IMO professions and combat are shallow
^This is exactly what I mean!
Most action RPG’s and MMO’s have very defined hitboxes from the AoE animations or the length of the weapon. If you aren’t within range, you don’t get hit. In vindictus, there are various kinds of projectiles, some are homing and others just travel is a straight line. If the projectile doesn’t hit you, you don’t get hit, even if that projectile was meant for you. You can get hit by projectiles meant for other people if you accidentally step in front of the person the projectile was heading towards.
I think the difference is that in vindictus, combat feels precise while GW2 it feels mushy, abstract, and weird. In vindi, attacks are telegraphed differently, some are easy to tell, others not so much, while some other attacks push the limit of human reaction time. It’s that preciseness that allows skilled twin sword warriors in vindi to stay toe to toe with the raid boss and dodge/attack at the same time…. accurately timing dodges and attacks to 0.3 or so seconds to maximize DPS while maximizing survivability.
Yeah… it seems like GW2 doesn’t have hit boxes, just ranges. If you are in melee range and don’t dodge you get hit. If an enemy fires a projectile and don’t dodge you also get hit even if you moved away… somehow that arrow that landed 6 feet away from you hits you.
Seems to me like you want to play Vindictus, what are you doing here? Wishing gw2 was vindictus?
I think it’s a problem with the design of the very core mechanics of the game and how they with one another. This game encourages dodging but only by pressing an invincibility toggle, which isn’t really dodging at all. You can move to dodge, but enemy attacks don’t synch to their animations so it’s not entirely sensible to move to dodge. Ranged attacks auto-track the player, making them rely on an invincibility toggle. The game wants to make movement matter but its simply can’t. To top it all off, the very telegraphing of attacks is done so poorly that you’re better off just not giving a kitten about dodging and are better off instead spamming dps, and cycling your reflect and heal skills off cooldown without really paying attention to enemy attacks and you do this for nearly every single encounter.
^This is exactly what I mean!
Most action RPG’s and MMO’s have very defined hitboxes from the AoE animations or the length of the weapon. If you aren’t within range, you don’t get hit. In vindictus, there are various kinds of projectiles, some are homing and others just travel is a straight line. If the projectile doesn’t hit you, you don’t get hit, even if that projectile was meant for you. You can get hit by projectiles meant for other people if you accidentally step in front of the person the projectile was heading towards.
I think the difference is that in vindictus, combat feels precise while GW2 it feels mushy, abstract, and weird. In vindi, attacks are telegraphed differently, some are easy to tell, others not so much, while some other attacks push the limit of human reaction time. It’s that preciseness that allows skilled twin sword warriors in vindi to stay toe to toe with the raid boss and dodge/attack at the same time…. accurately timing dodges and attacks to 0.3 or so seconds to maximize DPS while maximizing survivability.
Yeah… it seems like GW2 doesn’t have hit boxes, just ranges. If you are in melee range and don’t dodge you get hit. If an enemy fires a projectile and don’t dodge you also get hit even if you moved away… somehow that arrow that landed 6 feet away from you hits you.
This is completely true. I don’t know about Vindi but I know Tera and I have the same feeling. Tera is precise, sharp and accurate in it’s fight. GW2 is messy, mushy, hard to read.
In Tera, I remember a BAM that it was common knowledge you’d better tank him in front slightly to the left because you’d pass under his armpit when he does his main melee attack. This kind of precise positioning is completely missing in GW2.
^This is exactly what I mean!
Most action RPG’s and MMO’s have very defined hitboxes from the AoE animations or the length of the weapon. If you aren’t within range, you don’t get hit. In vindictus, there are various kinds of projectiles, some are homing and others just travel is a straight line. If the projectile doesn’t hit you, you don’t get hit, even if that projectile was meant for you. You can get hit by projectiles meant for other people if you accidentally step in front of the person the projectile was heading towards.
I think the difference is that in vindictus, combat feels precise while GW2 it feels mushy, abstract, and weird. In vindi, attacks are telegraphed differently, some are easy to tell, others not so much, while some other attacks push the limit of human reaction time. It’s that preciseness that allows skilled twin sword warriors in vindi to stay toe to toe with the raid boss and dodge/attack at the same time…. accurately timing dodges and attacks to 0.3 or so seconds to maximize DPS while maximizing survivability.
Yeah… it seems like GW2 doesn’t have hit boxes, just ranges. If you are in melee range and don’t dodge you get hit. If an enemy fires a projectile and don’t dodge you also get hit even if you moved away… somehow that arrow that landed 6 feet away from you hits you.
Seems to me like you want to play Vindictus, what are you doing here? Wishing gw2 was vindictus?
No, I just want the combat to be deeper than a kiddie pool.
Plus I am playing vindi right now. multiple monitors ftw.
I think it’s a problem with the design of the very core mechanics of the game and how they with one another. This game encourages dodging but only by pressing an invincibility toggle, which isn’t really dodging at all. You can move to dodge, but enemy attacks don’t synch to their animations so it’s not entirely sensible to move to dodge. Ranged attacks auto-track the player, making them rely on an invincibility toggle. The game wants to make movement matter but its simply can’t. To top it all off, the very telegraphing of attacks is done so poorly that you’re better off just not giving a kitten about dodging and are better off instead spamming dps, and cycling your reflect and heal skills off cooldown without really paying attention to enemy attacks and you do this for nearly every single encounter.
^This is exactly what I mean!
Most action RPG’s and MMO’s have very defined hitboxes from the AoE animations or the length of the weapon. If you aren’t within range, you don’t get hit. In vindictus, there are various kinds of projectiles, some are homing and others just travel is a straight line. If the projectile doesn’t hit you, you don’t get hit, even if that projectile was meant for you. You can get hit by projectiles meant for other people if you accidentally step in front of the person the projectile was heading towards.
I think the difference is that in vindictus, combat feels precise while GW2 it feels mushy, abstract, and weird. In vindi, attacks are telegraphed differently, some are easy to tell, others not so much, while some other attacks push the limit of human reaction time. It’s that preciseness that allows skilled twin sword warriors in vindi to stay toe to toe with the raid boss and dodge/attack at the same time…. accurately timing dodges and attacks to 0.3 or so seconds to maximize DPS while maximizing survivability.
Yeah… it seems like GW2 doesn’t have hit boxes, just ranges. If you are in melee range and don’t dodge you get hit. If an enemy fires a projectile and don’t dodge you also get hit even if you moved away… somehow that arrow that landed 6 feet away from you hits you.
This is completely true. I don’t know about Vindi but I know Tera and I have the same feeling. Tera is precise, sharp and accurate in it’s fight. GW2 is messy, mushy, hard to read.
