Why you should PvP

I disagree. Maybe for you, but not for everyone. For some people winning at something isn't the fun part - it's actually getting to that point. You keep saying how PvE and getting titles and shiny things isn't fun while playing against others in PvP and winning is, as though that's a universal fact. But it isn't. Everyone's going to find different things fun.

And, honestly, not everyone enjoys competitive play. Not everyone likes the amount of set up that's required to play in PvP (even AB requires you to gather up a group of four people). I can't stand competitive play in anything - from video games to sports. It's not to my taste. So no, I don't like PvP. The most you'll see me do is some JQ.

I don't mean to be rude, but that's more than a little bit of nonsense. You may not enjoy the amount of time involved in putting together a team (which i think you're grossly overestimating, guilds of people interested in PvPing form way faster than pugs or PvE guilds).

A desire for competition is built into you on a genetic level. All human beings (excepting those with brain chemistry issues like a lack of serotonin) are driven to competition. It's a genetic and evolutionary inevitability. Saying that you don't enjoy PvP b/c you don't enjoy competition is a lie. It may not be a conscious lie, there may be some other reason you don't enjoy PvP that you don't feel like sharing. But don't blame it on a lack of interest in competition.

Call it what you want, I'm just telling you like it is. It's the same thing PvE players have been saying for years. It's the same thing PvP players have been dismissing as just an excuse or qqing or whatever for years. And for years the PvP community has been slowly fading away.

Occasionally (not in this case), someone from the PvP community starts a thread here or on other fans sites complaining about PvP being "dead" and they don't understand why. And the answer is, and always has been that most of the PvE players who decide to give PvP a shot are met with elitism and other forms of d-baggery that takes place in PvP and it turns them off to the whole PvP scene. (Yes, crap happens in PvE too, but heroes solve that problem) I guarantee you that if you went to Kamadan or LA and started a discussion about it, most PvEers will confirm what I'm saying.

I don't mean to be an asshole but citing the morons and trolls who sit in spamadan and LA as support for your argument is a terrible idea.

I'm already in a guild. I have no desire to leave it. Why would I? I don't think that doing so would be worth it, and I highly, highly doubt I'm the only person who feels that way.

And no, it's not a lie. I just simply don't find most forms of competition fun, and for me, competitive video games fall squarely in the category of "not really all that fun". Even if people are inherently competitive it doesn't mean they enjoy the same kind of competition. That's not a bad thing. It just means it's not to their tastes.

This is so overgeneralized that it is essentially wrong.

Seeing as there is no current PvP thread in Riverside (and I can't be bothered to start another one), I'm going to slightly hijack this thread. This is coming from someone who use to PvP about as much as PvE (albeit casually i.e. AB/RA/TA/FA/and HA once in a blue moon); if I were to pull numbers out of my ass it would be 45/55 but now it's around 30/70.

One of the main reasons I don't PvP as much as I use to is simply due to less players at my skill level to play with. When I would occasionally HA, I would not have a problem finding a group to play with. More importantly, the relatively large playerbase enabled me to be able to fight teams that were roughly my skill level. Yes, there would obviously be teams that would essentially roll us, but there were also as many teams that we could reasonably go up against. Aside from the fun of having an even matchup, it enabled me to see my flaws at a pace I could appreciate them; getting rolled in ~1 min doesn't give me enough time (or the team) to identify and understand the mistakes that led to our defeat. Nowadays, with my few PvP friends gone and the playerbase drastically reduced, it takes me hours to setup/join a HA team. Once the team is setup, we almost always get matched up against a team far beyond our skill level and proceed to be rolled. This invariably leads to team members leaving and having to repeat the excruciating setup process. PvP needs a vital number of players to keep a format sustainable and HA seems to be below that. What also perplexes me is the lack of a ladder system in HA; just create a composite team rank based on the individual ranks of each team member.

Population is not a problem with TA and RA, but with the former gone and the latter filled with ragers, leechers, syncers, and the retarded change to the Glad title, I simply do not participate in these formats.

