Guild Wars 2

I’m having difficulty describing my expirience and the physics in this game, but I will try. Hopefully I’m not the only one that feels this way. Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
1. Basically, when ever I logg onto GW2, my characters feel very floaty, or detached form the ground, specially when strafing. This also leads to the walking/running and turning feeling forced and slugish.
2.Characters look and feel like 2D notebook drawing cut-outs, rather than 3D avatars. They look amazing when they are stading still or zoomed in, but once in motion or in combat, the strange look and feeling arises.
3. The charaters in the game look rather tiny and flat compared to other mmos, I can’t explained it. In games like WoW, RaiderZ, and Rift, the characters look and feel a more meaty, solid, overall bigger, and more grounded.
4. The camera makes me feel restricted for some reason. E.g., the open world in WoW feels bigger when I’m questing.
5. Spells don’t feel special, animations look weak and are not fulfilling. E.g., I hate my elemental’s #1 skill on my staff, and hunter arrows look like pencil marks on a notebook paper. I recently discovered the game “Dragon Age II” and “DC Universe”, and the animations look more satisfying (my opinion).
6. The jumping is awarkd (on my male-human specially).

Other Thoughts:
The landscapes are a 10/10 for me. The main reason I bought the game was to explore, but I become discouraged when I’m not able to enjoy the combat the same way I’m able to enjoy the exploration.
Game was worth my $60, but that’s not the same as having enjoyed it fully.

Conclusion:
Is it the art-style that I’m struggling to get used to? Perhaps this is why everything feels flat and tiny compared to other mmos.
I have found that spells placed on the ground look and work better in this game, such as that of the guardian. Is GW2 more of that type of game?
I don’t want to offend Anet by saying you need to “fix” some of these issues, when when it may simply be the art-style I’m not used to.

Q: Do you guys think these are actual issues that need to be improved, or it’s simply the style of the game?

Question: What character/profession are you rolling? I am norn ranger. Not the “heaviest” of the norn builds either and i don’t find him light at all. My human thief I like being light, makes me feel more stealthy. As for floating, i never really noticed this. Spells, I like the spell effects. I don’t want too over the top effects for large scale battles, plus you need to be able to see the combo fields to maximize damage ect. My only issue with the spells, and all abilities in general is the sounds. They get quite annoying after being repeated a couple hundred times. (especially with quickness)

I tried all professions in spvp and I currently have a 56 warrior, 46 ele., and 10 ranger. They all feel light to me, specially when strafing. The bigger races do feel slower, but still light-sorry weak explanation, but this is what this post is for. Hopefully I can find a few others who can describe this feeling a little better.

I could understand if you were playing an anorexic Asura, or even a very tall, very thin Sylvari, but I don’t get that feeling.

3 and 4 I could understand though.

Haha, thanks for your reply Phy. I guess the word “deatched” might do a better job in what I’m trying to describe. Heavyness, I realize now, may confuse people. I will edit the word “light” out.

No OP I really understand 1 and 2 especially. I feel the characters like 2d paper cuts lol, it’s hard to explain. Also they do look small. I’m not sure if I’m comparing it to some other MMO or to a single player game, but definitely I know what you’re talking about.

On the point number 1, i agree 100%. Characters somehow are not in sync with the speed at which the ground moves under their feet and how quick their feet plant on the ground. The end result is, like you said, it looks like their floating, not attached to the ground, and especially, especially when you strafe, wow its really floating, they glide.

Only the little guys look better, because they take more steps or something in the same distance so the effect of floatiness, not attached to ground is not as evident.

So ya, that part it looks bad. Most people probably dont care or notice…but its 100% there.

“I really understand 1 and 2 especially. I feel the characters like 2d paper cuts lol, it’s hard to explain. Also they do look small. I’m not sure if I’m comparing it to some other MMO or to a single player game, but definitely I know what you’re talking about.”

Yes! This is my biggest issue. Glad I found at least one other person that feels this way, I thought I was crazy.

I’ve played a Charr almost exclusively, so I haven’t experienced strongly your floaty feeling during movement. I do, however, share a similar feeling during combat. It lacks a certain… “Umph!” Muted or flighty or lacking grit is the best I can describe it.

