Guild Wars 2

I can’t really get into this games underlying ARPG combat system. It feels limited in terms of fun due to attempts to balance it for esports. I love seeing high damage and blasting my way through enemies in an arpg, but this MMO has nerfed that system to the point where you have to play dodge with enemies. Not to mention the veteran and champion mobs reward for taking them down is considerably disheartening. I really don’t know what these devs were thinking honestly.

Maybe they were attempting perfection in every way and the game as a whole suffered in attempts to bring balance to the whole game. I want to level another character, and I want to enjoy the leveling process and feel rewarded for doing so as well. Yet, leveling seems far too painful and annoying in many ways as well. I really hope that things change, but as they stand now I can’t really get into this game. The reason I feel its needed to bring this up is because honestly this game requires me to pay nothing monthly, and yet I would rather play another game monthly and feel powerful and enjoy lots of content then do what I can do in this game. This game needs a lot more fleshing out. Hopefully in time it will get there as it is still young. When that day comes I will likely play this game like crazy, but as it stands now it didn’t pull off what I had hoped it would.

Dodging is necessary for making dynamic gameplay. If not for that, things such as thieves would dominate competitive play with their endless CnD that would be impossible to dodge, warriors would hit like a truck everytime without fail with their fully charged adrenaline shot from the rifle, guardians would be stupidly OP with their multitude of blocks which would be the only way to avoid attacks, etc.

Each to their own, I suppose.
Everybody have different tastes when it comes to gameplay. Some like slow, tactical battles of wits, such as chess or turn-based games. Some like it fast and hardihitting, having to stay on the move to survive. The game might just not be for you, and wether or not you want to play it, despite montly fees or not, is up to you.

Rovus.5428:

Dodging is necessary for making dynamic gameplay. If not for that, things such as thieves would dominate competitive play with their endless CnD that would be impossible to dodge, warriors would hit like a truck everytime without fail with their fully charged adrenaline shot from the rifle, guardians would be stupidly OP with their multitude of blocks which would be the only way to avoid attacks, etc.

Each to their own, I suppose.
Everybody have different tastes when it comes to gameplay. Some like slow, tactical battles of wits, such as chess or turn-based games. Some like it fast and hardihitting, having to stay on the move to survive. The game might just not be for you, and wether or not you want to play it, despite montly fees or not, is up to you.

And yet…games without this dodge gimmick don’t have this problem. You know why? Because they aren’t built entirely around a gimmick. If dodge wasn’t here, then balance would have been worked out differently.

Edit:

Good for you, you can play action RPGs then. Other players enjoy something slightly more challenging than face-rolling through dozens of enemies mindlessly.

Funny…since face-rolling through dozens of enemies midlessly is exactly how WvW, Dynamic Events, and Dungeons work in GW2.

this combat system is awesome

I understand OP’s concern that there is a little bit too much emphasis on dodge and not much on everything else like clever use of skills. Just spam weapon skills and use utility at random times. The key word is “synergy”. In GW1 it was fun to experiment with different playstyles because most of those skill combos had a higher meaning and a purpose in your build. Like say [cripslash + gash + sun and moon slash] was a good sword pressure combo because it applied three powerful conditions and unblockable adrenaline source. They have the combo field and finisher system in GW2 which I think is a great idea and a start but it has been implemented in a way that makes it seem like just another gimmick. The combo field effects aren’t that powerful and if you do dungeons you’ll see that they are everywhere, which makes them not very exciting addition to the battles.

Smirgel.9460:

I understand OP’s concern that there is a little bit too much emphasis on dodge and not much on everything else like clever use of skills.

I think that kind of statement is said mostly by people who don’t understand how the game works.

In other topic, I saw someone using the Graveling Scavangers to demonstrated how “broken” the combat system is. The Scavangers have a charged attack in which, if they hit, they knock a character down and basically kill it while it’s on the ground. The poster was using them as a way to illustrate how combat is either DPS – and you kill them before they use this attack – or dodge – the only way to avoid this attack – or you die, no other option available.

That comment showed a profound lack of knowledge about the game.

Against the Graveling Scavangers, a character can:

• Interrupt the charging animation. Any kind of crowd control works for this.

• If the character cannot interrupt the attack, use some kind of defensive skill to prevent the attack from hitting. Aegis for Guardians, Mist Form for Elementalists, and so on.

• If the attack cannot be defended against, use some source of Stability to prevent the knock down and thus avoid the killing attacks.

• If the character cannot prevent the knock down and is actually thrown on the ground, use any kind of stun breaker to leave the knocked down state and just walk away from the killing attacks.

• If a character cannot do any of that… Just ask for help. Party members can do all of the above, plus interrupt the killing attacks themselves.

