Guild Wars 2

Why is GW2 combat sooooo BORING???

This is why. Same few skills over and over and over. Skills are permanently bound to your preferred weapon—forever. Everyone fights with the same predictable skills per weapon. To make things worse, long cooldowns on most skills means we’re auto-attacking much of the time, instead of inputing combat commands. We don’t feel like we’re engaged in the combat experience. Killing things in GW2 is like watching paint dry and the grass grow.

The extra movement and dodge does not make up for the lack of personalized skills and long cooldowns. Traits are simply passive buffs like spec points—not truly skills that we actively execute.

As a PVP combat addict from GW1, the new GW2 combat feels like it has been dumbed down with a baseball bat.

Please add more skills for us to mix and match, so that we can create our own personalized fighting style. Like back in GW1.

Currently, extremely disappointing.

BTW: Even Diablo 3, with all its criticisms, at least managed to make their combat system fun and engaging, with enough skill customization to allow personal variety. Maybe Anet can borrow a few ideas.

I, personally, find the combat engaging and enjoyable, more so than other MMOs on the market. Something tells me this just boils down to personal taste.

I’d also rather see them tweak current skills, if need be, to make them relevant and useful, rather than add more into the mix.

I agree. This boils down to personal taste. I prefer the combat in GW2 much more than GW1 simply for the fact that I’m not rooted in place when using skills.

I don’t think it’s the number of skills which is the problem. It’s the fact that out of those 5 skills there are too many which are either situational or on a long cooldown. End result is you spend most of your time spamming auto attack and perhaps one other ability.That’s where the tedium arises. There’s no real rotation for most weapon types and combinations. And where a good flow and rotation did exist (Guardian Greatsword) they nerfed it, altered it and destroyed it.

if you talk about using autoattack over and over again you probably talking about PvE (which isnt competitive nearly enough). In WvW or sPvP that point of view is obsolete unless you like to be meat shield(in WvW) or get stomped by everyone else that use their characters to their fullest. Utility skills and traits can greatly enhance one’s gameplay and there is enough of them to provide “skill customization to allow personal variety”. If you dont like cooldowns on your skills – try to play a thief.

And where a good flow and rotation did exist (Guardian Greatsword) they nerfed it, altered it and destroyed it.

Now watch closely. Old rotation: 2-3-4-2-3-4-2-3-4. New rotation: 4-2-3-4-2-3-4-2-3.
Now answer – what is changed/altered or destroyed? Definitely not motion memory as everyone said after patch.

It would have been nice if weapons had skill trees. It would open up a lot of possibilities.

That said, when I made a condition build on my ranger, I went from opening fights with a one or two ways into about half a dozen or so. If you make your build from scratch to use specific traits that benefit specific utility and weapon skills, it opens up a lot more possibilities.

I don’t think it’s the combat, but more that difficulty in PvE, or lack thereof.

Events tend to devolve into ‘I need to tag more mobs to get loot’ rather than “Oh S**T! I’M GOING TO DIE!”

the limited number of skills never meant anything to me. i’ve played several mmorpgs and it almost always boiled down to me using only a handful of skills anyway.

but this system could use a bit of tweaking. example: add a few more skills that cater to a playstyle, like i’m an eng that uses a rifle. let me make a set of skills that let me focus on range, or a set that likes me have high APS but low DPS or something.

Bahamadude.4925:

the limited number of skills never meant anything to me. i’ve played several mmorpgs and it almost always boiled down to me using only a handful of skills anyway.

but this system could use a bit of tweaking. example: add a few more skills that cater to a playstyle, like i’m an eng that uses a rifle. let me make a set of skills that let me focus on range, or a set that likes me have high APS but low DPS or something.

Well that is kind of what the traits are for, it would be nice if more weapon options had more corresponding beneficial traits though.

I played a different MMO recently to check it out.

It reminded me of how much I love the dynamic combat system of GW2.

:3

And for people saying there are a ‘lack of skills’ as if that is something that other games don’t have? Well, there always tends to be a best build or rotation on every other single MMO, so I feel as though this game opens up a lot more in the actual using the environment than any other game I’ve ever played.

your nuts! gw2 combat is the most engaging dynamic combat ive ever seen in an mmo!

