For PvPers: Why are you against 'unlock through PvP', why UAS?

No, it happens to be a true one. The ignorance lies in those unwilling or unable to accept it.

I can guarantee almost every competitive gamer would consider your statement extraordinarily absurd in the context of this discussion.

Somehow, the notion that the 'NOW NOW NOW' brigade doesn't agree fails to disquiet me.

On the other hand, I can guarantee you that almost every competitive gamer, contrary to what you seem to assert here, is enjoying themselves actually playing and winning the game, not whining on the forums about how they have to work for it.

Let me illuminate with an example, Virago. Let us say there is a FPS Lan tournament. In this FPS, there is a 1% random chance at the start of a match that a player will do double damage with all his weapons throughout the match. If during the finals both players fail the roll for the double chance, it will be a level playing field. If during the finals one player wins the roll and the other doesn't, it will not be a level playing field. Note that there is an arbitrary and completely unskilled advantage obtained in this example.

Since I've kept track, this is the 4th time you've misconstrued and fallaciously stereotyped PvPers.

I would disagree. Many pvp guilds have complained if you haven't been aware.

Is there even a single RPG which GW definitey is, regardless of if it is MMO or CO, that has this mysterious "Level Playing Field"?

I know what youmean Air.. Truly I do. But given the genre the game is in.. RPG and not FPS.. I sicerely doubt you will ever have a level playing field right out of the box.

They can adjust things to make it easier to acheive the LPF as an end goal. but it will likely never happen as a starting point.

If you are asking about games that have unbalanced pvp, but its still available? tons. Neverwinter nights, nox, uncountable muds, etc.

The concept is not really novel, even though it might seem like it to some people.

This is a straw man argument that ignores the points brought up as to why competitive pvp doesn't benefit from grind as its starting point.

What I meant was what I said.. How many RPG gaames have a Level Playing Field from the get go? I realize that this one doesn't by your terms, but tell me which if any of the others do.

...read my post again?

This is not an FPS. It is an MMO. The core premise of the MMO is time investment is a required ingredient.

It is neither a misconstruction nor a fallacy. A good 98% of all such posts on the topic have completely ignored anything that even remotely hints at compromise in favor of insisting their way is the 'only way' and predicting all manner of gloom and doom if ArenaNet doesn't cave in to their demands. This is precisely what a 'NOW NOW NOW' mentality is, and considering I'm a PvP player (though admittedly much less so these days), my opinion on matters is just as valid as yours, even if you do dislike it.

I hate to break the bad news to you, but there isn't a single PvP guild that I recognize playing this game:

- Shadowclan is in WoW and still clinging to Shadowbane, and DAoC,

- SiNister is in WoW,

- Mithril Alliance is in WoW, DAoC, and Shadowbane,

- Disciples of The Dark Hand is pretty much in every PvP game on the MMO scene except this one, and for the most part, any of the PvP guilds with history have either not noticed this game or have preferred another to it.

In all honesty, I'm a bit surprised ArenaNet hasn't offered any of them trial access. Then again, I'd hate to see what passes for PvP here get the 'show up'. (grin)

Kindly note, every one of the guilds I mention above I have either had personal experience playing with or against, and every one of them are what I'd call a true PvP Guild -- a group of people who hone their skills across numerous games and pursue PvP simply for the enjoyment OF PvP.

They don't whine about what they have to do to win. They just do it. And they do it damned well.

A lot of would be PvP glory hounds on these forums would do well to take a few pages from their book, hence the links.

Suffice to say, I've enough experience with PvP guilds of all types to know that those trying to present themselves as 'speakers of the milieu' here are anything but such.

Sometimes you really wonder why people keep on insisting that GW should be kept at the level of the other mmonrpgs out there when it was specifically designed to be otherwise. And that those same people are trying to tell the alpha and beta players that they're wrong about the game.

"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain" (schiller) pretty much sums up why this issue is still flaring in debate.

