Guild Wars 2

I was just wondering… dodge is, at it’s most basic level, just an evasion skill that everyone has slotted whether they like it or not. Which made me think about our heal and elite skills, which follow the same premise but allow at least some variance and customization, most importantly between classes. But, that aside, I just wanted to ask and see if any developers are willing to answer a question this brought up.

• Did anybody at any point in development consider an evasion skill slot? And if so, why was the current one-dodge-for-all mechanic chosen over it?

EDIT: Okay, because some people seem to be somehow misinterpreting my intentions, I need to say, I have no desire to see dodge removed, if anything I am asking why the concept wasn’t expanded upon.

Yeah, dodge is just Evasion for everyone.

Some professions then has the ability to equip extra evade skills if they wish:

• Lightning Reflexes
• Rocket Boots
• Blink (Teleport skills I’d consider evasive)
• Evasive skills on weapons (Burning Retreat, Hornet Sting, Serpent’s Strike ect)

Endurance does have another function as well, with Traits:

• Warrior – Stick and Move: Damage bonus when endurance isn’t full.
• Ranger – Steady Focus: Damage increased when endurance is full.

It also has a lot of different Traitable functions:

Warriors can crash into people and damage them.

Guardians can heal everyone around them when dodging.

Thieves can drop those hurty thingies that slow enemies down.

Etc etc.

Beware the hurty thingies!

On a more serious note… Whether or not they thought it out very well they certainly intend for everyone to use it. If I wanted to do all this jump around, spin about, cartwheel in a circle, stand on my head business I would PvP more. Alas, gone are the good ol’ days of just standing there and smashing things in the face. Even my pretty magic user in her floofy skirts and bows has to roll around in the dirt in this game to survive.

Pasha.2367:

Beware the hurty thingies!

On a more serious note… Whether or not they thought it out very well they certainly intend for everyone to use it. If I wanted to do all this jump around, spin about, cartwheel in a circle, stand on my head business I would PvP more. Alas, gone are the good ol’ days of just standing there and smashing things in the face. Even my pretty magic user in her floofy skirts and bows has to roll around in the dirt in this game to survive.

Y’see, you’re talking about aesthetics, but wouldn’t it be better for aesthetics as well? As things are now it feels like this…

I am an elementalist, the raw forces of nature bend to my will! I can summon lightning, swallow my enemies in the earth, create fire from my very breath! Watch as I… roll around on the ground… like a little girl in a tumbling class… "

Whereas if each class had its own set of slotted evasion skills, that elementalist could have an ability that throws up an earth shield to block, or turns them to mist , or dodges as a lightning bolt. It would help with character customization and wouldn’t break immersion like dodge does for so many people.

All in all, I see no reason why dodge was implemented as is; aesthetic, mechanical, or otherwise. If there is a reason, I would like to know it, if for nothing more than curiosities sake.

Is this really a conversation we’re having?

The whole combat system was based around constant movement and evasion, it really is for the best that everyone has this same basic skill, with the same visual indicators across the board. Honestly, the traiting is enough to make it interesting (Hurrah for Mesmer clone role!). I’m almost positive that Anet put more thought into this than any of us, and there are already some other class evasions for people who wants a little more dodge in their life.

Altune.1430:

Is this really a conversation we’re having?

The whole combat system was based around constant movement and evasion, it really is for the best that everyone has this same basic skill, with the same visual indicators across the board. Honestly, the traiting is enough to make it interesting (Hurrah for Mesmer clone role!). I’m almost positive that Anet put more thought into this than any of us, and there are already some other class evasions for people who wants a little more dodge in their life.

Dodge-roll as it is has virtually the same animation for everyone, which while it does provide an easy visual indicator, it also defies the basic design tenent the devs had of ‘low-skill entrance, high-skill ceiling’. Recognizing dodge is incredibly easy, no skill ceiling in my opinion, you see someone rolling on the ground you know there’s no reason to waste CDs on them until they’re done, it puts no burden of skill requirement on the offense. While dodging has an incredibly high-skill ceiling and no entry level, it is used most optimally when you know all of your opponents skills and their build so that you don’t waste your dodge. This puts such a huge burden on defense that it has become the single most important qualifier separating high-end from low-end PvP players, making a defense oriented meta game. If any of you have played League of Legends, dodge is basically Flash, except everyone has to take it. And like flash, it singly seperates the entire playerbase into who can use it, and who can’t; creating a harsh skill cliff rather than the skill curve as the devs intended.

