Guild Wars 2

This thread is the result of some recent brainstorming, and I’d love to see what my fellow GW2 players think.

I’ve recently watched a video by the folks at Extra Credits that explored the concept of “Counter Play” in multiplayer games. The concept seems very simple when put into words/writing, but is actually fairly difficult to wrap your head around while designing a game with it in mind. The basic premise is this: A mechanic/ability/weapon/etc in a game has a “counter play” system in place when it increases the options for both the player(s) using it and the player(s) playing against it. The mechanic has successfully achieved counter play when players on both sides can enjoy it and work with it.

They used a handful of examples from a number of different games to express how this system works, however, I’ll translate it into a GW2 relevant series of examples. A good example of counter play in GW2 is how the Elementalist’s attunements interact with their weapons. Attunements essentially give the Elementalist four weapon sets with a single weapon, allowing them a significant amount of skill diversity. However, the weapon they choose often dictates what sort of role they might play, and at what range they’ll prefer to fight. Opposing players can use this to their advantage. Thus, the attunements give the Elementalist a high degree of flexibility, yet the way they work with only one weapon allows enemy players to counter this flexibility by utilizing the limitations the different weapons place on the attunements. The attunement/weapon interaction allows both the Elementalist and their opponent to work with the mechanic, creating a mechanic that both players can enjoy. This is good counter play.

An example of bad counter play is one we’re all familiar with, not only in GW2, but in most games with a rogue-like class. Stealth. Stealth is a mechanic that drastically increases the options for the user, while reducing those of the opponent. Because this mechanic heavily favors the user, only the user can utilize it, and only the user can enjoy it. The opponent is stuck waiting for the stealth to end to resume the fight, resulting in a break of pace, which is unsettling to the mind. Often the stealth is used to simply end the fight via breaking off and retreating, or to give the user an advantage that cannot be countered. The end result is that only the player(s) on one side of the mechanic can work with it and enjoy it. This is bad counter play.

So, my fellow GW2 players, what do you think of this concept, and do you think that it has been applied to GW2 well enough, or not?

The counterplay with stealth would be this:

Stealth allows for the player using it to prevent the enemy from seeing him. However, stealth in no way makes him invulnerable nor does it reduce damage taken; all stealth does is prevent direct targeting. The opposing player is able to still hit the person in stealth with the use of AoE abilities and prediction.

The counterplay to stealth is to create more opportunities for players to break it. Stealth can’t be detected, yet a thief taking damage doesn’t break stealth (would actually give conditions a further benefit), a thief’s attack doesn’t necessarily break stealth; I get for some abilities that’s fine, but if they do an attack that would typically reveal them they remain in stealth if a player blocks or evades the attack.

I find a general problem with the way damage is calculated as well. Due to the way toughness, defense, and damage are calculated… The discrepency between damage to a warrior and a mesmer of similar stat combinations is hardly any different; yet the mesmer has a lot more ways to evade attacks than a warrior. It might take a few more hits on a warrior to kill him because they have a slightly larger health pool and generally have to get in close… but it doesn’t seem that 3k-4k more health is better than tons of evasion measures at range.

and prediction.

Darn it I knew I should have gone with that precognitive augmentation… stupid useless EMP shield…

Bruno Sardine.2907

I find a general problem with the way damage is calculated as well. Due to the way toughness, defense, and damage are calculated… The discrepency between damage to a warrior and a mesmer of similar stat combinations is hardly any different; yet the mesmer has a lot more ways to evade attacks than a warrior.

You sure about that? – Warriors have more armour, more passive damage reduction traits and more hitpoints than a mesmer, warriors also have far more ways to heal damage – mesmer’s schtick is having tricks to evade attacks up the wazoo. Warriors also hit much harder.

That’s not to say this represents fair counterplay – mesmer’s sheer arsenal of ways to totally negate incoming damage might well exceed the warriors ability to survive, but let’s be clear that a mesmer and a warrior are not remotely similar at the level of basic tankability – a single good killshot or well timed hundred blades will kill a mesmer in a single hit. Mesmers have no single attack that’ll come close to killing a warrior

In terms of stealth, you need to ask whether it creates more options for both players (and more interesting gameplay) not just whether there is a counter. Watch the video and you’ll see. This is one of those videos you really wish the developers of your game were watching and thinking about. This is were game design gets creative and interesting, as opposed to simply managing the “progression” of power creep.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

The counterplay to stealth is to create more opportunities for players to break it. Stealth can’t be detected, yet a thief taking damage doesn’t break stealth (would actually give conditions a further benefit), a thief’s attack doesn’t necessarily break stealth; I get for some abilities that’s fine, but if they do an attack that would typically reveal them they remain in stealth if a player blocks or evades the attack.

That would make stealth essentially useless if taking damage breaks stealth, especially if conditions break stealth. Stealth is a thief’s only defense against taking heavy damage and on top of that, it does not even mitigate damage. Skill 1 breaks stealth as soon as it is used, granted I have heard that there are problems with the actual stealth breaking being viewed by other players which gives the impression that stealth does not break. I don’t know if this problem has been fixed yet, but this would be the problem that needs to be addressed.

Cancer.9065:

and prediction.

Darn it I knew I should have gone with that precognitive augmentation… stupid useless EMP shield…

I’m sorry that you do not know how to use your brain to predict that a thief is going to go after your back for the backstab or run the opposite direction to avoid combat. I’m pretty sure everyone is capable of prediction, it’s just a matter if one wishes to use the grey matter.

Umm basically what I describe about stealth breaking is what happens in WoW and stealth still works just fine, because in that split second you go into stealth and it get’s broken, the enemy still drops target which in itself is pretty clutch.

