I can’t help but compare Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars is my favorite game of all time, so obviously I have some bias towards that due to the significant differences between the two. There’s something that’s very obvious though that I had never taken the time to notice. Guild Wars has much more depth than Guild Wars 2, in several areas, but most importantly combat.
The most obvious indicator here is the amount of primary roles available in each game.
In Guild Wars primary roles were DPS, healing, damage prevention, damage support, and control. Any of these roles could be featured or blended together in builds.
In Guild Wars 2 the only primary combat roles available are DPS and bunker. We don’t ever expect to see healing as a primary role in Guild Wars. Other roles serve as a secondary purpose, not the primary.
Another obvious indicator is each games build diversity.
Guild Wars has A LOT of build diversity. A single primary/secondary profession combination had hundreds of skills available, which added up a dozen or more extremely effective core build concepts for each primary combat role. Those core builds could be adjusted with a skill or two to fit various situations just as GW2 does.
Guild Wars 2 has maybe a handful of highly effective dps builds and maybe 1 or 2 bunker builds per profession.
Both games are great as indicated by their success. Guild Wars 2 obviously is visually superior, and is an actual MMORPG. The tradeoff was that a lot of depth was lost in the transition from Guild Wars to Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars 1 was a masterpiece. It took the common trinity roles and repackaged them in such a free-form, versatile way that it was often easy to forget that Guild Wars 1 was, in fact, a trinity game. Furthermore, each profession had a huge number of builds and was often not set in its role. Monks, the “dedicated healing” profession could go offensive support, damage prevention, healing, and even nuker. Some of the most popular healers in the game were actually Necromancer/Ritualist combinations that utilized an interesting combination of flexible heals and preventions with energy management via Soul Reaping. Said Necromancers could have just as easily gone indirect tank (minion master), control, or AoE dps.
Guild Wars 2 succeeded in keeping the spirit of flexible class roles from its predecessor. Every class can be customized to do every role in one or more unique fashions and flavors. It’s a great concept.
The primary failures of Guild Wars 2 as compared to the first are as such:
Fewer skills. Yes, this was done to decrease the number of unviable skills. Unfortunately, the percentage of unviable or highly situational skills is approximately the same as its predecessor – resulting in a net loss of build variety.
Skills locked into templates. The removal of free form skill selection COULD have been effective if each class had a large selection of available templates to choose from and/or multiple combinations to choose from for each weapon. Unfortunately, this is not the case. This is probably the single largest contributor to the game’s perceived lack of longevity. One can only use the same skills for so long before it just gets freaking old.
Guild Wars 1’s simple, but elegant system of allocating attribute points into skill lines allowed for roles to be more effectively streamlined. Depending on your Secondary class and your attribute point allocation, you could define your primary to perform any role – but they still performed a role of some sort. If you tried to do everything at once, you would doom yourself to be less effective. A dps could not support almost as effectively as a dedicated support. While this could sound like a bad thing on paper, it wasn’t in practice. It encouraged thought and team synergy before the player entered each mission. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have this; a GW2 dps can remove conditions, control enemies, and heal allies almost as well as builds dedicated to these things. The result? Why build anything but dps (in PvE) – it’s not like mobs are intelligent enough to be a real threat.
Guild Wars 1 had fully refundable stat choices that encouraged experimentation. Guild Wars 2 locks players into rigid builds through gear-locked stats and traits that require a return to some city to refund.
I think a great way to get some of that GW1 feel back would be to introduce more skills to the weapons we already have. When I equip my sword, I have 3 skills to use- my chain auto attack and slot 2 & 3. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to choose from a set of skills for each weapon? Example: skillset A is the weapon or offhand as it currently exists. Skillset B would offer a different chain auto attack, and different skills in slots 2 & 3, but with the same cooldowns. GW1 has 19 sword skills, useable by anyone who wants to equip a sword. GW2 allows you 3 skills, or 5 if you count the chain auto attack (but you can’t “click” the 2nd and 3rd in the chain). I’m not saying my guardian should be able to use the sword skills of a warrior, ranger or a thief or mesmer (although some skills could be crossover skills, like Final Thrust, for example). But adding different “sets” of skills to each weapon and off-hand would allow us to get into some of the build varieties we were able to access in GW1. And as a competitive fencer, I feel anyone with a sword should be allowed access to a riposte! In GW1, my warrior has a collection of shields for every situation in the game; +10 armor vs each element and monster available, as well as damage reduction in stance or enchanted, and 20% at +1 for each attribute in the game. (Yeah, my meager GW1 storage is chock full of stuff like that- I’m a hoarder.) In GW2, my heavy armor toons have 2 (4 really) skills for that shield. Mildly disappointing.
