Guild Wars 2

3. Health vs. Damage
Why over complicate things and go into the 1000’s? Higher numbers = more impact?
Again, Why stray so far from the GW1 formula???
Also, every profession in GW1 had the exact same amount of base max health (with the exception of runes altering them slightly but to no great degree). I don’t understand why max health per profession in GW2 vary so significantly. One would simply say “balance purposes” to justify this decision but if that was the case… all I have to say is “just look at GW1”.

Part of it is the higher level cap. And part of it is that many gamers are easily impressed by superfluously by big numbers. I call it Big Number Syndrome. Attacking an enemy for 10 points of damage and dropping it from 100 health to 90 is cool and all, but attacking an enemy for 1000 points and dropping its health from 10000 health to 9000 is AWESOME!

darkace.8925:

3. Health vs. Damage
Why over complicate things and go into the 1000’s? Higher numbers = more impact?
Again, Why stray so far from the GW1 formula???
Also, every profession in GW1 had the exact same amount of base max health (with the exception of runes altering them slightly but to no great degree). I don’t understand why max health per profession in GW2 vary so significantly. One would simply say “balance purposes” to justify this decision but if that was the case… all I have to say is “just look at GW1”.

Part of it is the higher level cap. And part of it is that many gamers are easily impressed by superfluously by big numbers. I call it Big Number Syndrome. Attacking an enemy for 10 points of damage and dropping it from 100 health to 90 is cool and all, but attacking an enemy for 1000 points and dropping its health from 10000 health to 9000 is AWESOME!

simple minds – easily amused i guess lol

I agree with your post. I think (2) in particular has been the most frustrating. I don’t have the time or the patience to farm all the gold necessary to get the exotics and runes to test various stat combinations. One move from berserker to knights already depleted my gold and resources, and it’s not even finished with proper runes.

(1) and (4) I also agree with, but I wonder if it’s simply too late to overturn these fundamental design choices (deficiencies?). (One of my favorite parts of the game was the elite skills hunt, but I don’t see how that could ever be introduced into GW2 without a complete overhaul.)

As for respeccing costs: Have you tried testing those in the Mists? You can get runes and armor for free there I believe.

Frotee.2634:

As for respeccing costs: Have you tried testing those in the Mists? You can get runes and armor for free there I believe.

The numbers there and in PVE do not line up exactly.

gkrit.9416:

GW2 has not hooked me like GW1 did. GW2 is okay in its own way but its definitely too different and as such has not come to what I expected.

Don’t get me wrong, “different” can be good and TBH I could not wait for GW2 to come out… but now that its out (for a while now) I am slightly disappointed in it that it didnt make me want to keep playing it almost every day like GW1 did. I feel like I keep trying to convince myself why GW2 is good but i keep going back to my memories of GW1.

I think it is due to several reasons:

1. Minimal Build diversity/customising
GW1 was just perfect. Had many skills at our disposal to choose from to form different builds to serve different purposes per profession.
Being able to fine tune a build was something I heavily invested time in to find new viable builds and was just extremely fun to do to even pass time. I cant recall how many times I was away from the game just figuring out builds that would synergize well.
Now, GW2… I cant really say the same about it. Build customization is non-existent. Utility skills are quite pitiful too in nearly every aspect (lacking options, super high cooldowns, many are just redundant).

Huge loss…

2. Re-spec’ing
GW1 was simple and effective. Not too difficult to achieve and at minimal expense to the player.
GW2 has made respec’ing a lot more difficult. Financially. Good luck buying effective rune sets (if you claim money is no issue I challenge you to send me 6x sup runes of the eagle) and armors…lets not forget the additional money sink to reset your traits and the NEED to actually go to an npc to get this done… fun fun.

3. Health vs. Damage
Why over complicate things and go into the 1000’s? Higher numbers = more impact?
Again, Why stray so far from the GW1 formula???
Also, every profession in GW1 had the exact same amount of base max health (with the exception of runes altering them slightly but to no great degree). I don’t understand why max health per profession in GW2 vary so significantly. One would simply say “balance purposes” to justify this decision but if that was the case… all I have to say is “just look at GW1”.

4. Depth of battle
GW1 was deep and the strategy was intense which was something i LOVED about it. You would work with a team to get the most effective synergy and had a role to play in an effort to destroy an enemy team or mob. You wouldn’t just blow all your skills straight away on one enemy (and wait till they off cooldown to just use it again no matter what the situation) but would time your skills waiting for opportune moments to achieve max effect.

