The Update: Why We See More Complaints Than Praise

Very true

We have more information than you realise. We know from times in Betas, during the last two there was Unlock all Skills and before that skill traders used to sell elites and you could buy skill charms and necklaces with no need for skill points. You could craft skill charms for friends or sell them. PvP was very dynamic and there were no BoTMs, builds of the month. People would make a build it would get countered, it was very fluid and fun. People complained very little indeed those times. It was all about outwitting your opponent, with betetr player skill, strategy, formation, tactics, timing, and communication.

they do and they are called templates

options with extra effort

Wow amigo, you need a refresher course on logic. It just so happens that Venus actually took out Maria Sharapova today at Wimbledon. Did she do it with a better racket? Better shoes? A ball made specifically to highlight her strengths? No... it was skill, tactics, strategy and abilities edged her to the win.

"Gear" is a given equalizer in serious competitive activities. Would tennis be better served if every new pro had to start with a Nerf racket from Toy's R Us? If every pro started with flip-flops and "earned" a pair of sneakers once they won 100 matches? These activities are 100% skill based, not gear based. That's what Guild Wars needs to be as well by getting right to the point and allowing PvP players to start each match fully equipped and ready to go.

Just because one person has better abilities than the other is not an issue. Venus may be better than Conan O'Brian at tennis, but they can at least go on the court with the exact same equipment. Skill, tactics and strategy alone will separate them. Venus vs. Maria? Same thing. In Guild Wars, a UAS and UAR system allows this logical approach to competition.

We all have the same gear, but our team makeup, skills, abilities, tactics, builds Attribute point distribution, classes, etc. will be vastly different and forever changing. It is in this that "fun" is maturing in competitive activities. Not in grinding for equalizing equipment.

All the PvP characters start with "basic" equipment. max damage weapons, max armor, max shields/ focus items, and 8 skills. Anything extra comes with play. I bet the venus sisters didn't start with the high end raquets they use now, and I bet Sammy Sosa didn't start out with an uber bat, even in Counter-Strike you don't start with uber guns if the server is using the default money setting. The one thing all these have in common is you have to work your way up to the high equipment. Also someone with very little skill won't be any better with better equipment. I don't know how many times I've killed CS noobs with a pistol or even my knife because they didn't know how to use their awp. Your awarded for skill in anything you play.

okay i have to share this .... it just floored me ...

i just got back from lunch break to follow up here ... and my brother is at his house and has been playing for the last 2 hours ...

MY BROTHER IS A DIE HARD PVE role playing storyline buff ... hates cs, hates hl2 hates all ends of pvp ...

for the last 2 hours he has been testing the waters in the competition arena and the team arena ... HE HAS over 500 faction points already ... wow ... I mean how often does a PVE player unlock runes? Once a week maybe after you have your basic minors and majors?

HE IS 1/4 to having the option to unlock anyone today???? I thought originally maybe the runes were too high ... but if a noob like my brother can run a template and gain that much in that littel amount of time ... there really isn't anything to cry about anymore ... unbelieveable ....

I meant "basic" to mean that which all players have on an equal level. Once you get all runes, weapons, etc., you are all on equal footing and PvP finally becomes 100% skill based. Not before.

Oh stop already! Quit whining and go play CS or something. The people who want UAS and UAR buttons are the epitomy of laziness. Push a button, do the dishes, push a button, do your homework, push a button, wash the car. If you want anything worthwhile outa life you gotta work for it. Michael Jordan didn't win all those championships by PUSHING A BUTTON.

sorry for the bump ... but read my above post ... thats gotta be a silver platter handed to you ... that means someone with no pvp skill no tactics ... no knowledge of what to do or how it works ...

used a template and progressed faster than anybody here? he says its easy as pie ... and hes gonna unlock all his other elite skillls this way THIS weekend lol. so if anyone really has any issues with the faction system they got no skills.

Hmm... let me try this approach:

I know a lot of you are competitive Magic: the Gathering players. Do you consider it 'unfair' that some of you have rare cards that others don't? Do you ensure, before tournament play begins, that you all have access to the same cards, and can build your decks exactly the way you want? No? You mean to say that some of you have cards that others don't? But isn't that unfair?

All that ArenaNet has done with Guild Wars is move the 'buying of cards' from the real world into the pre-PvP portion of the game.

