The "positive people only" thread about the update

Since apparently some people whine simply for the sake of it, I'm opening this thread to discuss about the changes made to the game in a more calm, rational and positive way.

This is not a duplicate of some other thread, because you can't really compare 3Ds like "New Update? Bleeeeeurk!" to something like this, can you? Let's say I'm posting this to re-affirm a sort of par condicio between people who always post rants (and cry everywhere) and people who enjoy the game, like the changes, and when they don't, they criticize Arenanet backing their statements with solid reasons. So, don't even begin to consider this a "fan-boys" thread. In a few words, whiners are still welcome, crybabies are not. Oh yes, I know they will probably post here anyway, but then you can ignore them as usual, so it's no big deal.

Now, to get straight to the point, I think the last update made life easier for PvPers and left PvEers almost unaffected. The system is rewarding (you could get 2000+ faction in 2-3 hours with any decent Guild) but I read many posts from casual players who also like PvP stating that without a good guild or a good PuG in the Tomb, nothing really changes.

What do you guys think?

I think the new patch sucks.

For one, they didn't introduce Cake.

Two, the faction costs need to be halved.

Three, I'm eating some chocolate mousse pie with whip cream on top, it's yummy.

Doesn't that mess up your keyboard?

All that aside, I have no complaints about the patch since I don't PvP or GvG so..... *shrugs*

PvE players have no reason to try tombs anymore, the only reward was XP and its gone now.

The only complaint I have is that I will have to wait some more for the 15k Tormentor Armor, but hey, I will soon be gone for 2 weeks, so when I'm back, it will be here, for sure

And I like pie.

_Zexion

I'm very happy about them making pets "as if infused." There was some good done for PvE there.

<--steals a piece of pie

Anything that improves GvG is good as far as I am concerned.

My Guild is just starting to get into GvG at the moment, and it's been pretty clear so far that there simply aren't that many good Guilds doing regular GvG. The biggest reason for this of course, is that any Guild that can put together a good eight man team is better off heading for Tombs, Fame and Sigils.

This change not only improves the PvP-focus of the game, but also means that the Guild Ladder will now mean something.

In other words: Bring it on.

Yes, along with some new quests. Now pets won't die in 2-3 seconds against the Mursaat, and your beloved "Fluffy" warthog will be able to deal some damage.

Yep, this is fantastic news for me as GvG is absolutely my favorite part of the game. Perhaps we'll finally start doing GvG nightly.

don't mind me... just here for the pie

I just want to make sure I have it correct - If I take my PVE char into a GvG battle I don't get faction points?

Your RP (PvE) character does get faction points in Arenas/GvG, etc. You just can not use those points for that character (or other RP characters). You can only use the faction points to unlock extra skills and upgrades, which can be used on new PvP-only characters.

No. You get them, of course. You get faction points for your account with any kind of char...PvP or PvE.

Thanks guys!

I like the update. It means that I can play through the PvE game, but not have to stick around and grind/farm to get that 20% enchanting staff or a Superior Expertise.

Basically, it lets you play the PvE game until you finish it and then play the PvP game.

Well said. I don't have to keep looking for all the items I want to unlock, I can have fun in PvP and get something for doing it as well. You unlock things in PvE, and now you unlock things in PvP. It makes fair sense that both should provide similar things. After playing through the PvE once, you really don't want to do it again just to get things that you missed the first time through. As for unlocking skills, playing through the game PvE side would probably be faster than trying to unlock a class with PvP rewards.

Well, you unlock that skill/rune/item with PvE characters but you can't use them because there's no physical rune/item given. I don't know about the skills. I have a PvE monk that's got nearly everything and I've been using him in the Tombs. I won't be able to PvP my way to a rune of superior vigor and give it to him.

If I start a monk with the same class as a PvP char though I'll be able to use everything Asdar has plus all the PvP unlocked runes and stuff I get from faction points.

I think.

Yeah, I think some people complain waaay too much. I can't think of any other games in recent memory that gets weekly updates. A.net could have easily just left the old system as it is but they've actually gone the extra mile of adding in a completely new system just for the PvPers.

