Guild Wars 2

Now, Guild Wars 2 is a great game, and the combat SHOULD feel great, but it often doesn’t. Hell, the combat really only feels engaging during PvP or other particularly challenging fights.

One of the causes of “boredom,” as I see it, is the rather plain, dull way that characters tend to animate. Watching a Mesmer endlessly loop the same Greatsword auto-attack animation gets old (and annoying, given the sound effect) very quickly. There is no excitement to it. No alternate animations. No exaggerated effects. No feeling of power, or even impact behind each blow. Attacks rarely feel satisfying.

Say what you will about Aion as a game – personally, I don’t think it’s particularly good (in fact, it was one of my biggest gaming let-downs), but it had wonderfully over-the-top animations that made combat feel exciting (at least until you realized that you’d been grinding for hours on end). These crazy, energetic swings would have been incredible in a game that was actually GOOD – ie. Guild Wars 2.

I can’t recall the animations in Aion, but TERA is kind of fresh in my mind and those combat animations definitely had the impact you are describing.

I for one love the animations in GW2. Not many MMO’s pay attention to transitions between animations. For example, start running forward on your character then stop and see what happens. Or change direction. There is definitely weight there.

However unlike in TERA, you can cancel and move while using a skill and are not rooted by the animation with some exceptions like swoops or leaps. I imagine it was a tradeoff on ArenaNet’s end.

I think the animations are fine, def an improvement after so many years of WoW.

OMG you have to play WoW if you think animations are dull in GW2, i’m not saying that GW2 has the best animations, but relatively speaking, sooo many MMOs are worse.

Seriously, for anyone who plays WoW, how on earth can you stand the rigid and limited animations in it, even after 7 years?

They should have characters stand still and shout the abilities they are using because you can’t really tell based on the animation.

On topic, I think GW2 needs more abilities then we may see a greater variety in animations.

The combat is boring because of the way it is setup. The enemies rarely have interesting attacks and everything you do you don’t really “do” yourself. For example on my guardian I have a skill that allows me to jump towards my target and then hit it. While it would be so much more interesting if I could actually jump and then press an attack button to attack. Hotkey combat is basically outdated and really uninteresting for controlling a single character. Better to go play a hack ‘n slash like darksiders or something. Then you’ll feel the smoothness of movement.

Animations do have a role in this too, I do agree with you on that. But really most of the time it is best to just get out your ranged weapon and stand there attacking until you enemy drops. With the exceptions of some dungeon bosses.

Slein.9573:

The combat is boring because of the way it is setup. The enemies rarely have interesting attacks and everything you do you don’t really “do” yourself. For example on my guardian I have a skill that allows me to jump towards my target and then hit it. While it would be so much more interesting if I could actually jump and then press an attack button to attack. Hotkey combat is basically outdated and really uninteresting for controlling a single character. Better to go play a hack ‘n slash like darksiders or something. Then you’ll feel the smoothness of movement.

Animations do have a role in this too, I do agree with you on that. But really most of the time it is best to just get out your ranged weapon and stand there attacking until you enemy drops. With the exceptions of some dungeon bosses.

That is a large part of it. Melee combat is typically more engaging than ranged combat and Anet made the horrible mistake of punishing melee with almost every boss in the game.

You know that ‘western’ MMOs usually tones down on the effects?

I played this korean MMO that has a healer cast a heal, the whole nine yard was blasted with a gigantic circular rune, and you can see an animated outline of an angel spreading her wing above the healer….and BAM……..somewhat ‘meh’-ing heal.

Is that what you’re looking for?XD

Aion really shows the power of animation, because even though it’s the same “stand and cast” style combat it really does feel exciting, just because of the amazing animations.

Asura have fantastic animation. Animations vary by race to quite an extent, the asura though are just perfect, it totally sells the fact their head is about half their body mass.

It feels like their body exists to propel their head in the desired direction. While an asura with a greatsword looks like they’re eternally on the verge of wobbling over

I like the animations. All the professions and weapons have their own unique character. It’s been awhile since I’ve played Aion but I don’t remember them being outstanding. I DID enjoy the caster incantations however.