Guild Wars 2

First, I’d like to say that I do enjoy playing, but the time I have for it is that of a college student who has been weening off of video games for several years now. I will be raising issues that I personally feel are… stupid. I do not expect these things to removed, or even changed, I just want to start a civilized, intelligent discussion and see what other people think. I’m not here to troll, attention kitten, or kitten people off, so please don’t take it that way. I’m simply here to share ideas.

I will, and still do, continue to play GW2 whenever I get a free moment and feel up to it (which I admit is rare). I will try and touch on issues in both PvE and PvP, but I will admit a lot of my thoughts concern PvP, because this is really my preferred game type, and I was honestly expecting GW2 to have more e-sport/competitive play potential than what we have now, and that disappointed me. I am by no means a good player, and that is fine with me. I recognize it, I also don’t need you to remind me of it. I am probably the definition of a casual player, I play purely for fun, but I do try and be as good as I can be.

So take everything with a grain of salt, and please share your thoughts. This will be a large wall of text, but I warn you now, I will not be including some TL;DR thing at the bottom, because what I want to talk about cannot be reasonably discussed without being incredibly oversimplified, and I don’t want people responding purely off of a 3 word summary.

GW1 —> GW2

To start I’m going to make a few comparisons from GW1 to GW2, because while, yes, they are entirely different games, I think some broad ideas have been kept, or at least were attempted to.

What was important to being successful in GW1, PvE or PvP? Lots of things, I’m sure many people would say (particularly in regards to PvP). Simple things, like managing aggro, were easy to get ahold of. Constructing a decent build, finding a nice balance of skill point usage and the correct skills to take advantage of them, maybe a little more difficult, but still relatively simple. Learning class roles, easy. And most of those easy things, barring the bugged traits, etc., are easy to pick up on in GW2 as well.

But what about the more challenging aspects of the game? The things that really separated a good player from a great player. Game sense, positioning, energy management, target priorities… There were so many things in GW1 that you needed to be good, no, great at, if you wanted to be a top player. Some of these things will, and have, carried over into GW2. Some have not.

Positioning

I’m going to talk about positioning first, because it’s always the first thing that pops into my mind. Positioning in GW1 (PvP especially) was HUGE. The warriors stay in front, soak up a little damage, the midline sits back a bit, and the backline basically stays as far away from danger as possible while still being able to get their job done. Some people might see that as simple, but how many times have we all seen that warrior who got just a little too gung-ho run off into 4 more mobs and get the party wiped? A monk who was too far back to get to a frontliner in time for a heal?

Especially in GvG and the chaos of HoH, positioning was super important. And I must admit, at first, I thought it was in GW2 as well. But the more I played, the more I started to think otherwise. Sure, you can’t just go running off into 10 mobs and expect to live, but as far as the structure of the team, it’s just a mishmash of people roaming where they please. There is no monk that needs to stay out of danger, there is no tank that needs to hold the aggro (trinity stuff later). It’s all run in, press some buttons, maybe dodge once or twice, and that’s that. And that’s not just PvE. PvP positioning is slightly more important, but nowhere near what we had to do in GW1 in my experience. The conquest style game mode doesn’t help matters either. The “frontline,” which is a word I even don’t want to use here, is basically just whatever character happens to be standing in melee range, while a few other characters scattered around could maybe be considered “midline.” And there is no backline to speak of. Maybe this is what was intended in making GW2, with their whole “doing away with the fundamental MMO trinity blah blah blah,” I don’t know, but I personally dislike it. Combat positioning went from being a fundamental skill to an afterthought.

The 2nd Most Broken Idea Ever

This next point goes along the same lines as positioning – teleports. I’m not going to sugar coat it here, I despise teleports. I hated them in GW1, and I hate them now. They take away from game quality, and they take away from player skill cap. Not just in GW, but in any skill-based game. Teleports are broken, in my opinion, in any setting where a user can completely disregard any type of terrain or obstacle and just appear poof somewhere else. No travel time. No way to see it coming. What’s the point of trying to stand on high ground when someone can just click 2 and be standing right next to you, bashing away, with no warning or time for you to prepare at all? How does that benefit anybody in this game, at all, to actually become a better player? The user doesn’t need to try and find the best way to approach or try and sneak in unnoticed, and the defender has nothing to do but try and roll or pop a stunbreak, block, whatever, and hopefully doesn’t flub it. In the end, nobody becomes a better player. The attacker just hits his teleport, goes 1234 or whatever his chain is, the defender either survives and thanks god for his quick reflexes/inability of the opponent, or he dies, and has nothing to learn from, other than to pop that stunbreak faster next time, because you can’t even see it coming.

At least leaps have a travel time, and a reasonable expectation of being able to be dodged. I actually like leaps, they’re a great idea for gap closers that are useful to the attacker, but not something that should catch a skilled player completely by surprise.

And I’ve only talked about the offensive teleports so far. Defensive teleports are an even worse idea than offensive ones. In a bind? No prob, just use that handy dandy instant safety button! A warrior started pounding on you while you weren’t paying attention? Just hit that teleport, buy yourself a few precious seconds of space and time while the warrior tries to figure out where you’ll magically appear next. In GW1, a good prot monk could make a warrior want to cry, with early guardians, RoFs, and spirit bonds. Because they could watch where he was going. (And it created such an interesting and fun strategy too! What happened to faking a spike on one target while the rest of the team went for another?) And then assassins came along, and what do you know, one second he’s attacking someone over there, the next you got a Horns of the Ox or whatever it was called while he stacked bleed and DW and finished you off before you could even get up. Monk gets in trouble and getting pressured into the floor? Click nearest ally, hit Return, boom, a whole aggro bubble away and attacker is crippled. Magic. Same old story for this one I guess.

And now, THE most broken idea ever

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… stealth. Good idea for promotions, gimmicky ads, whatever. But what an awful kittening idea! Allowing a player to become completely invisible, with no way to detect them other than swinging your weapon around aimlessly and hoping to see some red numbers pop up… that is just plain stupid. Incredibly stupid.

This is the exact same issue as with positioning/teleports. In a game that is supposed to be based on player skill, you somehow let all the skill in the world get thrown out the window because some thief entered stealth? How is anyone supposed to defend themselves against something that is impossible to see? Maybe I’m missing some graphics setting or something that makes them ripple or something, and if so, please let me know yesterday. But come on, Anet. Halo’s cloak still shimmered, in SC2 the observer shimmers, in Super Smash Bros you can still find them without too much trouble. And not only is stealth used to attack, it is hands down the greatest defensive tool in the game. Vanish in a puff of smoke, run away and heal, time to go again! It’s a broken mechanic that has no place in GW2.

Energy!!!

