A Different Sort of Arena

Alright peoples, having beaten the game and gotten the 60k armor and maxed out weapons (or at least as maxed out to the point where it actually matters), and having done all the quests/missions available 1,000 times I find myself growing bored with GW. It's a great game, but unless you absolutely adore the forms of PvP available there isn't much to it after that. I suppose I personally just don't like how everything's set, it's like "Alright, 3, 2, 1---go at it!"

Some people enjoy this sort of small-scale PvP. I personally don't enjoy it that much because even after playing through the tombs going to the HoH, playing in the arenas time and time again...it just seems to be so repetitive. Battles rarely if ever bring anything new or interesting into the experience in PvP, just same classes/builds over and over.

So I got to thinking, what about a giant battlefield? Well not really giant, but you understand what I mean. We already know that zones can play many players without lag as we see in the tombs, but I think I want something more than a set arena where we run around.

What about like a giant battle field, like red vs blue or something. And each team has like a few towns or areas that they primarily reside in. And it's basically like this.

There's some guy, you talk to him, and you go enter the zone. It allows you to choose from the red or blue team (it just controls the team amounts to keep them even), and you then spawn in the teams primary town. Yahoo, great, you and your teammates (all random and what not, just players, like in a normal town) are around selling/trading, etc. And whenever you want with as many people as you can gather, say you can go siege the hell out of the other side. Go attack their towns and fight for them and what not.

This may sound an aweful lot like other MMORPG PvP, where everybody gets ganked---except in this you wouldn't have lvl 89 guys coming through getting hit for 2 damage and dealing out thousands of points to masacre everyone. It'd be fair, so that people could actually fight back and defend their town and they wouldn't have to call out "NEED HIGH LVLS TO PROTECT TOWN, COME QUICK!" Like they do in other games.

It would actually be a war, and I think this could be REALLY exciting. I know I'd be much more likely to play longer if say I could get some friends, enter this arena, form a party in the town and then go run across the lands to their town. But then we find some of the other team in the wild on the way, and have to beat them up. Or say someone types in the chat that we're being screwed over at the 2nd town and that they need help, so we run back and help.

Like a much bigger form of the Arena PvPs, with more people and some actual wilderness and land to explore and fight in, instead of a tiny little arena where you run around in circles after the monk that's left.

I kinda doubt this will ever be implemented...but I personally would enjoy it just to have PvP with a purpose, to protect or to capture towns and what not. There would be no "blue team wins!" or anything, it would ALWAYS be going on. Just like an entirely different PvP section of the game, and it wouldn't be insanely difficult to do either. Just a bigger map with some wilderness, it wouldn't require a "blue team has captured this town" or anything, you'd be able to tell by all the blue guys running around in the red town, and all the red guys dead and respawning elsewhere. Each team could have one respawn little camp that can't be entered by the other team or something to respawn in when they die.

I think both PvP and PvE people would like it, I enjoy a little of both, and I just think it'd be fun. I'm tired of having to stick with my guild and what not for battles...I want to be able to explore and fight you people at the same time! I want to organize big swarms of 15-20 people to go run you out of your town, that sort of thing.

I enjoy PvP, a lot. It's fun, but it gets repetitive, sieges and fighting PvP with a purpose other than "hit people until they die...match over...do it again in the same arena". Now it's hit people and run them out of town while fighting valiantly to keep them out of your area.

Just a thought, won't be implemented problably...but I know of a lot of people who would enjoy some more meaningful PvP, even if they had to pay another $50 for it in an expansion.

Because Mass of Warriors A vs. Mass of Warriors B will be ton's more interesting that 4 v 4 or 8 v 8 matches?

I agree that there are issues with the same builds being used over and over in the current PvP setup, but as someone who plays all bad classes, I still have fun with it, and I trust the devs.

To comment on your first statement.

Yes! You see whlie warriors are a very very common class another very common class is the elementalist and their wonderful AoE spells, in the arenas we have right now---they hardly do a damn thing. If there were 15 warriors colliding outside a town fighting for control over the place, a fire storm or a meteor shower would be much cooler, and because of the excess amounts you could actually have other stategies around this because you wouldn't have their warriors dodging your 2 warriors to screw your one caster, it would actually be a battle---not a stupid "beat you up, beat you up, we're done" sort of deal.

Allow me to demonstrate a battle in the arena right now using |'s.

