Guild Wars 2

I decided to ask wvw’ers and pve’ers why do they prefer wvw/pve over pvp and what pvp lacks. The idea is to maybe provide some feedback on what could be improved in pvp so more people are interested in doing pvp.

The corresponding threads can be viewed here:
pve: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Why-do-you-prefer-pve-over-pvp/first#post3482115

wvw: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Why-do-you-prefer-wvw-over-pvp/first#post3481106

So far the responses can be summed up in following (bear in mind, i might be wrong and those are not my opnion):

wvw (what people like about wvw):
- more build diversity
- better rewards
- large scale combat
- large play area
- more tactics
- no skyhammer (lol)
- pve armor (looks, stats)
- no chat from opposite team (no crap talk etc.)
- no underwater fights
- more freedom (choice to fight or not, no need to stand in circle, can choose fights etc.)
- more social

pve (what people like about pve):
- scripted AI provides more challenge
- consistency
- build imbalance doesn’t matter as much, lack of build diversity isn’t an issue
- way more gold
- lag less punishing
- better armor looks
- more teamwork, less selfish playstyle

I will edit this post when i get more responses. I do believe that we (pvpers) could provide suggestions based on this responses to improve pvp in general so it could become more attractive for non-pvpers.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, post them here

As for my part, based on responses i think following (generall) things needed to be reviewed/changed about pvp:
- more game modes/maps
- class balance (dohhhhhhh)
- more rewards

As a pvper I like to WvW sometimes because it’s so easy to show off and faceroll other players.

Solution to make pvp better:
Add more bad players. Add more teammates to watch us kill them.

Or maybe just need a better game mode with emphasis on movement and clutch plays

I know this is a terrible breakdown, but one of the WvW points bother me: more freedom.

I’ll have to look into the thread for details, but are they saying that they dislike being forced to fight in certain situations? They prefer lots of kiting and disengaging as long as they don’t die?

As for PvE I haven’t done much on the “more teamwork, less selfish” side as compared to PvP, so I maybe I just don’t recognize it.

Well, that’s my two cents of annoyed and unfair criticism.

Cynz.9437:

pve (what people like about pve):
- scripted AI provides more challenge

I lol’d

Proven.2854:

I know this is a terrible breakdown, but one of the WvW points bother me: more freedom.

I’ll have to look into the thread for details, but are they saying that they dislike being forced to fight in certain situations? They prefer lots of kiting and disengaging as long as they don’t die?

As for PvE I haven’t done much on the “more teamwork, less selfish” side as compared to PvP, so I maybe I just don’t recognize it.

Well, that’s my two cents of annoyed and unfair criticism.

I spent fair amount in pve, pvp and wvw and i don’t agree with all those points either.

From my pov there is a lot of misinformation on each side like for example pve bosses being more challenging than pvp’ers. I personally believe that fights vs skilled players are way more challenging and fun than vs scripted bosses.

But this thread isn’t about it. This thread is about sorting out feedback from players from other areas of this game to improve pvp experience.

Pvp is point cap only while you have more options/gang roaming in wvw.

You realize that this is the sPvP forum don’t you? If anything the topic title should be why do you prefer sPvP over WvW/PvE.

Geff.1930:

You realize that this is the sPvP forum don’t you? If anything the topic title should be why do you prefer sPvP over WvW/PvE.

He’s trying to compile the worthwhile feedback from the other major content areas of the game to try and get a comprehensive list that we can show the devs and say: “This is what your very own players want.”

The best advice I saw from those two threads is that we need something more straightforward as the default mode, analogous to GW1’s 4v4 team arenas. Something where it’s very easy for someone to go in, run into a few enemies, have a fight without being zerged down, and then if they’re the last person standing they get the chance to be the hero and can show off their skill in the final 1v1 and sometimes 1v2 situation.

Which makes me think, fine. Add a 3v3 or 4v4 quick arena mode that you can easily queue up for. It would also solve the problem of not having anything you can queue for with just 2-3 people easily.

The social aspect seems to get skipped over a lot in these threads. If you want to play with friends in wvw, you can do whatever you want. You can roam with a few people and focus on kills. You can run around in a medium sized guild group to fight zergs. You can run around in a zerg. You can grab a couple friends and follow whatever commander is leading. You can either play it casually, or hardcore and be successful with either.

What do you do if you want to play with friends in spvp? Team arena, and that’s it. So playing with friends, who quite possibly have varying skill levels, requires making a team and playing competitive fights which have a ranking attached to them. And if you want to play with competitive players sometimes and casual players other times, well, enjoy having your rating (and thus mmr) repeatedly kittened.

