Post by bea et al on Sept 23, 2006 15:59:44 GMT -5
As has been expressed by others, and as I know I've experienced, it can be a bit frustrating/time-consuming to get things organized for PvP. Perhaps that's part of what makes PvP less appealing to some folks.... Unless you're just flying by the seat of your pants or have an established build that everyone's already familiar with and has the skills available to play (spread the love, anyone? 
), there's a fair bit of planning and setup time involved, not to mention a learning curve for a new build. There are some challenging PvE areas that definitely require coordination and teamwork, but generally speaking, it's much easier to just pick up some people (or henchies) and go PvE.
To make PvP nights run more smoothly, I've found it to be helpful when we've posted a build and plan ahead of time to give people a chance to decide whether or not they want to show up and to acquire skills if necessary.
Being that we often get an odd number of players, a fallback plan would probably also speed things up a bit. For instance, if the original plan was to play GvG and run a ranger spike build but we only have four people show up, do we send out one last call, wait 10 minutes, and go play TA if more people don't show up? Or...? What if, after 10 minutes, we now have 6 people who are ready to play? Do we pick up henchies for the last two spots and jump into GvG? Do we split the team in half (with or without henchies) and do a scrimage? Do we spend another half an hour trying to find two more people? Or...?
If I were to guess, I would say that half or more of our organizing time is spent trying to find enough people to play and explaining the plan to people who we pick up last-minute. The other half of our time is spent sorting out who is going to run what. If we have a build ready ahead of time and tentatively have the spots filled ahead of time (even if it's just several responses of: "I'm mildly interested in showing up and can play character X, Y, or Z in the build that you're planning on running tomorrow."), that should give us a spot to start from (and to shuffle easily if we have someone who hadn't already expressed an interest show up). Assuming that we've also got a good answer to the "what if we don't have the number of people that we need?" question, we should be good to go.
Of course, as with a team build, while the theory behind a "minimal wait PvP night" may look good on paper, it's hard to say how good it really is until it's actually tested.
If anyone has any other thoughts/ideas/suggestions for those of us who would like to do a little more PvP with our fellow guildies and alliance members, feel free to share.
), there's a fair bit of planning and setup time involved, not to mention a learning curve for a new build. There are some challenging PvE areas that definitely require coordination and teamwork, but generally speaking, it's much easier to just pick up some people (or henchies) and go PvE.To make PvP nights run more smoothly, I've found it to be helpful when we've posted a build and plan ahead of time to give people a chance to decide whether or not they want to show up and to acquire skills if necessary.
Being that we often get an odd number of players, a fallback plan would probably also speed things up a bit. For instance, if the original plan was to play GvG and run a ranger spike build but we only have four people show up, do we send out one last call, wait 10 minutes, and go play TA if more people don't show up? Or...? What if, after 10 minutes, we now have 6 people who are ready to play? Do we pick up henchies for the last two spots and jump into GvG? Do we split the team in half (with or without henchies) and do a scrimage? Do we spend another half an hour trying to find two more people? Or...?
If I were to guess, I would say that half or more of our organizing time is spent trying to find enough people to play and explaining the plan to people who we pick up last-minute. The other half of our time is spent sorting out who is going to run what. If we have a build ready ahead of time and tentatively have the spots filled ahead of time (even if it's just several responses of: "I'm mildly interested in showing up and can play character X, Y, or Z in the build that you're planning on running tomorrow."), that should give us a spot to start from (and to shuffle easily if we have someone who hadn't already expressed an interest show up). Assuming that we've also got a good answer to the "what if we don't have the number of people that we need?" question, we should be good to go.
Of course, as with a team build, while the theory behind a "minimal wait PvP night" may look good on paper, it's hard to say how good it really is until it's actually tested.
If anyone has any other thoughts/ideas/suggestions for those of us who would like to do a little more PvP with our fellow guildies and alliance members, feel free to share.