Guild Wars 2

This thought has been rattling around for a while. PvP is a zero sum game in the long run. Yo either win or lose. There will always be a loser and always a winner its just the way it is. I get the impression that many player feel that with certainty they should always win. However, that type of logic cant hold in a competitive situation.

So I figured instead of talking about how some players should learn to play (I don’t even know if this is a good argument anymore or if it ever was). Lets not even discuss that. The real question I am asking is if the mind set that PvE lays out and most games in general (where the end is generally the player wins) is really ok to have in a PvP environment?

The mindset PvE lays out is not the mindset you should have in PvP.

If you’re willing to enter into pvp you should have an understanding and grasp that you simply cannot win every game, that’s just how it is. People feel like they deserve wins, or are entitled to them, and that just isn’t the case. Some also go into the pvp portion of the game thinking that they are in no way shape or form, doing something wrong when they die/ lose.

What you can do is go into pvp and play your hardest every match. Giving it your all and learning more about the game, or helping your team, even if you lose is far more rewarding than becoming focused on wins.

I think in general people have become too focused on the destination rather than the journey (not just in pvp, but in games in general). If you’re pvping to win, and solely to win, you’re doing yourself a disservice because you cannot always win. If you pvp to have fun, and challenge yourself you’re gonna have a much more enjoyable experience, even if you’re getting knocked around and you team is composed of still fresh players.

I played alot of competitive PvP Arena on WoW, my 2v2 got really high and trust me, it was ALOT of hardwork. We had for lack of a better term training.. haha, which were set times during the week we would just skirmish and practice. We pretty much got quicker and quicker at our reactions speeds.

At the beginning we were terrible though, losing matches, arguing with each other over who messed up. It is not easy, you really just need to keep playing your character and to an extent play other characters to know their weaknesses.

My advice to any PvP players struggling with coming to terms with losing is the only difference between you and someone higher is time playing / practicing your skills, watch videos read blogs. You can’t be instantly a force.

I definitely agree that most people probably aren’t cut out for PvP. If you…:

-don’t spend days and even weeks researching the best playstyles and team comps
-don’t spend several days learning about every other profession’s abilities and playstyles
-don’t spend weeks and months practicing with your teammates
-don’t look at every loss as a learning experience
-get upset when someone kills you
-post on the PvP forums complaining about anything but an exploit or bug

…you aren’t cut out for PvP.

PvP is player versus player, not your character vs a bunch of NPCs. You will lose. If the game and skill levels of your opponents are perfectly balanced, you will lose HALF the time. If you aren’t winning most of your games and fights, it’s because you probably aren’t as good as you think you are.

PvP is the most cutthroat and hardcore type of online gaming, and most people probably aren’t cut out for it.

Nice post Valhallen, very true.
I wouldn’t say the someone absolutely cannot play PvP though. I think the problem is they come from PvE to PvP and it messes with their idea of skill.

Just play more and more PvP and I guarantee that you will start winning more than you lose because most likely more than 50% of the PvP players would be in the mindframe of where you USED to be.. but not anymore.
Another bonus is when you go back to PvE you will be like this kitten easy cause now you got real skill!

I think some people really aren’t cut out for pvp, like me! but all this talk about bunker-builds makes me wanna try out spvp sometime :P

Nice responses guys. I think what spurned on this question is the idea that instant gratification comes from winning alone. Often teams break down over loses some times fingers get pointed (sometimes rightly so) but rarely is introspection vocalized ie I could do better. The meta game plays a vast role imho its also a big part of this.

What Valhallen says is correct to some great extent. I think learning would be key for the skill threshold but the community aspect of PvP is sometimes lost. Competition even in the game environment can be a catalyst for growth but often I wonder if it is. I have to question whether many of the other players try the other classes to get a better feel for what they will likely face.

penatbater.4710:

I think some people really aren’t cut out for pvp, like me! but all this talk about bunker-builds makes me wanna try out spvp sometime :P

Well why do you say that? Anybody can PvP while fast twitch players do tend to run things early on any player willing to try can make a build that slows the pace of combat down. Atm bunkers are considered nigh unbeatable but in all honesty its far from the truth. Most players play glass cannon builds that usually cant handle Bunkers defenses (there are some exceptions). Fact is most bunker builds can be hard countered with boon rips cc etc. These just happen to be somewhat uncommon. In tPvP group synergy and strat could be considered kings right next to player skill. If you had a good team even if you don’t like PvP it could make the experience more palpable.

i think some people still thinking the game has holy trinity because i keep seeing:
oh but he is strong dps he cant be tank/heal!
and he is tank he cant be dps/heal!
its not how it works you should change your stats around to make them as viable as possible. go all in tank your a sitting duck go all in dps your also a sitting duck.