Dodge is bad. For a melee character, dodge is very bad since it moves you out of range from your enemies. Playing as a Guardian in Ascalon Catacombs, I almost never have to dodge; Kholer, for example, can be easily defeated by using Aegis and Stability, without having to stop attacking in order to dodge.

What’s to love with this combat system? Moving while casting a channel skill without breaking it.

Unfortunately, from a pve perspective, I have to agree with you OP. The Hero of Shamoor! The Fearless Vigil Commander!…still have to play dodge with level 6 bandits….

I wouldn’t mind the dodge if there were different versions of it. Heck skills that enhanced or changed it. For example on the thief their is a talent that can make dodge drop caltrops that make you bleed. That is great.

Where are there no other skills that affect what dodge can and cant do for you? It is really this lack of variation that i dislike most about the combat system. It is a good starting point, great in fact. But the time you get to level 40 you start wondering what is next. at 80 you realize there is no next. A couple months later….

Dodge is bad?

Dodge takes you out of melee range?

Not if you dodge forward, genius. Yes, dodging forward evades just as well as dodging back.

arjeidi.2690:

Not if you dodge forward, genius. Yes, dodging forward evades just as well as dodging back.

And moves you past the enemy, “genius”, so you waste time turning back. Not to mention how the time you spend dodging is time you could have spent attacking. And so on, and so on.

Dodging should be limited to when there isn’t any better option available. Considering how we can control which other skills we have available, dodge is a too to be used infrequently, which explains why we have limited endurance.

Erasculio.2914:

Smirgel.9460:

I understand OP’s concern that there is a little bit too much emphasis on dodge and not much on everything else like clever use of skills.

I think that kind of statement is said mostly by people who don’t understand how the game works.

In other topic, I saw someone using the Graveling Scavangers to demonstrated how “broken” the combat system is. The Scavangers have a charged attack in which, if they hit, they knock a character down and basically kill it while it’s on the ground. The poster was using them as a way to illustrate how combat is either DPS – and you kill them before they use this attack – or dodge – the only way to avoid this attack – or you die, no other option available.

That comment showed a profound lack of knowledge about the game.

Against the Graveling Scavangers, a character can:

• Interrupt the charging animation. Any kind of crowd control works for this.

• If the character cannot interrupt the attack, use some kind of defensive skill to prevent the attack from hitting. Aegis for Guardians, Mist Form for Elementalists, and so on.

• If the attack cannot be defended against, use some source of Stability to prevent the knock down and thus avoid the killing attacks.

• If the character cannot prevent the knock down and is actually thrown on the ground, use any kind of stun breaker to leave the knocked down state and just walk away from the killing attacks.

• If a character cannot do any of that… Just ask for help. Party members can do all of the above, plus interrupt the killing attacks themselves.

Dodge is bad. For a melee character, dodge is very bad since it moves you out of range from your enemies. Playing as a Guardian in Ascalon Catacombs, I almost never have to dodge; Kholer, for example, can be easily defeated by using Aegis and Stability, without having to stop attacking in order to dodge.

Best i can tell, the interrupts, the meat of the control portion of the game, is not exactly discoverable. This in particular if you come over from any classic mmo and start looking over the skill tooltips.

It is almost as if they decided to covert a classic mmo into a more action oriented system half way thru development.

This because you have all the trappings of a mmo. Targeting, control effects and so on.

But then you start looking at the numbers, and from a classic perspective the controls look less than impressive. single digit second effects, often on single targets, if half minute or longer cooldowns? At first glance they do not look like worth the effort to even test out.

So you dodge, and try the boons defensive boons, and forget about the control effects for now as you hope they are a error and will be corrected in a future patch.

In essence the game has the up front appearance of a classic mmo with a dodge mechanic. But once you take the interrupts into consideration it plays more like a over the shoulder fighting game. In other words, Tekken with a weird camera angle.

In some insane way the players have to intuit that the controls are not there to put a mob out of the fight so you can focus on his buddies, but that they are there to counter mob actions.

But the only way to discover that, outside of bumping into it here on the forum or reading the wiki, is by trying that unappealing skill and see the interrupt text pop up on screen.

Actually if u dodge foward, if your good and have fast reflexes, u only have to turn around 360 ( or is it 180) and ur back attacking, and its worth it to half a second of no dps for 1 second invuln.

On dodging forward, there is a bindable 180 key i think.

digiowl.9620:

In some insane way the players have to intuit that the controls are not there to put a mob out of the fight so you can focus on his buddies, but that they are there to counter mob actions.

That’s something extremely easy to figure out… If you realize GW2 is not a clone of classic MMOs, rather a new game on itself.

That’s the issue here. People who have played all MMOs in the world, so used to the fact that other MMOs are so similar to each other that they can be called clones, and assuming that GW2 is (or worse, should be) more of the same.