While you’re entitled to your oppinion, I just Don’t see an issue. Are you switching between weapons in Combat? Because If you blow all your #1 Weapons attacks, switch to #2 weapon, Blow those CD’s then activate your Non-weapon skills you can switch back to your first weapon to find all your abilities ready to use again. Unless your fighting a big group or a Veteran the enemy would also likely be dead by this point too.

Personally I would be upset if they started added more buttons to press in combat, I think this game has found a Good balance with 10 actions, plus 5 on the alternate weapon (And Combos). The idea suggested above with weapons having a ‘skill tree’ could be an interesting notion though, I know I have often chosen not to use an otherwise awesome weapon because it has one ability I just don’t like. Even still I wouldn’t want to Tamper with this to much , Like I said- they have a Good balance going.

Well, ANet is deleting/censoring/infracting any sort of people’s honest, negative opinion of their video game so I’m not gonna bother with posting here anymore. Yes, your game sucks. I’m sorry to tell the truth.

Play an Engineer.

Raging Bull.5048:

Well, ANet is deleting/censoring/infracting any sort of people’s honest, negative opinion of their video game so I’m not gonna bother with posting here anymore. Yes, your game sucks. I’m sorry to tell the truth.

“The reconstruction of a game who-knows-how-many-years-old has beaten yours in the competition HANDS DOWN and with almost no effort. You have received so much feedback on these forums of what’s wrong with your game.

If you DO plan to do something about it, it’s time we, the gamers, should hear about it. Your short and long term plans of what you intend to change about GW2, to at least give us a glimmer of hope that this long awaited over hyped game can find it’s way back on our repertoire.

An old, single player game owns yours brand new shiny GW2? Seriously? I’d seriously start questioning myself if I were you. And look – it has more progression, suspension and rewards than GW2. It’s so ironic it’s almost not funny. Almost. Heck even it’s over-used story beats that of GW2.
Oh, boy…"

When you posting stuff like this, it’s not surprising.

There’s nothing wrong with criticism. That’s what this suggestion forum is for: suggesting new ideas and how ones in the game can be improved on.

When you go posting useless stuff like “well, this game owns yours”, “It has beaten this game”, “this game sucks” ect ect, that’s what you get infracted for, since, you know, it’s a suggestion forum, not your own personal blog.

Raging Bull.5048:

Well, ANet is deleting/censoring/infracting any sort of people’s honest, negative opinion of their video game so I’m not gonna bother with posting here anymore. Yes, your game sucks. I’m sorry to tell the truth.

Making your opinion known and being constructive about it is far different from “your game sucks, it’s boring, I’m playing a new game that’s more fun, fix it”, my friend.

I don’t think it’s boring (unless it’s a champion enemy you can’t melee without being a guardian), but it could be improved with the addition of more situational abilities.

I honestly feel like people who find GW2’s combat to be ‘boring’ aren’t using their abilities to their fullest.

My friends and I have had tremendous amounts of fun matching up different spells to create powerful combos. It’s amazing how well the professions complement each other and it makes me sad that it seems to be going unnoticed. (I feel like a lot of people ignore things like combo fields, weapon swapping, and sort of just spam the highest dmg spell they have.)

GW2’s combat can be simple and easy if you play that way, it can also be extremely engaging and fun if you take the time to really explore your spells and the synergy you can create with other classes.

Snow White.9680:

I honestly feel like people who find GW2’s combat to be ‘boring’ aren’t using their abilities to their fullest.

My friends and I have had tremendous amounts of fun matching up different spells to create powerful combos. It’s amazing how well some professions complement each other and it makes me sad that it seems to be going unnoticed. I feel like a lot of people ignore things like combo fields, and sort of just spam the highest dmg spell they have.

I love doing that. Or at least I did when there were still other players around in my server.

Maybe they should just delete the entire Henge of Dervani server. It’s a wasteland.

Server transfers are still free.

I like the combat still. I have a lvl 52 Ranger and a lvl 20 Elem. Sure I reached a point in farming XP in PvE where I started to get a lil bored with standard mobs with my Ranger. So, I switched from longbow/shortbow to Axe, warhorn/shortbow or to Longbow/Greatsword when I get bored. That for me does plenty to mix it up. As for the Elem. lawd they have a lot of combos.

