Guild Wars 2

Again I’m coming from 7 years of hardcore World of Warcraft so I’m not new to MMO.

But the thing I hate about this game is in dungeons there is no way to control mobs. There is no taunting no way to build aggro because there is no real tanking… That’s a horrible idea… Dungeon runs are a mess, kiting shouldn’t be the solution and it takes the fun out of dungeon runs.

I think it’s great….I am so glad this didn’t become another wow clone. And in fact there is more you can do than you think, it just requires more movement and careful planning of when to use which skills.

I dunno how you missed the marketing and interviews but the game was advertised as not having the holy trinity.

If you have a lot of experience with MMOs, that’s great but it doesn’t help you in GW2. Learn some new tricks or it will stay a tricky game for you. Just how it is and how it has been advertised for years already.

There are a tone of control skills, hammer skill for a warrior for instance…

Dungeons are very messy and zergy. Running the first dungeon AC was a very disappointing experience.

coordination is the key. Many classes have control skills or weapons or utility slots. Not hard to use them. On my dungeon runs – we have designated people to do certain things. Be it Add clean up etc. Usually because I’m on my engineer I get thrown the job of keeping another large boss mob busy while one gets murdered. Another person gets Add duty, while the other three tackle the boss.

Kiting is the solution because the whole basis of this game is always being on the move. You stay still, you die. That’s pretty much how the game was advertised. Learn to Adapt and adjust your play-style.

One thing the dungeons at least need is a Mob counter on the Map like in the first guild wars. It’s quite tough sometimes to explain something while drawing on the map if there is no mobs to circle around.

I understand in the main town but for dungeons it would be nice.

It would help if mobs didn’t tend to focus one person the entire fight. There’s only so many escape abilities/dodges before you either kite or face tank the mob.

So your definition of ‘fun’ is one guy getting all mobs aggro and being a meat tank, then another one being his healing bot and the other 3 spanking all the mobs until they die, over and over?

This game has MANY flaws, but I am glad at least this aspect isn’t cloned from that other kitten mmo.

Well the thing is.. You have to ask yourself why the so called holy trinity or what I would more overall call specialized roles was invented in the first place.
Could it be that it was a way to make group interaction more meaningful and make it feel like everyone is essential to the group, as they all play a vital role (and a role for whatever playstyle you like)? It could perhaps.

Now that they’ve tried removing it and make everyone more or less jacks of all trades for some reason, it does indeed often seem very chaotic and meaningless what you do in a group.

The very vague specialization that you can do in GW2 only really starts working well in extremely well organized groups, which is a very small minority. So for most casual players it’s just a mess with no one knowing what they’re supposed to do other than spam whatever attacks they have, because roles have effectively been removed.

Phy.2913:

It would help if mobs didn’t tend to focus one person the entire fight. There’s only so many escape abilities/dodges before you either kite or face tank the mob.

your teammates are suppose to be using their control affects on the mobs too. Not just you. They are being bad teammates if they aren’t. If I see my teammate use two dodge moves/attacks – the next thing I’m doing is using my #4 skill overcharged shot on the mob to toss it on the other side of the room. Because clearly at that point – my teammate only has one dodge move at most left – which is bad.

Ticee.2451:

Well the thing is.. You have to ask yourself why the so called holy trinity or what I would more overall call specialized roles was invented in the first place.
Could it be that it was a way to make group interaction more meaningful and make it feel like everyone is essential to the group, as they all play a vital role (and a role for whatever playstyle you like)? It could perhaps.

Now that they’ve tried removing it and make everyone more or less jacks of all trades for some reason, it does indeed often seem very chaotic and meaningless what you do in a group.

The very vague specialization that you can do in GW2 only really starts working well in extremely well organized groups, which is a very small minority. So for most casual players it’s just a mess with no one knowing what they’re supposed to do other than spam whatever attacks they have, because roles have effectively been removed.

Or, the trinity is a really easy way to design encounters, and removing it requires making a much more robust combat system.

But who knows.

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Phy.2913:

It would help if mobs didn’t tend to focus one person the entire fight. There’s only so many escape abilities/dodges before you either kite or face tank the mob.

your teammates are suppose to be using their control affects on the mobs too. Not just you. They are being bad teammates if they aren’t.

This.

And yeah, sorry, but the lack of the trinity was probably the single biggest selling point for this game for me. This is stuff we knew about for three years, Cheetahman. Learn about the game you’re buying before you buy it next time.

Most people have issues with dungeons because they fall into the “holy trinity” mentality.

They expect the tank to hold agro.
The expect the healer to heal.
I cant tell you how many times I have heard the phrase " I am a dps!"

If everyone in the group takes the time to swap out their weapons and skills that SUPPORT the group things go very nicely. Pretty much every class in the game has skills and weapons that provide boons/buffs/support for the group.