Whenever someone here begins a topic by saying, “I have played all MMOs released since EverQuest and so I’m a MMO expert”, credibility goes through the window as far as I’m concerned. There are already too many MMO clones out there. It’s about time someone made a game for people who want something different, and GW2 is that game.

digiowl.9620:

On dodging forward, there is a bindable 180 key i think.

Correct. I made C my 180 key, so I can do some fast reverses when dodging enemies in dungeons and W3.

Erasculio.2914:

digiowl.9620:

In some insane way the players have to intuit that the controls are not there to put a mob out of the fight so you can focus on his buddies, but that they are there to counter mob actions.

That’s something extremely easy to figure out… If you realize GW2 is not a clone of classic MMOs, rather a new game on itself.

That’s the issue here. People who have played all MMOs in the world, so used to the fact that other MMOs are so similar to each other that they can be called clones, and assuming that GW2 is (or worse, should be) more of the same.

Part of the problem is that the controls and skills on first appearance looks like any other MMO. You select your target and your attacks go there. While over at TERA (the closest comparison as far as i can tell) you don’t lock on, you line up the sight and fire. From the outset that tells you that TERA is a action game.

In essence GW2 quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, but is actually a rhino in drag.

I like the dodging in this game, gives it a bit of a console game feeling. However I am not really a big fan of the downscaling of my character when entering certain zones. I don’t like going back to being weak when I worked hard to get strong. Maybe that’s just me though.

Vail.1065:

I like the dodging in this game, gives it a bit of a console game feeling. However I am not really a big fan of the downscaling of my character when entering certain zones. I don’t like going back to being weak when I worked hard to get strong. Maybe that’s just me though.

Yeah it feels like a fighting game,

and down scaling dosnt make you that week I still facerole lower level mobs because my gear is so much better

Rhysati.4932:

Funny…since face-rolling through dozens of enemies midlessly is exactly how WvW, Dynamic Events, and Dungeons work in GW2.

Not at all. Have you even played a dungeon?
Picked up the fire and ran through the balls?
Maneuvered through traps?
Stood on countless buttons while other players worked to get the door open?
Done any FotM dungeon?
No dungeon in the game is only killing mobs. Theres always some sort of strategy involved. GW2 has done a great job of that.

I also don’t really enjoy the long cooldowns and short durations of utility spells. A lot of seems to restrict too heavily and keep me spamming weapon skills more often then I would like. Allowing for lower CD’s and higher durations of utilities skills would allow me to use those abilities more often.

endless.1376:

I also don’t really enjoy the long cooldowns and short durations of utility spells. A lot of seems to restrict too heavily and keep me spamming weapon skills more often then I would like. Allowing for lower CD’s and higher durations of utilities skills would allow me to use those abilities more often.

This is where the differences between a skilled player and a newbie.

GW2 skills are not mean to spam, especially short dur long CD utility skill. With CD reduced, it will create a huge advantage to whom understand these skill true potential lays. Yes, these skills are extremely useful when someone knows how and when to use them. I use these skills on my mesmer and my teammates loved me because i can shut down 1/3 the most dangerous skill from the boss and protect my allies. If there are 2 more allies can do the same we can effectively disable the boss…

GW’2 combat is about skill, not 1-shotting things because you have endgame gear. Gear helps, but if you are an unskilled player (which I am amusing you are because you bothered to complain on the forum) then gear won’t change that.

GW2 is a breathe of fresh air to me, among my favorite games of all time.

Zaviel.1245:

GW’2 combat is about skill, not 1-shotting things because you have endgame gear. Gear helps, but if you are an unskilled player (which I am amusing you are because you bothered to complain on the forum) then gear won’t change that.

GW2 is a breathe of fresh air to me, among my favorite games of all time.

Thieves coming out of stealth and 2 shotting you while you never see them is not skill. Sorry. Neither is a rifle warrior behind you who charges up a kill shot… and one shots you. Neither is a portal bomb or 30v1. This game takes no more skill then any other mmo. But, you keep believing that it does and that you are somehow superior…/facepalm

It was fun for a while, but there’s something off about it. For me personally it was the lack of complexity in every class except for elementalist and mesmer. And I just didn’t like the playstyle of mesmer so that left me with 1 class. All the others were boring.

Tera did a whole lot of things wrong, but one thing it did amazingly well was dodging and combat. Tanking as a warrior was a blast in that game.

My problem with GW2 is lack of variety. Very few builds that work. Lack of skills that are actually significant in changing the way you do combat. Sure you can switch weapons but it often involves mostly the same strategy (not all the time, but most).

It’s like an arcade game. Once you know the right combinations it becomes extremely simple. Satisfying to play for a while, but it quickly grows stale. Combat needs more finesse and options. Skills are really limited in what you can do. The best skill combination the designers came up with (imo) was D/D elementalist. All the skills compliment each other really well. You can combo a lot of different moves. Skills can have more than one way of using them. The other classes just fell short in that regard.