I'm sure if any balance problems become apparent, A.net will probably try to fix it, and that's saying a lot. It's been a long time since I've had any sort of faith in the developer.

All I have to say about this thread is: Bullshit. It's like holding a "Democrat people only" Election. It's a stupid idea. And whoever would think up such a thing is a complete dumbass.

You want to hear it the most positive way I can twist it? It's kind of, almost, nearly a step in the right direction because rather than grinding in PvE, I get to grind a hundred times more in PvP. Fix the numbers... And by fix, I mean, add or subtract a few zeros from certain numbers... and it will be good. But at the moment, there's nothing for PvPers to rejoice about.

*sigh*. There it is. It took a lot of effort.

Watch out, crybaby's back!
Speak for yourself.

Oh, and get some friends to play GvG with. After you get some sleep. It's rewarding. Both the sleep and GvG.

Sorry im not here to socialise, im much more interested in the game. I think this patch has firmly plopped a big pile of steaming stuff right on the heads of those people who are neither PvE or PvP only types.

The rewards via pvp, fair enough, no complaints on the idea. The costs do look high, but if you play often like all things youll start amassing them. However the NO EXP NERF in the arenas is absolutly stupid. Thats been, by choice, my main way of levelling up PvE characters, and now I can no longer do it.

Sure you may love it, I think that that nerf is absolutly crap, has totally destroyed the way I have been playing Guild Wars the last month or two, and might stop me making new characters every day or two if iv got to do missions to level them up.

Sorry but for no exp in arenas alone this get the thumbs down and the middle finger up.

Nice job contributing to the site there. I love how you skipped over all reasoning in my arguement and only quoted the bad parts. Hey... lemme try...

I'm just confused how you can call playing PvP grinding... Your playing PvP no differently than before, the only difference is that now your getting rewards in unlocks as well. If playing PvP isn't fun for you and playing PvE isn't fun for you, than whats left for you?

IMHO, The updates good, but needs polishing.

By either increasing the reward for tombs, teams and competitive, or lowering cost.

Regards, Ashleigh.

Playing PvP is only fun when you can switch up your build on a spur of a moment and such. What are the options now? Create one build that may not be successful and use it over and over and over until you have unlocked enough points to try out another build that also may not be successful. There's no element of trial and error in a game if your error is punished by several hours of failure. I think losing in the Tombs because I can't get the skills I need to create a propper counter to, say, air elementalists, isn't very fun. PvP always used to be fun because it was dynamic, ever changing etc. It was so much so that you could go into the tombs 1 hour and meet the team that would end up holding the Hall of Heroes, and they would be using ___ build, and then within 5 minutes on your return, you would see another team using the counter to that very build. It was like 'flavor of the moment' in super fast forward. Now it's just "hey! look! another air ele team build. how original".

It's been about one day after the patch is implemented and I think it's working fine. It has no side-effects unless you call losing 20 exp per kill in an arena a major nerf. If you wanted to level, you can do it much faster outside killing monsters.

PVP was meant to be fun and rewarding, except in many ways, if it's not rewarding, then people don't find it fun. The patch gave it some new life and incentive for actually doing it again, if that's so horrible, go make some new complaint posts.

Grinding is a repetitive motion of killing the same things over, usually with the same build, and doing it with low rewards. PVP is isn't real repetitive compared to Grinding. You face real opponents rather than the same AI that does the same thing, you face different teams using different strategies, if you try to allow yourself to be caught in the excitement, you might start finding yourselves supporting ANet.

Edit: Just Read the other guys new post-

First of all, this is a post regarding the patch. It in no way changed the dynamic of PVP so that it's now trash, and since this is a post about the patch, not about your feelings on how crappy PVP is and why, theres no reason at all to bring those feelings here. GW doesn't punish failure, only the ignorant would think that way.

If you play for 2 hours but only win 1/5th of your battles, you atleast know the common builds and what skills they use. If you don't, then you were probably busy shouting stupid commands at your teams or just spamming like a jackass, if you were doing either, you shouldn't be complaining. Trial and Error exists, and you oughtta know it does when you first mentioned "Counters". Counter's didn't just pop up after the first spike build was created, they took dozens of hours of failing and thinking to counter. If you don't actually feel like trying to even build counter-strategies, then you would know it's not easy but those hours still go rewarded. If you haven't, then theres no reason whatsoever for anybody to care about what you just posted.

