Guild Wars 2

i actually like the difference between PvE/WvW and PvP. and i started playing the game respectively with PvE, to WvW, through to PvP.

and i do treat it like a different game almost, just with the same familiar class mechanics and skills. sure, i don’t get the same stat spread, but now the game has become to more mechanic, combat, execution and play over simply stat spreads. sure, what i am used to in WvW and PvE didn’t necessarily translate well to PvP, and what works for me in PvP may not be easily replicable in WvW/PvE, but… bottom line is i learned much more about my class mechanics which allow me to hold up better against players if caught 1v1 in WvW, or even how to take on Champs in PvE without taking damage. and i believe it works both ways to a certain extent.

Ironically, this is why I stopped playing pve and wvw. Felt like such a grind just to get to 80, then farm the equipment, sigils, and runes to get the stat allocation necessary for my build to work, then farm some more if I feel like changing my build and play style. At least with pvp, I can create a lvl 2 character and jump straight into hotm, be on level ground with everyone else, and change/experiment with different builds whenever I feel like it without penalty.

I am curious though, what exactly are the rewards in pve/wvw that people find worth grinding for in the first place? I’ll admit the rewards in pvp are mediocre at best, but that’s not the reason I play this game, or any other game for that matter.

I wouldn’t be opposed to importing all of the runes, rings, back items, legendary skins, and allowing armor to take on different stats like in PvE/WvW. Build diversity is a good thing. Knowing I’m going to beat a class in a 1v1 as soon as I see them because they only have 1 or 2 viable builds that I know don’t counter my build isn’t particularly stimulating. Then I could finally take my warrior off the shelf because I hear they’re not awful in WvW.

Must add that I absolutely loved reaper’s rumble and snowball mayhem and dragon ball(to some extent). They were almost perfectly balanced and actually fun to play. Why there isn’t spvp variant of those minigames?

Because they had less than a one hour learning curve and grew boring at the same time, due to being way to simple? They are fine, but only for a brief time. There is no meat to it.

Have one to five skills and just run around spamming buttons isn’t any fun, at least not for me. It was fun for an hour or two, though.

I meant no perfect replicas with same 5-skills for everyone, just another pvp mode based on those. Imagine how fun will it be deathmatch or mobalike without those conquest points. May even make warriors eh viable!

In no particular order, here are a few reasons off the tip of my head:

1) Level playing field – ergo: cannot use pve gear/weapons, also applies to cosmetics
2) Lack of rewards that could rival those of pve (but that has to be one of the worst ways to attract the pve playerbase)
3) Limitations of pvp, especially arena-wise – small areas, which are, for the most part, looking rather lacklustre (see the design of guild halls on GW1 for reference on how the look of pvp zones could be improved)
4) Terribly designed casual pvp mode (both hotjoin and yoloque souq big time, and tend to discourage rather than encourage new players to stick around)
5) (Relating to point 1) Seeing big numbers in pve, but seeing average or bad damage numbers in pvp (no food buffs, no over-the-top gear etc.)
6) Many don’t really care about the skill aspect of pvp, nor the advantages of level playing field – they simply wish to use their pve builds/setups vs real players, and zvz was designed for that very purpose
7) Nothing to be gained from pvp – no notable rewards, no actual prestige/fame etc. , and also no pve-related benefits (e.g. granting entrance to a high-level pve zone, such as the fractals, via victories in pvp). The former 2 reasons also apply to pvpers
8) Just ain’t fun. Yea, I said it. It simply isn’t fun, and the novelty of the arena wears off extremely fast, especially for a non-pvp oriented player. Add in series of losses vs pvp players, and you’ve got a losing formula.
9) Lack of diversity – a one-shue-fits-all approach falls flat, also when it comes to attracting the pve playerbase…granted that ever was one of the intentions to start with.
10) Vast differences between the effectiveness of certain classes in pve and pvp
11) Even when a new player sets all those issues aside and genuinely tries to learn how to pvp properly, or even enjoys playing it, they’ll be in for a rough time, because the pvp community has plumented so much that it’s becoming icnreasingly difficult to find a solid team (unless you come with a group of friends) and more or less equal-level opponents, resulting in loss after loss.
That is why most players will simply go back to where they came from, and also because the pvp doesn’t really bring ANYTHING to the table (ok, getting better at pvp also translates to pve, but yea), apart from a sense of accomplishment, when one can see themselves improve over time, and an ego boost.
12) Pve/wvw have SO many more things and features at their disposal, and that should honestly put the pvp designers to shame. But then again, GW2 is a pve game first, and a pvp game last, if at all – almost one year in, most hopes and expectations of it ever becoming a big name in the pvp world have already passed a reality check.