Kuthos.9623:

It was fun for a while, but there’s something off about it. For me personally it was the lack of complexity in every class except for elementalist and mesmer. And I just didn’t like the playstyle of mesmer so that left me with 1 class. All the others were boring.

Tera did a whole lot of things wrong, but one thing it did amazingly well was dodging and combat. Tanking as a warrior was a blast in that game.

My problem with GW2 is lack of variety. Very few builds that work. Lack of skills that are actually significant in changing the way you do combat. Sure you can switch weapons but it often involves mostly the same strategy (not all the time, but most).

It’s like an arcade game. Once you know the right combinations it becomes extremely simple. Satisfying to play for a while, but it quickly grows stale. Combat needs more finesse and options. Skills are really limited in what you can do. The best skill combination the designers came up with (imo) was D/D elementalist. All the skills compliment each other really well. You can combo a lot of different moves. Skills can have more than one way of using them. The other classes just fell short in that regard.

I don’t feel that the combat is connected to the world. I mean…casting a certain spell does not even feel like their is any real animation.

like putting a condition on someone…it kind of just happens..vs the sound of a warlocks curse in wow or a shadow priest…

this game just seems unattached with some of the spells.

Yeah now that you mention it sound does make a huge different in combat.

As you mentioned WoW, that was one of the things they did very well. Spells had very unique and well done sound effects. Here most of the animations are well done, but lack the sound to give them that much needed “oomph” to make them really cool.

It also allowed you to “listen” for what your opponent was doing in combat for pvp which was a HUGE advantage if you knew what all the spells sounded like. Things like stealth especially. Here it’s not near as noticable.

Erasculio.2914:

snip

The person you are referring to is me. Though, you are incredibly wrong about my intent. In that post, i was comparing the game mechanics in GW2 to GW1. I was explaining that the lack of real, tangibly defined roles and individual effectiveness downplays any real combat depth that GW2 may have. I was explaining that in GW2, monsters don’t have player skills like in GW1. They often are 1 trick ponies with a gimmick or two, like the Scavenger.

Being that those situational skills you listed (mist form, blocks) are on massive, balanced only for pvp, cooldowns…there is a lot less practical depth than you are suggesting, which leads me to believe that it is you, sir, who have little understanding of how the game works on a consistent mechanical level. Also, there is no need for your team to really synergize in dungeons. No one really has defined roles and team members are very limited in how they can actively help you other than throwing out a pool of homogenized buffs, DPS, etc.

Truth be told, it’s easy to see how drained of depth, homogenized, and simplified this combat system is compared to GW1 if you know what you’re talking about and your eyes aren’t still sparkling from that new game sheen hype train.

Rather than balancing around defined roles, they balance around dodge. This is why you have bosses with arbitrarily large health pools, few mechanics, and little mental engagement. The way they balance and design encounters is all limited to this. They took out the depth by designing the game this way. Very easy to see if you are experienced.

You also have only a very limited set of mechanics per class, and all of them do almost the same. For example, ele fells like this:

Choose a spell which takes [0,5/1/2] seconds to cast and which targets [an enemy/an area] for XXX damage and [gives you a boon/causes random condition/minor healing].

Even if it was animated more nicely (with an unique animation for each spell), it is still very limiting, compared to what we where used from GW1 or any other modern MMORPG.

To me, there are only 3 effects in the game which are somehow interesting, these are the condition “confusion”, the reflect effect and the block effect. And that is only due to the fact, that those effects allow to cause damage which is NOT based on the dull DPS calculation used by all regular skills, but instead causes damage based on enemy behavior.

But what did one expect?
The whole battle system was only created around the idea of having a perfectly calculable damage distribution, which forbids any interesting mechanics as they wouldn’t be calculable because depended on to many external factors.
I know what I’m talking about, i tried to do that for several games myself. And I have found various concepts which where perfectly balanced, but all of them felt just as boring as the GW2 system feels currently. Some where complex enough to fool the less observant players (same as with the GW2 system ), but NONE could even closely match the thrill of an heavy trigger based system with complex interactions between skills.

The accomplishment of finding a solution out of an seemingly unbeatable situation is far more rewarding than the actual kill.
And thats what the GW2 system suffers from. There are no complex situations, all characters have a hard limit what they can do (in terms of DPS and damage avoidance), so you will ever only be able to survive situations which have CALCULATED to be solvable, even if you play perfect.

Exploiting the mechanics of the battle system is not a bad thing, on the contrary, having a flawed battle system with tons of loopholes is actually far more interesting than one which only asks you to master a single set of skills to achieve a predetermined performance.
Thats why almost ANY battle system in RPGs and alike allows you, to play in such manner that you avoid almost any damage or even to kill enemies without risk. Not because developers weren’t aware of those “problems”, but because they wanted you to feel successful.

