Player vs. Player is always a hot topic when a new game comes out. Arenanet has been talking about their player vs player in Guild Wars 2 for quite sometime and I decided to dive in and start to poke around their matchmaking competitive systems.
In Guild Wars 2 all inter-player battle takes place in a special realm called the Mists. Ironically enough, based on some lore digging and NPC chatter, the Mists are also the after-life (uh-oh). There are two ways to take part in player vs player while in the Mists. They are as separate and distinct from one another as PvP and PvE.
The first is World vs World: a large scale four zone wide conflict between three worlds (servers) over various locations on the map. This is epic in size and the definition for the verb zerg is probably the most important survival tool you can bring. World vs World takes a lot from your PvE character, bumps him/her to 80 and brings it to the realm of PvP so I tried to stay away from the battles for the most part. A level seventeen, with level seventeen traits, has no business hanging with the cool kids at level thirty-five.
The other type is Structured PvP. It is a sort of battleground-like experience where you sign up to a battlefield (yeah let’s call them that) area and duke it out for control red vs blue in small teams of up to eight players each.
Over the course of the last two beta weekends for Guild Wars 2 I spent a lot of my time slaying other players in this game type. Why? Because that’s mostly what I turn to games for; the competitive edge that high school jocks denied me so many years ago. I logged just about twenty hours over the last two beta weekends in which I was able to build up my Player vs Player locker, attain rank three, and join a competitive PvP guild. I tried my hand at tournaments, took out some target dummies, went on a rampage at the Battle of Kyhlo and “jungled” for my team in the Forests of Niflhel. All in all, it was a great experience that I can’t wait to continue next beta event and eventually through launch. That being said, I had some gripes, some hiccups, and some straight up complaints.
The first contrast I want to draw attention to is the difference between interface and gameplay. The game has really made leaps and strides forward in it’s genre in the way of gameplay and you only truly appreciate the combat system when five of those red team jokers are gunning for your blood because you just turned their home capture point blue. In the way of interface, though, Guild Wars 2 certainly still in it’s Beta.
Interface Issues
When I say interface I am referring to everything that leads to the actual gameplay experience of player vs player. In other games the player vs player interface is as simple and boring as clicking the “Enter Battleground” button. While this is efficient, and certainly convenient, it takes away from the atmosphere of PvP and breaks immersion in the worst possible way.
In the first implementation of World of Warcraft Battlegrounds you had to journey to the actual battleground to enter. This maintained immersion but lacked convenience. If you had to hike across the world just to murder your opponents then you were more likely than not to do something more local instead. I think what Guild Wars 2 is aiming at, and its not so different from the original Guild Wars, is something in between.
In the new incarnation of the series you do click open your standard user interface to get to PvP, you click a button labeled “Enter the Mists.” This will take you to a zone not so unlike the Zaishen Island you start on in Guild Wars PvP. Except this time immediately you see a male Norn named “PvP Browser” and a female Norn named “Tournament.” Oh, nice to meet you Mr. PvP Browser. These are obviously place holders but the idea of a “battle master” NPC isn’t too fun. If all of the PvP is taking place on this chain of islands (as the map indicates) then why not have boats to different battles? Anything would be more immersive than “PvP Browser Man.”
In the first beta event you were immediately placed into a tutorial zone in the mists and were slowly over time exposed to the facets of the PvP system. In its current iteration you are overwhelmed: tons of icons on the map, very few tooltips, and a wide open area to explore with out explanation. The scout who sits in the middle of the entrance way is missable, but if you do manage to find him your introduction to the zone will be brief and unintelligible.
Arenanet, your PvP is deep and layered. We have to learn about rank and glory, about the PvP Locker and the smiths on the hill. We have to learn about gear correctly and how that huge list of armor-addons can be used effectively. As it stands you throw us to the madness of it all and for me it was disorienting. Give me a nudge in the right direction. I enjoy discovery as much as the next person, and your game has plenty of that. But I hate discovering mechanics when I am not sure that I understand them. So wait, what exactly is the difference between buying a copper glory chest and a silver one? What is the difference between buying it from a Rank 1 Vendor or a Rank 2 Vendor? I have no idea.
This beta weekend’s PvP was formatted differently. It was disheartening to see that the PvP Browser was moved to an NPC on a pedestal. In the first beta event you could join a match straight from your UI but I imagine that left players with out a sense of a “hub.” They certainly are aiming to give the players a hub of operations from which to experience PvP but the developers seem to have trouble deciding whether that hub is the Mists or if its the PvP-City Lion’s Arch.
Often, I was taking the portal back and forth just to form a tournament team. For the most part the teams were in the Mists but the handiness of Lion’s Arch’s portals to World vs World and major cities plus entertainment (crafting, exploring) meant Lion’s Arch had more call than the Mists. It was frustrating not knowing exactly where the PvPers would be. Most of the people in the Mists were silent automatons waiting for the next queue or customizing load outs.
I think Arenanet needs to either completely make the distinction between Lion’s Arch and the Mists or integrate them somehow. As it stands it is jarring to have to jump back and forth searching for people to play with.
That’s it as far as my concerns about the interface of PvP. See Part-2 for an in-depth analysis of the actual gameplay mechanics involved in Guild Wars 2 PvP.
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