Guild Wars: What's Wrong With PvP, You Ask?

Proof positive that if you comment you'll get me to ramble on about what you care about instead of whatever passing thought happens to interest me. Looking at the sad prospects facing an uninitiated player trying to get into the PvP scene has long been a hobby of mine. I've always been concerned with how the casual or intermediate will fare. But since I've plowed this fertile ground for so long, the basics are readily apparent, breathtakingly fundamental, and beneath my notice. It might help, though, to clarify just what I think are the barriers placed in the way of attracting and encouraging neophytes to that wonderful corner of the game. And although I can write a literal book on the subject (and probably have by this point) it all boils down to three basic points of concern.

1. The lack of social interaction
2. The lack of PvP incentives
3. The lack of stepping stone formats

Number one, and probably the most systematic and deeprooted flaw is that the game makes it hard for people to interact with one another which is, I'd think, a mortal blow to an online, multiplayer game. It's possible to play through the entire game without talking to another person. I know, I've done it myself. You shut off the chat channels, you mark yourself as offline or Do Not Disturb, you party with only the AI and you can hench your way through the campaign. Farming's a solo activity, for the most part, since that's how you maximize your drops. The whole PvE side, the introduction to the game for most people, can be played as if it were nothing more than a complicated and lag-ridden CRPG that's on your harddrive alone, not being played out on some rack of servers elsewhere. It's gotten better these days with Party Search and all but along with that step forward, the game's taken another step back with the Heroes that make a party of AI controlled helpers even more of an appealing option when compared to the randomness of finding a group of humans to play with. I remember the bad old days when you had to have a non-henchie Monk in order to, you know, live, and had to spend forever shouting for one in a lobby. I don't really want to go back to that (My solution? Well, I'd cap free henchmen. Limit the number you could have in a party to a set number, like three. If you wanted more you could pay for them, both in terms of a gold sink fee and drastically reduced XP and drops and the like. That way, you let players like me who'd gnaw off their arm before joining a PUG an out but still encourage players to play nicely with others because it'll be easier that way.). And while I'd be the first to say that solo play should be encouraged, that there needs to be some way of addressing the fact that it's often hard to find a group or that last critical piece of your group, entirely replacing the human touch should have been a non-starter. Because what it does is isolate players. Separate them from everyone else. Combined with the shard-less, instanced geometry of the game, it makes everyone very much alone in a sea of unfamiliar strangers who flit through lobbies and only meet occasionally. Even disposable PvP characters and the rapid turnover of the introductory PvP formats contributes to the overall feeling that you're not really meeting anyone.

That's a problem when it comes to PVP because it means they're not forming groups, they're not making connections, they're not establishing the bonds that lead them to create the guilds and teams and friendships you need to play in the high-level, competitive GvG. Getting into a group, finding people to play with in that arena is as much a matter of your social networking skills as it is your skill level. You have to get noticed, you have to make that impression that makes people notice you. And that doesn't just happen because of your deft work with the flag or a clutch HealSig that lets you fight off a ninja-gank. It happens through talking, through discussing and it could be something as simple as chatting about your favorite skills while you're running through an otherwise unmemorable quest cycle with someone you grouped with for no good reason. They might remember you when they're looking around, trying to find that 8th person before they can start a match. Might recall that you said your favorite class was exactly what they're looking for and you sounded like you knew what you're talking about. You might not even have considered playing some GvG before they sent you an invite and decide to give it a whirl on the spur of a moment. It's those sorts of ships passing in the night strings of coincidences that can give players an entry point into PvP. Into the guilds and organizations they need to play them (And, yes, fuck the Hero Battles. You want to dick around with flagging your henchies around, that's your business but I'm talking about real, competitive team play here. And you're just playing with yourself.). A lot of the good teams I know of started from groups of friends or acquaintances who were just playing the game together and managed to grow and get better together, adding pieces and players and knowledge until they really had something. But that's exactly the kind of thing that doesn't happen often enough when you're players aren't ships floating on the open waters but are submarines, plowing silently past each other unseen beneath the waves.

Fixing it? Well, it involves more opportunities for social interaction. Takes forcing players into situations where they have to deal with each other without feeling like it's a chore. You need to support the groups and communities that form. Offer things like in-game mail (Was in the test at one point), forums (Was promised at one point) and wikis and more along with the buddylists and whispering in order to help players find each other, keep track of each other, and play together.

