The Debate over Forced PvE Grind

Apparently I didn't phrase my last post regarding this very important community issue correctly and my origional thread was misinturpreted to be soley about skills and therefore moved to the wrong forum:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=9463

Over 2000 people viewed this thread in less than a day and there were also 100+ responses also in less than a day showing that this is definately a community issue ... although I'll admit I never expected so many people to respond.

I thought perhaps I should post up this issue again in the general community forums as it is obviously something that goes far past a debate over the SoC/skills and spills into an issue that strikes at the very core of the Guildwars community.

Take a look at the fan sites out there and one will find a debate raging over forcing players to PvE in order to enjoy PvP content ... this is an issue that is being hotly talked about on almost every major Guildwars Forum.

My current belief and stance is simply this:

Originally Posted by anduck (in response to Gaille)

I cannot see the challenge, the solution is right there in front of you: let PvP-oriented people unlock through PvP. Do not force them to spend hundreds of hours grinding through the PvE game multiple times and completing it to a far greater extent than most PvErs, which is the current situation. I am not sure that persons who argue in favor of the grind, including yourself, fully comprehend that. In fact, I am certain that they don't.

Basically I have no problem "earning" my right to certain skills and runes. I'd just like to see a way to do so through PvP instead of PvE. Does this seem reasonable?

yes... of course it seems reasonable!

im a PvE myself, but i also like to PvP and kick my friends around the arena sometimes... i understand what you are saying... theres no reason to make the PvPers to PvE to unlock everything.... they should just be able 2 do it while PvPing!

If you win a certain thing while PvPing, you unlock something... it should be like that...

Here is what I don't understand. If you make a new PvP character, you lose all the fame/ranking you've gained with that character in your time PvPing with them. Jumping around between characters that often doesn't seem like something you would want to do, unless I'm missing something and PvP characters have the fame/ranking carried over or something. Don't see a point in PvP characters outside of trying a new spec after you run out of attribute refund points considering you unlock everything with your PvE character anyway which by the time they're done can do PvP anyway.

I think fame is tied to an account instead of single characters?

well, it would be better if you play through PvE first, and get all your items upgraded to godlyness, and then go and PvP... but, what if ppl only want to PvP, and dont care bout that stuff????

it just might be... but then again, i havent done any PvP since before release, so im not sure...

I'm not sure. It would be nice if it was, and might actually make PvP characters worthwhile, but doesn't seem to make sense. I mean, you could technically have a different name and different setup for every battle. you would think fame would be tied to someones name at least.

that is so open to abuse that it is beyond stench

either both sides get the prize (whatever it is skill wise) or most will be locked out (put in time GRIND and get your elite)

or if only the winner gets it different guilds will simply agree that we will let you win on M/W/F and we get T/T/S and on sunday we fight for real (again going through the motions GRIND)

I wouldn't even mind if it was tied to Tomb matches ... Maybe one new skill or rune every time you make it past a certain stage in the tombs?

Since Tomb matches involve teams from all over the world it wouldn't be as easy to rig.

The problem with allowing PvP to unlock stuff is that it would be very subject to abuse (guilds start making dual accounts used just to help their members "unlock" everything). If there was a surefire way to prevent abuse (which I doubt their ever could be), then I would be all for it. But unlocking via PvP should be slower than via PvE, to encourage players to have a look at all this great content.

If you're going to allow unlocking in PvP, it should be under these conditions:
(1) Random arena only
(2) Signet of capture method only
(3) No public speech; only group talk

You play fps games you:

Write scripts

Tweak graphical settings and monitor refresh rate

Customize configuration

buy uber 7 button mouse

And you can log onto a server right away and start fragging on par. But with all that said and done, I didn't buy Guild Wars for an adrenaline twitch game. So really, I don't care. This game in neat when you're adventuring with guys.

You can drink beer and play PvP on par. But not in Quake or such cause your aim gets off to much. This game should be about drinknig beer and adventuring.

Hell, this is the only online game that I didn't run the lowest resolution possible to maximize on frames per second... It's too slow and turn based anyways..