GW2 seems to be about how many numbers you can take away in how little time just by blowing your whole skill set in one go. The depth of battle cannot be compared to that of GW1. I can tell you one thing… I don’t look for a fire wall to shoot my arrows through it. Nor do I place a fire wall down with the intention of amplifying allies skills. If allies combo up with it, then it was merely right place, right time. Nothing more.

---

I may be underselling a few things but this is how I feel and if you reflect back on those years of GW1 experiences, I’m sure you can relate.
If these things were looked into further… I will be one happy chappy.

Looks like you’re playing the wrong game. Guild wars 1 has what you want. There’s a reason why Guild wars 2 is called Guild wars 2 and not Guild Wars 1 with better graphics.

On 3, what the higher numbers allow for is more fine grained maths. Observe the hidden modifiers on healing power that various skills have and so on.

1. GW1 had a lot of useless or very situational skills that were rarely used by anyone.
2. True.
3. I don’t care really.
4. Because GW1 was more of a strategy game. GW2 is more an action game. It was advertised as such before launch, though.
If you blow your skills on an enemy straight away I sure as hell wouldn’t want you in my GW2 dungeon party, though.

OP you are right. GW2 completely lacks the depth from GW1. It is a dumbed down MMO for carebears and completely abandons ANets philosophy from GW1. The manifesto should have said: “If you like generic MMO’s watered down for casual players, you’ll love GW2.”

haxi.9038:

gkrit.9416:

GW2 has not hooked me like GW1 did. GW2 is okay in its own way but its definitely too different and as such has not come to what I expected…. – cut -

Looks like you’re playing the wrong game. Guild wars 1 has what you want. There’s a reason why Guild wars 2 is called Guild wars 2 and not Guild Wars 1 with better graphics.

So in order to make a Guild wars sequel… your saying you need to scrap everything that was in the first one just because it NEEDS to be different?
Hmmm… so basically Uncharted (the game) failed in making its series because they did not change it to a first person shooter? This is what you’re basically saying. Usually a sequel takes what they already had and either refine or add more features and UP graphics where possible… not completely change a game altogether. If you gonna change a game altogether, you should give it a different title and not use the reputation of previous title. Having said that, its not like i dislike some of the changes but many of the things i loved so much about gw1 is no where to be seen in Gw2.

Milennin.4825:

1. GW1 had a lot of useless or very situational skills that were rarely used by anyone.
2. True.
3. I don’t care really.
4. Because GW1 was more of a strategy game. GW2 is more an action game. It was advertised as such before launch, though.
If you blow your skills on an enemy straight away I sure as hell wouldn’t want you in my GW2 dungeon party, though.

1. You can say the same about utility skills and traits for Gw2 cough elites cough.
4. What im trying to say here is that there were many indirect way to overcome a battle in Gw1 however, Gw2 is all about dropping an enemies health with big hit numbers. Team mate synergy in gw2 only really occurs through combo fields and such which in most cases are just accidently achieved. Gw1 on the other hand, you could buff allies, hex/debuff enemies, create spike synergy, pressure builds, opportunities were almost endless.

All in all I feel the essence that was Guild wars has been reconstructed into something entirely different. Most likely in an attempt to reach a particular player base – WoW fans. Smart move on the developers half… but hurt my heart

gkrit.9416:

GW2 has not hooked me like GW1 did. GW2 is okay in its own way but its definitely too different and as such has not come to what I expected.

Don’t get me wrong, “different” can be good and TBH I could not wait for GW2 to come out… but now that its out (for a while now) I am slightly disappointed in it that it didnt make me want to keep playing it almost every day like GW1 did. I feel like I keep trying to convince myself why GW2 is good but i keep going back to my memories of GW1.

I think it is due to several reasons:

1. Minimal Build diversity/customising
GW1 was just perfect. Had many skills at our disposal to choose from to form different builds to serve different purposes per profession.
Being able to fine tune a build was something I heavily invested time in to find new viable builds and was just extremely fun to do to even pass time. I cant recall how many times I was away from the game just figuring out builds that would synergize well.
Now, GW2… I cant really say the same about it. Build customization is non-existent. Utility skills are quite pitiful too in nearly every aspect (lacking options, super high cooldowns, many are just redundant).