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Get back here damnit!
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All but the last scene happening in about 40 seconds. That's just...not satisfying...and even in GvG, it's just that on a larger scale, never really a battle for me. I want a WAR damnit! I didn't sign up for a 10 minute game of laser tag when I entered those battles, I went in for a battle. Instead it seems I just go in, we call target...do it again...have someone run around in circles...do it again...

Ok so that wasn't a very well drawn out arena battle, but give me credit for the effort.

I love the idea.

A question: The town's that you were defending would have to be like Ascalon Settlement, right?

It would also be cool if there were a guild version of this for guilds with >15 or so people. And you could have to defend your actual hall.

They need this.

This... sounds... stanking... AWESOME DUDE! If they added this, it would be so cool! Lag would be enormous though, bleh. I can see it though. Voice chat would be a no, but it would still be awesome!

This is a very WoW concept, but seeing how WoW is adding game changes to emulate GW's popularity, I don't see why we can't have more epic WoW style battles for GW. I agree it would be fun, and it would be a good move. It would probably a bitch to implement, though.

That's what I was thinking, it's a relatively big idea, but I think a large majority of the community would enjoy it, and I know for sure it would enlarge the community as a whole if they added this sort of style PvP.

I don't think lag would be that bad. There would need to be a cap on it, I mean you couldn't have like 100+ people on either side, but well say you're playing in the tombs, 8x4 = you've got 32 people fighting. And I don't lag a bit in the tombs, so I'm positive you could have more a lot of people fighting, just not TOO extreme.

I just think it would be A LOT more interesting, and a lot more addictive. It is in a sense leaning more towards other MMORPGs, you're right. RYL has a style where you just run around and gank everyone, HOWEVER, we wouldn't have to worry about it in this game, because the max lvl is 20 and there are so many level 20's---you could REALLY see how you play with this many people.

Also, I miss exploring things. Having been near everywhere...I never get that "woah, cool" sort of thing I did when I went through the game, I think it would be fun to fight in PvP out in the wilds or something, and if someone runs away---well they're going to run back to their town right? And isn't that what you wanted to do was siege the town? So running monks won't be near as big a deal, and will lead to a lot more fun.

Anyways, thought I'd toss this idea out there because I would really enjoy it as a whole, and I trust Anet to implement it correctly if they ever would decide to.

Thanks for the responses, lets get more people to comment on this. If the idea grows large enough we may see it in an upcoming expansion 'eh? That would be really, REALLY neat. And I try to make serious suggestions, not "gawd qit nerfing .rangers@! 1!1!!1!!!" threads.

--Edit--

In response to Manadar's town question. Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Ascalon settlement is a good image to think of when you consider the idea of a "town".

Yeah, I would love to see epic style battles like 30 vs 30 or even more. I don't care about individual player skills and small group tactics. If you want that you can always go to the regular arenas that already exist.

Alright I'd like to see this idea more than just die off in the dark, so lets go and do this.

If there are those who think they would enjoy and support this form of PvP, just place a put a /support with your character name. (And then watch yet another one of my insanely brilliant suggestions die off in the dark.)

/support

Pie Xags of Origin

I'd love to try WoW-style Battlegrounds in GW.

/signed

/support

Manadar the Healer

/support CUZ THIS WOULD BE AWESOMELY INSANE!!!!!!

This sounds almost exactly like Dark and Light. I don't know if that game has come on the market yet, but I was signed up for the betas before I knew about the GW betas. Their basic thought was to have a huge world(actually I believe their land scape generetor created like an equiliant of like 15 acres i belive they said at one point per player in the world) and one side of it was the Dark nation's and the other side was the Light nation's. Every now and then they had huge castles that could be controled by either side, but to gain control you had to just storm the castle and surrounding area with as many people as you could. I never actually got to play it because I was tired of waiting since they weren't accepting anymore applicants so i joined gw. But this would be an awsome thing for gw to have. The only problem is that the game doesn't require high speed internet, somone with dail up can play it. If you were to change this you might have to change the requirements, which would screw me up cause I have something only a little faster than dail up. But I think this is something they should seriously consider in future expansions. This would make a true Guild War.

