another solution to pvp elitism in a not league/matchmaking way

Guild Wars use to be just this. Back in Prophecies days the arenas were spread out as you progressed in pve and they eventually lead you to tombs(HA). Unfortunately Anet moved them all to their own continent creating a microcosm for PvP and thats what separated pvp from pve.

beginners need to take initiative and can't expect a more experienced player to spoon feed you 24/7

terrible example mr shinde cos you and me both know that you wouldnt ever play "fun" builds all the time. Playing them every now and then for the sole purpose of messing about, is not the same as playing joke builds every day. Although saying that, i dont mean to imply that regular meta builds are not fun, some are more fun than others, but ultimately if you didnt enjoy playing them or guild wars in general, you wouldnt log on.

Same reasoning applies to byob, sure its fun, everyone loves to play it. The only problem with using byob as an argument, is that its still competitive, yeah its byob but u still try hard to win, losing repeatedly isnt fun even when ur messing about. Not to mention that there probably isnt a guild that manages to run real "byob" full time. Kaons guild will probably be used as the obvious counter to this, but quite honestly they are mostly very good players, playing effective bars. Im quite sure kaon wouldnt let you run around with a mending warrior with heal breeze that is clearly useless. Albeit very similar to byob, they will always play with some melee chars, some snares, and some caster damage, its more comparable to a functional 1 monk split build, than any form of "real byob" where you can just run whatever you want, regardless of usefullness.

tl;dr, all gvg (and HA) is serious, nobody plays just for the sake of playing, everyone wants to win regardless of what build you play. Simply by the nature of PvP, there can be no such thing as casual play. You play hard, or not at all.

@floor - if you exclude the occasional messing-around game then yeah I agree. Although the times when I've played utterly stupid builds have been funny (8 Wammos with Endure + Defy Pain and Heal Area, we were trying to bulldoze the Lord rofl). That said, I don't think anyone invites new players to play these kind of builds, because they're fun only if you're with close friends. And of course playing these kind of builds don't exactly make you get better at GvG.

I think casual PvP does exist, in RA / JQ / FA. If you turn off team chat and all chat and ignore everyone, you can play quite reasonably. That doesn't apply to the higher-end PvP though because you need to form teams and coordinate builds there. Even TA was a competitive arena where players played to win.

A few years ago you could make randomway teams in HA, especially during double Fame weekend. I've since stopped playing HA, but does that no longer work?

That's what is pretty sad about it... Before you could hold halls with a full party of henchs, i also remember some dudes running palm sins with roj monks in GvG( i think it was [GENI]) and they still managed to get correct results...( besides on that point, it's pretty logic from them to be able to run full heroes parties on 2006 but not being able to do it 5 years later once everyone left....)

Today, well ,you still can use fun builds or byob , but you keep getting rolled by everyone running the same meta, which is triple dervish or invoke eles( which i can't consider to be builds requiring to play hard....)...
That's due to the 2 problems i keep saying but obviously, noone is reading : inactivity and lack of knowing how to balance skills...

on a side note : maybe there should be some GvG arena to make people be able to try it when they want to... I'm pretty sure a few people would give it more time if they were able to just pug it.... Let's say HA on GvG maps... then people could get more familiar with those, find their best map to then adapt on their guild hall , etc....
Besides, on the long term, this could eventually lead to more normal GvG fights

There are very few casual teams for new players to play against, unless you count all the smurfs. To win even occasionally at these formats, new players have to improve themselves much closer to the level of the more serious players. This requires a much more serious attitude to train and practice to the point where they are no longer just 'casual'. This is incompatible with many of the new players' original goal when entering the format - to play mostly for fun.

@ Missing HB

My comments on playing "hard", mostly refer to the fact that you must have the 'play to win' mentality. I wasnt really referring to skills and balance as thats a different topic.

Oh and heros sucked, losing to heroway in HA was an embarassment and as far back as i can remember, heroway never held halls on a regular basis. Yes it happened, but it was certainly a rarity. Quite simply heros couldnt pick up items, and generally have AI that is far far worse than the intelligence of an even half decent player. The only 2 exceptions to this were olias' insane ability to maintain tainted flesh on ur entire party, and gwens 0.00001s interupts. tease way anyone? lol




Also tealspikes above post sums it up very nicely. There is simply no such thing as casual PvP. You win, or you go home.

I think that "casual" most often means "playing about 2h daily", not "playing just for fun, with lulz builds, and i don't care if i lose (thus wasting time)".
You can be effective playing RA 1-2h daily. HA and GvG - not. Either dedicate lots of time, and ignore the pro elitists that call you noob and laugh at you, or don't even bother.
Not worth it.

