Guild Wars 2

Should base movement be increased?

Simple question, though it may have some odd impacts on the game if it was. But the fact is that this is a game where people can spend a lot of time running around to get somewhere, and it’s supposed to be a fairly “action” oriented game.

Yet, most classes have a way to give themselves a lasting 25% movement speed increase, and the classes that don’t have this often ask for it. How often do you change one of your skills out just for that movement speed, or have one of your traits set to give it? I’m betting it’s a lot of the time, unless you’re expecting to fight right away. Right?

Back in City of Heroes, there was the Fitness Power Pool. It had boosts to run speed, jump height, health regeneration, and stamina recovery. The problem was, most people viewed it as a “must take” for a good build, or sometimes even for an enjoyable one. The Devs saw this and eventually just made it unlock for everyone at level 2. This meant nobody had to waste power choices on it, giving people more options and allowing them to be more flexible with their characters.

What if you didn’t need to tie up that trait or skill slot to get that 25% speed boost? What if it was built in, and that trait or skill replaced with something new? Would that be an improvement to the game? Is the slower run speed somehow useful to the game? If most characters are giving up options just to move at a faster normal run (not Quickness, mind you), then shouldn’t the higher speed become standard so we get those options back?

This has been my opinion, but I’d really like to hear yours. Thanks.

I like to disable the speed-boost in jumping puzzles, but aside from that I would love a level unlock instead of traits. Not sure about the individual skills, they could maybe changed to something else. Don’t forget though that this is a bit more important in WvW and PvP – I would assume.

Rouven.7409:

I like to disable the speed-boost in jumping puzzles, but aside from that I would love a level unlock instead of traits. Not sure about the individual skills, they could maybe changed to something else. Don’t forget though that this is a bit more important in WvW and PvP – I would assume.

Yeah, I’m sure it would have an impact in those two areas. I’m not sure if it would be good or bad, though. Everyone getting the +25% movement would be a buff to the movement speed of those that can’t get it from a skill slot/trait passive, but a buff to the options for those that can (as they no longer need to tie up a skill/trait to get it).

I would think it would be an improvement, though. Isn’t fast action and moving around supposed to be the selling point of GW2 combat?

As for jumping puzzles, I think people would soon adjust if it’s on constantly. But that does bring up a downside, once this is “normal” then people will see it as just that, and eventually some players will wonder why normal is so slow compared to Swiftness.

as someone with 2 mesmers and being too cheap to buy Travelers runes for both of them- hell yeah.
I would want to disable it for jp’s though

Part of class balance is the speed available to them and the sacrifices they have to make to achieve it.

There are some big differences between why CoH made fitness inherent, and what making a 25% movement increase inherent here would do.

One if the big reasons for making fitness innate in CoH because it had the endurance boost. In CoH, endurance was an additional resource that had to be managed alongside of cooldowns, and with how slowly endurance recovered, this left most players exhausted and incapable of doing anything. Nearly every build in the game was ultimately dependent on stamina, except for those that had a stamina clone in their primary powerset somewhere. Since every player could take and did take it…

Now, there are some issues with just making speed inherently faster. First and foremost, it is a balance issue. An important facet of class performance is movement speed, since it determines

A)How quickly they can get to objectives.
B)How quickly they can escape from attacks and AoEs.
C)How quickly they can close distances for burst.
D)How hard they are to hit in combat.

And also there are issues with rendering players moving at these speeds, as well as how swiftness is handled.

Motion in out of combat currently isn’t a problem, since players can just waypoint to wherever they want to go. Combine all these factors, and it just seems like adding a speed bonus causes way too many problems for a convenience.

As for PvE I’d suggest only 1 change: don’t decrease running speed while being under attack; its not logical – but it would be fair to decrease it if you use an attack skill yourself.

I would love to have speed equal across characters, boosts and non boosts. Some jp’s are better with speed some not but when I switch toons and run the same jp and need to change where and when to jump it is annoying. That my mesmer cannot run the same speed as anything else is not fun (especially since it is a norn and the regular movement animation just drives me nuts).

Remove in combat speed and its fine.

Its a horrible mechanic included because their AI can’t handle people moving in a game about movement. And then those mechanics make their way into pvp and spvp.

I wonder why wvw is such a zerg fest?

Get hit by a ranger in a proximity of a zerg and your fate is usually sealed depending on class. Because you essentially get a potentially infinite duration -33% movement speed debuff while the gankers can walk right up to you and hamtrain your face in.

As if the game didn’t encourage zerging enough.

Luckily i built myself to outrun them (or atleast keeping pace with them) building entirely for it.

I think the fact that you can’t out pace an undead zombie with decaying muscles who you cast limp on is call enough for increased speed or at least the removal of the stupid combat slowdown.

Racial run speed signet for charr.

Just sayin’.