In Tera, I remember a BAM that it was common knowledge you’d better tank him in front slightly to the left because you’d pass under his armpit when he does his main melee attack. This kind of precise positioning is completely missing in GW2.
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
I think it’s a problem with the design of the very core mechanics of the game and how they with one another. This game encourages dodging but only by pressing an invincibility toggle, which isn’t really dodging at all. You can move to dodge, but enemy attacks don’t synch to their animations so it’s not entirely sensible to move to dodge. Ranged attacks auto-track the player, making them rely on an invincibility toggle. The game wants to make movement matter but its simply can’t. To top it all off, the very telegraphing of attacks is done so poorly that you’re better off just not giving a kitten about dodging and are better off instead spamming dps, and cycling your reflect and heal skills off cooldown without really paying attention to enemy attacks and you do this for nearly every single encounter.
^This is exactly what I mean!
Most action RPG’s and MMO’s have very defined hitboxes from the AoE animations or the length of the weapon. If you aren’t within range, you don’t get hit. In vindictus, there are various kinds of projectiles, some are homing and others just travel is a straight line. If the projectile doesn’t hit you, you don’t get hit, even if that projectile was meant for you. You can get hit by projectiles meant for other people if you accidentally step in front of the person the projectile was heading towards.
I think the difference is that in vindictus, combat feels precise while GW2 it feels mushy, abstract, and weird. In vindi, attacks are telegraphed differently, some are easy to tell, others not so much, while some other attacks push the limit of human reaction time. It’s that preciseness that allows skilled twin sword warriors in vindi to stay toe to toe with the raid boss and dodge/attack at the same time…. accurately timing dodges and attacks to 0.3 or so seconds to maximize DPS while maximizing survivability.
Yeah… it seems like GW2 doesn’t have hit boxes, just ranges. If you are in melee range and don’t dodge you get hit. If an enemy fires a projectile and don’t dodge you also get hit even if you moved away… somehow that arrow that landed 6 feet away from you hits you.
This is completely true. I don’t know about Vindi but I know Tera and I have the same feeling. Tera is precise, sharp and accurate in it’s fight. GW2 is messy, mushy, hard to read.
In Tera, I remember a BAM that it was common knowledge you’d better tank him in front slightly to the left because you’d pass under his armpit when he does his main melee attack. This kind of precise positioning is completely missing in GW2.
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
kite wars!! kill your foes through exhaustion!!
GW2’s combat is super intense, the way the bosses are giant bullet-sponges with zero mechanics I mean… man, future of MMOs.
I think it’s a problem with the design of the very core mechanics of the game and how they with one another. This game encourages dodging but only by pressing an invincibility toggle, which isn’t really dodging at all. You can move to dodge, but enemy attacks don’t synch to their animations so it’s not entirely sensible to move to dodge. Ranged attacks auto-track the player, making them rely on an invincibility toggle. The game wants to make movement matter but its simply can’t. To top it all off, the very telegraphing of attacks is done so poorly that you’re better off just not giving a kitten about dodging and are better off instead spamming dps, and cycling your reflect and heal skills off cooldown without really paying attention to enemy attacks and you do this for nearly every single encounter.
^This is exactly what I mean!
Most action RPG’s and MMO’s have very defined hitboxes from the AoE animations or the length of the weapon. If you aren’t within range, you don’t get hit. In vindictus, there are various kinds of projectiles, some are homing and others just travel is a straight line. If the projectile doesn’t hit you, you don’t get hit, even if that projectile was meant for you. You can get hit by projectiles meant for other people if you accidentally step in front of the person the projectile was heading towards.
I think the difference is that in vindictus, combat feels precise while GW2 it feels mushy, abstract, and weird. In vindi, attacks are telegraphed differently, some are easy to tell, others not so much, while some other attacks push the limit of human reaction time. It’s that preciseness that allows skilled twin sword warriors in vindi to stay toe to toe with the raid boss and dodge/attack at the same time…. accurately timing dodges and attacks to 0.3 or so seconds to maximize DPS while maximizing survivability.
Yeah… it seems like GW2 doesn’t have hit boxes, just ranges. If you are in melee range and don’t dodge you get hit. If an enemy fires a projectile and don’t dodge you also get hit even if you moved away… somehow that arrow that landed 6 feet away from you hits you.
This is completely true. I don’t know about Vindi but I know Tera and I have the same feeling. Tera is precise, sharp and accurate in it’s fight. GW2 is messy, mushy, hard to read.
In Tera, I remember a BAM that it was common knowledge you’d better tank him in front slightly to the left because you’d pass under his armpit when he does his main melee attack. This kind of precise positioning is completely missing in GW2.
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
kite wars!! kill your foes through exhaustion!!
Yeah it takes no skill to kite around…. circle strafe auto attack kills way too many things in GW2.
There are things like that in vindi as well just like in tera. There is this attack that the ice dragon does which is his right claw attack that does a lot of damage. You can basically roll under the attack to avoid it or just sprint towards his back right leg instead of wasting stamina dodging or blocking. Actually most action RPGs/MMOs ive played tends to use precise hit boxes.
GW2’s combat is super intense, the way the bosses are giant bullet-sponges with zero mechanics I mean… man, future of MMOs.
… and you can eat a burrito with TWO hands while you AFK auto attack!
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
Actually, you have to move always against that BAM too, it’s just that you keep that precise position because the mob punch can hardly be avoided due to the speed at which they launch. You have to move around to avoid all the other attacks which are a little more telegraphed.
You are constantly moving to avoid the big attacks and try to get back in position to avoid the autoattack before it happens.
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
Actually, you have to move always against that BAM too, it’s just that you keep that precise position because the mob punch can hardly be avoided due to the speed at which they launch. You have to move around to avoid all the other attacks which are a little more telegraphed.
You are constantly moving to avoid the big attacks and try to get back in position to avoid the autoattack before it happens.
I don’t remember Tera all that well anymore, but I seem to remember BAM’s not turning that quickly. Feel free to correct me if I’m misremembering.
It is indeed quite shallow and there aren’t that many differend builds. Hopefully they’ll add new skills soon enough.
And then you’ll have whole population using THE NEW skills, and after 2 months they are not so new anymore so once again crowd will go back to square one.
Problem is that people expect too much from pve environment. You are not up against computer that beat Kasparov, you are facing an algorithm. A piece of code that says “go to player, use skill this and that, repeat”, basicly…i oversimplified it but its end result in most cases.
Go to wvw or spvp where you are challenged by other players that are able to adapt and answer to your actions. There you can see true potential of dynamic, actiony combat gw2 has.