You can be effective playing GvG 2 hours a day ...

Yeah, if you've played earlier, aka are already experienced, or have friends that will teach you how to get hang on this format, pointing out with index finger at the beginning.

To say "I play PvP for fun, I don't care if I keep losing, I just want to play this format" is not an argument. It's simply whining at the fact that certain players didn't/couldn't jump on the bandwagon when they had a chance.

PvP is pure and simple, you play to win. Any means necessary. Lower end PvP (RA/JQ/FA/AB) are all randomised in order to dumb down the means available. You are forced to play with unknowns. Organised competitive play will always be.... Competitive.

Noob yellow team in halls for the first time ganks blue without understanding why and allows red to win: you are going to get flamed. It's simply the nature of competitiveness, Blue team lost a potentially even match because another team was "playing for fun".

I don't think I explained that well. tldr: play hard or go home, simples.

If anyone's played team sports, they would understand. RWC 2011 starts in September. If you watched a minnow squad beat one of the top tier teams, the top tier team will feel like they've been robbed. Why? They've put more effort into their training, they have a proven track record of winning, they only lost because of a single knock on; for example. It's the same in Guild Wars.

PS. Heroway was so you could farm the first few maps. Tease heros were rediculous and made 1v1 maps challenging. Faking was possible, but you could keep Gwen pinged on the prot and that's just wroooong :P

Then were heroes teams really a matter considering you can't win relics, it never won halls? Besides , about rupting skills , i can remind you that bots happened and still exist today...

I'm pretty sure many players on certain playzones would be happy to at least be able to just play an TRY a format when they want to... This could be the " casual play " people need in order to become better and get into " competitive play " ...

About Halls only, the format is just a pure joke today... Usually, the same team holds as long as it is 1v1 and loses on the first 3 teams because they get ganked 90% of the time... Having more teams there would certainly do good for the format ( and real teams would see no problem i guess considering they would simply " farm " heroes teams )

The way the game is, you just don't have enough competition easy to access.. In PvE even , there should be a way so people want to be better than others... The same should exist in low PvP formats , but it's more likely " i lost, bah np i just go in again " ... quite sad isn't it ...

about Elitism:

elitism exists everywhere in online gaming, especially mmo's, and 1st person shooters, and RTS's. For some reason when its the internet instead of face to face people become ruder, meaner, etc than they probably would in r/l. in r/l you play a game of bball or shoot a game of pool, you say good game afterwards win or lose usually, you try to be a good sport, in online gaming you say pwned u n00b, pve that way --->, or the loser rants about you not having a life, or lucky, or blames teammates etc.

the problem is not pvp, the problem is people. people in mmo's tend to be rude, granted not everyone, but a good majority. most people wouldn't hesitate to scam, or rip off, or put down others if they think they can get away with it.

about PvP:

Granted there is some form of elitism in pvp. But honestly there is elitism everywhere in guild wars and other mmo's and online games too. Guild Wars practically encourages it with titles, ranks, emotes, fancy armor, rare weapons, etc

Part of the problem isn't always I can't get into groups b/c of no-rank...part of the problem is sometimes pve'ers are used to face-rolling pve and are to stubborn to learn what they need to do for pvp. For example you will commonly hear/see "i don't want to buy extra weapon sets, what i have is fine", no 40/40 set, no high energy set, no defensive set, no zeolous, vampiric weapon etc, incorrect armor/runes. trying to explain to a sin or dervish they need a shield to switch to isn't understood by them, no matter how much you tell them they don't listen, thus they don't get picked for groups.

Now let's be honest, there is high end pvp, and casual pvp, just like there is high end pve, and casual pve. For high end pvp you have gvg's, ha, codex, etc, for low end you have ab, fa, jq, and ra (though the elitism in ra is silly) So its not like a pve'er can't pvp, they just can't do high end pvp in pugs. A lot of the op and people have commented on is directed to pugs. Well guess what, why would you even want to do high end pvp in a pug group anyways, get into a pvp guild and hold hall of heroes for hours. It's much more rewarding and enjoyable, by trying to pug everything you're only hurting yourself.

