Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, Guildwars2 is a great game. I love every second of it. It is really worth it if you ask me.

Purpose: The purpose of this post today is not complaining but want to comfirm something.

Issue: Doubt about the action-oriented combat system.

Reason: When I moved to the left or the right side of the monster, I couldnt dodge normal attack except for the skill attack from the monster. In the action-oriented combat system, by right the monster needs time to turn and attack me but I didnt see that happened to me.
As for the back side, the monster turn too fast even instantly, by right the monster should take even longer to turn to the back to face me and attack. Even players need some time to turn the screen to the back, left and right.
Another encounter is I even receive damage at a small distant between the monster and me. The attack is normal melee attack.

I have a thief. I love the mobility of it but this issue make me wonder why ? I thought the action combat is similar to the blade and soul in theory. Im not comparing both the game. I just want to confirm it. Is it my internet problem? Or any other issue.
I hope I can get some answer from guildwars 2 community.
Thank you

I find that moving to the back of a mob, I am hit by considerably fewer of its attacks.

Definitely against other players, not being where they’re trying to hit is essential to melee, cuz you can’t dodge-roll everything.

Whether a tab-target mmorpg type system counts as action-oriented combat, I’m not sure. It’s not Tekken…

chen.5930:

As for the back side, the monster turn too fast even instantly, by right the monster should take even longer to turn to the back to face me and attack. Even players need some time to turn the screen to the back, left and right.

Actually there is an action called “about face” that players can map to a hot key. I keep it mapped just for you tricksy thieves.

I have stepped out of the range of melee attacks and projectiles – it’s all about timing though, and melee range seems to be more of a cone. I don’t know if the auto-attack is just too fast to reliably move out of the way of, or if it’s intentional that it always hits if you’re in range when it starts.

Yah… I think when they said “positioning matters in combat”, they sort of meant it in a super dumbed-down version. That’s the truth and there’s really no other way to say it.

its often preferable to stay still an hit the right combination of power to neutrailize the beast and dmg it. a least with a guardian.

if you are overwhelmed, switch to kiting and be patient… or pray of you are melee.

Every monster attack has a hit box. By moving behind monsters you can avoid most melee attacks. Very important for playing melee role. Just be aware that some monster melee attacks also hit the area around the monster and this may not be immediately obvious from the animation.

Again, I posted this somewhere else about combat positioning. This is a fact that:

People die more from being unable to use skills because they are on CDs (that includes running out of endurance to dodge) than dying from “bad positioning”. Because skills auto-hit, it is essentially like the traditional “HP watching” where it’s the very basic and dumb-downed in terms of understanding where a player has to place himself/herself in a fight.

eh..no its still action based, the issue is the mobs basically have longer range than you think they do. Its not straight in front of them..its a cone like attacking with a sword, if you want to move fast enough you cant just move at the last second..go ahead and try that with an alligator without special training, come back and tell us the results. Not all action is completely added in..ie being able to move head from side to side etc so as an abstract most weapons have a “range of influence” and if you are in that range..you get hit, sometimes if you are just on the perimeter of it you get a “glancing blow”.

Just twitching isnt going to do it and it shouldnt, you have to anticipate the mob, understand the range of influence and act on that. Its no different than Dark Souls was, if you rolled too late and the huge demon was coming down with his axe..he still hit you even if you werent in the very middle of it.

And positioning does matter..you do more damage from the back if you are flanking the enemy..many classes get bonuses for flank and back attacks, staying on the edge of influence means you can dodge easier..if you dive into combat without thinking and expect a slight turn will get you away from the sword thrust..then thats your fault, not the system.

Positioning certainly does matter, several monsters have attacks which only hit a specific area, without dodging I’ve found it easy to read and then find the right plces to avoid these attacks. Attacks like the Minotaur species’ charging attacks, Dredge/Wyrm tunelling, and most Area of Effect attacks can all be avoided without dodging at all.

Ditton.3149:

eh..no its still action based, the issue is the mobs basically have longer range than you think they do. Its not straight in front of them..its a cone like attacking with a sword, if you want to move fast enough you cant just move at the last second..go ahead and try that with an alligator without special training, come back and tell us the results. Not all action is completely added in..ie being able to move head from side to side etc so as an abstract most weapons have a “range of influence” and if you are in that range..you get hit, sometimes if you are just on the perimeter of it you get a “glancing blow”.