I’m actually talking from pvp/wvw perspective. The number of viable builds is low in WvW and plain null in spvp. And even the “differend” builds aren’t actually that differend.
Take for example mesmer, they have essentially two builds: shatter and phantasm. Sure, there are slightly differend shatter builds and slightly differend phant builds, but in practice these play almost exactly the same way. In fact, even phant and shatter aren’t THAT differend from each other. At least not differend enough to keep me excited.
It’s not like in gw1 where you had creative builds that truly varied from each other.
For example, bunny thumber, spear ranger and melandrus shot ranger were three popular ranger builds that were not only creative combos, but were also completly differend from each other.
I do agree that the combat itself is fairly fun, but the build variation and customization is what I find very lacking.
? <(^-^><)>^-^)> <(^-^)> ?
(edited by Master of Timespace.2548)
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
Actually, you have to move always against that BAM too, it’s just that you keep that precise position because the mob punch can hardly be avoided due to the speed at which they launch. You have to move around to avoid all the other attacks which are a little more telegraphed.
You are constantly moving to avoid the big attacks and try to get back in position to avoid the autoattack before it happens.
I don’t remember Tera all that well anymore, but I seem to remember BAM’s not turning that quickly. Feel free to correct me if I’m misremembering.
They don’t turn as the players kite (or at least not very quickly), but they do turn towards the player with the highest aggro when winding up attacks. Furthermore, players are locked into a semi-fixed animation when attacking so as to prevent them from kiting mindlessly. The BAMs don’t really need to turn large angles at all, or at least not that often.
(edited by TwoBit.5903)
If we’re going to talk about engaging, difficult combat? I miss Monster Hunter.
Not the RNG of it, just the battles.
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
Go spam 1 in the candidate trial, We’ll see what’s happen xD
This will probably also apply to the queen’s gauntlet and much more content to be released, since Anet understood they have to had content wich need strategy!
And don’t you start saying that I should try out other weapons instead, because I can play the way I want to… with Greatswords!!! (they could, since it is the primary part of my playstyle, and many others’ as from what I gather from the forums)
I know I’m late with this but…
…this just sounds so childish.
“I’m bored with this toy and I want it to be funner! And don’t you dare tell me to try playing with more toys! I want to play how I want!”
Then, by definition, you want to be bored, especially if the toy you’re playing with was designed with parts that you can lock in with different toys.
Why do you have to limit how you play by only playing with an action figure but not the 12 attachable accessories or secondary playsets that come with the action figure? It’d be a different story if you were having fun playing in a specific way, but it’s stupid to play a specific way that LIMITS you and then complain about said limits.
Yea because in gw2 you have to keep moving or you are dead. But sure it must be better to stand below monsters armpit than to move and fight, you can smell excitment!
Actually, you have to move always against that BAM too, it’s just that you keep that precise position because the mob punch can hardly be avoided due to the speed at which they launch. You have to move around to avoid all the other attacks which are a little more telegraphed.
You are constantly moving to avoid the big attacks and try to get back in position to avoid the autoattack before it happens.
I don’t remember Tera all that well anymore, but I seem to remember BAM’s not turning that quickly. Feel free to correct me if I’m misremembering.
They don’t turn as the players kite (or at least not very quickly), but they do turn towards the player with the highest aggro when winding up attacks. Furthermore, players are locked into a semi-fixed animation when attacking so as to prevent them from kiting mindlessly. The BAMs don’t really need to turn large angles at all, or at least not that often.
OK, thanks, that’s about what I remember. I found warrior in Tera to be fun, with needing to time when to kite versus when to attack versus when to dodge. I did not enjoy the other classes much. Ranged combat was more of a real lockdown-while attacking (unless instant cast), and lancer animations made my sensibilities bleed.
@Galen, yeah….. that is definitely irrelevant.
Guild Wars 2 is not a sequel to the original Guild Wars but merely an alternative story setting.
Have we established that the OP needs to l2p?
The secret of Guild Wars combat is that the abilities you use most aren’t actually named. They’re “neat tricks”, combos that you have to figure out for yourself by combining the named abilities, swapping weapons, exploiting your own or others’ fields, etc.
For example, as a Mesmer, I often use a “thing” that isn’t found anywhere in the manual: I press one key which forms a combo field, then I press another key which creates an illusion at the target’s location and grabs its attention, then I press another key to leap through the combo field, immobilize my target, and lay down some serious hurt with a powerful attack which requires another key. But that combo field can also be used for other purposes, like controlling mob positioning.
Likewise, with every profession, there are loads of “things” like this that you can discover for yourself. Even the Warrior, the paradigm of “dumb” combat has a lot of “neat tricks” of its own, which, again, are not documented anywhere. You have to discover them.
That’s the interesting thing about GW2 combat, the actual real thing isn’t documented. Sure, you can spam a few buttons robotically and do ok – the game is designed to be forgiving. But the combat system has a lot of headroom to get more and more skillful with.
Have we established that the OP needs to l2p?
The secret of Guild Wars combat is that the abilities you use most aren’t actually named. They’re “neat tricks”, combos that you have to figure out for yourself by combining the named abilities, swapping weapons, exploiting your own or others’ fields, etc.
For example, as a Mesmer, I often use a “thing” that isn’t found anywhere in the manual: I press one key which forms a combo field, then I press another key which creates an illusion at the target’s location and grabs its attention, then I press another key to leap through the combo field, immobilize my target, and lay down some serious hurt with a powerful attack which requires another key. But that combo field can also be used for other purposes, like controlling mob positioning.
Likewise, with every profession, there are loads of “things” like this that you can discover for yourself. Even the Warrior, the paradigm of “dumb” combat has a lot of “neat tricks” of its own, which, again, are not documented anywhere. You have to discover them.
That’s the interesting thing about GW2 combat, the actual real thing isn’t documented. Sure, you can spam a few buttons robotically and do ok – the game is designed to be forgiving. But the combat system has a lot of headroom to get more and more skillful with.
oh i can play just fine thanks.
it’s unfortunate that you don’t understand my original post. if you plan on commenting again then I strongly suggest you reread my posts and give yourself time to think and absorb what i have written. also, if you consider combo effects and undocumented “neat tricks” as deep profession designs and gameplay, then we are on much different levels of experience and expectation.
New Main- 80 Thief – P/P- Vault Spam Pro
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
But the combat system has a lot of headroom to get more and more skillful with.
hahaha…. No… The so called headroom in this game is microscopic compared to other action mmorpgs.
Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?