KarlaGrey.5903:

In no particular order, here are a few reasons off the tip of my head:

1) Level playing field – ergo: cannot use pve gear/weapons, also applies to cosmetics
2) Lack of rewards that could rival those of pve (but that has to be one of the worst ways to attract the pve playerbase)
3) Limitations of pvp, especially arena-wise – small areas, which are, for the most part, looking rather lacklustre (see the design of guild halls on GW1 for reference on how the look of pvp zones could be improved)
4) Terribly designed casual pvp mode (both hotjoin and yoloque souq big time, and tend to discourage rather than encourage new players to stick around)
5) (Relating to point 1) Seeing big numbers in pve, but seeing average or bad damage numbers in pvp (no food buffs, no over-the-top gear etc.)
6) Many don’t really care about the skill aspect of pvp, nor the advantages of level playing field – they simply wish to use their pve builds/setups vs real players, and zvz was designed for that very purpose
7) Nothing to be gained from pvp – no notable rewards, no actual prestige/fame etc. , and also no pve-related benefits (e.g. granting entrance to a high-level pve zone, such as the fractals, via victories in pvp). The former 2 reasons also apply to pvpers
8) Just ain’t fun. Yea, I said it. It simply isn’t fun, and the novelty of the arena wears off extremely fast, especially for a non-pvp oriented player. Add in series of losses vs pvp players, and you’ve got a losing formula.
9) Lack of diversity – a one-shue-fits-all approach falls flat, also when it comes to attracting the pve playerbase…granted that ever was one of the intentions to start with.
10) Vast differences between the effectiveness of certain classes in pve and pvp
11) Even when a new player sets all those issues aside and genuinely tries to learn how to pvp properly, or even enjoys playing it, they’ll be in for a rough time, because the pvp community has plumented so much that it’s becoming icnreasingly difficult to find a solid team and more or less equal-level opponents, resulting in loss after loss. That is why most players will simply go back to where they came from, also because the pvp doesn’t really bring ANYTHING to the table (ok, getting better at pvp also translates to pve, but yea), apart from a sense of accomplishment, when one can see themselves improve over time, and an ego boost.

1. Thats a good thing, pvp players who dislike pve, dont have to farm set to play mod thay like
2.There are tons of topics about this.
3.Small areas were designt for 5v5 and I would dislike if i have to run 30km with my slow necro
4.Hot join is horroble, no doubt there, Solo Q was a bad idea, Since tPvP was designd for teams or group of ppl, why on earth are new player (especially as a new player) solo q?
5.Again, food buffs and all kind of this object will only make pvp worst (for pvp players and from balancing aspect)
6.Thous ppl should just go to wvw and forget about pvp
7.PvP is not for farming
8.Once again, why should non pvp-oriented player play pvp in first place ?
9.It is pvp
10.PVP again.
11.Finding a group is not so hard as you think.

No one is forcing you to play pvp, as pvp players are morlikly forced to play pve(but it is diffrent story).
First of all if you like use pve farming to use it vs real players, then its deffenetly not for you and see no point to complain about this. I hated so many MMORPG for this reasone! If players wants to play pvp, WHY SHOULD HE WASTE HIS TIME ON PVE? Personlly I dont want any pve items or items that should i buy for buff in pvp, that will ruin this game for me, but then all farming kids (i assume that they are kids, becaus most adults just dont have so much time to farm all thous things) will love it. The point were you wrote about non-pvp-players isnt making any sense at all, as why should thous players even try pvp if they know they dont like it?!

Or maybe pve players don’t give a kitten about pvp just like most pure pvp players don’t give a kitten about pve.

emon.1863:

1. Thats a good thing, pvp players who dislike pve, dont have to farm set to play mod thay like
2.There are tons of topics about this.
3.Small areas were designt for 5v5 and I would dislike if i have to run 30km with my slow necro
4.Hot join is horroble, no doubt there, Solo Q was a bad idea, Since tPvP was designd for teams or group of ppl, why on earth are new player (especially as a new player) solo q?
5.Again, food buffs and all kind of this object will only make pvp worst (for pvp players and from balancing aspect)
6.Thous ppl should just go to wvw and forget about pvp
7.PvP is not for farming
8.Once again, why should non pvp-oriented player play pvp in first place ?
9.It is pvp
10.PVP again.
11.Finding a group is not so hard as you think.

You’re forgetting I’m talking from a pve point of view here.

