Guild Wars 2

Heya,

I’ve been playing this game for a month now and I’ve been having lots of fun thus far, I’d say it is a really good game and has much potential, but there are some things that have bugged me ever since I began. Let me get straight to the point, I’d like to make three suggestions, two of which are going to be most likely quite controversial.

Firstly, I planned to make a Thief all along and when the game came out I made one my main. I read up about the Thief a bit but I didn’t go too indepth as I like to explore the game for myself rather than salivate over guides and such. What surprised me was that I could not dual wield two swords as a thief while a mesmer could. While I am generally content with the profession it feels like the thief is missing enough options in terms of melee. The fact that thieves have three abilities that revolve around shadowstepping right next to a foe suggests that their main focus is melee… yet the only weapon they can use is basically daggers and a sword with a gun in the other hand, pirate style(sword + dagger, its utterly broken and has to be revised).

I talked about this to some people in the game and the opinions are mixed. Some say two swords isn’t sneaky enough. Others say thieves wouldnt’ have the strength. Anyway, I think all the discussion about ‘realism’ and what is right for one profession to use or another is just speculation and personal view. I can understand that. Of course those same people go out of their way to explain why it makes sense for casters to be able to wield greatswords. In a nutshell, discussions like this are ridiculous. I can understand that giving thieves a greatsword would be silly, perhaps, though I could see that being viable as well but every game I’ve played thus far had always given rogues / thieves / assassins the opportunity to have a sword in each hand and it is something I’ve come to like very much. A stealthy fighter who wears light or medium armor and excels at fighting with swords. I’d also value this option greatly from a roleplayer’s perspective as I am one. It is a whole different playstyle as opposed to the ‘rawr’ smash warrior so don’t suggest I try another profession. Neither am I looking to play a ranger because they use pets and are generally different from a thief as well.

Secondly, I was wondering if it would be possible to give Warriors a proper Rage / Adrenaline mechanic. Having abilities that are only limited by a cooldown feels very mechanical and uninspired to me yet at the same time the warrior profession does have lots of potential, imo. Back in World of Warcraft my main was a warrior for that very same reason, the rage mechanic was what made it so fun. In GW 2 warriors already have it but it only uses their one burst or special skill while everything else the warrior has is on a simple cooldown. Wouldn’t it be more fun to play a warrior if their four weapon abilities consumed Adrenaline as well while their first weapon skill and taking damage generated it? It could be balanced along with proper cooldowns.

My warrior is currently only level 12 but I found myself auto-attacking the mobs at times because all of my abilities were recharging and that kind of combat is way outdated by now and something should be done about that. Like I said I think there’s lots of potential still there but something is missing. At the same time my Thief, with the right build, can keep up a decent initiative generation to keep things interesting, hard to complain about that.

These two controversial suggestions aside, I find it rather awkward that all of my Thief’s weapons go through his coat. Would it be possible to make the sheathed weapons stick to the trenchcoats at an angle, at least on Charr males? I’m not sure if humans and other races have this problem. But roughly 95% of Thief gear are trenchcoats and my daggers, pistols or sword always go through, it’s frankly quite irritating to see such a flaw in an otherwise finely chiselled game graphics wise. In faact I’d rather have an option to completely hide my weapons instead of having tips poke out at my character’s sides.

Thank you.

Arithrezen.1023:

I talked about this to some people in the game and the opinions are mixed. Some say two swords isn’t sneaky enough. Others say thieves wouldnt’ have the strength. Anyway, I think all the discussion about ‘realism’ and what is right for one profession to use or another is just speculation and personal view. I can understand that. Of course those same people go out of their way to explain why it makes sense for casters to be able to wield greatswords. In a nutshell, discussions like this are ridiculous. I can understand that giving thieves a greatsword would be silly, perhaps, though I could see that being viable as well but every game I’ve played thus far had always given rogues / thieves / assassins the opportunity to have a sword in each hand and it is something I’ve come to like very much. A stealthy fighter who wears light or medium armor and excels at fighting with swords. I’d also value this option greatly from a roleplayer’s perspective as I am one. It is a whole different playstyle as opposed to the ‘rawr’ smash warrior so don’t suggest I try another profession. Neither am I looking to play a ranger because they use pets and are generally different from a thief as well.

Absolutely. Classes are just game mechanics and dont have the same basis in lore as in game. For example Rytlock, a warrior npc often wields and uses a pistol, things like thief double swords and mesmer double pistol should also be added among others. I do think all classes should be able to wield all weapons, even if just for cosmetic purposes with no damaging abilities.

Arithrezen.1023:

Secondly, I was wondering if it would be possible to give Warriors a proper Rage / Adrenaline mechanic. Having abilities that are only limited by a cooldown feels very mechanical and uninspired to me yet at the same time the warrior profession does have lots of potential, imo. Back in World of Warcraft my main was a warrior for that very same reason, the rage mechanic was what made it so fun. In GW 2 warriors already have it but it only uses their one burst or special skill while everything else the warrior has is on a simple cooldown. Wouldn’t it be more fun to play a warrior if their four weapon abilities consumed Adrenaline as well while their first weapon skill and taking damage generated it? It could be balanced along with proper cooldowns.

