Guild Wars 2

I am 100% behind the trait designs and balancing method of GW2. However, in the near future… I believe that most players would like to see more skills which have the concurrent properties of being ‘complex & fun’. I’d like to make 2 points here.

Point 1:

No sugar coating here, a lot of skills in GW2 are very ‘dull’, for example: the Mesmer’s GreatSword Skill #5: Ilusionary Wave [Push back all foes in front of you with a wave of magical energy]. That skill is the perfect example of a super ‘dull’ skill (no traits can modify it, while the best thing a player can do to Mod that skill is decrease its CD with the help of just one available trait). I’d say that at least 30% of the skills in this game are simply dull like the Mesmer’s GreatSword Skill #5.

My Suggestion:
Apply a trait tree specifically for ‘each skill’ in the game, and start it by giving every skill an ‘extra’ option. I think, at some point, it’s either giving a skill like the Mesmer’s Illusionary Wave more effects to play with, or modding it so that people can do more with that skill.

Increase The Complexity Of Each Skill <——————— (Where Skills Are Now) —> Adding Similar Skills Which have Primitive Skill Effects.

Currently, the majority of skills are closer to being “Similar Skills Which have Primitive Skill Effects” . Y’all have to decide…

Complexity <————— (Now) —-> Quantity

Which way to go?

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My favorite PVP game atm (Dota 2) have IMO the best ‘skill mechanics balances’ in any types of game that’s ever been played. Dota 2’s Skill system probably has the best balancing mechanics in the history of gaming, I say this because:

1) In each game, players are open to over 50 characters per match.

2) No two skills are activated exactly the same.

3) The complexity ranges from the most complex character (like Wisp and Junglers), to simple characters (ie. fundamental playstyle is limited to simply doing 1-2 things through the whole match).

I like what GW2 is doing now, but IMO the builds are way to scarce in-terms of complexit and even quantity! (Ie. a mesmer’s illusion build is equivalent in complexity to one character in Dota 2…. while Dota has 10+ ways to do DPS, a ranger that wants to output damage only can do a maximum of maybe 2-3 core builds).

Here are a list of DPSers in Dota 2, hopefully you can copy their ideas. And YES, I said copy… because a lot of Dota 2 skills were COPIED from League Of Legends (ie. Pudge pull ~~~ similar to Blitz Crank Pull in terms of the “core mechanics”).

Dota 2 “Range Dpser”:

1) Assasin / Burst Type (Clinktz):

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Clinkz

2) “Super Far Distance” / Kill Finisher Type (Sniper):

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Sniper

3) Close Range / Multitarget Type (Gyrocopter)

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Gyrocopter

4) Slow (Or Cripple) / Purely Normal Attack Stats Scaled Type (Drow Ranger)

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Drow_Ranger

5) Burst / Charge-Up (similar to the Adrenaline effect of warriors) Type (Shadow Fiend)

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Shadow_Fiend

6) Displacement Type (Morphling):

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Morphling

Point 2:

Even though some of these skills can be found in GW2, the key point here is that… while in Dota 2 all “50” [pretty balanced] champions are AVAILABLE to a player almost at anytime, in GW2 your single class limits you to do maybe only... 1 out of the 6 variations mentioned above (remember, I’m talking about mechanic variations and not stats variations... * in which case to clairfy, guildwars 2 has either crit, condition, or power, and maybe fore mesmer the clone build makes it 4 types of builds). But that’s simpley too little amount of toys given to players to play around (because traits aren’t unique builds... every class has crit, condition, and power).

TL:DR; GW2 needs to mod its skill to give players a) More skill effects to play around with, and b) More ways (or builds) for each class to plays the same role (ie. Range Dps, Melee Dps, Range burst, Tank burst).

EDIT: Let’s play a little combinatoric game here.

Attack Type: Range or Melee [TOTAL: 2]

Roles: Tank, DPS, Support, Burst, Assassin. [TOTAL: 5].

Now, if each class is OPENED to EVERY role, you have (melee x 5 roles + range x 5 roles), so fundamentally each class should have around 10 ‘UNQIUE’ builds, unique because each class should do things differently right?

Problem is… IS a Warrior Volley unique?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Volley

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rapid_Fire

Huhh….. Two plain skills, both hit up to X times at range, both a combo finisher…

No uniqueness.

i’ll be honest, i have absolutely no clue how they’ll handle class expansions beyond new utilities and elites.

will we get new weapon sets? will we get new skill sets per weapon? individual skill changes like many asked (kinda ruins the idea of ‘you know what to expect from the enemy just by looking at it’ though)? customizable skills as you suggest (a bit too complicated IMO)? new trait trees, or just new traits? branching trait trees?

it’ll be interesting to see what they can do.

This is quite an interesting topic – to answer the OP, the difference between GW2 and DOTA is that you don’t actually build DOTA characters. They are essentially pre-made, and it’s a matter of which skills you will open up first. Then comes your equipment.

This is where Traits come in. I doubt that you’ve exhausted there is to exhaust when it comes to the combination of Traits you can do on a single character.

At the moment I think what happens is there are more or less tried and tested traits that people stick to. They share the experience and they become the bench mark for the rest of the players. The traits have its limitations, granted. You pick from only 12 available per Traits, and they are further limited by Tiers.

Second comes your skills both utility and weapons. This is another thing DOTA does not have, as far as I remember how the game goes. I am confident as well that you haven’t come up with all the possible combination of skills on a single character, so that’s another point towards the system of guild wars, in terms of customization.

