I think Anet's direction has gone wrong

By not even considering to stop ignoring it.

omg don't make the game more dumb!

I liked this idea that Anet has brought. It made me want to try PvP more. Even my guildies were putting together a codex group which i NEVER saw happen before.

I agree that for high end PvP the barrier to entry is pretty high. I am getting close to accomplishing everything in PvE that I am interested in doing and now thinking about finding a PvP guild- but for a casual player like me? I have a feeling it will never really work out.

The new champion emote is meant to be something more to compete over since it is tied to guild rank instead of titles or tournaments. The idea is that players will want to push themselves to be at the top when it has an exclusive emote. I don't know how else you would add to competitiveness besides giving shinier trinkets for winning, and ones that you can't easily transfer are the only ones that should matter here.

Don't know why you think this, but just as an example besides GvG, a player like me now has a real reason to play FA, JQ, and AB again. Previously, it was a waste of my time, because the allegiance faction I would gain from it was useless to me. I already have both of those titles maxed out. Now, I can play for the imperial faction, turn it into balthazar faction, and not have to waste anything.

PvP in GW suffers from a broken mentality that keeps good players playing with themselves and bad players playing with themselves and more often than not pushes bad players out rather than turning them into good players. I doubt any number of updates will fix this.

"BAWWWWWWWW, I DON'T WANT TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE GAME."

That pretty much sums up every one of those points as the same thing. It also seems to point out that the learning curve in PvP is very steep, which makes sense, since new players with no unlocks in skills nor equipment, and no knowledge of the greater scope of the game are going to often be pitted against players who have all of these. There is really no place in the game where a divide exists, or where a system facilitates a divide to exist. The game doesn't divide players up by the amount of unlocks they've had or the title progression that they've earned. The players sorta do that themselves, but all they can succeed in is putting players of similar caliber together. They can't force themselves to go against players of similar caliber, which is part of why new players aren't going to enjoy PvP.

By dumbing down the game to a couple simple objectives, you will potentially:

• Remove high-end players from the game because they can't bother to play something that lost its complexity.
• Create a new high-end base of players who do nothing but streamline their ability to complete the new objective.
• Not bring any more PvEers into the PvP scene, because just because objectives are simpler and clearer will not make them any less difficult.

The game can't have everything cater to a casual player, because there is always going to be a population of players that wants to be more than casual. The best thing that the game can do is provide means for casual players to progress to becoming better and more involved. Dumbing down the most confusing objectives of an arena isn't going to be the same as creating a decent bridge between them and the casual playerbase.

yea. you can play causal high end pve, but not causal high end pvp

players who really play pvp are because they play pvp not because they want to aim at the reward, reward is just a bonus for pvp...a successful pvp is even when the reward is nominal or none, players still play it.

the mind set of giving pve rewards into pvp does not affect the core of pvping itself like a skill balance, or map changing.

although the new quest try to narrow down and connect the learning curve from ra to ca to ha, it is not enough to allow players to understand the whole complexity within just a few games or 2, mostly they will just play a few games and got the reward, get beated up by the elite and move on....it still takes too long to learn it, I think perhaps maybe it takes at least half a year to get the gist, which it should be around at most 10 days,

is like in a game of rock/paper/scissors, you have to use months to learn how to form a rock, and months to learn rock can beat scissors, but not paper, before 2 players actually engage in a real fight of rock/paper/scissors.

I understand there are good points in complexity, but too complex, players will simply get deterred by it, at least I prefer 500 elites in a less complex system than only 10 elites in an extremely complex system, the competition is too little in the current HA, it can simply by looking at the number of map skipping.

reducing the complexity does not mean it will become more causal in pvp, (which is different from pve, because player vs player, is harder than pve in the sense of randomness), it just mean that players take less time to get a competition going before you have to do this and that in order to play.

and I thought initially Anet suggest that when you put down the game, after awhile you come back, the game will still be relevant .....it is true HA is still relevant to players in the sense of how scarcely populated since faction or nightfall, which the problem is too long hasn't been addressed correctly in my opinion.

A GvG outpost for pugs would be a good start...

HA?

If it's a pug it's really not GvG is it?

Thats paradoxical. Guilds and pugs are antonyms in the Guild Wars lexicon.

another approach is to make the current main objectives less relevant to a big objectives

just like in RA/CA, the capturing of a lightning tower, does not affect the main of objective of killing the enemy, but it is relevant in a sense of not as important as to main objective of winning, so you don't have to really care about it, but a more advanced player may care about it more etc..

in my opinion the complexity of system has to tune down at least to the point that the map skipping is not as often as the current it is

5 years into the game we still have new players coming into the game wanting to play pvp.
They are unfamiliar with the game have unlocked few skills and need a hand because they are potentially entering an area where players have been active for 5 years are part of a well honed team and take no prisoners.