About PvE:

Now let's be honest about pve too. There is plenty of elitism in pve too! I'm currently 28 max titles, 50/50 hall of monuments, r6 ha, r3 glad, r3 zaishen, r12 kurz, r2 commander, r4 luxon, etc. So I do a lot of pve and a fair amount of dabbing into pvp too when I get bored. Guess what, after quitting gw for 2 years while i played other games and was busy with school, work, life, gf, etc... i couldn't get into some pve groups too! Let's look at an example:

UWSC... when I came back I wanted to farm, get some money to max my remaining titles, guess what... I couldn't join pug groups either. wow they are such elitist jerks and mean (sarcasm). They require ranks, they require different weapon sets, they require exp, they require summoning stones! lol. As well they should! They aren't being mean, there is no problem, its a high end area, a pug of strangers mind you, they don't want to fail, or teach, or go slow. Save that for friends/guildies. The same goes for Fowsc, Soosc, almost any other sc, including doasc trenchway, or even slow moving but effective doa frostway. Are they elistist jerks b/c they want rank, the right build, pcons, cons, rez scrolls, etc, ? absolutely not.

My point is and I hope I have illustrated it well, mmo's shouldn't be about pleasing the masses, about making it to easy, if its to easy then no one really enjoys it. Whats the point of rare skins or max titles if everyone has it...none really. Part of the fun is the challenge! Pvp and pve have both high end and casual areas, for high end and casual players. If you are a high end pve'er but a pvp newbie, its ok, just research, learn builds, get weapons, make friends, join a guild etc. Just like you would for high end pve content! You wouldn't take a pve noob in your sc'ers, so don't be a hypocrite and QQ b/c you can't get into a pug. Pugs fail, don't pug anyways, be glad they won't take you. Go find a guild.

I hope you all enjoyed this post, i tried to be fair and honest to both sides. I know learning something new is frustrating at first, but given time and dedication everything will work out on its own. Hope you enjoy your pvp exp in gw.

ps: random idea to anet to help pve noobs learn pvp better... get rid of instant map travels and instanced towns, make it more about the world, and enable world pvp like WoW. honestly a lot of people would hate this, but it would help solve your pve'ers suck at pvp problem, maybe if they got ganked all day they might learn and play better...lol just saying

I did. Seriously.
But i want to point out one main difference, since you've already invoked the elitism in PvE.

Being a random, unexperienced rookie, you can't join an UWSC pug, and the same is true for most SCs. Sure, it's totally understandable, and you pointed the similarities to pugging HA quite well.
But then...
You can at least roll UW with heroes and learn the whole topography. See the quests for yourself. You can go into NM UW alone and try to learn one of the roles (you can take heroes to clear the chamber for you easily). Then practice, by yourself, in HM. Heck, you can buy stones, if you're so desperate to get into groups and start actually playing rather than shouting in Temple for ages. Then you apply to SC guild, show them you have some roles mastered, and the train starts rolling.
And, first of all, you can roll pretty much anything else in PvE with a pug, especially with the rise of Embark Beach. If a mission or vanquish is listed as the day's Zaishen Challenge, it's quite easily puggable; some unoccupied spots, if its pugged late at night, can be filled with heroes.

The PvP side is different. You either join a randomised, casual, low-end PvP, or can't get into high-end, structured PvP because of 'no stones' to show. And, worst of all, RA (and, more so, JQ) is completely different than HA or GvG, maps included.
There's no way to learn, get better at or actually experience structured PvP without getting invited into structure (or, within the first two years of GW, creating it), contrary to PvE. It's a failure of design, but it's then made even more ridiculous by people.

AB is a kind of middle-ground - casual and easy-to-go format with a puggable party structure. But then, try to compare AB with HA...
Yeah, not worth it.

you have to pug first to make friends...then to join the high end...even in HA/GVG/CA

not like you can just directly go to and make rank 12 friends without any playing....and facerolling with you in high end arenas.

I think maybe there should be both a random and a organised format of all arenas..

so that noobs, and elite.. don't mix together that much...

like random HA, and normal HA.. etc.

then noob can learn in the random format, and when they are fed up.. and want to be in the organised arena.. they can still do that..

just like you can have organised, and pug dota.. same format, but one is lower and one is higher end.

2 hours a day is pretty hardcore... thats like 1/12 of your life (both waking and sleeping hours) right there. I consider myself a casual player and I probably log on to play GW 3 or 4 times a week for maybe a hour at a time (longer if I'm doing something like a HM dungeon or urgoz/deep/FoW obviously).

Of course, I am one of those players who don't care if I win or lose because just playing is fun to me. Besides the time constraints that I mentioned earlier in this thread, that is the other reason why I stay out of organized PvP.

That's because there is no fear of getting their nose broken on their side of the monitor... unless the person on the other end is chuck norris :P

Sounds cool and seems much easier to implement than breaking HA into 0-4 and 5+ ranks. But its fatal flaw is that it still is unorganised - the groups may end up with no monks, or seven warriors, or three bots.

it will be like the up version of ra.. when TA was there

it doesn't matter with no monks, 7 warriors or not..

cause everyone is on the same ground...but the difference is they can learn the map and some kind of 8 players maneuver

just like high end dota.. they group up and ts, and using ward/smoke balls, 5 ganking on 1...which you can hardly find them in pug dota..