I’d also like Anet to allow heavy armor classes, and maybe even ranger, to use the spear on land as a ranged & melee weapon. How cool would that be?
I also understand that this would involve some extra skill balancing, but think of how much it would add to the game.
One of my biggest problems with Guild Wars 2 is that it has great build system, but it does not require you to use that build system to beat most PvE content. You can literally just run around naked slapping things with a limp noodle.
I think the problem isn’t the Combat, it’s the Boss mechanics which allows the zerg.
The Combat itself has lots of Depth with professions.
Here is the Basic level of the Combat and it’s depth:
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.
GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.
Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
I didn’t play much of original Guild Wars, but I remember being completely overwhelmed by so many skills that did so many different things.
In GW2, locked weapon skills aside, at first you get the impression have lots and lots to choose from, but there are only a few actually useful skills for any build, and everything from that just does a slight variation of the same thing once every one or two minutes tops. And yet, still, when there are a few players on screen everything quickly turns into a mess of random graphics and effects you can barely predict, less of all react to.
I wish there was more stuff to do. Or at least if stuff that we get to use was less boring, and more dynamic.
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
Yes but if you don’t use a certain build you’ll either a) never find a group or b) be kicked once they see you in action cause it doesn’t fit what is expected. And since I play a Ranger as my main and refuse to use a sword/warhorn build (I prefer a Ranged Ranger) if I do find a group they kick once they see the bow.
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
Yes but if you don’t use a certain build you’ll either a) never find a group or b) be kicked once they see you in action cause it doesn’t fit what is expected. And since I play a Ranger as my main and refuse to use a sword/warhorn build (I prefer a Ranged Ranger) if I do find a group they kick once they see the bow.
Not true,
You can use any build that works best for your playstyle.
You’ll only get kicked out if you suck and continue to die in the group.
Or if you got noob elitist who suck at the game anyways.
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
There aren’t weapons/utilities/traits/stats that fit many people’s play styles is the issue
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
There aren’t weapons/utilities/traits/stats that fit many people’s play styles is the issue
The problem isn’t the weapons/utilities/traits/stats.
The problem is people come from games like WoW and think it should play like WoW.
Then you got another crowed from GW1 and expect the builds to work the same way as GW2… This is a different game after all.
Like the rest who have posted here, I think the biggest thing missing is build diversity. I had all 3 campaigns and EotN which gave me about 200+ skills per profession and none locked to a weapon(except warrior that had separate skills for sword, axe and hammer). This made for some very interesting and cool builds. I used to run a R/P BM build in RA all the time. People would think I was just running a regular spear weilding Ranger until my wolf took their head off. We don’t have that diversity in GW2.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
There aren’t weapons/utilities/traits/stats that fit many people’s play styles is the issue
The problem isn’t the weapons/utilities/traits/stats.
The problem is people come from games like WoW and think it should play like WoW.
Then you got another crowed from GW1 and expect the builds to work the same way as GW2… This is a different game after all.
I think anyone coming from any game is confused by DPS being the only viable way to play is most situaitons
The problem isn’t the weapons/utilities/traits/stats.
The problem is people come from games like WoW and think it should play like WoW.
Then you got another crowed from GW1 and expect the builds to work the same way as GW2… This is a different game after all.
I’m gonna have to stop that stereotyping right there.
Me, I’ve tried both WoW and Guild Wars for a couple of levels. Didn’t end up with either. Don’t play MMOs, don’t play many RPGs, don’t care about metagame.
My criticism is exactly the same as that of thread’s creator. It’s all to restrictive and ineffective.