It’s an interesting point raised by the OP.

Another thing, along with computer games often end up with the player “winning”, is that I believe people who play sports to a decent enough level at school etc are more conditioned to losing, thus are less likely to rage on loss whilst gaming.

Playing sports at a high level makes you, your coach, family w/e analyse what went wrong, how to improve etc. There are a lot of gamers out here who do the exact same thing, I know I do, but I was trained to due to sport. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to builds (and my team hate me for it). However, no matter what your sport is, you will always lose at some point.

Of couse, some sporty people lose badly, examples would be Novak Djokovic smashing his raquest into pieces or Ronaldo looking like a grumpy smurf at Real Madrid, however there is one thing these ragers have in common, they blame themselves not the game.

Of course, not all of us are built for sport, I’m just saying that in correlation that playing computer games from a young age teaches people that they “always win”, people who don’t play sports will never learn to “lose” which is a double negative with a negative outcome. This is more than likely the mentality of the average gamer from a psychology perspective.

Class balance plays a huge role in the whole “I get the impression that many player feel that with certainty they should always win” thing.

In many games, the outcome of the battle is decided when you created your character, weeks/months/years earlier. When creating a character, I chose a red triangle, and the other guy chose orange circle. Then, years later, we meet, and he slaughters me. Not because of skill. Not because of gear. But because years ago he clicked on orange circle, and I clicked on red triangle.

Even in games where there are no classes, and you can 100% mix and match all the skills you want, like EVE Online, the system is still broken. The battle is decided before the combatants undock from the station, and is completely random. I choose a ship at random, which happens to be a turret ship. The other guy chooses a ship at random, which happens to be a tracking-disruption drone boat. We run into each other. All else being equal, I die. All because I chose a reddish-brown ship, and he chose a golden yellow ship, before each of us even knew the other person existed.

It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses. Which is what people complain about.

This is not about winning. This is about fighting a character that the developers gave an equivalent of a built-in aimbot.

And speaking of PvE mindset, for me personally, it’s the exact opposite. In PvP, I expect to lose 50/50 at least, all else being equal. Just simple statistics. And if I’m unlucky and run into better players, lose a whole lot more than 50/50. But in PvE, which is designed for leveling purposes and, let’s face it, just fodder to drag out the content, when I die I usually rage quite a bit more than PvP. Because in PvE, you often find poorly designed stuff. Like being swamped with impossibly large waves of enemies. Or fighting bosses (for little reward, may I add) that can hit or miss, but you can’t miss once because you’ll get 1-shot. And so on.

@Godmode/Hsulf: This is going to be the short version … the longer one was eaten. Anyway: I agree it would be the most constructive thing to learn to cope with defeat, but from my pretty vast own experience with dealing with super-talents in sports and in areas “of the mind” (and myself having having been a part of it as well), I would have to say, it is in no way a mandatory part. Unfortunately.
I find the winds are changing though (fortunately).

It is a rather elaborate discussion, which you probable know; what makes a talent grow and makes the rest of us prosper from this, and what is needed for talents in order to work in social contexts and to what degree is it required. I am not gonna go into that here … just saying it is in no way simple.

Since the margin is not big enough for the discussion, feel free to poke me if you want to continue the discussion
/cheers

For arguments sake and civility I am going to go through this piece by piece.

Sabbathius.1465:

Class balance plays a huge role in the whole “I get the impression that many player feel that with certainty they should always win” thing.

In many games, the outcome of the battle is decided when you created your character, weeks/months/years earlier. When creating a character, I chose a red triangle, and the other guy chose orange circle. Then, years later, we meet, and he slaughters me. Not because of skill. Not because of gear. But because years ago he clicked on orange circle, and I clicked on red triangle.