Adapted on an MMORPG (and considering how long you are going to play it), it is necessary that the developers change the challenges from time to time in order to force you to re-adapt, letting you experience the success of mastering the situation again.

Anet did something similar when they introduced the FoM, they provided a new set of scripted challenges which needed to be solved by the players. But they did only add new content for a very limited purpose, they did not swapped the challenges in the existing content.
You know why WoW gave the whole world an overhaul with the Cataclysm update? Less because the old world / system was broken, but because the players adjusted too much and fell into using a very limited set of the given options. A few players left the game prior to the changes because they didn’t want “their game” to be changed, but the players who stayed were rewarded with a “new” game experience.

If Anet wants Guildwars 2 to persist, then they may not hold on to their “perfect plan” they had for the balance in the battle system. The system must undergo changes, it needs to evolve and to give new possibilities. Perfect balance in terms of DPS may never be the ultimate goal, but a challenging and customizable play style. Overpowered skill combinations aren’t a problem, but only a call for an change to encourage players of trying something different. And if players start to use a certain combination too often, well, just modify one of the components so it enables different combinations instead.

endless.1376:

I love seeing high damage and blasting my way through enemies in an arpg, but this MMO has nerfed that system to the point where you have to play dodge with enemies.

…for some reason I don’t get the feeling you have played too many action combat online rpgs (maybe your coming from single player console games?): Dragon Nest, lots of dodging; Vindictus, lot’s of dodging/active blocking; TERA, lot’s of dodging.

No matter how the damage is dished out in those games there is a huge emphasis on dodging ability in order to survive.

The combat system in Gw2 does have a decent amount of depth to it; however, I do feel that many of the encounters are kind of… lackluster. The reason for this however is not necessarily the combat skills themselves, as much as the encounter designs.

Many of the larger battles, like against champions, are lacking. Champions don’t have a very diverse number of skills, usually only 2-3 and usually recycled animations for at least one of those (plus a glowy effect lol). Also, many of the skills just aren’t telegraphed properly (sometimes there isn’t even a real animation at all; just a red ring to show an incoming attack, or you have to watch the enemies stat bar…. wait aren’t these things Anet said they didn’t want players to do? Didn’t they want players to watch the action and whats actually going on, not just numbers and stat bars?).

Also, rather than add in more feints or attack variations, they just add bigger aoe rings that do more damage; lazy if you ask me. However, they did make a step towards improvement with some of the enemies and encounters in the Fractals of the Mists Dungeons (as well as the overall progression of the dungeon itself; breaking up combat and such with gauntlets run, etc.). While the FotM dungeon was better overall in my opinion, some of the battles still suffer from the pitfalls of combat made earlier.

I don’t give a kitten about skill. I just want to have fun while leveling and not be required to be some professional gamer in order to have fun.

Screw skill. Who am I bragging to about my skill in Guild Wars 2 anyway? you? People I don’t even know or care about frankly. Sorry but you are nothing but random internet people to me. And no I won’t ‘feel pride’ cause I can skillfully press some buttons and learn some rotation that goes on and on and on until I kill something.

I don’t want to be an awesome gamer at all. I don’t want to have to be skilled at all. I just want to play a game and have fun without some sad low life’s breathing down my neck telling me I am doing it wrong. Why do I have to do everything perfectly and one way that some small group has deemed ‘the right way to play’?

I don’t want to play the way you want. I want to simply have fun, to feel powerful. Games to me at least are nothing but an escape. I don’t need them to boost my self esteem for goodness sakes.

endless.1376:

I don’t give a kitten about skill. I just want to have fun while leveling and not be required to be some professional gamer in order to have fun.

Screw skill. Who am I bragging to about my skill in Guild Wars 2 anyway? you? People I don’t even know or care about frankly. Sorry but you are nothing but random internet people to me. And no I won’t ‘feel pride’ cause I can skillfully press some buttons and learn some rotation that goes on and on and on until I kill something.

I don’t want to be an awesome gamer at all. I don’t want to have to be skilled at all. I just want to play a game and have fun without some sad low life’s breathing down my neck telling me I am doing it wrong. Why do I have to do everything perfectly and one way that some small group has deemed ‘the right way to play’?

I don’t want to play the way you want. I want to simply have fun, to feel powerful. Games to me at least are nothing but an escape. I don’t need them to boost my self esteem for goodness sakes.

Well, if we (the internet people) don´t mean a thing to you, why post on an internet forum at all? Besides since there are no healers in this game, dodging is a must and frankly it´s a lot of fun too! Great Combat System!

Varani.9207:

Well, if we (the internet people) don´t mean a thing to you, why post on an internet forum at all? Besides since there are no healers in this game, dodging is a must and frankly it´s a lot of fun too! Great Combat System!

Not sure if sarcastic or just very easy to please…

If you really feel your character is too nerfed because you keep dying, you might think about picking another set of weapons (and thus skills), or even switch class.