But it isn't about drinking beer and adventuring...play WoW, EQ2, SWG, DaoC, anything but this, it is meant for streamlined mmo'esque competition with a more accessible and strategic element over sheer numbers, equipment, and hour long delay uber abilities. I've had battles last long enough in WoW for me to get in a second vanish, which is a five minute recharge ability, others have ten, twenty, an hour, for guild wars I practically groan at ten second delays.

Granted I'm a fan of the PvE elements, I want them both to offer something, and both be usable paths. All of this talk of exploitation and such, these are always rampant when they are not considered, but really, dissuade people with :

Consecutive wins against characters count for less and less, including both team and guild related wins which count for less on scale but ultimately may effect as much or more. Greater reduction for further similarities in kills, meaning 1+1 = 2.2 or so, so a full team being defeated is essentially worth nill, while defeating say the same six characters in six different battles is actually worth more per. This means that you cannot pitch the same battles again and again, and of course it is tied to account, remaking a character won't work, fighting with a different character won't work, but if people get antsy with exploitation with multiple accounts, I mean really, there is only so far to go.

Ranking systems based on pure point basis, direct losses and lack of growth, and essentially further splits between point values means lesser or greater points earned depending on victor. In other words, if you want to farm points off someone, they better have points themselves. However, you incur losses, but if you have say 1,000 points and another person has 0, you might progress up 1 point, defeat em a few times and may get none. Of course on the inverse, they defeat you and recieve say 10 points, while an equal point value win would mean say 4 points. This would be balanced meaning the points you lose do not equal the points they win, otherwise progression may become increasingly difficult for some, but also restricts the possibility of tanking on either side again and again.

As well, further prizes based on higher evolutions through the ladder, so if only you and a few others are at this pinnacle of 10,000, you would be decked in special looking armor with a neat weapon and have a few extra unlocks, which means essentially everyone wants to develop to this point, not waste their day getting you up. And, defeat against a similarly ranked enemy is a heavier loss.

That plays into the pure spirit of the thing. I've come into CS servers where people are mopping up, and shut them down completely to the point that they left. Why? Cause everyone there wasn't such an active player, and while he may have looked cool with a great ratio, when it comes down to the areas where you need to play head to head against real talent, you falter and are shown for little. If someone works their way up on harvesting guild mate alternate accounts, they may get to 5,000, but, never 10,000, or whatever point system envelopes from it.

I've played Planetside which was to be a MMOFPS game. I used to go hyper killing everything. But then they nerfed the surge and slowed down the game.

They blamed it on net-code but in truth the game to me was filled with skilless whiny newbies that got owned fast and hard. The game turned into uber crap and it felt slow and turn based to me.

I want to rumble in clan wars n'stuff. But I just don't care about adventuring for items to do it. This game doesn't excite competition in me as much as others. This game is better than Planetside: They are both slow and turn based but at least this has cool eye-candy.

thanks as i missed those somehow
if no abuse no objections

You have to admit the netcode WAS kinda crappy though in Planetside ...

Bamelin

pvp is account base, so rank/fame and guild status is carried over to your other characters. Tombs is random, and only hoh, which requre 7 consecutive wins, ever get anything anyways, so you can't abuse your way to rewards, since there's so many teams. To me, it doesn't seem like you can abuse much, except the fact that the good teams get unfair advantage and get even better. That's a problem right? I dont think it's a bad idea though, having multiple ways of unlocking spells.

i don't know what their original intention was, but maybe they are trying to encourage people to get more involved with the game and guild wars community by playing the pve side, and exploring the world and story line, because they know that those players give the game longevity, and are the source of future income.

I may be wrong, but my general feeling about people that ONLY pvp will be leaving this game a lot sooner than people that are into the TOTAL game...pve, and pvp. I know if i was just doing either, i'd get tired of the game pretty quickly.

makes sense to me anyway. I love both, i think i understand this from both sides, and that's probably the reason why they are doing it like this.

Since i like both, and i think most people like both, and it gives the people that like both an advantage...i'm all for it.