One thing I always wanted to see implemented in RA was more PvP types. Why is it only elimination? Add in KotH, relic runs, and control points. The HB maps work well for control points and could be easily altered for KotH and relic runs. Yes I know that they won't be balanced in the same way that 8 vs. 8 of these PvP types are but it would definitely help in getting players feet wet in understanding how to play these effectively to some degree. Too often did my HA team get to Unholy Temples, Forgotten Shrines, or Courtyard and lose simply because a fair share of the members had no idea what to do (I'm not an expert but I have at least some idea). I honestly don't find the dynamics of shrine capturing in JQ and AB to be the same as that in the other formats. At the very least add the HA maps to the scrimmage feature.

I still very much enjoy AB although I don't play as much as I use to, but that's also due to a lack of people.

There is no point in playing PvP anymore. So anyone who are new to pvp and want to get into serious pvp your at least six years late. I'll list the reasons why there is no point in playing pvp.

1. The game is at least six years old. By now most players have climbed well into the hero/glad/champ titles. They are not willing to take in a beginner and teach them since this will increase their chance of losing and /ragequit. Apparently titles mean everything in GW.

2. Top players in PvP actually do not help new players break into PvP. Sure they offer advices and tactics but that only teaches very little. How can you put what you learn into play when you can't even get the opportunity to play due to rank discrimination?

3. If your answer is to form your own group of friends and play, you'll know how hard it is to get 8 players on at the same time.

4. Most people in the PvP community are asshats including top players. This is the main reason why pvers don't pvp. The transition from pve to pvp is too wide. Even if you do play with top players and you make a critical mistake your still going to be bashed for it. No one wants to lose. It's interesting how top players say titles don't matter but they post their titles and flaunt it on guild applications and in towns. Despite this being the internet, how you carry yourself shows what type of person you are irl. Old saying goes. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a dam duck.

Bottom line is don't bother breaking into PvP your too late. Their is too much rank discrimination and elitist attitude which makes it near impossible.

Not true. Competition is actually the second reason why I stay out of the "competitive" formats. I don't like it, because its not fun to me.

Competition comes in many forms. I am somewhat competitive in real life because i need to be (I'm aiming for medical school). However, I have never, ever been competitive in any sort of game. I have played soccer and basketball for awhile, and I also play football from time to time. I never feel any different after a game whether I win or whether I lose - the reason being I enjoy simply playing the game. Its fun and exillerating (sp?). However, when people get really serious about winning, that is when I stop having fun.

Maybe its because I like to relax when I play games, but I simply have never had the mentality of being competitive in any sort of game, online or in real life. You can say that I unconsciously do all you want - I'm telling you right now that I honestly don't feel any different after wins than I do after losses.

I feel as though one of the problems with many of the PvP player viewpoints that I have seen expressed on this forum is that they generalize waaaayyyy too much. Because a player and his friends think winning is the only way to have fun, that must be true for all people. Because a player and his friends are naturally competitive, the same must be true for all people. Sorry to disappoint, but not everyone is the same.

Im new to the game....but I played everquest for years and started wow from beta up until now. I am not new to pvp. I find it funny so many are being belligerent and narcissistic about all of this. On top of that, they start going into psycho-babble about how we are hardwired to think their opinion of fun is fact. It's all opinions. If we were all the same...this world would be an utterly bland land of sheep/robots. Ugh! How awful?! I for one will do what III think is fun. Not what others think is fun.

Now, onto the subject. Sure pvp can be fun. I like pvp. I reached rank 14 many times in wow. (Back when I was still in college and didn't have bills, family, kids, real life to worry about.) I would do pvp if it didn't take 30 Mins ti even get started. By that time im normally logging off. My time is precious now-a-days. Lol

Page 2 of the the pedantic 5 page derail.

I read the whole thread. Believe me. Im at work and playing on my phone procrastinating on this paperwork lol you were right as usual btw lol

I cannot take seriously anyone who says that PVE is for losers and proceeds writing how good AB is no matter how much effort they've put into making their post.

