Guild Wars 2

At this point, after reflecting on the metagame’s problems and benefits over the course of the game, I have come to the conclusion that splitting PvP from PvE and WvW is going to be what’s best for GW2.

I. Why PvE and WvW? Isn’t WvW more like PvP than PvE?

No WvW is not and will never be like PvP. You can use PvE skills, consumables, and the Guild system gives you incentive to play WvW and not PvP. The crafting and guild system provide synergy between PvE and WvW players, which is why the WvW main servers have such enormous communities. They are tapping into this synergy and benefitting from it.

It is not fair to balance for all three considering that PvP is, at most, 8v8, and the majority of the meaningful matches by over 95% are 5v5. In WvW there are much, much bigger engagements and even the smaller ones are bigger in most cases. While there are small communities of roamers and squads, massive engagements are the motif there.

This would allow the problems with balance in those spheres to be handled more appropriately and without as much “Well that would make PvP broken if we did that” and vice versa. Creating red tape, which this type of strategy is screaming indirectly at max volume, is not productive

II. New Player Adjustment

This point is being rendered moot by templates, which have been hinted at being on the way. If a new player has an aggressive and attrition build that they can choose from when they log in for the first time, they have the tools they need to take it slow and then speed it up. If there are text boxes included that can provide notes or tips, then that alleviates the adjustment even more, letting whoever makes the template give the reader tips about what’s different than PvE/WvW, what abilities are the most important, who your best targets are and who to avoid, etc. They could link to guide sites like www.intothemists.com/guides

I think it’s being naive to think that someone coming into PvP is going to be completely flabbergasted if the skills are slightly different than PvE. While there is some learning to do, there already is quite a bit of a difference in PvP than builds you run in other game modes. There’s no reason to learn a bunker guardian build in WvW, even though it’s essential in PvP. Grenades are terrible in WvW even though they are quite strong in PvP for Engineers. Warriors who run condis do well in WvW despite their non existence in tPvP at high levels of play.

III. Guild Support

There is literally no incentive to make a PvP guild other than just social organization. A PvP Influence system could have your guild use unique finishers, get unique armor, consumables, and any number of cool ideas.

How this wasn’t part of the launch I don’t know, but it can be an incentive would give PvE and WvW guilds a reason to PvP that doesn’t make it counterproductive. There could be an area they focus on within the PvP System that provides cross game type bonuses. There is a huge population in both PvE and WvW that is not being given any incentive to play PvP other than just filling the time gap or because they want to.

That isn’t enough.

IV. Balance

I purposely waited on this because it goes without saying and I want people to read the other stuff too lol.

PvP is entirely different than the other two game modes fundamentally. CC is not important in PvE because the meaningful fights in Dungeons feature mobs that are immune to it. CC is incredibly important in PvP; a clutch Banish or Updraft can change an entire match, and Fear is wrecking everyone in PvP in this meta.

1v1 matchups are also incredibly important, which are not the case in WvW outside of small dueling circles. PvP balance needs to be mindful of that, which shows with how evade spamming is the apex predator and apex defender right now with Rangers and Thieves. These kinds of decisions change entire team compositions and strategies, and even go as far as replacing entire classes, like how S/D thief has effectively eliminated Mesmers.

AoE is balanced for all three game modes, which shows with how huge the marks, symbols, and others is in relation to point size. If PvP is separate the team doesn’t have to worry about how their decisions affect WvW and PvE, which have much different needs for AoE. They can make decisions based on how important they want AoE to be in PvP.

We can also take a good hard look at passive elements and where they belong in the tiers between skill levels. Do passive element builds really belong in high level play? I think those types of builds ought to have a ceiling of effectiveness and the more active, timing oriented, and situational use skills have a higher effective output.

Conclusion:

Overall I think that PvP splitting would be the best decision Arenanet makes for the game, especially now with Templates on the way and what I think is going to be a surge of popularity following Pax Prime.

Players like Teldo, Phantaram, Jumper, Caed, Zoose, SupCutie, Mogwow, Gibbly, etc are incredibly fun to watch, which is why the streams are getting more viewers every tourney. A PvP game that is balanced and cultivated to unleash the creative and practical abilities of these people and anyone else with a mind and desire to be great at this game is going to be exactly what everyone expected and expects from Guild Wars 2 PvP.

There would be an adjustment and the balance would be a huge amount of work, but the vision of that kind of PvP scene is too awesome to hold back. I don’t like flooding the forums with text, but this is too important for me to keep to myself.

Not sure if you need a wall of text to say this.. but everyone says wvw pvp balance is ugly. In fact top guilds run whit guardians and warriors, just because retaliation and high armor means your enemy will kill himself.. last necro’s nerf didn’t affect to wvw which is hilarious considering how epidemic and aoe spam wreck zerg fights.. WvW should have spvp’s balance imo, and aoe + retaliation toned down a lot.
Also I would get ride of consumables, having or not having your food means life or death in some cases, which is kittened, like that -cond duration food, etc, they’re stronger than certain master traits lol.