Dungeons are very well done in this game. They can be quite challenging and really do require the group to work as a group.

My favorite bit about all the trinity lovers is that they go “y u remove trinity everything’s zerg now”, completely ignoring the fact that a trinity made raids in WoW more zerg than anything in GW2.

Sure, teammates should help out, but if I spec and gear for toughness and vitality, but the mobs ignore me most of the time, it seems a wasted effort. Not asking for a tank role or taunts, just asking for mobs to spread the love (or some better understanding of aggro mechanics).

Even though I welcome this new system to some extend, don’t forget he did mention something else, aside the tanking healing trinity:

he mentioned crowd control.

CC in Gw2 is basically interrupts, hardly more than that on a npc.
These dungeons would become so much more interesting if there was longer cc needed too (adn available of course).
Planning your long term cc as well as your shorter ‘interrupting’ cc, would only add to the strategic nature.

Now mind you, as a WoW player myself: cc in 5 mans (or raids for that matter) is only needed when you don’t have the gear. After that you ignore most, or all, forms of cc.
WoW too, could benefit from more need on cc’ing mobs… but this aside.

For me the combination of having no trinity to fall upon, combined with the need for real cc, would make for far more interesting dungeons.

GW2 set a very big step here, but I’m not overwhelmed by positive reactions when I look into the practical implementation.
Seems there is a long way to improve, and adding more cc without forcing a trinity again could be good.

Dusk, i’m not a fan of WoW’s 5 man design once you’re geared up, but it’s not the trinity design.
It’s the insane dps not needing much coordination or strategy, or cc… you almost aoe the whole place.

Of course the trinity is needed, but it’s not the reason why the 5 mans are boring. it’s because they never are scaled with your improving gear.

Phy.2913:

Sure, teammates should help out, but if I spec and gear for toughness and vitality, but the mobs ignore me most of the time, it seems a wasted effort. Not asking for a tank role or taunts, just asking for mobs to spread the love (or some better understanding of aggro mechanics).

As far as I know, and I’m trying to remember an ANet post from over a year ago, a mob is more likely to attack a player if he’s closer, wearing heavier armor, doing more damage, and using some form of control on it.

This may have changed since then, but from my experience, it hasn’t; if I jump in a group with leap of faith and chain all the mobs over to me, I’m suddenly the center of attention. Happens every time.

Phy.2913:

Sure, teammates should help out, but if I spec and gear for toughness and vitality, but the mobs ignore me most of the time, it seems a wasted effort. Not asking for a tank role or taunts, just asking for mobs to spread the love (or some better understanding of aggro mechanics).

Pretty much what your goal should be is to play hot potato. You use your control affects to make sure that your teammates aren’t getting damaged or heavily targeted. IF a teammate goes down, you want to draw the mob away so a teammate can get them up. Knockbacks are wonderful for this.

Basically I would suggest choosing weapons and utilities that are controlling affects. It seems very much that either damage or controlling a mob draws their argo towards you.

I came to GW2 to do strategic dungeons, based on working together.
Kiting should be a part of that (and i like kiting myself… a lot), but so should real cc be.

Let’s hope we can keep such threads constructive without falling into namecalling for once.
The dev’s need to hear feedback to improve, not mud throwing contests.

My Guild has run lot’s of dungeons and yes they can be messy if you don’t plan & coordinate. You need to figure out a strategy use it. These dungeons are very tactical and they require teamwork.

DusK.3849

As far as I know, and I’m trying to remember an ANet post from over a year ago, a mob is more likely to attack a player if he’s closer, wearing heavier armor, doing more damage, and using some form of control on it.

I hope this is correct indeed, that’s exactly the kind of mechanic that opens up strategic possibilities in your group set up.

The ‘longer’ cc is of course a different matter, GW2 simply doesn’t have that.
If longer cc breaks on the hint of damage, and if any team member can break it for you, than longer cc would have no impact or use in pvp.
It could be skills and traits no one picks for pvp…

Phy.2913:

Ticee.2451:

Well the thing is.. You have to ask yourself why the so called holy trinity or what I would more overall call specialized roles was invented in the first place.
Could it be that it was a way to make group interaction more meaningful and make it feel like everyone is essential to the group, as they all play a vital role (and a role for whatever playstyle you like)? It could perhaps.

Now that they’ve tried removing it and make everyone more or less jacks of all trades for some reason, it does indeed often seem very chaotic and meaningless what you do in a group.

The very vague specialization that you can do in GW2 only really starts working well in extremely well organized groups, which is a very small minority. So for most casual players it’s just a mess with no one knowing what they’re supposed to do other than spam whatever attacks they have, because roles have effectively been removed.

