Guild Wars 2

So when we look at any weapon set or kit, is there not always a skill or maybe even two on that five slot line that has a drastically lower rotation priority than the other 3-4 (or maybe goes ignored entirely)? Or what about the case of skill types (i.e. Marks, Symbols, Wells, etc) which are all identical to one another in regards to functionality (the way in which a player uses/activates the skill) or in environmental presence (the way in which the skill appears on the field/affects enemies and allies). More importantly, aren’t there always those two or maybe just the one skill that really defines a weapon set far more than any other option on the bar; the one or two skills for which opponents and allies alike watch? Furthermore, there’s always the fact of how even the fastest recharging abilities on any given weapon bar are almost entirely competitive with the recharge of the weapon swap ability itself. This only leads to rotations which really do encourage prioritizing the easy, big-hitter skills while skipping over other “less effective” abilities in a rush to burn through the rotation. It forcibly omits a lot of thought and choice from the gameplay by dictating which skills the player should use and when.

Anyone else think that maybe if the total skill bar in Guild Wars 2 was a little more compact, we could see more telegraphs, better diversification of abilities by combining or removing some (cutting the fat) and even lower total recharge times?

Can’t argue with that.

I think the reason we see 10 today stems back to gw1.
In gw1 it was 8 apparently because in its development stage all skills were signets/rings. 4 per hand.

Guess they took that logic forward with 5 per hand because of locked weapon sets and 2 utility skills would have been limiting in…utility.

In short,
too few skills causes stupid repetition,
too many skills causes overwhelming ui problems and learning curve for newer players

Something that would help with your tells is if anet would stop adding traits that auto-cast actual skills.

10 skills on weaponswap is perfectly fine on average. Most are tuned for cooldowns ~10-20s which match a swap. Only a certain newer class kitten that up, plus thieves of courses.

For ele and engineer, you can go to overkill at 20 and 30 different skills respectivly and yes, you do end up in a situation where you will focus on certain of them rather than all. That’s why people trait attunements or arent so stupid they walk around with 5 kits.

I think revenant was the first step with this in mind. Each stance is a meager ten skills and you can only change their order, not what they are.

… reduce the skill bar even more? OH HELL NO!

I do not want the mind-numbing lack of diversity in attacks found in MOBAs or Overwatch in this game. In fact, I find Warrior Sword to be boring enough with it’s auto attack and three situational skills.

Sartharina.3542:

… reduce the skill bar even more? OH HELL NO!

I do not want the mind-numbing lack of diversity in attacks found in MOBAs or Overwatch in this game.

Just because a skill set has less total unique skills doesn’t mean that it has to be mind-numbing. The total number of actions a player can take in the Souls series can all fit onto a console controller, but the game is entirely balanced around telegraphs, spacing and resource consumption. What this means is that even though the actions taken by a single weapon or weapon set might be limited, they create a very unique play-style that can be both mastered by a player and punished by opponents. The biggest triumph in a weapon set is when a player is allowed to spam certain attacks with no real cool-down, but he/she chooses not to because the player knows that that is bad play. GW2’s skill sets quite generally and extensively feature rotations which are easy to cast, don’t have to be aimed or timed and are difficult or impossible to punish while active (due to things like the player being invulnerable while attacking or snapping into invulnerability at any given time from a CD that was ready before combat began; or the rotation happening so quickly and from max range that the risk to the user is mostly nullified).

I’m not saying that GW2 has to be like Dark Souls 3 or anything, that it needs parries or backstabs or anything, but the fact is that combat actions that players take in GW2 are almost never punishable because of how fast they occur, the range from which they occur, and/or the circumstances involved which basically ensure that players will a full bar of CDs are just never in any danger while doing something stupid like bullrushing/teleporting into a pile of red circles (or just into the range of an opponent at all) while hammering through a simple rotation that never really changes.

MOBAs and Overwatch are bland because their skills do exactly what they say on the tin with no real alternative utility or usage. Their straightforwardness is what limits them (much like every ability in GW2 outside of the few that existed before anet removed their fun).

Sartharina.3542:

In fact, I find Warrior Sword to be boring enough with it’s auto attack and three situational skills.

Warrior Sword (and basically every other weapon/utility skill rotation) in GW2 is boring because they have obnoxious recharges that players never use except when it’s obvious to do so. That’s the whole point of this idea: limit the abilities to lower CDs which can be interwoven in ways that don’t end up being the same rotation or reaction twitch every single time.

Pompeia.5483:

I think revenant was the first step with this in mind. Each stance is a meager ten skills and you can only change their order, not what they are.

Rev used to only have 1 weapon too. That aspect should have stayed. That said, Herald is the worst thing design-wise in the entire game by a country mile, and a lot of their abilities in general are mindlessly straightforward anyway.

Justine.6351:

In short,
too few skills causes stupid repetition,
too many skills causes overwhelming ui problems and learning curve for newer players

Stupid repetition with a small pool of skills will be the fault of bad players if the game was designed properly. GW2 somehow managed to create stupid repetition with a moderately large pool of skills, though. That’s a bit of a feat.

Justine.6351:

Something that would help with your tells is if anet would stop adding traits that auto-cast actual skills.

Traits were actually the worst thing by far to happen to this franchise.