AB is not PVP. It's a format to be played for teh lulz.

It seems to me that all PvP'ers do is whine about bots and smurfing(?) and bad rewards and ladder manipulation and.... I think I'll stick to my PvE with my PUG free 7 heroes partys.

So you'd rather act like asshats because "it's just words" and let a negative stereotype form? Ok...




This. Or "Why generalization is for losers".

I used to play PvP over PvE and than quit PvP for multiple reasons.

My desire of competition comes out in other fields in real life, be it my job or sports. The game is currently one of my preferred ways to take a break and enjoy some relaxing time at my own pace, so PvP is not for me. Not anymore.

Why I don't PvP:

Like many games, Guild Wars features both a single player/cooperative mode and a competitive mode. Different games have different levels of accessibility for the competitive mode. The problem with Guild Wars right now, IMO, is that you only have two options - casual or hardcore. There is no middle ground for someone who is interested in PvP but not to the point of making it a job. Or, perhaps, what should be the middle ground is considered terrible by most players and is more or less dead.

Casual players have FA/JQ/RA, AB doesn't have a large enough population to actively play, HA is dead and considered by most players to be terrible, Codex was never populated, and GvG has players but is extremely hard to break in to. Essentially getting players into GvG would require a step from Random Arenas to GvG. Not many people want to make such a step. By comparison, look at Team Fortress 2, or Call of Duty, or any other popular FPS. The vast majority of players play the "standard" game, while a minority of newer players play gimmicky or more accessible game type and a minority of elite players with a lot of time play on the competitive scene. Guild wars offers the gimmicky accessible game, the serious competitive game, and no middle ground worth talking about.

So at this point, why should I invest large amount of time into a 5 year old competitive game with hardly any players when I could play the single player/coop (PvE) and get just as much enjoyment as when it first came out? Why should I spend every night practicing for GvG when in the past 5 years tons of great competitive games with huge active player bases came out? I would be happy to play a format that was both interesting and able to be enjoyed without daily time commitment, but as that doesn't exist I have no desire for PvP at all.

Guild Wars 2 looks like a step in the right direction, though. World PvP seems to be a "standard" option with GvG for people who want to dedicate more time to something deeper. Plus, with a larger community, it might actually be worth it to spend time practicing for PvP.

I dont pvp, I dont like it, I dont see the need for it...however, I do know others enjoy smashing the bunk out of other people, so there is a place for it, just not in my gaming.

Not everyone has the overwhelming need to beat others up. (yelling is enough for me).

I enjoy questing, I enjoy cartography (loved geography in college)...I like ROLE playing. pvp doesnt offer me any of those things. (not planning on gw2 either--one game is plenty for me).

I've enjoyed casual PvP here and there; mockup builds in RA, R/P in FA etc.... I have never really bothered with competitive PvP.

This thread has inspired me to get better.
Thank you and goodbye.

I started playing GW when I saw my girlfriend playing it, at that time I was a hardcore Battlefield 2 player, so the action on the pvp side of GW looked a bit slow.

Anyway, to spend time playing with her I bought into it and made a warrior, and did pve with him. Then I tried AB. Then went a little crazy and bought enough character slots to have 1 pvp character for each profession. This was when JQ/FA were ghost towns. AB is still the most fun arena to get some quick semi-organised pvp action. When we had the double reward weekend for AB just recently, it felt like I was back in those days, and I miss them.

Now AB is dead due to having low rewards compared to other competitive missions, which is a shame, but I agree with you OP about AB in the main.

PvP in general is dying and being degraded by a few things, even by so called pvp guilds themselves. Every time I join a PvP guild so there's a chance of some more organised games in HA or GvG, the guild ends up wanting to take the easy way out, just to grind titles or boxes:

Syncing.

I used to think this was only detrimental to RA, as that's where it's most obvious, but now, 5 or 6 pvp guilds later, I've found they all wanted to sync RA, Codex, HA (dead hours with multi-launch) and use other smurf guilds in their alliance to sync GvG.