Whatever happened to energy?? Energy was such a key factor in literally everything you did. Cast all those 10 energy spells now, but you’re going to have to sit around and wait for a minute before you can do anything else. Energy created one of the most important and difficult to master fundamentals of GW1. Great monks could manage their energy so so so well, and it was required.

Now what do we have? Now we have cooldowns. And… nothing else. I think part of the reason all of the cooldowns on the useful utilities are so high is because there’s nothing, like energy, to keep their actual cooldown even longer. Look at Bull’s Strike. What was quite possibly the best warrior utility on a warrior’s bar in GW1, is now usuable every 40 seconds (and as for the bugginess, forget it). 40 seconds. The cooldown in GW1 was 12ish, maybe 15, if i remember correctly? You couldn’t use it nonstop and spam it, if you wanted to do anything else, like frenzy, sprint, whatever, but the point was it was there if you needed it. But that’s the worst part. The longer cooldowns take away *players’ options. *

Now I pop Bull’s Charge, maybe get lucky with the KD, pop frenzy (oh, poor, poor frenzy), and WAIT! 20% OF MY SKILLBAR IS NOW COMPLETELY USELESS FOR LIKE 45 SECONDS!! Energy created longer artificial cooldowns, and it created an opportunity cost for using a skill when you did, on top of the cooldown. I think this is huge. Knowing when to hit the right skill was, and still is, everything. But now if you time it badly, no big deal, I got a couple others I can use whenever I please, for FREE! It used to be that if you timed that Word of Healing just a split second too late, and not only does your teammate die, but you just wasted 5 energy and 3/4ths of a second doing absolutely nothing but throwing away your most precious resource. Energy created a need not only to time everything impeccably, but to look ahead in the game, to see a situation where you would need it more. We lost that. Now we just have “kitten hurry up and recharge,” vs. “I could have saved that Guardian (the spell), he actually didn’t really need it, and I could have saved myself 5 energy now, and who knows how much in the long run.” Another aspect of the game (or lack thereof) that I think lowers the skill cap.

Balanced Play

This I think is what actually irks me the most about the state of GW2, PvP more than PvE, because let’s be honest, pretty much anything gets the job done in PvE. WHAT HAPPENED TO BALANCED PLAY?!? I see an entire PvP setting basically based off of one of 2 setups – glass cannon or bunker. And let’s be honest here, what else is really viable that is somewhat, remotely balanced? (Although I hear rangers are coming up in the meta.) I mean, there is an entire class built around the concept of killing kitten instantly. I’m not trying to hate on the thief, or suggest its removal, nerf, or anything like that, but I think that this issue is really important to the health of any game, especially one that wants to have a decent competitive scene (which maybe Arenanet doesn’t care about for GW2, who knows).

Basically there is no reason to even try to spec anything other than glass cannon or bunker as far as I can tell. The Starcraft analogy is choosing between a 6 pool or turtling like hell and going mech every game. Maybe it’s mostly because of lack of options, I don’t really know. But where is the skill Anet? Is it really healthy for a game to have a player’s two best choices be either A) kill someone as fast as possible, and then wait for your chain to recharge and hope no one targets you before you squish under the weight of your armor, or spec so defensive that you have almost no hope of killing anything unless you are just way better than them/they’re incompetent? I’m by no means good at this game, especially after my heavy-playing days over break are over, but I can still spec a bunker guardian and still run around on a point with 3 enemies near me, just literally spamming kitten on recharge until my health slowly drains out after a few minutes. And it doesn’t help that the conquest/domination style PvP mode actually promotes this awful gameplay.

Why do I feel like my only options are pure defense or pure offense? Why don’t more of the defensive traits coordinate with or contribute to offensive traits, and vice versa? That’s all it would take to have a hope of creating a balanced build, but as far as I’ve noticed (correct me if I’m wrong), with the exception of the ele (which I’m sure many will kitten about too), I’m forced into either all-out defensive or all-out offensive. Where’s the equivalent of the magebane shot ranger, possibly the most balanced build of all time (imo, also one of my favorites)?

On from Balance… to the Trinity!

I was really, really excited to hear about the ideas that were being developed for GW2. No tanks, no healers, everyone is self sufficient. Great idea in theory. Theory. In practice, maybe not so much.

The most obvious thing I can point out here is that the classic MMO trinity isn’t really gone. At all. Sure, a mesmer or necro or whatever can use a sword and get up in the face of mobs and survive without too much trouble, no problem. But how can you claim to eliminate the roles of support, tank, and healer, when you still have classes with different armor ratings? Different ranged combat abilities? Basically all that has been done is each role has been rendered less effective than ever.

Warriors and guardians, whose ranged potential is pretty seriously limited (especially guardians), are basically always going to be up front. I will repeat, will always be up front. What does this mean? They will probably be taking more damage. Which means they need more ability to mitigate, or heal, damage. Armor works, sure. Maybe a higher health pool (warrior) or some amazing defensive abilities (guardian). Maybe the AI will just wander to different people randomly instead of focusing on someone trying to “tank” (but then what’s the point of the higher armor and everything else?). But it’s not really enough. In GW1 a frontliner, and a lot of the team, could get away with not carrying a self heal, because of the monks. Now a frontliner almost has to spec defense if he doesn’t want to melt super fast. Although let’s be honest, none of the PvE content is really that hard anyways. Spec defense —> auto attack through stuff. Slowly.

But the trinity still exists. Frontliners need to be able to take more damage, to “tank,”
midliners still need to be able to help out their other teammates, offer support to make up for base/direct damage. And R.I.P. backline. But now, the frontliners aren’t that great at tanking, and the midline support seems kind of subpar to me. As long as some players are required to be closer to danger than others to be as effective, the good ole MMO trinity will exist. Or at least try to. GW2 had ambitions, and I’m sure many of us were looking forward to them, but at least in my eyes, it fell a little short in that regard. Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way, or am missing something here. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Bringing it all together

I look at GW2 as a game that had such huge potential to be a game that really had an incredibly high skill cap, and would really test the people that played it. I love the focus on the attack animations rather than staring at the cast bar waiting for an interrupt. I love it. It’s genius. If there is one thing that promotes player skill over anything else, it’s that feature right there. I think GW2 has some really promising things going for it, in terms of being an “easy to play, hard to master,” type deal, but I think they just botched the execution of it a bit. Some of the game’s fundamentals take away from what could make it a truly great game, at least in terms of a competitive scene. Maybe that will change in time. I hope so.

So if anyone actually read through all that, or at least a part of it, please feel free to share your thoughts and leave a response. Keep in mind these are simply my thoughts on the game, and what I think is holding it back, but I don’t claim to be any sort of expert. Keep it positive and constructive, god knows this forum has a bunch of crap running through it already.

TLDR: “Make GW2 into GW1/WoW clone with trinity, manabars and remove thieves because I haven’t figured out how to counter them”

No to all, thank you.