I think anyone coming from any game is confused by DPS being the only viable way to play is most situaitons
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
There aren’t weapons/utilities/traits/stats that fit many people’s play styles is the issue
The problem isn’t the weapons/utilities/traits/stats.
The problem is people come from games like WoW and think it should play like WoW.
Then you got another crowed from GW1 and expect the builds to work the same way as GW2… This is a different game after all.
The problem for those of us who are longtime GW veterans is we were promised GW but with an Open World. What we got was the kitten step-child of GW and (insert MMO here)
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
There aren’t weapons/utilities/traits/stats that fit many people’s play styles is the issue
The problem isn’t the weapons/utilities/traits/stats.
The problem is people come from games like WoW and think it should play like WoW.
Then you got another crowed from GW1 and expect the builds to work the same way as GW2… This is a different game after all.
The problem for those of us who are longtime GW veterans is we were promised GW but with an Open World. What we got was the kitten step-child of GW and (insert MMO here)
I don’t remember any promises like that. I also bought GW2 being a GW vet but you have to recognize they were built as totally separate games and Anet deemed GW combat was suited for the new game.
Just because there aren’t as many skills doesn’t mean that the combat has left depth. There is much more to combat than the number of skill names and icons.
For example you could also look at the number of things that people have to do during combat, the affect that decisions have in combat, the number of characters affected by actions taken during combat, the length of combat, etc.
Frankly GW1 combat was actually pretty shallow. A lot of the skills were just repetitions of other skills.
Just because there aren’t as many skills doesn’t mean that the combat has left depth. There is much more to combat than the number of skill names and icons.
For example you could also look at the number of things that people have to do during combat, the affect that decisions have in combat, the number of characters affected by actions taken during combat, the length of combat, etc.
Frankly GW1 combat was actually pretty shallow. A lot of the skills were just repetitions of other skills.
You’re correct not to judge it by number of skill alone, however the large number of skills also had numerous different types and effects qualitatively and quantitatively.
Using the duplicates that existed to say Guild Wars’ combat as a whole was shallow holds no weight unless you only look at the duplicate skills, in which case there were numerous different kinds of skills that had duplicates.
That’d be like saying Magic The Gathering is shallow because you can have duplicates in your deck, or that it’s shallow becuase there are similar card effects.
Additionally if we do compare Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2, we see that the edge in regard to number of different skill effects to worry about in combat goes to Guild Wars 1.
There are many different ways to build your playstyle in GW2.
Step#1 – Choose Weapons/Utilities that fits Your Playstyle
Step#2 – Choose (Traits) to build upon and Enhance Your Playstyle
Step#3 – Choose Armor/Stats to Balance Your Playstyle.GW2 Combat System is based on: Damage/Control/Support
Refer to my Video above for that information.Lots of different playstyles can be build upon in GW2.
There aren’t weapons/utilities/traits/stats that fit many people’s play styles is the issue
The problem isn’t the weapons/utilities/traits/stats.
The problem is people come from games like WoW and think it should play like WoW.
Then you got another crowed from GW1 and expect the builds to work the same way as GW2… This is a different game after all.
The problem for those of us who are longtime GW veterans is we were promised GW but with an Open World. What we got was the kitten step-child of GW and (insert MMO here)
I remember watching an early video of a dev explaining what guild wars 2 was going to be, maybe it was a demo explaining dynamic events, almost explicitly saying that they didn’t want to make GW1 with a shiny new coat because they had ideas that were limited by what they were working with. The significant differences between the limitations and achievements for both GW1 (which did have many limitations in its combat system) and 2 have been discussed at length many times and this thread is treading on rehashing some of those arguments again. Nonetheless, I agree that Anet hasn’t created the most engaging combat system they could have.