There's really no point in most pvp now unless it's just to pass some time until something else takes your interest. The people who still pvp for competition are at the very top end now, with all the farmers beneath them. The majority of pvp guilds recruiting for low end players just want more people to help them manipulate the various arenas, for whatever reason.

To round off, I beat my old BF2 game, had thousands of hours of play, felt the highs of awesomeness and the depths of stupidity all in what GW calls pvp, and I called CQ mode back then. Most pvp in gw now is equivalent to being in a BF2 clan where everyone uses an aim-bot, because they can't shoot straight, or time servers just to grind medals/ribbons.

TL,DR: Anet not fixing the ability to sync join, allowing you to manipulate who you play against has pretty much destroyed most competition in all the PvP formats from RA to GvG. Why bother playing straight when you can get more wins fiddling it?

Your not entirely wrong, but there are several things u have said that are somewhat inaccurate.

a) about half, if not more, of the current group of top PvP players didnt even start playing pvp seriously until well into 2008 - 2009. Sure this means they have at least a couple years experience, but it doesnt take 6 years to become a top player.

b) Titles can basically be obtained overnight these days by simply grinding the title weekends. There are many many players who go from champ 0 to almost champ 4 over the course of one gvg weekend. Getting into groups is more dependent on who your friends are, rather than ur actual ability.

c) Yes there are a lot of asshats in pvp. Fortunately most of them are HA/RA players, so the "better" players who play GvG simply avoid them.

d) Most of the raging in GvG is done by top players, in top guilds, directed at other top players who make mistakes when they should know better, presumably out of frustration. Beginners and Experienced players will pretty much only interact when playing in pug teams or smurfs, at which point its not as competitive so the more experienced players are far more relaxed about team mates making mistakes, and are generally more willing to help ppl learn.

e) You are 100% correct, it is probably too late to get into high end PvP for most people. I imagine its possible with a bit of luck and an experienced player willing to 1to1 mentor you. But basically there simply isnt enough time now before gw2's likely release in order to reach the top levels. But thats not to say that participating isnt worthwhile if you get the chance to join in, fun can be had at all levels, and if anything the higher up the ladder you get the less fun it can often become as people get more serious.

All too often we see threads with titles "Why don't people play PvP?" "PvP is dieing!" and similar. Including a recent one that was particularly ill conceived. All too often, these show a real lack of understanding of reasons why some people don't like to play PvP.

Here, I would like to point out at least some reasons why people don't like to play PvP, and some false conceptions that PvP players have about them.

-PvP rarely has a story behind it. The games are usually made abstract, maps symmetric, with rarely a reason provided for the happenings. Now, remember - GW is still an RPG, and many people do appreciate the story and immersion it offers. To these, PvP is, even all other aside, "bland". Note the overlap between Fort Aspenwood and Jade quarry, where such players (me included) actually can enjoy a bit of PvP.

-Players generally play games to relax while having fun. To spend some nice easy, relaxing time. PvP is not really receptive to this - it's an adrenaline fueled experience where you are constantly on the edge. Certainly NOT the place to relax. It's actually tiring. I have a job to tire me out, thank you.

-Linking to the above is the fact that PvP is hard. A new PvP player enters the arena where everyone else is already much more experienced. His first visits WILL end in series of defeats. Frustration sets in soon, and eventually the new PvP player will realize that the feeling of winning will require much hard work. Hard work? Wait a second, don't I already have a job for that? One I actualyl get money for?

-Some people are simply not competitive and would much prefer cooperation. PvP may simply go against their very nature.

-PvP "attitude". No matter how much people will deny it, the general PvP player attitude can be best described as "condescending". "PvP is the real game!" "Stop sucking!" "There's no playing for fun, only playing to win!". The terms "Scrub" and "Carebear". You know what they mean, because they are used ALL THE TIME. It doesn't matter if YOU personally don't, too many others do that that is the real attitude a PvE player faces.

