GvG in Crisis.

I have to admit that GvG is on its way into the grave but that's just because the game is on its way to being six years old.

I have played this game since May 2005 and after spending a good amount of time learning the game through pve I gave some pvp a shot and loved it. I went from RA>TA>HA and once I got passed r3 a bit I found a GvG guild with good players and we did nothing but GvG through factions and at the beginning of NF. We actually hit a top 200 rating but by that time it started to become nothing but an e-peen competition and all the pvpers(including myself) that I played with moved to other games or quit online games all-together.

I came back to Guild Wars after about 2 years and gave pvp a shot with many GvG guilds and to say the least I completely hated it. Everyone screams at each other, there is no support from team-mates at all and they do nothing but play the blame game for hours-on-end. Also the skill balancing Anet attempted to pull off made me want to uninstall since I was so use to the way things were 2 years before.

There are so many factors as to why GvG has one foot in the grave. I just believe the biggest reasons are people excluding others based on rank because they just want to win and feel important. The new players need to mingle with the very good ones and acquire the experience and skill needed to start becoming a challenge for the top pvpers. The other reasons are zero patience and time. No patience on a game meant to be nothing more than mere fun will eventually make it stagnant. As for time... it kills everything.

Look at it in whatever way you want to but Guild Wars will eventually become no more. Lets just hope Guild Wars 2 heals our wounds.

P.S. Seriously hope GW2 has something like WoW battleground but with its own unique style, battlegrounds are 6 years old and still fun as hell.

That's all the problem and reason why threads such as xx in crisis are made. You probably don't really play GW anymore , else you would know this only works on theory. Unfortunately , on pratic , it's not really easy to find 7 players only , thus 7 that will stick by you , gl...

Not to mention 7 people at about the same skill level, with the same willingness to improve(or not), with somewhat similar learning curve, having compatible personalities.. There is a reason only a handful guilds have managed to stay together and become successful.

It's definitely doable. You just need to do it. Get a friend, start a guild, borrow a vent server and start playing. Once you start playing it's so much easier to get people. Playing with 6 guests if you have to, eventually someone will join and you will only have to guest 5 people etc etc. It's not impossible to jump ino GvG or HA at this point stop complaining about how hard it is and just do it.

Let's assume it was right , although it's not. People would still get farmed by all smurf guilds on quest , and have to wait hours other days for an opponent , leading to /giveup 1 week later. Except if you play at euro evening , it's completly impossible .

(Too many replies, not going to look at them all)

I hear your plea, and I understand why, but there are two problems.

1) Rewards
The rewards in PvP are very few, in a PvE players mind espically, compared to PvE. In PvE i am being reward with gold every so often, I am being reward with loot some of which is highly valued, I am being rewarded with points for my titles.

What reward is there offered only by GvG that would entice me to participate? The title for my HoM? The problem with that is it only goes to the victors, and if I as a PvE player can't participate and walk away with something to show for my efforts, what would be the point?

Which is why you will hate what I'm going to suggest next: You want your particpation? The easiest way to do that would be to capalize on people's want for the HoM Legacy points. Double the points of all current GvG title so the ones who stuck with it get a big reward. Then if you win a GvG battle you get 2 champion points, if you lose the battle (and are a 8 person human team) your team gets 1 champion point. Yes, it will devalue the title, but you will have your participation in droves. With the prospect of fighting another team that jsut wants to get the title for lagacy means you will most likly have these new players fight each other, and this will spur the interest. It will be from these encounters you will get the serious guilds.

Problem is you, the GvG community, would have to pass it by Anet. But that does seem a bit extreme, so lets go for a more pratical reason.

2) The cost of PvP
I dont think you realize this but a lot of PvE players would have to give something up to PvP in general, not just GvG. As a PvE player to PvP I would have to: Buy the cheapest max armor, rune it up, slap insignias on it, get max wepons with max mods on the for the role i intend to play on the team, if im using martial wepons i would have to customize them (and forfiet any selling value) and REALLY wanted to be competative i'd buy the different types of sets for different situations (half cast, elemental, enchantment, etc.) which would cost more, and I'd have to have a place to STORE all of this if I dont want to get jipped on space fo loot during normal PvE. The easier way, I guess, would be to burn a character slot as a permenant PvP character, problem is most PvE type will either have all 8 character slots filled or have all the character slots they want to purchase so they have thier 10 characters, each a different profession.

So why would I want to burn all this money for GvG, when im not even gaureented it's going to help me win?