^ good book too

Little thing called 'competition', Zeru. Trivial to most who play games, but surprisingly important to those who make them. Go figure.

You talk as if ùnlevel playingfields is a good thing. The fact that other MMORGPs have unlevel playing fields because of ph4t 100t and infinite levels isn't an argument in favor of having unlevel playing fields in GW, it's an argument against those other MMORPGs.

All other MMORPGs also charge per month. That means that the whole business concept of the game is to keep people grinding, and perpetually holding a carrot in front of them in the form of loot and levels is the way people are kept on the treadmill.

GW wasn't supposed to be that way. It was supposed to be a level playing field, where a noob could come in, create a PvP character, and compete on equal terms with the people who've been here since beta. As of now it isn't, unless the noob joins an elite guild who helps him run at least one PvE characters through the campaign and outfits him.

As a competitive FPS gamer I can completely see why the PvP'ers don't like this situation.

My own perspective is however slightly different. In GW I am a pure PvE'er, and I am tired of finding myself in pick-up groups with annoyed and petulant PvP'ers out speedlevelling, farming some elite skill, or elite drop. They don't want to be there, I don't want them to be there - so why make them?

I mean, seriously, what's the point?

I think some people who bought the game assumed this was only a pvp game. When you bought the game it has 2 halves. RPG and PVP. They have to complement each other or you dont have a full game. Sorry but you also must play both, to get the most out of your game. End discussion. Nothing was ever labeled any differently from ArenaNet.

1) You can pick up a lvl 20 char and jump right into the pvp.
2) You can concentrate on RPG if you like.
3) The full game involves both, rpg and pvp, to get the most out of it.

Quit trying to stetch it into anything different than what it was labeled as. You must take part in both to get the most out of the full game.

Well, if it is to involve both rpg and pvp to get the most out of it, then what about a suggestion from, I think Laz made it. Beating the game once gives you access to the skills?

Perhaps beating it could unlock at least all the non elite skills for your primary and secondary?

Why would you need ALL the skills? I don't understand this at all. Some skills just aren't good for your intended build...so why bother wasting time getting them? I do the skill quests, buy what I need from merchants, beat the game and I'm done. It's no different now, than what you're suggesting.

They may be good for your intended build, but what about when you want to change your build around?

Say you have an interuption ranger, and have no skill points left, after spending them for your pve and pvp setups. What about when you want to try, say a pet ranger, but have no pet skills? Play forever to get the skills points to unlock the pet skills, or start from the beginning and play all the way through again to get those?

In a pvp game like this, stragety is important, and strageties to beat other teams are constantly changing, builds becoming obsolete. People should be able to change a little quicker than what it is, or else pvp will become very stagnant.

Then go back to the merchants and buy them...they aren't expensive.

As I said I do all the skill quests along the way..they are simple enough. At merchants I don't bother with skills I wont ever see myself using. Trust me...theres plenty of skills you can tell you wont be using. And if a rare occasion comes up where it may prove to be useful...just go and pick it up from the merchant.

You can't buy them form merchants if you don't have any skill points left, though.

There's one big constraint on PvP characters that isn't really talked about, and that's the desire to not obsolesce RP characters in PvP. Like it or not, a lot of people do want to bring their RP characters into Tombs and feel that they're competitive, not just being blown away by tricked out PvP characters with gear that can't realistically be acquired.

Hence the whole unlocking thing.


Personally I think the biggest problem is that PvE characters are not flexible enough. Sure you can switch secondaries, but you quickly run straight into the skill point wall. There simply are not enough skill points available to learn every skill from your first two classes, let alone any class you switch to. You can't just keep grinding out skill points, either, as the amount of experience required keeps increasing - I'm up at around 30k required per skill point and it just takes forever. This is just going to keep getting worse in expensions, of course. So realistically if you want to change secondaries you need to play *another* character with that secondary up to unlock skills with, then make a PvP guy with that profession combination.