—Siran Dunmorgan

But that isn't "basic" equipment. What your talking about is artificial equality. You don't want to earn your equipment, you want it given to you. GW is a skill based game and has increased that with PvP rewards. The system rewards those that are good at both PvE and PvP while allowing those that suck to still gain faction, although at a slower speed.

I think this is an excellent solution. When I play or do anything I want to see a reward, there is no reward is everything is given to you.

This whole "skills vs time played" seems to be taken far too literally.
There are other factors involved besides the "gear". Theres luck, timing, group cohesion and god help you if you think your team is perfect and the only thing you lack is gear. Nobody will ever win 100% of the time so why some of you seem intent on it is beyond me. The sad thing is you don't have fun unless you win. I get a feeling of exhiliration when our group beats another group too but the fight in of itself is half of the fun too. The exception being steamrolled or doing the steamrolling, neither one is fun and cheapens the win.

Skill does beat time played, if it were possible to beat the pve game without any clue whatsoever a team with 1000 hours played would be trounced by a team with a clue with only 10 hours under their belt. However, as much as you may not like it, people learn by doing and gain skill. The same people you want to beat are not winning becuase of +30 hp pommel this or spell of elite ownage that. They're winning because they're better than you. If they have 1000 hours under their belt and you don't, that doesn't make them carebears. They probably learned a trick or two about the game and use it to their advantage when they fight you. Now if they're truly the cluless pve goons you make them out to be you'll still win even if all of their skills were elites. Both circumstances can and do happen in this game. (except for the all elites thing)

Being the absolute best is more work than fun, those of you who want to be the best are going to have to work for it. Sorry but being the best isn't about "fun" its about constantly training/striving/improving because everybody wants to dethrone you. Frankly, you can have it as I play to have fun.

Btw, assuming both teams have the perfect game and do evertying right 100%. Then gear will come into play and give the team with it the extra 1% to win. Unfortunately, this will NEVER HAPPEN. Perfection is unattainable, live and learn and then get luvs.

Just wanted to quote this, because I think it really gets to the heart of the matter. I hope the PvP updates make things better for the majority of current PvP players... but has it inspired me to start pursuing PvP more seriously? No, not really. I appreciate the effort Anet is putting towards finding a solution though.

What PvP players say they want and what they're complaining about don't match up is what bugs me the most.

They're complaining that they want it to be skill over hours played.

Well now it DOES take skill over hours played. Now you need to WIN in order to get faction, you need to have SKILL in order to unlock the skills you want.

You see people, having all the skills available to you will NOT, by ANY means make it more skill over hours played. If it all depends on the skills you have in your skill bar then it's not related to the skill of the player at all is it? And that's not the case.

If winning matters THAT much on your skill set and what runes you have, if that's really what you NEED, then the game won't be based on player-skill even if you DO have all the skills unlocked. It'll just be who put the right ones in their skill bar.

The one with skill should be able to beat teams with better skill sets, plain and simple. If you can't win your faction you've not the skill to deserve it.

What people like you always miss is that is simply -your- definition of fair, custom-made to fit -your- desires and playstyle. As soon as it gets implemented someone with different desires and playstyles is going to start spamming "It ain't fair!" posts that are going to be just as valid as yours are today. You won't think they are valid, of course, just like so many don't think your complaints are valid now.

And as I noted before, your idea of 'fair' isn't fair at all, players who have played GW longer and have experimented with more skills and attribute combinations will be much better then newbies who have no idea what makes good combinations nor how to use them well if they did. Thus we are right back at "Players who play more have an unfair advantage". The reason you don't mind this is in this case is that the 'play more' is custom-designed to please you personally, whereas now it's more designed to reward a playstyle you'd rather avoid.

**********************

As to the people who look back on the glory days of yestermonth (*laugh*), I've yet to find a PvP crowd that didn't have a substantial population that felt that way. What they fail to realize is that nothing matches that heady feeling of first learning a new game and coming to grips with the PvP system. The problem is that as a PvP game ages more people get more and more competitive, at which point a substantial number begin feeling that what they need to do to stay competitive is 'unfair'. Thus begins threads like this one. Get used to them, they'll be popping up now for the life of GW, no matter -what- the implementors do. The names will change, the complaint will be the same.

I'm afraid the same people complaining about the update would probably consider Magic:The Gathering unfair. Especially since it involves money, not just time.

