A Sorry Tale

“Lets go play GvG!”

The words came across the guild channel and raised a spark of interest. Why not? After all, I wasn’t exactly a noob at this PvP business. I had accumulated 4k of experience in the PUG arenas (well all right – it had taken me three months of occasional effort, but that would be enough surely?).

So we gathered in the Guild hall. While waiting for the real business to start, a few questions and ideas were kicked around.

“Whats this ‘rank’ thing on my stats? Mine is zero. Is that good?”
“No idea – where do you get to see your stats?”
“OK, listen up – we need tactics and a target caller. Caller had better be a warrior. Any volunteers?”

Deathly silence. A few cautious enquiries about what target calling is. We kick the level 6 warrior from the group and suggest he make a PvP character. This leaves us one short, so we take a healing henchman.

“Never mind about tactics then – just kick their butts.”

We use the automatic option and the computer makes an appropriate match. The other team is ranked 51. Time to go and uphold the honour of the Guild!

We gather after the movie clip. (“What was that?” “Dunno, I always skip movies.” “Yeah, me too”). The match starts! No-one knows quite what to do. We receive a message saying that the enemy has captured a tower and will receive a morale boost. “Hey! Have we got a tower?” “No idea” “Doesn’t seem fair – make a bug report to Anet when we finish”.

At this point we haven’t even seen an opponent, then we find the way out of the Guild hall. There they are! Lets annihilate them! “Remember targets!” “Never mind that crap, just kill them!”

So we go forth to battle. Being PvP experienced, my monk is a combination of heal and protect. So I fire off Aegis and look to see where the warriors are so I can use Healing Seed. There they are! On opposite sides of the battle. I use Healing Seed on one and find myself attacked by an axe wielding maniac who is about 8 feet tall and has a severe case of over-active reflexes. I barely have time to blink before I am inspecting the ground with my nose. Hmmm…

I wonder if anyone brought a res signet. I look around. My team are falling like flies. So far one minute 30 seconds has passed. Shortly after, and we are all dead. While we lie there wondering why we haven’t lost, a miracle happens and we are all of us resurrected! No problem! I might have 15% DP, but this time I will be more careful. I look up. TWO axe wielding monstrosities. I am dead again. Our base is under attack (we have a base?). After examining the ground under my nose for a while, I realise one of our team is still alive! Way to go team! It’s the healing henchman. He (she?) is stronger and more experienced than any of us. Humiliating really.

Within short order, I have 60% DP, as do most of the team and the Guild Lord we didn’t know we had is dead. We lose. The opposition are extremely polite (probably laughing too hard to throw insults) and wish us luck in our next battle. We retire to lick our wounds.

We try again. And again. And again. I spend the best part of two hours jumping up and down in my chair in rage at what is happening, or watching the screen with disbelief. I’m dead! AGAIN!!! I hurl abuse at the cat for walking in front of the monitor, and snarl at the wife (BIG mistake). I change tactics and take Pacifism against warriors. Lightning bolts slam me down. Chemists say we are all made up from elements. Well they are right and I am thoroughly elementalised. Repeatedly.

We come up against Necros. Is there a record for the fastest death in GvG? I think I just broke it. I take Mend Ailment and Remove Hex. Each (slowly) removes a condition or hex. I think I have 8 on me all at once. I get to know the ground very well, as I spend 95% of my time lying on it. I believe at one point I was killed by a stone pillar. I certainly ran into it often enough trying to escape the murderous attention of the enemy. I decide that being a monk is a bad idea as you might just as well paint ‘TARGET’ on your chest.

As I slowly emerge from shock, I come to the conclusion that my future in GvG (and probably all forms of PvP) is that of a corpse. It’s the one thing I am truly good at. Our team splits up, most of us barely on speaking terms any more. As a method of bringing people together, this was an utter failure. Is there a Beginners Section where we could learn? I doubt if we could play well enough to get in it anyway. I cancel my plans for Taiwan.

I think I will stick to PvE and farming. It’s a lot more fun and could prevent cat deaths and a divorce

LOL!