Some warn that the Mursaat will return to agonize the people of Tyria once more.
Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?
- lots of people have already
- they can refer to a little known game called “guild wars 1” maybe someone has played it?
Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?
- lots of people have already
- they can refer to a little known game called “guild wars 1” maybe someone has played it?
Actually I don’t believe Guild Wars 1 had better combat that Guild Wars 2. It had better skill variety..but actual combat wasn’t as good in my opinion.
People confuse things like builds with combat…builds are builds and combat is combat. I wouldn’t want to give up either dodging or jumping. I wouldn’t want to have to stand still to cast. I’m not even very sad about giving up energy.
And of course, the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 made it completely impossible to balance over time. People say Guild Wars 2 is imbalanced, but it was nothing to what Guild Wars 1 became.
Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?
- lots of people have already
- they can refer to a little known game called “guild wars 1” maybe someone has played it?
Actually I don’t believe Guild Wars 1 had better combat that Guild Wars 2. It had better skill variety..but actual combat wasn’t as good in my opinion.
People confuse things like builds with combat…builds are builds and combat is combat. I wouldn’t want to give up either dodging or jumping. I wouldn’t want to have to stand still to cast. I’m not even very sad about giving up energy.
And of course, the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 made it completely impossible to balance over time. People say Guild Wars 2 is imbalanced, but it was nothing to what Guild Wars 1 became.
I agree. I think Anet wants to learn from GW1 and balance the skills before adding more.
Some warn that the Mursaat will return to agonize the people of Tyria once more.
Simple- you go back to the drawing board and introduce support into the game. Simply scrapping the trinity without a new system in place is like taking the wheels off the AI in a racer and saying “we fixed rubberbanding”.
Guild Wars 2’s combat is shallow because you don’t make team-oriented strategy. Fine, you have “builds”, but you’re not building towards the success of your team – you just want to make sure that you don’t die and that you deal damage.
It ain’t gonna work by just nerfing numbers, the problem is deep. And for the people who are “using all their abilities tactically” – I press 3 buttons and I achieve the same result.
Simple- you go back to the drawing board and introduce support into the game. Simply scrapping the trinity without a new system in place is like taking the wheels off the AI in a racer and saying “we fixed rubberbanding”.
Guild Wars 2’s combat is shallow because you don’t make team-oriented strategy. Fine, you have “builds”, but you’re not building towards the success of your team – you just want to make sure that you don’t die and that you deal damage.
It ain’t gonna work by just nerfing numbers, the problem is deep. And for the people who are “using all their abilities tactically” – I press 3 buttons and I achieve the same result.
I don’t even think it’s the core mechanics when it comes to groups.
I’d say it’s more down to encounter mechanics don’t require the support and control.
Look at the Lover’s fight. If they didn’t have the boulders, the ‘closeness’ mechanic was tweaked a little, and you were required to keep them away from each other, that’d be a good example on how GW2 system can promote teamwork, since you got the roles of:
- Keeping them away from each other
- Clearing conditions and mitigating damage if you mess up
- Taking one down asap
I mean, why not have the encounter mechanics generate roles, instead of building encounter mechanics around predefined roles?
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?
- lots of people have already
- they can refer to a little known game called “guild wars 1” maybe someone has played it?
Actually I don’t believe Guild Wars 1 had better combat that Guild Wars 2. It had better skill variety..but actual combat wasn’t as good in my opinion.
People confuse things like builds with combat…builds are builds and combat is combat. I wouldn’t want to give up either dodging or jumping. I wouldn’t want to have to stand still to cast. I’m not even very sad about giving up energy.
And of course, the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 made it completely impossible to balance over time. People say Guild Wars 2 is imbalanced, but it was nothing to what Guild Wars 1 became.
i’m not going to bite on the false separation of builds vs combat. they can be discussed separately but they are very related to the topic of pvp. jumping is largely irrelevant to pvp. dodge is an interesting addition to the game but i think that it is ultimately a bad one, or at least in its current form it is bad. Consider how often it is spammed and if you are OK with that then there is nothing more to say. speaking of spamming, that one word could sum up the entirety of all combat (pvp and pve) in this game. there is no resource management involved (such as energy) to make you consider when it is best to use skills. there is only the cooldown to think of. if the cooldown is very high then you are reluctant to use the skill until the “right” moment (which can be very difficult to know) and if the cooldown is very low there is no penalty for using it. None. the only resource you are consuming with low cool down skills is time, but in most situations there is no reason not to use every skill you have available in a pvp encounter. the fineness with which you applied or removed conditions and enchantments from guild wars 1 is gone: spam everything is usually the most effective option. it’s rare that you can use a condi clear on yourself to remove a specific condition which palpably contributed to your close victory. boons are spam and forget, no need to consider if it was already on you since they will stack and keep on stacking. no real negative aspect to having too many boons (not that you could prevent it anyway, with your allies nearby putting them on you, or half your skills applying boons constantly). aoe in the game is out of control. mindless aoe on capture nodes makes it a death sentence to get into melee so players just put their guardian on the node to 1v1 the enemy guardian while the rest of the team spams from far away. there no interdependence between classes where the weakness of one profession os offset by the strengths of another. there’s no reliance on allies doing specific things together in order to take down a target. very little “hey you use that skill that we planned on you using, and then that means that my other skill i’ve got will be more effective and together we make a good team”
this game is from the ground up designed to be a casual pve game. fundamental design choices in the early stages of game development have permanently crippled this game’s pvp. they made an amazing pvp game before, then they threw all of it out to make the big bucks with pve players. but thank god we can cast while moving, right?
(edited by milo.6942)
Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?
we have, still are and will continue to do so.
New Main- 80 Thief – P/P- Vault Spam Pro
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
but ultimately they designed professions around getting the end user to break out their credit card.
Sorry, what? Care to elaborate on that? I must be misunderstanding that, I don’t think my Guardian has ever tried to convince me buying gems.
Also “limitations” a.k.a. rules are present in every game. Would magic the gathering be better if you had your whole deck in your hand?
a jedi’s strength flows from the credit card. understand more you will when ascended and legendary gear are revealed.
limitations are paths to the dark side. limitations lead to anger. anger leads to more limitations. more limitations lead to suffering.
I appreciate the style of your answer and am sad to tell you I lack the english skillz to reply in-style. So yeah, unless you somehow have access to secret knowledge regarding new legendary/ascended gear we are talking about baseless assumptions.
Limitations when it comes to skills/build choices are perfectly fine or at worst a necessary evil. As I said, magic the gathering wouldn’t be any better if you had your whole deck in your hand just as GW2 wouldn’t be any better if we could equip 10 utilities, 3 elites and 2 heals. Oh and 2 weapon sets at the same time.