Keep in mind that GW1 has been out for several years. GW1 has undergone many balance and mechanic iterations of its own. While GW1 had a fairly unique combat system, it also relied heavily on some standard mmo conventions for its combat system as a guide. Many combat systems in GW1 were designed around everything being instanced. GW2 combat designs are heavily reliant on maintaining balance in an open world instead of the scripted movement of mobs in an instance. Anet has said many times that Guild Wars 2 is an experiment on so many levels and that they are taking what we say into account in fleshing out what it is. This doesn’t mean that if I ask for GW2 to have a GW1 combat system, they’ll do it. They said they are looking to add new skills to the game but they have also said that they really felt that the number of skills added to GW1 was a nightmare for balancing. So yeah, some players had fun breaking the game with 55 monk builds, some found a number of viable builds, and some builds were flat out useless. It sounded like more and more they just built this monster that got out of hand and now they are being reaaaaally conservative about balance.
Anet knows about issues like the condition cap, “zerkers only”, and severely limited control skills. Just different issues to be worked out for an experimental title with the Guild Wars name. I’m intrigued to see if what players have been suggesting will be implemented in the current engine but I just don’t think it’s fair to compare the depth of combat in GW1 and 2 while removing them from the context in which they were developed.
Edit: Ah, I remember now that in the video, the Dev was talking about why Guild Wars Beyond was scrapped and that was when he made the point that the GW1 game was limiting them in what they wanted to do. Still, I agree that GW2 has a ways to go before its potential is realized.
(edited by nightwulf.1986)
GW2 lacks the skill depth of GW1, I’ll grant that. But I think the greater problem is the shallow nature of PvE, where skills really don’t matter. I still sometimes play GW1, and my ranger there feels unique. Pets are much more useful in GW2, but that’s about it.
There are too few GW2 utility skills that are interesting, and the GW2 elites are few and boring. Plus, we have only 3-4 skills to select anyway.
GW2 longbow lacks poison/fire arrow and tactical shots; the five longbow shots are okay, but boring after a year.
Give me interesting elites and a few choices in my primary weapon skills.
But it won’t happen, because of their quixotic quest to “balance” PvP. PvP is the entire reason for our limited skill selection.
GW1 and GW2 are different games.
I liked the – magic the gathering – feel from GW1, and I like the more active combat in GW2.
After a year I can now say that I had more fun with the combat system in GW1 because of it’s dependancy on builds. The impact of most of those 8 skills that you could hand-pick yourself was more immense than all the traits and most of the skills in GW2. In GW2 the choices seem to matter less. I’ve done dungeons without traits. Not noticing that until I got out again. I’ve made the most terrible builds to see if skills would work in the dungeon. The build would be terrible (thief traps!) but we would still succeed. Because dodge + weaponskills + healing skill always works.
However, if I return to GW1, I can’t help but feel terribly slow. Not being able to dodge is a weird thing all of a sudden. I almost shout at my character for not dodging out of that meteor shower!
Both games have their merits. But I do think GW2 can use a couple of tricks from GW1:
(edited by The Lost Witch.7601)
The biggest problem with GW2’s combat system, is:
-The fixed skills for weapons, and stuff like Death Shroud
-The fixed healing skill slot
-No secondary professions
-Too few skills, and too few useful skills among them
-A trinity of damage/control/support, where the latter two are rendered redundant by the game’s focus on DPS. GW1 had more roles.
-Poor targeting system
-Poor camera system
-Defiant/Unshakeable
-Unbalanced attribute system, in regards to toughness, vitality, healing. Doesn’t scale.
-Lack of unique skills with unique effects
The last one deserves explaining. In GW1 you had a lot of skills that had very unique and bizarre effects. Especially in regards to hexes and curses. There were many strange skills, that could be combined into very odd and unusual builds. For example, as a necromancer I could take a monk secondary profession, and bring Protective Bond. The fast energy regeneration of Soul Reaping, combined with this effective mana shield, meant that my character was immune to massive damage constantly.
Necromancers could also combine a very low health pool, with life stealing and damage reduction, into a build that had insanely fast healing. Yes, there were actually benefits to having less health in GW1, but it was a situational thing. And that’s exactly what made the game so brilliant. There were even necromancers that would take a ranger secondary, and then send their pet forward as an extra corpse, to they could explode it with Putrid Explosion. Anet later removed this option, because they didn’t want pets exploited like that, showing that they didn’t understand the brilliance of their own system. But the dynamics of the dual professions were what made GW1 a better game.