I have a sad story too:

I was out adventuring, trying to get to Galrath, and I find this town called "Temple of Ages". People are getting groups together to go to the underworld, which I assume is a dungeon, and I decide that I should check it out.

So I talk to one avatar, and he wants 1K to transport me to the underworld. So I give it to him. I'll just pop in, run around, have a little look at the place.

I find myself in the underworld, all alone. Hm, the mobs circling me sure are high-level, better be careful. Hm, there's a ghost with a green exclamation mark, let's check out what he wants... mobs! OK, let's see what you've got, mr weird-looking minotaur!

<THWAP!>
<ARRRGGGHH!!!!>

<CLICK TO RETURN TO OUTPOST>

<me staring in shell-shocked disbelief at the screen>

This my first, and to date only, visit to the underworld lasted about fifteen seconds.



EDIT: Oh, and I completely support your idea of a beginners section for PvP. I get my ass handed to me, badly, in PvP too, and I'm sure playing against other, hm, less dedicated PvP players would make PvP'ing more enjoyable. For me.

happened to me with FoW

Hehe had the same thing in uw
was attacked by a couple of monsters
didn't know what to expect all by myself

Look up Xen Of Onslaught [XoO]. If you're over 18 (I think there's a few more requirements), they'll get you into PvP in this game and teach you the basics to the real tactics.

Yup, i had a similare gvg experiance.

What i would recomend is trying to find another guild who will do an unranked arragned match with, so they can help teach you the basics, not easy to do that though.

nice post as well, had me chuckling in recogniction

Pay attention to what's making you lose and learn. Here's a hint: “Never mind about tactics then – just kick their butts.” - is not a good strategy.

I don't support a beginners section for PvP. Newbeginners can learn from losing to the best. It's just a matter of paying attention and having the will to improve yourself.

Theres always someone that has to get on their high horse, even when the post is blatenly light hearted and well written.

shall i get you a ladder?

He is on no "high horse" what he says is perfectly correct. You wont learn unless you play. Theres only so much someone can tell you.

So because his post is light hearted and well written, I can't explain why losing doesn't mean you have to give up? Everyone loses, and most people know how to learn from those losses. If you lose while running the "Let's just smash faces with our random builds, no tactics and no communication against organized teams!" strategy, you shouldn't be surprised. Learn from your loss. Organize your guild. Develope tactics and strategies, and actually try to win. You can start by reading about the GvG scenario (such as the win conditions) so you guys actually know what to do when you join the game.

I believe the observer mode will eliminate most of the "we have no clue what the hell's going on here" teams, whereas the beginners section would just create more of them. If all you do is play with teams that attack warriors first, how much better are you going to get?

Sorry, but I fail to see how that ladder would be of any use to me. It seems like you're the one trying to step above. Try again.

whatever

I saw this as a post of someone telling of there experiance in a light hearted manner, and recounting there mistakes. which i think you completly missed.

My first time in the underworld, first weekend, my level 18 e/me and my level 17 w/mo guildy. He thought it'd be safe to bring life bond for me, and we felt pretty confident after beating up all the mobs in the surrounding area with ease. Anyway, we decided to make the 1plat investment for some good XP and perhaps some good loot, which was at the time maybe 1/5 of our total earnings. Hop in, the place looks awfully dreary, Chris casts life bond on me, and he carefully aggros one bladed aatxe. It runs right past him, for me, in the middle of casting fireball. One hit. We're both down to half health. Two hits, we're both dead simultaneously. Blasted life bond >.>

I saw this as a post of someone complaining about how unfriendly GvG is to newbeginners, and how it broke his guild up, causing him to not want to PvP again anytime soon, which I think you completely missed. Last 2 paragraphs:

Are we done analysing his post now?

Yes you’re completely right.

Everyone should like pvp, and they should just learn to play.

Or we could just accept that it’s not for everyone.

Sorry if im getting on your back here, but I really didn’t see the point of you saying

I think the op realized that and made a funny post about it. Maybe im getting a little trollish (is that a word), but i dont see the point of your post except to bellitle someone.


