Guild Wars 2

Erix.6987:

Agreed!

I’m honestly not sure why this wasn’t included on day one, considering it was not only successful in GW, but it was also very desired by the community.

It basically tosses PvE v. PvP balance tension right out the window.

I’m sure we would all love an official statement on why this was not added, and if it is ever going to be added or not.

Only reasons I can think of is that they were either lazy on the skill implementations or rushing to get the game released sooner. That feature should definitely be in.

Nurvus.2891:

I hope this never gets implemented.

I can’t believe anyone likes splitting PvP and PvE skills or mechanics…
It’s an easy way out that simply shows poor design philosophy.

Stop asking for things that make no sense, please…

Instead of splitting PvP and PvE skills, ANet needs to make PvP and PvE more similar so that it can be balanced under the same mechanics.

Yeah. I always think that this request is a disguised attempt to make PvE easier than it already is so that the PvE game turns into a diablo clone and there are few speed bumps to interrupt the collection of loot.

I’m sure that the PvE/PvP split was necessary in GW1, because the huge number of possible skill combinations made balancing hard. Also some of the mechanics that people were capable of in PvP guild vs guild and HA, such as coordinated spikes were not so relevant in PvE.

I was the first one to ask this during the beta period and no one really listened…..I guess the newness wore off the game and people are coming to their senses.

Theres a few here who object to this. My guess is that they have NEVER played a single mmo in their lives….or just play PvP and nothing else.

Fact is….PvE ALWAYS suffers because of PvP. Its never the other way around. Just take a look at the recent “nerfs” that Anet has done. They do absolutely NOTHING for PvE except to frustrate players who already play a “weaker” class in PvE, but might be fine in PvP.

It is an impossible task to balance for both without taking from the other. Its like trying to look right, but at the same time look left.

Though I do admit that i find that Anet is in a bit of a hard situation. How will they balance for WvW? Will they use PvP stats or PvE stats? Maybe even a whole different set of stats? Not our jobs to find the solution but to ask for a solution i guess.

But i would just like to back up my statements with my experience with the game through playtime with various classes. Mainly I will talk about the engineer as thats the class that pisses me off the most. Put it simply, anything an engineer can do, a warrior can do better, more reliably, and live longer….except for the on demand aoe dmg engis have. So how is that helpful for PvE? Absolutely nothing. Are Engineers fine in PvP? From what I have read (no experience here), i guess they are. So if they are fine in PvP, but not fine in PvE? What can you do? Remember, you cant look right while looking left.

I honestly just cannot see the reason as to why anyone, with the health of the game in mind, object to this solution; the best solution. This will make both PvE and PvP much more enjoyable. The other solution is the WoW solution….Flavor of The Month…..

Caramel Ham.4891:

Fact is….PvE ALWAYS suffers because of PvP. Its never the other way around. Just take a look at the recent “nerfs” that Anet has done. They do absolutely NOTHING for PvE except to frustrate players who already play a “weaker” class in PvE, but might be fine in PvP.

On the contrary balance is just as important in PvE as it is in PvP. Some of the changes are directed towards making the different weapon sets equally viable, that gives more variety in PvE.

If you were going to seriously make this point you would have to argue that PvE is too hard. But, in reality the opposite is true and those people who want an easier time of it can easily overlevel a bit before tackling the content.

roqoco.4053:

Caramel Ham.4891:

Fact is….PvE ALWAYS suffers because of PvP. Its never the other way around. Just take a look at the recent “nerfs” that Anet has done. They do absolutely NOTHING for PvE except to frustrate players who already play a “weaker” class in PvE, but might be fine in PvP.

On the contrary balance is just as important in PvE as it is in PvP. Some of the changes are directed towards making the different weapon sets equally viable, that gives more variety in PvE.

If you were going to seriously make this point you would have to argue that PvE is too hard. But, in reality the opposite is true and those people who want an easier time of it can easily overlevel a bit before tackling the content.

This has nothing to do with people wanting things easier. We simply do not want to work up a viable PVE build for a PVE situation only to have it completely changed because of some unfairness in PVP.

My Guildies and I will spend hours trying to figure out dungeons and working on them together figuring out what builds work best for what we’re tackling, and when you spend hours figuring something out you want that to mean something. But when the builds are changed because of PVP and you have to turn around and re-think everything (which means more hours when and if you & your guildies can make the time again), it’s horribly frustrating and makes you not want to look at that dungeon again, because you feel like you’ve wasted your time. Then you have to worry about whether it will happen again and then what?? Well I guess back to square one again or just forget it.

This is the exact reason they implemented the split in Guild Wars. Us PVE Players complained like mad because our builds were always being changed to oblivion due to the need to balance PVP.

I still want a challenge in PVE I want my wins and losses to feel epic. What I don’t want is for my game-play style of choice to be changed because of another game-play style.