Now let’s look at the heal mechanic. Heal skills have several different animations but most of them are very very subtle, it’s fairly difficult to recognize them but not impossible. Using your heal skill is easy, but what separates the men from the boys is using the right one and at the right time, something you learn as you explore the healing skills; this is an example of low skill entry, high skill ceiling. And offensively speaking, what’s really important in PvP is the ability to recognize and counter heal skills through interrupts and conditions. The best know both when to use their heal and when their opponent is using theirs, and skill varies between those two points from the top of PvP to the bottom, creating a skill curve rather than a cliff, and the burden of skill rests on both offender and defender, creating a balanced meta where neither defense or offense is more important.

Now I’m saying dodge should be removed, I love that ANet finally put some skill requirement in MMO PVP, and I love that we have to MOVE and react to our opponents. But it could have been done differently, and in my opinion, better. As someone who is currently studying game design, I just want to know why the dodge was designed as it is, and what was the logic behind it. Is it some kind of bar? They now have their flash, their skill to end all skills , and everyone has it, was it made expressly for that purpose? Does it somehow maintain balance by making sure every skill has a counter? And if so, why couldn’t that be done with some variation, especially between classes?

You only really realise how big a deal the dodge system is when you go play a MMO without dodge.

Try playing another MMO and fighting mobs/players, you will keep trying to dodge the telegraphed, obviously avoidable attacks.

It’s so second nature from GW2 that the combat of those old MMOs just plays like clunky, undynamic garbage.

It’s like the first time you jump in a game – after that, going back to a game where your character has his/her feet glued to the floor and cannot jump just feels old and clunky.

This is actually one of the more interesting takes on the subject, I’ve seen. I know someone above said that this combat system is based around “constant movement.” And I have a lot of fun on my mesmer playing exactly this style. I find it bothersome, however, that my warrior can’t seem to play a more static style. So, I would love to see some variation in the types of evade activities that are available in that same slot : blocking, mist form, etc….

In the end, though, you have to keep in mind that they consider PvP balance to be very important. Even more so, they want to be able to predict the results of changes and prevent significant imbalance. (Arguments about their level of success are for another time/place.) So, that drives, to a great extent, their willingness to introduce additional layers of complexity and interaction.

It would be interesting if shield wielding professions could opt to maintain a basic block rather than roll away. A block that rooted you in place, stop you from attacking, and drained endurance while maintained and when taking hits. Maybe something similar for the focus users, but where the effect would be a protective aura of relevant magical energy.

Then again, ANet clearly has a fobia regarding bunker builds.

After playing DCUO, going back to older games was funny when I’d try to hold Shift to Block or press F for alternate travel mode/Fly and i’d be stuck to the ground unable to block or fly.
Same with GW2, i can’t dodge in older games (also new ones) and it feels uncomfortable.
_Some subtle aspects of games can leave a lasting impression that one might not fully appreciate until they go try another game.

Movement and Dodge. Well, I just cleared a Dredge Commissar “event” out of one of the forts in Dredgehaunt, on a Warrior, solo. Not by clearing a gate, not by clearing mobs and fighting my way in, but by running in past all the aggro and circle stafing the Vet while outrunning the horde of enraged dredge and targeting of 6 or so cannon.

Engaging, realistic gameplay? Hardly.

Had I attempted that as a Warrior, in character as a war, using a Warriors signature melee weaponry I would have failed. Instead, winning by cheesy gimmickry is the norm.

Dodge and Movement as the ONLY mechanic is pretty fail. It forces a generic, artificial, unrealistic playstyle that while successful, leaves a foul taste in ones mouth.

dodge WAS expanded upon. it’s called vigor. the ranger, for example, bunkers using vigor and evasion. many other specs and profs have access to vigor.

nerva.7940:

dodge WAS expanded upon. it’s called vigor. the ranger, for example, bunkers using vigor and evasion. many other specs and profs have access to vigor.

That’s not an expansion, that’s completing a logic circle. Every type of utility in the game has boons and conditions that run off it or against it. If they just decided to leave dodge out of that it would just look like they forgot it, like a hole in the game.

It’s easy to look at something and critique how it could be better in your own mind. I mean, sure, nearly everything could technically be improved upon, but the more important thing to look at is why something was made the way it is and maybe they didn’t design something in another form.

First break down dodge into the components of what makes it. Essentially a small period of invincibility that moves your character a set amount of distance in a chosen direction tied to a meter that limits your usage.