Just twitching isnt going to do it and it shouldnt, you have to anticipate the mob, understand the range of influence and act on that. Its no different than Dark Souls was, if you rolled too late and the huge demon was coming down with his axe..he still hit you even if you werent in the very middle of it.

And positioning does matter..you do more damage from the back if you are flanking the enemy..many classes get bonuses for flank and back attacks, staying on the edge of influence means you can dodge easier..if you dive into combat without thinking and expect a slight turn will get you away from the sword thrust..then thats your fault, not the system.

I agree with your first two points here. There is a major ‘consistency’ issue concerning how mobs interact on a “real-time tenancy” with the players; the patterns is undetectable by most players due to several unpredictable variables like:

A) Server lag,
B) Inconsistent rotation rate of mobs
C) Mob telegraphs being “in certain situations” extremely difficult to read off.

D) bad camera angle
E) too much visual fx mess

Considering you can modify both the existence of visual effects and thecamera angle to your heart’s desire, there’s no real issue there. Do you have anything better to do than going around and ruining topics with off-topic misinformation, Avatar?

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

Positioning certainly does matter, several monsters have attacks which only hit a specific area, without dodging I’ve found it easy to read and then find the right plces to avoid these attacks. Attacks like the Minotaur species’ charging attacks, Dredge/Wyrm tunelling, and most Area of Effect attacks can all be avoided without dodging at all.

Let me expand on what I said with positioning: A player’s position (where he/she is) does matter in combat, but how the player get there (ie. how the transition from position A to position B ), doesn’t matter.

In typical ‘action combat’ game, the significance of a player moving in combat is as “important” as using the player’s skills on his/her character; the “importance” is split 50-50. In GW2 however, casting the “right skills at the right time” accounts for probably over 75% of the importance and how you move while you cast the skill is much less important. You can also look at it from this side; during any combat scenrio, a player is given 16 skills (5 skills per weapon + 3 utility skills + a single heal skill + an ultimate + dodge [it’s more of a skill than an action key]) to work with (very good depth), while that same player action-wise only is accountable to doing sideway movements (holding down A & D) key or alternatively turning the camera side ways and run with [W] key (** the backward [S] key is also there, but it’s more useless) – this is the case for range players, on the other hand the type of movements that a melee player is only accountable for is probably dodge rolling out of a mob’s attack (kiting in-close around a mob doesn’t really do you any good). Simply one dodge roll, one blind shot, or one bush-back skill achieves more than moving slightly left or right could ever do in terms of evading an incoming mob attack.

TL; DR – Unless under “special circumstances” [in a combat scenario in GW2], however a player positions (with the [WASD] keys) himself/herself gains no substantial advantages/disadvantages and has no purpose in terms of impacting the combat scenario (in other words, no real importance OR major impact). Again, I should have not said it before in a way like that “there’s no positioning in GW2”, but it’s a very dumb-down version of positioning mechanics compare to other tpyical “action-oriented games” ; is what I’m saying.

EDIT: The Dumbed-Down version of Action MMO = You just got to move. (either away or closer to the mob base on probably your skill range) with no depth strategy ; kite or don’t kite.

Ive played melee and ranged toons..never had much of a problem with the camera angle. I can see people saying that it has to do with immersion, however functionality is something different..maybe its because you want the responsiveness of a a FPS game? This is still a simulation, an abstract simulation..not a complete action game, closest rpg action game Ive played is Dark Souls.

Players move too slow/monsters move too fast. In most action games you move faster than the enemies so you won’t find that enemies can just run behind you and attempt to ‘auto attack’ you to death like they do in MMOs but to balance it out you generally fight more than 1 enemy at a time and they tend to have more complicated moves than just a simple sword swing/fireball/etc.

It’s a design choice that has to be made really early on.

FluffyDoe.7539:

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

Positioning certainly does matter, several monsters have attacks which only hit a specific area, without dodging I’ve found it easy to read and then find the right plces to avoid these attacks. Attacks like the Minotaur species’ charging attacks, Dredge/Wyrm tunelling, and most Area of Effect attacks can all be avoided without dodging at all.

Let me expand on what I said with positioning: A player’s position (where he/she is) does matter in combat, but how the player get there (ie. how the transition from position A to position B ), doesn’t matter.

