remember, we want this boom in activity to roll over into GW2, maintain the power of community!

Just played a bunch of pug games on the ladder, had no problem getting matches within 2 minutes, I don't know if that had to do with the time of day etc, but it was good to see hopefully that carries into American hours.

It doesn't. Or at least it hasn't this week. I've been curious and taken a look and most American-based ATs have either < 8 Guilds playing or none at all and it's canceled.

As for myself, there's a part of me that would like to play high-end GvG again, but it's too time consuming. I have fond memories of playing GvG for like 5 - 6 hours a day and fighting War Machine almost every night. I simply can't make that type of time commitment anymore. Let alone get our original core to make that commitment.

One thing PvE has going for it is that I can just pick it up and put it back down with little to know time invested. Oh well. We'll see if that "PvP itch" ever comes back I suppose...I do support this type of thread though and think it's a good gesture.

In addition to the answer Ariena Najea has given, I'd like to clarify my own statement. When I help a PvE player get into GvG, many times I notice that the lack of instant success throws them off, and dulls their interest in the format. This, in my opinion is somewhat a result of the PvE mindset. They follow the exact same reasoning as you pointed out: why do it if I don't win, how is that fun?

The thing is, GvG is not about being the winner all the time. There always has to be a group of eight people winning, and an equal or bigger group of people losing. And since you're starting from the bottom as a PvE player, chances are small you'll end up winning. So why do people play it at all? It's because they enjoy playing at their best and still having a fun time while doing it. That, added with the fact that whenever you play a match, you'll get better regardless of the outcome, is very satisfying. It's not the game reward that counts to them, it's the game itself that is very rewarding.

All in all, the advice to all new GvG players is the same: try to not focus on winning. Try to focus on learning and growing as a player, and to have fun doing so. Much like life, isn't it?

^^^ This ^^^

People don't seem to understand that you have to try to get anywhere. You can't complain about not getting anywhere if you're not willing to put yourself out there and try it. PvP takes time and it will take you a while to learn from your mistakes and learn how to deal with all situations. Even top players make mistakes but they take note and move on.

PvPers are more than willing to help you assuming you're willing to learn and ask questions. GvG is fun once you can get through most of the learning stage. <3

this a very positive message, espcially considering the depressing nature of ha as far as i see it

i can't believe the gvg community is as bad as the ha community, which seems to be dominated by bwayers who only care about the next rank and flaming, though perhaps that's always been the case, though bb seems so seriously op to me, it seems odd that r9 bbway throws r13+ balanced out of hoh on a regular basis

and as said, rather depressing

One thing you may want to consider, that always sort of slowed down the guest process is that there is no designated area where you can go to look for guests or for the chance to guest. Maybe pick an asian district of RA and unofficially designate it as the default area to find guests or be guested.
Just my two cents.

This is a great post.

One thing people are forgetting is that if even 20-30 guilds start gvging, that is 20-30 guilds all on the same level that will be playing against eachother. Ya, every now and then you will be fighting a more experienced guild but you can learn some great tactics from watching them.

Also, there is always a huge misconception that you need to learn EVERYTHING before you can play a single match. Thats completely false. Play, play, play. You will learn as you go. I know most players will hate and disagree but run some gay builds. Run hex overloads or rangers spikes or whatever. Learn the maps, learn the skills, work on your team work and communication. The more advanced stuff like weapon swapping, kiting, etc can come later. Learn the basics first, they will be the things that determine if you win or not.

Also, with this new Embark Beach, it could probably be used as a pug area for gvg as well.

I think the main problem (to me at least) is that high end PvP requires a lot of time. Several of us PvEers or low-end PvPers don't have the type of time that I see other people saying they put into GvG. I personally would love to GvG but

a. I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice the guild im in and the friends that iv made in it to find a gvg guild, and

b. I don't have the connections necessary for guesting GvGs. Besides, who would guest someone continuouslyfor a GvG that has very little experience and can't spend 2 hours a day getting said experience.

I don't know if this is the problem for other PvEers but these are certainly my problems.

You don't have to find a gvg guild. Use the people in your guild to gvg with. You already know them and are friends, thats half the battle.

As for the connections, Hit B, watch a match, add names to friends list. When you are about to play, and see some of them on, pm them asking if they can come for a low level gvg, most people will come.

Most importantly, have fun.

I will pass on the message to my guild, I guess. Probably won't help much.

Go read a couple of Team Quitter threads. These are the people that make up what is mostly left of the PvP community. Not exactly people I want to associate myself with.

That's about as reliable as judging all PvEers by the standards of the players documented in this thread.

I would love to Gvg and have been wanting to do it for months, its probably one of the only things I haven't tried. I was just worried that like almost every other part of the game where if you don't have a perfect build, perfect equipment, and 100+ hours of exp they just shun you.


But If someone has a guild that likes to GvG and doesn't mind teaching me the ropes I'd love to give it a shot.