Yep, sPvP should be balanced separately. WvW would probably have to retain PvE stats but that’s acceptable.

@ MrsAngelD: “This is the exact reason they implemented the split in Guild Wars. Us PVE Players complained like mad because our builds were always being changed to oblivion due to the need to balance PVP.”

I think the reason was more to do with novelty build in PvP. For instance, “Read The Wind” wasn’t overpowered in either PvP or PvE in itself, only when used in particular synergistic builds. So they had to make this compromise.

I particularly would want to avoid a split, because i think it makes the balancers lazy with respect to PvE, where there is lot less dissent when things become OP. Because, a lot of people secretly (or not so scecretly) want to be OP and the mobs don’t complain. You can see that with skills like “Ursan Blessing” in GW1, which made many other builds completely redundant and some of the harder content easy mode. And it took a long time for the balancers to even consider it a problem and address it.

bwillb.2165:

Erix.6987:

Agreed!

I’m honestly not sure why this wasn’t included on day one, considering it was not only successful in GW, but it was also very desired by the community.

It basically tosses PvE v. PvP balance tension right out the window.

I’m sure we would all love an official statement on why this was not added, and if it is ever going to be added or not.

Only reasons I can think of is that they were either lazy on the skill implementations or rushing to get the game released sooner. That feature should definitely be in.

I believe it was actually an intentional design decision. I don’t recall were exactly, but Anet stated this in some article/interview/blog before the game’s release (before the BWEs too, I think).

If I recall, the reasoning was that what players learn in PvE should apply to PvP. That you shouldn’t have to learn two different styles of fighting with the same setup of weapons and skills.

Personally, I disagree – I think this is a near impossible goal unless the AI is as good as at least above average players. Anet has this hubris about certain design aspects to the game, and they’ve convinced themselves they can solve the PvE/PvP dichotomy with enough “iteration”. Maybe somewhere in the vast multi-variable space of solutions it exists, but I doubt it.

In the meantime its just going to drive players away to have their gameplay effected by a fundamentally different part of the game getting re-balanced.

Agree with OP. Trying to balance or compare “competition” against “cooperation” is ridiculous.

lemme see if i can sum up the dissenters:

1) shouldn’t happen
2) you pvers are lazy and want your hands held, shaddup and go away
3) any written ai can and does function at the same level as human twitch-conditioned reflexes, accumulated experience, etc

i think that’s the gist of what i’m reading, so let me address these things:
1) why not?
2) where do you come up with that idea? we actually, many of us, are a bit miffed because content in the bwes was epic, hard, frustrating, and now it’s become a faceroll. some things needed tuning; many things have been over-tuned. because we don’t pvp doesn’t mean we don’t want a challenge, please rethink this.
3) this is not currently true. yes, i read your examples above, and i think it’s horse hockey, to paraphrase one of my favorite fictional colonels. ;-)

pve and pvp are vastly different arenas of play; therefore, they attract vastly different types of players. people who enjoy pvp seem to think, many of you, that you’re the only “skilled” players in the game, that the game was written for, developed around, and should cater to, you. i ask you again, please rethink this position. i want my challenge. i want to know, when i’ve completed a dynamic event, it was one of the most epic events i’ve experienced, and i want the thrill of contemplating the next one, because it has the opportunity to be even more epic. what i do not want is to foresee a time when every skill i’ve learned is changed/deleted/moved, without any verifiable need within pve, to make things easier for some pvper.

oh, and another thing? i love my ele as much as i love my warrior. my warrior’s a brute; she can wade through darn near ever’thing solo, and come out with nary a scratch. my ele, on the other hand, has to dodge, strafe, kite, and flip attunements to be almost alive at the end of an encounter. but my ele is more challenging, while my warrior is just brutal fun. again? i love them equally. so don’t tell me, please, that i want to be carebeared.

you contend that this makes it more fair across the board, but here’s been my experience:

for every person who screamed that this class was overpowered, there was another person who said, “i don’t have an issue with that class, this is how you counter it.” for every attempt to give something to the screamer, something was taken away from the quiet pver, you know, the one who was happy with the game. and for every game company that started down the road of balance, there was at the end a game company people reluctantly, sadly, walked away from.

the lore in this world supports a rich pve experience. the world itself, vast, beautiful, filled with secrets, supports a rich pve experience. the art, the music … these things support a rich and full pve experience. please don’t make the mistake of thinking everything can be, should be, or is better off being centered around pvp.

Isende.2607:

you contend that this makes it more fair across the board, but here’s been my experience:

for every person who screamed that this class was overpowered, there was another person who said, “i don’t have an issue with that class, this is how you counter it.” for every attempt to give something to the screamer, something was taken away from the quiet pver, you know, the one who was happy with the game. and for every game company that started down the road of balance, there was at the end a game company people reluctantly, sadly, walked away from.

the lore in this world supports a rich pve experience. the world itself, vast, beautiful, filled with secrets, supports a rich pve experience. the art, the music … these things support a rich and full pve experience. please don’t make the mistake of thinking everything can be, should be, or is better off being centered around pvp.