Just so long as it is financially fiesable, I would love this. No one can argue the utter allure of the largest of large scale fights. Like, think of the possibilities shall we? A thunderous siege complete with castle, map based siege weapons (both offensive and defensive) etc. etc. etc. Or perhaps a 3 way "risk" style of game based on defending/attacking towns, etc. etc. etc. I mean, it might not carry the balanced pvp experience of the arena's but who cares? It would be all in good fun and the gvg and HoH would still hold the prizes and ranks. I don't care if it is a WoW style of idea, because it could possibly be a great one.

I also think that a good way to kind of bring down the massive queue that the WoW battlegrounds experience carries (Although the alliance horde imbalance problem would not be evident in guild wars) Is to set up a reenforcements system, where a person joining hangs out in a lobby and when a certain number of people die then the new fresh soldiers are tossed into the fray.

I also like this because it would toss more "Massive" into the MMO that is guild wars (I am not willing to accept that "not an mmo" crap because all it does is create a quick escape for those trying to debate with me about guild wars vs WoW).

God, I honestly am working myself into a frenzy thinking about how cool this could be, a 20 on 20 game would just be fackin unreal. I am disgusted at the thought of anyone trying to go against this.

Although, let it be said that I am in now way sick of the pvp arenas.

can't those people that die just be ressurected? I think maybe once a player leaves the game another one can come in and take his place. I think that would be a little hard to program but it would even it out.

seeing as you can play with 100s vs 100s, holy hell, yeah.
This Idea is really good. I haven't got to the part where you get bored yet, but I know I will because I am more of a PvE player than PvP (maybe cuz I suck). This should definately be implemented.

Good. I'm really pleased to see that there are actually people to support this idea. I love it, I NEED it. Guild Wars would just be so much FUN, if you could compete in battles like this. I'm also pleased to see that this thread isn't on page 3 again.

Keep the idea alive peoples, lets let the devs know we actually want something like this.

Sounds like chaos, an i love it

It kina reminds me of the castle thing that was on the beta and E3 for everyone, where it was one side defending, i think someone posted a thread about that somewhere..

Anyway, would there be a prize on it? like every time your team wins you get tokens that can be exchanged for fancy lookng armour and weapons?

i think more different classes would be picked for this cause in the end there will be lots of different classes attacking at youre door so the more different classes you have to counter whatever hey have will rule i would love to sit somwhere and shoot random arrows into the battle lol

Huge three-way siege, catapults to pound enemies to a pulp...

Oh wow, that would be awesome. I want some WARS. Some actual BATTLES. I want to be fighting for something or against something FOR something.

Right now---PvP has no backing. It's just PvP. For some reason, that I'm unaware of, these "guild battles" and little pockmark arena fights are pointless. Why are we fighting them? Because we're bored. It shouldn't be like that. It should be something where we can go and actually fight together and have some major fun in huge epic battles that continue to rage throughout the day. Not some countdown timer and a "blue team put their flag on the obelisk...oh no...woopdee doo..." We need to be fighting with some backing, with some purpose, with some fun! I'm tired of...ok...HoH...we'll get our name announced...w00t...ish...

You get the idea.

Hi, im not sure about your town idea, but I definitivly beleive that larger PvP area with more players and different playstyles with games that can last as long as 30 minutes (with a score and stats at the end) would realy Kick ass.

Currently the game holds up to 6 teams of 8 = 48 players

So 24 against 24 is a nice bunch.

Few ideas:

There is limitation on how many players of a specific profession can join (like 6-7 of each classes). If they are all taken, the player has to spectate and wait for his turn (or take another of his characters and join as another profession via a well made menu).

The same menu would allow you to choose your skills before starting.

The return of the catapult from one of the the quest.

Win special enchantments from doing special things like ;
Killing 3 in one spell.
3 in a certain ammount of time.

You could even win some extra spell slots (up to 2) and a menu offer you to place a new spell.
"you won the right to a second elite skill"

You can also lose those from playing badly.
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Anyway, thats my vision of it.

Edit: seems someone else had the catapult idea before me hint for developers.

also like that, and for the lag... well most of the skills/spells effect doens't create lag because of basic animation.

The lag would be no different than the sual 48 players games, except the players would all be playing the same game... Not the "wait til the yellow wins" game.


Also a PvE arena with 24 players + (kinda like Invasion) could be cool if done properly. Or PvE missions where another PvE team or 2 are the bad guys.

i don't expect much lag from an idea like that. Of course bit more than usual for those with a crappy comp.