Agreed, I find GW2 combat repetitive and lacking of tactical use. On a warrior (my only class at 80) the weapon skills often amount to simply using what ever’s not on cooldown. In WoW there was some choice in that you had to prioritize which abilities to use rage on where here its only two abilities and in most cases waiting for a full bar.

if thief gets two swords , ill play one.

I would love the fact for thieves to get the dual-swords option. It really doesn’t make sense that a mesmer can get that and thieves can’t. Realistically I don’t see a mesmer with two swords, waving them all around, but instead for a thief to be doing that. But that aside I think would open alot more opputurnity to thieves as a whole of what they are when it comes to the game itself and mechanics. My main is a mesmer and my alt is a thief I been leveling for a little while ago, in the 40s.

Now I don’t know much when it comes to the warrior profession, but I always liked the idea of rage/adrenaline. I think if that was added to the profession I would most definately give warriors a try and see if I like them.

But the last thing about cosmetics happens to almost anything with a skirt or trenchcoat like outfit. My mesmer has trouble with viewing weapons because of her dress or skirt because it’ll either hide them or just cut too much into the armor. Though my mesmer is human, I think it happens to any and all the races.. Would be a nice change overall!

Glad to see someone agree about the current game mechanics! Of course having some kind of a resource system similar to mana or rage or whatever could promote spamming one single skill over and over but that does not mean cooldowns should be removed completely, just lowered because relying on auto-attack is just silly.

If I may be so bold, WoW used to have this problem back in vanilla and maybe in the first expansion, especially with paladins who used their so called seals and just watched their characters auto-attack, hoping for their seal to do extra damage. It’s not as bad in GW 2 as we do have this whole exciting dodge mechanic which is what makes the combat system of GW 2 unique(oh, it would have been screwed without it, let’s be honest…) but it could be so much more.

For example, my level 13 warrior is currently using a sword in his main-hand and an axe in his off-hand. The combination is really fun to play, or could have been LOTS of fun, but unfortuntely the ridiculous cooldowns and the limited amount of weapon skills limits the gameplay’s enjoyability… well, alot. Basically what my warrior has is his first skill, which is just auto-attaack with fancy names and such, a leap which is a gap closer but doesnt do much damage, a cripple, a dual strike, and a spin. The fourth spell is on a rather unecessarily long cooldown and so is the fifth. I would have personally reduced the cooldown on the fifth alot but made it deal less damage or last for less time, just like WoW warrior’s whilrwind(it already is exactly that anyway, just could be more fun to use).

Given these five skills, not counting the few others bought with skill points, I am often stuck auto-attacking because some of the skills are not really necessary or are on a ridiculous cooldown and like I said, that kind of combat is just out-dated. To keep a player interested there must always be an opportunity to do something other than let the character just auto-attack. GW 2 tries to be an action game of sorts yet right now, dungeons that I do, it mostly feels like most of this action relies on dodging lots of aoe as fast as possible with little to no emphasis on dishing out pain in creative ways. Mind you, dungeons are still fun and a nice change from the usual.

However, aside from a rage mechanic, I did imply that there are not enough skills to use in general because like I said, some of my current warrior’s skills are situational so he only basically has 2-3 skills that do damage excluding auto-attack / first skill.

I think there could be an easy way to actually fix this. I noticed that the first skill aka auto-attack consists of three skills and they must hit in a rapid succession. Usually the third attack produces some kind of an effect, for example on mesmers it creates a clone. What surprised me, however, was that I discovered this wasn’t taken any further.

I think what could make the game more fun for pretty much every class/profession is if more combos were introduced. So for example, if somebody used weapon skill 2 and then weapon skill 5 she would get the opportunity to use some unique skill otherwise unavailable to use at first and vice versa if she used weapon skill 5 first then 2 she would get something else entirely to promote chaining skills instead of spamming one over and over.

For example, thieves lack a parry skill, what if using skill 2 and skill 5(note I don’t quite remember what they do, its just a quick example) while wieldign a sword and a dagger could open up the opportunity to use a parry similar to mesmer’s or warrior’s or guardian’s. On the other hand reversing that order could perhaps grant them a buff that would allow their next ability to do a critical strike or apply some effect.

Anyway, I am no game developer or a programmer but my common sense tells me these changes I’ve suggested thus far could easily be realized because these mechanics already exist in the game, they just need to be taken advantage of more steeply than they are now. And sorry for the wall of text.

Thank you.

Yes, a lot of these issues should be addressed but I have a feeling they won’t be implemented till the expansion. Hell, I was surprised they didn’t make two-handed axes in this game; very disappointing.

I must admit I see some of my own opinions here and would absolutely agree that this is something that should be taken a much closer look at. Clipping trenchcoats doesn’t just stop there, it spans over a variety of gear, medium, heavy and light. Not that i’ve got too much of an issue with that, however it should be looked into.

Great post Arithrezen.