-Solicitations from PvP players trying to get people to play PvP often feel like the PvP people are just looking for more newbies to abuse. "I need more fresh meat for me to slaughter!".


So, PvP guys, please realize that no matter how much you preach to the choir, you won't get converts. You are already talking to people who know they are carebears and scrubs AND PROUD OF IT!

Assuming that high end pvp players dont get money from what they are doing is naive

Why I don't PvP..

It's outdated....

The end...

and yet this is the main competitive form of PvP in the sequel.

Amazing that some players still care about gw1 pvp so much as to start threads like this one. Wish the developer cared as much.

tl;dr 6y old dead game, move on.

We're talking about trying to get people going into low end PvP, remember?

I've done all the various PvP forms over the years and the most fun out of all of them came from random arenas and probably AB.

I will never ever like serious PvP. I don't like serious gaming. Even on Call of Duty/Battlefield, I go for modes where I'm randomly placed into a team. I've won in all forms of PvP and lost, and the only reason I ever cared about winning was because I was getting points in X title or receiving a chance at X reward.

AB was fun, when I was with friends of course. I did more serious PvP with friends too and it was less fun. I'm suspecting AB was more fun because we'd laugh about silly builds we made up, and to see how they would work. We would never play to just win (although we always tried). Same with RA, usually I played it to test out certain builds and see if they were fun to play or not. Other times I played so I could get Gladiator points or B faction. The funnest was winning games with a A/Mo sin with healing skills and shadow steps.

I played TA, never enjoyed it. I played HA, won quite a few times..never enjoyed it. Same with GvG..all way too serious for me. What I mean by that is it requires you to use your mind, I don't want to use my mind when I game..I'm a Diablo player..I like to sit and drool and press keys to move forward. The fun I get out of 98% of the games I play comes from getting title points, rank points, rewards or achievement points. Not if I'm good enough to best the other player, I don't really care.

The only game where I can say that last sentence is least true is maybe FPS multi-player. Even then, I play to see my K/D raise and my rank go up.

The only game I actually play to best challenges for no reason outside of getting a higher score in leaderboards is Guitar Hero/Rock Band. Those are the most fun competitive games I play, everything else..like I said, I don't take seriously and I don't want to take seriously, nor do I want to think.

Even in the MMO's I play, raiding is not very fun for me because it requires me to use my mind..I enjoy it at the start then start to get sick of it..and the only reason I even do it is to get my armor/weapons. Never for the challenge.

I will be playing PvP in GW 2, but since I'm not like you and besting other players doesn't reward me nor give me any type of enjoyment (at least, not enough to keep me interested)...I probably won't stay there long.

Granted, besting monsters in PvE doesn't reward me either, I do it out of some kind of obsessive obligation to get certain things completed.

well the OP was actually trying to encourage ppl to GvG, using AB as a learning tool only. More players in any form if pvp is a bonus ofc, but he was referring to the more "high end" arenas. Once ur in gvg, u start bad and work up, eventually becoming a top player urself. Simply natural progression.

Its only other random posts in the thread that are openly saying ppl should join FA/JQ/RA. Realistically joining these formats does not change anything, as they are formats that you join and enter solo, the thread (and many others) is openly trying to promote organised team based play.

Balanced PvP offers no reward or fun for me.

Titles - lol...just no
HoH chest - I can buy anything from that chest
Status - Couldn't care less what anyone thinks of me on the internet

So, what is the point?

6 years I've played 1200 hours. Gaming is something to entertain when bored. Gaming should never end up being a second life (or your life...looking at those with many thousands of hours)

In GW2 I'll play world vs world as that is highly entertaining. Balanced is a yawn fest where everyone pretty much runs variations of the same build until one of the skills get nerfed. The PvP community then cries for a while until another build is created and the cycle repeats.

Sounds fun....