I’d also love to have a PvP match against milo as I tend to get pretty upset when people say that GW2’s PvP is shallow and spammy, because most of the time those are hotjoin heroes who know nothing about PvP. For some reason his spamming didn’t bring him anywhere on the leaderboards, I wonder why.
“We have no first-person view because stupid people would lock into it”
“You can’t have more than 10 HS decks because that would confuse people”
“30 fps is more cinematic”
“You can’t have more than 10 HS decks because that would confuse people”
“30 fps is more cinematic”
(edited by Wolfheart.1938)
There is nothing wrong with the basic premises of the combat system in GW2. If you analyze a standard 2v2 skirmish on a point in tpvp you will notice that the combat is quite diverse and based on attacking, pushing in breaking off etc.
If you compare that to an MMO like wow and analyze that games combat in an arenasetting you will see people are in most cases tunneling a target while tanking non bursty damage or running for their lives and hiding behind a pillar if the opposing team bursts.
And regarding the depth…
It depends for a large bit on what prof you play. In some cases while playing some builds there is no real depth to speak off (shortbow spirit ranger for example). In other cases the combat is quite complex and combos are quite hard to pull off on pvp targets (like on ele for example).
So some professions could use some extra tools / abbilities to add some depth, while other profs are okish depth wise.
(edited by Locuz.2651)
I think the lack of true support, healing, tank, is part of it, the game is DPS focused mainly. Top that off with many skills that are useless or borderline useless with long cooldowns. Doesn’t offer much variety.
jumping is largely irrelevant to pvp.
Nope. Not when terrain plays a part in the combat, and it does.
dodge is an interesting addition to the game but i think that it is ultimately a bad one, or at least in its current form it is bad.
They could stand to have more mechanics to counter dodging, but currently it is a dynamic style of mitigation. Some things cannot be blocked, some things can only be evaded, dodges require endurance which is finite, and you cannot dodge while immobilized. They could add mechanics that punish dodging more or alternative expenses for endurance but dodge, in and of itself, is not bad.
speaking of spamming, that one word could sum up the entirety of all combat (pvp and pve) in this game. there is no resource management involved (such as energy) to make you consider when it is best to use skills. there is only the cooldown to think of. if the cooldown is very high then you are reluctant to use the skill until the “right” moment (which can be very difficult to know) and if the cooldown is very low there is no penalty for using it. None.
I’ll just cut you off here.
How experienced in the game are you? I’d consider myself a rabbit in PvP but even I know how shallow you make combat sound. Yeah, you can spam things and build around spamming things to get by, but that’s what separates the rabbits from the dragons. All you have to know is what profession someone is and watch them. If they spam their crap, they’ll spam themselves into a corner and have nothing left to defend themselves from a simple combo.
IMO, resource management in the form of energy or endurance is archaic. In CoH, guess how often it got complained about that you had to manage your endurance? Then they changed it so you have endurance management traits by default instead of choosing them out of a pool of separate powers. Then people kept complaining on top of all that so the game changed more and more to accomodate by making powers cheaper to use, making endurance recover faster, making gear augment costs more, introduce more mechanics to manage it, etc.
That isn’t good balance because the only time resource management like that is good is when it’s so easy to manage it’s not something you manage at all.
Never played GW1. How difficult is it to manage your energy? If it’s hard or requires much of your build to manage it, I bet you people whine about it and I bet you the game was forced to constantly change to the point it isn’t an issue now.
Also, please write in paragraphs….
it’s unfortunate that you don’t understand my original post. if you plan on commenting again then I strongly suggest you reread my posts and give yourself time to think and absorb what i have written. also, if you consider combo effects and undocumented “neat tricks” as deep profession designs and gameplay, then we are on much different levels of experience and expectation.
Oh, so you know they exist – then why the 1,1,1,1,1,1 crap?
But the combat system has a lot of headroom to get more and more skillful with.
hahaha…. No… The so called headroom in this game is microscopic compared to other action mmorpgs.
What “other action MMORPGs” are you thinking of?
It’s hilarious really. I remember when the game first came out, there were complaints about the boringness of the gameplay on the Mesmer forums, then someone discovered a few of the Mesmer’s neat tricks, and everyone was like “oh wow, I didn’t realize you could do that”.
The combat is as deep or as shallow as you make it, it really has that headroom.
On the other hand, some of the enemy AI is a bit placeholderey. Mobs, especially bosses, could behave a bit more intelligently for groups whose level of gameplay is more sophisticated than the average troll’s.
IMO, resource management in the form of energy or endurance is archaic. In CoH, guess how often it got complained about that you had to manage your endurance? Then they changed it so you have endurance management traits by default instead of choosing them out of a pool of separate powers. Then people kept complaining on top of all that so the game changed more and more to accomodate by making powers cheaper to use, making endurance recover faster, making gear augment costs more, introduce more mechanics to manage it, etc.
That isn’t good balance because the only time resource management like that is good is when it’s so easy to manage it’s not something you manage at all.
Never played GW1. How difficult is it to manage your energy? If it’s hard or requires much of your build to manage it, I bet you people whine about it and I bet you the game was forced to constantly change to the point it isn’t an issue now.
CO is like COX in that regard. Most skills have no CD, energy partially regenerates (to a point that is called equilibrium), there are energy builder powers that do almost no damage, but allow you to quickly regain energy. The main complaint about this was that it was boring to use the builder while “waiting” to be able to use the powers that matter. Now, any build that is worth consideration includes energy management via several means, to the point that many builds allow players to ignore the energy builder completely.
GW energy treatment was different. ANet did have some means to influence energy regeneration. Zealous weapons reduced energy regeneration by 1 pip per period, but added 1 energy each time you hit. Energy gain on crit was a feature of the Assassin class. Necromancers added their stat rating in Soul Reaping to their energy pool each time someone or something died near you. Some weapons offered more energy with the trade-off being less energy regeneration. Players would have two sets, and switch to the bigger energy pool/less regen set for an extra few casts, then back to the higher regen set once out of energy (or OOC). The Necromancer skill Blood is Power allowed the Necro to sacrifice 33% health to apply greater energy regeneration to a friendly target.
The hilarious aspect of energy management in GW was the dichotomy of energy regeneration for casters (like the healers) and adrenaline degeneration for warriors out of combat. Many fights ended with the monk at <10% of his energy bar while the warrior’s Adrenaline was full. This often resulted in the warrior racing off to the next set of mobs while the monk was ctrl-clicking on his energy bar to produce the message, “My energy is 5 out of 56.” in chat.