1) As much as us pvpers endorse features such as level playing field, not to mention it is virtually a prerequisite to creating a proper pvp mode, not everyone feels the same.
2) I’m talking rewards here, which are often implemented to attract additional players, especially those that would normally stay away from pvp. But as already stated, it is the worst possible strategy, because as soon as you eliminate the rewards, most will return where they came from.
3) It’s a fact (some) pvp maps are too small, and it consequently chunks away a lot of depth (e.g. the guild lord map).
4) Because of dailies – which brings me back to the point why rewards are a terrible way of attracting additional playerbase.
5) I know, and I do not wish for such things in pvp. But from a pve standpoint, it becomes another reason not to bother with the arena.
6) And that’s what most do, too, which is one of the reasons pvp zones tend to be a ghost town outside epak hours.
7) Actually, the aspect of fun and achievements (titles/rank/high-end rewards) are at the very top of play reasons normally. The way it is designed, GW2 pvp doesn’t really offer either.
8) Atm there is indeed no real reason, nor incentive to dive into pvp. But it should be in everyone’s interest to have as many players as possible, because it’s a downward spiral once new entrants stop appearing. However lumping them together with the exped part of the pvp playerbase is not the way to go.
9) GW1 had JQ, FA, RA, CA, HB, TA, HA, GvG and multiple event pvp arenas. It offered a lot to everyone, but especially to those who did not wish or could not participate in 8v8 pvp, and it helped keep the pvp alive a lot longer than a single arena can.
10) And a reason that further obstructs a transition from pve to pvp. Which is what this thread is about, after all.
11) Finding a group that will stick together and actually improve is hard. But even finding a random group can be difficult, if you look for one outside peak hours.

No one is forcing you to play pvp, as pvp players are morlikly forced to play pve(but it is diffrent story).
First of all if you like use pve farming to use it vs real players, then its deffenetly not for you and see no point to complain about this. I hated so many MMORPG for this reasone! If players wants to play pvp, WHY SHOULD HE WASTE HIS TIME ON PVE? Personlly I dont want any pve items or items that should i buy for buff in pvp, that will ruin this game for me, but then all farming kids (i assume that they are kids, becaus most adults just dont have so much time to farm all thous things) will love it. The point were you wrote about non-pvp-players isnt making any sense at all, as why should thous players even try pvp if they know they dont like it?!

Spare me the whine.
Here’s a disclaimer, because not everyone seems to be able to read the thread title: The points I listed have been made from a perspective of an average pve-oriented player and have nothing to do with my own reasons, so avoid projecting them onto myself. Thank you.
I’m a pvp player myself, but I can at least imagine quite well why pvp just isn’t deemed worthwhile in many people’s eyes.
As a matter of fact, even as a pvper, I don’t deem this pvp worth it in the least,because it just isn’t.

At Uberkafros, and here we are stating the reasons why they don’t give a fq.

Uberkafros.5431:

Or maybe pve players don’t give a kitten about pvp just like most pure pvp players don’t give a kitten about pve.

Many good PvP players changed from PvP to PvE, because PvE was actually…funny and rewarding.

Personally I like pvp, because you dont need grind items, you dont get any advance by being played it longer than someone else (except experience), zerging happens but usually it is only good way to loose and well because it is pvp. In spvp and tpvp you actually have feeling fight with real players. For comparison even I like to do WvW also sometimes, it doesnt have nearly same feeling. I find quite rarely smaller scale fights there where you actually had to think what you do. In big WvW fights on the other hand it is that and same would opponents be engines or other players, it is lag and it is mostly using as many AoE skills as possible.

One thing I dont understand within critisism of pvp is this lack of rewards. Is it really so nowdays that none likes actually just play game because it is… fun? Personally I dont care a thing even pvp lack real rewards. I play there because I just like pvp and have fun time there, specially those times when can group up within guild. I dont need any rewards from that. It is enough for me to have some good time and help my team as well as I can.

Anyway I dont think they should change pvp too much from its current state. Nor I see reason why pvp should be made tempting to pve players. There is nothing wrong that not all pvp or pve or play WvW. And in my opinion it is only good thing that all these three are quite different from each others. You choose what you like to do and do that.

Well, lack of rewards isn’t an issue when the pvp is actually quality.
Moreover, you’re looking at the pvp from a casual point of view, in which the points listed so far apply to a far lesser extent, because a casual player can only contribute so much to competition, and they also play other things in addition, so the shortcomings of that respective place aren’t as noticable/impactful.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Well, lack of rewards isn’t an issue when the pvp is actually quality.
Moreover, you’re looking at the pvp from a casual point of view, in which the points listed so far aplpy to a far lesser extent, because a casual player doesn’t contribute a lot to driving competition.

Depends how you’d define a reward. For me reward can be titles, emotes or trims. But about quality I have to agree though.
Still if you’d look at GW1 and guess if ppl would still play it if there was not something like Champion-titles, trims, observe-mode of top100, HoH-Winning-team pop-up in chat and other things. For me those things are all rewards, no material rewards but more of prestige-rewards.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Uberkafros.5431:

Or maybe pve players don’t give a kitten about pvp just like most pure pvp players don’t give a kitten about pve.

Many good PvP players changed from PvP to PvE, because PvE was actually…funny and rewarding.