There’s really nothing I can add to that. This expresses perfectly my own experience. Every MMO in which I’ve played has gone down the path of “balance” to try and appease the very vocal PvP crowd and the end result for PvE players is less than desirable. Balance is an illusion. No matter what is done to try and achieve it, there is always someone who can and will counter it. Until the next inevitable change intended to negate their “advantage”. The only way you’ll ever achieve “balance” is to have sPvP games that are profession restricted. Warriors only, Engineers only, etc. And I’m pretty sure most people won’t really care for that either. But who knows, maybe that’s an option to offer those who scream for balance?

I’m curious what skills people believe need split and whether they are too weak/strong in pve/pvp? Nearly everyone on this thread has been using hypothetical situations of a skill. Until there is an actual skill that needs this, it will most certainly remain unimplemented. Regardless of whether arena net did this before or not in gw1, it makes the game more confusing which is something they don’t want.

That said, I think this game was designed specifically to not require the splitting of skills. In particular, certain elements in PVE and PVP should be the same.

One example in particular I can think of is the Pve/Pvp split of ritualist spirits. The spirits took too long to summon and wouldn’t move in gw1, so they were underplayed in pve. So for pve they added a pve only skill to move them and they made cast times shorter. In GW2, every (or nearly every) class has a ‘summon’ of some point. ALL of these summons can either move (minions, ranger spirits with traits, etc) or they can be picked up (engineer turrets, warrior banners).

A second example is how they redid damage mitigation. In GW1 elite areas enemies hit harder and faster, but rarely had other mechanics. As such, set niche builds could be used many places as the same kind of mitigation could be used most places. This was very different from gw2 pvp where interrupts, slows, conditions and positioning matter much more. The goal of GW2 was to remove the more reaction time based interrupts and makes condition etc more useful in pve. Adding dodging was one of their steps here as well. For an example GW1 skill, look at fevered dreams mesmer elite, that essentially is 4x as good in PVE (twice the duration and half the cooldown) because conditions aren’t as viable in PVE.

That said, some of the biggest complaints today are around thief invisibility and mesmer clones. This may arise from these two mechanics having varying effectiveness in PVP vs PVE. When invisibility is used in PVE, against you or you using yourself, it does not seem quite as effective as it is in PVP (rendering issues aside). It will be interesting to see how they come to terms with this.

My thoughts

Joiry.2504:

I believe it was actually an intentional design decision. I don’t recall were exactly, but Anet stated this in some article/interview/blog before the game’s release (before the BWEs too, I think).

If I recall, the reasoning was that what players learn in PvE should apply to PvP. That you shouldn’t have to learn two different styles of fighting with the same setup of weapons and skills.

I see their reasoning for this is almost as shallow as their reasoning for a lack of FoV options. They’re just full of these subpar design decisions lately…

ShiningMassXAcc.4735

I’m curious what skills people believe need split and whether they are too weak/strong in pve/pvp?

Well, on top of the stealth and clones you already mentioned, there’s quickness. In PvE it is usually just a nice boost that whittles down a slightly larger chunk of the enemy’s health, but in PvP it allows for instagibbing of other players, especially when combined with certain other skills. This recent Pistol Whip nerf is a great example. The damage reduction could have been completely avoided if they had reduced the effectiveness of quickness in PvP. Or, barring that, they could have at the very least made the damage reduction PvP only since it’s not exactly OP against Risen.

ShiningMassXAcc.4735:

I’m curious what skills people believe need split and whether they are too weak/strong in pve/pvp? Nearly everyone on this thread has been using hypothetical situations of a skill. Until there is an actual skill that needs this, it will most certainly remain unimplemented. Regardless of whether arena net did this before or not in gw1, it makes the game more confusing which is something they don’t want.

read the patch notes, what they did to guardian greatsword, and the reason why. it’s already been done.

The game already supports the splitting, best example = Confusion condition.

It is just pretty clear they aren’t going to rush to use it unless there is something truly unbalancing in one aspect of the game that isn’t true in the others.

Guardian GS, I see nothing in the patch notes that makes me think it is related to any one aspect of the game. They don’t want retaliation to be a perma-boon, seems like a fair across the board change to me.