As Gurugeorge said; the combat is as deep or shallow as you make it. No wonder you complain about no variety in the gw2 combat when you restrict yourself into spamming #1.
Some warn that the Mursaat will return to agonize the people of Tyria once more.
But the combat system has a lot of headroom to get more and more skillful with.
hahaha…. No… The so called headroom in this game is microscopic compared to other action mmorpgs.
What “other action MMORPGs” are you thinking of?
It’s hilarious really. I remember when the game first came out, there were complaints about the boringness of the gameplay on the Mesmer forums, then someone discovered a few of the Mesmer’s neat tricks, and everyone was like “oh wow, I didn’t realize you could do that”.
The combat is as deep or as shallow as you make it, it really has that headroom.
On the other hand, some of the enemy AI is a bit placeholderey. Mobs, especially bosses, could behave a bit more intelligently for groups whose level of gameplay is more sophisticated than the average troll’s.
No, it’s not as deep as you make it. It’s as deep…as it really is. People are quite familiar with all your combo fields and finishers that you are referring to as “neat tricks”. Only new players who are just starting the game are "WOW"ed by them.
Obviously, the ones that you can do as an individual you just do on your own anyway as part of your rotation if you think its worthwhile: Meaning the damage or utility you create as a result of the combo is superior to your next best option of not creating it by choosing a different rotational order of abilities.
The ones that are done through cross-profession combos are the biggest issue to me because they don’t encourage any kind of team coordination and timing. Why don’t they encourage teamwork? To put it simply: It’s not worth it.
The majority of them are underwhelming in the effects they create. There are a few exceptions such as blast finishers on water fields for heals, stealth stacking duration for pvp, chaos armor, etc. The rest of the combos create effects that are already replicable with the majority of your own skills, and thus it is typically a waste of time to try and create with others instead of just spamming damage. By players just spamming their own fields and finishers in an individual vacuum, they end up creating those combo fields anyway. So, their manifestation is many times unintended, and when created, no one cares.
The combos should be completely reworked to accomplish TWO goals:
1. Require classes to coordinate and time their abilities together to achieve them rather than creating the combos through their own damage rotation spamming. This would actually create actual teamwork in the group format rather than 5 individuals who are just fighting side by side.
2. Make the effects valuable and meaningful, so that people will want to pursue them over just doing their own damage rotations!
How about all new special fields and effects if one players drops a dark field with a fire field to create a hellfire field? This Hellfire field should now offer an all new effect that is unavailable to the skills of any class on its own. Players could then use their finishers on that field to create new, powerful combos.
Or combine a water field and light field to create a Purity field to do something else that is strong and useful to the group? Or combine a dark field and chaos field to create something else?
There is so much room for depth and thoughtful play with this system and what has been implemented so far has barely scratched the surface and really is shallow.
Revamping this system could breathe all new life, challenge, and depth both into PVE and PVP mechanics.
You know what would be amazing? If people recognized that this kind of discussion is healthy, regardless of whether or not you agree with the OP, and discussed it instead of jumping down the throats of those who have different thoughts or trying to dismiss their argument with the ever intelligent “L2P” comment. I know, I know, unrealistic to expect people to not act like children. Well, I can dream.
On topic: Yes, the combat is shallow in my mind. However, it’s hard to pin this on a particular system or even the combat itself. One of the core problems with combat is actually the encounter system. There are very few encounters in this game that challenge you to use anything other than your auto-attack and heal, maybe a total of 3 that I can think of.
Even in encounters that do require more thought/effort to play the game-play is still lacking. Combat is too simple for many classes, you’re cycling through a simple rotation of highest DPS. There aren’t meaningful and worthwhile skills that aren’t damage. Skills that control, debuff, or support are largely meaningless and without any value, this is a problem of both encounters and the simple fact that they cannot compete with pure damage in their current design.
You would think that’s everything, but it continues, builds are restricted. Absurdly restricted. I’ve played as most classes by this point and played around with builds in all that I’ve played, and many Classes build is completely determined by weapon choice, but these are the lucky classes currently. Some classes weapon choice is determined for them. There isn’t enough balance across the field with traits, stat distribution, weapon sets, utility skills, elites, or even heals. Some classes are lucky enough to have more choice, but every class is hindered by the fact that a number of their choices are inadequate by comparison to what their others offer.
But wait, there’s more! As someone else brought up the thought process behind removing the trinity was very idealistic and could have worked, but for a variety of factors didn’t. The game has a doctrine of it’s own that’s unbreakable, and it’s a much worse one than the original trinity, damage. Damage, damage, and more damage. There is nothing else beneficial in the overall design of the game for PvE currently. This was touched on earlier, but it’s not a merely unbalanced skills doing more damage/less damage than their counterparts, it’s reflected in the design mantra of GW2. The original design aimed to keep support, control, and debuffs below damage. Otherwise you end up with the trinity.
But wait, there’s more! Another substantial factor in the combat currently being inadequate is the choice to engage avoidance as the primary deterrent from damage. Hear me out on this, as much as I love dodging for big attacks, when almost all damage can be avoided by competent players it severely undermines monster’s abilities to kill. You can almost always heal any direct/unavoidable damage, but even if you couldn’t there are very few instances of unavoidable damage.
Lupi, considered one of the more threatening and challenging bosses in the game, is as simple as avoiding attacks. Knowing when to dodge, avoiding AoE circles on the ground, and murdering his face off with your auto-attack. In fact, many classes are forced to only auto-attack as doing anything more might require closer proximity to Lupi. You want to stay at a range.
The big problem with unavoidable damage is that it completely undercuts the ability for monsters to kill you without you kittening up. However this problem runs deeper than it’s surface value, it can’t change. Without a more comprehensive role system you can’t allow enemies to guarantee damage on PCs. This is up to the developers ultimately, whether they feel they want a role system or if they want more of a reliance on self-skill in teams. It’s not something that can be answered as it’s a personal preference, however it does limit what’s offered in the combat system.
TLDR: Encounters are currently not balanced to produce ideal combat, Skills/Weapon-sets/Traits/Classes are not perfectly balanced yet and further limit choices in combat, there is a design mantra that encourages development of content without roles which has developed a system where damage is the only role, and as the bulk of damage is avoidable AI doesn’t have a chance against competent players.
The developers are working on a lot of these problems, and I’m confident they’ll be able to fix a lot of the current flaws, however that doesn’t make this problem not exist and it’s healthy for the game to have a community cognizant of the game’s flaws.
I never knew until today that there was a text limit in posts…
Quick fix order to my issues, as I don’t believe in presenting complaints without explaining how I would go about fixing them.
