User:DarkNecrid/PvP

Hey Linsey! :)

So I know you're busy and got a lot on your plate already, but I figure maybe this'll be something worth thinking on. None of this is me hating on you, because as much as I give ArenaNet crap, I understand that deep down you guys had a very successful first product and were getting your feet wet as a company together. Everything I say here is from a design standpoint about PvP, and how we can make it better.

To the point then...

Prelude:

It's rather obvious since shortly after Nightfall (not playing the LOL ANET FAIL GAME here, just the truth...) the PvP community dwindled quite a bit. Many guilds disbanded and old competitive rivals came together into joined guilds...and these were people who were renown for being in guilds that were RIVALS. I'm sure you've read enough to know the reasons why this is, but to put it shortly and not dwell on it: overpowered classes that replaced other class roles that already existed, badly designed skills that were power creepish with little to no drawback, and a seeming abandonment of the top end.

Guild Wars is going into its fourth year, and for me, it's 5th. I remember when the max level was 15, everyone was UAX for beta testing, there was skill gems and a 9th skill slot, when spirits were environmental effects, the old old old old old Unnatural Signet, which is easily the worst skill in existence (75s recharge, disable all skills for 30 seconds, you only get 1 natural ritual removed! genius!)...etc. We both know the game was built from the ground up to be a competitive game, a fact that Mike O'Brien admits (#2 in that vid)!

PvE was originally designed to lead the way to PvP, fairly obvious from the Crystal Desert having missions designed like PvP objectives, and the arenas in PvE.

But of course there was something I guess ArenaNet didn't expect, which was players who didn't enjoy the PvP, but had fun in PvE. These player's never gave PvP a chance, or never moved towards it as it seems like was originally intended for them to do.

You guys did a lot right in PvP. A lot. To this day most MMORPG's are behind game mechanic designs that set Guild Wars ahead of the rest. A simple skill that we take for granted, Reversal of Fortune, has no applicational equal in the MMORPG genre. The entire line of Protection Prayers is a godsend in a genre where most healers have 3 types of heals, a couple debuffs removers, and a long recharging invincibility spell. Knockdowns provide a strategic advantage not seen in other MMORPG's, and Guild Wars is one of the few ORPG's where you can pressure and spike, something unique in a market that is dominated by burst damage only. The best part is that everyone is on equal power and footing, and is the one thing that truly sets Guild Wars apart from the rest.

Observation Mode is one of your best updates to PvP, in addition to the timers on the Effects Monitor, and the J menu.

But with all those good things, there is a few bad things that inevitably prevent PvErs from seeing the greatness that is your PvP mode. I think a lot of it has to do with there not being much of a reward for doing it, and a lack of a real way to break into it casually and follow the bread crumb trail up like there is PvE where you start in Pre-Searing and work your way up the bread crumb trail that is the XP bar and story.

Issues:


 * I'd say the first thing that bothers me is that Andrew Patrick said nearly a year ago that Eye of the North rewards would be added for TRP. In fact, on his dev page which was posted like 6 months ago it says: "GW:EN stuff as Tournament Rewards - I am told this is being tested on Dev right now, and should be added soon." This is like Valve Time soon! It's been half a year and they still aren't there as far as I can see! What happened? Granted a lot of the top end players play PvE anyways, giving this content to the PvP only players is still very much needed.

That is a rather minor issue, compared to the next issue, however...

Bridging the PvE to PvP gap

As I said above, it's rather obvious the original intent was for PvErs to go to PvP. Being rather knowledgeable in game design and such, it's relatively easy to guess why this is. On a basic level, I'm sure it's relatively easy to say "we wanted to make a great competitive game", but on the flipside, it's more cost effective as well. PvE takes a lot of time and money to generate content for, there is always that "next thing", a bread crumb trail if you will, and going into 4 years of your life cycle, you have players who have done it all. You added titles to try to alleviate this problem, but indeed you have the very same players and they have God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals...or close to it. On the other hand, top end PvPers do not need new content, they need balance and an audience to slay. Competitive Counterstrike players play on the same maps, Quake 3 players play on the same maps and use the same weapons, etc. These players all play the same content repetitively. StarCraft is the same way. Why? Because these games are balanced, and that makes them fun. PvPers are just far cheaper to generate content for and far easier to "keep happy" if you can follow through with the balancing and keeping the audience. I'm sure we can both agree on this point.

Somewhere along the way, ArenaNet failed in making the competitive game appealing enough for the casual user. I won't say what this error was or where and when it occured, but I do believe the issue is that there is nothing there for the casual user to "break into" it. You can say Random Arenas, but this isn't very true. Random Arenas is a very frustrating place with a number of balancing flaws, poor explanation of PvP mechanics leading up to it, and thanks to the addition of Gladiator, full of leavers and mean people who berate the bad players constantly even with Dishonor.