(edited by Mad Queen Malafide.7512)
I’d say that the fault of the lack of depth isn’t the actual combat system (for the most part at least – Defiant, conditions in OWPvE and lack of flexible weapon skills aside), but how the encounters aren’t designed to utilise the depth the combat system has.
Look at the Lover’s fight in AC. With a bit of tweaking to numbers and the environment, that could easily go from being able to ignore the mechanic of keeping the bosses apart through sheer DPS to having to properly utilise both hard and soft CC to keep them apart.
Granted, if you have to have specific builds and roles to complete content, then you can have all the skill and character building depth in the world and it wouldn’t make a difference, since there would still be that lack of depth in the encounters.
That being said, GW1 and 2 are different games.
GW1 was more about thinking what skill to use next, where you only really moved if you were standing in fire. GW2 focuses more on movement and a faster paced combat system. You couldn’t really have the level of strategic thinking while in combat in GW2 as was in GW1, since the brain can only do so many calculations a second.
Not saying the level of thinking shouldn’t be increased, but you can’t really expect it on the level of GW1 while maintaining the pace of combat in GW2.
(edited by TheDaiBish.9735)
As someone who’s been running GS/Staff since the beta, I have 0 other build available for this combination. Changing 3 utility skills wont affect my gameplay.
Great depth huh?
The problems I see impacting GW2 combat depth the most are:
GW2 main problem in PvE I believe is the gear and stat system. The disparity between the various gear sets is so through the roof that they cannot settle on how to balance the game.
ANet1 : I made it so that mobs don’t die so fast to those 5 zerk teams ! And they won’t die instantly at the first mistake too.
ANet2 : No wait, your new tuning killed my 5 Soldier team through sheer boredom.
The second problem with gear for PvE. The gear you can choose, except for an uncommon set with a tiny boon duration boost is a way for you to choose where you are placed in the trinity : DPS (power or condition), Healer, Tank. Except that, this is NOT the GW2 trinity! There’s no healer and no tank, so why? Where are the support and the control sets?
This is I’d say the biggest mistake in GW2 PvE. Gear should not have been role defining. The armor should have been just base armor, weapon base damage and trinkets shouldn’t exist. Traits, utilities and weapon type should have been the trait defining tools given to the players. Once that is done, the player dps and sustainability would be much less variable, allowing ANet to much better tune the PvE encounter difficulty to the point players will feel forced to make use of some really dedicated control and support roles.
So let’s summarize then:
did I miss anything
Since we are getting on finer points, too much AoE DPS, not enough AoE control I’d say. Why bother with control when :
- You can just AoE dps everything
- There’s too many mobs to control in the first place
This is I’d say the biggest mistake in GW2 PvE. Gear should not have been role defining. The armor should have been just base armor, weapon base damage and trinkets shouldn’t exist. Traits, utilities and weapon type should have been the trait defining tools given to the players. Once that is done, the player dps and sustainability would be much less variable, allowing ANet to much better tune the PvE encounter difficulty to the point players will feel forced to make use of some really dedicated control and support roles.
This is a really good point. Gear is role defining, since there’s only 1 role though it’s a smaller issue than it will be in future if ANet introduces more roles. The thing that happens is people get stuck with gear for one role and when they want to change roles, they have to drop an arm and a leg to change their build.
I remember seeing that quote in your signature a long time ago, is was a good pitch to the Guild Wars 1 community.
People go on and on about the lack of skills, but lets be honest in both GW1 and GW2 there is a meta and almost nobody goes outside of the meta builds.
In GW1 nobody would group with you in a dungeon if your build wasn’t part of the meta and we see similar things happening in GW2. So GW2 having fewer skills doesn’t actually have all to much of an impact.
People go on and on about the lack of skills, but lets be honest in both GW1 and GW2 there is a meta and almost nobody goes outside of the meta builds.
In GW1 nobody would group with you in a dungeon if your build wasn’t part of the meta and we see similar things happening in GW2. So GW2 having fewer skills doesn’t actually have all to much of an impact.
A build being in the “meta” is just a way of saying that a build is effective. In Guild Wars 1 there were dozens of core build concepts that were considered good enough to be “meta”.