Man that was a lot of vitriol on teleports and stealth. I mean no offense, but it sounds a whole lot like you are equating being unable to counter those mechanics personally with them being “broken.” Just as an FYI, causing burning will reveal a stealthed player’s location to you.

I also contend that you’re flatly wrong about the Trinity still existing in Guild Wars 2 to any extent. The truth is that if a team attempts to adhere to the principles of the trinity you are describing the entire team will suffer for it. Essentially you’re locking yourself into a concept which the game no longer rewards, and then lamenting how little you’re rewarded for it. The fact that you say “it’s still there, but the effectiveness of each role has been lessened” illustrates this misunderstanding. There is no front-line, there is no mid-line, there is no back-line. Everyone should be constantly moving and positioning. Everyone should be keeping themselves alive. Everyone should be helping other players, everyone should be doing damage. On top of this diffusion of responsibility, you can also specialize in one area (Damage, Support, Control) or balance your character between the three.

It seems like you should try completing a few instances with some unusual teams, like 2 necro, 2 engineers and a thief, or a guardian, two mesmers, an elementalist and a ranger. Hell, the most common run in the game right now favors a team composed of two classes (4 warriors, 1 mes), how can that represent a trinity? All of the above are completely viable. There’s a lot more synergy between classes than you may realize.

Teleports and stealth are broken, very little counters = Broken, unbalanced game play.

I agree with Eagle.3574. Excellent three posts by OP. Really worth reading & thinking. I think Red Falcon.8257’s reply was rude and not constructive at all.

The thing is: the moment you say something bad about thieves, mesmers, elementalists, stealth or teleportation, people who abuse them get defensive and all logic is thrown out of the window. End of sensible conversation.

GW2 shares the mythology with GW1, but game-play wise it is very different from GW1. I feel that GW2 is more FPS style than most MMORPGs.

No doubt GW1 had much deeper game-play, especially pvp. From pvp point of view GW2 is like GW1 for dummies and people in a hurry.

I teach game design and programming at university. One of the principles of good game design is that every important game mechanism should have a counter. Now both stealth and teleportation lack hard counters. There is no way see stealthed people (aka “see invisibility”) nor to deny it (“invisibility purge”) and same for teleportation. There is no skill, game item or anything e.g. to prevent teleportation in some area or prevent an enemy player of using teleportation skill (skill like thief’s shadwstep are instant cast and stunbreak, so even a stun won’t stop the thief from using it). Some people argue that chilling, knockdown, AoE dmg, channeled skills etc. are counters to stealth and teleportation, but they are not. They are general game mechanisms to hinder any opponent.

Gone are the days of GW1 where mesmers and necros could shutdown enemy with their hexes like diversion, backfire, empathy, insidious parasite. And ranger was ruling the open fields with many interrupts. Instead of 100+ different hexes (for players to recognize and learn), we have just conditions, which can be removed easily. The interruption meta game is also almost fully gone. Since there is no energy, there is of course no energy denial, which was very important in GW1. Knockdowns were also more frequent in GW1.

GW2 introduced some new good mechanisms though e.g. dodging. But you can only dodge once in a while even with vigor. Continued in the next post:

Deniara Devious.3948:

I agree with Eagle.3574. Excellent three posts by OP. Really worth reading & thinking. I think Red Falcon.8257’s reply was rude and not constructive at all.

The thing is: the moment you say something bad about thieves, mesmers, elementalists, stealth or teleportation, people who abuse them get defensive and all logic is thrown out of the window. End of sensible conversation.

GW2 shares the mythology with GW1, but game-play wise it is very different from GW1. I feel that GW2 is more FPS style than most MMORPGs.

No doubt GW1 had much deeper game-play, especially pvp. From pvp point of view GW2 is like GW1 for dummies and people in a hurry.

I teach game design and programming at university. One of the principles of good game design is that every important game mechanism should have a counter. Now both stealth and teleportation lack hard counters. There is no way see stealthed people (aka “see invisibility”) nor to deny it (“invisibility purge”) and same for teleportation. There is no skill, game item or anything e.g. to prevent teleportation in some area or prevent an enemy player of using teleportation skill (skill like thief’s shadwstep are instant cast and stunbreak, so even a stun won’t stop the thief from using it). Some people argue that chilling, knockdown, AoE dmg, channeled skills etc. are counters to stealth and teleportation, but they are not. They are general game mechanisms to hinder any opponent.

Gone are the days of GW1 where mesmers and necros could shutdown enemy with their hexes like diversion, backfire, empathy, insidious parasite. And ranger was ruling the open fields with many interrupts. Instead of 100+ different hexes (for players to recognize and learn), we have just conditions, which can be removed easily. The interruption meta game is also almost fully gone. Since there is no energy, there is of course no energy denial, which was very important in GW1. Knockdowns were also more frequent in GW1.

GW2 introduced some new good mechanisms though e.g. dodging. But you can only dodge once in a while even with vigor. Continued in the next post:

Along with the OP, this is a very good, well-thought out post.

The “TL:DR” snarky posts need to go away.

Instead of just complaining we can try to suggest changes to the problems. Asking Anet to completely change the game mechanisms e.g. add energy, make XXX weapon, won’t be happening, but I think the following changes could be feasible / rather easy to implement and would make the game better. One the key principle in my suggestions to make the game more accessible. A highly successful game needs a large player base, thus it should be accessible also for casual players and new comers. Another principle would be allow more variety in tactics and strategy to cater the needs of hard core players:

1. Balance the professions and skills
- analyze what professions are most widely played (based on hours spent / spvp matches played) and which skills are most widely used. The most widely used professions, weapons and skill are most likely ones to be overpowered, thus some of them might need some minor nerfing e.g. reduce damage, increase cooldown, minor tweaks. The least played professions, least used weapon combinations and skills are probably most underpowered and thus might need some minor buff e.g. reduce cooldown, increase damage.

2. Fix broken traits and skills
- A lot of traits are simply broken (not working at all), especially the engineer traits. These have been reported many months ago and still no fixes. Make them work according to the trait description or at least adjust the description to match the current state
- balance the skills and traits e.g. minor traits from different trees and professions should have roughly same power. Now in worst case a grandmaster trait of one profession (adrenal implant) is exactly same as the minor 5 point trait of another profession (natural vigor). Each profession has max 70 trait points. It is not balanced design if one profession can get exactly same effect with 5 points vs 30.