The invincibility portion seems nothing special in of itself, but you have to realize that it also was added for a reason. I mean when you compare it to other games with a dodge mechanic generally they just give your character an extra speed boost without adding any extra invincibility and that’s enough. the reason they added the invincibility, obviously, is because of the nature of MMOs. Latency at times can be an issue. In other offline games with a dodge mechanic the game state between you and your opponent is essentially the same. What you see is what he sees, and when your opponent performs an attack you see that attack at the same time. When you perform an evade, he sees the evade at the same time. In an MMO with latency these things don’t always match up, hence the invincibility period. For those times when on one screen it looked like you dodged an attack while on the other screen it looked like it hit, there’s now no debate since the player was invincible anyway.

One of the other components is the forced character movement in one direction. This was added for a reason as well. They certainly could have skipped adding it and instead just given the player 2 uses of 1 second invincibility while still granting full control of the character (and before someone chimes in that the sole reason the movement was added is to make it “apparent” that someone was using their invincibility, remember that they could just have easily added a special graphical effect to a character that just triggered it like Elementalist’s Mist Form). I think it was added just to be an added layer of how to use your meter. While the forced movement in one direction doesn’t actually speed you up while running forward unopposed it certainly does give you a burst of speed when moving in a direction that isn’t forward, or while crippled/chilled. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has ran forward, used and attack, then quickly rolled backwards to safety even though I didn’t necessarily need the invincibility. It adds a second dimension of decision making to your dodge mechanic. You can use the bar for invincibility, movement, or both, but you are limited in how often you can use it. The game would very likely become stale if the bar was just limited to invincibility since it would just become a game of recognizing when your opponent pressed 2 then pressing V to counter it, but in a game as movement centered as this one an extra boost of movement can at times be even more valuable then dodging even the most powerful of attacks. Now you have some complex decisions to make as you weigh the benefit of invincibility and burst movement against the limited usages of your roll.

Now why they didn’t give different classes different forms of rolls? It certainly something that could have been done. I would argue that the current form of rolling though applies better with their ‘Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master’ mentality. It’s very easy to learn how to roll, but it’s many different uses makes it difficult to master. I would suggest that adding different types of rolls to different classes would actually make the game harder to learn without necessarily making it more difficult to master in a meaningful way.

Keep in mind that adding variety does not necessarily equate to adding skill and often the opposite is true. The Japanese game of Go, imo, is one of the most skill based games on the planet, but there is virtually no “variety” in that game. The only things that you could say are different that make an impact on the game are that one player starts before another (admittedly a big deal), and that some spaces where you place the stones might have more significance on the board then other spaces.

On the other hand you have games that overload you with variety. I mean in some fighting games it feels like that you have to enter in a different combination for characters just to move forward. More often or not though that variety actually bring imbalance into the game. After all, the most balanced and skilled match up in a fighting game is two players using the same character. As long as the variety is in some way comparable then they options by definition can’t be perfectly balanced.

Adding different types of rolls to characters only makes the game harder to learn (I, myself, don’t believe that a games skill should be defined by how well you “memorize” the game.), and would most likely be detrimental to the balance of the game. You would then get into situations where X classes roll is better then Y classes roll. Yes, that exists for virtually everything offense, but that’s a decision in of itself too since if everything was identical most players would just get bored. I think they made the decision they did for a reason, because some of the most successful games have used the same pattern. Have the offense of each character have the variety to keep things interesting, but underline it all with uniform mechanical defensive options to make sure the game remains playable.

Let’s be realistic too. If the devs are doing such a horrible job balancing each classes offense currently where there are to some degree just classes that are frankly better then others, would we really want them touching our defensive ability as well? I’m glad I don;t have to complain about X classes roll not working and being unplayable because of it.

Combine all this with the assets perspective where it’s just easier and simpler to just create a dodge animation to each race instead of having to worry about creating rolls for each class/race combination I think you can start to see why they made the decision they did. I certainly could go on about the intricacies of balance, skill, variety and the works, but this post has already gone on WAY too long so I’ll cut it short here.

td;lr: Variety != Skill
alternatively: ‘Pros and Cons’, not, ‘I can make it better’

But it is the only utility which benefits in such manner, that it can’t be expressed in numbers.

The whole battle system revolves around dodging, at least in PvE where almost every monster has one attack which requires you to dodge or to use CC to interrupt.