My suggestion here would be if we could do away with the whole PvP/PvE character and have it so the 'H' tab would have something on it to switch us between PvE and PvP modes. When switching to PvP your armor would be switch to your PvP armor and the items made form the 'J' tab would phase in your bags and would phase out any pve equipment/items so you'd have space to work with.


Well? What say you?

I say lol

i guess half of guru cant understand a simple fact that GvG community doesnt need people with a pve midnset. This thread have been made for people who wants to play GvG but farm titles/rewards.

Even if you will make a HUGE reward for any single match people are going to abuse ladder/AT trying to grab a shiny prize as much faster as possible. It is onlt because they dont want to play any form of PvP they just need reward.

Some people in this thread are trying to offer an implementation of mechanics for pure PvEers. This won't work because they dont want to play PvP but farm even if u give them gold cape every month for free.

GvG needs motivated by famous and a personal improvement people which are able face to face the first steps of GvG.

And its better to get the one person instead of 100 farmers.

There's really not that many smurfs and you don't have to wait for hours (unless you manage to find 8 people at 11 am in the morning and want to do some gvg). See, I've played at rank 1000-2000 for over a year, I know what it's like. It's not as bad as you think it is. I did exactly what I posted myself and now I'm playing at the upper half of the ladder and still going up. Seriously, stop complaining and just try it.

Start a guild, add whichever people you know gvg to your friendslist and start playing. If you don't know people that GvG; check obs and add random people if you have to. Use the QQ guest thread, use the gwpickup IRC channel. There's a zillion resources to start doing it. You just have to do it yourself.

I started gvging a little over a year ago, you're not gonna tell me the game was so much more active then cause that's bullshit. I got into gvg. I know other people have aswell, so don't blame 'the system'. It IS possible and I think it was the best thing I ever did in guild wars and still regret I didn't do it earlier.

In reply to Siegfried Sorel above surely you already have maximum armour on the majority of your pve characters and have customised their weapons for those that deal damage with them?

Having one slot or more to use for pvp really doesn't become an issue once you start playing and enjoying it, you can still store your horde or whatever items on there still.

If there are a couple of professions you really like playing then gear up your pve characters for pvp doesn't actually cost that much and I bet you have 75% of the items you need already from playing pve!

As for the rewards, the rewards for me come from playing in a team and trying to overcome the odds in front of me, I don't do it for titles/fame/coin.

Just go for it

As a hard-core PvE'er I've got one thing to say.

I friggin panic everytime someone hits me/shoots at me/stab me/set me on fire etc.

So I'm slowly getting used to monsters doing thing (only been playing for about 5 years) but the thought of other players trying to kill me? No thanks. I can't even handle the PvP like quests in PvE.

I know it's just a bunch of pixels, but I don't wanna die...

In conclusion; yes I'm a PvE wuss and scared out of my mind of PvP. Did try once, ran around like a headless chicken, mostly, and got yelled at by my 'team'. So while some might like PvP, not all will want to play it, no matter what changes might be applied to it.

All the problem here. I mentionned it like 1000 times , many people do play at those hours , so how shall they do? I know there's no problem on euro evening , but then other players should just not bother with it ? wtf...

I never said it was easy, I said it wasn't as bad as it seems. And with the huge amount of PvE'ers complaining about the inaccessabillity of high-end PvP, surely you should be able to find someone.

While we are discussing the problem of setting up a guild, I would like to point out the main problem with PvE'ers coming to PvP. They never seem to have the right equipment and/or skills unlocked. Also, when over a 100 players are in a guild it is quite hard to figure out who is actually going to play.
I actually tried teaching some new players to play GvG, but it is way ftoo rustrating when it takes over an hour to form and you end up losing because of something stupid.
However, if you do managefind those willing people, get them informed on equipment and builds and make sure they have it unlocked, you will see that you will improve quite quickly.

And, yes, I do not really play GW anymore, but these problems are not exactly new.

First off, kudos for the effort, folks. I sincerely hope you can get this off the ground, although I see a ton of logistical issues with it.

After reading this thread, most points that have been brought up are pretty valid. What it really boils down to is if you want to GvG, you really do need to just jump in and lose about 20 matches until the ELO starts matching you with people of roughly the same level. They were still there as recently as maybe six months ago (I haven't guested at that level since). There are clearly enough people even just contained in this thread to start up multiple guilds, so population shouldn't be a huge issue.

But all of that has been said. I actually just wanted to address this little gem:

It's not all that rare for PvP games to survive long past this point. Guild Wars is not dying because it's old; it's dying because of a combination of mismanagement from both ANet and the community, at least with respect to keeping the game alive on a competitive level. I can't really pinpoint the exact cause, although I can speculate, but there is a ton of precedent for competitive games continuing to thrive even after being a decade or more old.