As a staff/gs Mesmer with a condition build and traits to shorten my cooldowns on phantasms/ illusions. I can tell you that I have died more in the last 2 days than in the last 40 lvls.
I worked really hard to get my Mesmer to lvl 80 and to be good with her and I could hold my own unless I got swamped by 5-6 mobs.
Now I feel like I am an escort duty because I can’t walk five steps before being killed by wildlife.
It is sad and it makes me furious because I invested a lot in my character.
I resent having to rethink my build just to survive, because up until now I really enjoyed playing it.
I play mostly in PvE and Mesmer is a tricky class for that.
Why must I suffer because of PvP balance?

roqoco.4053:

Caramel Ham.4891:

Fact is….PvE ALWAYS suffers because of PvP. Its never the other way around. Just take a look at the recent “nerfs” that Anet has done. They do absolutely NOTHING for PvE except to frustrate players who already play a “weaker” class in PvE, but might be fine in PvP.

On the contrary balance is just as important in PvE as it is in PvP. Some of the changes are directed towards making the different weapon sets equally viable, that gives more variety in PvE.

If you were going to seriously make this point you would have to argue that PvE is too hard. But, in reality the opposite is true and those people who want an easier time of it can easily overlevel a bit before tackling the content.

You are right that balance is also important in PvE. I did not focus on it enough in my previous post, but it is something i agree with you there. Imagine if the only viable pve build for warrior would be greatsword….it would just be too boring.

I disagree with you that by me making my point, i have to argue that PvE is too hard. On the contrary, if PvP and PvE is split….Anet will be free to re balance everything and make PvE harder. Its the lowest common denominator…..Anet can ONLY make it as difficult as the lowest common denominator. I mentioned in my post that my Warrior was able to wade through my main quests easily while i struggled to do so with my Engi. So if Engi and Warrior were both properly balanced for PvE….Anet would have been free to make the main quests harder. Or hell, just make everything harder as world quests are just too easy.

While so far i have shown a “pro” stance for PvE. It does not mean that i do not enjoy PvP. I just have not gotten to it yet as i want to finish doing PvE stuff first. I know for sure PvP also suffers because developers must somehow balance for both PvP and PvE which cannot be done. Its never been done. Its impossible to do. Please look at WoW.

ps. I mean….my argument is so interchangeable. If you replace the words PvE with PvP in my previous post….you will probably end up with a “pro” PvP stance.

Morrigan.2809:

As a staff/gs Mesmer with a condition build and traits to shorten my cooldowns on phantasms/ illusions. I can tell you that I have died more in the last 2 days than in the last 40 lvls.
I worked really hard to get my Mesmer to lvl 80 and to be good with her and I could hold my own unless I got swamped by 5-6 mobs.
Now I feel like I am an escort duty because I can’t walk five steps before being killed by wildlife.
It is sad and it makes me furious because I invested a lot in my character.
I resent having to rethink my build just to survive, because up until now I really enjoyed playing it.
I play mostly in PvE and Mesmer is a tricky class for that.
Why must I suffer because of PvP balance?

Yeah my mesmer was going so well, now I have to change everything again. It’s so frustrating.

Morrigan.2809:

As a staff/gs Mesmer with a condition build and traits to shorten my cooldowns on phantasms/ illusions. I can tell you that I have died more in the last 2 days than in the last 40 lvls.
I worked really hard to get my Mesmer to lvl 80 and to be good with her and I could hold my own unless I got swamped by 5-6 mobs.
Now I feel like I am an escort duty because I can’t walk five steps before being killed by wildlife.
It is sad and it makes me furious because I invested a lot in my character.
I resent having to rethink my build just to survive, because up until now I really enjoyed playing it.
I play mostly in PvE and Mesmer is a tricky class for that.
Why must I suffer because of PvP balance?

This is just the usual balancing whine that will happen every time Arenanet make a change to any class and just shows that what people are really asking for in this thread is PvE easy mode, where their class is allowed to remain OP and unbalanced.

In any case, mesmers are fine, check out the mesmer expertise here and on guru if you don’t know how to play one.

roqoco.4053:

Morrigan.2809:

As a staff/gs Mesmer with a condition build and traits to shorten my cooldowns on phantasms/ illusions. I can tell you that I have died more in the last 2 days than in the last 40 lvls.
I worked really hard to get my Mesmer to lvl 80 and to be good with her and I could hold my own unless I got swamped by 5-6 mobs.
Now I feel like I am an escort duty because I can’t walk five steps before being killed by wildlife.
It is sad and it makes me furious because I invested a lot in my character.
I resent having to rethink my build just to survive, because up until now I really enjoyed playing it.
I play mostly in PvE and Mesmer is a tricky class for that.
Why must I suffer because of PvP balance?

This is just the usual balancing whine that will happen every time Arenanet make a change to any class and just shows that what people are really asking for in this thread is PvE easy mode, where their class is allowed to remain OP and unbalanced.

In any case, mesmers are fine, check out the mesmer expertise here and on guru if you don’t know how to play one.

You know your quickness to dismiss people as whiny or unable to play really makes you come across is quite arrogant. I’m not saying you are arrogant but that is definitely one way someone could read your posts.

