Guild Wars 2

Hopefully I’m not beating a dead horse with this suggestion, but I haven’t read all the posts yet.

I really liked in GW1 that you could target someone and trigger an AoE around that target, instead of having to use the mouse.

I honestly hate mice I key-map everything so I can use the keyboard primarily. I reluctantly use the mouse during dialogues.

But I play a Guardian, with a scepter, and smite requires a mouse to target. I loathe this

Please give us the option of centering AoE skills on the targeted enemy, so we don’t have to aim with the mouse Thanks!

I see your point but what you are asking for is a complete change of mechanics for some spells.
The point of ground targeting is, that you have to anticipate where your target will be when the spell goes off. With your proposed chang targets would at least get one tick of damage from spells like smite, because it would always be cast at the point where your target is standing.

That’s the risk you take, if you enable the option. In GW1, plenty of times, I’d cast a targetted AoE and have the baddie run away from it. It happens with both styles. As it stands now, I have the mouse hovering over my character’s bottom, so I can really only cast Smite when they’re right on top of me, and I double-tap #2. Otherwise I have to move my hand off the keyboard, and lose my ability to dodge. I’ve never been good at mice positioning.

I disagree because I like using the mouse to lead my target with an AoE spell when I know they are going to move just a little, which will put them just outside of my AoE destruction. This is particularly true in WvW. If I want my elementalist to drop a meteor shower or an eruption on a group of foes, but I see one of them jumping around and about to put an end to one of my allies, I like to adjust the point of impact a bit to include them in my fun.

That’s why I simply want the option. If you wanted to use the mouse, you could still use the mouse. It would be a toggle in settings whether you want it GW2 style (current) or GW1 style, targeted.

Have to agree with Gryphon. I’d prefer AOE’s to work like GW1 as an OPTION. Playing an engineer….I HAVE NO OPTION. If I want to do any kind of real damage, I HAVE to use a kit…and they are all mostly AOE mouse aim. I am to the point I loathe playing the engineer due to mouse aim.

One poster said they’d have to rewrite every AOE spell….not true, the engineer grenade kit uses GW1 single targeting underwater…so the code is already there. All they would need to add is the code to make it a toggleable option.

Another said you’d be guaranteed a hit….underwater with a grenade kit my engineer gets MULTIPLE guaraneed hits. It hardly unbalances anything, so another non-issue. Most the opposition to Gryphon’s idea is best translated as ‘I like mouse targeting, so don’t give others choice…they should like it too!’ rather than any legitimate reasoning.

I attribute the mouse targeting and other glaringly out of place elements to the GW2 devs, IMO, suffer from a lack consistency in direction of the game (except for lore, the lore is well-thought out). Is it a quest game (personal story) or a dynamic event game? Is it an arcade game (mouse targeted AOE’s, Vistas and jump puzzles) or a more traditional controlled MMO? Is it a PvP or a PvE game (with forced PvP in exploration)?

There’s no reason for it not to have been an option in the first place, IMO, because of consistency with GW1.

Sounds like a great idea. There’s no reason not to have the option for it.

Thanks The more support, the better

I completely agree and this is the third topic I’ve seen on this in the last two days, which all ask the exact same thing. One of those threads was written by me. I’m quite sure there must have been many more threads.

This is not a small issue, but rather something very important to many people and I hope the dev team will follow up on it sooner rather than later. A first person view option for PVE zones would also be nice (screenshots/immersion/scenery/jumping puzzles).

I agree with the OP as well. This needs to be an option for AoE skills.

I agree, I definitely think this should be an option since it’s about preference of playing style, and it wouldn’t make the people who use this stronger than those who don’t. A player who chooses to aim with the mouse and is good at it will naturally be better than the player who chooses to play like this, but I think this option would make the game more noob-friendly (no offense ppl) since you could start playing with this option on early on and change it later if you feel like getting better at the game. It would also make the game more fun for those who don’t like the way you have to aim with the mouse all the time.

I don’t think it’s a good idea for PvE it would be a terrible idea for PvP.