All that being said…. I do have some ideas that would make life a lil more intersting out there.

1. Being able to preset weapon sets and swap between them. It would be nice to change my setup on the fly without having to enter inventory.

2. Having two modes for each weapon. Example – Axe could have: a Ranged skill set and a Mele skill set. OR Longbow could have a Ranged Damage skill set and a Ranged Effect skill set (you know cripple, bleed, poison, knockback for example er whatever)

OR

3. Instead of (2.) Multiple choices for skills 1 through 5 for each weapon. I would prefer this option. ex. Axe skill 1 = mele or ranged
Axe skill 2 = cripple or bleed or poison

and so on….

So, I like the setup the way it is. i.e. not having 100 skill boxes all over the screen. But I would like to see more flexibility in that setup. my two cents.

After having played WoW for several years before quitting it a few years back, I find GW2’s combat to be MUCH more engaging overall. Most especially since everyone would just make macros and mash 1 or 2 buttons anyway. That’s what they do in Wow and every other game.

I would have prefered a combat more like Blades of time, based on commands you link to skills and playable with a gamepad, but for a skill-bar based combat style, it’s quite better than any other I’ve seen.

Get a weapon with a really solid autoattack and fight hard-hitting bosses and challenging groups. Combat becomes less of predetermined combo chains than a game of “here’s 8 emergency buttons, now watch the enemy and stay in range”

‘Boring’ is a subjective term.

If ‘you’ find the combat boring, then it sucks to be ‘you’. Being ‘me’. GW2 combat is engaging and enjoyable.

Having 20 to 40 skills to use like in WoW has its own appeal, but I really enjoy GW2’s style because it’s simplified, making it easy to learn / pick-up as well as easy to refine.

I think it’s a little late for the game to revert to GW1 system. However, the utility skill concept has a lot of room for expansion and improvement. There are 30 instead 300 now most likely because ANet hasn’t had time to conceive and balance new skills yet. With time, even customizable weapon skills are not out of the question.

I see no problems with the skill mechanic of GW2 in the long run since the foundation is strong. PvE feels… bad, to me, but that’s an entirely different issue having to do with poor AI and enemy difficulty relying way too much on damage+health+fast respawn speed instead of skill use competence. It’s a different discussion. Then again, GW1’s PvE skill AI didn’t reach its zenith until GW Beyond (or maybe Slaver’s Exile) on HM. So it’s an ongoing effort.

Bloodlust.3672:

Why is GW2 combat sooooo BORING???

BTW: Even Diablo 3, with all its criticisms, at least managed to make their combat system fun and engaging, with enough skill customization to allow personal variety. Maybe Anet can borrow a few ideas.

Don’t bring that garbage here, everyone from that game used the same build in the game. There was no variety, just spam the build that did the most work. They need new skills obviously but the question of balance and use comes to mind. GW1 had dozens of skills to chose from but how many of them did you honestly see? I imagine GW2 team is workin on making new skills attractive as well as unique instead of just tossing new ones that serve no meaning again.

I much prefer the combat in gw2 than other mmorpg games. It’s just one of the reasons I no longer have motivation to play the other mmorpg games anymore. I have a lifetime account in LOTRO but have lost all motivation to play it anymore due to GW2.

The combat is much more fast paced in GW2.

We need more blood and gore and better sound effects pkus screen shakes on critical hits!

GW2 has imo the best combat experience of any mmo by far.
TERA’s supposed action style combat flirts around some diabolically tedious cross-hair FPS half-breed.
How on earth GW2’s combat can be considered boring is just beyond me. The combat is incredibly engaging. Well, actually it’s not beyond me…ur doing it wrong on some level.
Paint dry? Seriously?

Satans Chosen.1024:

I think it’s a little late for the game to revert to GW1 system.

It’s not rocket science. If you equip a sword it unlocks your first three skill slots and allows you to put swords skills there from your collection of sword skills. If you take a shield it unlocks your last two slots and allows you to put shield skills there.

It’s neither undoable nor illogical, and this is not the first time someone suggests this. Mostly all discussions about improving the combat system end up coming up with this solution. It is a hybrid between the current system and the system that we loved.