I think I’m not the only one who has experienced that what works for one person does nothing for another. I’ve got guildies who are absolutely lethal with elemantalists without dying a lot, but can’t deal with mesmer, peeps who swear by their ranger but can’t handle the warrior. Me, I can juggle a horde of mobs on my mesmer, but find the elementalist very unsatisfying…

Shorter version: shop around. Try weapons, skills, traits. Try to understand the thinking behing certain builds and see if it fits you. Seriously, you can rule like a king in GW2 combat if you find what works for you.

endless.1376:

I can’t really get into this games underlying ARPG combat system. It feels too gimped and limited in terms of fun due to attempts to balance it for esports. I love seeing high damage and blasting my way through enemies in an arpg, but this MMO has nerfed that system to the point where you have to play dodge with enemies. Not to mention the veteran and champion mobs reward for taking them down is considerably disheartening. I really don’t know what these devs were thinking honestly.

Maybe they were attempting perfection in every way and the game as a whole suffered in attempts to bring balance to the whole game. I want to level another character, and I want to enjoy the leveling process and feel rewarded for doing so as well. Yet, leveling seems far too painful and annoying in many ways as well. I really hope that things change, but as they stand now I can’t really get into this game. The reason I feel its needed to bring this up is because honestly this game requires me to pay nothing monthly, and yet I would rather play another game monthly and feel powerful and enjoy lots of content then do what I can do in this game. This game needs a lot more fleshing out. Hopefully in time it will get there as it is still young. When that day comes I will likely play this game like crazy, but as it stands now it didn’t pull off what I had hoped it would.

I kind of agree with what the poster is saying here, but its not that the combat sucks or dodge is OP or you should 1 shot things,

I do feel like pvp and balancing tend to take the fun mechanics and minimize them.
Mesmer getting stacks of might for shatters, this is actually a fun mechanic, you build strength as you explode stuff, you try to maximize the amount shattering and use it more, you can pass stronger might to your party.

It was decided to be too OP in pvp, maybe it was, but the mechanic was fun and engaging.
The game use to have a lot more combo finishers, and it was 100% chance with projectiles,
this was OP or hard to balance or whatever
but its fun to do combos, so now we have less combos

point is, and this happens with many games, as far as PVE goes, balance, in the nerf style which is most games we have played, and so far appears to be this game as well, erodes the entertainment.

endless.1376:

I don’t give a kitten about skill. I just want to have fun while leveling and not be required to be some professional gamer in order to have fun.

Screw skill. Who am I bragging to about my skill in Guild Wars 2 anyway? you? People I don’t even know or care about frankly. Sorry but you are nothing but random internet people to me. And no I won’t ‘feel pride’ cause I can skillfully press some buttons and learn some rotation that goes on and on and on until I kill something.

I don’t want to be an awesome gamer at all. I don’t want to have to be skilled at all. I just want to play a game and have fun without some sad low life’s breathing down my neck telling me I am doing it wrong. Why do I have to do everything perfectly and one way that some small group has deemed ‘the right way to play’?

I don’t want to play the way you want. I want to simply have fun, to feel powerful. Games to me at least are nothing but an escape. I don’t need them to boost my self esteem for goodness sakes.

Dynasty Warrior All The Way!!!!

What don’t you play this famous action game, you are able to 1 vs 20+ foes and kill 3000 foes in 1 single battle, why bother GW2?

Crossaber.8934:

endless.1376:

I don’t give a kitten about skill. I just want to have fun while leveling and not be required to be some professional gamer in order to have fun.

Screw skill. Who am I bragging to about my skill in Guild Wars 2 anyway? you? People I don’t even know or care about frankly. Sorry but you are nothing but random internet people to me. And no I won’t ‘feel pride’ cause I can skillfully press some buttons and learn some rotation that goes on and on and on until I kill something.

I don’t want to be an awesome gamer at all. I don’t want to have to be skilled at all. I just want to play a game and have fun without some sad low life’s breathing down my neck telling me I am doing it wrong. Why do I have to do everything perfectly and one way that some small group has deemed ‘the right way to play’?

I don’t want to play the way you want. I want to simply have fun, to feel powerful. Games to me at least are nothing but an escape. I don’t need them to boost my self esteem for goodness sakes.

Dynasty Warrior All The Way!!!!

What don’t you play this famous action game, you are able to 1 vs 20+ foes and kill 3000 foes in 1 single battle, why bother GW2?

If this is true I will definitely need to check this game out

Raideen.5973:

Zaviel.1245:

GW’2 combat is about skill, not 1-shotting things because you have endgame gear. Gear helps, but if you are an unskilled player (which I am amusing you are because you bothered to complain on the forum) then gear won’t change that.

GW2 is a breathe of fresh air to me, among my favorite games of all time.