Anet is trying to attract casuals to pvp by dumbing down the game as much as possible, when all they need to do is make it so friends can play together casually without being punished.

I have been recently trying wvw more, it feels like a few notches below hot join sadly. There are some good things about it though, I like how the battlefield is large and how you can roam around.

There is a lot of cheese in wvw that isn’t present in spvp (hello perplexity runes). I think if wvw players tried soloq and teamq that they would learn more about their class and actual team tactics.

One thing I found odd in wvw, is that I seen a lot of great sword warriors. Something I never see in soloq.

dreztina.4820:

The social aspect seems to get skipped over a lot in these threads. If you want to play with friends in wvw, you can do whatever you want. You can roam with a few people and focus on kills. You can run around in a medium sized guild group to fight zergs. You can run around in a zerg. You can grab a couple friends and follow whatever commander is leading. You can either play it casually, or hardcore and be successful with either.

What do you do if you want to play with friends in spvp? Team arena, and that’s it. So playing with friends, who quite possibly have varying skill levels, requires making a team and playing competitive fights which have a ranking attached to them. And if you want to play with competitive players sometimes and casual players other times, well, enjoy having your rating (and thus mmr) repeatedly kittened.

Anet is trying to attract casuals to pvp by dumbing down the game as much as possible, when all they need to do is make it so friends can play together casually without being punished.

we do have hotjoin

i personally wish you could queue for soloq by yourself or with 1 friend like in LoL

@Aza: you see many GS wars in wvw due to mobility, WvW is huge map so mobility has greater meaning there

GS wars for fighting are pretty meh

Cynz.9437:

we do have hotjoin

i personally wish you could queue for soloq by yourself or with 1 friend like in LoL

@Aza: you see many GS wars in wvw due to mobility, WvW is huge map so mobility has greater meaning there

GS wars for fighting are pretty meh

Have you ever tried playing hotjoins with more casual friends and constantly ended up on opposite teams? They don’t like it. At all.

dreztina.4820:

Cynz.9437:

we do have hotjoin

i personally wish you could queue for soloq by yourself or with 1 friend like in LoL

@Aza: you see many GS wars in wvw due to mobility, WvW is huge map so mobility has greater meaning there

GS wars for fighting are pretty meh

Have you ever tried playing hotjoins with more casual friends and constantly ended up on opposite teams? They don’t like it. At all.

actually it is kind of funny, because we get to chase and kill each other xD

my BF hates my thief >_<

Most people do prefer to be on the same team though. Hotjoins auto-switching was practically designed to keep 2 or more people from team stacking for too long.

Main reason I like wvw more than spvp is that there is no other modes of spvp besides point control. Since point control is the only game mode of spvp it leads to people only playing specific cheese mode point holding builds that aren’t really for pvp but are more for tanking while u sit on a point.

Pvp takes out the g in gw.

Proven.2854:

I’ll have to look into the thread for details, but are they saying that they dislike being forced to fight in certain situations? They prefer lots of kiting and disengaging as long as they don’t die?

Yes.

My answer: PvP is forced even gear and numbers (well, most of the time anyway). That leaves very little to hide behind.

In PvP, a decent player can win about half his matches and hang out at like 75% on the leaderboards.

In WvW, the same player could roll a souped-up build with guard leech, applied fortitude, full ascended, and find a few friends, and play for hours without dying (while roflstomping everyone). In other words, WvW is much better at making you feel like you are awesome.

Casuals and carebears like easy stuff, wvw brings easy pvp, urr durr gaize luk at mah critz mom! Aoe Aoe PUUUUUUUUUUUUSHHHHHH, creaming their pants while hiting a wall or door…. So they like it because it is easier.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Pvp takes out the g in gw.

Legacy of the Foefire is arguably the closest thing to GW1 GvG

No argument here but this isnt gw1.
To me guild wars = large team combat.

I asked a similar question in the general forum a week ago.. why people didn’t play sPvP. Was surprised at the variety of answers… but many were the same as in the OP here.

Writetyper.1985:

Cynz.9437:

pve (what people like about pve):
- scripted AI provides more challenge

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

some people truly believe it hehe

I look at Spvp as basically a mini-game in GW2. Nothing you ‘gain’ in the mists is “real” in this game because once you leave you don’t have it anymore. It feels like a separate game entirely to me with much much less options.

The biggest thing that makes me dislike Spvp is the amulet stat system. Not only do they offer very few options for stats, but you don’t even have the option to mix/match those stats, the only option being the jewel, which doesn’t do much.

I understand the idea behind Spvp having no levels/gear, but to me it just ruins it, and I have no motivation to play it without my hard earned armor/weapons that my ‘real’ character has.