It’s better for everyone who loved Guild Wars, and it doesn’t affect anyone who is pleased with the current system.

I am forever spouting off about combos and fields and finishers to my guild and especially the group I run with. Of course, I am an elementalist where the combos are a huge part of just normal playing, you cannot accomplish any decent damage without combos as an elementalist, but that is self comboing. In a group I ask how many fields and finishers everyone has and pick a weapon that balances. Staff is for a lot of fields, scepter/dagger is gobs of finishers (with my build anyway)

I often wonder why every other class seems to be able to ignore combos with it being such a huge part of the game. Playing without awareness of how you can heal/cure with combos is like playing without a healer, not to mention the amount of stacks you can get for your boons, how long you can make regens/runspeed last if everyone works together, yet other classes seem to be oblivious that they can do it with thier blast/whirl/projectile finishers in water and light fields. It was amazing to me that they were allowed to reach 80 and not have a clue, where I, as an elementalist, it would have felt similar to trying to stab myself in the eye, trying to play without using the combos.

I think that, above all else needs to be corrected in the way each class is played.
Maybe giving people more than 2 weapon sets to swap between? I would love to have each weapon set (or at least 4) available on my ranger/mesmer/necro ..they all seem so boring being locked to 2 during an encounter.

The last thing GW2 PvP could be called is boring. But I do agree that it isn’t perfect. The largest part of the problem I see is that traits tend to lean towards fine-tuning your slotted skills, barely any affect your weapon skills, and this in my opinion is a mistake. Traits should largely be dedicated towards cuztomizing your weapon skills.

Not enough keys to press?

Drop that Warrior/Ranger and roll an Elementalist.

Wellcome to a profession with 20 skills on every different weapon set; a profession which, as mentioned by Efaicia, encourages to use combo fields and finishers; a profession you have to be carefull with even in a relative safe pve enviroment; a profession which requires planning

Don’t like the idea of trying another class?

Change enviroment: if you pve go to pvp, if you pvp go to dungeons/wvw. This game is huge, limiting yourself to just one of its aspect is going to get you bored quick.

All of the above won’t work?

Then face it, this game is not for you, nothing bad as everyone has its personal taste, what’s bad is sterile criticism and you best solution is to leave. Maybe check for updates one in while.

Edit: I’ve got nothing against Warriors or Rangers, I just find those two professions boring. Personal tastes.

combat is fine,its the ai that sucks

I do somewhat agree with the original post, one of things that I really liked about GW1 was the fact you could put whatever skills you unlocked onto your skill bars, and I know this is sad, but some of the most fun I had in GW1 was hunting down those unique skills by killing the unique monsters in gw1.

Personally I haven’t even looked in the combo system in this game, I see i’m doing them by my achievments, but haven’t faintest clue as to what they are about. If you are going to start adding stuff like that to a game you should probably have a tutorial on what it’s about, I look at some of my skills on all my toons, I see a lot of finishers, but finish to what, what’s considered the opener, the middle then the finish, and how many strikes is required to register a combo that does more damage?

To me the combo system takes away from the ability to setup skills and your own combos that we did in GW1, and if that gets stale keep adding new skills as the game goes along, don’t have to leave it with the original number (that is where the original went down for me, was limited number of skills to choose from by the time the first expansion came out) I’m sure there is a crap ton of combo’s but I want the freedom to choose how I want to do combo’s with my skills not the way the system wants it. I know the last 8 years WoW has been dumbing down the community to this very thing, UI’s are simpler but so is the concept of innovation. No offense to the Anet here, they did a great job for launch and for a free game nothing beats it, but if this is the best it gets for MMO’s well lets just say the rest of my life is gonna be long and painful.

At least with GW1 I knew what I was getting a completely simplified and free game, which I enjoyed and made some really good friends, with this game, I have no desire to craft anything use the black talon trading company (don’t even get me started on this piece of crap system) No place in a WvW/PvP environment for a fee trading house with real or fake money. I’ve never been a big fan of AH’s in anygame and the fact that you need this AH to expand your inventories F—king pisses me to off so much that I could strangle someone at Anet for their money making schemes. At least I knew Gw1 minus expansion where free, can the same be said here? Not sure yet actually? But they sure seem to expand that BT trading house with new items quicly don’t they.