WvW uses PvE’s skills, crafting and guild systems, which is why I suggest they be balanced together. You can transition between those two game modes seamlessly with your crafting and gear.

I don’t think they need to be balanced together because they play so drastically differently. Storming a fort is entirely different than storming a point in PvP.

jmatb.6307:

WvW uses PvE’s skills, crafting and guild systems, which is why I suggest they be balanced together. You can transition between those two game modes seamlessly with your crafting and gear.

I don’t think they need to be balanced together because they play so drastically differently. Storming a fort is entirely different than storming a point in PvP.

Not sure if there’s so much difference, you have to pvp to take a fort, and you’ll have to face a bunch of players or a zerg and deal whit currently spvp unbalances, like 0 condition mitigation stat, plus unbalanced pve stuff, like food, etc.
Spvp should be their main guide to balance wvw . If spvp isn’t balanced wvw will never be more like an aoe, melee cleave/retaliation fest.

Its group vs. group in that situation though. It’s not one guy guarding the fort facing one dude trying to take it haha. That requires different dynamics, and AoE is actually important in that setting. I agree retal takes a lot of strategy out of it, but at the same time tight formations area strategy that has been used in military formations for years.

You’re not gonna see much that’s useful for wvw in 8v8 hotjoins lol. It’s about as unorganized and chaotic as anything can be across ALL MMOs not just GW2.

The best explanation so far as to why they need to separate sPvP and PvE balance. I agree on every single point you made in this post and I beg Anet to take these threads seriously.

PvE and sPvP is completely different in every single way. This alone should be a good enough reason..

Yup, a split is necessary.
It is ineffective to keep things as they currently are if the dynamics and aspects of each sub-system are different.
This limits the potential of these.

I want to mention, too, that the last red post arguments on this topic have not been convincing to me since for example on long-term, there will be less work and everyone will be more satisfied. Constant short-term-focus is bad.

your right , a split is necesary and ive suggested it , but its already been said in another post here that they will NOT be doing this , though i ask ppl if they think it would be good , and most of them WISH for the same system we had in GW1……<shrugs> , quoted the response i was given as well and you could almost feel the jaw drop in their reactions to reading what was said after suggesting the pvp / pve split. oh well , dont expecti t to happen basically , ppl start noticing this will never work cause its all balanced on pvp and nothing for pve , i see less ppl on everyday on friendslist and guild roster…..=\

I wouldn’t be pessimistic because it’s becoming more obvious every day, especially with templates coming out and bright lights shining on the PvP scene.

The NA tourney is going to really open up a can of worms with the balance element. We’ll see if the comps are what I think they’ll be but if they are its going to be a lot different than the EU tourney.

I disagree with this post.

Instead, current mob ai should be scrapped and reworked from the scratch so that all skills are useful.

PvE should be more like PvP. Fast paced, action filled, full of teamwork, and unpredictable.

PvE is about noticing a set pattern on bosses and use dodge skills to prevent all attacks from happening.

I’m pretty sure the work it would take to redo all the mobs in the game for PvE across all those zones would be a much more difficult task than just making PvP its own thing. I agree, but the dynamics involved with making PvE that good might be beyond MMOs right now O.o

runeblade.7514:

I disagree with this post.

Instead, current mob ai should be scrapped and reworked from the scratch so that all skills are useful.

PvE should be more like PvP. Fast paced, action filled, full of teamwork, and unpredictable.

PvE is about noticing a set pattern on bosses and use dodge skills to prevent all attacks from happening.

It would be so awesome to get in a dungeon and have a new experience because the mobs and bosses decide what to do according to the builds/professions they’re facing. That would be, just, omg… As it is now, you just have to learn the tactics and boom, easy mode forever….

But this will never happen, maybe in GW3, so they should split sPvP and PvE. You can’t balance for both with the same formula, you just can’t…

jmatb.6307:

There would be an adjustment and the balance would be a huge amount of work, but the vision of that kind of PvP scene is too awesome to hold back.

I really enjoyed the post and agreed with pretty much everything, but then I got to this part, and highlighted the most important part of why I’m just not getting my hopes up. Arenanet doesn’t devote / can’t devote / won’t devote nearly enough resources into the development of PvP to actually make that happen.

So while posts like this instill feelings of hope of this game actually being amazing … thinking back to what Arenanet has proven themselves to be just makes me lose it all over again.

Seriously though, +1 to you.

It already has its own scaling since they go past the stat threshold we can not obtain in spvp furthermore pve isn’t competitive so there is no balance to have, but I am glad you have come to this conclusion.

I think that one of the reasons Anet won’t split them is because they don’t get any money from the PvP community. There’s a few custom arenas, but that doesn’t even come close to what people buy in PvE. PvPers won’t buy expensive skins, harvesting stuff and so on – they usually care about PvP and the competition, not about the awesome looking skins. :/

I think it was their intent to have this split from the get go considering that you can’t use your PVE gear in sPVP.

When it comes to class knowledge and player skill sets, sPVP attracts some of the better gamers from the player base spectrum. Hardcore wvw roamers w little or no sPVP experience stand a small chance winning VS roamers of the same number w lots of sPVP time.