IMHO HA should have been a random format. That way you have RA and TA which are 4 man random/organized, then HA and GvG would be 8 man random/organized. HA would groom people for 8v8 competitive play and move them on to GvG.

For instance:

when i started HA i got r3 pretty easily doing eoe bomb on a double weekend event. Even before that I was in a searing flames pug that won hall of heroes before I was even rank one. Sometimes there are some easy "flavor of the month team builds" and sometimes there are some nice events (like this weekend for ha!) double points... at r3 that's only 90 wins, and that's assuming you don't win more than 1 match.

After r3 there was a time when heroway was popular, I would be a caller on my sin for a r9 player named "flawless means what" a good player who is at least r12+ today. Now I was only r3 at the time, but he would let me play in his r6-9 groups, and then joined his guild, b/c he saw me play in a match-up and realized I was good. Granted this is a rarer case but he looked at the skill, not the rank.

Honestly you should have no problem making a low rank HA/gvg guild. I see them all the time recruiting in RA. Alot of casual pvp'ers wanting to become more hardcore start off in ra, make ra guilds, then branch off into ha and gvg later when they get bigger and more exp.

Starting a RA guild?? what ?

The format is random and besides, it's 4v4 anyway and you don't learn anything there useful for HA and furthermore GvG... What tactics do you learn in HA?? Almost none, it's just usually about abusing the map or the poor ghostly hero IA...

RA guilds sole purpose is to abuse the syncing flaw and farm glad points for e-peen. Its nothing more.

pvp elitism is a problem with the player base. i can't go to rodeo drive in beverly hills and make the rich ladies there less snobby. its the same with elitists.

I don't supposed you showed up to these, did you?

:\

Ludicrous comparison. Dervishes in the four months immediately following their rework were decried as being gamebreakingly simple to play, but even those have far higher skill floors and skill ceilings than JQ's gimmicks.

At least a few people from the Casual Division of the Guru Cup made the transition from PvEers to GvGers. Why did they succeed?

You'd be surprised how often people with relatively limited experience get to play in pugs, tbh. All that it takes is that you know someone.

this, at least for HA this is true.

Indeed... i've decided to play HA once for a long time... and the only thing we faced was 2 dervs 2 invoke eles mesmer rit and monks...
We fought wota sins once, but rest was only that boring and non-fun build.. played by all kind of ranks... so i actually quit PvP ,since i'm really having enough, until they do something about dervishs and invokes ( 2 builds that really require 0 skill to play and even less played together....)

The main problem really is that i would understand if those builds were made to help beginners to get higher rank ... but it seem that they still get facerolled by better teams using those builds too so....

HA has always been about gimmicks, any possible way to one up your opponents on a consistent basis. It's why builds like EoE bomb, ViMway, Bspike, Sway, SF spike, BBway, and many other exploited builds (WoTU once ran a dual Experts Dexterity+Keen Arrow with a simple WS derv in 2007, it was so OP and Anet nerfed ED after 2 weeks or so), it even proves effective to bring Meteor Shower for epic cap points games.

Anyways, the best builds that were able to show that they were possible for low ranks but experienced players could take it a step further (in HA), were iway and balanced. And tbh, BOTH have been nerfed. MATH were able to show how high ranked players could take a farm build and hold halls with it. Balanced was always possible but the skill threshold was obviously higher, where you definitely reaped what you sowed.

The argument nowadays is whether present builds are worthy of your rank. BBway took this too far imo, fame hungry dead hour/s farmers created a space where lower teams could not compete. This is already during the time where HA's population was drastically falling, balanced guilds such as WoOm, WoTU, Sexy (only a few keep them alive <3), G0re, KvZ, lll, Dent - I could go on - died.

What did Anet do? Instead of reining in BBway or other exploitable area-controlling builds, they buffed Invoke into a crazy spike. Not only did they encourage new players to play a gamble, but they ultimately fed BBway, wota pressure and other exploits in the past 2 years. They are only adding to the massive power creep that they've created.

And to prove my point of the power creep - Triple weapons, Life, PwK, RC AND Healing Burst just to withstand pressure? k. Not to mention the fact that you only win games if your ranger/mesmer can shut down weapons. It's boring dawg.

The game just got too big for itself. Anet never bothered with how HA developed ever since they put it back to 8v8 all those years ago. This, in turn, has played on the minds of elitism within ranks.