I casually suggested this on the Costume Brawl section, but Costume Brawl and the other minigames and sealed deck are the exact tools you guys need to fix this problem of a dying weakening community.

Think about it for a second. Costume Brawl is the best example because it uses actual skills & items with realistic PvP objectives (shrine capping), so I'm going to focus on it for a second. Costume Brawl is better than Random Arenas as a beginner's PvP mode for 4 reasons:


 * The rewards are small. This makes the game more fun oriented, and players are less likely to use terms like scrub or noob. During the entire week I played Costume Brawl (about 50 hours worth of game time in it mind you) last year, I saw the word "noob" in a game...once. Once. I can see the word noob or any number of vulgar words or racist terms about one thousand times that in about 5 minutes of being in an American Random Arenas district.


 * It's less team oriented while being team focused. Costume Brawl has a team goal, uses teams, but if you aren't entirely organized you can still win. Compare this to RA where if the enemy team has a Monk and your warriors are terrible and can't swap targets and know Monk stuff your entire team crumbles.


 * It's a realistic situation. No, it isn't a 8v8, or any other realistic PvP mode situation, but it's a realistic PvP encounter. No NPCs, a team of players versus another team of players.


 * It's relatively balanced. Speaks for itself.

On the flip side, you have Sealed Deck which relatively has all those above points too.

Costume Brawl when it was out last year had more players and districts than any other holiday event from what I could see, and every PvP mode combined. PvPers and PvErs were playing and enjoying it, because it's fun and unique for PvErs and light hearted, and not as complex and BUILD WARS for PvPers. It's one of the few times were both groups hardcore players could come together and have fun without really annoying each other, just having fun. And that's a really great thing.

Why not make Costume Brawl or something like it available 24/7? It'd generated quite a bit of interest from the PvE side and learning, as I said in my costume brawl section, I saw PvEr's pre-kiting and splitting.

Having Sealed Deck available would be nice too.

I know this is rather TIME CONSUMING, but I think the benefits are more than worth it. Having a more revitalized PvP community is great because let's face it, PvP generates infinite content by itself, so this is less work for you guys if you get people interested in it in the long term. You could always make the reward just Balth Faction except during the Holidays, so that would still keep them unique and worth it.

Rather than writing another 50 paragraphs, I'll keep the rest of the issues short:


 * The tutorial area is completely wack. It doesn't actually teach you anything you couldn't learn from having 2 eyes and using your mouse. A redesigned PvP area that covers class techniques and gives the user common builds would be handy. These would have to be adjusted with balance updates, but it gives people a place to start beyond WAMMO. Anything that does teach you stuff is not actually in-game. All your PvP primers are on your website, out of reach from the casual player who won't follow that stuff so much. You should take that knowledge, update it, and throw it into the game. I'm writing a PvP guide for guru that's rather comprehensive, but it'll still be on a forum and not in-game where it's more useful to the average player. :( All the tutorial area does is teach you what conditions do and give you a place to test builds and get z-keys, that is it. It doesn't teach anyone what is effective and why, nor does it give you useful builds or a good place to start in PvP.


 * In addition to the above I think it's about time that PvP-only characters have full 8 skill skillbars instead of being gimped with 6 skills by default with no actual build there as a player stumbles amongst a couple hundred skills lost. No? Give the Warrior a Shock Axe bar, etc. The premade builds worked great way back when, and these are great starter places for the average player to learn from. PvErs who want to try PvP won't know the meta or what's good at all, and they go to get berated in RA because of it.


 * Skill Points are completely useless for PvP characters, and you could always make them do something for PvP characters that rewards PvE & PvP. An example could be is (on PvP only characters of course, this is abuseable otherwise) a stack of gold (just example), or a z-key, or a flame of balthazar...something. PvErs inherently like a sense of progress, and the Experience Bar is the de facto basic sense of progress. So why not take advantage of this? It gives them a reason to play PvP on PvP characters, and it connects the PvP experience back to what they do in PvE.


 * Scrimmaging and basic guild functions that cost money have limited functionality and usefulness for the average player.. For the greatest idea to fix this ever which seemed relatively simple, see this thread. Everything in it would be great, fixes the limited usefulness of Scrimmaging and expands it into something truly great and useful and FUN for the casual PvEr. (in fact, this could easily be used for PvPers to teach PvErs the ropes of top end easier, which would be handy for guilds like Team Love [kiSu].)


 * To that end, PvErs really have no incentive to create PvP only characters. Of course this is ok for the top end PvPer who might have enough money from PvPing now to buy 500 mansions in-game, but the casual PvErs just doesn't have the equipment for 4 max weapon swaps, all 8 skills 24/7, all the runes and perfect salvage kits and such, but has multiple characters to fill all their slots. Why not give everyone a free character slot that is PvP only? This gives PvErs an incentive to try it out, and with the skill point change, this will let them see, yes, I can have a character JUST for this that can be whatever I want him to be.