Huge loss…

2. Re-spec’ing
GW1 was simple and effective. Not too difficult to achieve and at minimal expense to the player.
GW2 has made respec’ing a lot more difficult. Financially. Good luck buying effective rune sets (if you claim money is no issue I challenge you to send me 6x sup runes of the eagle) and armors…lets not forget the additional money sink to reset your traits and the NEED to actually go to an npc to get this done… fun fun.

3. Health vs. Damage
Why over complicate things and go into the 1000’s? Higher numbers = more impact?
Again, Why stray so far from the GW1 formula???
Also, every profession in GW1 had the exact same amount of base max health (with the exception of runes altering them slightly but to no great degree). I don’t understand why max health per profession in GW2 vary so significantly. One would simply say “balance purposes” to justify this decision but if that was the case… all I have to say is “just look at GW1”.

4. Depth of battle
GW1 was deep and the strategy was intense which was something i LOVED about it. You would work with a team to get the most effective synergy and had a role to play in an effort to destroy an enemy team or mob. You wouldn’t just blow all your skills straight away on one enemy (and wait till they off cooldown to just use it again no matter what the situation) but would time your skills waiting for opportune moments to achieve max effect.

GW2 seems to be about how many numbers you can take away in how little time just by blowing your whole skill set in one go. The depth of battle cannot be compared to that of GW1. I can tell you one thing… I don’t look for a fire wall to shoot my arrows through it. Nor do I place a fire wall down with the intention of amplifying allies skills. If allies combo up with it, then it was merely right place, right time. Nothing more.

---

I may be underselling a few things but this is how I feel and if you reflect back on those years of GW1 experiences, I’m sure you can relate.
If these things were looked into further… I will be one happy chappy.

To add this to GW2 to make it more fun it need extra work on the A-net Dev team which they stated it will never happen.
not even once after 6+ months they mentioned anything about adding more skills.

Assyrian.4827:

To add this to GW2 to make it more fun it need extra work on the A-net Dev team which they stated it will never happen.
not even once after 6+ months they mentioned anything about adding more skills.

That is a shame then… I guess Gw2 is not what I expected it to be after playing Gw1.

gkrit.9416:

Assyrian.4827:

To add this to GW2 to make it more fun it need extra work on the A-net Dev team which they stated it will never happen.
not even once after 6+ months they mentioned anything about adding more skills.

That is a shame then… I guess Gw2 is not what I expected it to be after playing Gw1.

I thought the dev team was pretty clear about informing the population there’d be a lot less skills. The number of threads discussing it on guru go back a long, long time. People worried about there not being enough diversity for a couple of years now.

Guild Wars 1 was great for making builds. It was actually my favorite part of the game. Except that when I made team builds for me and heroes, even before you could take 7 heroes, everything in PVe with the exception of a couple of very specific end game instances became stupid easy. That’s a balance problem caused by the inability for Anet to keep track of and balance 10 professions, with all the skills, with a secondary profession. So the skill system had it’s ups, but definitely had it’s downs as well.

Vayne.8563:

gkrit.9416:

Assyrian.4827:

To add this to GW2 to make it more fun it need extra work on the A-net Dev team which they stated it will never happen.
not even once after 6+ months they mentioned anything about adding more skills.

That is a shame then… I guess Gw2 is not what I expected it to be after playing Gw1.

I thought the dev team was pretty clear about informing the population there’d be a lot less skills. The number of threads discussing it on guru go back a long, long time. People worried about there not being enough diversity for a couple of years now.

Guild Wars 1 was great for making builds. It was actually my favorite part of the game. Except that when I made team builds for me and heroes, even before you could take 7 heroes, everything in PVe with the exception of a couple of very specific end game instances became stupid easy. That’s a balance problem caused by the inability for Anet to keep track of and balance 10 professions, with all the skills, with a secondary profession. So the skill system had it’s ups, but definitely had it’s downs as well.

Nothings really set in stone I guess. They may have said they gonna have less skills in the game but don’t mean they wont add any ever. Well at least that’s what Im going to cling on to lol.

gkrit.9416:

Vayne.8563:

gkrit.9416:

Assyrian.4827:

To add this to GW2 to make it more fun it need extra work on the A-net Dev team which they stated it will never happen.
not even once after 6+ months they mentioned anything about adding more skills.