This means, that “skill” is only defined as the reaction test to use your 2 dodge and your 1-2 CC skills at the right moment. They could have replaced the whole “skill” system with only 4 buttons with separate cooldowns, at least for PvE, “dodge”, “interrupt”, “high DPS skills”, “heal skill” together with a slider to choose the cycling radius, being either 300, 600, 900 or 1200 units for full, 3/4, 2/4 or 1/4 damage received and dealt. Almost nobody would have noticed the difference.

Don’t get me wrong, it works almost as intended in PvP where you have short, intense battles and it’s all about dealing burst damage (which means you have to know your skills!), but in PvE it’s just broken, since most enemies are just huge health blobs (so burst won’t matter) and battles aren’t “short and intense” but rather “long and repetitive” so you are forced to take the same reaction test over and over again.

That has NOTHING to do with skill, thats just a torture until your concentration breaks and you miss a single (or maybe even 2) dodges / CC. It also causes all classes to play very similar in PvE, despite your choices. Some class mechanics like mesmer illusions or hunters pet make it slightly easier, but they don’t change the way it works. This system really hurts on those classes, where dodging is NOT the natural choice (e.g. all the caster classes).

But seriously, what did one expect? The system was broken, the moment they decided to create a system which should suite everything from solo gaming over equally balanced PvP up to zergs. Especially the first one was a bad decision, you can’t just make every single character able to play on the frontlines, without crippling the characteristic mechanics the original class had.

Part of the issue with the caster classes is that they converted the classic defense, CC, from long duration mob holds (so you could turn a 2+ group into something you could take one at a time with proper skill management) into short duration interrupts.

This may work for sPVP, but it makes a mess out of PVE. Especially as personal story instances, and more, loves to drop us into cramped quarters with waves upon waves of mobs.

Never mind that the whole interrupt thing has to be discovered during play, as there is nothing to indicate that a 1-2 second long stun will do anything more than that. And unless you have no background from MMOs at all, seeing those kinds of numbers attached to a 30+ second cooldown will make you instantly dismiss it as pointless. And forget about them unless you run into some very special circumstances…

Exterminans.9723:

But it is the only utility which benefits in such manner, that it can’t be expressed in numbers.

The whole battle system revolves around dodging, at least in PvE where almost every monster has one attack which requires you to dodge or to use CC to interrupt.

This means, that “skill” is only defined as the reaction test to use your 2 dodge and your 1-2 CC skills at the right moment. They could have replaced the whole “skill” system with only 4 buttons with separate cooldowns, at least for PvE, “dodge”, “interrupt”, “high DPS skills”, “heal skill” together with a slider to choose the cycling radius, being either 300, 600, 900 or 1200 units for full, 3/4, 2/4 or 1/4 damage received and dealt. Almost nobody would have noticed the difference.

Don’t get me wrong, it works almost as intended in PvP where you have short, intense battles and it’s all about dealing burst damage (which means you have to know your skills!), but in PvE it’s just broken, since most enemies are just huge health blobs (so burst won’t matter) and battles aren’t “short and intense” but rather “long and repetitive” so you are forced to take the same reaction test over and over again.

That has NOTHING to do with skill, thats just a torture until your concentration breaks and you miss a single (or maybe even 2) dodges / CC. It also causes all classes to play very similar in PvE, despite your choices. Some class mechanics like mesmer illusions or hunters pet make it slightly easier, but they don’t change the way it works. This system really hurts on those classes, where dodging is NOT the natural choice (e.g. all the caster classes).

But seriously, what did one expect? The system was broken, the moment they decided to create a system which should suite everything from solo gaming over equally balanced PvP up to zergs. Especially the first one was a bad decision, you can’t just make every single character able to play on the frontlines, without crippling the characteristic mechanics the original class had.

that’s more a problem with the PVE Mobs mechanics than it is With doge and CC it self

I kind of wish our dodge ability had different choices for classes. For example, classes with shields instead could block for the duration of a dodge instead of dodging. Everyone rolling around is silly sometimes. =P

The mesmer does this well. Although as the mesmer is the only class I’ve been levelling I have no idea what it’s like for the others. I would assume if you don’t have as many dodge abilities then you’re not meant to be able to dodge as much as other classes.

For the mesmer I love being able to blink or teleport backwards or switch spots with an illusion. On top of the dodge-roll it really does add a lot of variety to combat.

Only to have the mob completely ignore the clone and come after you. Sure you can shatter it at that point, but what is then the point of the clone looking so much like you?