You have died 2,004 times.

That's on just 1 of my PvP characters who just plays GvG.

I think we should accept the fact anet will never be able to manage guild wars properly. I found this out years ago. Another thing is online games are kind of like living beings(ofc they are not) in that they are all unique in their own way, some may live long, some will get sick and die based on how they are made and the changes that effect them in the future.

The point is that updates aren't supposed to make more players leave than stay ( and almost every update since 2009 september , especially one , made a lot of players leave). I hope they will keep the lesson for gw2 , but really....
They just relied on titles for the pve part , hoping it will worry people for some years , and PvP , well they stopped caring .

Especially in fact , you can't have at same "massive players leaving " and " must have 6 members to at least enter in , not considering oppo " . That's one of main reasons GvG , HA and Codex are completly inactive

Eheh, really that bad?

On a more related note, i think GvG needs an infusion of players to. If you get to know all the requirements-teambuilds-terms and everything it can be loads of fun.

Agreed. I just jumped into GvG and it's loads of fun. We've been starting winning a lot lately. Practice really makes perfect in GvG.

I do think that something the GvG community could come up with is a renewed GvG guide though. I had a pretty hard time at the start and the GvG guide on this forum is not only quite outdated, but also doesn't mention certain mechanics such as Catapults. It's something which can lower the learning curve by just a bit and every bit helps to draw new players into GvG.

I think part of it is because theres a seemingly lack of reward compared to HA and RA, where you get points into title as soon as you win. I already got my champ title, but I think lowering the req to 1100 rating for champ range would certainly draw newcomers into it. The old players who quit are for the most part long and gone anyway.

Try out GvG. It might be more complex than HA but the community there is, in my opinion, much nicer than the horrible people in HA. There are no ranks to discriminate on. The toughest part is finding a guild which is active enough and willing to accept you. I tried finding one through GWG and Teamquitter, to no avail, and decided to start spamming Heroes Ascent chat that I was looking for a Guild which was at least somewhat serious about GvG. I got whispered a few times but if you have at least a grain of intelligence you can filter out a lot of them from which you know it is not going to get off the ground. Examples of this are (yes there were multiple of these whispering me) people who want to start a guild with you. That may work if you have around five more friends who are willing to GvG with you on a serious level, but for the time being I was looking for a somewhat more established guild willing to accept new players. I got whispered at some time by the Guild Leader of my current guild. I explained my situation to him: That I was interested in PvP and I had a little basic understanding of what it was about, and some simple mechanics I managed to master.(Weapon swapping, prekiting etc.) They were reasonably positive about this so I was offered an invite which I took.

That was around three weeks ago. Now I am the flagger of the guild, we do GvG multiple times a week with pretty decent results, starting to win a lot and almost getting our rating back from 900 to 1000+.

What I'm trying to say with this is: It's certainly possible to jump into GvG. It's much more open than HA and certainly lots of fun. Lack of good guides on the subject make it so that you'll need to play some matches to get a greater understanding of the format. Just try one of the easier roles first and ask for advice whenever you are unsure about what you're to do in a certain situation. Observe yourself back, check what you're doing wrong and right, and learn from your mistakes. When you get the big picture, you can maybe move on to more complex classes such as Pblock mesmer and Monk.

In short: It's easily possible to jump into GvG. You can learn basic PvP-mechanics in RA and try to find a friendly guild who is willing to introduce you to GvG. Don't get discouraged if you don't find such a guild in a day, but once you find one, GvG can be loads of fun.

Which one in particular made a lot of people leave the game? And how do you know that? I was looking through the updates, and I think it was maybe the Feb 2010 one, but I'm not certain.

The biggest update that created the largest powercreep the game has ever seen.

I'll give you a hint; you had to install it.

Thats really good to hear, if you ever need help don't hesistate to ask anyone

Updates didnt kill the game. Its just mitch complained too much about skills after aegis nerf and his constant fail to [rawr]. When you lie and complain on QQ every second about bad updates and hidden [rawr] balancing someday people will trust you.

therefore gvg became stale because of boredom and lack of Real Tournaments. nothing ele.

When you have only mat as the only one valuable tournament it's just boring as hell.

