Understanding Game Modes

I have played Guild Wars since it was released. I played Guild wars 1, but i mostly focus on PVE games like EQ1 and WOW. My question is what is WvW? Im guessing its like Alterac Valley in wow? just a big map set with goals and one attacks the other....basically PvP?

I have never tried WvW or PvP in GW2...i have yet to do a fractal because of the horror stories ive heard, and i just did my first dungeon....i know im missing a lot of the game but before i get ahead of myself i wanted to ask...thanks.

WvW is an all out zerg vs zerg destroying castles e.t.c. or you are roaming around the map picking off stranded players or trying to win 1v2's and 1v3's e.t.c. The skill of players in WvW ranges from pathetic to god mode so a lot of situations can be encountered. I don't really like WvW because your locked into the stats of the armour you are wearing, so you need lots of different sets to play different builds. This also means some people are wearing full ascended vs you could be wearing exotic, they could have around an 8-14% increase in stats depending on infusions.

In sPvP it's more balanced because your stats are defined by the amulet you choose instead of the armour you're already wearing, and the balance of skill gap is closer because you get match making rating which tries to put you with players of your skill level. You don't need to be level 80 because you will get uprated to level 80 in the HotM, so you can play every class no matter what level. sPvP is a lot of fun, it's very competitive though because the game mode conquest has specific rules, so you have to get over people raging. A lot of people have been having bad days and losing matches in a row e.t.c. you just get pissed of sometimes. Gotta let it go and enjoy it.

Pick up some sPvP builds from metabattle.com and try sPvP out, watch some streamers videos to learn how to play them well and I guarantee you'll enjoy it.

WvW is intented to be large, organized combat, so it's best experienced by using voice chat on your server or guild's channel. WvW is also a sandbox mode where you can literally do anything, so roaming around alone is extremely fun and thrilling. It's my preferred game mode because there are always new situations. You could be frantically holding a hole in a wall of the castle versus a force 5 times your size for an hour straight, or you could be 1v5ing people less skilled than you out in the open field.

PvP is intentionally balanced stat-and-level-wise, and you fight over conquest points. Nothing will get you anywhere remotely as skilled at the game more than PvP, because of constant encounters versus other players.

Dungeons and low level fractals are basically just silly fun. It's good to relax to. I typically will do dungeons when I'm drunk and want to relax. I am not much a PvEr but I guess some high level fractals provide a challenge.

WvW is basically an RTS game where you play one of the units instead of the person in charge. Each map has a number of control points and each world gains points based on how many they control at any given time. Some are easy to capture - for example undefended camps can be taken by 1 person. Then they get progressively harder based on the size of the control point (camps > towers > keeps > Stonemist Castle) and based on factors like how many enemy players are there to defend it, how organised they are, whether they've paid to upgrade the defenses and so on.

If you're interested I wrote a newbies guide to WvW. It's specifically aimed at people who want the Gift of Battle, but it covers the basics of what's going on and how to get started.

PvP is much smaller scale. It's you in a team of 5 people, vs another team of 5 people on a small map. Some matches are similar in that you need to hold certain control points to gain points, others you just have to kill people to win. I'm afraid I don't know much more about it than that because I never play it.

Also I don't know what horror stories you've heard about Fractals but they're basically mini dungeons. At the lower Fractal levels they're often easier than dungeons (I actually managed to complete the Urban Battlegrounds fractal solo with my normal PvE build, which isn't anything special). They do get harder at the higher levels but mostly because of a mechanic called Agony which means you'll be constantly taking damage over time unless you have ascended (top tier) equipment with Agony Resistance infusions. But since Fractals awards both ascended equipment and agony resistance infusions that's not too much of a problem - if you do it enough to get to the higher levels you'll also get what you need to survive.

There are some groups who have very precise requirements for Fractals, especially at high levels. They will want you to use a specific build and to already know exactly what to do. But that can be avoided easily by not joining those groups. (As you might have noticed the LFG tool in this game does not just dump you into the first group that has a space, it lets groups advertise for the players they want and lets players choose which one to join.)

Quite a lot of WvW objective-based capture and hold gameplay has dried out by now, since getting more points have no real meaning. You can of course set up siege and take tower or keep, but in many cases this is used to lure out enemies so you can fight them. Lots of players simply go to WvW to have large scale fights, 50 vs 50 vs 50 zerg battles that can go on for long time. Or use WvW to fight other Guilds.