First of all for PvP this would offer players using certain builds a large advantage, could potentially create imbalances, and would break certain skills. Characters specializing in AoE would become much more mobile since they would gain the ability to strafe and turn their camera while still being able to use AoE attacks. Using static field on a moving target would be near guranteed to cause a quick and unexpected stun since it would be placed with the edge near the moving player. Shadow shot and shadow step would become amazing gap closers (along with a source of blind for shadow shot) but both could no longer be used as a form of mobility. AoE enemy targeting would also enable you to do serious and sudden AoE damage with the right skills combined with quickness. Snaring somebody and then dropping an AoE on them would also become much easier and allow you to get in a few extra hits before they can move again.

I could name more issues, but I think it’s obvious at this point that there’s no way you could implement this in PvP without a serious overhaul of all sorts of things. These also apply to PvE, but are less of an issue. The bigger issues for PvE would be line of sight (especially WvW) and the fact that some builds will become much more simple and effective to use. Having AoEs created at the targets location could possibly allow you to drop AoE attacks on ledges where it normally wouldn’t be possible, such as past the edges of a keep wall in WvW. Some builds may become more effective with enemy AoE targeting, such as grenade engineer, while it could hurt builds that use a mix of AoE that would be good with targeting and AoE that would be bad with targeting. Essentially, AoE targeting would become a factor in creating and determining the effectiveness of a build, which will be unfair to players who feel targeting is more fun.

Basically, everything in the game was built with ground targeting in mind, skills were balanced with ground targeting in mind, and you can’t change that without breaking everything.

Well, it was used in GW1 with no issues in PvP or PvE. It’s still targeting the area, not the person. In GW1, you could get targeted in PvP by a mouse-less AoE and you simply leave the target area, same as with the mouse effect. And in GW2, you can dodge

It’s the same effect, just not using the mouse. “Arcade Users” not withstanding, the game should be as easy to use as GW1 was and is for people who have problems with using mice.

No, this is a horrific idea. It completely destroys the basic purpose of a GROUND TARGETED aoe. The reason these aoes are ground targeted, and not auto-targeted is because they are designed in such a fashion that their effect should be aimed purposely by the player, either because it would be overpowered if auto-targeted, or completely ineffective auto-targeted. Even the existence of such an option would completely wreck pvp, and greatly lower the skill cap, as well as locking in specific skills that are simply way more powerful than anything else.

This should not happen, and this will never happen, since ArenaNet knows better than to listen to misguided whines like this one. The total design, basic idea, and implementation of ground targeted aoe spells is extremely purposeful, and will not be changed, I can guarantee it.

This isn’t a “whine.” I don’t even mind using the mouse, but I have friends and guildies that have problems with it, either because of carpal tunnel, arthritis, or other issues. They’re limited to what they can play because of that. No, simply isn’t fair. Like Gryphon said above, this has caused no issues in Guild Wars 1, even in PvP.

I’m sure the Devs could implement this in a way that isn’t overpowered in the slightest. They DID, in fact, in Guild Wars 1.

It’s only fair to have options for everyone who wants to play the game to be able to play it, regardless of physical handicap, especially if that option existed in the game that came before this one.

And, please don’t say that those people should have thought about that beforehand. The option was in GW1, so it’s a logical assumption that it would have been in GW2 before they made the purchase.

The GW1 option is the only realistically fair option, and anyone who isn’t totally self-obsessed can see that.

I support this as an option, in fact during the beta I thought the smart casting was this option. I learned very quickly.

Gryphon.2875:

Well, it was used in GW1 with no issues in PvP or PvE. It’s still targeting the area, not the person. In GW1, you could get targeted in PvP by a mouse-less AoE and you simply leave the target area, same as with the mouse effect. And in GW2, you can dodge

Skills in GW1 were designed from the ground up to be used like that. AoE skills in GW2 were not, both in terms of mechanics and balance. When I say mechanics, I’m referring to how they are used, not how they work. See shadow shot for an example.

LionellSK.9176:

And, please don’t say that those people should have thought about that beforehand. The option was in GW1, so it’s a logical assumption that it would have been in GW2 before they made the purchase.

There was no “option” in GW1. All AoE’s were either created at your character or at a target and did not have to be aimed. It wouldn’t be logical to assume there’d be some option.

ninja.4139:

There was no “option” in GW1. All AoE’s were either created at your character or at a target and did not have to be aimed. It wouldn’t be logical to assume there’d be some option.

Right, it would be more logical to assume they’d work by default like they did in GW1, which I had actually assumed. Therefore, since they weren’t like that by default, there should therefore be the option to make them that way. Thanks for the support