3 points I feel pvpers need to accept, but they wont ever :P

1. The unlock limitations in GW -should- provide a "making the best of what you have" sort of gameplay. Unfortunately a minority of people don't think this a good idea. Since sport analogies seem to be popular, let's look at any sport outside of the super-rich U.S... take soccer, cricket, probably any international game. Some teams are richer than others, they can afford better players, better training, better facilities. Also, in some sports, teams only field players from their respective countries - the talent pool for that sport will be better or worse depending on their country.

But everyone makes the best with what they have, try to get better with the resources available to them, and Bangladesh plays matches against Australia and loses most of the time. But they're still competing together!

The complainers may not like this aspect of the game at all, but its a valid design decision that adds its own dimension to the game. It's not some fatal flaw that has no redeeming features to anyone.

2. ANet probably shot itself in the foot with the whole "skill > time" line. The correct statement is probably:

Skill > Time. But Skill+Time > All.

I don't think anyone would disagree with that. I'll bet if you gave a team of poor players UAS+UAR, a team of skilled players could still win easily even just with templates.


3. For the chess analogies: If GW was chess, then every team would have the exact same build, with the exact same gear and skills, every time. There would be no customisation allowed AT ALL. Is that the sort of game you want to play? Probably not. Designing your build is an added dimension in GW, that Chess doesnt have. Being limited to what you have and making the best out of it, is an added dimension that GW has, that CS does not. Both of them have the effect of diluting the effects of pure skill, and adding benefit to knowledge (and time.) Different people have different preferences - I find CS too one dimensional for my tastes - every weapon is used in a fairly similar manner, unlike Half-Life where you can shoot around corners, throw bugs at them, etc. I guess some people find GW too multidimensional - they'd like to just be able to stick to doing a small subset of things without a great deal of variety.

*****

Heck, my personal opinion probably goes against the complainers' views even more - I'd like for a bigger component of luck/craziness in the game. I want poor teams who do something desperate and unexpected to be able to win a game now and then. I'd like skilled teams with few things unlocked to be able to beat other skilled teams with lots of things unlocked to be able to win with surprise and luck. Basically give the pvp a mechanic of "you always have a chance, even just a little one!". In fight games this is added in the form of desperation/super attacks, things that can turn the tide of the battle in an instant if you are lucky, but are severely limited in use. I haven't thought about it yet, how it could be added into GW.

Agreed. But let's take the basketball metaphor...

The Lakers are better than the Nuggets because they're just a better team... ok, so then why give the Lakers access to the 3pt shot or extra time outs, when the Nuggets don't have access to those because they haven't won as much? It just makes the game that much more difficult and unbalanced against the Nuggets to actually win, both stifling and discouraging a more healthy competition in any future series between them. It just makes no sense.

"You don't ask chess players to "earn" their access to a Bishop. You don't expect a 3-man basketball team to make 1,000 outside shots just to have permission to bring on players 4 and 5. You don't ask players of the mega-successful Counterstrike to get 500 headshots before you award them a Desert Eagle pistol."

Chess players can't move their bishop until they move their other pieces out of the way first.

The rules are set to allow 5 players on the field at a time, just like in this game you can have 8 players in a team at one time, or 4 in the arenas, etc. That isn't really a valid...point at all.

In counter strike you have to use some of your money in order to PURCHASE the desert eagle pistol. If you buy that you won't also be able to buy the most uber weapon out there unless you earned the money.

Ok, so the lakers trained harder, paid more for better players and have more talent (time played, farmed, skill) but the nuggets have sub-par players, paid less, have less talent. The advantages that the lakers have just made the win more lopsided, they would still have won regardless. If the Nuggets want to win they have to work harder until they can compete with the Lakers. Winning games isn't training, its putting those skills they worked for to the test. If the lakers slacked off and the Nuggets picked up the intensity, the nuggets would win. Being the best takes work, i'm sorry its true but nobody would want it if everybody could have it at a moments notice.

Right. But every player has the same pieces and moves available at the beginning of every match. It's simply a matter of experience and skill in how each player uses them. No matter what anybody says, this is not the case in Guild Wars, as teams do not have the same pieces and moves available to them at the beginning of every match. If this were the case, this discussion wouldn't even be happening.

It was a metaphor, and one that I think was appropriate. Giving a better team access to elite skills and advanced items when the other team doesn't is the equivalent in basketball of allowing one team more time outs, penalties, points per shot, etc. Where I come from, if one team outclasses the other the better team will generally put a self-imposed handicap on themselves to make the game more challenging and fun, rather than accept an advantage so to better stomp the other team with. It's kinda sill really, how GW is designed regarding this.