Or, the trinity is a really easy way to design encounters, and removing it requires making a much more robust combat system.

But who knows.

Well it should just be noted that it wasn’t invented by WoW.. It originates back to the original pen & paper games with a fat man and his piles of rulebooks being the game master. So yeah I just think there’s a reason that’s generally the way to do it in RPGs.

It should also be noted that you are never forced to be a healer or tank, you can be a dps or support type if that suits you better.. And even though there’s a general consensus that the tank should hold aggro and such, actually doing it can be very challenging and intense if the dungeon is difficult enough. Same thing with healing, for instance if something pops massive AoE damage, there goes your “spam Healing Light on tank guy”, and suddenly you’ve got to prioritize who to keep alive and who to let die, and if the tank dies then who should you make an effort to keep alive next.

That’s just to say that just because it’s a well known concept, doesn’t mean that it’s a simple task or a walk in the park, as a lot of people here mockingly state with sly remarks. It simply means that people have an idea of what they should try to be doing, which they evidently don’t in GW2.
Maybe they’re all dumb I guess.

Ticee.2451:

That’s just to say that just because it’s a well known concept, doesn’t mean that it’s a simple task or a walk in the park, as a lot of people here mockingly state with sly remarks. It simply means that people have an idea of what they should try to be doing, which they evidently don’t in GW2.
Maybe they’re all dumb I guess.

Doubtful they are dumb. They are still learning a game that is played an entirely different way from other games they have played for a decade. It’s like smoking for nearly a decade and then quitting. Very hard to adjust.

At least I’ve been noticing less (example) “Thief DPS LFG Manor!” in map chat and more “Thief LFG Manor!” People are catching on I think.

If someone in WoW would spam trade with ‘Rogue dps LFG’ (which is the WoW equivalent of Andrews example above) than he would be mocked and asked what else a rogue could be…

I’m afraid your example says more of that particular player, or type of players, than of the trinity habit

I understand your points about CC, Kiting and other supports to take the place of a traditional tank… But the problem is the funky camera it’s kinda hard to see where your going when trying to kite.. Especially in the level 40 dungeon when you’re fighting in close quarters… Gotta keep trying I guess

Kimbald.2697:

If someone in WoW would spam trade with ‘Rogue dps LFG’ (which is the WoW equivalent of Andrews example above) than he would be mocked and asked what else a rogue could be…

I’m afraid your example says more of that particular player, or type of players, than of the trinity habit

True. but I play engineer.

However – it was just a purest example I could think of that you can tell people were playing in past games with the trinity. I have seen “Healer Engineer LFG” or whatever profession etc in chat as well. Though as stated above, time goes on, less about the roles and more of what profession.

I happen to level an engineer as well, which on character creation seemed to be the closest to my dream idea of the trapping Survival hunter in WoW that I played for 8 years I guess.
Engineer is way more versatile of course, but I’m liking the choice so far.

Cheetara.6107:

I understand your points about CC, Kiting and other supports to take the place of a traditional tank… But the problem is the funky camera it’s kinda hard to see where your going when trying to kite.. Especially in the level 40 dungeon when you’re fighting in close quarters… Gotta keep trying I guess

I agree on the camera. I tend to make sure I’m not zoomed out all the way so I don’t clip thru the walls. Sometimes I position the camera so that if it’s a long hallway or cavern – the back of the camera is faced towards the longest so I have space to dodge etc. I also usually have the free camera option on so that my camera stays where it is.

My dungeon runs, we tend to put our boss in a wide open area and ping pong him around. Though the biggest thing I’ve come to realize is that dungeons require a lot of teamwork and communication. Not everything goes according to plan and a lot of it is developing good reactive instincts to the present situation.

Example: First time through Ascalon Catacombs.

We’re fighting the first boss in the center – I accidentally set off the bonus event of the troll. I was informed there was a bonus event – but I didn’t realize I had back flipped into the doors he emerges from. So he emerges. Everyone groans and runs like crazy. The troll follows… then begins tossing ghosts around like rag dolls because we dragged him into the ghosts AoE’s. We end up wiping but we finished killing the boss because the troll killed him. If we didn’t have good reactive instincts, we would have just died and had to deal with the ghost boss resetting but the troll as well.

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Kimbald.2697:

If someone in WoW would spam trade with ‘Rogue dps LFG’ (which is the WoW equivalent of Andrews example above) than he would be mocked and asked what else a rogue could be…

I’m afraid your example says more of that particular player, or type of players, than of the trinity habit

True. but I play engineer.

However – it was just a purest example I could think of that you can tell people were playing in past games with the trinity. I have seen “Healer Engineer LFG” or whatever profession etc in chat as well. Though as stated above, time goes on, less about the roles and more of what profession.

