Guild Wars 2

First of all exuse my terrible english.
Second, i hope this topic does not sound, like moaning, it is ment for constructive feedback, and a measurement of opinions on this topic.

So basically, i got a bit nostalgic, and started to watch Xena the Warrior Princess again, and realized a LOT of things, while playing my own Warrior in Gw2 (or ranger actually).

First of all, Dual Wield feels terrible to me. It does look cool, if you dont fight, but the second you go in battle (and the more chaotic the battle gets, the worse it is) it looks terribly…crap. Thats the best word for it.
Might as well say dull, but its not simply irritating, but feels, underdesigned, and a bad solution. What? The terrible fact, that you basically dont use your offhand weapon, untill you actually use a “skill” of 4-5. Whitch usualyl have a high cd. (so you dont really use it often) Not to mention, the offhand weapon, does not have an “auto attack” , like main hand weapon, when in fact it also should have, since its the same weapon, and should be able to perform the same things as your main hand weapon can…maybe weaker, but still. (and vice versa…the main hand should be able to use the ofhand “skills” to)

I mean, since when cant you parry with an sword? Only because its in oyur main hand and not in the off? Or why cant you simply strike with your offhand weapon?
I been fencing and dooing a lot of tradition keeping (as Hungarian) and i know a lot of swordplay technices. Not to mention the instense fantasy i read and see.

One of the basic rules of melee combat is : If you have a spare hand, use it. Have a shiled for blocking attacks, so you can attack and defend to in the same time. (or after attack you can block the incoming one)
Or use a weapon in it, so you can attack from 2 sides at once, enforcing your opponent, to use 2 “weapons” unless he want to be beaten instantly. (not to mention most weapons can parry to, so they can act as defence and offense to).
What you use, wont matter, as long as you have “more” opportunities then your enemy. If you have the same, then it comes down to skill, speed and strenght and wit. (skill).

2 handed weapons offer other benefits in melee, that counterbalance this. Like reach, and weight.
The other thing abaut weapons is (exspecially swords and maces-hammers) is that they can be mostly used in 1 or 2 hands. I am not talking abaut the Ba sta rrd swords (thats the official name pls dont filter it -_- ) that are an 2 handed sword basically, but can be used in 1 hand to, if you are strong enough, i am talknig abaut those tipically 1 handed swords, that have the hilt to be used with 2 hands for more power,mobility and speed. So using an 1 handed weapon with 2 hands also has benefits that counterbalance the odds.

So i cant simply understand, why is it good, to simply hold a weapon in ofhand, and do nothing with it, while you chopping with the other one….kills the purpuse of having 2….
I could go in more detail abaut, what flaws i find in melee combat in the game, but i am not actualyl here to make it feel “realistic”, even this topic is only for the sole reson : REalistic or not, the Dual Wild fighting looks really bad! Totally odd, destroys my mood, enytime i see it.
I try not to mention animations, since i love the way characters move using 2 handed hammers, but Great Sword fighting looks terrible for my taste. (exspecially spinning movements, try not to force it…its looks stupid)

So thats what i mostly wanted to say. The other thing i would say is just my personal wish : More weapons pls. Gief ranger a chakram . Warriors, rangers, thieves a “short sword” like sword that can be used with 2 hands, giving them a mobile, swift combative fighting mode. (Btw, just look at almost ANY movie and you see it constantly, that heroes use a sword in 2 hands, and then use it in 1 hand…)

Again sorry for the terrible english. As me if something is not clear. . .

Yea, I definitely agree. I really feel like they didn’t bring anyone with professional aesthetic or design capability into the mix when doing the dual wielding animations. It reeks of being 100% developers doing developer stuff. There is so much more they could have done with the animations.

I would never play a dual wield warrior, just because of how silly it looks to be slash slash slashing with a single hand, while the other is limp to the side.

I hope that one day they get someone in there and decide to change that. It would be a huge plus to the aesthetics of the game.