But then you need to have runes unlocked as well, and with the neccessity of Superiors in high level play that simply is not realistic. You either have to spend days grinding out superior runes (and then you only get a random assortment), or you twink every PvP guy with runes that you buy in town, which gets expensive absurdly fast.

Don't get me started on +5 bowstrings and the like.

Now personally I think that a ton of this would simply be fixed by allowing people to trade in skills from one class for skills from another - let me junk some of my Mesmer skills to buy Monk skills when I switch my secondary from Mesmer to Monk, or whatever. Then I could realistically switch from El/Mes to El/Mo and play a useful character, instead of 'well, I can switch secondaries, then spend three hours grinding out skill points to buy the skills I need to make this build, or I can just make a PvP guy that'll give me the flexibility I need'.

Secondary class switching was something I was hesistant about at first, but it's a great idea - it just needs the next step, to allow people to realistically acquire skills for their new secondary instead of having to grind out a ton of skill points to be functional.


I love the flexibility that PvP characters give, but I wish it didn't feel so mandatory. Give RP characters much of the same sort of flexibility, and I think many of the complaints will go away.

Now, to solve the rune / upgrade availability and 'run to the middle of nowhere to capture a key skill' problems.

Peace,
-CxE

Perhaps you missed the "out of skill points" part of my question.

I know I hardly ever have skill points. I tried building two new pvp test characters, and have been out of sp since. Since I've already beaten the game, it takes me a while just to get 1 sp.

*edit*
Agreed. I've wanted to switch my R/E to an R/N for a while, but it's taking me at least 2 days to get an sp or 2, so my secondary would be worthless to me for too long.

Reading through this, it doesn't really seem like it's moved anywhere past the first page, first page was alright and moved at a decent, well mannered pace. After that, it's just people coming up with smart ass remarks to everyone elses comments, trying to prove them wrong or ignore what they said entirely.

Whining and fighting amongst yourselves isn't going to solve ANY problem, the devs are aware of the situation, end of story, what's taking place in this thread, along with all the other threads exactly like this, is senseless and ultimately heading towards no end.

Stretch your legs, grab a drink, play the game.

Cheers.

How the heck do yah run outta SP's?? I have nearly every skill on my rgr/mo and something like 30 SP left... unless you changed subs which is screwed up imho and needs to be fixed (SP REFUND).

Ensign

you are the numbers man here

what if you got a skill point for every x thousand points and it was locked after level 20 (at whatever figure was reasonable) instead of expanding constantly

would that be enough to make a viable change?

a thousand
maybe a few thousand?

opinion please or is it a useless idea from the start?

How did I run out of SP?

Easy. I used them.

Did you do skill quests? (Those dont take SP's)

Yeah, I did skill quests. And yes, I used my sp for other skills.

And PieXags, your wrong about everthing because I said you were!

Then that doesn't make any sense. Your'e buying more than you're questing for by far.
My ME/Ele and Rgr/Mo have lots of leftover SP's and have 85-90% skills.

Haha, ah wonderful.

That's what I'm here for, to lighten the mood. People get too tweaked over games like this, people just need to learn to be more patient, sit back, relax, eat and drink what you can while playin' some GW, win, lose, get massacred or fight bravely to a wonderous victory, makes no difference to me.

On a side note, I'm at the Iron Mines of Melan...dou...whatever the hell, and I've unlocked every single skill and done all the quests for skills I could up to this point, have about 30 extra skill points left over, how are you people running out? I mean, typically a build only focuses on about 3 attributes anyway, do you really need to buy ALL those other skills? Then I guess you could have a problem.

If you're buying them to have them, just for the hell of it, I guess I can understand that. Whatever floats yer boat I suppose.

I buy the ones I can't quest for or don't have quests currently for, because I learned from experience and past BWE's never to count a skill out as worthless. Most of the time I like to take a new skill I haven't used before and try it out. I never lock myself into one specific build and play style, I like the skills so I can be flexible.