I like many aspect of the update, and it IS a step in the right direction. No, it isn't what I would most like to see (unlock everything for PvP) but it will make it much easier for those willing to do PvE and PvP combined to unlock things. It will also encourage GvG, which is good. It also moves teams that win a lot in random up against organised teams - this is a nice move, as I view the random arenas as a training ground for new players, not a place for pros to go and thump newbs to feel good about themselves. The fact is that good players who end up on a team are pratically an organised team anyway

What does it need? Possibly some rebalancing to make things affordable, I don't know. It is an improvement no matter what. I think you deserve a big bonus for getting switched from the random PvP to the team PvP - you won 10 in a row and are being pitted against teams that have builds much more closely designed to match than yours likely has - I think that is worth celebrating with a bonus bunch of faction or something.

Pretty much: It's not the best solution, but it's better than nothing, if only they would fix the numbers.

Ok I have to throw my opinion in on this one. I think the faction points are just right. I would almost go as far to say that the costs should be higher. But that really isnt needed. Logic as follows:

You create a PvE character for the very first time. It takes you 100-150 hours to complete the story line game. This ammount varies depending on how anal you are about doing every quest and doing every mission bonus. I personally am extremely anal and it took me 75 hours to get to the wilds because I do every quest and bonus. I enjoy that. During this process you unlock several things. Maybe a few superior runes if you are lucky along the way. This of course assumes no farming, which adds time as well.

So now you want to unlock stuff through pvp. I am totally all for it because I couldnt even get my mesmer I created to survive pre-searing, my intent being to unlock mesmer skills, heh. I love PvP as I come from an RTS background. So if the costs for faction are too low you end up getting an unlock every battle for instance, then this creates no drive no motivation, runes and unlocks are cheapened by this lack of rarity. My thinking is that for 100-150 hours of PvP you should unlock the same ammount of stuff you did for 100-150 hours worth of PvE. This way gameplay on both world spectrums stay the same. All the people calling for the ability to unlock everything in 25 hours are just calling to cheapen the game. Rarity is what makes this game interesting and unique. Unlock is part of the game, to desire everything to simply be handed over takes a lot of challenge and intregue out of the game.

Thus I like the system, I applaud the system. While I wont be creating a PvP mesmer until I get the skills needed to be useful, at least now I can take my elementalist into Tombs and get the faction points to someday get the mesmer skills I want.

You buy a game because you think you will like it, the first few hours is essentially a test. Imagine if you can back to the 8-bit days. You have you NES that you are so proud of. You buy a cartridge because Nintendo Power rates it a good game, all your friends rave about it. However, when you play it, it just isn't your thing. So do you write to Nintendo ask them to patch it to change the gameplay style, I sure didn't. Did you whine to all your friends, nah you may have mentioned this game sucks or it isn't me or whatever. I set it aside and went back to a game I did enjoy like Rampage (now who remembers that one). So look at Guild Wars in the same fashion, except they are nice enough (esspecially since there is no monthly fee, I came from a AO and CoH background) to tweak things to make the gameplay overall better. Because 10% of their paying base dont approve it is still the game you bought. No point in whining simply take it and enjoy it or dont. Make your logical arguments for pros and cons then be done with it, no nagging needed.

I personally am enjoying the new build, however I don't agree with the no xp part... I don't see why it was neccesary to take it out. PvP players don't need, can't use it, so, but the casual player who does some of both is seriously jipped here, especially the ones in ascalon arena. The pve chars still need xp, and the faction rewards don't benefit your pve chars in anyway, so why do we have to take away xp?
Other than that, I really like the pvp update, lots of people are playing arena's and tombs, not all very good, alot of pvp only chars with no skills unlocked yet , but sometimes thats good, especially when their on the other team

Definitely. In 2 hours of gvg you can get about 2000 faction points...it's almost too easy.

Careful Weezer...I see you starting to crack at the seams...don't you dare...smile!

PvE players have plenty of reason to try tombs, 50-60k reasons in fact.