Maybe but bottom line is both player bases fight for skins

I daresay that in quality pvp, reward usually translates directly to winning (especially vs good opponents)/having fun with friends/guildmates/having fun theorycrafting builds and strategies, with neither of those sources of fun being mutually exclusive.
Or that is how it used to be in the good ol’ GW1.
Obviously, prestige and glory also played a big role in HA and gvg, and were part of the driving force that attracted new players, but without a rock-solid and quality basic pvp concept, it wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as it did.
Pity for all the power creep that came with expansions though.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I daresay that in quality pvp, reward usually translates directly to winning (especially vs good opponents)/having fun with friends/guildmates/having fun theorycrafting builds and strategies, with neither of those sources of fun being mutually exclusive.
Or that is how it used to be in the good ol’ GW1.
Obviously, prestige and glory also played a big role in HA and gvg, and were part of the driving force that attracted new players, but without a rock-solid and quality basic pvp concept, it wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as it did.

Absolutely, also the lack of teamsynergy between classes/utilities is not given. Sometimes I feel like fighting totally alone. Atleast there is Voip to remember me that this is a team-game.

Xsorus.2507:

I’ll tell you why…Because playing SPvP in this game is like playing Civil War Map in SWTOR..

In otherwords..I’d rather put my balls in a Vice..

How anyone can think this game will ever be taken seriously as an Esport when a game like SWTOR has Huttball…which is a 1000 times more interesting and fun than any map in this game is hilarious.

lol, huttball sucked. You could literally win by having a chain of pulls/leaps with jedi guardians/consulars (or the sith equivalents), really fun, yeah…not.

I could see this being a reason for some people. I’m primarily a PVE’er, but I sPVP pretty often and I actually like the separation. It keeps things fresh and offers me something different.

Shar.3402:

Xsorus.2507:

I’ll tell you why…Because playing SPvP in this game is like playing Civil War Map in SWTOR..

In otherwords..I’d rather put my balls in a Vice..

How anyone can think this game will ever be taken seriously as an Esport when a game like SWTOR has Huttball…which is a 1000 times more interesting and fun than any map in this game is hilarious.

lol, huttball sucked. You could literally win by having a chain of pulls/leaps with jedi guardians/consulars (or the sith equivalents), really fun, yeah…not.

Yeah as fun as Huttball was on my Assassin because he could score a goal pretty much 10 seconds after getting the ball, it was completely unbalanced and the team with the most speed boosters/invulnerbility won no matter what.

TPvP is entirely different from PvE and WvW with different kinds of goals and means to get to that goal. Whoever thinks they can use same builds need to think again.

This is the reason that all this warriors videos in PvE need be ignored when considering s/tPvP.

Burn.5401:

TGSlasher.1458:

So they can’t play their zerg friendly build in a non zerg friendly game type .. . (types slower as the sentence goes on).

Edit: Spelling is shocking today.

Pretty much this.

I have yet to fight someone in WvW outside a zerg who isn’t a backpedaling tool.
Just bad excuses for people who can’t put effort into learning the pvp in this game and just want to spam 1 on gates and 1 with arrows carts.

Considering I have countless solo videos of me in WvW, plus the fact that the build I created for WvW (BM Bunker) was nerfed because mouth breather’s in SPvP thought it was to hard to fight and couldn’t counter it…I find your post rather hilarious.

Shar.3402:

Xsorus.2507:

I’ll tell you why…Because playing SPvP in this game is like playing Civil War Map in SWTOR..

In otherwords..I’d rather put my balls in a Vice..

How anyone can think this game will ever be taken seriously as an Esport when a game like SWTOR has Huttball…which is a 1000 times more interesting and fun than any map in this game is hilarious.

lol, huttball sucked. You could literally win by having a chain of pulls/leaps with jedi guardians/consulars (or the sith equivalents), really fun, yeah…not.

yeap, you could win by having those against a Pug…Put that same team up against another properly played group and it became very dynamic.

Generally the Jedi’s were the runner’s….the “tech” classes were the Watcher’s of the Ball Spawner…. It made no sense for my Pyro Powertech to go chase a ball runner usually once he got on the platforms…Other Classes dealt with that much easier…It was far better for me to sit in the Middle and destroy people left and right (generally because the person who controlled the middle controlled the match)

However when talking Pug vs Pug or Pug vs Premade you are correct, Those classes were incredibly powerful in Huttball…But huttball is still far more fun than any map in this game.

Oh, and to give you an idea how powerful Pyro Powertech’s could be at the game, My Guild use to run 4 of us..with no healer…If you ever fought a full Pyro Powertech team in SWTOR you would know how incredibly OPed it was….We could mow through most 8 man teams in around 10 to 15 seconds…It was rather silly… You couldn’t heal through any of the damage….Even if you were cross healed and guarded at the same time…We’d instantly kill the Tank + you.

But we spawn camped quite a few Jedi heavy teams in Huttball…Ranked Matches were even worse because we could still do it and had healers backing us up as well…Usually we’d sit there and let the other’s just stroll right in and score on the enemy because the enemy couldn’t make it more then a 1 or 2 after jumping down.