Well, contrary to your belief, nearly every competitive gamer IS making an issue of the grind. I do, as well as nearly everyone i know in my guild and other top guilds. For me personally, there is nothing left to do but compete, since i've grown so sick of grinding that I outright refuse to do it until a fix comes. 90% of my guild have outright quit the game due to the grind alone. My form of competing lately has been degraded to forming pickup groups in tombs, which although successful (won hoh twice today with my pug) It is not what i really want to be doing in this game.

We ARE waiting for a level playing field, if it doesnt come, the competitive community will leave. End of story.

PvPers don't want "Over Time" solutions. We need skills NOW. We need to be competitive NOW. It's not like in PvE where you can squeeze by with even the most awful skill set. Builds = Victory in PvP. and the skills make the build. So what do you do when you want ___ skill but you can't get ___ skill!? You become less effective or have to completely redo your build - sometimes, that's not an option.

UAS has no negitive effects on the PvE whining carebears.

Except that then if they want to do both PvP and PvE they'll be cheated out of using their PvE character because it'll be worse than the PvP characters most likely, and then they'd have to use one of their few character slots to create a PvP character instead of being able to use all their characters to their fullest.

To post on-topic:

PvP grind for skills can help PvPers but it is a bad system for casual gamers and PvPers that come to the game late.

You don't want to be fighting against people that have all the skills to unlock all the skills. Much better to get what you need in a non-competitive settings like PvE.

However, at this point, anything that makes getting skills more accessible is a good thing.


Off topic:
I think Ensign is right about the inflexibilty of the RP characters. Currently there is little reason to take an RP character to PvP if you are a person who likes to change up builds.

However I disagree with the idea that RP characters can't compete with PvP characters. While many people have this point of view, it is nonsensical. If RP characters are fine with competing against RP characters that have all lthe skill unlocked then they should be fine competing against PvP characters with all the skills unlocked. However as Ensign mentions, equipment is a real issue and so is RP character inflexibility.

As for skill points... Does anyone see why we need skill points versus just purchasing skills (at increasing cost)? It doesn't seem like we need two mechanisms to slow down skill acquisition. I'm not even sure why we need to slow down skill acquisition at all, since having a diversity of skills only increases replayability and improves the metagame.

You forget Ensign very good point: the fun to play the mirror of your PvE character.

So one spend like 60 hours getting a character all the way up to level 20, on the way, one gets some decent equipment (without even looking for it), + nearly all skills doing the skill quest. Sure, the character may not have it all, it got flaws, and you may not have all skills: still you've played 60 hours along, had fun doing so, have played a bit in PvE arena and you look forward keep playing that character.
So you mirror it in PvP.
It's not going to be really fun to face UAS players.

I also think the "UAS is good for casual gamers" line is a bit fallacious. GW got a lot of combinations going, and the games rules are not really obvious. I think it takes time to learn the game, and learning skill interaction is part of that. That's a pretty long process.
UAS is not going to help the casual gamer. Instead of having simple, easy to use builds that are roughly efficient, the casual gamers will face gazillion of options, will pick the wrong one, and get owned by the one who have been throught the "PvP" grind ( ) and learnt the game and can make full use of the UAS.
If anything, UAS is going to increase the range between hardcore gamers who can make full use of all the goodies handed to them, and the casual gamers, who got no clue what works together.
If you really want to help the casual gamer, the one who just want to log and play for a bit of fun, make the standard PvP build more efficient.
People pretending to have casual gamers interest at heart got their own hardcore PvP gamers agenda that would be largely detrimental to casual gamers.