Yeah, all these analogies people are throwing around are terrible. The best one is probably Dunmorgan's Magic: the Gathering.

You could also think of it as a game of chess. Both players have the exact same pieces and play under the same rules as each other. Let's say one player spent the last year playing chess with his buddies. He learns new moves, new tricks and new skills to better his chess game, while the other guy doesn't practice at all.
It's still fair game. They still start off on the same footing, with the same pieces, and noone has an artificial advantage over the other. Except, one player has access to many more moves than the other due to the time he put into the game.

This is equivalent to the current situation in GW. The more time you put into the game, the more different skills you have access to. But when it comes down to the game, you still have the same 8 skill slots and the same equipment as the other guy.

I agree with everything in your post, completely. I just don't feel that the currect PvP design in GW reflects this, and that's really all it is. A more organized and professional guild will be akin to the Lakers in your description, and rightfully so. The difference here is that once on the court, no team has access to special shots that the other doesn't, or different rules of play because they earned them, or has gear that dramatically improves their health and stamina over the other team - steroids and drugs are illegal for that very reason. Regardless of what happens in practice, behind the scenes and offcourt - regardless of the technologies at their disposal - once on court, it's all about the skill of the players themselves, not the tools they take with them.

But that's all I'll say about this now, and will respectfully bow out. I do think that this whole discussion would be more prodcutive if each side would be more open to listening to the other's point of view, rather than just jumping on each other's case for being whiners or flamers.

postive comments come from happy players who are, well, busy happily enjoying the update

I agree that the extras available to those who farm pve more than others do infact have an advantage over those who do not even if it is marginal at best. However, this group did put more effort/training into attaining these items. Which in a very loose connection (i don't like comparing real sports to games since its a sacrifice on the part of the real life players to compete at a decent level.) relates to the real life attributes of the player. Hey, that guy can shoot a 3 pointer every time! Wheres my unlock instant 3 point shot ability button?

Strength/speed/agility/endurance for basketball players was not a god given right to these individuals of team sports. They had to work for them. Those of us playing hoops on the street however did not train and did not work for it, but we still have fun even if we suck compared to the pros.

I consider myself one of those who play pvp for fun and would get blown out of the water playing against the "top" guilds. I like fighting other similiarly skilled players and winning or losing. Again, the best are the best not because it comes naturally to them, it's because they work hard for it and "earned" it. Personally, I don't think its worth alot of sacrifice to "win" at a game but to each his own.

I believe the true reason you get to read more negative comments than positive comments are:

-All those negative players tend to use their time on the message board complaining about the game and refuse to play it.

-The positive player are playing the game just fine so they use most of their time in the game instead of on the message board.

that is because he is willing to use it instead of saying how inferior a template is

congratulations are due him

Some of you really don't understand logic in comparisons, lol.

I'll make my a general response to those who don't understand analogies... if your are better than someone in a competitive activity because of your SKILLS, that is commendable. If you are better because of your GEAR, then that is a fault of the system you're competing in.

No other serious competitive contest is heavily influenced by some having better GEAR (i.e. a better tennis racket or shoes) except Guild Wars. Everyone has great gear from the get-go. Please don't lump improving one's SKILLS into this category (i.e. having a better outside shot from hard work and practice). Skill is what competition is all about.

PvP in Guild Wars should be purely 100% about skill, tactics and strategy - not unlocking GEAR. PvE should be about exploration, adventuring and discovery. That's where you build on the 'unlocking' play mechanic. I don't want skill to be a requisite for PvE rewards (i.e. 100 PvP wins to get to the two new areas coming out), and I don't like gear-hunting in PvP being a requisite for the ability to access all your strategic and tactical options. This is true for any competitive activity.

It takes longer to improve your performance through better equipment than through improving your build quality and your personal skill. The brute still loses to the intelligent, and now, the intelligent gets the best of both worlds seeing as while improving his build quality and his personal skills he gets the added bonus of unlocking new equipment, whereas the brute only gets to unlock more equipment, albeit at a slightly faster rate.