However pleasant those experienced players may be it will be a frustrating experience for all.

The newbies will be getting beaten which is fair enough, they will be getting loads of abuse from other players and may well just pack in the whole game.

Starter areas for new players obviously marked as such, with other areas only opened up when you reach a certain rank in pvp.

That way if your not good enough you cannot even get into the game and if you do and behave like a newbie and your called on it at least its deserved abuse.
Equally players who get above a certain rank can no longer enter the newbie areas.
Its a bit like the fire imp disappearing when you get to level 20 or being refused for an underworld party because you cannot show the stones.

Flux Effect for July: In With the New: Hero Rank negatively affects players in HA. -2% dmg dealt, +2% dmg received.

LOL j/k

Unlocks should be purchasable cheaply via ZCoins imo. Or just removed.

It's still a massive entry barrier for new players to have to spend time they'd want to spend trying to actually PvP instead working at getting the builds/items unlocked in order to play them optimally. When i started out it was a massive pain but alright seeing as the game was a lot more newb friendly as it's activity levels were much higher.

Granted you get a lot of them from your time in PvE, but you never have them all.

Just another excuse for something in the online store, but it deals a big blow to casual players.

If you apply that to the current PvP formats...the 'starter area' (I'm not counting the PvE arenas) is RA. And, frankly, RA doesn't really require skill so much as it does luck. You could be an amazing player but if your team isn't a good matchup, or the team you're against is, then you're not going to win, no matter how good you may or may not be.

TA would have been okay for that, had it been kept, but with the current formats available, something like that would not be feasible at all.

If its not feasable then pvp will fail totally because there is nothing to make new players go into pvp and an ever shrinking number of experienced players ending up with nothing to do.

RA is a 4 person team area many new players will be hard put to find 3 other new players and of course the experienced ones will be telling them to get lost.

starter areas for pvp newbies with solo pair and four person teams would help if not its goodbye pvp inside of a year and hello welcome to gw2 and where is the new pvp.

I would love that.

I didn't HA for a long time and when I did recently, I recalled why I stopped going there in the first place.

1. Everyone is asking for ranks.
2. Everyone is an elitist who claims if you dont use their build down to the last skill, then there is no absolute way in hell it would work.

This is why I hate GW high end pvp because everybody there acts like a jerk.

let's just say, most of the people don't know how to play, still they want to get into the most experienced groups immediately, and when they get booted they go to the forum and cry about elitists

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...57&postcount=1

People say the same thing about high-end PvE'ers, and I know a couple that are giants dicks 90% of the time, but I also know a lot of friendly helpful people in the high-end PvE world. I am an elitist don't get me wrong, but generally if someone approaches me with a question or a friendly attitude, there is no reason I would act like a dick, yet some people have that impression of us.

Same goes for high-end PvP. There's elitist dicks in there that act like giant RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs to everything and everyone, but there are also very friendly and helpful guys out there -might still be elitist, but some people just can't help it, me included-. You just only remember the dicks.

let's just say that the 2nd "P" in PvP sometimes seems like a mixture of crippling Asperger's and weapons-grade meth withdrawal. As long as you have that, you're going to alienate people who might otherwise enjoy PvP.

There are honestly just too many hurdles to getting PvE players to transition over to PvP. Even if you manage to form a group of low rank players, the learning curve is significant enough to frustrate low rank players. And, for better or worse, high rank players won't let low rank players into their groups. Low rank players either need to be really dedicated and patient, form their own groups and learn on their own, one match at a time, or they need to be fortunate enough to find someone or a guild willing to teach them. Simplifying the game won't help, since experienced players will still be better at communicating, positioning, timing spikes, etc. The curve is lowered somewhat, but their will be too many people already at the top of the curved. RA works because the player pool is a mixed bag of skill levels, so even newer players can jump in and win once and a while. Once the average skill level of the player pool in a PvP format becomes sufficiently high nothing can undo that, short of completely randomizing teams (which would be bad for HA).

Dangling new rewards in front of PvE players might get people to temporarily experiment with PvP, but once the skill disparity between older and new players becomes clear, then only absurdly high rewards (which would also be bad) are going to get people to come back.

It is not that we don't know how to play but the experienced guy was already being such an ass bragging and looking down at everyone before a game even started.