Anet did a wonderful job making the combat feel fluid; the mobility standard in this game makes playing other games like GW1 or Tera (where you must stand still to cast, no dodge, etc.) frankly unplayable in comparison.
However, I find several things to be lacking in this game. The expensive cost (in gold, inventory space, and time) for switching builds, the “dps only” focus, and the limits on the skill bar are all pretty frustrating, as has been pointed out already. But the thing that deeply annoys me the most are skill cooldowns, and the lack of a shared psuedo-cooldown mechanic. In GW1, that would be the energy bar.
Lifted from a post I had written in the past:
Richard Nixon.6573I feel like the biggest mistake Anet made was removing the energy bar. Having every skill be balanced by recharge time lends itself to a system where you want to spam as many skills as possible. The only way to have a good effect for an elite under this system is to either make it so niche that it isn’t even worth taking in the vast majority of situations (see Moa Morph for mesmers), or with such a ridiculous cooldown that you have to guess whether you’ll get a better opportunity to use in before it would come off cooldown again.
That applies for weapon skills and utilities skills too. No shared cooldown mechanic (GW1 used energy for this) really limits how good individual skills can be, and really removes a good amount of depth from combat. I feel that until some system that strays from the “no downside” approach that GW2 currently has is implemented, skills will remain relatively bland and, frankly, underwhelming.
Yes but if you don’t use a certain build you’ll either a) never find a group or b) be kicked once they see you in action cause it doesn’t fit what is expected. And since I play a Ranger as my main and refuse to use a sword/warhorn build (I prefer a Ranged Ranger) if I do find a group they kick once they see the bow.
Sounds exactly like in GW1.
If you didn’t have a special build or a special titel with a special rank you would not be invited and if you were you would get abused and people would travel back to city to kick you.
And they claimed to be reducing the skill customization close to 0 because of the balance.
And look what happened – what didn’t happen, game is still unbalanced.
I guess that’s just a trend now.
Everything must be faster, more action, more effect, more explosions etc.
I always read these threads, and generally agree with the OP’s. The problem is that GW1 was essentially Magic: The Gathering. GW2 is checkers, or maybe pong. They removed all depth, and replaced it with shiny.
GW2 combat system is great, it could use some polish like displaying enemy cast bars, more visible AoE markers, but other than that, job well done.
Example: today in lvl 32 fractals, 4 team members died after killing firestorm in molten boss fractal, then one guy killed berserker by himself over ~20 minutes.
Alternative: heal/tanking being success-critical. In a 5 man group, tank and healer die and 3 dps jump into lava.
OP suggestion about more weapon skills is quite unrelated, but great. It does require a bit more thought though. How about this : for each slot of each weapon there are 3 skills to be chosen from. That way you could prevent imbalanced builds that would choose 4 long cd big nuke skills and 1 shot people in pvp, or 4 heal eles/guards in pve.
Sounds exactly like in GW1.
If you didn’t have a special build or a special titel with a special rank you would not be invited and if you were you would get abused and people would travel back to city to kick you.
What, you got kicked for bringing an MM to a SS/55 UW run?
Don’t be ridiculous, First of all required builds were only required for a specific role in a specific team set up in a specific (and usually elite) area.
Secondly there was such a plethora of skills available that you could modify the meta to your taste or make your own build from scratch which perhaps wouldn’t be as min/maxed as the meta but would come very close to it and be more than sufficient.
Thirdly I’d like to say that GW1 demanded build variation because the different enemies all had different tactics and exercised those by the same means as the player – skills. In GW2 enemies exist in a different dimension entirely and do little but use an autoattack +1 ability over a set time interval, all of this made possible by their overly large HP pool.
On topic:
A big complaint of mine is defiant, which makes CC utterly pointless in boss encounters. Not only are interrupts rare and unavailable as hard specialisation (think GW1 mesmer) but since everyone can perform the almighty dodge roll it becomes pointless to even try coordinating interrupts on a boss since pressing your left shift button will have the exact same result as an interrupt.
(edited by Pariah.8506)
Which is the same for GW2.
In most areas in GW2 you can bring whatever build you want, but in the “elite” content people might not like it.