Having a lot of hours on guild wars doesnt have to impact on ur social life at all. At the time i wanted to get into GvG more seriously, i just stopped watching tv since thats how i was previously wasting my evenings. Sure i probably have 5k+ hours logged or something over 5 years, but considering i'll never play gw > doing stuff with friends, and i still go out and get drunk 1-2 nights a week, and play for 2 different sports teams, as well as holding down a full time job. The number of hours logged on gw is entirely down to how u manage ur time, im probably online 4+ hours a day virtually everyday (yes call me nerdy if u like), but when u think how much time u waste every day of ur life watching tv, reading a book etc, if u were to spend all that time on gw instead, its not so different.

I also presume you dont like sports irl, i mean football and rugby etc are all "balanced" in the sense its 2 teams set up identically, playing to the same set of rules, and the most skillful team wins. Pretty similar to much of guild wars, hence the term e-sport applies. Sports have survived for centuries, and in the modern era are one of the biggest money spinners in the world - see samuel eto'o new contract, 55k per day? lol. And e-sports are catching up, League of Legends season2, 5million dollar prize fund proves it. Clearly many people do not find "balanced" boring and like to test their individual ability against others. Although ofc, ur perfectly entitled to hold ur differing opinion if so desired.

Do you think the same of competitive sports?

I'll try my best to stay on topic. Although I do not agree with all the things the OP said, at least they attempted to show reasons why someone might get interested in PVP.

I believe the main problem in the case you put forward is it was all your opinion which in some cases you believe to be fact. New people to PVP (whether they be new to the game or coming from PVE) will experience various problems (wait times, elitism, raging) and even after your post there is not the incentives to make players want to leave guilds, encourage friends, make new friends so they are able to consistently find people to play with. I know they could AB but AB as you mentioned does not have trouble with numbers currently so they would need to make the migration to HA or GVG.

I do think if you want to encourage more people to PVP creating threads with the intention of this one are the right way to go about it.

I like some sports. Sport requires talent, dedication and varying degrees of pain. I like football, but I disagree with the way it's going. Getting paid millions a year to kick a piece of plastic is pathetic.

E-sport..it chokes me to even think of a game as sport. It's just ridiculous on so many levels.

the difference between sports and e-sports is pretty much nil. Sports do not even "require" fitness or endurance although it often helps. Some of the worlds top darts players are morbidly obese, far larger than most if not all guild wars players ;P

Sports require commitment, endeavour, a winning mentality, and good teamwork + communication skills. E-sports need the same.

I agree, the concept of e-sports does seem ridiculous, but in the world we live in sports and e-sports are becoming ever more intertwined.


Also as an offtopic comment: The footballers only get paid what they're worth, as stupid as that sounds. We all watch the games and are happy to pay the ticket prices, as well as the subscription to pay per view football channels on tv. We complain about it, yet everybody is happy to sit there and pay for it. If people stopped watching football, the sponsorship would stop --> stupid salaries would stop. Considering they provide entertainment to millions of viewers worldwide and reach out to a global audience, in context their salaraies seem far more in line. They dont get paid to just kick a ball, they get paid huge salaries for providing an entertainment service for the entire world population and get paid accordingly.

Ofc then the half a dozen clubs with billionaire owners who bankroll them ignore this principle entirely. But my post does at least apply to most clubs

Why? What fundamental difference is there between the two? What difference is there between two teams competing against each other on a football pitch and the two fighting it out in the course of a tournament for some FPS game? What difference is there between the two top Snooker players in a tournament final and the two Starcraft who face each at the end of a tournament?

Edit: Dammit, floor.

A great post Angry.

Unfortunately it seems some still can't see past the vocal minority that discolours the community by jumping on your tongue-in-cheek and actually see validity of your post. Funny, being that it proves your point.

Everyone loves lulz.

Let it be said that I both PvE and PvP.

I read the first post and I feel insulted. The is the only paragraph you've written that deals with why people should PvP.

I call bullshit. What is rewarding is up to the player to decide. If he thinks it's rewarding to death level monsters and farm pre-update LDoA, that is up to him, and you have no right to interfere. You think getting more trinkets is useless. So? Someone else might want to get more trinkets so he has one of every monthly everlasting tonic. Who are you to criticize him for what his aims in the game are?