That is a shame then… I guess Gw2 is not what I expected it to be after playing Gw1.

I thought the dev team was pretty clear about informing the population there’d be a lot less skills. The number of threads discussing it on guru go back a long, long time. People worried about there not being enough diversity for a couple of years now.

Guild Wars 1 was great for making builds. It was actually my favorite part of the game. Except that when I made team builds for me and heroes, even before you could take 7 heroes, everything in PVe with the exception of a couple of very specific end game instances became stupid easy. That’s a balance problem caused by the inability for Anet to keep track of and balance 10 professions, with all the skills, with a secondary profession. So the skill system had it’s ups, but definitely had it’s downs as well.

Nothings really set in stone I guess. They may have said they gonna have less skills in the game but don’t mean they wont add any ever. Well at least that’s what Im going to cling on to lol.

I’m pretty sure they’ll add skills with paid expansions…but I don’t think they’ll add them before. I certainly expect more elite skills.

gkrit.9416:

1. You can say the same about utility skills and traits for Gw2 cough elites cough.
4. What im trying to say here is that there were many indirect way to overcome a battle in Gw1 however, Gw2 is all about dropping an enemies health with big hit numbers. Team mate synergy in gw2 only really occurs through combo fields and such which in most cases are just accidently achieved. Gw1 on the other hand, you could buff allies, hex/debuff enemies, create spike synergy, pressure builds, opportunities were almost endless.

All in all I feel the essence that was Guild wars has been reconstructed into something entirely different. Most likely in an attempt to reach a particular player base – WoW fans. Smart move on the developers half… but hurt my heart

1. You shouldn’t have a problem with that, though, since you like quantity over quality.
2. Guild Wars 1 was most of the player-base running cookie-cutter hero builds to solo faceroll all the content. The few things that were done in a party were only possible if you ran the exact same build they wanted you to run, and do exactly what they wanted you to do (FoW/UW SC). Hell, a few times I got kicked from a random mission party because of my W/Mo tag, even though I didn’t even run Monk skills on my guy, lol.
In Guild Wars 2 I can create my own build, join any PUG, and run a dungeon without problems while playing the way I want to play my character.
Theoretically GW1 might have been more interesting than GW2. In reality GW2 is way superior over GW1, unless you just prefer single players over multi-player games.

Milennin.4825:

gkrit.9416:

1. You can say the same about utility skills and traits for Gw2 cough elites cough.
4. What im trying to say here is that there were many indirect way to overcome a battle in Gw1 however, Gw2 is all about dropping an enemies health with big hit numbers. Team mate synergy in gw2 only really occurs through combo fields and such which in most cases are just accidently achieved. Gw1 on the other hand, you could buff allies, hex/debuff enemies, create spike synergy, pressure builds, opportunities were almost endless.

All in all I feel the essence that was Guild wars has been reconstructed into something entirely different. Most likely in an attempt to reach a particular player base – WoW fans. Smart move on the developers half… but hurt my heart

1. You shouldn’t have a problem with that, though, since you like quantity over quality.
2. Guild Wars 1 was most of the player-base running cookie-cutter hero builds to solo faceroll all the content. The few things that were done in a party were only possible if you ran the exact same build they wanted you to run, and do exactly what they wanted you to do (FoW/UW SC). Hell, a few times I got kicked from a random mission party because of my W/Mo tag, even though I didn’t even run Monk skills on my guy, lol.
In Guild Wars 2 I can create my own build, join any PUG, and run a dungeon without problems while playing the way I want to play my character.
Theoretically GW1 might have been more interesting than GW2. In reality GW2 is way superior over GW1, unless you just prefer single players over multi-player games.

1. Gw2 has less quantity yet still redundancies are evident.
2. That is exactly what they could learn from… NO heroes and problem solved! You do have a point here where there were builds that hit mainstream but these were isolated cases depending on the area and situations. Variety still existed in Gw1 regardless.

gkrit.9416:

1. Gw2 has less quantity yet still redundancies are evident.
2. That is exactly what they could learn from… NO heroes and problem solved! You do have a point here where there were builds that hit mainstream but these were isolated cases depending on the area and situations. Variety still existed in Gw1 regardless.