Burst on that class was just silly.

emon.1863:

(…)
No one is forcing you to play pvp, as pvp players are morlikly forced to play pve(but it is diffrent story).
First of all if you like use pve farming to use it vs real players, then its deffenetly not for you and see no point to complain about this. I hated so many MMORPG for this reasone! If players wants to play pvp, WHY SHOULD HE WASTE HIS TIME ON PVE? Personlly I dont want any pve items or items that should i buy for buff in pvp, that will ruin this game for me, but then all farming kids (i assume that they are kids, becaus most adults just dont have so much time to farm all thous things) will love it. The point were you wrote about non-pvp-players isnt making any sense at all, as why should thous players even try pvp if they know they dont like it?!

You made me giggle. In a thread treating about “why PvErs don’t want to PvP” You say “No one is forcing you to play pvp” & “why should thous players even try pvp if they know they dont like it?!”. Of course not, no one is forcing anyone to play at all. The idea was to find out why PvE players don’t see fun in current PvP and is there anything that can be done for them, without spoiling fun for PvPers (not that there is much fun to spoil).
Can’t really address rest of your assumptions because they weren’t meant for me, but I’ve got really strong feeling You misunderstood KarlaGrey.5903. Maybe I’m wrong, but hey – I call it as I see it.
And this comes from guy, who pass on PvP since it’s… well. Just look on PvP and PvE. PvE is getting 2 week content update rotation – PvP was promised to get another game mode some 9-10 months ago. PvE got all those shiny updates so far (SAB, Halloween, 2xKarka, Xmas, Living Story and so on) – PvP got what? 2 maps? Third incoming? Really “impressive”. Especially because those maps actually doesn’t address problems with current PvP. 3 maps for one game mode – conquest, that is not that good to begin with.
The sad fact is, that I find more enjoyable PvP forum, than actual GW2 PvP.
So yeah – any idea of moving stale brew that is PvP right now, is a good idea for me. A way to encourage PvE playerbase to visit PvP? Even better. Maybe then I’ll get back to PvP once again.

The reason is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4anNb2jS4Q

For them PvP is a waste of time.
They only get PvP stuff, and other than some dyes, they can’t use anything for PvE.
The achievements are slow for them, so the achievement points have no use for them other than the dailies (which are easily done in a few minutes in random arenas).

Do stuff like adding a mystic forge recipe that uses some expensive PvE ingredients and some PvP ingredients to turn a piece of PvP gear into a level 0 PvE item with that skin so you can transmute it to a PvE item, or something like GW1’s Zaishen keys and Zaishen coins, and you’ll probably get more PvE players.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

So why leave my comfortable game mode with the build I know how to play with the stats tailored to what I want?
———-There is no good reason.
And that is why people do not cross game modes.

That’s a part of it for me. More fundamentally, I don’t find sPvP’s point capture anywhere near as interesting as how WvW does point control. I’ve played a bit of sPvP (30ish total games, I think) and it’s fun enough, but I feel like I’ve pretty much gotten all I want from it already.

I’ll tell you why I am reluctant to play PvP. Because my ego can’t take the fact that there are a ton of other people out there better than me. How’s that for honesty?

That being said I’ve been playing a little PvP lately so that I don’t get completely owned while roaming in WvW.

I love PvE. I’ve been doing lots of PvE content. But recently. I’ve been having doing PvP tournaments. Its really fun and feels more organized. Players in tournaments go all out instead of the hot join games that got me off from PvP in the first place. So yea, A big PvE player can come to enjoy PvP if they learn the ways of PvP.

I’m mostly a WvW player, which I find somewhat dull. It’s too zergy to really feel like I’m making any contribution at all. I really like the concept of sPVP in this game. So, why don’t I play it more?

Because everytime I hotjoin I get dumped on teams with 3-5 exceedingly good players that are always grouped with each other, focus bursting and bunkering like no tomorrow. I die a lot, contribute almost nothing, and lose without learning anything.

Or I get dumped on their team by chance, and I coast to victory while trying to help out, and without learning anything.

I’ve never gone into a PVP match and left thinking, “Wow, that was really cool how they won that match!” I usually leave thinking, “Why did I waste 2 hours of my time on this? It’s awful!”

I’ve been a huge fan of PVP in every MMO I’ve played, and usually spend the bulk of my time there. I don’t in GW2 because the gap between experienced and newbie players, in terms of builds and team coordination, is so huge that I’ll never realistically catch up. So, I don’t bother. And neither do most of the PvE players that I’ve asked.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

In a discussion with some WvW guys, we came up with a conclusion as to why people do not come over to spvp. It is not cosmetics of armor or weapons.
The answer is much simpler.
———-They cannot run the same build that they usually run in their respective game format.

What does this mean?
———-They cannot achieve the same stat spread across attack, defense, crit chance, and crit damage.

The end result?
————-The build does not play nearly the same. So effectively it is a different build or a different game altogether.