3. Fix Stealth
- several ideas to choose from:
- give each profession either a trait and/or skill to see stealthed opponents. E.g. engineer’s utility goggles would be logical skill for this and ranger’s spotter major trait could be reworked to see stealthed opponents
- any damage over time (burning, bleeding poison) should make a stealthed player visible
- any AoE damage should make remove stealth (if you stand in a cloud, you won’t be invisible)
- introduce at least 3 second delay, before a person can enter stealth again
- make stealthed character semi-transparent, just like a person who has consumed omnomberry ghost. You can see him, but you you still cannot target him with 1-target skills
- not to make the huge thief population completely angry give them more useful utility skills besides shadow refuge, signet of shadows and shadowstep

4. Fix teleportation
- give each profession skill or trait to prevent / deny teleportation e.g. teleportation doesn’t function within certain radius or pointed enemy player cannot temporarily use teleportation skills. Most players would still opt not to carry such skill or trait.
- introduce a 1 second delay of no actions right after teleportation
- remove it from WvWvW (why to have castle walls if you can teleport into enemy keep)

(continued in next post)

(continued from above post)

5. Better rewards
- players should be rewarded better, this is extremely important for motivation
- give players more titles, which they can show e.g. a visible title after completing personal story “Savior of Tyria” or something like that. Players like the brag about their accomplishments
- current treasure drops are not logical at all. Implement more different treasure drop tables per each opponent type
- legendary precursors should be dropped once per encounter after an epic battle against a really really difficult champion boss (he should be much harder than Lupicus). Thus one player contributing to the defeat of such epic boss gets a precursor
- currently using a level 80 exotic geared character gets better drop by killing the mobs
in level 1-15 area than defeating a level 80/80+ veteran or champion fully alone!! If you kill a champion level 80/80+ boss alone without any other human player help you should get much better rewards. Now it simply is not worth the trouble. Blue or even green level 80 items are worthless for most level 80 players.
- spvp / tpvp should give rewards which benefit pve as well e.g. Black Lion Keys
- WvWvW rewards are way too low, compared to e.g. doing dungeons

6. Fix WvWvW
- This is the true crown jewel of GW2. Give it the love it needs! Right now, not tomorrow.
- Revert to original culling, until you find a better solution. The new “improved” culling is killing the game
- Remove Jumping puzzle from WvWvW. Make it a separate map. JP should NOT give any badges of honor, but blueprints are okay.
- Remove WvWvW from world completion.
- outmanned should give thougness and health boost for the outmanned side NPCs, structures and players
- Remove AoE 5 limit cap from skills which target enemies (but keep it for those skills which buff/heal team mates) to give more viable strategies against
- Introduce mechanisms to reduce the effectiveness of zerg ball (current meta) e.g. if there is >N own team players nearby then your effective attacking power is reduced by X % or you get a % chance to be dazed
- remove consumables from WvWvW (at least the totally broken consumables like skale venom, gears etc)
- automatic looting in WvWvW e.g. after each kill the badge of honor is instantly transferred to you just like Laurels
- tiers changed per 24 hours instead of 1 week
- winner moves up and the last in tier moves one spot down to avoid fighting same opponents week after week

7. Reduce the excessive burst damage
- This had lead to the current boring glass cannon vs bunker meta, we need more balanced builds for variety. This is also yet another casual gamer unfriendly game mechanism
- The excessive burst, especially in WvWvW (consumables, ascended gear) can lead to incredibly fast deaths even when the player has over 2500 armor and high health.
- No single fast attack should do more than 3k damage, no single slow attack should do more than 6k damage (slow attacks are more easy to be dodged, avoided and countered)
- The overall damage (amount damage over longer time) is okay, keep it as it is (please don’t get me wrong, I am NOT asking for a general damage nerf)

8. Introduce spectator mode
- For both pvp, dungeons and WvWvW. You could learn a lot by watching how top players play in WvWvW, pvp and dungeons!

I probably forgot a lot of good things. I am sure that after these changes some people would complain and adjust, but most people would be much more happy. We would have a growing, happier vivid player base. More for casual gamers, more for experienced hard core gamers.

Deniara Devious.3948:

6. Fix WvWvW
- This is the true crown jewel of GW2. Give it the love it needs! Right now, not tomorrow.

If this reflect a majority opinion of the game community, and i suspect it does, than it is the perfect example of the disconnect between ANet and said community (tho ANet may be slowly waking up to the fact).

Best i can tell from around launch time ANet’s balance priority was this:

1. SPVP
2. PVE
3. WVW

But SPVP seems to be a virtual graveyard with a dedicated few hanging on, while the masses are in WVW and hoping to find what ANet meant SPVP to be.

Red Falcon.8257:

TLDR: “Make GW2 into GW1/WoW clone with trinity, manabars and remove thieves because I haven’t figured out how to counter them”

No to all, thank you.

yup, I agree. I play GW2 because it is different.

digiowl.9620:

Deniara Devious.3948:

6. Fix WvWvW
- This is the true crown jewel of GW2. Give it the love it needs! Right now, not tomorrow.

If this reflect a majority opinion of the game community, and i suspect it does, than it is the perfect example of the disconnect between ANet and said community (tho ANet may be slowly waking up to the fact).

That doesn’t reflect my opinion. At all. Not even close. They could completely remove WvW and I’d be perfectly fine.

I don’t see WvW as the “jewel” of GW2. So from this players point of view, this does not reflect my opinion and you suspect wrong.

The only issue I see (besides culling of course) is that mesmers can’t use shortbows.

I completely agree with the OP. Could not have said it better, and tbh not nearly as good either so gg for making these posts, and a +1 from me

I hated teleports and stealth from the first day of sPvP that I played, and always found it bad that energy was removed. All it does is needlessly simplify the game.

And Deniara has some really nice ideas, especially about counter mechanics and points 6 and 7. I’ve been annoyed by the excessive burst since day 1. Yes we have dodging now, but that doesn’t mean the burst damage needs to be raised to make up for it. After all we don’t have heal/protect classes in GW2. On counter play: even RuneScape back in 2004 (that’s when I played) had already understood the concept of counter, and gave players an ability called “tele block”. It’s so simple, yet so effective and I think it would improve PvP quality if something like it was introduced here.

Red Falcon.8257:

TLDR: “Make GW2 into GW1/WoW clone with trinity, manabars and remove thieves because I haven’t figured out how to counter them”

No to all, thank you.

Forums are for discussion, so rather than jumping in and just saying “no” you could actually try to contribute.

I like the suggestion of spectator mode. That would really be nice. Also, get rid of invulnerability. Allow players to shoot across gaps or from different levels. Invulnerability sucks and removes the other point of tactical positioning.

OP, a very thoughtful contribution on issues with GW2. I’m less concerned around teleports and stealth. I believe these are always potentially problematic as good counterplay is the goal—but I don’t see them as a major issue in the game as it is. I enjoyed your insights around combat roles and positioning.

I agree 100% to Deniara Devious number 6 points on WvW. Every
single point except for the idea on anti zerg balls. If you remove
the AOE cap, that would solve that issue.

There is no reasoning behind AOE cap. If 30 people want to stack
on each other, than they should be punished by AOE. Any player
with any type of skill will not stand in AOE to begin with.