Bloodlust.3672:

BTW: Even Diablo 3, with all its criticisms, at least managed to make their combat system fun and engaging, with enough skill customization to allow personal variety. Maybe Anet can borrow a few ideas.

By fun and engaging, you must mean a system that punishes you for any changes you make to your build after you have stacks of NV (Unless they changed this, haven’t played in a few months), or despite there being so many choices, a large majority of every class, of every build, with every rune, was predominantly the same (subject to future balancing, obviously)

I personally enjoy this system. A lot. It’ll also get better once they get a chance to balance every weapon set, allowing even more freedom.

I also find the combat very refreshing after 7 years of WoW. The added downed states and dodging aspects adds huge levels of depth for me in both PvE and PvP.

Rehk.6574:

your nuts! gw2 combat is the most engaging dynamic combat ive ever seen in an mmo!

I don’t think so at all. Most players with a greatsword, have all the same skills to use as the next player, pending on Class.

IE. ALL Greatsword Guardians, have the same skills to use as the next Greatsword Guardians. The combat is very stale, and the cooldowns on skills is down right Ridiculous, and regenerate ALOT slower when in combat. Tera’s combat is a lot nicer IMO.

But what is more ridiculous then the skills per weapon is EVERY SINGLE NPC BEASTIE SHOULD NOT HAVE A: Knock down, stun, crippled, slow, dazed, bleed. etc, skill. You can easily get stun locked from NPC’s and die very fast do to these insane skills they have. * Cough * Level 70ish 80 Risen Cough Cough.

First of all i must admit i felt the same way after few days of game time, compared to Gw1.
But lets keep a cool head and try to be objective, and see things from a passive view.

The game itself is quite good, and the combat is really innovative, and its heading towards a good way. A way that will lead to the BEST kind of gaming experiance, BUT the time for it is not now.
The : dodge, parry and interactive combat is really the good way, but the technology of gaming is not grown up for it yet. For example :
In real life when you use 2 swords. you CAN parry an attack with a sword and it DOES deflect the whole damage, but you wont just “hunker” up and focus on parry for 3 sec. You do it in a split second and use your other hand sword ( or any weapon) meantime. Thats the whole reson you are using 2 sword instead of 1. That you can both attack and parry. Or attack from 2 angles at almost same time.

You can even compare to the “parry” that is in game. BUT it is a sign that the game industry IS trying to improve to that direction. A good direction.

Summa Summarum : THe game industry and technology is not grown up for the way Gw2 is trying to implement. But its still fun, besides the things the op pointed out. So lets get back to the level the current game design can offer and se the problems.

Second i would also like to express, that i seen a lot of topic’s like this, or topic’s that try to express this, with less or more success. Some players dont understand what the op’s try to say, do to the fact its not really an easy job to express an indepth feeling from a complicated system.
But trust me IT IS an issue, and it must be hanled.

So to the topic. I try to be constructive and also try to point out possible soultions, not only criticize.
So lets try to brake down the feelings to points why does the combat feel
Boring and to simple,
And why cant classes feel complex or flexible? Why do they feel superstatic?
Why want many players more weapons?
Why want many players more classes or suggest tonns of them?

Ok so first off all i agree with the Bloodlust.

“we can create our own personalized fighting style” This is clearly hitting the spot.
Why do players start to feel unsatisfied sooner or later with all the classes? For exacly this reson. You cant change even a slight detail in your play style.

Example : You want to be more " assasin ish" but all the classes that offer the prefered play stile lack something that you would want in your play style.
Another example : Thief wont be a good assasin, since if you need (or would like to) to go ranged, you get a tricster skillset, for aoe, and it clearly shows its for the pure purpuse : you can be ranged here are all the skills you need, but in range.

So to be blunt : If you want to play Assasin" ish then all you would need to do is change some fo your bow skills, but you cant, since classes are “static”. Or like crowd product : made for mass produce, without a chance to change what it is. “you have to buy another tipe if you want to do something other with it”

I hope i was clear on this topic, and dont have to write pages to make myself clear.