The problem may be the active nature of GW2’s combat. It leads to the illusion of an action game, but GW2 is certainly no Assassin’s Creed 3 as far as physics and graphics. On the other hand, it doesn’t compare unfavorably to TSW or SWTOR, the only other MMORPG I’ve played recently. In fact, Overcharged Shot on my Charr Engineer feels more forceful than most.

I don’t know what can be done to improve your experience, except maybe to lower expectation for combat from real-time action to the more traditional test of skill use. Or maybe play a Charr Engineer. They feel a bit more sluggish, especially when running on all fours, so it may improve the grounded feeling, and their rifle allows them to solve most of the jumping puzzle issues that may arise from animation or running or physics. I don’t know how suitable they are for spvp, but worth checking out in pve.

I can’t say I noticed any floatiness, but I have picked up on the 2d feeling. I’ll admit, I think it’s part of the art style. The whole game feels like a living painting to me, and I love it. Fire in particular I think just screams “moving paint on canvass”, and that alone makes me think I’ll be rolling an ele next.

As for the animations, I’ve never seen an MMO with such smooth animations before. Animations transition into one another seamlessly, which is something MMO’s generally haven’t had before. Perhaps this could be part of the problem? Maybe you’ve become too accustomed to animation X always looking exactly like X, whereas in this game you can be running in any direction and/or transitioning to your next animation while casting.

As for the camera, yeah, it’s tighter than most MMO’s and that’s a very valid complaint, but I bet that’s mostly for WvW and PvP so you don’t pull back and gain the ability to see over walls. I have no clue why there’s no 1st person view, on an unrelated note.

@OP.. All your points are valid, not sure if your new but at launch there was an even more floaty feeling which they improved on with the camera. You are right about the characters looking small and thin. I was ready to pay money for a race change " and im still willing to" because of that. I wanted to change my human to a norn so I can look a little more thicker but it doesn’t seem like that option is in the works atm or probably never will be. I think what makes my character feel even smaller is that when Im running he is kinda hunched forward instead of being straight. As far as the spells are concerned, I was orginally interested in the necro but I just couldnt get into it, the spells look a little plain, like a black shadow that comes out or sometimes I don’t really even notice the spells at all with a necro so I just gave up on that profession and deleted the character. The characters feel kinda slow maybe they can make the animation look like they are taking more steps to fix that not sure.. I do notice that Asura’s feel quite different to control then all the other races though, different in a good way. It feels like Asura’s are more responsive and it seems like they move faster.

I agree with some of your points. I think the floatyness (is that a word?) comes from the fact that the game has to have all characters move at the same speed over the ground. So all my characters I have made as small as possible and this makes it better for me personally. I tried Norn because I liked the look of them but had to delete them and start again because of this reason alone. I now play Sylvari and Human only. I tried some Asura but they felt too much the other way. They were too nippy. The Asura swimming animation is adorable though, the way their legs go like the clappers make me giggle every time.

juanitobgoode.1079:

1. Basically, when ever I logg onto GW2, my characters feel very “floaty”, or “detached” form the ground, specially when strafing. This also leads to the walking/running and turning feeling “forced” and “slugish”.

This was the very first thing I noticed about the game and was immediately concerned that I made a $60 mistake. I took me some time to get used to. It seems the movements are not as “tight” as some other games, although I find it much better than lotro. This is, imo, one thing wow does better.

I also agree that arrows lack a certain “oomph” factor. Other than that I’m generally happy with everything else. The character models themselves are among the best I’ve seen, right up there with AoC.

camoflaugz.5031:

@OP.. All your points are valid, not sure if your new but at launch there was an even more floaty feeling which they improved on with the camera. You are right about the characters looking small and thin. I was ready to pay money for a race change " and im still willing to" because of that. I wanted to change my human to a norn so I can look a little more thicker but it doesn’t seem like that option is in the works atm or probably never will be. I think what makes my character feel even smaller is that when Im running he is kinda hunched forward instead of being straight. As far as the spells are concerned, I was orginally interested in the necro but I just couldnt get into it, the spells look a little plain, like a black shadow that comes out or sometimes I don’t really even notice the spells at all with a necro so I just gave up on that profession and deleted the character. The characters feel kinda slow maybe they can make the animation look like they are taking more steps to fix that not sure.. I do notice that Asura’s feel quite different to control then all the other races though, different in a good way. It feels like Asura’s are more responsive and it seems like they move faster.