You know, that’s just way to much useless text to wade through, just to hear “I don’t like this”. So in the interests of brevity, I won’t tax anyone’s resolve:

Invisibility is fine. Learn to counter.
Teleporting is fine. Don’t be complacent.
Positioning is mostly fine. Pay attention.
There is no trinity. My clothie has tanked. Try that in WoW.

Red Falcon is right. The OP wants some sort of frankensteinian amalgam of GW1 and WoW. No thanks.

Veldan.4637:

Red Falcon.8257:

TLDR: “Make GW2 into GW1/WoW clone with trinity, manabars and remove thieves because I haven’t figured out how to counter them”

No to all, thank you.

Forums are for discussion, so rather than jumping in and just saying “no” you could actually try to contribute.

He doesn’t want GW2 to become a GW1/WOW clone…..That sound like a contribution to me. And for the record I fully agree with him.

I agree with OP completely. GW1 was a much more challenging and rewarding game. There were so many elements of gameplay in GW1, combined with its story and graphics/looks, it was just stunning and amazing to spend your time on.
GW2 lacks in many areas, as OP described and to be honest, I don’t think GW2 will ever appeal to players who long for a successor to GW1’s gameplay.
I appreciate the gesture of trying to innovate the aspects of a MMO, but it is not done well in GW2 regarding the things OP described and comparing it to GW1 and many of the GW1 veterans and champions will agree with that.

For those who are under the impression that I want to change things back to GW1/WoW have completely missed the point of this thread, and I direct you to the very first paragraph.

I made several assumptions that led to my thoughts here.

1) GW2 is intended to be a high skill cap game. This means that player skill should decide who wins, and who loses. Why do I assume this? Anet has done a great job at implementing things that contribute to this goal in a very positive manner. Dodging and the focus on animation instead of cast bars are perfect examples of this. But some of these fundamental mechanics actually lower the skill cap.

2) Running off of #1, GW2 had a goal of being a competitive PvP and e-sport giant. A SC2, LoL, etc. Most popular e-sport games achieve this, and their popularity, from the high skill caps. There’s a reason games like SC2 bring in tons of money, while Wii sports does not.

I think that the issues that I have brought up here are detrimental, or are even contradictory, to these goals.

Hawkian.6580:

I mean no offense, but it sounds a whole lot like you are equating being unable to counter those mechanics personally with them being “broken.” Just as an FYI, causing burning will reveal a stealthed player’s location to you.

I also contend that you’re flatly wrong about the Trinity still existing in Guild Wars 2 to any extent. The truth is that if a team attempts to adhere to the principles of the trinity you are describing the entire team will suffer for it. Essentially you’re locking yourself into a concept which the game no longer rewards, and then lamenting how little you’re rewarded for it. The fact that you say “it’s still there, but the effectiveness of each role has been lessened” illustrates this misunderstanding. There is no front-line, there is no mid-line, there is no back-line. Everyone should be constantly moving and positioning. Everyone should be keeping themselves alive. Everyone should be helping other players, everyone should be doing damage. On top of this diffusion of responsibility, you can also specialize in one area (Damage, Support, Control) or balance your character between the three.

I didn’t know the burning bit, that is useful. And I think some people may be misunderstanding the point. It’s not a problem of whether or not I, or any player, can counter these things or not (thieves don’t really cause me too much trouble), it’s about the fact that there is no counter to these mechanics. How is a mechanic with no counter, at all, NOT broken? Why bother to fight for superior terrain when it can be nullified by the click of a button? Why learn to pick and choose your fights when you can instantly be invisible or just teleport far away to safety? What is the point of movement control and CC skills, which are a huge point of the game, if you can teleport right through them? How is that not a broken mechanic? These things lower skill cap. The required skills to be successful have went from things such as reactions, energy management, positioning, etc., to just reactions. We lost some of the hardest things to learn (and the most important to master), all of which separated good players from bad ones.

And as for the trinity, I may have not made my thoughts quite clear. I’m not saying that there is a definite one, not at all. There are no healers to even make up a trinity. What we have is a mishmash of players filling roles that were made to be phased out (tank, support, healer), but by the very essence of the game, are fundamentally in place. A player using melee IS in the frontline, I don’t see any other way to put it. Ranged/squishier players will be further back, if they’re smart, trying to deal damage at range while avoiding as much as possible. Midline. The developers even acknowledge that the frontline/melee need to be able to absorb more damage (read, “tank”), by giving them higher armor ratings and inherent defensive abilities.

And think about it another way – a melee character is required to be next to the enemy to do damage. If it is a melee opponent, he needs to be able to take the damage from it without dying too quickly. If it is a ranged enemy, he will be taking damage from the ranged opponent before he can even land a blow. The squishier characters need to stay out of harm’s way, and lo and behold, we have a “trinity.” Trinity may be the wrong word, because what GW2 has created is more of a two-sided thing. A heavy armor class that needs to be able to soak up damage, and shouldn’t be a tank… but is expected to survive without a lot of options to really do so. I think it contradicts itself.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed thoughtful posts, it’s fun to read through and see other people’s ideas.

Eagle.3574:

Positioning

Still exists in this game, it’s simply much, much more active and shorter duration. Any target you select or has selected you has collision detection. Several melee abilities have a pushback element. Most control abilites have just as large an effect in GW2 PvP as positioning did in GW1, except the faster combat and shorter duration of these abilities mean that they take more effort to use.

Quite frankly though, the people that CAN use the above elements effectively are like gods compared to the people that can’t.

Eagle.3574:

The 2nd Most Broken Idea Ever

This next point goes along the same lines as positioning – teleports.

They have cooldowns and are limited in number. Sounds like you need to learn the other class’ abilities in order to understand how to counter this.

Eagle.3574:

And now, THE most broken idea ever

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… stealth.

Compared to stealth in other games, stealth in this game is underpowered. It’s the culling bug that is the issue here. Without culling, stealth is extremely easy to counter:

-Aoe abilities (especially aoe blinds or CC) damages or neutralizes the stealthier.
-Channeled abilities continue to hit your target in stealth. Combine this with autofacing while standing still, and you literally know where the stealther is at all times.
-Burning continues to animate on the invisible character, giving them away.
-Most stealths are capped at 3 seconds (4 seconds traited), meaning that moving around, counting to 3, and dodging is enough to counter bad to moderate players. GOOD players present more of a challenge, but can still be countered.

Stealth isn’t overpowered, it’s broken right now. When the culling bug is finally fixed, it will become apparent how balanced stealth actually is.

Eagle.3574:

Energy!!!

Instead we have… cooldowns. Another aspect of the game (or lack thereof) that I think lowers the skill cap.

Eh, it’s a different skillset. It’s not just about timing your cooldowns, but your opponent’s. That separates the good players from the great.