Nobody is asking for easy mode pve. What we are asking for is to tweak skills for PVE in the way & with the same care as they are tweaked for PVP. In order to do this properly the skills need to be split.

I definitely support splitting PvE and PvP.

Was wondering why they didn’t add this in the first place.

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Was wondering why they didn’t add this in the first place.

I’m wondering too.If you split the system in my opinion you can fix one thing in PvP without nerfing the same thing for PvE players.
If PvE and PvP were one and the same thing then we wouldn’t have problems.But they aren’t.They need different things and different balance.That’s why I thing PvE skill design should be split from the PvP one.
Many MMOs right now have a mixed system.And when developers try to balance not always is successful.You may balance PvE but you will hurt the PvP or the opposite posible.
What i didn’t like in one MMO which won’t be named is that developers prefer PvE over PvP there.They boost and balance around the 1st thing and the 2nd one is getting so unbalanced that it’s not interesting to play.
I hope Anet splits PvP from PvE skill design.It’ll not only be good for the game but should be easier to balance.

roqoco.4053:

Morrigan.2809:

As a staff/gs Mesmer with a condition build and traits to shorten my cooldowns on phantasms/ illusions. I can tell you that I have died more in the last 2 days than in the last 40 lvls.
I worked really hard to get my Mesmer to lvl 80 and to be good with her and I could hold my own unless I got swamped by 5-6 mobs.
Now I feel like I am an escort duty because I can’t walk five steps before being killed by wildlife.
It is sad and it makes me furious because I invested a lot in my character.
I resent having to rethink my build just to survive, because up until now I really enjoyed playing it.
I play mostly in PvE and Mesmer is a tricky class for that.
Why must I suffer because of PvP balance?

This is just the usual balancing whine that will happen every time Arenanet make a change to any class and just shows that what people are really asking for in this thread is PvE easy mode, where their class is allowed to remain OP and unbalanced.

In any case, mesmers are fine, check out the mesmer expertise here and on guru if you don’t know how to play one.

Wow aggressive much?
I never asked for easy mode and anyone who thinks a Mesmer is OP in PvE should really share because that is not the case at all.
As for me learning to play, thank you, I do know how to play and yes I have checked the Mesmer expertise threads, here and on Guru.
I am just not playing a main hand sword Mesmer. I get that my build is not popular but I enjoy it.

I support splitting PvE and PVP skills because it makes sense. They are two different game modes with different requirements and should be treated differently. A lot of people love PvE, why should they be penalized because of the PvP crowd?

Morrigan.2809:

I support splitting PvE and PVP skills because it makes sense. They are two different game modes with different requirements and should be treated differently. A lot of people love PvE, why should they be penalized because of the PvP crowd?

This exactly.

Here is one more reason for PvP/PvE split. For mesmers in particular the shatter skills e.g. mind wrack. PvE – have the clones teleport to the target when shattering. PvP – leave them running toward the target..make cooldowns more in PvP but less in PvE. In short people will not complain for PvE class balance that much(if at all) rather than PvP. You cannot make ability viable in both, for some it won’t work. Another example is the Ele Whirlpool – nerf damage in PvP and leave it increased in PvE.. If we go down the path to balance PvP via PvE skill nerf (no PvP versions) we all will end up killing mobs much slower and I am sure we do not want this (a time sink present in a lot of MMOs ).

As a Mesmer I would love to see a split between PvP/PvE because they keep nerfing abilities because they are OP in PvP but in PvE we are one of the weakest professions. So the Mesmer profession is suffering under being nerfed for PvP.

Absolutely agree with this!

It irritates me when a potential buff is held back because it would unbalance the other format of play. In GW1, I think that the PvE/PvP split was an amazing decision. It gave the developers more leeway for buffing ‘PvE useless’ skills and giving all professions more interesting options. Similarly, they could tailor for PvP, either changing functionality completely or just balancing without fear of ruining the PvE experience.

I definitely think it allows for more freedom to develop interesting skills and more interesting ways to play.

Fay.2735:

As a Mesmer I would love to see a split between PvP/PvE because they keep nerfing abilities because they are OP in PvP but in PvE we are one of the weakest professions. So the Mesmer profession is suffering under being nerfed for PvP.

Yeah the mesmer thing is really annoying. My mesmer is only at 59 because I get so easily frustrated trying to play her.

In all honesty, to me, Anets balancing of GW1 prior to actually splitting a skills functionality felt more like it was purposely being done to change the meta-game by destroying once viable builds. When they split skills it seemed like it was an entirely different skill, one for pvp and one for pve. Not to mention they had so many pve only skills.

SOS comes to mind that stands way out. In pve, entire team builds were built around it. In pvp it was worthless.