it’s only an illusion. to prevent one race from having an advantage over another, Anet gives them all the same speed (ie. they’ll get from point A to point B in an equal amount of time). this means they can’t let a race with a large stride (norn) have the same step turnover as a race with a small stride (asura) because the larger race would have an unfair speed advantage. essentially the asura must take more steps to cover the same distance and norn are forced to jog instead of run. I think this makes asura easier to control since their movement feels more natural. if you change direction while running as an asura it’s more likely they’ll be at the end of their stride which is what happens in real life. since the norn have a bigger stride and take fewer of them, any change of direction with them is more likely to happen in the middle of a stride, which is unnatural.

basically what I’m trying to say is, there is no solution to this except:
A) make all the races the same size
B) allow one race to travel faster than another
C) make the character step turnover animation unrelated to movement speed, which would look unnatural and the ground would seem to slide under the character’s feet.

Thank you for your amazing answers so far.

@Satans Chosen.1024
“The problem may be the active nature of GW2’s combat. It leads to the illusion of an action game, but GW2 is certainly no Assassin’s Creed 3 as far as physics and graphics.”
Basically this is how I feel, as if I’m being tricked and it doesn’t feel natural, my eyes don’t like it. This the funnest mmo I’ve played so far, but I can only play it 30 min. to an hour before my eyes are bored or tired. I actually pre-purchased this game and I thought I was going to be playing it a lot and hurry to 80 and do dungeons and stuff, but I can’t get myself to play that much, I just can’t. I did reach level 23 spvp though.

@camoflaugz.5031
“I wanted to change my human to a norn so I can look a little more thicker but it doesn’t seem like that option is in the works atm or probably never will be. I think what makes my character feel even smaller is that when Im running he is kinda hunched forward instead of being straight. As far as the spells are concerned, I was orginally interested in the necro but I just couldnt get into it, the spells look a little plain, like a black shadow that comes out or sometimes I don’t really even notice the spells at all with a necro so I just gave up on that profession and deleted the character."
I understand what you’re saying, I gave up on a necro as well.

@Raolin Soulherder.3195
“it’s only an illusion. to prevent one race from having an advantage over another, Anet gives them all the same speed”
Good answer, that makes sense. Since we have the ability to modify height and weight in this game, things can get a bit tricky for the developers.

Yes especially my human it feels like there’s no gravity, there’s no ‘oomph’ in my footsteps. I want to be stomping more. Perhaps this is because I just came from a single player game like RE6, or Uncharted, where the characters feels solid and heavy.

Here’s it feels floating and actually, it makes the game cheap in my opinion.

Hycinthus.6483:

Yes especially my human it feels like there’s no gravity, there’s no ‘oomph’ in my footsteps. I want to be stomping more. Perhaps this is because I just came from a single player game like RE6, or Uncharted, where the characters feels solid and heavy.

Here’s it feels floating and actually, it makes the game cheap in my opinion.

That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. The game feels cheap. I’m trying to figure out if this the result of working within a budget, time, and skill or if it’s truly an artistic choice. Because if it’s all an artistic view, I guess it’s not working for me. I almost feel like we’re not suppose talk about it because it may seem disrespectful. However, I would not be posting this if I didn’t care about or see the pontential of the game.

i think that the “floaty” issue is related to the various sizes of characters we have, my main is a mid height Norn and i never felt that “floatyness” BUT! my human guardian wich is a short height does feel like that, i think that some small touches to the animations should fix that

the rest, I just can’t agree with you, i love the art style and i think the characters fit perfectly, never felt the 2D-ness.

@korelg.7862
Lots of folks seem to agree on you about the Norm-size reducing this feeling, I might give it a try. Thanks for your reply.

