Guild Wars 2

It isn’t one of those topics, no.

I was playing another game today, which has pretty good melee, and started thinking about GW2’s melee. Obviously, you can’t stay in melee long in this game. In a place like WvW, often it’s not an option at all. Some classes can grant themselves a few seconds of invincibility in the process of entering forward lines, but in general, it’s just a bad idea in most cases.

One of the things I was thinking about is that GW2 doesn’t have DR systems for things that most other games use to make it so that one mechanic can’t be abused. For example, in another game, if you’re crippled, and crippled again by another player, it either won’t count or the effect will be reduced. If you’re crippled by many players at the same time, they just stop working, so the attackers can’t just chain the same thing over and over again, abusing the system against one target that can’t really do anything about it.

As well, some games implement a DR on damage received from multiple sources. This way, someone whose job it is to break up an enemy formation, when specced for it, can run into a crowd of fifty people, not only survive for more than three seconds, but shrug off most of the damage if all fifty people start bombing him, and actually manage to move around for quite a while in the enemy lines, to help clear them out. Again, assuming they are specced for this specific role.

GW2 doesn’t really have DR systems like this for combat. This has resulted in some stagnation in sPvP builds, as there are certain skills you absolutely must bring on some professions if you want to even participate, because CCs can be abused with such ease. WvW has a similar problem with large zergs basically just kiting one another at max range, spamming every AoE field they have at this range, hoping they’ll catch a couple people that wander a step or two too close. Melee in these situations are not impossible, but certainly next to it, and generally a bad idea. The combat in general in these situations doesn’t require much thought, and usually just resorts to spamming a skill or two, or even for people attempting to break a line, using something like Endure Pain, swinging around wildly at invisible enemies and then running away a couple seconds later, before the mass of ranged fire can kill you in a couple of seconds.

In GW1 and other MMOs this sort of system is usually supplemented or replaced by healers that ensure that melee classes can move around in enemy lines, break them up and generally harass players. You can’t die in two seconds while trying to do your job because there’s someone who won’t let that happen. Gameplay becomes less about spiking people down and more about wearing enemies down. Healing obviously does not work that way in this game, so when you do take enormous damage from a spike, there’s no healer to de-spike your health back up. You can’t restore that much health, much less over a sustained period, and there’s no DR system to keep these spikes from happening, either. Traits and skills will accomplish this, but only for about two or three seconds before it switches off and you’re dead.

I’m not saying this is a solution or even necessarily something that needs to happen in this game, but what’s your general opinion on DR systems for combat as a way of enabling some classes or build types to actually work in any situation in various degrees?

There’s one game I’m thinking of that added DR because it wasn’t originally balanced around PvP. Guild Wars 2 is definitely balanced around PvP. As far as dedicated healing classes not being around to remove conditions, this is partly true. However, there is the potential for most classes to play a supportive role and focus on managing the conditions of allies.

Plague.5329:

As well, some games implement a DR on damage received from multiple sources. This way, someone whose job it is to break up an enemy formation, when specced for it, can run into a crowd of fifty people, not only survive for more than three seconds, but shrug off most of the damage if all fifty people start bombing him, and actually manage to move around for quite a while in the enemy lines, to help clear them out. Again, assuming they are specced for this specific role.

I had to stop here and ask what game exactly adds diminishing returns based on the number of people targeting a single player. Because I cannot think of any time when that would be a good thing.

Protection Monks would be great for WvW lol.

I think the only thing I felt in my experiences that might be good to take advantage of DR would be stacking AOE ground effects. Crowd control, etc not so much. One of the more effective DR’s I saw for balance that was done for this exact reason was accomplished by simply allowing only 2 stacks of the same class spell to overlap in any one area, and capping the amount of players it hit. For example, only 2 eles could stack rain of fire on the same player. If a third cast rain of fire, their spell would not hit the target, but if they used a different AOE effect they would. This prevented ridiculous amounts of spike aoe damage where everyone would just spam AOE on the keep doors and no one could get close enough to break it down even with siege equip.

I think that’s a fantastic idea and would make the game feel more individually enjoyable. If the individual had the power to affect big battles just by their class and skillbar like in GW1 Alliance Battles, i feel like this game would be a lot better off. It’s too zergy and homogeneous right now, they really need to tweak just about everything. It’d probably be a nightmare to code that type of DR system for combat though and i’m not even certain if it’d be worth it at this point in time. The Range > Melee thing is just exacerbated by the lack of trinity. They took a lot of traditional MMO elements out without a lot of forethought on how it would actually effect the gameplay as a whole for the player.

Melee classes are definitely viable in WvW. You just can’t expect to go glass cannon and live if you run into a mob of invaders.

The game is very melee unfriendly in wvw as a thief i gave up as it’s boring compared to spvp. I think they need to try hard to split the zerg like in dota, sure it ends up 5v5 but you must be split at most times.
They need melee to take less dmg per person targeting them. I don’t remember what game had it, but they had anti train code and it meant the bad side of pvp was removed.

I prefer without any kind of combat DR.