In typical ‘action combat’ game, the point of moving while in combat is as important as using any of your skills; importance split 50-50. In GW2 however, casting the “right skills at the right time” accounts for probably over 75% of the importance and how you move while you cast the skill is much less important. You can also look at it from this side; during any combat scenrio, a player is given 16 skills (5 skills per weapon + 3 utility skills + a single heal skill + an ultimate + dodge [it’s more of a skill than an action key]) to work with (very good depth), while that same player action-wise only is accountable to doing sideway movements (holding down A & D) key or alternatively turning the camera side ways and run with [W] key (** the backward [S] key is also there, but it’s more useless) – and really one dodge achieves more than moving slight left or right could ever do in terms of avoiding attacks.

TL; DR – Unless under special circumstances in GW2, however a player positions (with the [WASD] keys) himself/herself gains no substantial advantages/disadvantages. Again, I should have not said it before in a way like that “there’s no positioning in GW2”, but it’s a very dumb-down version of positioning mechanics compare to other tpyical “action-oriented games” ; is what I’m saying.

Yes, its not a FPS or fighting game, simply moving away wont accomplish the same thing as dodging…because frankly that would be stupid and would obliterate the entire mechanical system..endurance would be pointless, dodging would be pointless..all youd have to do is move away while swinging.

@ Ditton. There’s always a mid-ground between an FPS and RTS style of combat. Isn’t that what Anet was trying to achieve with GW2’s combat mechanics? (PM me if you want the post, they’ve actually said it before… I think it was Colin who had posted it about a month ago).

EDIT: For PVP, this is not as much of an issue compare to in PVE where it occurs especially in dungeons; players repetitively spamming skills over and over again until the mobs’ ‘large health pool’ drop to 0… that’s what I was referring to as a “dumb-down action combat”.

And the frustration for me kicks in for me when I see… [in pub PVP] two guardians standing on a cap-point and bouncing people around by sequentially using “Shield of Absorption” – so good strategy like that “does exist” and "exists on a pub level. So why can’t that types of “unique & fun” strategy be modified to fit into pub PVE as well?

There is a difference to me.

If I stand still and just let an enemy wail on my and only use skills, I tend to do a lot worse than if I use the same skills while moving.

I can’t say why, but I do better that way. shrug

the idea for the combat is good.
but the camera is weird.
as an example, dont you feel that in skyrim the camera is more “stable” ?

in gw2 it moves and zoom and what not…
that makes the gameplay messy for me, and i have some difficulty enjoying the dungeons or cloistered fights fully because of that.

the actual dodge/move and hitbox are ok with me.
but lets say i place the camera on an enemy and move back then all of a sudden camera zoom over my shoulder, the enemy isnt in sight anymore and i get hit by i dont know.

Anyone notice how you move slower once in combat? I don’t get that, but it seems to take away from the whole positioning and strafing thing because you’re arbitrarily slowed yet projectiles can move all sorts of varying speeds.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Anyone notice how you move slower once in combat? I don’t get that, but it seems to take away from the whole positioning and strafing thing because you’re arbitrarily slowed yet projectiles can move all sorts of varying speeds.

It’s by design that you move slower in combat.

I think that the speed you move in combat is supposed to be the “normal” speed and that you then move faster out of combat to make exploration easier.

As for the combat, I prefer this to most “action” MMO’s that in reality become a game of circle strafing someone to death. I’ve found that positioning certainly matters in dungeons, and of course matters in PvP. The system in GW2 is more of a hybrid between a game like TERA and a game like WoW. There’s still some dice rolling and RNG, but the system overall promotes more “active” combat. Moving around while fighting makes you significantly better than someone who stands still and auto-attacks.

Firstly as an action or even “action” mmorpg or any mmorpg, there should not be any delays on attacks (including auto attack).

Test it. Try clicking 1 and you’ll see it took time to active the skill. Not immediately.
I even noticed skill 1 blinking twice or 3 times before the action starts.

Fyi its not lag cause there are no skill delays in any mmorpgs that i’ve played.

Coming from an L50 full exotics, overall the game is Great.
If Arenanet could tune up the combat speed a little like they did with the camera with the recent update, it would be Perfect!

fletch; i have the same issues.
well, not to the point of vomiting.
but lets say i find it a bit ruff.

i hope they can fix the camera especially.
indoor camera is terrible and when you come close to objects it gets all crazy and breaks the mood.
skyrim had a decent camera i think. even in 3rd person. cant they knock it off ?