Not to mention the fact that rank predominantly means experience, players are really looking out for others who understands builds and knows how to firstly do their job correctly, secondly to counter the other team accordingly and third, listen to team orders/vent/ts.

But even rank is not completely discriminated but more on your history of builds you've played in.
For example, even if a r12 PUG picked you up and you were r9, the moment you say you got your rank from PnH monk for BBway; you're out. Lets not mention a certain BB guild who needed an r15 to teach them how to position. This summer.

What I'm trying to, badly, explain is that you make it out as it is. I agree that rank discrimination is obviously apparent and should be addressed in some way, but why do you want to join a guild/party who judge people like that? If you're trying to garnish your rank to better show your skills, you're wasting your time only to please a few kids. Seriously.

I know what I'm saying may sound wrong, since the PvP population is next to zero compared to how it used to be, so finding a decent guild/group of people must be extremely hard now. But there are other people out there like you. Players who are new, who want to play PvP but are low ranked since us old faggots don't allow bambi kids in our teams. Forget us and make a new guild.

The rest, is down to Anet to fix their broken game. It really is. I want boon prots back.

i want HA be turned into 5v5.

ha.

What about a randomized GvG arena like RA but with a kind of player-based ELO where players with lower ELO's are grouped with each other? Obviously, the matches there will be terrible tactics wise and the group setup might be a problem, but at least players get to see the maps and the importance of positioning, even in a really bad group. Maybe if players could queue in this arena as a certain 'Role' (i.e. Damage, Healing, Control) that would solve the group composition a little bit.

Or am I asking for too many new systems here?

gvg is too objective based, it requires a lot of communication. getting 8 players organized in a live game with only using chat is a pain in the ass. i dont think gvg is something that can be made random.

In beta there was a random GvG.

It was appropriately removed.

most americans stopped playing post 2007 and thats also when many restarts started occuring, thats when euro guilds you listed dominated a dead ha in 2008 and onwards, nothing special.

I think JQ and FA have far more objectives than gvg

Well, gOre was Meatball's guild in 2005/6, Dent were before KvZ and KvZ were prime in 2007. I could mention all the euro guilds that were also not ballanced and still held (Boo, Ascalon, Apfel & co.)

I know many American guilds quit around 2007 which I agree it made it easier for said guilds, but it wasn't to the extent that there was a void of top end HA. There were never a large amount of skilled American HAers and those that were, played for Euro guilds and Euro friends lists.

Restarts wouldn't occur if 3/4 top American guilds stopped, only if a significant amount of players across all ranks stopped, which it did.

There's a difference between pushing flag, territory, backdooring, map control, splitting, countering team builds compared to collecting 10 slabs or attack/defend.

The fact that you're comparing organised to unorganised PvP and weighting their objectives is funny.

EDIT: Elitism will always exist to an extent simply because there is no other way of visibly showing your skill unless a team takes blind faith in you. I mentioned that a rank still, at best, shows how much experience you have in that field of PvP. I think that's all it should represent. Unfortunately, the moment people get behind a keyboard, they are no longer nice and will bluntly deny anyone they feel is inferior.

you got me wrong that, I mean if FA/JQ/ab become organised, it has more objectives than gvg..or vice versa

if FA and JQ get organized, we both know how joke it will be... Most will be mirror matchs with for example 5 roj monks and 3 normal monks

lol 5 roj? why...

do we have 5 roj in organised gvg?

I don't think organising FA/JQ will solve anything.

Missing is right, the choke points/cap points on both maps are begging for builds like 5 RoJ. If it becomes organised, it won't be serious.

Maybe 4 man organised FA/JQ, where two 4man teams would pair up, could have potential. But they should still allow Solo players to enter as well.

But again, it won't solve anything. Perhaps FA/JQ/AB is TOO objective based that it loses the e-sport feel, that it can never be taken seriously. The format is just too...

Eurgh, it's hard to explain why a low-end PvP arena can not breed better players by becoming organised. Oh wait, I just answered myself. It's low-end. The map was designed for encouraging choke points and catching low-end players in mismatched battles and also bring in NPCs and items.

GW2 seems to fix this because their PvP is 5v5 and less crowded, so the Battle for Kyhlo works since AoE has less of an effect. Not to mention less complicated battle mechanics.

lol

so wrong... dota has more objective than fa/jq/ab altogether, now they are doing a $1mil international tournament..

an arena become low end is from the time that it turned into random team...not because of its objective.

e-sport feel.. is about organised. not about the map objectives.

and choke point?..not just favor to roj.. but all aoe skills....which has long cast time and all prompt to interruption...