(edit - im going ot leave this now, as i dont want to hijack the post )

So we're twisting words now huh? That's not my point. My point is that if you lose at your first, second or maybe 185th attempt at PvP'ing, that doesn't mean you should just give up and claim that PvP is not for you. The OP made it clear that they weren't even attempting to learn to play as a team, and especially since they gave up that quickly.

I'm bellitling someone by telling them not to give up because they lost? Boy, I'd hate to have you as moral support.

Smartest thing you've said today.

A well, nevermind him/her. Just another Elitist roaming this board. There really should be a beginners section in PVP. Sure thing you learn through loosing.
BUT
Getting crushed in under a minute won't do you any good in terms of learning. And motivation gets a BIG UGLY hit at the bulls eye. The loosing battles you're learning best from are the ones that are lost only by a small edge. This way you actually have TIME to realize your mistakes and you'll know them instant.
Just eating dirt within seconds... too fast to even notice which spells they all fired upon you. Yeah... that's gonna help. Suuuure... thing.

The elitists should at least be honest. When the older players (in terms of time playing guildwars) started... there were no elitists. Everyone was on an equal level and that is why they all managed to learn a lot of things. As time went by... more and more newcomers came and it became harder and harder and even more harder to get started. Now we are at a point the Guildwars System forces Newcomer guilds against Top Notch Top Ten Guilds.

Problem a)
How fair is that?

Problem b)
Dead in seconds. Too fast to learn anything unless you're videotaping it.. which again isn't a thing for every PC.

Problem c)
Motivation is screwed. Losing and losing and losing yet another time won't do any good for the teams motivation. Sure some hardcore players will keep up and keep on losing but most will just give up.

Though i know this is useless but... do the elitists now see the horse they are on? If only the hardcore players are allowed to have fun in a game this is creating a society of rude asshats with attitude problems. Ooops.. i just described Guildwars in that sentence. We HAVE a community of rude asshats with attittude problems and elitists swarming the realms like locusts.

First of all, if you're calling me an elitist, I'd like you to back that up. Why am I an elitist in your eyes and what makes you think that? Is it because I don't constantly lose? Is it because I'm giving advice to a losing team? Is it because the little guild tag I wear is half known? You really need to lay off the group generalizations and think logical for a second.

In GvG, you can't lose under a minute. You have plenty of time while dead or while not in the middle of the battle to take a look at their team. NPC's in GvG pose a threat, and guilds don't just steamroll castles in point o seconds. Pay attention to their team when you know you'll eventually lose.

How many monks are they running? What's their secondaries? How does there offense look? Is the majority of their build 1 primary class? And if so, what skills are they using that they all have in common? If not, how are the classes spread out? Are they denying energy? Are they stacking hexes? Are they spiking?

Then you can start thinking about positioning. Is there a reason why their monks are way in the back? Is there a reason why their warriors don't run out of healing range? Where are the offensive casters positioning themselves? Are all 8 of them there? Do they have a guy running flags, or maybe someone on the side abusing your NPC's?

Then you can think about the counters. How can we build an ideal amount of monks to provide a decent defense against the kind of teams we face? How can we build an ideal amount of offense that can provide a decent amount of damage and shutdown against the kind of teams we face? Can we build units that can support the offense to be more effective, or can we build units to provide the defense with more resources to work with? How can we combine the 2, so that unit is most effective.

I agree that the players who were there from the beginning helped eachother grow and expand, and created the competition we know today. However, I disagree with you that new players are being held back by the more experienced. Ofcourse we play to win, but how does that hurt them? If anything, it pushes them to the level we're at faster than the way we got there. Are you even aware of some of the things top guilds are doing to help newbeginners? Do you know why most if not all top guilds strongly support observer mode? Do you have any clue what's being talked about and discussed on Weapon of Choice radio? Ever bothered to ask questions on IRC? I think not.

One of the most talked about discussions within the most experienced guilds is how we can help to inform the PvP community better, so the game can see more competition. My guild especially has concerned itself with doing that, such as organizing Team Arena runs and even creating team-iq.net , a forum to help those particularly interested in PvP.