I used to play HA with my friends (who quit the game) and I feel so much happier returning to PvE with my heroes. Too much hate and bad attitude in HA pvp.

HA PvP is intimidating not because of the difficulty but because it is not conducive for new players to even start since they wont be welcomed unless they have a respectable rank but they can't get a respectable rank unless they get invited into a group. It is a catch-22.

Just adding new rewards is not going to make this game better for us. First of all, there is no incentive for higher ranked players to group with lower ranked (or rankless) players. What would you expect to happen? Everyone would be asking for Ranks before you can get invited into a group because everyone wants to win. Inviting low ranked players into the group becomes carrying an unnecessary baggage, so why would ANet expect anyone to go out of their way to do that? It is just stupid.

If you want PvEers to try more PvP then you have to either make a total rank limit per team. Or give an incentive for high ranked players to party with low ranked players in a HA match. Otherwise, you would just make PvEers feel frustrated and hate pvp even more.

ALL PVP has that in all games, don't even try to lie about it.

Your best bet is to block out text and sound from complex laden individuals trying to bust their "tough guy nut" on the only format they can.

Their attitude is nothing more than that.

All of us started somehow, back in the days i used to play HA with pugs and with my guild.
If this update makes more ppl to experience HA, then more newb teams are being formed and the chance to get into a group will grow, so this is a decent update.

I don't think anyone disputes that many PvP games suffer from this symptom. We (I include myself among the ranks of people uninterested in PvP) are just saying that, given a choice between invasive dental surgery and PvP with 15 year olds just discovering the magic of uncontrolled testosterone production ... we'd have to think about it. No one blames these people, we're just saying that we'd rather not have to deal with them during time that's supposed to be fun and relaxing.

Fortunately, Guild Wars is big enough for both groups, which is why so many people are saying that ANet is not wrong.

I think it is a decent and enjoyable experience for the high ranked players but not for the new comers because even new comers want to win.

Everyone knows that in order to win they would have to invite high ranked players, so even the rankless players are doing that.

Furthermore, whenever a low ranked team somehow managed to form, they usually get beaten on the first match because nobody else in the team is experienced. Which makes them feel even more discouraged.

Awesome read, this should be linked to every thread complaining about elitsts, arrogant pvp ers.

Still we started out somehow, and newb teams can defeat other newb teams and get better. Don't expect to win Halls the first time you get into HA. Not even the 100th time. Gaining experience takes time, which unfortunately today's players lack. You can see it in every whiny thread. They want to beat UW for the first time with idiotic builds. They want SF + Ursan so they can mindlessly farm doa without any experience. Heck, even the addition of consets were not enough for them.

Oh and raging after the first loss is lame. If you do that, you don't deserve to get better.

First of all, there are very newbie teams and if there are, they probably get beaten out so much that I am sure leavers would happen and the team would disband. Even newbies want to win.

It is not that I expect to join a newbie team and win halls right away. I just think the format is incredibly unfair to new comers because it encourages high ranking players to team up with one another making the matches even more unfair against an all newbie team.

How is a team consisting of ranked 11+s veterans going up against a team of total 0 ranked newbies for the same rewards if either side win, even a fair match?

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...34&postcount=1

how would the reward system help if the newbs always lose? (at least this is your basic point)

The system works if high ranking players are given the incentive to team up with low ranking players (not just out of the goodness of their hearts which doesn't work in real life).

If the total team rank is too high then the high ranking player would not get much reward, even if they win, than if he/she joins a low ranking team to help them win.

I agree with the theory, Daesu - but there's problems with the approach. PvP would be smurfed - new characters created to farm low ranked players, unless the titles are account wide. If they are already (can't get to the wiki), then it'd be fine.. I don't think there's enough people that'll buy new accounts just to smurf for that reason alone.

Edit: Got to the wiki, they are account titles. Shows how much PvP I've done! In that case, some kind of matching system sounds good.. but it would hurt returning players that were experienced, but are unfamiliar. Pros/cons everywhere.

I think Anet is finally moving in the right direction. Too little too late for organized PvP maybe, as GW does not have an influx of new PvP'rs. But, casual PvP can still be saved simply because its easy to jump in and out whenever you feel like it. And I see nothing wrong with giving PvP better rewards and incentives. They deserve the same tier of rewards us PvE'rs have been getting for years.

If you want PvE'rs to start PvPing more, the best thing you can do is add shiny rare pixels and stuff you can sell in spamadan.

Unless you all wear hats that say we are an experienced group there is a chance that a new player will ask to join and indeed cry on this forum when you swat them.