Do you really think that most PvE'ers don't know how to clear missions? Or, fyi, that most of the things on Wiki are actually subpar? And that's before you actually get into the real competition in PvE, which let me tell you is far more competitive than you think it is. No competition in PvE, that's ridiculous. No idea when you improve in PvE, that's even more ridiculous. PvE isn't challenging, why don't you try to 7H UW HM without cons, or solo DoA HM. PvE isn't exhilarating, that's because you have never achieved anything in PvE, instead getting carried by the people who wrote Wiki.

I'm willing to bet my last dollar that you have no idea what high-end PvE is like, and yet here you are criticizing PvE. Ridiculous.

And I've not even mentioned how people can actually choose to play this game to have fun, not to compete.

I'm all for getting more people into PvP, but approaches like yours aren't helping. You may be free to come to your own conclusions about how stupid PvE is, but to call PvE'ers losers on a public forum and then try to force your vision of the game on them is an insult. Please stfu before I start a topic entitled "why you should PvE".

Contrary to how most of you pve fundamentalists have been interpreting what I wrote I'm not here to bash on pve in general or to try to persuade every guruposter into going full pvp. Let me tell you a story.

I got this game back in may 2005 or so and started off in pre-searing pve. It was amazing. Then trying to make my way into post-searing I was forced into a 4v4 pvp arena where I got trashed.(or so I assume) I spent my first years doing mainly pve but tried every arena as I moved my way through the prophecies storyline. (ascalon arena -> yaks bend -> the jungle -> droknar) The game experience peaked with the introduction of sorrow's furnace. Pve was fun, I've played through all campaigns with several pve characters. I've done fow, uw, doa and eotn dungeons. I've steered clear of these so-called speed clears and so I may not be a "high end pve'er" like yourself, but I do have quite a lot of experience in pve.

Now where am I going with this? My biggest regret in GW is that I got into serious pvp way too late, people were already good at pvp and it was hard to break into. And I was reluctant to get on vent with ragey teenagers only to be bossed around or raged at. If this was a barrier to me back then I can only imagine what a barrier it is to players today. The reason I regret not doing serious pvp earlier is because (imo, of course!) pvp is just so much better in every way than pve. You feel more involved and especially to those of you who have stressed that you prefer cooperation before competition, pvp is SO much about cooperation, it truly is a team effort. As I've put it earlier I believe there is a largely undiscovered part of the game out there for most people. To many it may seem like too high a barrier to get into and they are unaware of how rewarding it can be, I've tried to portray WHY pvp can be so much fun and how even people totally inexperienced to pvp can, with a bit of effort and determination, still get their hands dirtied by pvp - and love it!

I have no delusions that every guruposter will flock to pvp after this thread but I hope at least some of you will be jerked out of your comfort zone and give it a try - in the right way. Don't expect to get easy wins, don't expect the HA regulars to come hold your hand, don't enter the poor pvp arenas.(RA) If you are adamant about your pve exclusivity chances are I won't be able to persuade you any time soon anyway. This post is not directed at you. This post is for those that are bored with pve, want to try pvp, have tried pvp but given up or those that pvp but haven't been able to find their place yet. It seems to me most people who try pvp look in the wrong places(RA, HA intl) or expect to dominate since they have beasted in pve and are put off by getting rolled in pvp. It's like trying to cross a road with heavy traffic. Just because you've learnt to walk doesn't mean you can just waltz into the road and expect to cross unscathed. Finding a zebra-crossing is simply the best way to go about it. And to those of you who want to cross that road, I'm telling you where that zebra-crossing is. It's called AB and picking your friends to come along.

tl;dr - I'm not here to criticize pve. I'm not here to tell people what they like. I'm not here to make friends. I'm not here to express myself as some sort of self-terapy. I'm not here to lure poor pve'ers into pvp as "fresh meat". I'm here because I believe a large portion of you are missing out on the best part of GW. I'm here to shine a light. As the selfless samaritan I am.