In layman's terms:

Guild Wars is the first MMORPG to make it to where the intelligent, that being the person who spends his time thinking up new and better strategies, can easily beat the brute, that being the person who focuses solely on item acquisition, and still remain an MMORPG. This is what Guild Wars was advertised as -- "intelligence beats time played." It was not advertised as a CS in MMORPG form. If that is what you want, then you are playing the wrong game. It was never intended to be a MMORPG clone of CS, and it never will become that.

Really? Any competitive activity?

Like, say, war?

Which—I would claim—is the ultimate human competitive activity.

Arredondo, the point that you make here is well taken, and accurate: you're posting about what you want, and why you think that what you want would be good for all of us, I accept that, and applaud your willingness to speak out.

But Guild Wars doesn't end with a status quo: part of the point of the weekly updates is precisely that we have a living, changing world. The aspect that—as far as I can tell—you find uncomfortable is that there is a game beyond the specifics of PvP battle.

What you—and a great many posters over the last year, here and elsewhere—seem unable to grasp is that Guild Wars differs from various popular PvP gaming titles in that it blurs the distinction between preparatory work in the real world and preparatory work in the game world.

A few years ago, I used to play Sierra/Dynamix's Tribes, quite a lot. It's pretty easy in the context of that game to see what a difference the various levels of equipment can make. I remember spending the better part of two months grinding for a speed upgrade, and the month after that trying for the accuracy upgrade, and some time after that going for the vision enhancements.

Now, Tribes isn't normally addressed in those terms: you're probably thinking that I've somehow mentioned the wrong game. But I didn't. I meant Tribes. But by speed upgrade I mean making the jump to a faster computer (I was still using a PII 200MHz, at a time when most processors had gone to 400 or 450), and upgrading my connection from 128Kbps ISDN to 1.5 Mbps aDSL. By accuracy upgrade I mean getting a Razer 'Boomslang' instead of the default 'generic' mouse that'd come with the new box. By vision enhancement, I mean getting a monitor that could handle higher refresh rates, so I didn't get headaches staring at a flickering screen.

And—believe me—the work I was doing at the time was absolute grind. But I did it happily in order to 'unlock' those upgrades to Tribes. And my record in the game improved significantly, as is appropriate to my investment.

All that ArenaNet has done with Guild Wars is to move that activity—the 'grind' by which one unlocks enhancements to the game—into another layer of the virtual world.

In the real world, dedicated Magic: the Gathering players 'grind' at their daily jobs simply to buy additional packs of cards, and, though Magic tournaments are some of the most intensely competitive environments you'll find off of an actual battlefield, no one seems interested in the notion that simply because this player has more cards than that player, that the game is unfair. It's true that players with more money have more options. It's also true that they don't win tournaments any more often than players who are verging on actual poverty.

At what level of abstraction do you play the game? Let's look at a football team: not from the perspective of the player, but from the perspective of the owner. From the owner's perspective, the players are effectively, cards, i.e. collections of statistics, that, in combination with other statistics, may or may not produce a win for the owner.

The game the owners play is to gather as many synergistic, high-value cards as they can into their hands. And those cards include things like stadium improvements, better trainers and coaches, better pre-game facilities, field technology such as in-helmet communications gear, and anything else they can do to make sure that when the players head out onto the field, everything is tipped as far as possible to ensure victory.

Sure, from the player's perspective, the playing field might be level. But let me aske this question:

How many of the last, say, five Superbowls have not been won by the New England Patriots?

Now, Arredondo, I sympathize. The world of computer gaming is changing around you, and you feel uncomfortable at the change; that's okay. But looking at the game solely from the perspective of the single match, the single field of battle seems to me to be a bit short-sighted. Guild Wars is as much about the gathering of resources as much as any Real-Time Strategy game, but one in which the resources persist from session to session. And it has a detailed 'battle mode' that state-of-the-art RTS games can only envy.

I understand from your claims that you believe that Guild Wars should be more like 'CounterStrike: Fantasy' than like 'Dragonshard: Persistent & Online'; well and good: you're persistent, and vocal, and you seem reasonable and literate. I can assure you that your perspective is shared by people to whom ArenaNet listens, and I am certain that your comments, specifically, are heard as well.

But we would all do well to try to understand that we—and in this I include the developers of Guild Wars as well—are faced with a living game, subject to the same 'growth pains' of any living thing, and, like a living thing, we cannot be wholly certain into what it will grow.