The Charr were the most interesting of races, so I chose them. Didnt feel floaty. The camera is horrible near walls for jumping puzzles.

The biggest problem with the combat is the lack of instant attack spells. It makes things feel delayed. That 3/4 second to cast isq a real downer.

Josher.9612:

The Charr were the most interesting of races, so I chose them. Didnt feel floaty. The camera is horrible near walls for jumping puzzles.

The biggest problem with the combat is the lack of instant attack spells. It makes things feel delayed. That 3/4 second to cast isq a real downer.

Totally agree with you on this.. I don’t like how alot of the abilities have this loading time to it. I think the game would be more fun if they removed all of the loading time on those abilities that have it. One example is the warriors number 5 ability with a rifle which is suppose to be a knockback move, I cant understand why something like that needs to load up? Fast instant moves make a game more fun in my opinion.. when you press the button the ability should deliver on the spot. Although Im used to the way things are I do recognize that it doesn’t feel as good as it should.

camoflaugz.5031:

Josher.9612:

The Charr were the most interesting of races, so I chose them. Didnt feel floaty. The camera is horrible near walls for jumping puzzles.

The biggest problem with the combat is the lack of instant attack spells. It makes things feel delayed. That 3/4 second to cast isq a real downer.

Totally agree with you on this.. I don’t like how alot of the abilities have this loading time to it. I think the game would be more fun if they removed all of the loading time on those abilities that have it. One example is the warriors number 5 ability with a rifle which is suppose to be a knockback move, I cant understand why something like that needs to load up? Fast instant moves make a game more fun in my opinion.. when you press the button the ability should deliver on the spot. Although Im used to the way things are I do recognize that it doesn’t feel as good as it should.

Its one of those things that is hard to get over coming from other games. WOW is big on interrupts, seeing an animation, clicking an instant spell to interrupt another one with a spell cast. GW2 is like this as well, but the whole system is always 1 step behind. By the time I react, due to cast times, I’m too late sometimes and it bugs me, because I shouldn’t be too late. I’m not too late in other games. Why here? EVERYTHING is delayed, except dodging. The animation happens quick even if you still get hit even though it appears that the mob whiffed.

Its one of those minor yet important things, love it or hate it, that makes WOW what it is, and is VERY difficult to adjust to in GW2. I don’t want to adjust. All these 3/4 cast times should be instant. Heals especially bug the frack out of me. I’m watching my health bar drop, I pop a heal and I’m waiting for the cast time and general lag to catch up, where I rarely if ever noticed any of this in WOW. Sure, you can’t compare…but I have to. It would be like playing an FPS and there being a delay every time you shoot and someone just says, “Well, that’s how the game plays….”. To that I say, that’s NOT how it should play. Other games don’t have a delay when I shoot. It should be instant, because that’s what makes an action game visceral. Considering GW2 is big on movement & positioning, it doesn’t make sense how skills aren’t instant too. It just makes everything feel like there’s lag when there isn’t.

Josher.9612:

camoflaugz.5031:

Josher.9612:

The Charr were the most interesting of races, so I chose them. Didnt feel floaty. The camera is horrible near walls for jumping puzzles.

The biggest problem with the combat is the lack of instant attack spells. It makes things feel delayed. That 3/4 second to cast isq a real downer.

Totally agree with you on this.. I don’t like how alot of the abilities have this loading time to it. I think the game would be more fun if they removed all of the loading time on those abilities that have it. One example is the warriors number 5 ability with a rifle which is suppose to be a knockback move, I cant understand why something like that needs to load up? Fast instant moves make a game more fun in my opinion.. when you press the button the ability should deliver on the spot. Although Im used to the way things are I do recognize that it doesn’t feel as good as it should.

Its one of those things that is hard to get over coming from other games. WOW is big on interrupts, seeing an animation, clicking an instant spell to interrupt another one with a spell cast. GW2 is like this as well, but the whole system is always 1 step behind. By the time I react, due to cast times, I’m too late sometimes and it bugs me, because I shouldn’t be too late. I’m not too late in other games. Why here? EVERYTHING is delayed, except dodging. The animation happens quick even if you still get hit even though it appears that the mob whiffed.