In WoW, especially in Arenas (the Tournament equivalent of GW2), you had to keep track of which player had which DR on, and consider not casting a skill that’d fall in that DR because it’d be less effective or not effective at all.
People used addons for it, since it was getting difficult to keep track of lots of players with lots of DRs.
This is one reason why having no DR is a great thing, leave aside all the “mental” timing (since GW2 has no addons) and other mechanic stuff and focus only on the actual ACTION part of the combat.

Another reason is exactly because of WvW. One guy shouldn’t be able to do anything against 50 players. Just because he’s immune, say, to cripple, this means he can sprint his way through 50 players? If he can avoid damage somehow (with various skills), it’d be just plain wrong to have a single person cause such a havoc in a large group like that.

An individual must have conscience that jumping in a mob of 50 players IS a bad idea. The same way that you MUST bring some skills to avoid being permanently crippled, you will MUST bring skills to become immune to crippling if you want to survive. It wouldn’t change anything, it’d just be a bother to players.

Good post op, I’ve been thinking much the same. I don’t think its a lack of trinity thing, since Warhammer Online, for instance, had similar problems. Also combat DR (haven’t heard it called that before) would be one factor in reducing the effectiveness of zergs and make splitting more practical. Plus they could use the same techniques in DEs that are getting AOE spammed.

@Danicco – In RL combat, there’d be no way that 50 people could damage you at once, since most of them would be blocked by others in the way. Some kind of DR would be an approximation of that effect. Obviously a single person would still not be able to take on 50 others at once … but somewhat increased survivability would be both more realistic and result in more hand to hand encounters than happen now.

Tradewind.6913:

Plague.5329:

As well, some games implement a DR on damage received from multiple sources. This way, someone whose job it is to break up an enemy formation, when specced for it, can run into a crowd of fifty people, not only survive for more than three seconds, but shrug off most of the damage if all fifty people start bombing him, and actually manage to move around for quite a while in the enemy lines, to help clear them out. Again, assuming they are specced for this specific role.

I had to stop here and ask what game exactly adds diminishing returns based on the number of people targeting a single player. Because I cannot think of any time when that would be a good thing.

One of the GW1 Fluxs is the inverse ninja law, which made a character deal more damage for each enemy they were near, and deal less damage for each ally near them (had no cap) so essentially…. yes there was a DR (granted it was for one month but still!!)

@OP I personally think it’s fine, the only problems i have with the whole CC nonsense is when it’s a 1v5 and i get mauled by every stun and daze they have, but then again, i should get totally boned for that….

As for the condition thing, yeah… every single person can remove conditions, and then just about everyone (i thinkittenerally everyone) can remove conditions from another person as well, so if you’re being one of those LAWLZ I WANTZ MOAR DAMAGE! players then you really deserve to be completely boned by conditions…

One vs Zerg. Zerg wins. I don’t see the problem?
Standing in 10 AoE fields gets you killed pretty fast. Again, problem?

Is it really that hard to realize that maybe the solutions are to… not do these things that get you killed easily?

You have no idea how badly this would be abused in WvW…

In Warhammer Online certain heavy armour classes could put up a block skill that protected people in an arc behind you and absorbed a lot of damage. This was an awesome way to break up the zerg and immensely satisfying to do. This opened up so many great tactics for dealing with zergs. I wish they would implement something like this in GW2.

I guess the Guardian’s shield does something like this but the duration is too short and the amount of allies protected too small to be really effective. Shame.

Honestly the only way that ranged attacks can ever be fixed in mmos is if they make the player actually aim before/while shooting. But since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I think the system GW2 has is pretty decent but of course can use a bit more fine tuning (mainly PvE wise).

Imo the mobs generally don’t have enough pulls/reflects/etc to challenge the kiter. I feel that if they give certain/most/all mobs 1 or more of these type of abilities and make them activate at a challenging enough pace (that also depends on the mob’s lv and rank) then the problem would decrease dramatically.

I bullrush zergs and live to tell the tale frequently. Can be done on my War, my Guardian, or my Ranger. I fight in melee vs zergs on my Thief… but I wouldn’t call my tactic there a bullrush…. more of a dart around screwing people up and finishing injured off mid zerg while evading/stealthing shadowstepping.

Some times I screw up, and the full force of the zerg turns on me in an instant and I don’t react quickly enough… so I die. That happens when 50 people all decide to make you dead at the same time… as it should.

Glass cannon geared/spec’d people can’t run in to zergs… no, you’re right there too. That’s a good thing. They break easy, those cannons made of glass… should be handled with care.

Trait and gear for a little bit for survivability and CC/condition management and you’ll find wading through the unwashed masses of thine enemy as enjoyable as a stroll through the park on a sunny day mid spring.

Only read first 2-3 posters so apologise if already mentioned, but if you create a specific class that removes conditions then that class will be targeted 1st at every opportunity, as it is in other MMO’s where certain classes are taken out first (Healer > Mages > other dps then tanks last) I think its better if every class has an ability to remove conditions as they can now, that’s how it is and works better for everyone imo. Don’t need to create DR’s on conditions, just make them unstackable or a null effect, the effects can trigger but wouldn’t apply until the first effect has worn, but then you would have to reactivate the effect to make it re-apply.