Raynor.1973:

The opponent is stuck waiting for the stealth to end to resume the fight

I think the problem isn’t with Stealth but with the user itself here. You shouldn’t act like an NPC when the thief stealths itself. Stealth only lasts 3s unless he uses the little doll house stealth or chains his stealth utilities one after the other. The second case is also very “cowardly” and probably more useful for a quick departure than a successful fight.

Also, chaining the stealths currently bugs out the “100% crit chance for stealth attacks” major trait.

Umm basically what I describe about stealth breaking is what happens in WoW and stealth still works just fine, because in that split second you go into stealth and it get’s broken, the enemy still drops target which in itself is pretty clutch.

Breaking target is pretty useless in GW2 with most attacks not carring at all for a target (including all melee attacks), others auto-acquiring a target as soon as they can, the channeling attacks that don’t lose the target during channeling and the targeted AoEs which don’t need a target in the first place.

Another option is something like a buff that reflects damage upon being hit or causes a stun, knockback or whatever as an instant reaction to an attack. Once it triggers the buff is gone. The buff also disappears as soon as you use a skill to not make it too big of an advantage in general.

The buff should have a CD that’s longer than the buff duration as well but it will make stealthers think twice about attacking someone.

Make stealthed opponents take more damage.

daemon.1387:

Make stealthed opponents take more damage.

And how would you target enemies that you can’t see?

I think stealth now is a bit on power side. It could receive few minor nerfs as not beeing able to get into stealth while under conditions so easily. May few spells leave that possibility but not all of them. Also if you hit stealthed thief he should get out of stealth or atleast become visible or partly visible for short duration.

I find thiefs to be very annoying in sPvP jumping around me without much threat to themselfs.

daemon.1387:

Make stealthed opponents take more damage.

That is an absolutely horrible idea considering that the purpose of stealth is to prevent damage since thieves don’t have damage mitigation like other professions.

Gehenna.3625:

And how would you target enemies that you can’t see?

I believe I mentioned AoE abilities and the fact that thieves will go for your back or attempt to run, making it easy to predict where a thief will be.

FLFW.3105:

I think stealth now is a bit on power side. It could receive few minor nerfs as not beeing able to get into stealth while under conditions so easily. May few spells leave that possibility but not all of them. Also if you hit stealthed thief he should get out of stealth or atleast become visible or partly visible for short duration.

I find thiefs to be very annoying in sPvP jumping around me without much threat to themselfs.

Thieves have no forms of perma-stealth and the stealths they do have are for short intervals of time. As mentioned before, if a thief is chaining his stealths then he isn’t fighting. If damage or conditions revealed thiefs or prevented them from stealthing, then there is little to no survivability for a thief.

Making stealthed characters take more damage is wrong for a couple reasons -

1. Mesmers get stealth too, nerfing stealth means they get even more squishy – when they’re not supposed to be.

2. Boons are not supposed to be negatives. Conditions are bad, Boons are good. If you start blending the two, the game is going to get real stale because just about every stealth skill becomes a “don’t accidentally hit this button or you die” skill – does your class have any skills that you DON’T want to activate because they’ll kill you?

Stealth is not realy the issue with thieves, It’s the over the top damage like 22k Shortbow crits on bunker builds.

I thought the point of the OP was asking and suggesting counters for stealth…. as far as I can tell there doesn’t seem to be one. Pretty much all skills have some kind of drawback and/or counter… not sure where that lies in stealth even if it is/was working correctly.

A stealth-stripping combo field might be a possibility in the future, but for now I’m sure they don’t want to completely hose such a significant set of skills.

Remember that Guild Wars didn’t have any stealth, and there was a LOT of complaining about that when the Assassin was first revealed – it took a while before people realized the class was balanced around the teleports which were arguably far more powerful. So this is technically their initial foray into the mechanic, and it will have its issues.

With regards to your options when you go against it, simply maintain visibility. When the culling issue is fixed in wvw, and people aren’t getting an extra 50% bonus effectively added to the duration, the mechanic should improve greatly and you’ll have far less issues with it (if that’s the source of your frustration). If you’re in SPVP, simply never go off on your lonesome. Stealth will own anyone who isn’t in a group. as soon as your character benefits from combos and team efforts, the benefits from stealth significantly drop off.

I think the point the OP was trying to make wasn’t that stealth is OP/UP or should or should not be in the game.

What the OP is saying is that stealth doesn’t work for counter play.

A d/d ele, I can try to kite despite their flexibility. A staff ele I can pull a sword and try to stay really close to. In both cases I am trying to gain an advantage based on their equipment choices.

Likewise, if I can counter play a ranger about to QZ with a sword with an immobilize or dodge. Again, I’ve considered their strengths and deployed my own to counter them.

Thief stealth on the other had is poof the thief is invisible. Yes, I can flail or drop AOEs and still damage the thief. But there is no way to counterplay stealth (unless there are some AOE immobilizes/dazes I don’t recall right this second).

Exception here is a backstabbing thief, because I can counter play based on position. But for a pistol/dagger thief, stealth is just an advantage.

That’s exactly the point I was trying to make with that example, Helequin. Though it was just one thing, and the topic is for the game as a whole. Stealth was just the most blatantly obvious example of a mechanic with poor counter play. The overall lack of counter play options makes stealth a very one-sided mechanic that is only fun/engaging for the user, and adds nothing to the game for the opponent other than a frustrating break of pace.

I’m not saying it’s OP or anything, but when a mechanic only earns your attention via being annoying, there’s certainly something not quite right with it.