And this is the base of the problem, from this comes the exacly same reson “players want more weapons” , because they would give more skills sets, BUT that would not be a solution, sine they would give another FIXED skillset, you might actually find to your dislike. You do get more skills, but not the ones YOU would like.
Soulution : Anet should give a DIRECTION on skills instead of concerete skillset.
Another Soultion : If you do give weapons, then give many of the same tipe of weapons, with slight differences : like Dirk Ronderl and Kris are “daggers” the same way, but a bit different, and could offer sligtly different skillsets (trough this is a bad solution on the long run : you would need insane ammounts of weapons in the end)

Another problem of the system is : (seriously read before saying anything) is the Missing trinity !
YES the fact that you dont NEED healer or tank, is GOOD, since it solves a LOT of things and problems, but remember old school rpg and fantasy : You had the trinity, but did not need it ! <— basically the soultion.
It did feel good if you COULD take up a role, but it was not a MUST HAVE. You did feel more unique, and the skills offered a BIG dimension, instead of 3 tipes of skills : Disable, buff/debuff, and dmg. This is really dissapointing, (trough “disables” can be made to a whole new world if well designed (like summoning wall"s, or pitfall"s, or knockback, if the map is well designed, and it IS))

For example : Gw1 had Healer (trough i could not call anything tank) but it was not an issue, since if you needed 1, and there was none araund, you just assigned an npc to it. (hanchmen and heroes). but you could still assume the role of 1 if you wanted to.

Another big thing is that : Yes, There are a few skills currently, but would not be a problem if they ware designed a lot more deeply and there ware more roles that you need, or could take up.
For example Gw (again….see how good your own game was?) You had many skills, and you could take : Self Harming roles – To counter burst and fast “builds” . You could make Aoe disabler builds, – To counter minion master and Npc swarm"s. You could make Minion master – To dominate when you can stay behind and support. An interruper build- against healers. And almost limitless chances to costumize your gameplay, or the theme of your character , without having 1000000 classes. (in many cases you didnt even need dual class)

And yet again onto classes and skills : you dont need a million of them, but consider this: there are only 8 classes, that are not really “base” fantasy classes (even the warrior and ranger-thief, are themed araund a part of the base classes they should be) and CANT offer a lot of costumization.
Because you cant redesign them araund themes. Atleast not to many, besides main concepts. Understand this Anet : you designed a game where “farming” and gear is not the main feature (like in wow), the game and Exspecially combat is centered araund the look of your weapons, armors and the combat itself.
You can costumie your weapons, armor, your characters look, but not the game syle of your class, or character. (atleast only in am inor way). Nor the look, or theme of your skills (whitch should be a really awesome benefit of your shop, if you would implement additional looks for skills, that ayou could buy or unlock).
You are defeating the point of your own design.

Sounds like the OP needs to roll an elementalist and learn about combos.

I agree that there should be more skills. I enjoy the new combat system immensely, but I also miss the mental exercise of coming up with a good skill bar that was present in GW1.

I’m sure the devs don’t miss the mental exercise of skill balancing. They should have never started it.

The skills in gw2 are too straightforward. Activate, does damage. That’s like pokemon card game. Then you have Magic the Gathering, which you can do insane combos. GW1 had that. Well, would have had that potential except they try to nerf or prevent anything that is a legitimate “combo”. Death Shroud and Spectral Armor for example.

They want every single spell to do just 1 thing instead of being able to many things and combo and synergize with other skills so that whatever crappy build you make will still be somewhat decent. Combat made for beginners.

Not only that, arenanet is so scared of “overpowered” builds that everything seems underpowered. Look at the vamp runes and sigils. Steals hp… and is almost worthless yet in other games, vamping hp from dmging is carry machine power. Then, they make crit dmg only x1.5 instead of the standard x2.0 in most rpg games.

Personally, I prefered GW1 where everything is overpowered instead in GW2 where everything is underpowered. A game where everything is overpowered is much more fun and interesting. The game will then be all about counterring and reacting to enemies rather than just spamming 1 or whatever like in GW2.

I much prefer the combat in Champions Online, to be honest. Guild Wars 2 combat aims to be similar, but the cooldowns on most abilities, combined with their situational use, means you either spam everything for “fun” and then die because your blind is on cooldown, or you conserve your skills and just yawn while you autoattack.

GW2 needs shorter cooldowns across the board.