Besides all that, Skyhammer is possibly the worst map I have ever played in any MMO ever, and every single match being point control really makes it boring. Lets get some Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, anything!!!

dreztina.4820:

Cynz.9437:

we do have hotjoin

i personally wish you could queue for soloq by yourself or with 1 friend like in LoL

@Aza: you see many GS wars in wvw due to mobility, WvW is huge map so mobility has greater meaning there

GS wars for fighting are pretty meh

Have you ever tried playing hotjoins with more casual friends and constantly ended up on opposite teams? They don’t like it. At all.

well we do enjoy killing each other for casual fun when that happens.

style.6173:

Here it is in a summary.

WvW = hardcore
PvP = casual

Now, this is the exact opposite of what ANET originally intended. So, why is this the case? WvW offers a lot more strategy. All of the different weapon, armor, trinket, food combinations allow you to really create something based on your playstyle. PvP in its effort to be balanced, removes that strategy. It’s just not fun.

Stat allocation in PVE (WvW) is only different in that you can have all the stats at once. With food/oils and different stat pieces there is no reason to min/max your strengths vs weakness as you can just have it all. I find it pretty lame actually. Even though PvP stats could use some updating I much prefer having to actually think about what you use.

rmBossa.4621:

style.6173:

Here it is in a summary.

WvW = hardcore
PvP = casual

Now, this is the exact opposite of what ANET originally intended. So, why is this the case? WvW offers a lot more strategy. All of the different weapon, armor, trinket, food combinations allow you to really create something based on your playstyle. PvP in its effort to be balanced, removes that strategy. It’s just not fun.

Stat allocation in PVE (WvW) is only different in that you can have all the stats at once. With food/oils and different stat pieces there is no reason to min/max your strengths vs weakness as you can just have it all. I find it pretty lame actually. Even though PvP stats could use some updating I much prefer having to actually think about what you use.

I don’t follow that logic. Less choice does not = more strategy when it comes to gearing a character, it just makes it more boring.

I am a huge fan of Knight’s gear on my Necromancer, but there is no option for that in Spvp, which really makes it hard to build my Power Necro.

Amulets also have much less total stats on them compared to normal gear, so the glaring imbalance between profession base stats is more apparent. Even with soldiers amulet, light armored professions can only get like 2600 armor… which is what a Warrior can achieve with a BERSERKER amulet. I find that ridiculous.

rsq.3581:

- scripted AI provides more challenge

You know what

Scripted AIs in PvP….are MORE challenging than most active players

@all those laughing at the “scripted Ai” comment, they were referring to bosses’ mechanics in dungeons. You cant deny soloing lupi is a lot more challenging than many cheese build fights 1v1. Dungeons bosses (some of them) are fun to fight agaisnt, thats what scripted Ai means.

As for why I dont like PvP in this game as a whole; Balance. At least in WvW you can work around your stats, foods, traits and bring something that fits your playstyle better. Also, I have a legendary and almsot completed another, as wel as looks I can only dream of having in PvP since most of them as skins I can only use once and of course I decided to use it on the part of the game that matters; PvE.

Lastly, while I dont mind the urrent game mode, I would sure love to see something like team death match or Raid the castle/Defend the castle with simple AI adds, capture the flag too like spirit watch but with the focus on the flag instead of bases.

For WvWvW, I consider only roaming solo/small group. It’s something I do most of the times and find it fun. If I just want to talk on skype or TS when chillin, I hop into safe zerg and turn autopilot on.

The thing is, WvWvW builds, when many OP like perplexity spammers or PU mesmers/-98% Warriors tend to be more diverse. Matching more different pieces of gear opens up possibility for balanced power builds, something nearly non-existant for some classes in tpvp which want to be power. You know, something more than either Soldier or Zerker amulet. More crit damage allows builds like DS Necromancer to be much more viable and tougher than in tpvp.

Also, I always liked World PvP in any MMO. You know, you do your things, occassionaly fight or just run around, looking for opponents. Deathmatch.

WvWvW allows for more tactics and simple fun. Pushing people off cliffs, Spectral Walk troll jumping.

It’s also better looking. When landscape is pretty stale now, I hope that soon introduction of Edge of the Mists will allow players who just want to fight in beautiful scenery in non-zerg-for-points combat to find roaming place.