—Siran Dunmorgan

Apparently you've never seen a car race. Or a yacht race. Or a bobsled race. Or any of a number of other competitive events where both skill -and- gear are tested. -You- are the one who's decreed that gear must not matter for it to be fair, the reason being is that -you- don't want to deal with getting the best gear but you want to be top of the line anyway.

Here's another analogy for you to digest: you are like a driver showing up at the Indy 500 and claiming that you don't want to bother with a pit crew and car design, so the race should be redesigned to eliminate that aspect of racing.

They have so many negative comments because they make it too easy for the players to find loopholes (trying to stay away from the word exploit)in the game by not having enough rules to keep people in check.

I would guess every negative comment here has to do with somebody feeling slighted because someone has found a way to get by something. So Anet tries to change whatever the problem is and is pisses off someone else because they considered what they were doing right...rinse, repeat.

Everyone hates it when someone has to lay down the rules, but let's all face it if every player had their way people who exploit the living crap outta this game.

This PvP update is the best so far. And I don't think I am alone because tons of PvP oriented peeps are starting to come back to GW and tombs are getting better.

You can hire whomever you want in your pit crew without submitting to a mandatory league rule of 10,000 laps before you make them an offer. You can purchase whatever parts you wish without submitting to a mandatory league rule of driving 10,000 laps before you buy them.

He steps to the plate.... a swing and a miss. Nice try though.

Arredondo I think you misunderstood his comparison there. His "pit and crew" are you "1,000" laps...nevermind. The point is you have it available to you and you're just not doing what you can in order to do better, so you're saying it's unfair just because you don't want to do something.

I've gone out and had a chat with many PvP players about this, and most all of them seem happy about it. (Including myself who also plays PvP, I might add.) Just in the arenas in about an hour I got 250 points. I was just testing out a new build too. And that's in the ARENAS, the form in which you get the lowest amount of faction. If it was GvG I'm sure I'd have about 2-3 thousand by now in the PvPing I've been doing since the update, at least that, and I've not even played that much as I've been workin' on my ranger more in PvE .

I've heard about 5 people say it's unbalanced and that it takes too long, I know of many many more than that, who like the new system. I've had friends come back to guild wars now because of the update.

Vorlin, Siran, Khift, and Red Locust seem to have put it together pretty well.

I guess there's just more negative threads because all of the people who enjoy it are out there enjoying the game.

The story about you upgrading your computer equipment. That's YOUR decision to either stick with crappy parts or get the best of the best. The game itself, on its own, could careless what you buy in accessories. The only thing serious competitive activities should focus on (and do, except for Guild Wars) is that grinding for equal gear is not to be a pre-requisite for matching skill against skill.

All the tools you need upfront is a given in any PvP competition, while being rewarded for progress endured is a given in any PvE endeavor. Arena.net is sadly insisting on shoehorning the play mechanic of one system (PvE rewards) into a different one where it fits poorly (PvP being pure skill based). I can hammer a square peg into a round hole, but that doesn't make it a comfortable fit.

Jesse Owens, the great Olympic sprinter from 1936, could've entered his races wearing snowshoes and an overcoat... but that's his idiotic decision for not taking the competitive activity seriously, not the fault of the sport itself. If the rules said he could only upgrade from snowshoes to running shoes by first completing 500 races in first place, we'd have the ridiculous competive system now employed by Guild Wars. It should ONLY be about SKILL vs. SKILL. Everything else (for PvP) is a waste of time. There is no place for a PvE play mechanic in a serious PvP activity.

Bwahahahaha! Save your sympathy buddy... I'll get along fine without it. I've been playing sports and competitive activities my entire life. For almost 10 years I've been a highly ranked fighting game player whose competed and won tournies all around the country. I've been into FPS teamplay for at least five years. I can safely say I likely know a LOT more about what works and doesn't work well when it comes to describing the common traits of serious competitive activities.

No one can go through my posts, whether they agree or disagree, and tell me that I'm not making strong logical points to present my case. Many things I prefer in PvP I don't even mention because I do recognize when my personal opinion may conflict what is obviously best for the PvP game. I wouldn't be writing all of this if, as it stands today, I didn't believe that the PvP portion of this awesome game didn't have a chance to become one of the true all-time greats. It's just sad that Arena.net feels it needs to hold their baby back from reaching full maturity.

