Having played the first guild wars, I absolutely loved the pvp, thought it was excellent and required a lot of skill and thought in terms of the build and weapons, armour etc. Im not sure what to make of guild wars 2 pvp, I enjoy it sometimes other times i find it frustrating and it seems like there is a lot of button mashing?? Maybe im mistaken as i've only played the warrior class so far, world vs world I gave a try but for me it was a laggy mess so i've stuck to normal pvp, what are your thoughts on it?
Guild wars 2 pvp..your thoughts?
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WvW can be a lot of fun once you find out your server's teamspeak channel, so you can follow the commander's directives. it makes what seems like two mindless zergs clashing actually involve strategy, flanking, smart combo field placement, etc. but yeah, otherwise, it's just a bunch of people running towards each other and burning through their skill bar. as for sPvP, it actually has a lot more depth than people give it credit for. unfortunately, the balance is still a bit weak on some classes (warrior is largely considered a bad PvP class, and even the devs admit they need a lot of work, whereas the elementalist is the master of just about everything), but it's definitely not unbalanced to the point of being broken. it's more of a "certain builds are better than we want, certain classes lack build variety" kind of thing. as for being spammy, it definitely is not. maybe on lower ranks, where your opponents also don't know what the hell they're doing, but as your progress, you'll realize more and more that burning through your skills will get you nowhere. think of it as winning street fighter matches by spamming hadouken. it can get the noobier players, but use that strategy against a more skilled player and you won't last long.I love the PvP, it's actually skill based and more like a mix of Standard PVP and DOTA style gameplay (ie buffs and heavy teamwork and objective based).
WiiMan21
The WvW however needs A LOT of work, though it can be fun at times.Â
Not as good as the original.Â
I said I wouldnt post in this thread, but I just wanted to put this quote in here from Ensign. Who was one of the most respected players in Guild Wars 1. Â It is quite long, but it is a good read.
[spoiler]
Strong healers are really toxic to all aspects of play. They have very little play to them, and its incredibly difficult to prevent anything they are a part of not turning into a DPS vs HPS race.
GW1s backline play was strong because it was so strongly built upon prot and the debuff/cleansing cycle, not healing. When strong healing skills were introduced, a lot of the fine structure of the game fell apart as it devolved into more of a damage vs healing race.
PvE tanks have always been this abomination of stupid aggro mechanics grafted with insipid power healing wrapped in a thick shell of gear checks. Those systems were specifically designed to have monsters choose to attack the least threatening foe possible, where their attacks would be the least effective and the worse a target you were, the better you were doing your job as the tank.
I do not mourn the loss of that garbage at all.
Now, GW2 does have a problem. Its problem is that there should be trade-offs between damage and utility that are interesting and support the group in different ways. In GW1, for example, your offense required both raw damage dealing and offensive disruption to be effective your heavy damage couldnt kill much through protection and debuffs, while your disruption wasnt going to kill on its own but could set up your offense by purging the protections that kept them safe.
A well designed, no-trinity version of GW2 would still be anchored in damage, with a layer of buffs and debuffs augmenting combat and a layer of removal, both of buffs and debuffs, over which the tides of the fight would be waged.
Unfortunately that is, for the most part, totally absent from GW2.
Yes, there are a handful of buffs and debuffs of course, the debuffs do not work in PvE against any foe that matters, which only amplifies the problem. Removal, on the other hand, is largely absent. Defense is built around invulnerability frames, against which there is no answer; dodges and bubbles conquer all. Many buffs are totally impervious to removal. The handful of the ones that are vulnerable to removal are straight stat boosts, totally uninteresting, and only vulnerable to a small handful of skills.
It is as though they understood that these elements needed to be in their game, but did not understand that they were the foundation of their game. Not the pretty murder barbie game, but the strategy aspect of it, the part that gave it depth.
So to the original point even without an insipid hard trinity, theres a place for a ranged support class, one that is focused on providing tactical buffs, cleansing debuffs, controlling space, and enabling movement. That class is totally consistent with everything they set out to do with this game. Yet its impossible to actually create, because the tools are not there; instead of a rock/paper/scissors of damage being trumped by buffs/debuffs being trumped by removal which gets beaten down in a vacuum by brute force you just have a game of rock/rock/rock, where rock fights rock and the best rock wins.
The game doesnt need a trinity of one-dimensional characters. But it does need depth, depth that is sorely lacking.Ensign
[/spoiler]
I said I wouldnt post in this thread, but I just wanted to put this quote in here from Ensign. Who was one of the most respected players in Guild Wars 1. Â It is quite long, but it is a good read.
[spoiler]
[Quote="Ensign"]
Strong healers are really toxic to all aspects of play. They have very little play to them, and its incredibly difficult to prevent anything they are a part of not turning into a DPS vs HPS race.