Pionata

I see where you're coming from, but the idea of it as a whole is to stray from the "so and so wins, so and so got so many kills, etc." That's the sort of stuff that is, at least in my case, pushing me away from PvP. It seems so artificial and so strict that it doesn't fuel the need for PvP at all. I'm just kinda like "...ok...blue team wins...yay...I guess...not really." I want something that doesn't end, that never gives stats or "yellow team is the victor!" or anything like that. It ruins the feeling for me. I want a WAR. Not something that ends in even 30 minutes. Something people can join, and become a soldier in the ongoing war that is the newest PvP!

When you bring those "winners" after every "round" and stuff like that, it just ruins it. It's not like you're fighting for anything but to see the text at the end. The PvP I'm speaking of is just like an enviornment where the war is always going, where sieges and planned attacks are rampant, that would be MUCH more fun...that just running around in circles over and over again just so you can see that you've been declared the victor. It shouldn't be like that, I want to be able to tell my side has won by the fact that we're in their area, they're all dead. That we own the place sort of thing. And then I want to engage in a battle while dodging catapult fire to defend the area against the onslaught of people who are now charging us. I don't want to have to see a countdown timer and a bunch of shiney text that announces the winner once you're done---because in war you don't have any of that, I don't want it to be done.

If I've got a few hours to play, I want to be able to fight and wage war for my side for a few hours. Not beat a team---click enter mission again---and then wait for the timer to hit 0:00 again just so we can start fighting another team.

If you do it that way, it's just a bigger arena. I don't like the SYSTEM right now, it's boring and dull. Who CARES about the fact that the blue team won only if they're going to die 10 minutes later? Not I. I want a war where I can actually get involved in PvP.

In fact if you did it like a war, an ongoing form of PvP without stats at the end or victors, you wouldn't even NEED to form parties of 8. Because there would be so many people, constantly spawning at a town and traveling to fight off the enemy that you could go in SOLO and do your damage. You wouldn't have to do party vs party, just side against side, with parties as PART of each side.

It's just a much more involved and "guild WARS" sort of PvP.

I love this idea.

You make an excellent point. In a real war, there isn't green text flashing across the screen saying "Hey, you won "

Precisely, there's already PLENTY of that style PvP. I'm not calling for just a "bigger" battle. I'm calling for a different style and system as a whole, one that I think...would be insanely awesome, and really enjoyable for a large portion of the community.

much agreed.

This would be an amazing thing if it was implemented. I fully support it.

As for the lag, i really doubt there would be much at all. If a game like Joint Operations, which has absolutely huge maps and can handle 150 players all playing on the same map with tanks/helicopters/boats/bikes/APCs all moving round picking people up/shooting people/dropping people off with bullets/mortars/antitank weapons/claymores going off at the same time - with no lag, Guild Wars which in comparison is pretty tame, should be able to handle it pretty easily.

So you want Guild Wars to be more Guild Wars than Guild Skirmishes ?

Sounds good to me.

So you have a 20 on 20 area with towns or what have you and you play for 45 min and the red team kills all the blue team.

How do you reset the region?

After all, the red team takes high ground and simply waits for one player to enter and then kills them. Even if you dump 20 players into the blue town at once, the red team is there waiting to take them out.

I guess you could have guards in the towns or gates and the battles would take place for rewards between the towns but IMO part of the reason the arenas and guild wars and HoH works is that there is a clear reset to a balanced position. Without that I can't see this staying balanced.

Maybe you use the graph score and the team "winning" NEVER picks up a new player. All new players only go to the losing side. Not sure that would fix it but it might.

Thoughts?

Say for example, once your side went over and sieged the hell out of the other town, killing everyone in it---they would then respawn at a "camp" or something, that couldn't be entered by the opposing side. Thus giving them a chance to regroup and plan at their spawn point---which would be protected, so that they can go siege and reclaim the town that was once theirs. Or multiple spawn points. Say for example there were 3 camps all near a town, where you spawned/respawned. This way you could effectively regroup and plan on your terf, and go fight for what you were just kicked out of. There wouldn't be "spawn camping", as the camps would be protected in some way, and since there wouldn't be just one, there wouldn't be enough of the enemy to effectively camp all points anyway, giving everyone---losing or winning, a chance to fight back.

Those were my thoughts anyway.