1. Re-evaluate the design mantra of the game, even if they stick with what they have there needs to be a clear and developed understanding of whether they want role-less combat or combat with roles of their creation.
2. Determine whether they want a system more reliant on player interaction and teamwork or one where independent skill settles fights.
3. Overhaul the entire combat system (Skills, Weapon-sets, Traits, Classes) based on their previous decisions.
4. Re-balance encounters based on the state of the game.
For all I know they’re already working on 3 and have a strong idea of the direction they want combat to go in, but still worth posting this up as there’s never harm in sharing ideas.
You know what would be amazing? If people recognized that this kind of discussion is healthy, regardless of whether or not you agree with the OP, and discussed it instead of jumping down the throats of those who have different thoughts or trying to dismiss their argument with the ever intelligent “L2P” comment. I know, I know, unrealistic to expect people to not act like children. Well, I can dream.
If people actually discussed improvements to the game, no one would be arguing that the game is shallow or not. Whether it is or not depends what aspect you’re talking about and arguing about it from a standpoint of “the game is boring because it has no depth because I spam 11111” is going to get argumentative. Why? Because it’s not constructive.
Discussing improvements to the game is not a bad thing when you’re actually doing that…I remember discussing some improvements for Elementalist staff skills to help combakittens inability to defend itself in 1on1 situations. I suggested ‘negative combos’ for staff created fields as a secondary effect but not much discussion. Oh well.
People always discuss improvements and ideas for game mechanics. There’s a whole thread dedicated to deepening the endurance/dodging mechanics by adding parry or some such type of skill that blocks or something at the cost of endurance. There’s many threads about adding more variety to weapon skills or expanding their usage by the situation. There’s ideas floating around about proliferating existing weapons to other professions to flesh out their playstyles.
So yeah, what is the problem here?
I can see it now.
Manager: “How do you want a competitive scene when the game is broken?”
Arena-NET: “But, but… you’re meant to have fun! If you don’t want the combat to be broken, just play with the other fun skills!”
Manager: “…”
Like, seriously, people are saying that balance is achieved because you’re not constrained to a single skill-set or class? What, you need to be tied to the chair and play Zerker warrior? People play it because it’s broken, the mentality isn’t gonna change when you sugar coat it, it’s gonna change when you FIX THE BROKEN COMBAT MECHANICS.
It is indeed quite shallow and there aren’t that many differend builds. Hopefully they’ll add new skills soon enough.
And then you’ll have whole population using THE NEW skills, and after 2 months they are not so new anymore so once again crowd will go back to square one.
Problem is that people expect too much from pve environment. You are not up against computer that beat Kasparov, you are facing an algorithm. A piece of code that says “go to player, use skill this and that, repeat”, basicly…i oversimplified it but its end result in most cases.
Go to wvw or spvp where you are challenged by other players that are able to adapt and answer to your actions. There you can see true potential of dynamic, actiony combat gw2 has.
I’m actually talking from pvp/wvw perspective. The number of viable builds is low in WvW and plain null in spvp. And even the “differend” builds aren’t actually that differend.
Take for example mesmer, they have essentially two builds: shatter and phantasm. Sure, there are slightly differend shatter builds and slightly differend phant builds, but in practice these play almost exactly the same way. In fact, even phant and shatter aren’t THAT differend from each other. At least not differend enough to keep me excited.
It’s not like in gw1 where you had creative builds that truly varied from each other.
For example, bunny thumber, spear ranger and melandrus shot ranger were three popular ranger builds that were not only creative combos, but were also completly differend from each other.
I do agree that the combat itself is fairly fun, but the build variation and customization is what I find very lacking.
GW1 had 8 skills bar rez sig included, which usually came down to 7 usable skills. And usually skills were usless if you didnt put points into respective ability lines. There were also 2 classes combinations that was making diversity of builds.
Still it was only 7 skills in combat, while in gw2 you have 10 wpn skill 3 utils elite and heal skills. Plus traits and stats which is all combined to make a build.
Also, do you remember how many skills there were when Prophecies came out? In time gw2 will expand too.
If people actually discussed improvements to the game, no one would be arguing that the game is shallow or not. Whether it is or not depends what aspect you’re talking about and arguing about it from a standpoint of “the game is boring because it has no depth because I spam 11111” is going to get argumentative. Why? Because it’s not constructive.
I don’t believe anyone in the thread said “the game is boring” as chances are they aren’t playing. People can infer whatever they choose from a statement, but that doesn’t make it the case. The combat is flawed in my opinion, and discussing what causes it is the first step to determining solutions. If conversation can’t happen a fix never will. By all means though, you tell me exactly what needs to happen to perfect the combat system without discussing it or gauging other opinions within the community. I’m sure the system you come up with will be exactly what the game needs and won’t have a single nay-Sayer.
If people actually discussed improvements to the game, no one would be arguing that the game is shallow or not. Whether it is or not depends what aspect you’re talking about and arguing about it from a standpoint of “the game is boring because it has no depth because I spam 11111” is going to get argumentative. Why? Because it’s not constructive.
I don’t believe anyone in the thread said “the game is boring” as chances are they aren’t playing. People can infer whatever they choose from a statement, but that doesn’t make it the case. The combat is flawed in my opinion, and discussing what causes it is the first step to determining solutions. If conversation can’t happen a fix never will. By all means though, you tell me exactly what needs to happen to perfect the combat system without discussing it or gauging other opinions within the community. I’m sure the system you come up with will be exactly what the game needs and won’t have a single nay-Sayer.
Apparently you misinterpreted what I’m saying.
People DO discuss ways to make combat more engaging. It doesn’t mean the combat is shallow, just that it could be improved greatly.
Should I give you links to just the discussions I’ve participated in to improve combat? Beyond those, there are many other threads discussing other improvements that I didn’t participate in because I just didn’t read them or had no constructive input, so there isn’t a lack of discussion.
If people actually discussed improvements to the game, no one would be arguing that the game is shallow or not. Whether it is or not depends what aspect you’re talking about and arguing about it from a standpoint of “the game is boring because it has no depth because I spam 11111” is going to get argumentative. Why? Because it’s not constructive.
I don’t believe anyone in the thread said “the game is boring” as chances are they aren’t playing. People can infer whatever they choose from a statement, but that doesn’t make it the case. The combat is flawed in my opinion, and discussing what causes it is the first step to determining solutions. If conversation can’t happen a fix never will. By all means though, you tell me exactly what needs to happen to perfect the combat system without discussing it or gauging other opinions within the community. I’m sure the system you come up with will be exactly what the game needs and won’t have a single nay-Sayer.