 * A relatively personal suggestion from an also casual PvEr, but some cool rewards that were only gotten in PvP (say something useless like a Minipet or Tonic not gotten from the Z-chest but buyable from a guy for Faction or Tokens won from PvPing and not tradeable, kind of like the Medallions from the Nightfall Beta PvP weekend...which btw was an utterly fantastic system that should be brought back and expanded on) would generate interest....PvErs LOVE rewards (I uh, think thats obvious. :P The entire mode revolves around it.) and if they see a reward they can only get in X way, they will follow the bread crumbs to do it. PvErs pay 5k for a z-key just to get a tonic that changes their form. That's 5,000 gold just to get a different look for 50 minutes. They're willing to do stuff to get unique stuff. Logically they will do PvP if they have a reason that gives them a reward they will enjoy, whether it's a special cool tonic, or a unique minipet. I don't want to get into specifics, but there's so many things you could do with this to make a "bread crumb" PvE-esque trail in PvP here. Whether it's tokens unique to each mode gotten by winning that are untradeable with each mode having its own unique rewards and such, or whatever, its definitely a cool idea. It doesn't even take that much time since you could still use existing models for both minipets and tonics which in reality looks like just copying the effects of previous stuff but changing the model/shrinking the model, of course, just use different cool models. This type of system actually exists in a way in the Hall of Heroes, but the problem is is that this is a top end mode that the low end casual PvErs can't perform well in and don't have good applications to learn PvP and PvP tactics in. Stuff like this in the low end that gets progressively cooler and better up to the top, will help lead and give PvErs the very needed "goals" they need to get to the top and have fun along the way. Apply the bread crumb reward system to PvP, basically. While the hardcore PvPers may not care about these meaningless rewards, the average PvEr does, and that is definitely a reason for them to try this stuff out. Maybe they see....i dunno, a Necrid Horseman tonic. They say, "you know what, I want this reward." They have to get say a couple of RA Medals, equivalent to winning maybe 20 times or so in there. They buy that tonic and they have a 50 minute Necrid Horseman tonic to look awesome. Stuff like this goes a long way to getting PvErs to do PvP, and if the rewards are worth it, go beyond casual PvP. Maybe they'll keep playing, getting those tonics, glad points, faction, unlocks, minipets, and then they hear that if you win a bunch of GvG's you get a freaking SHIRO tonic. Oh baby now we're talking. Who doesn't want to look like Shiro? So they'll eventually take those steps to get that item.


 * Also PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE TOLKANO CHANGED SO I DONT HAVE TO CLICK 5000 BUTTONS TO GET 250 Z-KEYS. Make him a merchant type store PLEAE PLEASE PLEASE. He's going to give me and everyone else I know carpel tunnel I know it. Having to click 75 buttons just to get some z-keys is one of the longest, most boring, and frustrating experiences I've had in-game ever.


 * Just a thought, but maybe a PvP boxed version of Guild Wars? Gives you UAX and access to everything. The antithesis of the Complete Collection if you will? Not a big deal, but definitely something to think about IMO. You have a great PvP mode, but very few people know this outside of the Guild Wars group. I ask people in other games and they don't even know what Guild Wars is! No advertising etc. :(

Closing:

The core of all these suggestions and ideas is not to improve the PvP experience for the hardcore PvP player (if anything, none of these things would benefit the top end at all, a better balancing prospect would be required for that.), but rather to promote more life at the low end, and give PvErs more interest in PvP. This however benefits the top end, by providing more life, giving people more stuff to do, and promoting the cycle that is the infinite content generation of competitive play. Obviously you won't win everyone over, but interest from the Costume Brawl from the PvE side (i asked every game, about 8/10 games I had were dominated by a team of PvErs and we consistently won almost every time.) and Guru tournament's casual division shows there is interest, you just need to help ferry them there with better tools for improvement and having fun on the way up.

I'm not expecting a reply, though if you gave me one that would be bloody fantasic. I appreciate the hard work Anet has done on this game, but when you go into the end of your life cycle with a online game, and ready to go for another, PvP is always the mode that lasts the longest. Eventually you'll do everything PvE has to offer, but you can never do everything PvP has to offer: it changes every time you hit Enter Battle.

I specifically didn't mention balance, because well, that's Izzy's problem and there's too much work that needs to be done at this point a lot of it less important than building an audience, which is something very important at this point of the 4th year life cycle where inevitably your audience is starting to complete all aspects of the PvE side.

Please think about it, and thanks for reading. :)