So why leave my comfortable game mode with the build I know how to play with the stats tailored to what I want?
———-There is no good reason.
And that is why people do not cross game modes.

Yes, when I made the change to WvW builds also changed. Its honestly alot more fun doing the small scale 5 v 5 deathmatches in WvW or small group roaming the level of competition is high and the build options and gear options are amazing.

I was shocked at how high the level of play was when I got into the small man group fights in WvW. A Ref point, took 4 of the WvW small man players that dont do tpvp into tpvp and we had an outstanding win ratio over the few days we did tpvp my ranking climbed from 90% to 400 or so.

Point is these are good players that just find Tpvp mindless and pointless with very limited gear and build options…. kittens boring. Deathmatch will bring a high number of players, the fact that some of the best players are making deathmatch mode in WvW and its getting larger everyweek says there is a demand.

PinCushion.7390:

I’m mostly a WvW player, which I find somewhat dull. It’s too zergy to really feel like I’m making any contribution at all. I really like the concept of sPVP in this game. So, why don’t I play it more?

Because everytime I hotjoin I get dumped on teams with 3-5 exceedingly good players that are always grouped with each other, focus bursting and bunkering like no tomorrow. I die a lot, contribute almost nothing, and lose without learning anything.

Or I get dumped on their team by chance, and I coast to victory while trying to help out, and without learning anything.

I’ve never gone into a PVP match and left thinking, “Wow, that was really cool how they won that match!” I usually leave thinking, “Why did I waste 2 hours of my time on this? It’s awful!”

I’ve been a huge fan of PVP in every MMO I’ve played, and usually spend the bulk of my time there. I don’t in GW2 because the gap between experienced and newbie players, in terms of builds and team coordination, is so huge that I’ll never realistically catch up. So, I don’t bother. And neither do most of the PvE players that I’ve asked.

Hey PinCushion, I agree with you on hot join games. You should give tournaments a try. Its always 5v5 and since players are playing for rank, it tends to be more competitive. I honestly hate hot joins, but when i tried the tournaments, it was fun because everyone was trying there best. You should give it a try.

I have not played PvP. There are a number of interesting reasons why, proposed here.
I think the reason many of us do not, is because we don’t feel the need or drive to prove ourselves better than the next guy. It’s as simple as that. We can have fun in the game without that pressure to always beat the next one. No offense intended. I’m glad it is here for you to enjoy. In fact, the way I see the games design, PvE leads to WvW which leads to PvP so maybe it’s just a matter of time for many players.

Xom.9264:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

In a discussion with some WvW guys, we came up with a conclusion as to why people do not come over to spvp. It is not cosmetics of armor or weapons.
The answer is much simpler.
———-They cannot run the same build that they usually run in their respective game format.

What does this mean?
———-They cannot achieve the same stat spread across attack, defense, crit chance, and crit damage.

The end result?
————-The build does not play nearly the same. So effectively it is a different build or a different game altogether.

So why leave my comfortable game mode with the build I know how to play with the stats tailored to what I want?
———-There is no good reason.
And that is why people do not cross game modes.

Yes, when I made the change to WvW builds also changed. Its honestly alot more fun doing the small scale 5 v 5 deathmatches in WvW or small group roaming the level of competition is high and the build options and gear options are amazing.

I was shocked at how high the level of play was when I got into the small man group fights in WvW. A Ref point, took 4 of the WvW small man players that dont do tpvp into tpvp and we had an outstanding win ratio over the few days we did tpvp my ranking climbed from 90% to 400 or so.

Point is these are good players that just find Tpvp mindless and pointless with very limited gear and build options…. kittens boring. Deathmatch will bring a high number of players, the fact that some of the best players are making deathmatch mode in WvW and its getting larger everyweek says there is a demand.

The reason why build diversity is lacking is not because of the lack of choice of gear in pvp, but because if you do not run top tier builds in spvp, the difference becomes immediately obvious. Whereas wvw individual builds matter less, and it’s not immediately reflective due to large differences in skill level. The top tier builds for spvp are the top tier builds for wvw, with a few exceptions. Put in a deathmatch mode and there would still be equal number of builds available (though they may differ from conquest modes).

Honestly pve and pvp are so different in most MMOs that you often see split player bases. Instead of attracting pve players I think the devs should be working on bringing back players who originally bought this game for spvp, or maybe even wvwers.

I’m a PvE player that doesn’t PvP, and most of the reasons listed in this thread are totally off for me. For example, lack of rewards? WvW has crappy rewards yet it’s still popular, isn’t it? It’s pretty fair to get no rewards from PvP and just play it for fun, imo.