Right - well, I like the PvE for what it is, and I like aspects of the PvP. What I don't like is the implication that it is a PvP game rewarding skill, not hours spent. THAT is one of the main reasons I got this game. Why are people complaining? Because ANet has asked them to. They've said that they plan to tweak and change the game, to improve it. They've invited constructive criticism, and encourage us to use fora to discuss changes.

I am happy that they are moving toward a more accessible fair PvP experience. I am happy playing PvE for now anyway, so I'm not too concerned - but it is a little like when a government says they'll eliminate poverty, and thus ups social security a bit. Yeah, it was a nice change, but it is treating a symptom, not the cause, and you won't end it that way. To make PvP fair you need people to have relatively easy access to equivalent gear.

The "casual" PvPer can't honestly compete - guys like myself, at 20+ hours a week logged, can expect to have the gear they want within a year perhaps, and the new system may speed it up some; for those with less time (I'm lucky to get that much!) it would be hard to get into combat and to get a good guild going. Wining the HoH will be a pipe dream, so they'll need to buy a sigil to do GvG, and that alone requires a substantial amount of time invested. They'll be stuck doing PvP with premades and with sub-optimal gear. For thse who doubt the effectiveness of runes and mods, please, don't make me laugh - there are many items that are essential to running a character of many builds. If you don't have a zealous hilt you can forget all sorts of warrior builds. The fact is that if I picked this game up for the PvP I'd have put it down and walked away, and I don't blame those who did. ANet's insistance on linking PvP with PvE is going to drive the PvP community away - and they are a big community. The #1 online game in the world is Counter Strike. I don't enjoy CS much, partly because of the cheating that is rampant, but I am in a clan for Day of Defeat that has been going strong for 3 years now - and we love to play PvP. We are serious about playing games and play in leagues etc... would they play GW? Well, some of them goof around in it with me, but I suspect for the most part they'd find the mandatory investment in PvE galling. ANet is alienating the largest gaming group in the world with its choices - PvPers don't want unfair fights, they want fairness and equal competition - that's what the point is.

Please ANet. Separate PvP and PvE. There is no need for the two to ever meet; you can have RP PvP arenas and an RP HoH ladder and all that for those that enjoy it, but give the PvPers their fair competition, their own ladder and arenas. If RPers want to compete in the UAS environment, fine! Let them! Simply make an "export to PvP" button which creates a PvP only duplicate of their character - but the need for a single seamless whole is artificial - the two communities want very different things, and there is nothing that wouldn't be solved by dividing them - the RP/PvP crowd and the "don't UAS" crowd have the RP PvP to play in, the PvP UAS crowd have the PvP only area, and with exporting you can play both.

Wow, way to hijack the thread.

I like this update. It gives you something more to do pvp with. And the "Win 10 consecutive times in random arena will get transported to organized arena" can counter those lvl 10 platemail ownages, in some way.

The new merchant/collecor interface is good too. thumbs up here.

I don't care about the no xp in arena part, but it really didn't need to be changed. pve players can still get reward for THAT CHARACTER through pvp if they can get xp. not a big issue.

overall, this was another step forward to great game maintenance. thank you Anet! (even if you don't like the updates, you should still thank Anet for giving you constant updates, right? )

Having fits on the message boards about the grand injustice of life and the devil ANet?

Good update.

Sorry to break your bubble man.

It only works in competition arenas... (Aka the lvl 15-20 random ones), so those lvl 10 platemail people in ascalon will still be killing. Of course it's not like they're going to get faction real fast, a maximum of 9 per victory while competition/team is 14, not to mention if you see 2 sword warriors both with droknars armor trying to kill each other but not doing very well is hilarious while wasting their own faction-gaining time.

Thanks for clearing that. If they're serious about unlocking stuff, then yes they would back off from ascalon arenas. but if their sole purpose is to be uber, they'll still be there wasting faction gaining time (at least another reason for us to laught at them).

Not a debating thread, and not a big issue. I'm off

I take it we're out of pie in this thread?


Good update A.Net, but pie's gone and so am I...









I like the PvE best right now and when done, will hop over to PvP. See you there!