Turning off casual players who may have otherwise become hardcore PvP players is a real concern in any multi-play game. The high wall that this current system sets for just getting to the starting line with all your gear on is just plain counter productive. A competition should be PURELY about the skills of all those involved... period. Guild Wars wants to be different in this regard (despite their press kits and advertising quotes). Unfortunately this is one area where all 99.999% of the other competitive activities got it right.

Implement full UAS/UAR and get rid of Attribute Refund Points when in town please. Let Guild Wars PvP grow as far and wide as it can by removing the unecessary 'PvE reward' mechanics and focus on pure skill instead.

How are you earning each "pit crew member" you want in the Guild Wars PvP environment? Can you just pick whomever you want using all available resources? No, you must take your "10,000 laps", according to league rules, to get the equipment you want. Weak. No such rules should be imposed on contests of skill.

Bring what you want to the starting line and prove yourself through strategy and tactics while playing, not by grinding through the arbitrary league rules hundreds of hours more than the next guy.

Arredondo, just listen for a second. Think about what you've been arguing here.

You brought in Chess as an analogy to help buffer your point, but what you fail to realize (and what many here have realized and stated) is that Chess sucks as an analogy. Chess has absolutely nothing to do with how Guild Wars functions. Its design purpose is different. Its design execution is different.

The only similarity--the only parallel one can draw between Guild Wars and Chess--is movement (the importance of positioning) and nothing more. And even then...the positioning in Chess only matters in how your pieces can move and attack in combat; positioning in Guild Wars has a much deeper impact on combat.

You get all of your pieces in Chess for a reason: so they can all die. lol. The purpose of the game is to outmaneuver to more or less permanently kill your opponent's pieces (the King is dead). Pieces don't come back in Chess unless you march a Pawn to your opponent's back row.

Chess is a rigid system that's structured around a mildly fluid approach.

This isn't the case in Guild Wars, because when you have a game like Guild Wars that could be considered a digital version of Magic: The Gathering, to expect Chess in the game design (or to expect to be able to successfully support your argument by using the Chess analogy) is like John Milius thinking he can actually convince people he based Apocalypse Now off of The Odyssey and Heart of Darkness...meaning...utterly naive.

Like M:tG, you build a deck in Guild Wars. That was the entire idea behind the game: a deck of a limited number of skills (aka cards) that you would revise as you acquired more and more skills (aka cards).

Guild Wars is a fluid system that's structured around a fluid approach.

Your statement here would only be true if that wasn't happening, but as it stands now, people are going through your posts and whether or not they agree with you, telling you that you aren't making "strong logical points," because you aren't. lol

So I start to wonder why there's this adamant denial (or perhaps unintentional ignorance?) coming from you. arredondo, I read your sentence there and I don't see any type of valid rebuttal. I see a cop-out--and a thinly veiled one at that. You're trying to claim that you haven't been making stretchy comparisons and haven't been using stretchy logic? Comparing GW to Chess is making a stretchy comparison and it is using stretchy logic.

Alright...Arredondo I'm going to ask you a relatively simple question because by this point I can't even tell anymore.

What are you arguing?

Are you arguing that it takes too long to unlock the skills?

Are you arguing that it's not skill over time played?

Are you asking for a UAS/R

Are you asking for smaller faction requirements...?

I honestly can't tell because there's mixes of all of it.

Judging from personal experience and from the general feeling of everyone I've spoken to/read posts from, it doesn't take too long to unlock the skills so long as YOU'VE got the skill to get the faction.

It IS skill over time played because EVERYONE starts off with EXACTLY what you did when they created their accounts, they had to use their SKILL to get their gear. Now you have to use your SKILL to get the gear that you want.

UAS/R---would NOT make the game more skill based if the gear depends so much that you have to have it, it would always be simply the one with the better skill set wins. The skill, is to see if you can overcome the challenges in order to GET your gear.

And smaller faction requirements don't seem to be necessary, as good PvP players seem to be getting faction with their characters, just fine.

Siren:

I've compared it to dozens of competitive activities... I've talked more on tennis than chess, lol. The thing they all have in common, that GW shys away from, is that you don't have to jump through hundreds of hoops to have access to all options from the beginning.

That design is anti-competition at it's very core. Goal oriented play for starting with what you need to succeed belongs in PvE only, not as a pre-requsite to having access to the same gear as your competitors. What does chess have that GW doesn't? Like all the rest I've mentioned, competition based purely on skill developed, not on top gear grinded for.

I'll never use another metaphor in this forum....spend more time picking them apart that discussing the issue