How are they to tell you apart from an average group are you taller, do you have two heads, perhaps you just look really experienced.

New players are probably happy to get into any group and until you start to play its pretty hard to judge experience.

That is why the starter and experienced areas are essential, we can not tell your experienced except by you continually calling your rank or by the area you inhabit.

Nobody likes wasting playing time, separating the new players from the experts will reduce the wasted time for both groups.

I don't completely agree with that, People pvp because of shiny titles and emotes. A small part of it is money on the side but mostly it is to grind titles out and show off e-peen.

No. I have those shiny titles like rank and champion. I thought this was obvious...

Well, returning players can probably pick it up faster than totally new players. It would be like riding a bike, not bike for years, then trying it out again versus those who have not riden on a bike in their entire life.

Right and congratulations for achieving them.

However in the game when a bunch of people are looking for a party there is this little problem.
"You do not look any different"

ok got it now ?

They cannot tell you are a god amongst pvp players and don't want some newbie annoying you.

Hence my suggestion that you go join all the other experienced players in one room while the new players go to another.

Unless of course you aim is to create your experienced group and have lots of easy wins against new players ? in which case shame on you.

as I have mentioned before all Arrange Team format has this form of eliteness, because it is a by-product of AT, however if it takes only 10 days or less to become an elite instead of few years I will stay in the pvp, otherwise, if you ask me to play another few years before you can really enjoy the pvp, how will anyone not being discouraged by it?

the problem is not about the eliteness, it is about how long it takes to become the so called "elite" in the arena.

just like highend pve, 50stone, you purchased it, takes maybe a few days, and practicing the route with another few days, then you become the "elite" already...after that everything can keep going...

but in highend pvp, there is no such thing of taking a few days to purchase the 10 ranks....you have to play through around perhaps a few years forming a newbie group in order to get rank 10 in the current system to become an elite.......asking another rank 10 players to assist a rank 1, is like asking the 50 stone elites to give you 1 stone, which is totally discouraging to the elite and beyond the purpose of AT, because every single minute for the elite to earn another extra stone to become more elite is the opposite goal of spending time to become a less stones elite who helps newbie in the situation of organised team.

so my suggestion is to make a way to become elite easier for newbie to the point that map skipping in HA does not occur anymore....

elite only means you have mastered the system, but as you can see for a player to master the system of HA that is from rank 1 to rank 10 it doesn't take like 10 days, but years....

elite doesn't have to be taken so long to become in the situation of AT for a high end pvp to get competitive....when everyone can easily become an elite, the common ground is much fairer early on, more people can join, stay long and build up connections, and really start competing on the common ground.

there is no point to create a complex system that no one or always not enough players to play it.

I think we may have different opinions of what constitutes being "elite" but I will go ahead and try to make a point anyway.

The problem isn't the amount of time it takes to become elite. It is the fact that too many people either want to, or think they have to, become elite. I played GvG for about 2 or 3 years. The highest I ever got was into a barely champ range guild (stayed around a 1180 rating) and won a bronze trim. I would not consider that background to be that of an elite player, yet I still feel like I accomplished what I wanted to while playing. And that was having fun.

Take an FPS like Call of Duty, Halo, Counter Strike, etc. They have huge PvP communities filled with people who have no desire to be elite. Most players do not care if they are ever good enough to join an MLG team and compete in tournaments. But they are still part of the community and, if I were to be so bold in saying, are the most important part of the community.

So why isn't that same mentality taken into a game like Guild Wars? I played for 2 or 3 years, knowing full well I wasn't even close to being the best player, and I was happy with my experience. I knew I probably never would be elite, but I had fun regardless. It wasn't about becoming elite. It was about playing the game. It was about getting 5-10 matches every time we set up a GvG date and just having fun, win or lose. There was never a night where I regretted playing. I had nights where I would lose 5,6, maybe even 7 games in a row. It was still fun for me. Sure I played to win and did my best to improve myself after every single game, but just hanging out with people I considered to be friends and spending time with them was the most fun I ever had in any video game hands down.

Why can't people be happy with that? Why does everyone get discouraged when they discover they won't ever get r12 hero, or a gold trim in GvG, or rank 1 on the ladder? Why does that stuff matter? Is it because you can't find 7 other people you get along with to play with you? Honestly, that it is why I don't play anymore, but I'm curious if that is the reason most others choose not to play. Do people really have that bad of a time losing games? Losing 20 times in a row without winning a game all night was still more fun for me than not playing at all. What is preventing other people from having the same experience I did?