Eagle.3574:

Balanced Play

This I agree with. Crit damage % is OP in PvE, pushing aside all strats that don’t involve max damage. PvP is in a wierd state right now because glassy burst and bunkers are making each other more degenerate due to how they interact. Glass builds destroy everything but die pretty quickly to bunkers, and balanced builds can’t really kill bunkers before their heals come off cooldown.

Eagle.3574:

On from Balance… to the Trinity!

…Sort of. Remember this from GW1?

It still works in GW2, just slightly differently. Here’s the basics of aggro in GW2:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

For a neutral (yellow outlined) NPC the player must attack first to gain its attention. The aggro table of a hostile NPC changes dynamically depending on a number of factors, in order of importance [citation needed] :

-closest target to them
-who is dealing damage
-top damage dealers
-who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor
-special mob abilities
-others (see Tanking tactics below)

The easiest way to tank in this game is this:
1. Have a ranged aoe class (preferably built squishy) pull the group, and then line of sight in order to get them t ball up (if the class pulls with an aoe blind or slow, even better).
2.Melee classes jump/walk in and bodyblock/pushback/knockdown/pull, or just do a lot of damage.

Due to how the aggro table works, around half the mobs will turn their attention on the melee, the other half will continue trying to get to the ranged character.

3. Ranged character kites the remaining aggro, or just dodges through the melee.

Everyone takes minimal damage, all the melee and ranged mobs get balled up for maximum use of aoes. There’s more nuance to it than that depending on the encounter, but those are the basics.

…the problem is, that the above is not NEEDED for most content. As I said before, crit damage % is OP. That, and most content is simply too easy. The game needs a bit of tweaking before max dps zergs stop being the optimal strat. The roots are there though…

I can appreciate how much concern must have gone into your post, and I agree with you on some issues. There’s certain changes that I feel need to be made, which I’ve stated above. That being said, I believe that quite a few of your concerns are simply due to a lack of understanding of game mechanics and what abilities your opponents have at their disposal. While the game is certainly far from perfect, I hope you can eventually learn to enjoy this game as much as I do.

Happy gaming.

I stopped reading when you started talking about teleports. You don’t seem to understand how most of them work. Portal is anything but instant and it’s the only one that is in line with your view.

It’s a well-constructed post, even if I don’t fully agree with the conclusions which were drawn. Thanks, OP, it has left me with a bit to think on.

To those that are saying gw1 was like WoW uh no. Gw1 was Gw1.

Back on topic, people on the forums know me for complaining about the #1 thing grind, grind, grind. You didn’t? comment on that and made attemps at the energy system etc. Clearly if you don’t even like what the manifesto said this game would be then this is not a game for you. If you were complaining about the manifesto being broken by ascended gear I’d back you up 100% but since your not I can’t and won’t.

Revolution.6301:

To those that are saying gw1 was like WoW uh no. Gw1 was Gw1.

Back on topic, people on the forums know me for complaining about the #1 thing grind, grind, grind. You didn’t? comment on that and made attemps at the energy system etc. Clearly if you don’t even like what the manifesto said this game would be then this is not a game for you. If you were complaining about the manifesto being broken by ascended gear I’d back you up 100% but since your not I can’t and won’t.

Yes, yes, but we “all know” the Manifesto isn’t in effect and “doesn’t describe the actual game”, so if he wants to ignore or otherwise not bring the Manifesto into it, how is that a loss?

Red Falcon.8257:

TLDR: “Make GW2 into GW1/WoW clone with trinity, manabars and remove thieves because I haven’t figured out how to counter them”

No to all, thank you.

So to you the game is perfect? Because the aforementioned 2 games are as near to perfect as you can get in an mmo.

Revolution.6301:

To those that are saying gw1 was like WoW uh no. Gw1 was Gw1.

I guess reading comprehension is not your strong suit huh? Let me quote the sentence that explain why some player don’t agree with the original poster….

Blacklight.2871:

Red Falcon is right. The OP wants some sort of frankensteinian amalgam of GW1 and WoW. No thanks.

Guild Wars 2 is not perfect , but we like the way the game is designed and we don’t want it to become a bad hybrid of other MMOs on the market.

@ChipSet and I guess overreacting and being overly dramatic it yours? (which would be worse) <_<

Chill.

Eagle – Come visit Scotland so we can make you King or President, or God even!

Sorry, OP but the way you phrase things invite vitriol. The second most broken thing, the first most broken thing. People who don’t mind these things or like them, don’t perceive them as broken. I don’t think teleportation is broken. I don’t think that stealth is broken. I think that these are things that make PvP challenging/interesting, because you have to think outside your normal box. By calling them broken, you’re immediately invalidated the opinion of every person who doesn’t.

In phrasing things this way you make a situation combative. You could have said you don’t like it. You could have said something other than this is the most broken thing and you might experience a more even discussion.

But don’t say you want an even discussion and then descend into opiniated hyperbole. Because what you said is not reasonably phrased.

Eagle-3574.
You forgot this one:
Character Progression
Many ppl are complaining that GW2 have no end game and they have nothing to do after lvl 80 (for those who are fine with thier gear and don’t want to chase legendaries).
We need Character Progression and NOT the Vertical one more like the one we had in GW1 after lvl 20 and getting max gear. you have so many things to do that will improve your character.
In GW2 after lvl 80 my character has nothing to do to improve.

I think the fundamental issues with GW2 is that ppl played GW1 when they where a kid and looking back they get the “good old days” complex. Its not that GW1 was better it just that you where a kid at the time and less over all jaded by other games. Well that how i see the idea of looking back to what seems to be better times.

So now we have a gaming community that HATE every new game that comes out because they are unable to get that feeling when they where a kid playing games.

This and that most ppl played GW1 a year + into its life so there was a lot to do GW2 is still a very new game for an mmorpg. Its out right shocking how much content there is in this game with in just the short time its been out.

I was 31 years old when first started playing GW1.
I see the potential in GW2 to be a great game like GW1 and far better . but by saying nothing is wrong with it that day will never come

Assyrian.4827:

I was 31 years old when first started playing GW1.
I see the potential in GW2 to be a great game like GW1 and far better . but by saying nothing is wrong with it that day will never come

True but the lack of back up to what ppl are saying is a bit questionable. I can name a few things i would love to see but i am not making a new thread about it every day (i do not think the op is doing this too just look at these forms purely off what construct criticism vs just saying things are wrong).

You have ppl saying that things are too hard, too easy, too full, too lacking too much content to little content etc.. there just no aim in saying what is wrong. It comes down to ppl are mad at something but no one knows why or what even the ones that are mad do not seem to know.

(i am more talking about the gaming community but in relationship to this game)

positioning is still just as important in gw1 as in gw2, if not more important. squishy characters still have to keep range, and tankier characters still have to try to stay up front. The difference is now EVERYONE has to watch their positioning, not just the backline. And without red dots on the radar, this is even more difficult now. This coming from someone who played monk everywhere in gw1 from high-end pve to high-end gvg

I’m not sure why the forums isn’t let me quote, so I’m going to try to make my response clear as possible.