Cool title. When i ran into the wall of text after reading “A few words on Dual W. And Weapons” i lol’d… xD

Now on topic:

The animations on weapons are very poor. With this outstanding art team i don’t know how this happened, but to be honest they deserved a tweek.

/cheers

I’ll just copy-paste a thing I posted in a similiar old thread. (about DW)

I would like better DW animations and believe it wouldn’t be that hard as some stated i this thread.
1.“Pure” offhands(focus, shield, torch, warhorn) do not need a special animation, when using them your character would have animations of using single 1-handed weapon.
2. Ranged offhands should have special animation only when paired with a ranged mainhand (thief’s p/p, ranger’s a/a). It doesn’t need to be something fancy, just shooting with one pistol, then with another etc.
3.There should be a single animation per MAINHAND: when I’m a warrior animations for a/a, a/s, a/m are the same. It worked in WoW where “normal” 1-handed weapons (axe, sword, mace) had the same animations. The only exception would be offhand dagger, there should be additional animations for this weapon.
4.Only autoattack (#1 skills) should have different animations based on DW.
5.About PvP: it would be only additional burden of knowledge, basically different animations for the same skill, it’s not the same thing like the same animations for different skills. And after all when new weapons will be added to the game PvPers will have to learn new animations, like it or not.
So for now we should have:
Warrior: 3 new animations (for a/s/m mainhand).
Guardian: 0 new animations.
Engineer: 1 new animation for p/p.
Ranger: 3 new animations(1 for a/a, 1 for s/d, 1 for s/a).
Thief: 3 new animations(1 for s/d, 1 for d/d, 1 for p/p).
Necromancer: 1 new animation(1 for d/d and I’m not sure if anybody uses d/d on necro)
Mesmer: 1 new animation for s/s.
Elementalist: 0 new animations(for now dagger MH animations look well with focus and another dagger, but this could change with additional offhands added, like torch).
And about realism: we have a warrior that starts spinning in place with GS and then shoot in some direction while spinning, I’m 99% sure no medieval soldier used 2-h sword in that way. Animations should not be realistic, they should be cool.

I definitely agree that dual wielded weapons should alternate hands on auto attack at the very least.

But two different weapons would have too many purposes to animate. Such as the S/D set the off hand dagger or Main Gaughe would have been more defensive until distance was closed within sword reach. And a shield bash compared to a light hammer or mace off hand would be quite different.

Basically you are looking at more animations and specific situation uses for off hands than what you originally posted if you really want to get down to realism.

And just as a side note “Hand and a Half” Sword is another historical name for the large sword with the filtered name.

When its comes to thieves..they have a 1 good thing in their desing – based on offhand their #3 skill changed.

We should have something like that too, but in chain. I completely agree thakittens look silly and kills me inside when we don’t do anything with offhand weapon.

What the point of dual wielding then? Want to know why 2th weapons are popular? Bc its doesnt look silly as dual wielding. Personally i run from time to time either mace/mace or sword/sword, but everytime i see that animation its push me back to gs, its just awful.

If u cannot make a proper animation for different weapon types, prevent that combinations, but instead make the animations for sword/sword, mace/mace, axe/axe etc. to actually use offhand wep.

Equip an axe in offhand as warrior and use #4 with no other weapon equipped!

Tolmos.8395:

Yea, I definitely agree. I really feel like they didn’t bring anyone with professional aesthetic or design capability into the mix when doing the dual wielding animations. It reeks of being 100% developers doing developer stuff. There is so much more they could have done with the animations.

I would never play a dual wield warrior, just because of how silly it looks to be slash slash slashing with a single hand, while the other is limp to the side.

I hope that one day they get someone in there and decide to change that. It would be a huge plus to the aesthetics of the game.

I agree with this. The dual wielding animations in GW2 leave a lot to be desired. If they did any research into how dual-wielding works in the martial arts, the animations don’t show it. Ditto on 2-handed sword. The whirling animations in both Guardian and Warrior 2-handed sword are frankly silly.