But then I will ask you, what makes it better that you’re advertised as a profession rather than a role? :o

Ticee.2451:

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Kimbald.2697:

If someone in WoW would spam trade with ‘Rogue dps LFG’ (which is the WoW equivalent of Andrews example above) than he would be mocked and asked what else a rogue could be…

I’m afraid your example says more of that particular player, or type of players, than of the trinity habit

True. but I play engineer.

However – it was just a purest example I could think of that you can tell people were playing in past games with the trinity. I have seen “Healer Engineer LFG” or whatever profession etc in chat as well. Though as stated above, time goes on, less about the roles and more of what profession.

But then I will ask you, what makes it better that you’re advertised as a profession rather than a role? :o

Because frankly, yes it’s technically possible to run thru the dungeons with five of the same professions… but people tend to want an variety group. So they end up choosing the ones that they don’t have already. They may already have two guardians but they don’t want a third for example.

If you have 5 of the same profession, you’ll want to have roles – of course. But most people don’t like stacking more than one or two of the same professions in a group. Unless you want to be silly like one of the last dungeon runs I did which was 4 guardians and an engineer. I looked so out of place with my gear like I was that midget that followed all the humans and norns around.

Nothing wrong with 5 engineers, but don’t expect a smooth run if you’re all specced precision and power.

Cheetara.6107:

Again I’m coming from 7 years of hardcore World of Warcraft so I’m not new to MMO.

But the thing I hate about this game is in dungeons there is no way to control mobs. There is no taunting no way to build aggro because there is no real tanking… That’s a horrible idea… Dungeon runs are a mess, kiting shouldn’t be the solution and it takes the fun out of dungeon runs.

Although I don’t believe “hardcore” and “WoW” should ever be used in the same sentence, I will agree that there needs to be more CC in GW2. 2s roots and stuns just don’t float the boat.

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Ticee.2451:

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Kimbald.2697:

If someone in WoW would spam trade with ‘Rogue dps LFG’ (which is the WoW equivalent of Andrews example above) than he would be mocked and asked what else a rogue could be…

I’m afraid your example says more of that particular player, or type of players, than of the trinity habit

True. but I play engineer.

However – it was just a purest example I could think of that you can tell people were playing in past games with the trinity. I have seen “Healer Engineer LFG” or whatever profession etc in chat as well. Though as stated above, time goes on, less about the roles and more of what profession.

But then I will ask you, what makes it better that you’re advertised as a profession rather than a role? :o

Because frankly, yes it’s technically possible to run thru the dungeons with five of the same professions… but people tend to want an variety group. So they end up choosing the ones that they don’t have already. They may already have two guardians but they don’t want a third for example.

If you have 5 of the same profession, you’ll want to have roles – of course. But most people don’t like stacking more than one or two of the same professions in a group. Unless you want to be silly like one of the last dungeon runs I did which was 4 guardians and an engineer. I looked so out of place with my gear like I was that midget that followed all the humans and norns around.

Well you basically just described why it’s important to have different roles – variety. And what GW2 has done is severly limiting the possibility of variety a lot by removing the vast majority of roles, forcing everyone to be dps, dps with support flavor or dps with a twist of crowd control.

The whole game is built up to fit the playstyle of being a squishy dps type that jumps and dodges around to avoid getting hit, and strangely enough the thief profession seems to be doing pretty well too.

this has more to do with player’s not understanding how to use the role’s of Control, Support, or damage in this game. and EVERY ONE just specking for DPS because its “easy”

gards… line of warding and Wall of reflection is often you best friend just saying

Well you basically just described why it’s important to have different roles – variety. And what GW2 has done is severly limiting the possibility of variety a lot by removing the vast majority of roles, forcing everyone to be dps, dps with support flavor or dps with a twist of crowd control.
The whole game is built up to fit the playstyle of being a squishy dps type that jumps and dodges around to avoid getting hit, and strangely enough the thief profession seems to be doing pretty well too.

Not really.. 8 professions each with their own flavor… seems like a load of variety to me. Instead of looking for DPS/Heal/Tank, your looking for guardian, warrior etc. Just the sense of variety is packaged differently. I think you need to shift your perspective a bit and realize that the trinity isn’t coming back anytime in guild wars 2.

Your professions should not define the role you are in. Your job assigned to you by your team leader should. As stated before – because of my engineer build – I can kite like a kitten. So I tend to get the job of keeping veterans busy in the dungeon. Sometimes I volunteer for Add duty as well.

I am thinking because there is a lack of trinity, you feel you don’t know exactly what to do. Guild wars 2 made it extremely easy to determine what your job is – whatever is needed by your dungeon leader. Your build is AoE king? Add duty. Good at kiting and controlling? Secondary Mobs. Lots of toughness/vitality? Boss. etc.