Howver that does not apply here at all. Rock, paper, scissors mechanics which you exmample partially illustrates are not in play in this game. While other games ( DCUO comes to mind) are reinforced with this sort of mechanic in PvP this game simply is not.

Sabbathius.1465:

Even in games where there are no classes, and you can 100% mix and match all the skills you want, like EVE Online, the system is still broken. The battle is decided before the combatants undock from the station, and is completely random. I choose a ship at random, which happens to be a turret ship. The other guy chooses a ship at random, which happens to be a tracking-disruption drone boat. We run into each other. All else being equal, I die. All because I chose a reddish-brown ship, and he chose a golden yellow ship, before each of us even knew the other person existed.

Same as before.

Sabbathius.1465:

It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses. Which is what people complain about.

This is not about winning. This is about fighting a character that the developers gave an equivalent of a built-in aimbot.

First off each and every build has a hard counter. Some may say no but yes they do. Most builds that are considered Overpowered to some measure are in the general perspective, they are still counter able. While it is a fact that due to mechanics some classes are easier to pick up and play than others this by no means will guarantee a win for the “easier” class. The last part is a reference to heatseeker I suppose and not to impeach your credibility but most players are will aware that this skill is easily counterable. TBH I forgot it was an issue still.

Sabbathius.1465:

And speaking of PvE mindset, for me personally, it’s the exact opposite. In PvP, I expect to lose 50/50 at least, all else being equal. Just simple statistics. And if I’m unlucky and run into better players, lose a whole lot more than 50/50. But in PvE, which is designed for leveling purposes and, let’s face it, just fodder to drag out the content, when I die I usually rage quite a bit more than PvP. Because in PvE, you often find poorly designed stuff. Like being swamped with impossibly large waves of enemies. Or fighting bosses (for little reward, may I add) that can hit or miss, but you can’t miss once because you’ll get 1-shot. And so on.

Just to note your more likely to be actually “One shot” in PvE. Higher level content does take skill and while it may be different from PvP skill it doesn’t require strategy thought and full knowledge of your build. I don’t like to compare the game play but the goal. In my OP all I state in that in PvE there is an expectation that you will win. The content is no designed to be insurmountable. In PvP you could quite literally hit the wall. What I mean is you could hit the point where you cant get any better and are still not on top.

Overall I think to a degree you might embody the mind set I am talking about. I can understand the anger over certain skills feeling over powered but at the same time I personally feel a need to “win” over those builds before the nerf happens.

Little bit of a long post

TL;DR

This is GW2 not eve or any other game. Every build has a counter. We should look first at our own skills before we proclaim that we lost to a build. There is no way to lose ot a build just a player. No matter how good any one thinks a build is it’s beatable. Its best to take your loses learn and counter. If you cant do that then your not growing. You will start demanding that something be removed so you can win. After you beat a build see if you feel the same way. That does not mean that every build is balanced but I still ask see if you feel the same way after you beat it.

Being counterable doesn’t mean you’re balanced; it just means that somebody out that can, in certain circumstances, sometimes kill you.

It could be interesting to see how many of the best players have a defensive mindset or offensive mindset. In my experience you have to learn to win as well; not only learning to cope with defeat. But I suppose that is a different discussion.

i suck at pvp but it doesnt necessarily mean that my ideas on improving pvp is bad. do you think that dr james naismith already played like lebron when he invented basketball? some pvpers are just good at playing but i wont discount the presence of gamers that are excellent in both theory and practice.

The ONLY part about pvp that to this day still pisses me off to no end:

The ability to play to the best of my capabilities and eat a loss because SOMEONE ELSE on my team performed badly.

When I personally kitten up, I don’t get frustrated/mad. I get determined to improve my game.

When some other person fails to perform or outright does something bad that costs us the win then I get kitten off to all hell and back.

So yeah what you said might apply to me a bit because the whole “it’s a team game” defense keeps sprouting up for why balance is out of whack across the board (most notably 1v1 between classes) and to me the inability to have an option to sustain myself in any situation or carry to a win like in an FPS will always drive me batkitten crazy.

Team modes are fun and all, however being FORCED to rely on other people sucks kitten.