The elite content in GW2 would be the dungeons. And yet funnily enough I have seen way more people getting kicked in GW1 for having the wrong build/title than I have ever seen in GW2.
People need to take off their rose-tinted glasses when talking about GW1.
Discrimination is always going to exist in online video games. GW1 and GW2 are no different in this. But I will say, the ‘know how’ of making a proper build in GW1 wasn’t as straight-forward as in GW2, and I do believe that GW1 had the potential for tons more depth than it’s sequel.
(edited by Smith.1826)
This is I’d say the biggest mistake in GW2 PvE. Gear should not have been role defining. The armor should have been just base armor, weapon base damage and trinkets shouldn’t exist. Traits, utilities and weapon type should have been the trait defining tools given to the players. Once that is done, the player dps and sustainability would be much less variable, allowing ANet to much better tune the PvE encounter difficulty to the point players will feel forced to make use of some really dedicated control and support roles.
I made a thread in the Suggestions forum making exactly the same argument for removing stats from gear, but got shouted down by people who think that this is the only way MMOs can work.
And that’s one of the biggest problems the game faces. It’s a victim of the vox populi.
Most people have no imagination and like things to remain constant. These people can’t understand the elegance behind such a system because all they’ve ever known are systems like the current one.
This is I’d say the biggest mistake in GW2 PvE. Gear should not have been role defining. The armor should have been just base armor, weapon base damage and trinkets shouldn’t exist. Traits, utilities and weapon type should have been the trait defining tools given to the players. Once that is done, the player dps and sustainability would be much less variable, allowing ANet to much better tune the PvE encounter difficulty to the point players will feel forced to make use of some really dedicated control and support roles.
I made a thread in the Suggestions forum making exactly the same argument for removing stats from gear, but got shouted down by people who think that this is the only way MMOs can work.
And that’s one of the biggest problems the game faces. It’s a victim of the vox populi.
Most people have no imagination and like things to remain constant. These people can’t understand the elegance behind such a system because all they’ve ever known are systems like the current one.
And of course you can buy armor with gem-to-gold…
Discrimination is always going to exist in online video games. GW1 and GW2 are no different in this. But I will say, the ‘know how’ of making a proper build in GW1 wasn’t as straight-forward as in GW2, and I do believe that GW1 had the potential for tons more depth than it’s sequel.
True enough, but then again mostly people just took the “best” build from PvX wiki and ran the content.
Sure some people made those builds in the first place, but the majority simply took a build from there and ran it so most people never really utilized the extensive build system anyway.
Which is the same for GW2.
In most areas in GW2 you can bring whatever build you want, but in the “elite” content people might not like it.
The elite content in GW2 would be the dungeons. And yet funnily enough I have seen way more people getting kicked in GW1 for having the wrong build/title than I have ever seen in GW2.People need to take off their rose-tinted glasses when talking about GW1.
Big difference being that in GW1 you had tons of buildcrafting possibilities whereas in GW2 you’ll can consider yourself extremely happy if you have 5 per character.
And not only do GW2 builds all feel very similar due to the skills glued to your skillbar (don’t have use for a weapon skill? Too bad, it sits on your skillbar anyway), but are also harder to switch between since the build’s backbone has been shifted from the actual skillbar to equipment, the best variant of which is increasingly hard to get.
Discrimination is always going to exist in online video games. GW1 and GW2 are no different in this. But I will say, the ‘know how’ of making a proper build in GW1 wasn’t as straight-forward as in GW2, and I do believe that GW1 had the potential for tons more depth than it’s sequel.
True enough, but then again mostly people just took the “best” build from PvX wiki and ran the content.
Sure some people made those builds in the first place, but the majority simply took a build from there and ran it so most people never really utilized the extensive build system anyway.
Exactly, but this was less a symptom of an ‘imbalanced’ game and had much more to do with static enemy builds and barebones AI. Had both been designed to be more dynamic and surprising, PvE could’ve required the use of a variety of builds, tactics and strategies, mimicking PvP play.
Hence why I said that GW1’s concepts had far more potential. GW2 could have the same potential, but the gameplay hasn’t really been expanded upon sans balances, and it currently has nowhere near the same amount of depth GW1 had at its start.
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