Your first 2 problems, as I have already explained are irrelevant. Problem C however, I can see how losing can hurt a team's moral, but when getting into a competetive activity, one should always be prepared to lose. It happens in every competetive environment, and if you let losing peal you down, you're certainly not ready for challenges.

And no, I don't see myself sitting on any horse. If I had just began playing this game on a competetive level a week ago, I'd probably have just as much fun competing with the right people, against the top guilds. I'd lose, but I'd learn how to win. It's never constant losing unless you simply lack the self respect to pull yourself back up.

Please guys - I wrote this as has been said, in a light-hearted and hopefully mildly amusing manner. I am well aware of the best way to learn, so lets not go down to flaming each other. I know I am hopeless at PvP, I always have been, right back to the days of text-based MUDS. The sight of my Leroy character has always brought tears of joy to the eyes of the opposition, but I will continue to try and improve, however slowly!

Let me get this straight, you carried on after this?

Crazy, that's a recipe for death even in PvE against unthinking automata.

Duly Thankful - wonderfully written post, I was laughing so hard I'm mainly playing monk too, so that reminded me lots about my early days in 8v8 PvP.

I am also in a guild that had no clue about GvGs when we started them, but we did some unrated matches for some experience with no stress involved, went on tours around various islands to familiarize ourselves, and read some on GvG strategies and builds, then tried to make our own. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose ... especially when the wonderful matchup system keeps teaming you up with much higher ranked opponents . Overall, it's not so bad and not hopeless for sure - just requires some practice and a bit more strategy & coordination than just "let's kick their ass" .

Thanks for the chuckle, OP. Very well written and amusing.

Wow. A literate poster. That story was actually well written Plus my few GvG matches have been very much like that. I find it easier to learn PvP in the Tomb of the Unknown King, and have actually managed to win a few fights in there.

Great post and follow up. A pleasure to read.

Take the tour from Lion's Arch of all the other islands - each guild hall has different features, and you don't want to be completely lost when you arrive on someone else's island.

Also, try and set up some unranked GvG. Recently, we teamed up with some GvG newbies (newbies = the good kind!) from a friendly guild. We challenged them to unranked, but members from BOTH guilds got on TS together, we walked them through what happens during a match. Now they are a formidable opponent, but still friendly!

Dearest Duly Thankful,

Your post is the archetype of what a forum submission should be.
I laughed, I cried…it became a part of me.
Do you have a fan club?

With Sincere Appreciation,
Hoyt

P.S. I get what you are saying & I feel your pain.

Yeah this kind of GvG happened to me before. And yes targeting enemy monks is one of the tactics (for me that is) in GvG. Sometime i would see everyone (6 players) attacking one monk at the same time.

This post by far is funny and i truly felt your pain in GvG.

HILARIOUS. Loved it.


IMO -
Simple solution - RANDOM UNRANKED.

Like Starcraft - play the game, it does not count for anything - no faction, maybe experience points.

The only other solution is a practice guild. Most elite, if not all elite guilds, have one.

You get less faction, but the freedom is well worth it.

It works best with a second account, but for you just rotating one of the officers as guild leader of the 2nd guild will work.

And get Teamspeak or Ventrillo. Pretty sure there are free servers out there.
Best thing we did for our guild.

when we got our guild the creater decided to have a bit of a go at GvG. no people in the guild? just use henchies!
only 4 henchies? 5 is enough!
10 minutes for a battle? 2 seconds sill suffice!

dead.

also i did the UW thing as well. i admit it.

Oh come on, of course you're elitist. Everything you ever write is from the POV that one plays to be good. Being an elitist isn't inherently bad (being 1337 is, though), it means that you're serious about what you're doing. However, it also means that your POV isn't shared by people who do something just for fun.

I think we can all agree that while repeatedly losing, badly, against top teams may be a good opportunity to study their strategy, it isn't in itself fun. This is a problem if you're not playing to get better, but just to have fun.

And it waters down the challenge for the good teams too.

This is why most sports have ranking systems/divisions/leagues, to keep the "hobbyists" from getting slaughtered by the "pros".