Let there be light!

anyone that says pvp is dead is wrong.

from personal experience, if i was to set up a gvg now, i would get a game in 2/3 minutes tops.

a 2/3 minute wait is nothing, you can talk to your teammates, go on youtube, go on forums, stalk friends on facebook. if you can't occupy yourself for 2 minutes on the internet, you need help.

anyone complaining about wait time clearly has no patience and needs to learn that when you press a button things dont happen automatically. 30s wait is how long you wait in a que for a cup of coffee, if not longer. If you honestly don't have the mental capabilities to wait 30s for something, then again you need help.

Half of the people that have replied on this thread have probably never played AB properly with 2/3 friends. AB is a brilliant arena, where you actually have to think about what you're doing or you're gonna end up losing dramatically. And the tactics are very simple. you either fight a team, cap a shrine, or run around like a headless chicken. either way it's a brilliant place to practice simple things like kiting, weapon swapping or even more complex things like movement control, ganking etc.

also, i love how all the pve players are more stuck up than most casual pvp players. i tried to join a speedclear or something the other day after 2 years of no pve, and nobody would take me on their team cause i never had a pve skill or something. seriously? also why do i need like 1000 summoning stones to show that i've done something before? you mock players needing titles to pvp, then wont let players join pve groups cause htey dont want to spend 40 hours maxing a title?

i think most pve players need to take a look at themselves before they go around calling pvp players elitests, at least we allow players to join our team and help them. personally we've been playing with players that have never gvg'd and gotten to the top 200 on the ladder from doing practically nothing but playing builds you can see by using the "b" button to observe or going here ...

http://www.gwpvx.com/Category:Meta_working_GvG_builds
http://www.gwpvx.com/Category:Meta_working_AB_builds

honestly, if you have more than 10 minutes and a few friends, click one of those links and play pvp. you wont regret it

AB: better now due to imperial faction , but still people that don't know what they're doing
RA: better now due to pt change (less frustration), but more people that are just in there for points (PVErs who sit in 40/40 sets with radiant insignias)
GvG: used to be better , lower bar to entry
HA: used to be better due to activity, variety
TA: gone, used to be better version of RA
HB: gone

AB isn't real PvP most of the time because of the mobbing and the triple nuking of shrines, spirit camping, and defy pain warriors.

I played a crapload of AB starting in Factions mainly because most of the people I GvGed with had left when the Koreans left.

The reason why more people that play PvE will enjoy AB than GvG: there's positive feedback, rather than a dipping guild rank when you lose. It's inevitable you lose when you first start out.



I think what it boils down to is whether you have the patience to be good, whether it is PvP or PvE. Even in PvE you either see direct wiki builds in zones where they fail or builds that make you go WTF (Warriors with fire spells). That's not even counting people that can't play builds properly or stand in AoEs.

It's been said Guild Wars is Skill>Time Played... but it's only to a certain extent. You're probably not going to be quarterknocking patient spirit if you only played 50 hours total.

In smaller formats such as RA or TA, every mistake is amplified compared to AB (unless it's 4-4-4). If your WoH gets d-shotted by pure luck, then it's "o s---". For damage dealers, larger formats are more important for practice since 2 monks and a rit flagger do much more to mitigate than 1 heal monk.

I know for a fact when I don't play for a while, I get really rusty (missing pre-prots for example). In "real" PvP, with the number of skillchanges happening, if you don't GvG for a month or two it's basically like starting from square one except for the map knowledge and GvG mechanics (flag running, trebuchets, kits, etc.).

The other problem with GvG is you have to have people playing at the same time... and if you want your team to be any good everyone has to know what the team is doing (so you don't need to discuss tactics in depth while in the match, on voice chat). These people also need to be reasonably knowledgeable unless you want to be facerolled: shield sets, kiting, knowledge of skills, basic PvP map knowledge, etc. If someone wants to improve they need to be able to take criticism without ragequitting like some people in RA.

@OP, also not everyone has the killer/achiever mentality. Some are socializers/explorers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test)