I think so much could've be done to liven up PvP and draw in both new and veteran players alike, especially in GvG... but it's just that Anet hasn't cared enough to exert any efforts or pour any time and resource into GW1. I think money may be a factor here, but it also has to do with the embittered community [or what's left of it, anyway]. As much as we like venting our frustrations and taking our anger out on Anet, it doesn't really help them at all. Instead, it further influences them not to give a sh*t about GW1, or the remaining few.

All I can say is that I certainly hope they don't repeat their mistakes in GW2. The sad thing about it all is that they're going to make their money in the same fashion, and once they've squeezed out enough money they very well may continue this same trend of negligence.

That pretty much sums it up. All of ANets money, time and resources were diverted to gw2 and we were left with few ppl to take all the QQs from both sides of the game. They probably stopped giving a sh*t a long time ago.

You are referring to the May 2010 update? That is when mesmers became a disease.

You missed the hint. He was referring to Nightfall.

Ah yes I totally skipped over that. The most terrible part of that game for pvp were the skills that came with it.

Corrupt Enchantment
Blinding Surge
Visions of Regret(For 10 seconds you cannot play the game.)
Burning Arrow
Mind Blast

Just to name a very few.

The fallout from Nightfall was pretty bad. The problem was bigger than specific bad skills, though. There was a fundamental shift in how ANet approached design. Prophecies was very utility-oriented, movement-based, and had a lot of skills that scaled up in power level with user execution, either directly (Gale, Bull's Strike), because of a designed-in downside (Frenzy, Blackout), because of high associated costs--typically energy or exhaustion (also Gale, Deep Freeze, Heal Other), or because of high opportunity costs--typically recharge (Whirling Defense)

As the game aged, the design of the high-powered skills became much more linear. Skills were more likely to have fixed power levels, or perhaps worse, boolean power levels based on bad conditionals (Searing Flames, Discord). The introduction of teleports de-emphasized movement. Ranged damage was buffed; melee damage stayed roughly the same. Energy became more readily available. They basically threw out a lot of the principles that made the original so deep. This coupled with the lack of meaningful tournaments led the competitive scene to stagnate, and it's been in a self-perpetuating downward spiral ever since as more people quit because of less competition and increased wait times (which you, the intended audience of this thread can help with!).

Somewhat interestingly, the game was designed from the ground up to be PvP-based. It was marketed as a competitive game. The PvE campaign was (and no longer is) pretty obviously tailored to dump people out in Tombs (what is now Heroes' Ascent) at the end, which was in turn designed to lead people to GvG. The majority of the mechanics are pretty obviously designed with PvP in mind. Somewhere along the way, that got lost, though, and no one is entirely sure why. The ultimate answer is of course "money", but there are some missing links in that explanation.

Corporeal Ghost's analysis of skill mechanics is very accurate and well thought out as well as articulated, people forget Tombs was once the more respected form of PvP.

So , that's almost 2 months since this thread has been done and not much has changed to be honest....Should we conclude that players mentality can't be changed? That nothing can be done at the point of the game ?...?

Maybe, but more than likely, you're probably still butthurt about losing HB.

I do , but well , point was to make people come GvG right? I recognize a good job was done with commentaries , etc , it's interesting for people to learn and see , but , can they actually play more GvG thanks to those?
Facts are that people still smurf when it's quest or when there is noone top100 , thus low exped people get farmed out by trip melee + nec. Tournaments are kinda same , a few guilds are lucky to get 20 qpts but they get at best 1/5 on mat . So yes , good ideas overall , but not supported ingame by updates and stuff and that's really sad , since i'm almost sure people would have come if so...

All valid areas. The community is doing their part. It's Anet's turn to stimulate the growth of GvG in the lower ranks.

I bought this game for the PvP. I have always loved it. I started playing again after another break because I heard about the GW2 calculator. Because of that, I am focusing on my HoM and GWAMM at the moment, as I am sure many others are. I am trying my best to get it done quickly so that I can get back to my PvP roots. By the time I'm done, though, I'm not sure if I'll really be able to get accepted into anything; I don't really have the titles to back up my playing ability. I guess we'll see how it goes.

This.
And if Anet can somehow make it possible, it will do good to their sales of GW2 as it shows that they really know how to make the game works.
seriously, gw1 have already displayed quite a number of bad traits for gaming which will affect gw2 sales. the community is divided too much. even in the PVP community itself it is very much divided. PVE wise, not too bad.

for those who are interested in learning GvG

^

I support this.

As said before, titles mean nothing, message any of us at anytime and I'm sure we can get you started.

It's pretty obvious why xD PvE makes much more profit for the company that produces the game than PvP.

Somewhat false, GWFC is partially responsible for Germany being such a large player base.