Sabbathius.1465:

It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses.

This statement is wrong, incorrect, and infactual.

No matter what class you are, and no matter what class your opponent is, you CAN in fact beat them, the bigger factor involved is your traits/amulet selection, and if you get a heads up on what build the opponent is and what to avoid before you actually start going at each other.

A thief will not always defeat a Warrior, a warrior will not always defeat a necro, no such rock papper scissors exists in this game, sorry. You lost because of YOU.

I dont think I cut out for PvP in GW2. I play necro since launch of this game. Few days ago I picked thief to learn about class and I preformed ten times better than on my necromancer. I opened my beer can and nodded to myself. I am done with this games PvP.

even this thread is starting to attract the pvp bads so they can fill it with their tears… sigh…

Unicron, I can’t quote you, but I must inform you that your statement is wrong. Ironic, since it’s a statement that states another statement is wrong, but hey… wrongception or whatever.

If you’re playing a condition necromancer, odds are, you’re not winning against a shatter mesmer. Can you win? Sure, if your elite is ready, your life force is full, and you really know what you’re doing or are at least as good as your enemy, I’d say you have a 40% chance at best.
Once again: being able to sometimes beat something does not mean that something is OK, balanced, in line, or whatever. You need to look at costs, opportunity costs, dedication costs, skill (im)balance, final state etc. Statistics.
A thief will not always defeat a warrior, but should 60% of the time at least. A warrior will not always defeat a necro… well… that one actually is a 50% match up. But a thief will beat a necro at least 70% of the time, as will a mesmer, with player skill being equal and not in the “clicking skills but first reading the descriptions” area.

TheGuy.3568:

Would you care to elaborate?

I tried, forum ate my long reply.
Basically, what you said about “the same thing can be said about anything else” is true and irrelevant.
Let’s take a simple scenario of three values, 2, 2 and 4. These values enter combat by rolling a six-sided die, adding the result to their own value, and comparing which side has the greater total. Ties are rerolled.
2v2 is a balanced match up, because each has the same chance of rolling a higher number than the other.
2v4 is not a balanced match up, and it should really be obvious to anyone that this is so. Can 2 win against 4? Sure. So 4 can, in fact, be countered. Are the odds so heavily in favor of 4? Certainly. So the fact that 4 can be countered does not automatically imply that 4 is balanced.
Do you understand now?

I don’t think anyone goes into pvp expecting to win every time.

A good PvP’er enjoys losing in a fair fight (1v1, 2v2 etc not 1v3). When I lose, I actually enjoy that the enemy did some pro evades and owned my face with better timing.

The difference between a good PvP’er and bad PvP’er is that when the good PvP’er loses, he knows why he lost and what he could have done to get a better outcome and actually makes an effort next time to succeed. The bad PvP’er will claim OP and shift all the blame on anything but himself, so there will be no improvement.

The Boz.2038:

TheGuy.3568:

Would you care to elaborate?

I tried, forum ate my long reply.
Basically, what you said about “the same thing can be said about anything else” is true and irrelevant.
Let’s take a simple scenario of three values, 2, 2 and 4. These values enter combat by rolling a six-sided die, adding the result to their own value, and comparing which side has the greater total. Ties are rerolled.
2v2 is a balanced match up, because each has the same chance of rolling a higher number than the other.
2v4 is not a balanced match up, and it should really be obvious to anyone that this is so. Can 2 win against 4? Sure. So 4 can, in fact, be countered. Are the odds so heavily in favor of 4? Certainly. So the fact that 4 can be countered does not automatically imply that 4 is balanced.
Do you understand now?

Well this scenario would indicate that every player has an equal chance at rolling a high number. More rolls more likely to win. Arena are random I guess but players aren’t the numbers are not random they are rather static. Good PvP players would be considered rather consistent" High Rollers".

The problem is probability does not relate well to this scenario. 4v4 could be considered completely unfair if 4 skilled pvp player went against 4 unskilled pvp players. Counter builds on the other hand would work more like a raw number evaluation between the 2 parties. Assuming that their is ceteris paribus builds would be the only real variable. Builds used to counter other builds will role absolutely dominate the builds they are designed to counter. Counters rather builds are the great equalizer in this argument player skill variations are nearly immeasurable but builds & counter-builds are rather easy to measure.