Playing a PvE Warrior in GW1 there isn’t a huge amount of good choices, though. I can go for a Dragon Slash build (good in areas with enemies spaced out), a Hundred Blades build (good for areas with lots of mob packs), or maybe a Triple Chop axe build (same purpose as 100-blades build). Other than that there aren’t many other builds for a PvE Warrior that are really efficient or good at what they do.
That’s 3 builds I can use on a character vs. plenty of stuff I can use on my GW2 Warrior. Now I haven’t played much on my GW2 Warrior yet, but I do know the amount of weapons they can choose from. I’m sure there are at least 3 different sets that are effectively used on a Warrior (seeing lots of players using greatswords, rifles, some axes, some swords). Then there’s some different utility in use, such as shouts or banners and their supporting traits.

As a GW1 Elementalist my choices were even worse. In easy-mode people only brought Fire Elementalists, because fire nukes stuff fastest. In hard-mode the Aeromancer was more effective because of high armour ratings on mobs. Or you could go as a protection monk with ER (although I prefer leaving that to my hero, otherwise I would’ve chosen to play Monk class).
Sadly Water and Earth very rarely saw any use. Earth was mostly used for a few niche farming builds, and Water maybe for snaring the runners for the bonus in one of those Nightfall missions.
In GW2 I have choices between vastly different playstyles on my Elementalist. I can go the hyper-active elemental ninja route using dual daggers. Or the more classic and passive staff user. Or something in-between with focus-scepter or focus-dagger.

i thought GW1’s system was a mess to be honest, each to there own.

gkrit.9416:

darkace.8925:

3. Health vs. Damage
Why over complicate things and go into the 1000’s? Higher numbers = more impact?
Again, Why stray so far from the GW1 formula???
Also, every profession in GW1 had the exact same amount of base max health (with the exception of runes altering them slightly but to no great degree). I don’t understand why max health per profession in GW2 vary so significantly. One would simply say “balance purposes” to justify this decision but if that was the case… all I have to say is “just look at GW1”.

Part of it is the higher level cap. And part of it is that many gamers are easily impressed by superfluously by big numbers. I call it Big Number Syndrome. Attacking an enemy for 10 points of damage and dropping it from 100 health to 90 is cool and all, but attacking an enemy for 1000 points and dropping its health from 10000 health to 9000 is AWESOME!

simple minds – easily amused i guess lol

Another reason could be condition damage. no one would be impressed by 5 dmg bleed ticks :P

Yes, gw2 is an action MMO, it doesn’t have much strategy besides “survive/DPS”. it lacks control, shut downs, pressure and therefore strategy.. sadly 70% of the few forms of control were given to guardian (bubbles/reflects, etc ) instead of being fairly distributed among all classes. so all that’s left is DPS

and DPS.. shines the most on classes who’s class mechanic allows for greater survival such as stealth or clones

And about quality over quantity.. that’s not true at all. I’m not sure if Anet is saving up under-power skills/traits to later shift the meta but.. too many skills/traits lack quality, and the ones who do have it and tend to be nerfed on less popular classes such as kit refinement/ Empathic Bond because traits(skills too) shouldn’t be build defining.

You have “quality” traits like Ele’s earth embrace which for 10 points, it grants long stability/protection/stun breaker, if traited also regen/vigor, remove a condition and even has a glitch that for a short window it will suck in all projectiles. and then you have ranger traits that give you 5s might after activating a signet, not too much quality there..

google.3709:

Yes, gw2 is an action MMO, it doesn’t have much strategy besides “survive/DPS”. it lacks control, shut downs, pressure and therefore strategy.. sadly 70% of the few forms of control were given to guardian (bubbles/reflects, etc ) instead of being fairly distributed among all classes. so all that’s left is DPS

and DPS.. shines the most on classes who’s class mechanic allows for greater survival such as stealth or clones

And about quality over quantity.. that’s not true at all. I’m not sure if Anet is saving up under-power skills/traits to later shift the meta but.. too many skills/traits lack quality, and the ones who do have it and tend to be nerfed on less popular classes such as kit refinement/ Empathic Bond because traits(skills too) shouldn’t be build defining.

You have “quality” traits like Ele’s earth embrace which for 10 points, it grants long stability/protection/stun breaker, if traited also regen/vigor, remove a condition and even has a glitch that for a short window it will suck in all projectiles. and then you have ranger traits that give you 5s might after activating a signet, not too much quality there..

QFT. The combat in this game is about as shallow as it gets for either a skill based game or an action based game.