The reason I don’t PvP is because it’s too hard to learn how to. Compared to other games it’s very hard to find resources to learn the metagame, for one thing. But the main thing is that whenever I do tournaments I always get matched with people much better than me. I’m only rank 9 with 12/32 tournaments won, yet I’m consistently being matched with rank 20+s, most of which with champion titles, most of which seem to know what they’re doing. I can’t learn how to play when I’m being thrown into an environment where you’re assumed to already know how to play. I can’t learn through hot join, either, because that’s nothing like real tournament play. It’s not a matter of not being willing to learn how to play well, it’s that there isn’t an environment conducive to learning to begin with.

Xsorus.2507:

Generally the Jedi’s were the runner’s….the “tech” classes were the Watcher’s of the Ball Spawner…. It made no sense for my Pyro Powertech to go chase a ball runner usually once he got on the platforms…Other Classes dealt with that much easier…It was far better for me to sit in the Middle and destroy people left and right (generally because the person who controlled the middle controlled the match)

My Electroshock Therapy Vanguard would beg to differ. Harpoon annoying ball carrier into fire as it starts up, pop Hold The Line and watch as multiple consulars try to pull you in vain as you are immune to almost all CC

Huttball was great but you had to read the battlefield to play it well, I’ll always miss it.

Waffler.1257:

kito.1827:

Waffler.1257:

Most importantly, the maps for WvW provide several settings that result in interesting play styles that simply aren’t possible with the sPvP maps.There’s even a site set up so that guilds can set up their own GvG matches in WvW and track their rating at gw2gvg.com.

this is by far not even close to gvg.
this is zerg vs zerg not more
srsly its nothing more than a joke
i lol’d when i saw the zerg-ladder

10v10 is zerg vs zerg? GW1 GvG was 8v8. You can agree on whatever size you want when you contact the guilds you want a GvG with. But you’re right, guardians and elementalists running around in a tiny circle spamming heals is much closer to GvG.

watched some of the streams lately, and even if there is only a 2 player difference per team, as long as there aren’t some “roles” as you had in your gw1-team-setup everybody is just buttonmashing and aoe spamming and thats what i call a zerg. not a mass of players, but at least a bunch of doing some brainless buttonmash.

I can’t speak for everyone, I know I’m not speaking for myself alone either. Personally I think PvP is widely just viewed as a bad neighborhood.

Sadly I expect PvP like any bad nieghborhood is largely populated by decent enough folks with only 1 in 10/ 1 in 20 really embracing that Vicious persona; that makes the general population view gamers as one of the most anti social demo’s in the population; where point of fact PvE player are overwhelmingly helpful and sociable.

But 1 in 20 is enough, its enought to ruin the rep or a real nieghborhood; or a cyber one. Most people chose not to live in or travel though a bad neighborhood if they can choose not too; and the Devs can’t code that; that just the human side of the game.

So the next time you shout NOOOOOOB at someone, remember you just invited that person to leave your side of the game, permenantly; so dont complain when your player base does not grow; you cant have that cake and eat it too.

gw1 pvp had variety and rewards, and was the most part fun.
gw2 – lol.

GW1 pvp you could lvl your character, though, being a low level was a bad idea.

It seemed like GW1 was designed to be PvE then PvP, or straight PvP if you wanted. Playing PvE would allow you to unlock skills in PvP linking the too worlds. So if you pve’ed more then pvped you could still access yours skills and not need to grind Balthazard factions (not that you really needed to anyway) to get a build going. Whereas if you always pvped you had a steady income of factions to buy skills with.

PvP in GW1 also unlocked PvE elements. Favour of the Gods etc etc

It wasn’t all that unusual to see Koreans play TA with lvl 19 warriors.

The main reasons for PvEers to not invest a lot of time into PvP are as far as I can tell:

1. The PvPmeta and the PvEmeta are too disconnected. This is essentially not a PvP problem but rather a PvE problem, as, though the professions are imo generally well designed, ANet can make a lot of improvements when in comes to mobs, AI and the likes, see also topics like this one:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/On-PvE-Design-Adapting-to-a-new-paradigm/

and

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Fix-the-Guild-Wars-2-Un-Holy-Trinity/

2. The current game mode is excellent for team play but not so much for hot join: several capture points require team effort and when people come and go and don’t know what they’re doing hot join becomes just a random killfest. I feel ANet should therefore release more casual game modes to lure people into the Mists, such as King of the Hill and Death Match (with dedicated maps) – id est for hot join, not necessarily for competitive play.

3. PvP is daunting: the PvPmeta is hard to learn and the tools available in game and on the internet are lacking. The PvPcommunity may want to step in and try to get something up and running such as a PvXwiki which was thé source for the GW1 meta. ANet could improve as well by allowing things like dueling, the saving of builds and by implementing some sort of a guide system, e.g. a Tome of Knowledge in the Mists where high ranked PvP players can share their builds for newbies to look into and experiment with (those newbies can rate the guides to make sure trollguides can be filtered out).