Its one of those minor yet important things, love it or hate it, that makes WOW what it is, and is VERY difficult to adjust to in GW2. I don’t want to adjust. All these 3/4 cast times should be instant. Heals especially bug the frack out of me. I’m watching my health bar drop, I pop a heal and I’m waiting for the cast time and general lag to catch up, where I rarely if ever noticed any of this in WOW. Sure, you can’t compare…but I have to. It would be like playing an FPS and there being a delay every time you shoot and someone just says, “Well, that’s how the game plays….”. To that I say, that’s NOT how it should play. Other games don’t have a delay when I shoot. It should be instant, because that’s what makes an action game visceral. Considering GW2 is big on movement & positioning, it doesn’t make sense how skills aren’t instant too. It just makes everything feel like there’s lag when there isn’t.

Nicely said, thank you for posting!

the character weapon swing animations are also awkward for moving charactres. it looks like the body is detached from your body is you run while swininging a 1h sword, for example.

gwawer.9805:

the character weapon swing animations are also awkward for moving charactres. it looks like the body is detached from your body is you run while swininging a 1h sword, for example.

Ya. I pre-purchased the game, had a 3-day start, and still don’t have an 80. I gave up on my warrior because the animations were not very enjoyable. My Ele.‘s are a little better, but I can’t get over how small and flat everything feels in the game. I recently started playing DC Universe online, and the characters feel better (although the movement takes some time to get used to). The characters look bigger/solid (even when zoomed out) and the world looks very open and unrestricted.

I guess it’s a matter of option. I opened this thread to express my opnion on the art-style, but it doesn’t mean it’s “wrong”. What do you guys think?

juanitobgoode.1079:

gwawer.9805:

the character weapon swing animations are also awkward for moving charactres. it looks like the body is detached from your body is you run while swininging a 1h sword, for example.

Ya. I pre-purchased the game, had a 3-day start, and still don’t have an 80. I gave up on my warrior because the animations were not very enjoyable. My Ele.‘s are a little better, but I can’t get over how small and flat everything feels in the game. I recently started playing DC Universe online, and the characters feel better (although the movement takes some time to get used to). The characters look bigger/solid (even when zoomed out) and the world looks very open and unrestricted.

I guess it’s a matter of option. I opened this thread to express my opnion on the art-style, but it doesn’t mean it’s “wrong”. What do you guys think?

Juanito, I think to illustrate this to people who has a hard time understanding, you need to post 2 pictures. 1 picture of GW2 fully zoomed out and another picture of other MMO (DC Universe or whatever), fully zoomed out. A side-by side comparison is really needed here.

I totally understand what you’re talking about, but it helps if others see it.

Well no, it doesn’t bother me. In fact I’d say the art style is the game’s greatest strength. I’ve never seen a better visual mmo and that is all due to the art (which is different than graphics, don’t confuse the two).

I love the art style, with the exception of karka apparently being inspired by the movie Teeth and a fair amount of the Lost Shores landscape (especially the loading screen concept art) featuring forests of rainbow male anatomy, complete with bursts of steam.

Hycinthus.6483:

juanitobgoode.1079:

gwawer.9805:

the character weapon swing animations are also awkward for moving charactres. it looks like the body is detached from your body is you run while swininging a 1h sword, for example.

Ya. I pre-purchased the game, had a 3-day start, and still don’t have an 80. I gave up on my warrior because the animations were not very enjoyable. My Ele.‘s are a little better, but I can’t get over how small and flat everything feels in the game. I recently started playing DC Universe online, and the characters feel better (although the movement takes some time to get used to). The characters look bigger/solid (even when zoomed out) and the world looks very open and unrestricted.

I guess it’s a matter of option. I opened this thread to express my opnion on the art-style, but it doesn’t mean it’s “wrong”. What do you guys think?

Juanito, I think to illustrate this to people who has a hard time understanding, you need to post 2 pictures. 1 picture of GW2 fully zoomed out and another picture of other MMO (DC Universe or whatever), fully zoomed out. A side-by side comparison is really needed here.

I totally understand what you’re talking about, but it helps if others see it.

Thanks.