Splitting skills doesn’t help the bot situation, doesn’t make PvE feel as dynamic as it should, and makes both modes of the game alienate each other even more.

Making PvE feel more like PvP, however, makes balancing skills easier, gives bots a harder time, and the game feels like a whole.

That’s why I say that splitting of skills is one sollution, but neither the best, nor the easiest, and it has side-effects that make the game less enjoyable for several kinds of players, me included.

Splitting skills has nothing to do with bots.
Splitting skills has nothing to do with PvE dynamics. Split or unsplit doesn’t change that.
It is impossible for the two modes to be more alienated. Wanna know what alienates PvE and PvP? “Look at those PvE whiners, they want to just log in and get free kitten. Lazy entitled brats.” “Ugh, great, some idiots in PvP couldn’t counter this so great, there goes the fun part of my build even though I don’t PvP at all.”

If you think decreasing the prevalence of those attitudes is somehow more alienating… then I question your comprehension of issues.

Making PvE feel more like PvP will alienate players who do not want to PvP at all. But its ok to lose them since PvP is all that matters right? Go play fighting games then. Thx.

arjeidi.2690:

Splitting skills has nothing to do with bots.
Splitting skills has nothing to do with PvE dynamics. Split or unsplit doesn’t change that.
It is impossible for the two modes to be more alienated. Wanna know what alienates PvE and PvP? “Look at those PvE whiners, they want to just log in and get free kitten. Lazy entitled brats.” “Ugh, great, some idiots in PvP couldn’t counter this so great, there goes the fun part of my build even though I don’t PvP at all.”

If you think decreasing the prevalence of those attitudes is somehow more alienating… then I question your comprehension of issues.

Making PvE feel more like PvP will alienate players who do not want to PvP at all. But its ok to lose them since PvP is all that matters right? Go play fighting games then. Thx.

Splitting skills doesn’t affect bots. It simply lets them keep at it.
Splitting skills doesn’t affect PvE dynamics. It lets them remain below the standard ANet promised.
It is quite possible for the two modes to be more alienated. Wanna know what alienates PvE and PvP? “Before you say you know how to play, how about you do some PvP? PvE is easy mode.”

If you think splitting PvE and PvP will decrease the prevalence of those attitudes… then I question your comprehension of issues.

Making PvP or PvE feel even more distinguishable, to the point of forcing players to learn 2 versions of every single skill whether they want to or not is ok right?

But giving PvE some skills that makes it more challenging is a bad thing not every player will like, right?

Let’s get something straight.
Balancing, is not just about numbers – it never has, and never will.
Splitting skills will NEVER make certain types of skills useful at all, because there are certain things you simply do NOT do in PvE, unless encounters themselves change – wich leads to my suggestion.

This was true in GW1, and it will be true if ANet does the same in GW2.

You should take off your glasses – they are a little tinted.
I already acknowledged the good parts of splitting skills.
But when I also pointed out the bad parts, it seems to have made you mad.
I wonder to what point you even bother considering the validity of what I’ve suggested.

PVE and PVP require fundamentally different playstyles though. Running a dungeon or a DE where you get zerged by mobs is not comparable to any sort of PVP situation. Furthermore, some skills and effects that may be strong in PVE may not be worth much in PVP and vice versa. Mesmers are considered a dominant class in PVP but compared to an engineer or warrior they have far more difficulty dealing large, sustained AoE damage in PVE. I have a mesmer and I am certainly capable of dealing large damage with shatters, but an engineer with the grenade kit can just spam 1 and do the same or better damage. That is all, of course, in PVE. I haven’t heard anyone calling the grenade kit overpowered in a PVP context.

You seem to be acting under the assumption that OP skill in PVP = OP skill in PVE. This cannot be farther from the truth. An OP skill in PVP is an OP skill in PVP and has absolutely no relation to PVE.

For instance, look at the current complaining surrounding Thieves. Heartseeker, then Pistol Whip got nerfed, but all of the complaining was occurring in the context of a PVP environment. Neither of these skills really needed that kind of nerf in PVE, in which they just got weaker for no apparent reason. Heartseeker spam in PVE is just silly. You could do more damage to more targets by pulling a group of 3 with sword/pistol and black powder tanking them. If you try it in a dungeon, it will not only do little damage against a boss, it will probably get you killed as well. Haste+pistol whip burst damage is less useful in PVE where you generally want sustained damage. That build requires slotting 2 of your utilities as Haste and Devourer venom, and there are much more useful skills and builds for general, open world PVE.

In fact, I’d say that Haste for thieves is a pretty worthless skill in PVE outside of a few, VERY specific instances. In PVE, you are generally better off leaving quickness to being proc’d on a sigil or your tier 2 critical strikes trait than using it on a utility slot for which there are better alternatives.