I'm not sure how big & active the GW "world series" is, if it's big enough to support several partitioned tiers of players, but I can certainly see the point. Ideally you'd have the X top teams of lower tiers moving up each month or so, and the bottom X teams of higher tiers moving down.
Yeah, but the thing is, some people are not very competitive. They're not in it for the competition. That alone means they're chanceless against top guilds - and it's frankly unfair to match them against them. It's the whole difference between a friendly office match of softball in the park and a professional baseball match.
As someone who started testing PvP at the "weekend event" a month or so ago, I can testify that the entry threshhold is infact quite high now, and yes a fresh guild without PvP experience WILL be constantly losing. For days. Probably weeks. Because they're necessarily at the very bottom of the scale wrt skill simply because they're newbies and the others aren't.

It doesn't help that the random arenas (which presumably exist as a place for newbies to get their feet wet in PvP before moving on to GvG/ladder) are systematically farmed for faction by experienced & twinked players.

only way to get better is to play if you lose a few times shrug it off your rank will eventually get low enough to be going against other teams of your current skill level. then, after playing teams near your level for a while you will begin to get better and start moving back up in rank its the only way to get better if you dont naturaly do well at games

Ironically (by the views of them on this board) - FoTM builds have great use in this sort of scenario.

Say, your guild picks up a build for IWAY off a forum and begins running it. You quickly find that you can steamroll over some teams simply by charging forward without heavy regard for tactics, but others flatten you with ease. You'll win some without too much skill at the game, and likewise lose some against more experienced teams.

From here you can start to look at what's making you win or lose. Is the enemy team blocking or evading you with enchantments? Are they using Wards? Are you running into traps and dying to conditions and degen? Maybe it's not enough to do your own team build yet, but you'll start to see the sorts of teams people use, and get a feel for the tactics winning teams use against builds like IWAY.

Now try another FoTM build with the faction your guild has made - say, traps. Make a trapper team and start trapping defensively, again examining what causes you to win and lose. Note that trapping requires more skill than charging in with IWAY, so you'll lose a few more games at first, but eventually find the build to be considerably more effective as you pick up on the tactics.

Again, you'll start to see what counters your build, and what sorts of tactics the winning teams use. It usually won't be over in a couple seconds, and you'll at least get long enough to see why you lost.

From there, start modifying the FoTMs to account for what was beating you. Maybe start using enchantment stripping with your IWAY, or offensive trapping. Maybe mix in some monks. Maybe make a build off of one that countered your own and see if you can't find anyone else running FoTM builds to beat.

Finally, advance to the point where you can make your own builds completely free of the FoTM side of the game - viola, you've been introduced to PvP in a way that allows you to do something other than be flattened, and provided some new competition among the upper teirs.

Good luck!

Yup i found that as well.

The second game i had was prob the best ever. It was with a team who were equaly mathced, lasted about 20 ish minutes. Lots of pulling back, attacking changing tactics and learning. after that we had 2 games in a row were we were just owned in seconds (not the whole match of course but the actual fighting). After that most of the team just didnt have the heart to go on so there was only 4 of us left, so we moved onto team arenas.

As a team we were ok (tactics, calling sticking together ect), but it was our first attemp. The long game was good learning expirence, the others happend so quick we were simply not ready for that level of competition.

I have found it can take a bit of paitence to go back in after dying so quick, but some casual gamers just dont find that fun, which is the whole point of the game.

Couldnt have said it better.

again, first class post OP.

I vote for a strict rating system combined with a well functioning separation of experienced and inexperienced PVP groups. The few times I tried PVP have been with mixed degree of pleasure/dissappointment. I play GW for fun, not for extreme competition, but I find the concept of PVP fun and exciting. The problem is, I am still a learner, and I most likely never will make an effort to become highly skilled in PVP. But I would like to do it for the fun of it.

So it isn't any fun for me to be thrown up against a PVP group that is really experienced and good. Neither is it any fun to be put together with elite players in the random arenas, who will then complain about my talents not being good enough. And it doesn't help for me to be put up against a group that is so good that I am dead in no time whatsoever - I might see what wacked me, but I won't learn about how to counter it or how to effectively use my own skills.