I think the game is boring and therefore I only play it from time to time, mostly to do a bit of mindless leveling. That can be fun for a few evenings.
The combat system is part of why it is boring but it is far from the only reason. In the end people like different things but since most classes have no actual meaning other than fluff I only have 3 characters, 2 of which aren’t even level 10 yet. In GW1 I had 19 characters for example. It’s a sharp contrast with every other rpg or mmo I played where I usually can’t wait to make lots of alts.
So on a quiet sunday morning it can be a bit of fun to dive into GW2 and auto attack some mobs while drinking coffee. Nice and braindead can be good at the right time.
But I am totally uninterested in the combat system for various reasons:
Skills
1) Weapon choice determins half your skills. For example I don’t like axes on a necro. So either I don’t get to use those skills or I run around with weapons that I don’t like. Also usually there is at least one skill in there that I really don’t want. Waste of a skill sometimes 2…10-20% of your skill bar in other words.
2) Utility skills on the right have too high cooldowns. This kills the action even though the combat should be dynamic and action oriented.
3) Elite skills are only elite in pvp, certainly not in pve. This is in part a cooldown issue as well
4) Cannot switch skills in the skill bar so I must always keep them in places
Traits
1) A lot of traits are very unimaginative and they also force you to use certain weapons with certain trait lines.
2) Often the two attributes that are raised by a trait line are not the ones I would’ve chosen. For example a guardian has a trait line that raises toughness and precision…right.
3) I can’t really notice the effects of a lot of these. I’m sure there is an effect but when I get 5% extra damage on mace weapons, I certainly can’t tell the difference while playing.
And a separate section for dodge. Dodging is overpowered in comparison to your other skills. The fact that it makes you immune to damage is a necessity because of the number of one shot kills effects bosses have. But it makes all other defensive skills pale in comparison.
Now, these are not new items I’m sure, but all of these things and more make me lose interest in the combat system and I just can’t get excited about getting another trait point or unlocking the next elite skill or whatever. That’s why it’s boring.
A combat system doesn’t need to be complex even but it just lacks excitement because I feel the restrictions everywhere and that’s frustrating and because the effects of choices of skills and traits are minimal for most (not all but most) content, why care. And if you don’t care you get bored. Simple as that.
It’s a game forum. The truth is not to be found here.
I wouldn’t call it shallow. Homogenized? Sure. But not shallow.
Thief is definitely not Homogenized… And guardian (when it comes to soloing dungeons) stands out pretty well too while also being second best Endgame support class after Mesmer. This is unfortunately the realities of Asymmetrical balance though. In order for something to feel different, it has to basically be imbalanced and allow for great degrees of Success in one direction and Epic Failure in another.
Easily the WORST class in this regard is Ranger for dozens of obvious reasons.
…Hence why Ranger needs to regain those “Tracking” skills it had in Alpha and also get a lot more Group-support skills for ALL of its pets… In other words, much like in Gw1, the irony is that they have to further imbalance things to make them feel more balanced.
2) Often the two attributes that are raised by a trait line are not the ones I would’ve chosen. For example a guardian has a trait line that raises toughness and precision…right.
You might want to edit that to Toughness and Critical Damage.
I wouldn’t call it shallow. Homogenized? Sure. But not shallow.
Thief is definitely not Homogenized… And guardian (when it comes to soloing dungeons) stands out pretty well too while also being second best Endgame support class after Mesmer. This is unfortunately the realities of Asymmetrical balance though. In order for something to feel different, it has to basically be imbalanced and allow for great degrees of Success in one direction and Epic Failure in another.
Easily the WORST class in this regard is Ranger for dozens of obvious reasons.
…Hence why Ranger needs to regain those “Tracking” skills it had in Alpha and also get a lot more Group-support skills for ALL of its pets… In other words, much like in Gw1, the irony is that they have to further imbalance things to make them feel more balanced.
You are right by saying that overall efficacy isn’t balanced (it rarely is), but if you look at the skills on the level of the nuances of their execution, the game really does seem homogenized. For example, the ranger’s longbow and warrior’ rifle. Both weapon sets require you auto-target, auto-attack and cycle skills when needed, and there’s very little difference in the order skills are cycled if they’re not utilitiy skills (which aren’t that important in PvE). This is why many classes often feel the same.
In Vindictus, the difference between a sword-wielding Fiona and a hammer-wielding one is like night and day despite being the same character. The only difference between the two is windup speed and damage, not even the special skills are all that different. Yet the game feels completely different because difference in frames and dps makes the the hammer literally feel has in risk reward and and the sword feel faster and more reliable. It’s both and aesthetic and functional difference.
(edited by TwoBit.5903)
They should learn from Dark Souls.
Stop catering to braindead people.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
You are right by saying that overall efficacy isn’t balanced (it rarely is), but if you look at the skills on the level of the nuances of their execution, the game really does seem homogenized. For example, the ranger’s longbow and warrior’ rifle. Both weapon sets require you auto-target, auto-attack and cycle skills when needed, and there’s very little difference in the order skills are cycled if they’re not utilitiy skills (which aren’t that important in PvE). This is why many classes often feel the same.
It depends, I suppose.
Warrior Rifle is primarily single target but one can trait for line AoE. Generally, it’s an offensive weapon with burst damage and some close range CC. If built for it, you can have supreme bursts from a distance which can work great for sniping from high positions granted by their F1. You can do the close range CC with Ranger Longbow but you can’t do the burst. At most, you can combo you and your pet to double crit at the start of combat/when you kill a foe/gain stealth.
Longbow is more a DPS weapon that relies on pet. To try to peg them as similar only works if you completely discount the profession mechanics. Not trying to say the profession mechanics are perfect or are hugely factored for differentiating the combat, but it DOES make a difference.
I do think some of the skills are homogenized as well, but more in their scope than in their execution.
Mesmer skills are like no other profession and I feel is a step in the right direction. Each skill has multiple types of uses, and combo with traits and its profession mechanic in unique ways. Take, for example, some of its skills:
Its various illusions all do different things with differing effects. Skills like Temporal Curtain can buff, debuff and control. Mimic can fire a whole projectile at a target of your choosing, effects and all, as well as block melee attacks for a time. Mantras can be used to defend, attack and support depending how you trait them. There’s a lot more example.
But there are other professions with minimal variety of use:
Bolas = an immobilize and nothing more.
Signet of Fire = target burns.
Winters Bite = Do damage and you + pet inflict 2 conditions.
Much more could be done to give the skills a bit of play in how they are used as well as altering the content to reward more skillful play.