4. There is nothing to be gained in PvP for PvEplayers, which imo should not be a problem: PvP is about having fun and it’s for several reasons a good thing that it’s separated from PvE, but this does restrain hardcore PvEers from investing a lot of time into PvP. Sharing skins throughout PvE and PvP would be a bad idea unless those skins are completely different from one another which would be a lot of work for ANet to implement. Maybe they could think of a more prominent way rather than a few titles to show off your PvP prestige in PvE areas and vice versa. Maybe in game Leaderbords which show off high ranked PvPers in LA?

5. There is nothing to be gained in PvP for Guilds (which again may not be a good reason for people not to play, but it still deters people from investing a lot of time into PVP). Influence can be invested in WvW things, you can claim keeps in WvW and get a lot of people in WvW etc. to have a lot of fun. GW1 had GvG and also Alliance points which were reasons for Guilds to invest in PvP. The return of GvG would be a good thing, perhaps combined with something like ‘Guild Glory’ to invest and Guild Leaderbords – I’m not sure on this, just some not so well thought out suggestions, but I thought I’d put them out there anyway. Edit: Maybe tie it in with Guild Halls? o.O O.o

So these are my thoughts, interested what you guys think of them.

Dear Dev’s,

One Idea I firmly believe would be to tier your servers; and requiring players to earn their way up the server tree; and more importantly locking higher level players out of the lower level servers

So a Rank 10 Player would have to earn admission to the Rank 20 Servers; but a Rank 80 could never just lay waste to a Rank 40, 50, 60 Server. You would need to use some variation of the Elo System; you have a Dev on staff who is an expert in that; so that should not prove a problem; And as your servers are most likely virtual the number of servers available per rank could be dynamic.

The NFL does not play collage teams, MLB does not play AAA teams, even in Pop Warner foot ball 10 year olds are not pitted against 12 year olds; please show me another field of human endeavor where people rewarded for ‘competing’ against opponents that are clearly below their level of talent or skill; yet in the world of video games that is the norm.

And Please, remove the Grotesque ‘Finish’ Button; Didn’t your momma teach you kicking a man while he’s down is very bad form.

I’m pretty new to pvp – only played PVE in GW2 for the past 6 months – and gotta say that pvp is crazy fun for me.

Playing against real players is a completely different experience. Probably the #1 reason I tried PVP was that after a few months in PVE, I found I was doing the same thing over and over with the occasional content updates (Living Story). I was ready to try something new and pvp was there. I think this applies to a lot of people out there and they just need too to give it a chance. Oddly enough, another small part of what got me interested were some of the mini games (Dragon Ball, Keg Brawl).

What I love:
1. No grind and everybody has access to the same stats/equipment. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t play if I had to grind to get top tier pvp stuff – there’s always someone else out there who has more time/money to spend and would feel I was at too much of a disadvantage.
2. Every match is different (though I’m not sure that will be true in a year from now?). PVE tends be pretty formulaic with a lower skill ceiling. So far I’ve had so many variations in matches – even though it’s one game mode and 6 small maps.
3. Playing with builds/classes (and this add to the variety). Unless you’re willing to do some heavy grinding, you probably won’t get a chance to level up all 8 classes to 80 in PVE and constantly tweak traits/stats/runes/sigils.
4. Big boost to my skills. First few times in PVP made me realize how much I had to improve (yes, I was pseudo key spammer in PVE), but I can tell how better I’m getting when I go back to PVE.

Some stuff I had to get over (and still do):
1. Rewards are lacking a skins take forever to get. For me personally, this is less of an issue because I never really intended to farm achievements or grind for legendaries in PVE. Just like playing the game.
2. Intimidation and culture of PVP. There’s a lot of smoke out there about PVP in general (esp stuff like COD) and I’ve talked a few people that say this is why they’re hesitant to try PVP. I gotta say though, I’ve had pretty much no problem – gw2 has a pretty good community. And kudos to guys like Wooden Potatoes/Matt Visual for starting getting people started in PVP (YouTube series PVP for Dummies). Even I’m noticing that gw2 PVP needs more people for balance.
3. I die a lot. This was tough at first, but I’m starting get the hang of the some of the meta builds and focus on trying to understand why I just died in 2 seconds instead of just getting frustrated. Good way to wash that pride out of my armor.

My 2 cents and some perspective from a PVE’r…

Since you seem to be lumping wvw into pvp, I will add my experience.

I strongly dislike pve. I try to avoid it as much as possible. I also hate zerging and don’t do that either. However, I still prefer wvw over spvp in general. The different stats is certainly part of it. I run a strange build and being able to tweak my stats to fit it really makes a difference. But more than anything, I’m an old DAoCer, and roaming has been and will always be the epitome of pvp. Doing repetitive arena matches doesn’t even come close to roaming.

If I could get the gear system from pve (but still free from a vendor) and a Dark Age like battleground, I would be about as happy as can be.

I’m still rank31 and play spvp regularly, but it’s more because of the problems with wvw (especially the gear grind) rather than the good things about spvp.