In the future what I imagine ANet will do is either add traits per Tier or Increasing the Level Cap by 10 to Increase the Trees by one Tier again. Or Maybe both. It’s not far from possible that ANet can bump cap up to 100 even. (Branching Trees also seem interesting as how ME3 did it for its class system)

They will most likely add more utilities/healing/elite, as there is no cap yet on how much skill points you will earn.

As for weapon skills, they could include new weapons that have their own skill sets. (this is very likely) But a more interesting thing they can do is to include “Stances,” on top of weapon switching. A great sword will have an offensive set and then a more defensive set. “Stance” changing can be predicted or read through character animation which might become a huge change in how people size up each other in PvP or WvW.

I would indeed like to see more of the multifunctional, complex skills. I like those, but there’s nothing wrong with a handful of powerful unitaskers. I don’t think the balance between the two is out of whack or anything. Changing up utility skills and weapons is as big a change as switching heroes in an AoS, maybe even bigger. I don’t see any problem there.

As for expanding on classes, I feel like more weapon options per class is almost inevitable. Almost as guaranteed as new utilities/elites. Probably more major traits per tier, too.

FluffyDoe.7539:

And YES, I said copy… because a lot of Dota 2 skills were COPIED from League Of Legends (ie. Pudge pull ~~~ similar to Blitz Crank Pull in terms of the “core mechanics”).

Oh HELL no.

jpg.1783:

This is quite an interesting topic – to answer the OP, the difference between GW2 and DOTA is that you don’t actually build DOTA characters. They are essentially pre-made, and it’s a matter of which skills you will open up first. Then comes your equipment.

This is where Traits come in. I doubt that you’ve exhausted there is to exhaust when it comes to the combination of Traits you can do on a single character.

At the moment I think what happens is there are more or less tried and tested traits that people stick to. They share the experience and they become the bench mark for the rest of the players. The traits have its limitations, granted. You pick from only 12 available per Traits, and they are further limited by Tiers.

Second comes your skills both utility and weapons. This is another thing DOTA does not have, as far as I remember how the game goes. I am confident as well that you haven’t come up with all the possible combination of skills on a single character, so that’s another point towards the system of guild wars, in terms of customization.

In the future what I imagine ANet will do is either add traits per Tier or Increasing the Level Cap by 10 to Increase the Trees by one Tier again. Or Maybe both. It’s not far from possible that ANet can bump cap up to 100 even. (Branching Trees also seem interesting as how ME3 did it for its class system)

They will most likely add more utilities/healing/elite, as there is no cap yet on how much skill points you will earn.

As for weapon skills, they could include new weapons that have their own skill sets. (this is very likely) But a more interesting thing they can do is to include “Stances,” on top of weapon switching. A great sword will have an offensive set and then a more defensive set. “Stance” changing can be predicted or read through character animation which might become a huge change in how people size up each other in PvP or WvW.

raising the level cap would cause way too many PvP balancing issues, especially considering that they’re aiming for e-sports. and honestly, i’d rather they expand on the system rather than just add bigger numbers and “eliter traits”. trait branching would have to be handled carefully too, as to not allow a single trait line to get more than 30 points in (can you imagine a thief with +600 precision and critical damage from traits only?), while still making the branches viable. that is, if they go for branches.

regarding weapons, you have the same view as me, it seems. if they want to add more weapon skills per weapon, it would have to be entire sets, and the player would have to choose which set to bring into battle. this could lead to greatsword-only warriors, for example, where instead of two different weapon sets, they’d bring one greatsword with two sets of skills. and more weapon types are inevitable, though i can’t think of many they haven’t covered that won’t fall into the “too niche” category.

BrunoBRS.5178:

raising the level cap would cause way too many PvP balancing issues, especially considering that they’re aiming for e-sports. and honestly, i’d rather they expand on the system rather than just add bigger numbers and “eliter traits”. trait branching would have to be handled carefully too, as to not allow a single trait line to get more than 30 points in (can you imagine a thief with +600 precision and critical damage from traits only?), while still making the branches viable. that is, if they go for branches.

regarding weapons, you have the same view as me, it seems. if they want to add more weapon skills per weapon, it would have to be entire sets, and the player would have to choose which set to bring into battle. this could lead to greatsword-only warriors, for example, where instead of two different weapon sets, they’d bring one greatsword with two sets of skills. and more weapon types are inevitable, though i can’t think of many they haven’t covered that won’t fall into the “too niche” category.

For weapons, I was thinking that you have 4 Skill Sets available to you at any given time. There are a lot people wanting skills 1-5 to be allowed for customization which I think is a pain. I would rather have a whole balanced set rather than having people have a bar that just did pure damage or pure defense.

To illustrate my point, let’s say I have a Guardian. I have GS and Hammer equipped. (Which have 10 Skills in total, with a cooldown upon switch)

What think you be nice for an expansion would be is aside from switching between the two weapons each weapon has different modes (stances). From the top of my head, the most basic would be an offensive and a defensive build. We all know what the GS bar looks like now right? What if with a push of a button, you could have a different set of skills to work with. (Let me be creative here for a sec…) Whirling Wrath which is #2 Skill becomes a Blocking Skill that allows you to block range attacks for 2-3 secs on 15 or something cooldown. Something like that. Of course, stance switching will have it’s own cooldown.

This is of course, from a melee perspective or Soldier class perspective. I haven’t used Magic Classes yet or Weapon Kit Classes yet. I don’t know how to translate it to classes that have no weapon switching.