Thieves coming out of stealth and 2 shotting you while you never see them is not skill. Sorry. Neither is a rifle warrior behind you who charges up a kill shot… and one shots you. Neither is a portal bomb or 30v1. This game takes no more skill then any other mmo. But, you keep believing that it does and that you are somehow superior…/facepalm

uh, all your examples are irrelevant. 30v1 can happen in any MMO if wander clueless in a BG, if thieves and warriors are killing you in 1-2 hits, its about time to look into your gear spec mate….
that last line is pretty ironic…

GW2 is an unfortunate hybrid that doesn’t really please either camp. Although I’m sure many people are moderate enough to enjoy the compromise.

Personally I hate MMO combat to death. It’s static and relies too much on how your character is designed rather than your choices during combat.

I hope, moving forward, ANet learns from games like Dark Souls, Dragons Nest, Devil May Cry 3, Bayonetta, God of War, etc, and adds more action combat mechanics into the game.

A big part of it is also monster behaviour. Bosses/Champions are a good example. Those action games I listed have fun boss fights that are dynamic and reward player skill.

GW2’s bosses are closer to MMO bosses – giant blobs of health with some rote formula required to succeed.

To many others, OP, this game’s combat and leveling is the best they’ve experienced in MMOs.
GW2 isn’t everyone’s cup of cake, some people want a more static/rotational combat that doesn’t require much quick-thinking or reflexes, and a more fetch-quest/grind based leveling.

It’s good for games to be diverse and unique, rather than all clones with the same mechanics.

Exterminans.9723:

Varani.9207:

Well, if we (the internet people) don´t mean a thing to you, why post on an internet forum at all? Besides since there are no healers in this game, dodging is a must and frankly it´s a lot of fun too! Great Combat System!

Not sure if sarcastic or just very easy to please…

The first part is sarcasm, the second part is not. The game isn´t perfect. It surely has it´s flaws but the combat system is something I really enjoy. I can understand that it isn´t that satisfying in PvE. But in PvP it´s definitely better than in other MMOs i´ve played so far.

Yes, in PvP it feels quite interesting, it’s more fast paced than in other MMORPGs. But in PvE it is insufficient. Too stressful to play it for longer durations and yet not rewarding / exciting enough to keep you awake while you keep smashing the same key combination over and over again. It’s always just “doge on incoming attack, spam best skills, repeat”. Too much you have to watch out for, too many buttons to smash but yet far too less variation. Doesn’t matter which areas you visit, you always have the same skills and the enemies always have the same stupid AI. Sometimes with AoE-, sometimes with CC-attacks, but they still all act very much the same.

PvP actually offers much more variation with the real players, the lack of “i can’t reach you so you can’t hurt me” and the constant mix of various tasks (kill NPC, kill player, capture point, watch your comrades).

However, it does fail again in WvW when it all is about zerging again. It rarely is 1vs1, and even when it is, your enemy is more likely to flee than to fight. So most times it is just zerg vs zerg.

Guild Wars 2 is about exploration, and that directly impacts the “issues” you guys named here.

The reason you can’t do “the superman” in lower level areas with higher level char is because of the “do what you want where you want” approach of this game.
You scale down to lower level area but also it’s rewards scale up to you (least exp wise), so endgame is not few high level maps, and 95% of the world you’ve no longer business with, but you can go anyplace, do what you like and still get some meaningful rewards, other than charity to low levels. Also prevents trolling of low level players by some op guys.

Same for dodge mechanic. There’s far more ways to defend yourself and some spicing to dodges and endurance itself, but that takes some exploring in your hero panel, seeing what your traits, weapon and slot skills can do for you.

My warrior for example has a counter attack skill with his offhand sword that blocks one attack and does a nasty payback with 4 staks of bleeding over a small area. That’s no dodge yet it defends nicely. As a warrior if i focus on defence i can also plant banners that will grant regeneration over a very wide area, activate short invincibility, or knock them down rather then them knocking me down. Oh and on down i can self rally with a skill rather then hope on winning a losing fight (Vengeance). With proper trait it’ll not kill me as long as i kill something in that short “last stand” revive.

Exterminans.9723:

However, it does fail again in WvW when it all is about zerging again. It rarely is 1vs1, and even when it is, your enemy is more likely to flee than to fight. So most times it is just zerg vs zerg.

Oh my, I’m starting to get seriously tired of these statements.

WvW is mass PvP. It isn’t meant to be 1vs1.
You’re meant to group with others and kill other groups of people.
Dozen thousands of people love large scale PvP and play it daily.