This is a non-issue if the only people that care will be gone in a month anyway.

Acutally, I bought this game 70% for PvP and 30% PvE, seriously. However, this is the last game I am going to buy, and I will be sticking with the expansions for this game til the company stops making them. Arena.net is that awesome. But I too would like to see suggestions or ideas on how to improve the current system. The other thread on SoC has turned south and really is almost flaming at each other in some instances.

There is no debate. If the people that are pounding on tabletops demanding to turn Guild Wars into a medieval themed Mortal Combat video game are allowed whine their way into ruining the PvP aspects of the game with PvP only skill unlocking... I will stop playing the game and will not buy expansions.

THIS game is what is getting high ratings in reviews. THIS game does not allow people with attention spans of no longer than one arena match to twitch-skill their way into game domination on the PvP side.

By the way, just FYI...an easy way to get the elites/skills you want is to level up one character all the wya to 20(which gives you about 40 skill points if you do the missions. Dont BUY any skills. capture the elites u want for those 2 professions, do the 2nd profession change quest, get the elites/skills you want for whatever classes you want.

Thats what I did. I've built all my chars off one char because I've earned 50 skill creds and never bought any skills(got them from quests). So you can basically buy 50 skills for the other 4 classes(all youll ever need).


Dont be lazy?

Do I?

Game with surge... equals game!

Game without surge is... WTF is this crap? I'd rather play a fruity RPG!

Netcode is not a factor.


You had people in Planetside with like a 386 abd a voodoo 1 running 1800x1600 resolution crying foul to net code.

How would it ruin PvP? And why would it be wrong to allow PvP gameplay to unlock skills as a reward?

Personally I like the PvE quests in this game, they are rewarding (Most the time) and fun, plus he move the story on a bit.

But I do like the idea of maybe the PvP places rewarding hard-to-get skills.

Listen guys you cant just seperate the 2 aspects into non mutual games, if thats what you want here then do not play Guild Wars.

How many threads are their in WoW asking to nerf the roleplay so people can PvP with lvl 60 characters instantly? None. So because a.net has come out with a game that has a superior PvP element you are asking hem to split the game up? Make the two different aspects exclusive?

There might be a huge debate about this, but the complainers on every issue are far more vocal than the supporters. The vast majority of Guild Wars players might think some aspects could use tweaking but they certainly dont want to see this game split into 2 exclusive parts. Which is what would happen with PvP skill unlocking.

Simply stop whining about having to put time into a game. Either make the effort to play a game, or dont. You can make that choice, so please stop passing the buck to others and saying is a major issue. Its a major issue amongst the PvP instakill 10 second attention span crowd. Perhaps also some busy adult players. Neither of these groups realise this is an indepth complex next generation game. Either play the game you have, or don't play it. But dont demand your issues with the game change the game in such a fundamental way.
Begone with you.

The Debate Over Forced PvE Grind

That might be your opinion of the RPG element of this game, but since when did your opinion start becoming fact?

I am very concerned about the amount of people here claiming they are speaking for the PvP crowd at large, or large amounts of players, or that this is a raging debate, implying vast numbers of people are extremelly upset.

Thats rubbish. At best the posters here speak for themselves and a few mates, and get a couple of posts backup from other players. This is being put across as a burning issue in the Guild Wars community, when its a burning issue for a small number of people.

Recent burning issues in the Guild Wars community has been the availability of fur patches, and the frequency of fights in some arenas.
Yes those were burning issues amongst the community. You can see this by the number of DIFFERENT posters posting about those questions, the NUMBER of people in game discussing those issues, and the SPEED with which the developers heard and fixed those issues. Apart from the arena fights at late night, unfortunatly.

I would have thought there are VERY FEW people indeed who play Guild Wars with the fullest intentions of never playing through the PvE arenas. The vast majority of Guild Wars players would have bought this game for the whole game, to play the whole game, and waited patiently for the WHOLE GAME to be released.
You know yourself a game like Guild Wars was not exaclty advertised EA style on the TV for 7 days a week for the 3 months prior to launch. This means the players must have discovered the game for themselves, would have found out about the game themselves, online im assuming like myself, would have had a really really good idea of what to expect before launch, epsecially thanks to BWE.
My question is if you knew there was to be PvE 'grind' involved in this game why did you buy it only to complain about a feature you knew would exist in the game?