1) GW1 skills were perfect, to you. To me GW1 had too many skills, i mean i enjoy deck building, but it reached the point where you needed a side program with search features to make a build. Which is sort of entertaining to me, but i dont think its an optimal situation for players at large, and lead to many cookie cutter builds and builds that overperformed. Balance was a lot less important in GW1, because it was by an large instanced, it was fairly easy to ignore what everyone else was doing as the game progressed.

That said i dont think GW2 is at optimal amount of skill choice either. I think they probably need at least 1 alternate skill choice per weapon type (which would greatly help them having to try to make every weapon set have so many things it can do, and yet still be balanced)

2) re speccing in GW1 was not really that easy in prophecies, everyone remembers how easy it was after factions and nightfall, but when i first played prophecies, minor runes cost 1 plat+ highly valued runes were like 6 plat plus. You couldnt change the prefix on weapons, and your earning potential was fairly low. Not to mention they didnt give out as many perfect salvage kits.
That said, i think that respeccing in GW2 is also pretty bad with regards to gear, not even really due to money, but due to inventory, and each gear having its own unchangeable stat distributions. IMO they should develop a system where you can store and change your gear stats. This can be a form of horizontal progression, and makes it so you dont need to walk around or store 3 different gear sets, and makes it so you can actually experiment with different stat builds.

3) health versus damage, i believe it has been shown that for programming it is easier to scale up rather than down. Rounding and trunacation causes some issues, as well, GW had a level cap of 20, it wasnt really meant to scale at all, so lower was fine, even for that it had some problems, like some skills benefitted from one point of attributes, and others didnt, sometimes it was worthless to add a stat point due to to truncation/rounding effects.

4) depth of battle. GW1 wasnt very deep in battle to me. It was deep in terms of planning i suppose, but once you had your plan, even robots could beat the hardest content in the game, aka 90% of hero battles. This had its strong points an some fun, but the visceral combat in GW2 is way better to me, there is also still that ability to, with the perfect plans make content a lot more faceroll ish, but it requires more coordination and planning. I think this will be subjective to whether you prefer to come up with an equation that equals winning, or whether you prefer to have to actually execute well. Its going to be subjective.

Honestly i feel GW2 combat is pretty good, though i wish they had more synergy, less nerfs to synergistic systems (they nerfed combo fields effectiveness, predictability, nerfing, mes boon building, rangers use of quickeness to burst, everyones ability to CC)
and more difficulty levels wherein higher level difficulty requires better use of personal synergy and team synergy.

Great post OP, totally agree with you, as a GW1 player i have felt pain in every one of those points you brought up, they really make Guildwars 2 pale compared to its predecessor.

google.3709:

Yes, gw2 is an action MMO, it doesn’t have much strategy besides “survive/DPS”. it lacks control, shut downs, pressure and therefore strategy.. sadly 70% of the few forms of control were given to guardian (bubbles/reflects, etc ) instead of being fairly distributed among all classes. so all that’s left is DPS

and DPS.. shines the most on classes who’s class mechanic allows for greater survival such as stealth or clones

And about quality over quantity.. that’s not true at all. I’m not sure if Anet is saving up under-power skills/traits to later shift the meta but.. too many skills/traits lack quality, and the ones who do have it and tend to be nerfed on less popular classes such as kit refinement/ Empathic Bond because traits(skills too) shouldn’t be build defining.

You have “quality” traits like Ele’s earth embrace which for 10 points, it grants long stability/protection/stun breaker, if traited also regen/vigor, remove a condition and even has a glitch that for a short window it will suck in all projectiles. and then you have ranger traits that give you 5s might after activating a signet, not too much quality there..

every games based on killing strategy boils down to survive and dps. CC is about survival, healing is about survival.
I think you have a personal bias when your talking about clones, i have played mesmer, and its clones really dont make being DPS that much easier, (course when i leveled mobs ignored clones more, but even now, unless i have toughness clones die too fast to give much protection)
Stealth is also a really crappy mechanic for survival in PVE, and has always been. I guess you must mean in PVP, but i think PV kitten uch a different animal that you really should mention you are talking about pvp balance.

and yeah ranger 1 stack of might on signet use is trash (especially when ranger has some of the longest cast times on signets), but thats a balance issue, i think the thread isnt about imbalanced skills, but more about overall systems.