@Eagle.3574
I can see you spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I can definitely understand. However, I want to present you my view of why I strongly like many of the “fundamental issues” and think they’re a great game design feature. Although you may not agree, what I’m saying is just my personal opinion, with a high amount of rationalization in an attempt to let you see why I enjoy it.

About Positionioning:

Although we do not have the trinity system in GW2, we still have quite a lot of positioning. It might not be easily seen or noticeable because a lot of our past game experience comes from a trinity system. We expect there to be the usual formation of tank in front, DPS behind tank, and healers behind them. This no longer applies to GW2 so people don’t know how to approach it at first. I actually find GW2’s usage of positioning much more interesting and diverse than the more well-knowned formations trinity combat systems used. In fact, you can see a really good example positioning in the fractals dungeon where the blue giant is held. In one spot, you have to split your team in half to prevent the seals holding the giant from being healed. 2 people on each side, one person who runs back and forth between the two groups with the hammer to smash the gong, but there’s a catch. You have to alternate the runner each time or he’ll die from holding the hammer too long. I think this is great because it shows that fights do need a high amount of coordination and positioning, and everyone is able to play a part in it. Unlike the trinity system where your character gets pushed into one position, many of GW2’s dungeon fights encourage group cooperation and role swapping.

Now, combat positioning is still a major thing in fights. However, your average player is not going to be able to comprehend it. GW2’s system actually reminds me more of FPS games where everyone’s role is quite similar, which is to shoot a gun. Teamwork and player positioning, and setting the right type of shooter is a huge part in FPS games. This is where GW2 really reminds me of. The fights can turn into mindless bodies going against other bodies, but it can also be a coordinated strike/attack. If you’ve been in WvW with smaller guilds with high amounts of teamwork and communication, you’ll be able to see some very amazing positioning and planning.

There are really complex battle formations and strike plans in FPS games, or any game where players have relatively similar roles. If you want a game for reference, take a look at Counter Strike, Call of Duty, or even Halo. Most of these game’s fight mechanics fall down to “shooting”, but the simplification of the combat roles allows strategy and battle planning to a great extent. In the Trinity system, it’s harder with any good positioning. The general rule in trinity is that you stick Tank, DPS, healer together for the best sort of team. You don’t exactly have your “sacrifice” group or even flanking groups. Nor can easily have a group go directly in to draw attacks while another comes up behind to hit them. That’s because in the trinity system, your healer keeps things alive. Some of the battle basically falls down to who takes out who’s healer first or who has the best healer and tank and DPS.

To be continued…

Now, about teleports:

Teleports is fine in my opinion. I see it as a game mechanic, as a tool for players to use to put themselves in a better position or give a surprise. Countering it requires fast reflexes and also battle experience. Also, teleports can play a great role in pre-positioning and setting up traps, or simply to turn the tides of a battle. What I really find teleports are good for is showing and allowing a player to have more intelligent fights instead of “I’m going to sit here and take the damage. My hardwork I did for my gear will pay off”. That’s where teleports really shine. If a smart player uses it, he/she can turn the tide of a skirmish against a more well geared player. It’s an element of surprise and that’s something I find really nice. Sure, the player who’s more well geared and shinier will be angry for losing to such a seemingly “dishonorable” way of fighting when compared to “Fight like a man!” – where one would stand there and take the hits, despite it not being wise to do so. But, fights that require real strategy are always about turning the table in your favor. It’s not some honorable duel. It’s a fight to the death pitting your skills, brains, and everything you have against the opponent. That’s why I see teleports are fine. It adds more depth to battles, and more “tricks” to turn the table.

Now about stealth:

I dislike stealth where you could stay forever invisible like the rogue’s in WoW, but those have their own balances that checks it out okay. In GW2, stealth is kept to a minimal, and it’s inter-woven in combat, which I find really interesting and fun to play against/with. Like any “deception” type skills, it’s a skill that can be used very well to gain an upper hand if done “smartly”. It gives brains more of a chance against skills, in other words, and I find that fine because I see fights as something where you’re throwing everything on the table: brains, skills, and whatever else. Your best defense against such “low-handed” abilities would be to fight fire with fire. Use your wit against the enemy. Out-smart them. This type of combat, is something I really enjoy. Especially when I face thieves or mesmers in WvW, it’s a challenge on my wit and brains, and just as I enjoy fights that are done purely on skills, a battle done purely on wits is also fun. It’s usually a mix though, so I tend to prepare my character with a mixture of abilities that fit different situations. I might not pull out as much “DPS” or take as much hits as some others who focus on a single aspect, but I can sure fight my battles and survive most situations through just skills and smart thinking.

To be continued…

About energy:

It’s a game mechanic quite similar to initiative in GW2. It’s not really needed in GW2 since combat is designed differently. It’s neither bad nor good to include them. It’s just a game mechanic. (If I recall, Energy is the same as Mana in most other games). Without energy, battle is structured differently, and spell management is different. It’s not necessarily bad though. It’s just different. I could argue that having cooldowns makes a player pace themselves or use a spell more carefully too, so it simply shows neither are “good” or “bad”. It just falls down to taste and style.

About Balanced Play:

GW1 never had balanced play when it came out. It took many tries and iterations to get it close to right (though I’m pretty sure there are a few OP builds left in GW1 too). Balanced play is something all games have worry about because it’s incredibly hard to balance a game with so many variables. It’s an on-going process, and the GW2 team does make changes to balance the game. Not everyone would be satisfied due to the huge gaps in player skills, and various things such as certain things not getting attention. In general, balance in games is really complicated.

As far as PvP builds go, you can generalize it to glass cannon or bunker… Maybe even a “I’m somewhere between a glass cannon and bunker”. Now this is something I find really intersting. You said where the skill is? Isn’t the skill now more in your actual combat than your build? GW2’s combat builds ultimately lets you show your skills more in the actual combat than in builds. This again is something quite similar to FPS combat. GW2’s combat system has a pretty high skill cap though, but at the same time, it also has a pretty low starting skill requirement. Most players ingame fall under the middle of the cap though. There’s definitely a high skill cap though, it’s just not as easy to reach compared to GW1. Actually… the more I think about it, the more I see GW2’s skill cap being similar to how FPS games have their skill caps handled. You have an easy system for players of low skill to play, but highly skilled players can be extremely deadly too.

These are just my thoughts though. I hope you find them positively constructive!

Vayne.8563:

Sorry, OP but the way you phrase things invite vitriol. The second most broken thing, the first most broken thing. People who don’t mind these things or like them, don’t perceive them as broken. I don’t think teleportation is broken. I don’t think that stealth is broken. I think that these are things that make PvP challenging/interesting, because you have to think outside your normal box. By calling them broken, you’re immediately invalidated the opinion of every person who doesn’t.