Ah and one thing. Zerglings. I love chasing zerglings ;p

WvW is the casual mode – to jump in and do whatever you want. For sure play this more people and like this more people. It´s normal.
Biggest part in WvW play staffguardian and spam button 1 on the Commander to farm bags- Thats how casual WvW is palyed and alot love it^^
Sure there are some organized Guilds fighting eachother and call this GvG but its a small part in WVW and for me this so called GvG in GW2 is jsut ZERGvZERG and more casual than pvp

Proven.2854:

Geff.1930:

You realize that this is the sPvP forum don’t you? If anything the topic title should be why do you prefer sPvP over WvW/PvE.

He’s trying to compile the worthwhile feedback from the other major content areas of the game to try and get a comprehensive list that we can show the devs and say: “This is what your very own players want.”

The best advice I saw from those two threads is that we need something more straightforward as the default mode, analogous to GW1’s 4v4 team arenas. Something where it’s very easy for someone to go in, run into a few enemies, have a fight without being zerged down, and then if they’re the last person standing they get the chance to be the hero and can show off their skill in the final 1v1 and sometimes 1v2 situation.

Which makes me think, fine. Add a 3v3 or 4v4 quick arena mode that you can easily queue up for. It would also solve the problem of not having anything you can queue for with just 2-3 people easily.

Okay, but why is this thread in this section of the forum rather than in the WvW or PvE section. sPvPers look at this section of the forum because it is the sPvP section.

People who play sPvP, myself included, do not like many aspects of PvE/WvW which is why we play sPvP.

Writetyper.1985:

Cynz.9437:

pve (what people like about pve):
- scripted AI provides more challenge

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

l0l u cant even solo lupi on ezm0de warrior

get good, scrublord :^)

Stx.4857:

rmBossa.4621:

style.6173:

Here it is in a summary.

WvW = hardcore
PvP = casual

Now, this is the exact opposite of what ANET originally intended. So, why is this the case? WvW offers a lot more strategy. All of the different weapon, armor, trinket, food combinations allow you to really create something based on your playstyle. PvP in its effort to be balanced, removes that strategy. It’s just not fun.

Stat allocation in PVE (WvW) is only different in that you can have all the stats at once. With food/oils and different stat pieces there is no reason to min/max your strengths vs weakness as you can just have it all. I find it pretty lame actually. Even though PvP stats could use some updating I much prefer having to actually think about what you use.

I don’t follow that logic. Less choice does not = more strategy when it comes to gearing a character, it just makes it more boring.

Actually I disagree. There’s more min/maxing with PvE gear, but it’s not like any of the choices are difficult. You just choose between the 1-2 strong combinations for your build. I can think of four different foods worth using and three different oils. You kind of just choose the strongest stuff and boom, done.

I do agree that toughness/power/precision would have been a good thing to have from the start of GW2 in PvP. Warriors would have been more competent with it from the start and wouldn’t have needed all the buffs they got.

I won’t touch the PvP vs PvE differences, but for WvW vs sPvP, there’s the following:

- sPvP maps are all tiny and WvW gives an environment where you can do things like call out incomings before enemies are on top of you.
– Ranged and stealth builds are actually viable in WvW. One of the big reasons that engis using the bomb kit in sPvP are so strong and often have so few direct counters in games is because people rarely want a build that involves standing far away to pick off or kite enemies in a game where they are forced to stand in a tiny spot on top of their enemies.

Geff.1930:

Proven.2854:

Geff.1930:

You realize that this is the sPvP forum don’t you? If anything the topic title should be why do you prefer sPvP over WvW/PvE.

He’s trying to compile the worthwhile feedback from the other major content areas of the game to try and get a comprehensive list that we can show the devs and say: “This is what your very own players want.”

The best advice I saw from those two threads is that we need something more straightforward as the default mode, analogous to GW1’s 4v4 team arenas. Something where it’s very easy for someone to go in, run into a few enemies, have a fight without being zerged down, and then if they’re the last person standing they get the chance to be the hero and can show off their skill in the final 1v1 and sometimes 1v2 situation.

Which makes me think, fine. Add a 3v3 or 4v4 quick arena mode that you can easily queue up for. It would also solve the problem of not having anything you can queue for with just 2-3 people easily.

Okay, but why is this thread in this section of the forum rather than in the WvW or PvE section. sPvPers look at this section of the forum because it is the sPvP section.

People who play sPvP, myself included, do not like many aspects of PvE/WvW which is why we play sPvP.

You didn’t read my initial post, did you?

This is like asking why people think that Braveheart is better movie than karate kid.

Spvp gives a bit more challenge in term of player quality but it sucks that the map is too small and people build around circle thing.

while pvping in WvW give more challenge because of the larger space
If u duel in Spvp ur AoE pretty much hit everything or block all the way.
If u duel in OS no one would ever step in ur AoE

and you will have gears into your consideration not just the game set it up for you like in spvp