Louis,

It's like I said, Louis, "grinding" for the skills will help people how to learn them better. There's the hardcore pvpers who know the combinations, and know how to work each skill, but there's also a large group who don't. Putting in a UAS would just make it so that they don't ever learn. Half the pvp from the BWE where they had UAS was crap, cuz a million n00bs never learned how to play their combo's and their skills correctly, and you'd face a competent team even less than you do now. Giving people skills one at a time makes them learn how to use what they've got, and come up with new tricks that they never would have thought of otherwise, and makes pvp better. Do I think that it should take as long as it does for pvpers to unlock all the skills? Hell no. Do I think they should have to pve to get the the skills? No way. They should be able to get skills through pvp, and it should take a week, max, or a hardcore gamer who already knows what their doing maybe 4 days. I want to pvp with a lot of skills at my disposal, but there needs to be good pvp at the same time. Weezer, Laz, you guys know how to pvp. You guys I'm sure are good at it. But there's a lot who aren't and who don't, who if they had an access to a UAS, would never learn any new tricks. You guys may be smart, but a lot of people are dumb, and need a short forced learning curve to get better. Like I said, a week maximum of getting the skills, that's not too bad, and it'll force them to learn how to play. I'd rather pvp against good players and force myself to get better than fight against a large majority of meatheads with no clue what their doing.

Just get rid of all skills, runes and armour in pvp. Make everyone level 1, give them starter weapons. Then it will be a 'balanced playing field', because obviously skills will never be balanced, runes are pointless if everyone has them, same with armour and weapons.

You simply cannot take FPS mechanics into RPG's. The competitive PvP strips the game down to its very basics (lower graphics settings, try to get as low a ping as possible etc.) and while FPS'es counter this with direct control over combat, RPG's eventually get stripped down to a card game/tic tac toe.

I maintain that the point of PvP should be fun, not winning. If that ever changes in GW, I stop playing, simple as.

Wow... I get 2 SP's in half a day. Did you ever try Fissure of Woe / underworld? 10'000 exp per quest. There's lots of them, and they can be done more than once.

Hardcore gamers will always be the most 'skilled' players, with or without UAS. There is no 'grind', only time invested learning how to play well. With an UAS you cheat yourself out of learning time, and then you will complain that hardcore gamers are STILL better than you.

As was pointed out many times before, it does indeed have an effect. UAS would kill the PvE part of the game... doing skill quests just isnt fun or rewarding when everything is just a click away.

I dont think I'm a carebear, some people were pretty annoyed when I went on my last 45 consecutive wins (42 flawless) spree.

With all due respect, you are the ones whining... the ones who enjoy both PvE and PvP, which is maybe half the playerbase, are content with the game and see no need to whine.

That half would likely quit over an UAS button.

Actually, no that's incorrect.

There's a ton of skills all having different effects,and if people have access to how they want to play (though I support a different way of skills other than a UAS, see my post right aboce john's), then your going to have a million variations of skills, fighting styles, and tactics, in which the personal skill with using the in game skills will be your advantage. Skills are balanced in this, people just need to get them.

Runes do not reduce to being worthless. With the runes benefits and downsides, not every hammer warrior for example will use a superior hammer rune, but some will, and other will use different. It depends on how much your willing to sacrifice to get the extra stats, and that can change a build.

1) Ensign, you Da Man. I agree with everything you said.

2) Celes Tial, UAS would kill the PvE for those who don't want to be there. I don't want to do PvP, I only want to do PvE, and I'll keep PvE'ing even if there's a UAS button.
As I've said, getting the people who don't want to do PvE out of PvE is my reason for supporting UAS in PvP. As I've said I really don't see the value in forcing people to do PvE when they don't want to. I've not seen anyone actually answer that question either.

Dont try to join one of my tombs groups then.
me: do you have xyz skill?
you: no i have abc and fgh though.
<me boots you>

seriously, certain builds require certain skills. The fact that i have to skip over people in groups just to get the kind of team i need on top of the constraints of having competent players, and getting them all on voice just adds to the time and frustration in getting pvp set up and running. The other day i put my whole team on hold for 20 minutes before we started while one of our ele's went out to grab elemental attunement. This kind of stuff really irritates me.