Currently, people are complaining about Assassin’s signet+backstab, which is probably going to get nerfed. Again, nobody uses backstab builds in PVE because the amount of downtime between setting up your backstab spike damage with AS is just too long to be practical. It’s meaningless to nearly 1 shot a trash mob and have to wait 36 seconds for AS and your venoms to recharge when you could pull a group of 3 with a sword/pistol, black powder the area, and hit all 3 at once. But black powder tanking is a strategy that does not work in PVP unless your opponent is absolutely stupid and doesn’t move.

I agree with OP split PvE and PvP skills.

Anyway, nurvus, to make PVE and PVP more similar would require a fundamental redesign of the game. First, it would probably mean completely eliminating all kinds of high HP, high damage bosses in dungeons and world events. Those simply don’t exist in this game’s PVP. Second, it would require substantially improving the AI and tactics of enemies. On a programming level, this would certainly be revolutionary but it would also be incredibly difficult. You would have to replicate the strategic thinking of a human and implement some sort of broad level AI to coordinate attacks, like in an RTS, but you’d also have to write some tactical level AI that makes an individual enemy as challenging to fight as a human being. I don’t think that has ever been done before in an MMO.

What you’re suggesting is not a bad idea for another game to try, it’s that it’s not for Guild Wars 2 and it’s too late to try implementing it. It’s like taking a concept from an FPS or fighter game and transplanting it into a massive, online context. Imagine having enemies with the skill and reflexes of the most advanced Unreal Tournament bots, being guided by the strategic coordination of the most advanced StarCraft AI, in an MMO context. The idea is no doubt fascinating but I do not think it will be realized within the next few years. Give it another decade or two for technology to catch up to that vision.

You’re missing the point.
Making PvP “more” similar to PvE doesn’t require monsters to have the same reaction or tactics as player.
It only requires monsters to follow similar rules to players.

The mechanics that players use are already in the game, so all that needs to be done is change the AI to use those mechanics, and none of the below requires complex AI:

1. Fall damage and knockeable off cliffs
2. Movement while using skills
3. Moving away when attacked by someone out of reach, instead of going immune
4. Making some bigger monsters resistant to knockback/knockdown, instead of immune – meaning less duration/distance
5. Make monsters use skills that give them stability for a short duration before channeling their important attacks, rather than outright immunity. This would make players able to interrupt the ability as long as they remove the protective boons beforehand.
6. Making enemies attempt to use a healing skill when they pass a certain Health % treshold
7. Making enemies periodically use defensive skills that force players to attack at the right time, rather than spamming skills
8. Give more enemies pull/charge skills
9. Make some enemies kite you (strafe + shoot) every now and then
10. Make enemies use skills that remove/convert conditions/boons
11. Replace some enemy big hit auto-attacks with multi-hit auto-attacks (like Weapon Skill #1)

The list goes on, but none of the above requires complex AI; none of the above requires monsters to “emulate” players.

Bosses do not need to have much less health, just a little less, to compensate for the healing/buff/debuff mechanics.

And I’m obviously not saying every enemy should have everything…

In addition, enemies would have to attack substantially faster (give them DPS equal to players of the same level). For this, rewards for killing them would have to increase a lot since they’d be much harder to kill.

You can do that for an individual enemy and it might work, but how will you coordinate a mob of those enemies? Also, what will these enemies be doing in their downtime not fighting players? Will they just be standing around? Nobody stands around in PVP, they are always moving and doing something. To that end, if you want to make PVE more like PVP it is necessary to implement a broader level strategic AI that coordinates enemy movement.

PvE doesn’t have to be equal to PvP.
It just needs to be comparable, thus making skills feel just as useful in both.
In doing so, Bots have a harder time, players have more fun, rewards can be improved as it will be less viable to just grind through AoE, and skills will be balanced between PvP and PvE.

Enemies do not need to have dps like a player.
They just need to move away from the extremes:
Ultra Dumb = Health and simple dps
Ultra Cheesy = immunities and/or insane control abilities (mega knockbacks, mega knockdowns, fears that last 6 seconds, etc)

I’d say Veterans are closer to the effectiveness of a player, while normal enemies are more likely to be balanced in a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio, not accounting for AoE.

Alot of WvWvW is uncoordinated. Just clusters of players with a goal that’s not always perceived in the same manner.

Likewise, some monsters can move in clusters and/or roam within a certain area.
Some of the stronger monsters (like champions) can be compared to a cluster of players, as long as they have challenging mechanics, rather than simple brute damage.

Some creatures might spot you from a distance and attempt to pre-empt you.
Other creatures would act like they do now.

I like this idea.

But I want to know about how would you balance players skills when they enter WvW. Would players use PvE skills or PvP skills?