The whole thing of dismissing WvW as “zerg” is as baseless as dismissing PvE as grind.
I can’t count the times we’ve beaten 30 people with 5 people, equally geared but with very different degrees of skills and coordination/tactic.
We’ve repelled hordes of 80 players with 10 as well.
Skill and coordination matters a lot in high-end WvW; yes there is a low-end there too, aka zergs of uncoordinated, unskilled players vs a similar zerg – but that is not what all WvW is about.
Else explain why medium population servers such as SFR got in tier1 by winning against people with thrice the population and activity: the reality of fact dismisses all these baseless critics – doing those baseless critics itself dismisses yourself as completely clueless of WvW and its mechanics.

Quit dismissing things you ignore with poor arguments.

Dodge as the be all, end all is ridiculous. Heavily armored warriors should not be leaping about like rogues in leather.

Melee vs Melee should heavily favor block and parry, not leaping about like some hyperactive wood elf. Block should be inherent with a board, not some long cooldown, essentially worthless slot skill, or a boon applied by another class. Tanks cannot tank by constantly breaking contact.

Dodge is overblown. Reliance on a single avoidance skill is silly.

A board warrior gives up dps for essentially nothing. A board should be worth the tradeoff, it is not. Innovation is not tossing shield use into a waste bin.

I appreciate the console kiddies want real time. Put some form of block on endurance then. Give warriors a chance to melee without constantly leaping out of melee range.

Cookie cutter IS putting every class into the same avoidance mechanic. I don’t buy the argument that this is somehow innovative. It only forces Kite mode with ranged dodging out of AOEs. In too many situations, warriors are only viable because they can circle strafe with a rifle..that is wrong.

I will also add that making all conditions armor-ignoring, with no resistances or ability to resist makes this a condition-is-all fest in PvE. More single dimension combat, not innovative at all. Simplistic is more the term I would use.

And to the poster above me.. Claims to have beaten 30 with 5 “countless” times, or defeating 80 with ten.. yeah, right. I tend to call BS on anything you say after reading that.

Raideen.5973:

Zaviel.1245:

GW’2 combat is about skill, not 1-shotting things because you have endgame gear. Gear helps, but if you are an unskilled player (which I am amusing you are because you bothered to complain on the forum) then gear won’t change that.

GW2 is a breathe of fresh air to me, among my favorite games of all time.

Thieves coming out of stealth and 2 shotting you while you never see them is not skill. Sorry. Neither is a rifle warrior behind you who charges up a kill shot… and one shots you. Neither is a portal bomb or 30v1. This game takes no more skill then any other mmo. But, you keep believing that it does and that you are somehow superior…/facepalm

sigh If only we had a universal tool that allowed us to evade the giant power attacks. I main ele so I know how soft classes feel against those tactics, fortunately for me I know when and how to dodge roll. Too many people roll the moment they can instead of waiting for the proper moment.

Learn enemy animations.

Dodge is fine.

Problem is the rest of the combat system is as shallow as a kids pool.

I find myself thinking one aspect of the issue is that the interrupts and such are designed around 1v1 or similar balanced enconters. While out on the PVE you quickly find yourself swamped by 1v3+ and the game gives you a very limited toolset to deal with those. End result is that people default back to kiting, something that to me at least feels more like a FPS than a MMORPG.

Zaviel.1245:

Raideen.5973:

Zaviel.1245:

GW’2 combat is about skill, not 1-shotting things because you have endgame gear. Gear helps, but if you are an unskilled player (which I am amusing you are because you bothered to complain on the forum) then gear won’t change that.

GW2 is a breathe of fresh air to me, among my favorite games of all time.

Thieves coming out of stealth and 2 shotting you while you never see them is not skill. Sorry. Neither is a rifle warrior behind you who charges up a kill shot… and one shots you. Neither is a portal bomb or 30v1. This game takes no more skill then any other mmo. But, you keep believing that it does and that you are somehow superior…/facepalm

sigh If only we had a universal tool that allowed us to evade the giant power attacks. I main ele so I know how soft classes feel against those tactics, fortunately for me I know when and how to dodge roll. Too many people roll the moment they can instead of waiting for the proper moment.

Learn enemy animations.

The real issue with thieves right now is in regards to culling. The actual model of the thief shows up multiple seconds after he left stealth, meaning that he in effect is still in stealth.

I do find some of these responses funny. Like GW2 was the first game to come up with active dodge, and that some how people dislike the combat because of it.

Just to point out off the top of my head I can think of two ‘big’ name MMOs that launched in the last year both before GW2. Both had active Dodge. Tera and Secret World. So calling it new an innovative isn’t exactly true. Maybe Newish?

The problem I’m having with it is how boring it is. It is the same everywhere. How cool would it be if Warriors or Guardians, when they ‘dodged’ ducked down in a defensive posture and blocked all the damage? Something different? No way!

Of course they cant do that because the game was designed around the dodge. And that I think is what some people are trying to get across. Not that it is to hard or complicated for them. That after awhile it is so generic all my chars do it all exactly the same. All the time. Nonstop. At least it is easy to balance i suppose.