Number two is that the game lacks sufficient carrots to lure players into PvP, to keep them entertained with PvP, and to keep them playing that PvP long past their initial infatuation. And I'm not just talking about things like the cash prizes of Championships past compared with the e-bay fodder door prizes being offered today. Although that's certainly part of it, those kind of rewards are more for the high-end established players. What I'm focusing on here are the incentives for someone to just dip a toe into the waters to test them out. Put simply, it's like the developers decided long ago that the sheer joy of PvP play was about the only thing they needed to entice players into the various PvP formats. If you compare the in-game rewards you'll get for an hours worth of completing quests or running missions with what you'll earn for an hour spent in the Arenas, the results are striking. You're going to get a lot more gold, a lot more items, probably a lot more skills and everything else you might want to measure your progress by. Sure you can unlock things for use with only your PvP characters and that's nothing to sneer at (Although, I'd remind everyone that when the game was first released that wasn't an option at all.) but the point is by playing PvE you can improve your character in PvE and PvP at the same time. While playing PvP results in improving only your PvP side and precious little more. It's all about prestige, it's all about the size of your e-peen, and that fosters an attitude, a culture, that drives a lot of people out before they even get started. The fundamental point here is if people can get noticeably further ahead by doing something else, some percent of them will. And that's a percent that's no longer playing with everyone else, no longer grouping with them in the RA, or developing strat for the Tombs or whatever else they may do if they're adequately compensated for their time in PvP.

And don't forget the drawing power of a good shiny lure. That carrot, just out of reach, that will have a player going "One more round, one more round, one more round" as they strive for it. It's not just a reason to play. But a reason to keep playing through losing streaks, to persevere through guild drama, to come back after raging away. Rewards, doled out appropriately and often enough, are how you keep your players interested just how the constant progress towards that next level or that next milestone or that next quest marker can keep them going in PvE.

Fixing it? Well, I think the crucial elements here are two-fold. First, you need to have some way of giving out exclusive, PvE centered awards through PvP. The Celestial Sigil situation around the game's release was, I think, the best example of how this gets done. At the time, they were incredibly rare and only earned - one at a precious time - by winning in the Hall of Heroes, by "beating" the Tombs game. You could sell them off for 100 plat or more easily. And those early PvP diehards who could reliably hold the Hall would get rich doing so. I remember one player had a character named "I Sell Sigils" for obvious reasons. They'd get instant advertising every time they won the hall. That gold could go into anything (Mostly high-end and rare weapons like the Fiery Flamespitter or a Denravi Sword, if memory serves.) and help ease one's way through PvE. It was a bit too exclusive, a bit too hard too reach, and a bit too much once you did. But giving out exclusive resources that are needed by everyone through PvP is one way you can draw people who might not otherwise be interested in. Second, you need to offer prestige items. The special skins you can get with your tournament reward points are a good example of this although one that's horribly implemented. It needs to be something that someone who's bored with grinding titles or plugging away through hard mode can look at and want. And figure they've got a legitimate shot at gaining. But the idea is there, it just needs tweaking.

Number three is what my commentor and I touched on in that earlier post. The game needs to have both high-end PvP formats like GvG and HA. Ones where serious play and dedicated competition are rewarded. And it needs casual, consequence-free formats where the stakes are low, as introductory formats where new players can enter the game. But you also need something in the middle to bridge the gap between the two. You need a cascading series of stepping stones leading from the truly basic to the enrichingly complex. A series of formats that leads a novice player by the hands through the stages necessary in order to stand on their own in the true, end-game formats. Ways of teaching them the needed lessons while keeping the entertained and enthralled at the same time.

What we have now are a group of balkanized formats that rarely inform one another. The Arenas are about the Arenas because they're so random and force you to make choices and run things you wouldn't otherwise. HvH is about your micro and HvH because you're playing with a pack of retarded AI henchies and not practicing teamwork. The Hall is its own, insular meta because of the environmental constraints - you have to be able to win the Hall, which randomly shuffles its rules, and you have to have just enough to get there, which includes running through some very odd little scenarios that don't pop up elsewhere (Although that are obviously designed, in some aspects, to mimic the big daddy format that the Tombs were initially supposed to segueway to, GvG. Relic runs, for example, are analogous to running a flag. Holding a dias like defending your Lord at VoD. The Priest maps like mounting an assault on an enemy's base. Except...not in any way that matters. And I blame this on the fact that no one knew how to play the game yet when these things were being made. Seriously, you'd be embarrassed to hear about the things that we did back in the test in top-flight competition.). The ABs and Comp Missions of Factions are their own little universe, too, because of the way groups are put together and the PvE/PvP hybrid nature that leaves you running around the map trying to cap points instead of fighting (There, I blame the lack of DP. It's just not an effective strategy to kill off your opponent because it doesn't hurt them.). Nothing connects. Nothing bridges to the other.

Fixing it? Well, I think it involves pushing not new formats (Not really an issue now that the game is complete) but smaller formats. What we have now represent the mid-game and the end-game. You can't really play in places like the Arena unless you know what you're doing. What's needed are the absolutely, bargain basement entry level points. And those, I think, are best served through mini-games which you slip into the PvE side of things. Formats like Snowball Fighting and Dodgeball that strip the game down to some of its basic components while still being a lot of fun to play. Branches off the plot like the GW:EN mini-games that have you playing against the computer but relying on some of the lessons and techniques you'll need to advance your PvP progress. That's what the game needs, right now. In addition, of course, to cleaning up the flaws that are dragging the existing formats down like leachers and botting. I'd go insane and say there ought to be a universal player ranking, common to all formats while offering stats on what a players like to play and is good at but that's just not going to happen.