WvW is coordinated (perhaps minimally, but nonetheless). The fact that players even mass up to launch attacks on outposts and keeps is some level of coordination, as it indicates purpose. Should enemy NPCs mass up when they spawn and hunt down players, eventually attacking outposts when they reach a large enough size? Nobody is passive in PVP.

Signed.

Been on both sides , went full PvP on some MMOs and in GW2 im going full PvE (for now) , and honestly , both sides do not match.

Some player actually despise the other side and get mad every single time nerfs are applied due to it, while they let pass when the reason is their side fault.

Better thing to do is separate both sides , and before someone come to say i want PvE to easy , cause it seems this is what is going on this thread , this is not what im saying.

Stop and think , balancing in PvP should not be what is making PvE easy or hard , it should be PvE balance, it is ridiculous to depend on PvP to balance PvE.

Instead of separate both sides, make them similar.
The hate will always exist as long as PvE follows much easier and boring mechanics than PvP.
PvPers will always look down on PvErs because of that.
If skills are split, that won’t change.

Making both aspects of the game more similar actually fixes everything all the way to the quality of the community.

Nurvus, the level of work you are suggesting is not something Arenanet is going to put into this game. They are not going to make a radical change with an uncertain consequence. It’s an idea that would have to be part of the design process at the very beginning, so a future game might implement this idea. The idea itself, of making enemy NPCs more engaging, is not bad but it’s unlikely to happen.

The consequence is certain, and pretty obvious, I might add.

As for the amount of work? How about the amount of work they will have balancing skills differently for each aspect of the game, wich is also designed differently.

Instead, I’m suggesting that the gameplay mentality is one throughout the whole game.

I’ll agree that it’s a big enough change that it might be best introducing with an expansion, and monster AI could be changed gradually, starting from end game, and moving down towards lower level areas.

Splitting skills only needs to be done when a particular ability is imbalanced in PVP or underperforming in PVE. Most skills are adequate with a few exceptions. Your suggestion would require redesigning (adding more skills, changing health, dps, adding new AI to enable them to kite etc) almost every monster in every zone and instance.

It’s a lot of work Arenanet is not willing to make. I say the consequence is uncertain, uncertain in the sense that its effect on player enjoyment is unknown. High level concepts like making PVE more like PVP have to start from the ground up, during game development. They can’t be implemented after the fact.

It seems the common practice in these forums is dismissing others’ arguments by exaggerating their presumed downsides, and minimizing or even denying your own.

If you truly believe most skills are balanced except for a few exceptions, you’re deluding yourself.

My suggestion, envisions using mechanics that are already in the game.
Skills that players use added to creatures.

The development team would need to make a couple AI templates and then adjust to the different skills each creature would have.
It wouldn’t be the same as designing 1 AI from scratch for each creature.

Furthermore, as I said multiple times, my suggestion fixes several game issues, rather than 1.

• less bot effectiveness (splitting skills makes bots more effective because some skills are underperforming in PvE in order to balance PvP)
• more fun in PvE (less boring encounters or frustrating mechanics)
  Example: You know when a creature becomes invulnerable because you’re out of reach? That means the check is already done. Now instead of invulnerability, make creature move out of YOUR reach. Hard?
• dev team only needs to balance 1 set of skills for the entire game

I’m not dismissing your points. I believe the ideas are worth considering for some other title. However, I believe you are vastly underestimating the amount of work required to bring your idea to fruition. Splitting skills and balancing for PVE/PVP is easier than redesigning the PVE experience.

The consequences of your suggestion are hypotheticals. Bot effectiveness might be reduced, but the way I see it bots will just adapt to using more balanced builds and slightly more sophisticated coding instead of just spamming ranger/bear (as we currently see). TERA Online, by use of a manual targeting system, was expected to have fewer bots, but people adapted by using software that was like an aimbot. Bots are designed by humans, and humans are very adaptable.

PVE might be more fun for some people, but I know that there are many people who would get equally frustrated by enemies that emulate player tactics and skills. So whether or not that is more fun is still uncertain. It’s something that needs to be tested extensively, with a large amount of feedback gathered on it to refine it before it can be rolled out.

The need to balance one set of skills for the entire game might be a bit more possible, but I still think there would be specific PVP related balance issues that might not translate in PVE because there are fundamental differences between the two playstyles, even if you make PVE emulate PVP.

I am aware that some things are split. However, this bifurcation could both be made clearer and better explained in some instances. For one, indicating a PVP split with a (PVP) like in GW1 would be very helpful.

When balancing skills for PVP (which seems to be the primary reasons skill changes are being made, e.g. Pistol Whip, Mesmer phantasms and cooldowns) wouldn’t it be more appropriate to just change how those skills behave in PVP? Nobody has been running a gimmicky all thief/pistol whip build in PVE groups or dungeons, therefore it’s a non-issue in PVE and undeserving of a 15% damage decrease that actually gives the S/P auto-attack higher DPS (this was tested).