GW1s backline play was strong because it was so strongly built upon prot and the debuff/cleansing cycle, not healing. When strong healing skills were introduced, a lot of the fine structure of the game fell apart as it devolved into more of a damage vs healing race.
PvE tanks have always been this abomination of stupid aggro mechanics grafted with insipid power healing wrapped in a thick shell of gear checks. Those systems were specifically designed to have monsters choose to attack the least threatening foe possible, where their attacks would be the least effective and the worse a target you were, the better you were doing your job as the tank.
I do not mourn the loss of that garbage at all.
Now, GW2 does have a problem. Its problem is that there should be trade-offs between damage and utility that are interesting and support the group in different ways. In GW1, for example, your offense required both raw damage dealing and offensive disruption to be effective your heavy damage couldnt kill much through protection and debuffs, while your disruption wasnt going to kill on its own but could set up your offense by purging the protections that kept them safe.
A well designed, no-trinity version of GW2 would still be anchored in damage, with a layer of buffs and debuffs augmenting combat and a layer of removal, both of buffs and debuffs, over which the tides of the fight would be waged.
Unfortunately that is, for the most part, totally absent from GW2.
Yes, there are a handful of buffs and debuffs of course, the debuffs do not work in PvE against any foe that matters, which only amplifies the problem. Removal, on the other hand, is largely absent. Defense is built around invulnerability frames, against which there is no answer; dodges and bubbles conquer all. Many buffs are totally impervious to removal. The handful of the ones that are vulnerable to removal are straight stat boosts, totally uninteresting, and only vulnerable to a small handful of skills.
It is as though they understood that these elements needed to be in their game, but did not understand that they were the foundation of their game. Not the pretty murder barbie game, but the strategy aspect of it, the part that gave it depth.
So to the original point even without an insipid hard trinity, theres a place for a ranged support class, one that is focused on providing tactical buffs, cleansing debuffs, controlling space, and enabling movement. That class is totally consistent with everything they set out to do with this game. Yet its impossible to actually create, because the tools are not there; instead of a rock/paper/scissors of damage being trumped by buffs/debuffs being trumped by removal which gets beaten down in a vacuum by brute force you just have a game of rock/rock/rock, where rock fights rock and the best rock wins.
The game doesnt need a trinity of one-dimensional characters. But it does need depth, depth that is sorely lacking.Maroxad
[/spoiler]
Â
+1
This post is specifically about World PvP (WvW) and not about evenly matched team games.
THE GOOD:
Keep raids and siege can be exciting.
Small skirmishes, if you can find them, are amazing.
Jumping puzzles add a fun element to world PvP, at least for awhile.
THE NOT-SO-GOOD:
The world in which players can PvP is quite small, and it's far too easy to get anywhere in the world.
All 3 factions have the exact same classes and races, so the winning strategies will always be the same, and the fighting quickly becomes repetitive.
There are very limited means to thwart a massive group of players (except another massive group of players), so the side with the most players sticking together will prevail against smaller, euqally-skilled groups.
THE VERDICT:
As a long-time fan of world PvP in MMOs, GW2 has some great fun to offer, especially if you have never played a three-faction PvP MMO. However, the not-so-good aspects of WvW severely cripple its long-term appeal. I recommend funding the Camelot Unchained kickstarter if you want to play some (seemingly) epic PvP. The catch is, of course, you're gonna' have to wait a year for beta.
i doubt camelot will be any good. imo it looks like absolute lackluster BS, no game is free of criticism and to me it seems like a case of too good to be true. ya know like finding out the guy/girl your dating lied to you about their age because they knew u wouldnt be interested if you knew he/she was 15This post is specifically about World PvP (WvW) and not about evenly matched team games.
THE GOOD:
Keep raids and siege can be exciting.
Small skirmishes, if you can find them, are amazing.
Jumping puzzles add a fun element to world PvP, at least for awhile.THE NOT-SO-GOOD:
The world in which players can PvP is quite small, and it's far too easy to get anywhere in the world.
All 3 factions have the exact same classes and races, so the winning strategies will always be the same, and the fighting quickly becomes repetitive.
There are very limited means to thwart a massive group of players (except another massive group of players), so the side with the most players sticking together will prevail against smaller, euqally-skilled groups.THE VERDICT:
As a long-time fan of world PvP in MMOs, GW2 has some great fun to offer, especially if you have never played a three-faction PvP MMO. However, the not-so-good aspects of WvW severely cripple its long-term appeal. I recommend funding the Camelot Unchained kickstarter if you want to play some (seemingly) epic PvP. The catch is, of course, you're gonna' have to wait a year for beta.Erebus
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