But as someone mentioned, sPVPers do not spend anywhere near PVE and to be fair, most of Anet’s dev budget goes towards PVE.

jmatb.6307:

It is not fair to balance for all three considering that PvP is, at most, 8v8, and the majority of the meaningful matches by over 95% are 5v5.

And what about those 10 v 10 servers?
Also there are are few split skills, and even conditions.

It would be way more fair, if the game is only balanced around PvP, which
means that there should be no skills/traits/whatever that only have uses
in PvE or PvP(not talking about consumables/cultstuff/items[the latter shouldn’t
even be banned from wvw, since it makes the most fun there and since they are
now banned from dungs too, pretty much useless]) and then translate it into PvE/
WvW, and balance the rest of the game around it. It would make the game way better.

I disagree with this post.

Instead, current mob ai should be scrapped and reworked from the scratch so that all skills are useful.

PvE should be more like PvP. Fast paced, action filled, full of teamwork, and unpredictable.

PvE is about noticing a set pattern on bosses and use dodge skills to prevent all attacks from happening.

This, aisde from the last paragraph, how many bosses really have that? I don’t
remember too many cases where I really hat to time my dodges.
The default AI should at least be on PvP-Class-NPC lvl, which allready is really bad.
(Standing 2 seconds still, necro not using condis/minions/marks, ranger without a Pet
no weaponswaps, or dodges…)

bumping this

/15char

separate the pvp into free stand-alone add-on

Solo Q is nice tried it, and so are finishers, but features are not as important as the balance and how competitive PvP is in the nuts and bolts.

Asura are still stupid. Signets are given away more, but you can’t read Asura anywhere near as well as the other races. They either need to be human size or banned, I completely agree with Helseth on that.

Thesilentflute.8761:

It already has its own scaling since they go past the stat threshold we can not obtain in spvp furthermore pve isn’t competitive so there is no balance to have, but I am glad you have come to this conclusion.

Actually this is partially true, where as you don’t compete with other players as in fighting them, just like in pvp certain classes are more desired for pve (warrior being top dog for the dps slot). The balancing that is needed to make more classes desirable in the pve realm simply isn’t possible without making them so ridiculously op for pvp that it becomes a almost impossible task if they keep trying to balance all game modes around one game mode. This is partially due to poor design and limitations placed on the ai for mobs, but as it stands now currently the only thing that really matters is damage since no amount of toughness or vitality would ever protect you from being one shot by certain attacks, so the only thing that matters is learning when this attack happens and then dodge it. Anet could go about doing a complete ai revamp for their dungeons (and would be the ideal thing to do), but as others have stated it would be a much much larger process than simply adjusting power coefficients for skills for pve only, to make all classes more competitive in the damage dealing department to even out the playing field. I am not saying that adjusting coefficients is the best solution in that mode either but it is probably the path of least resistance to take for the dev team in my opinion.

Yes, PvP skills should be split from PvE skills. Not only skills, but might as well tweak Traits while they’re at it. Skills though, should be their first priority.

What I don’t understand, is why it’s not already? They did it in GW1, why no love for the PvP community in GW2? Right now, as it stands, I find this game very hard to play in its current state. I played GW1 for nearly 7 years, ( quit July of last year ) and just recently decided to get into GW2 after I said I’d never play another MMO again. There’s just so many things that are missing in this game it’s like, a constant “WTF” moment everytime I try to get into it.

I really wanted to delve into the PvP scene early with this game. I focused too much on PvE in GW1, and toward the later years started doing PvP. But by then, other than RA, there wasn’t much I could do. In this game, PvP seems centered around the old kittenty HB format ( Going around, capping shrines, defending them, etc. ). Why there’s not just a flat arena to go kill the enemy players, or something like GvG or even HA, is beyond me. Why there’s no ‘real’ LFG/Party/WTS system like in GW1, is beyond me. Why there’s no uh, not sure what it’s called I guess like, auto-follow a player/enemy NPC while attacking them, is beyond me. Click-to-move also! ( My edit )

Going to stop there. I didn’t want to rant about anything. Just wanted to show some support for this. While I probably won’t play much longer, I still hope the game picks up for you guys here in the PvP community. So hoping my “+1” counts for that happening.

Ya Cope I miss the hell out of GW1 Ranger. The monstrosity that is GW2 Ranger kitten es on its glorious heritage

jmatb.6307:

Ya Cope I miss the hell out of GW1 Ranger. The monstrosity that is GW2 Ranger kitten es on its glorious heritage

Me too. I miss playing The Lord Richard I, The Lord Richard Il and The Lord Richard Ill all rangers. And Lord of Obligation Warrior/Ranger. This pet required thing, where is my robin hood? Master of the Wilds, my Strider? I indulge in hunting ever once and a while, don’t take no pet with me, just my trusty bow and a few broadhead arrows and the old pig sticker and my sword for when I drop the pig sticker in the mud :/.

Haha ya

/15char