In the long run it still doesn’t matter good players are still more likely to dominate in PvP because skill is so heavily weighted. There is an argument that skill goes all the way back (like your first post said) to character creation. If by chance a player found the class that perfectly housed the skills they wanted with the proper cool downs range and animations for them. If the aforementioned player happens to have skill in building builds the result may have been determined fro the start. However, none of this matters there are too many variable and you can still argue that balance should be made around the lowest common denominator. We all push keys and make things happen in a virtual world ie players’ individual skill. Since that likely wont happen the only thing we can count on are builds and counter builds.

I do understand.

but your first post stated. “Being counterable doesn’t mean you’re balanced; it just means that somebody out that can, in certain circumstances, sometimes kill you.”

What I am explaining is that true balance is not feasible and never was. The closest thing we have is the build and its counter. This is also the TL:DR.

Unicron.9248:

Sabbathius.1465:

It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses.

This statement is wrong, incorrect, and infactual.

No matter what class you are, and no matter what class your opponent is, you CAN in fact beat them, the bigger factor involved is your traits/amulet selection, and if you get a heads up on what build the opponent is and what to avoid before you actually start going at each other.

So your contention is that gw2, on release (because they have released very few balance changes since then) is a 100 percent perfectly balanced game and no class has any advantage on another class? I must say that you give anet credit for godlike game balancing abilities such as this world has never seen.

Unfortunately you will find that the vast majority of people who have a semi firm grasp on reality do not agree with you. In short, you are just plain wrong, this game has many flaws and is not perfectly balanced. Some classes are just plain better than other classes as it has been in many games in the past, in the present and will be in the future.

A thief will not always defeat a Warrior, a warrior will not always defeat a necro, no such rock papper scissors exists in this game, sorry. You lost because of YOU.

Just because one class does not ALWAYS beat another class does not mean that it is not overpowered or under powered. You could literally build an “I win” button into a class and some newb would find a way to lose with it, that doesn’t mean that the class is somehow balanced just because someone lost with it.

I find that build matters more than profession choice in regards to balance here. Some builds are definitely better than others because they contain more synergy. Is balance perfect? no, but it’s pretty good for a game that just came out.

But back on topic:

I think the real issue lies with the fact that most players fail to start with their defeat being their fault and trying to improve their build or develop new techniques into their play. Hence people people crying for nerfs to things rather than saying “hey maybe I should take an interrupt, or stun-breaker, maybe learn to manage my endurance and save my dodge for key skills.” Only after you have considered what you could have done differently, and thinking about the builds you’re up against are you ready to question balance. Far too many get whacked for one game, then come on the forums and complain about it. They don’t even call enough attention to things that matter, like bugs that should be fixed. Instead they complain about things they simply do not like. That’s why we have a 10 page thief thread, while the discussion of why should quickness even be in the game given the issues it causes with specific skills is short and buried.

People need to try and change their methods. If you lose to something, then figure out why you lost, what you can do, and play accordingly. Sometimes that means changing your utilities, or even your traits. Maybe there is a better stat distribution that would suit you more, maybe you need to work on positioning. Play the profession that gives you the most trouble, learn it inside out. If you wonder why you’re getting hit for X amount of damage by skill Y, go test it in the mist. Knowledge is power, yet so many chose to shackle themselves with the chains of ignorance.

There is no way to tell who is ‘cut out’ for PvP and who isn’t here. The balance is so far out of reach, I don’t expect it to last 3 more months with a steady flow of players.

I have noticed a lot of players on this forum and others, who usually exceed the upper limits of most PvP games, bring up the same concerns as people on this forum. The problem on this forum is that the people who are playing these classes are commenting as much as they can with the learn 2 play, nothing wrong here, it’s ok if a class that is invisible can 1-2 hit you….it’s all your fault. It’s OK if this guy is shooting 30 times before you can even get cast off to protect yourself…… and on and on.

Bottom line, if this does not get fixed….. sorry for ya GW2.

This has gone on long enough. You know there are some serious crap going on here. For example, Ele downstate. If you have one employee that says it is fine as is, they should not only be fired, but their name should be publicly shamed so no one else will hire them. /rant off