Ok so some people might have issues with the game, but its only issues about certain things they have to do to get certain rewards, and not about cheating stealing unbalanced items characters etc.

It comes down to the fact that we have here a game where you must collect what you use. The methods of collection compared to other games are incomparably faster and less of a 'grind', but this is still unaccpetable to a certain section of the player base.
The other issue is that this game is a competitive fantasy role play game. Even when fighting each other in a muddy bog we are still using our warriors and our mages, calling on demonic powers and holy wrath. This is supposed to be a game world that every member takes part in, but can take part in different ways.
This does not mean however that there are two games, or that you do not play in the one world. This is not a PvP game with a PvE stitched on, this is a Fantasy game set in a fantasy world that is designed for competitive longevity.

Much like Homeworld 2 for example. Or even Rome total war. Except however that the entire game is online, not just the competitive aspect, and this is not a game where you can totally ignore the 'game' to go kill other people, no matter how much adrenaline junkies might complain.

Its really easy guys. If an integral, major part of this game is such complete turn off, then go buy Homeworld 2, Rome Total War. They are both highly complex in their own rights, support I think 6 and 8 player deathmatches as well as team based combat, and you dont have to 'pretend' to be Ceaser or Karen S'jet in order to duke it out.

Alternativly if you cant do without your warriors and mages, then deep down you do like fantasy, and are just kicking up a stink because thats what you kind of people do to all new games in ever new forum

Holy hell, not this again.

After talking to Pharalon in PMs, I see the issue. There still is no obviose way to "fix" it. Some people say lots of gold to get elite skills. If its to low they are too easy to get, and if its too high that would equal grind (exactly what we are trying avoid).

This is a IMO thing, but the PvPers get all of there atrabute pts in one fell swoop, while even a lvl 20 RP char is forced to do 2 extra quests to have the same amount of pts. Could they have meant it to be like that? I have no clue.

I am a fan of the current SoC prosses, and anything added on would undermine that. However, I see that some PvP players dont want to force themselves to play 100+ hours doning something that dont want to. Maby they can add a reward system to the new and improved arena, and make where random arenas are the only ones that can win it the prize.( that would help alievate some of Loviatars consernes).

I really dont want anything to change in the current system, as I said Im for the SoC. I takes skill and practice to be able to pull of a succesful capture. I can however see that current plight of PvP chars.

That being said, I dont want to see this turned into two different games. If PvPers are given this I fear that they will begin to complain about having to PvE at all. (PvP only players still have to play some PvE if they want to be worth anything in PvP) I alos dont want them try and "fix" this issue and then go completley overboard and screwing up something else.

Thats my view on this, take it how you will.

Let's make BlackAce happy, and say screw the elite system, and just frigging balance the skills! :P

Sorry to ask but... what is SoC? Since I have no idea what your talking about.

when I think Role Playing Game I think old Final Fantasy and such.. you bought it knowing you were going to spend many many hours trying to win the game and find the best weapon. I just don't understand why you would buy this game for the PvP aspect expecting everything to be 'handed' to you. (yes, I understand some of you aren't asking for it to be handed to you on a silver platter, but in other ways) If you earned things for beating other opponents, or winning a certain amount of times, like someone else said (sorry for my short term memory right now, it's late :P ) it would turn into a sort of online Mortal Kombat/Soul Calibur 2. Now.. not that I've never dreamt of that, but not from Guild Wars.

I just don't see a way that they could do it without ruining some other aspect of the game or upsetting another group of people. As illustrated by VALVe a few times, you can't please everyone, and right now it seems like the majority of the Guild Wars community is pleased. Nothing is perfect. After things are said and done and this and that, I guess I'm in agreeance with Manderlock, they probably shouldn't mess with it.

Amen, not right now, not 2 weeks after launch.