I'm not talking about "resetting" the region. There would be NO resetting. It would be an ongoing battle, a real war, one that didn't end or reset. It's just you die, you respawn back at one of your camps so you can go rejoin the fight. It would be a fair bit away anyways, so you'd need to travel back, and on the way chances are you'd find some more people to fight so you'd never get bored.

Both sides would have as even amounts of players as possible using a simple team system, and with multiple spawn points and regroups there would be an equal amount against an equal amount at all times.

There would be no way to tell the "winning side" because it would ALWAYS be changing, there would be no "ok, we won---RESET"

You see, any siege on a town like that is going to cause losses on both sides, and any time where a team took control of "simply by killing off the other side for the time being" would be weak after such a large battle, half of their guys would be back at the spawn points as well. And then the people at the respawn points would simply regroup and go fight back. If anyone's ever played this sort of PvP you know that it works out.

Also---let me add another few points to this idea and what it would mean.

This style PvP would do many things to benefit the community. It would add a more fun and immersive form of PvP as a whole, but also it would help the current rune/elite skill/party finding as well.

See, with battles of 40 on 40 or something, everybody fighting in a giant mass to take over the town and wage war on one another---it will actually be a WAR.

And in such battles, you'd have several parties that make up each side.

But think of it this way, you spawn in your town, decide to go get the bad guys and join a battle you read through the chat, is going on at X town. So you run over there---BY YOURSELF. And do what you can. There would be so much fighting and what not, and MULTIPLE parties, that going solo would NOT be a big deal. You could still go over and drop some AoE spells that affect all the bad guys, even those from mutiple parties. You could still go over as a warrior and join the battle, and fight by yourself.

Because in such chaos, nobody is going to PICK YOU, because they won't know you're not in a party. You wouldn't have to spend the several minutes finding a good party, you could just go join the fight and do your best. And if you died---respawn and go wage war elsewhere or at the same fight. It makes for some really addictive and casual-player friendly PvP.

Also runes and elite skills wouldn't be that important. Party members would use their party members to select their teammates so it wouldn't be confusing with more than one party on your side. And with such chaos and so many battles you wouldn't need "that one superior rune" to complete your build, because in such a battle it's guaranteed that you can go in and compete amongst the chaos with what you've got. It would remove the need for "all the best stuff" And just add more fighting with purpose.

A massive, neverending Guild WAR, one you can join at any point in the day, fight to the death (several times) at several different locations, against a load of different people with a load of different allies at your side. And when you're done, simply click the little X at the top of your screen, and someone else will be joining soon enough to fill your spot.

That's my idea.

I completely love this idea. Such a change of pace and very interesting...

Also, if you could go in solo, you could try different builds you have been toying with; without effecting the rest of your team.

Imagine siege weapons...group of warriors...*drifts off*

Damn I hope the Guild Wars Developers have already started on such a project...

lol... it is a very interesting idea i'll give you that... but why stop there... i mean say the towns have automated defences or something and people can have more fighting options... and what not... instead of a normal pvp game why not make it so that you can actually go out and build buildings (a max cap of course so there's not 1000 defence towers in a town), buy weapon upgrades (like weapons and armor that actually goes past max damage and max armor, not too far tho... or have temporary increases)... and buy trainers that periodically send out NPC's... as you gain exp from kills u can trade ur xp (can't go below the level ur at), you can upgrade npc levels, weapons, armor or w/e... (you'd have to trade with the npc master trainer)... these master trainers would be killable too so that when an enemy team ransacked ur town they'd die as would your side's built defensive towers... i don't know tho just my 2 bits you have my /support

/support wholeheartedly!!!

The kind of epic battles that are worth a song! A.Net, are you reading? I hope you guys at least seriously consider this.

cool. they just put this feature in world of warcraft..its called battlegrounds.

I'm casting in my vote that i'm all for it also. Sounds exciting and good look looking for the little monk to take down when he's lost in this mayhem. For once i'll be able to blend in with the mess during pvp!

I don't think there should be a limitation on the number of certain classes in each battle. What if you wanted to do an all Monk thing, or all eles? Also I don't think there should ever been a waiting period. Peronally I thing there would be so many people going into this there would be no way for people to get in if there was a limit of servers and classes. They should have it just like the districts(without the slight bug they are having right now, lol). Once one fills up, they create another one.