Travel in GW2 needs to be reworked.
It really does become a nuisance to always have to switch to movement enhancing skills.
The devs had good intentions with waypoints, but there’s just too many of them and it kills immersion.
It would be more immersive if they just reduced the amount of waypoints and introduced mounts, or even npc flightpaths, especially in WvW. Gameplay balance would be disrupted of course, so that’s also an issue.
Waypoints make sense around dungeons, portals, and major hubs though.

miriforst.1290:

Remove in combat speed and its fine.

Its a horrible mechanic included because their AI can’t handle people moving in a game about movement. And then those mechanics make their way into pvp and spvp.

I wonder why wvw is such a zerg fest?

Get hit by a ranger in a proximity of a zerg and your fate is usually sealed depending on class. Because you essentially get a potentially infinite duration -33% movement speed debuff while the gankers can walk right up to you and hamtrain your face in.

As if the game didn’t encourage zerging enough.

Luckily i built myself to outrun them (or atleast keeping pace with them) building entirely for it.

I totally agree with this. The speed reduction for being in combat is a bad mechanic.

Well, if I shoot you an arrow in the knee, you’ll surely not run around as fast as you normally would. Even if I “just” hit you a couple of times with a sword, or burn you with fire… are you sure you’d be able to run at top speed?

That being said; I’m also against a general increase of movement speed. Maybe add a few more runesets which give a boost to it, but no general free increase.

Saturn.6591:

Well, if I shoot you an arrow in the knee, you’ll surely not run around as fast as you normally would. Even if I “just” hit you a couple of times with a sword, or burn you with fire… are you sure you’d be able to run at top speed?

Five seconds later when I lose aggro and my HP begins to regenerate, absolutely!

Lol.

Well, with combat speed you actually have a reason to dodge through or run around mobs, instead of just running around mindlessly. Also, it makes combat more playable… I mean, just imagine fighting with the ooc-movementspeed… and then imagine you get swiftness on top of that. You’d be all over the place; combat would probably be way too fast for many players.

The only thing that bothers me from time to time is, that sometimes it takes ages to get out of combat, even if there’s not a single mob even remotely near to you.

I don’t know about base run speed, but…

Combat run speed
Long invuls on enemies
Snares and immobs
Long KDs

…have me gritting my teeth in virtually all PvE zones. There’s a point where they add a challenge and there’s a point where they add a needless but annoying delay in combat.

Also, Rangers, stop bringing passive Signet of the Hunt into dungeons.

DarkWasp.7291:

I don’t know about base run speed, but…

Combat run speed
Long invuls on enemies
Snares and immobs
Long KDs

…have me gritting my teeth in virtually all PvE zones. There’s a point where they add a challenge and there’s a point where they add a needless but annoying delay in combat.

Also, Rangers, stop bringing passive Signet of the Hunt into dungeons.

Combat run speed is a pain especially as Norn and Charr. I think the combat would make more sense and have more fun to it if we got a 25% boost (adrenaline) when we went into fight mode. Instead our toons go into auto limp mode while the monsters laugh at us and don’t. As I posted similar in another thread it negates the point of casting limp in PvE when the monsters run faster than us while they are limping and we are not in many cases.

Saturn.6591:

Well, if I shoot you an arrow in the knee, you’ll surely not run around as fast as you normally would. Even if I “just” hit you a couple of times with a sword, or burn you with fire… are you sure you’d be able to run at top speed?

That being said; I’m also against a general increase of movement speed. Maybe add a few more runesets which give a boost to it, but no general free increase.

Getting hit by an arrow in the knee is simulated by the cripple condition.

And i promise you, if you where being chased by a zombie horde you would run faster than everbefore.

There’s such a thing as adrenaline boosts, your body has those systems because generally we don’t want to die. Fight or flee. Pain is a tool to not get ourselves killed, in a matter of life and death you won’t slow down like it was just a gravel grain in your shoe unless they have physically crippled you (which exists as a condition). And mechanically if they just stop chasing you suddenly you are fine and can continue your racer speed but merely being in their proximity after being touched by them apparently makes your character behave like a kid who didn’t get any candy. “But i don’t WANT to run! Im tired! And i got a bruise! Look!”. Nevermind that such a behavior could easily make your intestines become outtestines in tyria.

If we where to be realistic we would increase the movement speed in a combat situation and then have it take its toll when outside of combat (when the chemical coctail calms down and your body pays the price).

I say speed boots! Not speed runes….

Honestly, my only complaint about movement speed is how you slow down in combat. Seems really silly to me that my character slows down from a light tap from a random mob. I would prefer it if we all had the out of combat speed that we currently can’t have in combat.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

I would say that, after reading everything, I had decided to not make this an actual suggestion, and maybe consider a suggestion about not losing speed when hit. However, one of ANet’s moderators dumped it into suggestions anyway.

:: Golf clap ::

I would delete this thread to prevent it from cluttering up the wrong forum, but I can’t.

If there’s one think you can’t complain about GW2 is speed and mobility.
Just look at the side while running at base speed, or better yet swimming.
Not to mention there’s always a waypoint close, CoF to Teq is a loading screen away.
And like another user said, the difference of speed is part of balancing, there’s always a trade off.