In phrasing things this way you make a situation combative. You could have said you don’t like it. You could have said something other than this is the most broken thing and you might experience a more even discussion.

But don’t say you want an even discussion and then descend into opiniated hyperbole. Because what you said is not reasonably phrased.

I am perfectly understanding that you like these mechanics, but to be honest, your post does not contribute anything to this thread. You have only stated that you like them. No response to my ideas, no ideas of your own. Only “I like this, and it pisses people off that like this when you say it is broken.” That is not helpful. And I am sorry again if I am coming off as condescending or rude, or whatever, but I am looking for more than “I like this.” “I like this” does not contribute to anything. We need real discussion, we need a response to my points, as some posters have made, and I enjoy that, and look forward to it.

Again, I’m sorry if you disapprove of my choice of words, but just because someone likes something doesn’t mean it is or isn’t broken. The same argument could be applied to your response. Proclaiming stealth “not broken” alienates everyone who thinks it is. Do you see where I’m going with this? People like things, people dislike things. I have no problem with someone coming in here and disagreeing with me, I just want to hear their thoughts thoughtfully and reasonably. Be aggressive if you want, that doesn’t bother me. Attack my ideas, but do so in a calm, structured, and logical manner. But coming here and saying “This is good, this is bad,” is not constructive at all. We, and GW2, need discussion, reasonable ideas. I like to think my ideas are reasonable, I’m sure many will think they are not. And that’s fine. But for now my opinion on these issues, especially the teleportation and stealth, still stands.

I like to think I’m an open minded person, but I have thought long and hard about these topics for quite a while, if my original post didn’t give that much away. I am open to listening to people, and I would like to have a discussion about it. That is why I made this thread. To share my own ideas, and listen to others’. But so far, a fair amount of what I have seen is people telling me that teleportation and stealth are a basically a “L2P issue,” which it certainly is not, and these people have completely missed the point. Dodging and stun breaks are L2P issues, this is not. I am talking about mechanics that break the game (still in my opinion, for all those who seem to have missed that the past few times), to the point that it causes severe imbalance, not for myself, or any other player, but for the game itself, and its health going forward, both as an MMO and a potential e-sports candidate.

As for the posters who have contributed in a positive and constructive manner, thank you. Some of them made me think a little more about what I have said, and challenged my statements, and that is exactly what I want.

What about Engi thumper turret gives a 1500 radius to show cloaked attackers every time it thumps or something or gives a ping / energy (like a submarine), kill turret cannot see…

Off my head idea but seems thumper is a useless turret as it is now..

kenshinakh.3672:

Now, about teleports:

Teleports is fine in my opinion. [snip for length]
Now about stealth: [snip for length]

This is a great post. I see your point in some things, and I do agree with some. I do like the FPS perspective, I hadn’t thought of it that way before. And yes, positioning is important in terms of who is guarding what, who is carrying that gong, etc., sure, but a part of me would consider that general strategy. For example, in GW1, at the start of a GvG you had several options to take regarding several things, such as flags, splits, ganks, etc. But I wouldn’t really call that “positioning.” In my mind, positioning is more about where you are relative to the rest of the players on the battlefield (within reason obviously). For example, if you are say, a necro, and wind up caught between someone on a point that you were fighting, and their reinforcements coming from their base, that would be bad positioning. And yes, that applies to GW1 and GW2. But I think GW1 had much more importance on it compared to GW2, in terms of where a player is relative to the rest of his team. I think it was you who said maybe that has something to do with the “trinity,” where healers stay in the back line, etc. etc., and maybe you’re right.

As for teleports, you are completely right. It does put players in a better position or give them the advantage of surprise. And it certainly does require fast reflexes, and some battle experience, to counter a teleport burst. But the problem is, the entire burden of every point you’ve made falls on one party (in this case the defender). The attacker doesn’t have to have good reflexes to execute his teleport, he just presses 2341 or whatever chain it may be. And as for putting the attacker in a better position, when it does so, it takes away value of the position that the defender took in the first place. The teleports put defenders (or attackers, in the case of a defensive teleport) at an unfair advantage, and while it may take skill to successfully avoid the following burst, or whatever follows, it, without a shadow of doubt in my mind, takes significantly less skill to execute that attack in the first place. And that is where the problem lies.

And for stealth, I’m afraid I don’t see quite eye to eye. I would never consider stealth a “brains” utility. It does not really require you to outsmart anyone at all, in fact it promotes the opposite. While 3-4 seconds may seem minuscule, next time you pop it to escape, just watch how far away you can actually get from your opponent. And when they have absolutely no way to tell where you are going, aside from getting lucky with some AoE or if you were on fire when you popped it, It’s pretty much guaranteed safety. It does not require intelligence, or wits, to pop stealth and land a backstab on someone who is already engaged in a fight on a point. Intelligence would be pressuring someone hard and getting a monk to waste a WoH, guardian, whatever, and then switching targets immediately, making that energy wasted. Sure, wits have their place in GW2, it would be absurd to claim otherwise. But stealth does not promote “smart” gameplay, it promotes walking behind an opponent and hitting your chain, then popping it again and running away if they start to get some hits on you.

Silentsins.3726:

…the problem is, that the above is not NEEDED for most content. As I said before, crit damage % is OP. That, and most content is simply too easy. The game needs a bit of tweaking before max dps zergs stop being the optimal strat. The roots are there though…

I was actually very close to including this in my post, but I decided it was an entirely different issue. PvE is incredibly dull and unchallenging, which I also thought in GW1 for a large period of time (mostly after I had learned the ropes of basic play). That is why I am drawn to PvP. But if PvE had more intensive zones, missions etc., I can see it drawing more people to PvP. Right now all you have to dodge in PvE is the giant animations with the glowy things around the monster anyways… gets rather dull. Thanks for your insight

Stealth is fine and oh btw they already have delays between stealthing so whoever decided to suggest that needs to play a thief to see what the mechanics are really like. I agree we do need a fix to stealth, there’s not enough of it thief needs more.

no we don’t need energy bars get over it the old days of boring combat are dead, every new game coming out for years will have action combat from now on most likely, AAA titles at least will.

Balanced play should start with them once and for all squashing the bugs on these classes. Starting with pet AI, engineers and necro bugs. that would solve much of the problems.

As for teleports those are fine too, see culling.

And finally, going backwards isn’t going to improve anything in this game, proper resource/time management will be the best fix ever.

ITT – People who have no idea how teleportation works.
I play an ele, and one of my utilities is lightning flash, which i adore (go ahead and flame me now) for the mobility it can give me in a fight. However, there is no way that it can teleport onto keep walls, and nor can you teleport onto ground that you couldnt reach without jumping.