Would be nice if parties are put against each other according to the average ranking of all the party members.

That was my exactly like my first GvG - minus the "let's just kill them" part. We got matched against guild *way* higher than us, so, while we were wondering "So, what are we supposed to do here", they already captured tower - "So? Maybe it's just like tombs, so it doesn't matter". I don't even remember what they were using, was too busy healing - and dying. Still, it was obvious that they were a lot better than us - that wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't our first game. When you enter competition, you don't expect to face top (insert number here) right in your first match, do you?

Hang on! Isn't community spirit illegal? I think we could all learn something here - and I don't just mean in-game.

If I see community spirit round here, I want it shot ... now!

What a great post! I laughed, I cried. I think you note the frustrations and experiences of many with your summary of your GvG experience. I'll offer you the following suggestions, if your guild would *like* to continue with PvP:

1. Advice for complete PvP newbies: Ask that the members of your guild who have no experience at all with PvP try out whatever build they're considering in the random high-level arena. If they're frustrated there (with completly random teams, anyway) and unable to do anything (against completely random teams), then suggest ways of improving their build and send them back in again until they get some experience under their belt.
2. Advice for improving team tactics: Take three other members of your guild into the organized team arena. This is great for practicing tactics like "protect the squishies" or "pounce on the squishies." You'll also figure out if your group's builds complement one another or fail, how to build defences into your own build, and how to work together. You'll develop tactics.
3. Advice for testing the build: So you manage to get 5-8 people together, but you don't want to risk a GvG loss before you test out what your guys can do. Head down to the Tombs for some good times. You'll quickly face various "flavors of the month and/or past months," some very good opponents, and get a "free" education in how to survive and thrive in a wide spectrum of situations. It would be wrong of me to suggest that a strong Tombs build is going to be successful in GvG, and I'm not suggesting that, but if you take your GvG build down into Tombs, you'll learn its strengths and weaknesses. You'll also be able to tweak it, have fun, and (maybe) show some progress through fame and rank while you're at it.

So I guess my only real advice is to not jump headfirst into GvG without first wetting your guild members' feet a little in the other flavors of PvP. I hope you and your guild can recover from your crushing losses and one day return, stronger, better, and able to have fun together again.

Good luck with that, and thanks for the great read,
cmb

I STILL don't get GvG.
What are we supposed to do and stuff and I've never won one either with my guildies

T_T.

Guess I,m just not bright enough to understand it

Quoted for truth!

There is a HUGE difference between those who play they game to win (like Shinsei obviously does) and those who play for fun (like me). It is utterly unfun to get repeatedly slaughtered by a team of highly competitive players in 1 minute 30. And the main problem is that you don't even learn much from getting whacked that quickly. On the contrary, it's quite possible that the difference in skill between highly experienced PvPers and newcomers is so great that the new players don't even UNDERSTAND what killed them so quickly. It won't lead to the newcomers trying hard to learn and improve. It will lead to them quit trying because all they ever experience is frustration. To keep people motivated to learn and improve, they sometimes need some small degree of success. Which is the main reason why there should be some kind of league system in GW. It would ensure that new PvPers will fight the good teams when they are ready for it.

Thanks for making me snort up my drink laughing.

I love how everyone jumps on Shinsei's back saying he's an elitest.

He's well spoken(obviously an elitest) and knows how to play(obviously on a high horse)...so let's just ignore him and his benificial advice in favor of ignorance and the right to suck. YAY!

The OP made some serious mistakes(the first of which was not organizing his group and the last of which was trying to be both the healing monk and the protection monk at the same time)...Shinsei offered some advice that could have helped the OP while still realizing that the topic was light hearted(note how short his post was)...allowing the OP to come to him(via PM) if he wanted to know more. I just don't get it sometimes...maybe it's that iQ has a history(even if it's unfounded) of being elitests...but flaming the people that know what they're talking about isn't the greatest way to make a forum survive.