SoC= Sig of Capture

How can people be so blind to the fact that they include the option to create PvP characters off the bat with builds? Granted you gain a better variety of skills through PvE exploration, the fact is you can jump right in with the highest armor (not the underworld stuff but equal), great held items, a good build, the arenas open to you, and the ascension quests technically finished for points.

That right there is a definitive seperation between PvE and PvP. In the last BWE's I unlocked skills and PvP'd for most of it, Idon't think I ever got my character past the searing, and if you take a competitive FPS game, they might have a single player element, or a more roleplaying one if you prefer, and then place with it the obvious server selection choices and so on.

It is easy to divide, but, no one is saying divide, just different paths that the game focuses on, victory in arenas would still require the same focus towards playing, perhaps not the length, but, let em miss out on a few things, it is like skipping Half-Life just to play HLM, sure you got to that before me though I got more.

If you try and use premies, you will get owned in real PvP. So yea you *have* to do PvE if you want to be a competive PvP player.

Oh I assure you, I wouldn't attempt to use any of the builds already made, granted I'm doubtful they suck because of how well the skills have been designed, unless that is what you made, it won't work out. However, the fact is that there is the viability to these pre-made builds and the few quick skills you can get pre-searing over an hour to basically progress purely as PvP, but there isn't much true progression in PvP as there could be. It wouldn't realistically splinter the game is the fact.

In fact, I'm saying that the pre-made builds obviously aren't enough, or else no one would be having this discussion if they thought that was all they needed.

? ?

You do know that this is a continuation of the SoC thread, right?

It would splinter the game, if you think that premies are actually usefull or you only need pre-serian skills (that made me laugh), its your perogitive. The fact remains that this game is just that one game. It dose NOT need to become 2 seperate games. If it did this then it would be unfair to the people like myself, who like to play both. (that is the vast majority of people you know)

Play PVE and stop whinning
This is not planetside. This is not PVP game. It's guild war. It's an rpg.
Go kill monsters and get your reward. Let's be simple about this.

Why do I have to spell this out...I'm not saying that using a premade skill set is good, or that getting only pre-searing skills as actually useful. Hell I am ascended, I've switched my class, been leveling other characters to get these skills. However, the premise of the game is for all skills to be viable, it wouldn't make it two seperate games, and that is the point, not what the hell you think of the early skills or skill sets.

And I still do not see how this would be unfair, I'd still play PvE, but right now I have to in order to bother with PvP, because like you, I don't care for the builds and early skills. The problem is this have to in order to get on.

Why not add a counter-balance for the PvE side instead of simply saying that it would somehow imbalance it, or make it so that trying to get up in this manner would appeal to the PvP player but require just the same amount of time and energy as the PvE side of things.

As well, it has never gotten off track as far as the signet is concerned, this still applies and may be limited in its use or not.

You dont have to spell it out, thats what your said

You should have found out about what this thread was about before you started to post on. I dont even think that the OP would want two seperat games, wich no matter how you cut it is what you want. What do you want them to do, go in and add a story to PvP, thats ludacris.

the PvP in GW is widly know as the "end-game", and it should stay like that. At the the end of the game.

I like how people whine about the "FORCED(wheres the gun?) pve grind" when it only took me 100 hours to max out a char(best armor/skills/weapon/shield i would every get). In a normal MMORPG you wouldnt even be CLOSE to maxed. Infact another notorious PVP mmoprg(AC), the cap took years to hit without exp chains and macroing.

I think its ironic that the developers arent charging monthly PLUS made the grind minute(not the measurement of time), yet you STILL bitch....when in reality you probobly played UO,AC,EQ,SWG,CoH,DaoC,SB or whatever for months and months and never maxed out your character yet you payed upwards of 50 dollars to do it.(btw, notice how I left out WoW, because you can max in that game pretty quick, but that game also kind of sucks.)

In short, quitcherbitchin and spend a few days leveling a character. Infact you dont even have to use people until AFTER you get your best armor, so you can go through almost the whole game with henchman, you antisocial bastards.

Also to add.... since when did the developers say this was counterstrike? Go level a character.