Wish they bring back build templates and get rid of the cost of retraiting.

mekkanic.4759:

Wish they bring back build templates and get rid of the cost of retraiting.

cost of retraiting is honestly not an issue. It costs 3 silver for a level 80 to retrait, i wouldnt really notice nor care of the difference. Build templates though would be good, and im guessing they may return, especially if they split PVE an WvW skills, in fact they would probably get rid of cost of retraiting too.

Still i think the problem is the cost of re gearing, and not just with money, but with convenience, inventory, and manageability.

Agree.
GW2’s combat feels so much watered down compared to GW1’s combat, same goes for skills.
I don;t think I have ever encountered a hard battle in GW2, both Dungeons and FoTM.

Also, what happened to “Thousands of cross Profession Combos” they promised before GW2 launched?

phys.7689

lol you’re right, i was thinking about PvP when talking about balancing. personally i think the game is not challenging enough to need a strategy for PvE content, as long as you can stay alive, you can always finish whatever you’re doing. ofc there are exceptions such as high level fractals, where the strategy is as shallow as saying, bring a guardian. it’s ridiculous how much easier they can make some encounters while some classes such as ranger can actually complicate encounters (pets make a large portion of the ranger’s damage, but they tend to die easily) , this mainly applies to high level fractals and maybe Arah/CoE where class balance becomes more noticeable but anywhere else, it really doesn’t matter.

and in PvP, clones are a strong survival mechanism, you need to waste time identifying the real one, as well as clones interfere with key bindings such as “closest enemy” forcing you to click the players ( which ironically can be dodged ) or use tab targeting, which also takes time. time in which they can freely DPS you all they want. then stealth and do it again lol

and yea, stealth in PvE is kinda meh now with the nerf on agro tables.

phys.7689:

mekkanic.4759:

Wish they bring back build templates and get rid of the cost of retraiting.

cost of retraiting is honestly not an issue. It costs 3 silver for a level 80 to retrait, i wouldnt really notice nor care of the difference. Build templates though would be good, and im guessing they may return, especially if they split PVE an WvW skills, in fact they would probably get rid of cost of retraiting too.

Still i think the problem is the cost of re gearing, and not just with money, but with convenience, inventory, and manageability.

Its not really a matter of cost…its just unnecessary. Its not needed. I would love to retrait while im in wvw without having to go visit someone just so I could retrait. It could cost 0 silver. Its just the fact that I have to go to an npc to do it. It wasnt in gw1…why is it in gw2?

I bought this game about a month ago at the same time as a friend so we could play together.

I was expecting the usual mmo concepts:

Difficult to master;
Complicated classes;
Many abilities/skill sets.

But alas, I was regretfully wrong.

Let’s face it, the game is far too simple!

I have 5 abilities which are set for each weapon type, and some weapon types simply outclass others for different professions making them pointless (lightning daggers on elementalists compared to fire staves)

There is no variation on these without changing weapon type
Though this cannot be done mid battle (which would vastly improve on combat IMO)

Admittedly, I am still a low level as I really find it hard to put effort into this game so keep going astray and try different professions.

So simply put, I find the simplicity all a bit too boring and come to ask here…how can I get hooked

(p.s. I do want to get hooked, spent £50 on this game -.- might as well not go to waste)

Every other class can swap weapons in combat, btw. Elementalists cannot.

Try new classes.

You are pooping me…of all the classes, I pick the stupidest

Edit, I suppose they do get to change elements, but with some having little to no damage output, that still sucks

Yeah I’m talking about you water staff…

Go play sPvP if you want complexity rather than facerolls

Hey there,

I somewhat agree; however, I think you are judging to simplicity too soon. Yes, you only have those skills on your weapon slots, but you are missing other things.

1. Traits, these affect how you use those skills
2. F buttons, these can change depending on your class/trait/weapon set up
3. Utility Skills, you have quite a few to choose from and the 3 you choose are important
4. Elite skill, you have a cpl to choose from and generally it’s an easy decision

5. Dungeons, the combat mechanics in dungeons are much different than the open world, and it is much harder to keep alive. You really need to be on your toes and use the right skills at the right times (As you are penalized with long cool downs which sucks if your timing is off) I did a dungeon the other day and my roommate came home, he asked me to hit the button on the TV cuz I was beside it and I did, I lost half my health in the 1 second I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.

Elementalists cannot swap weapons but that doesn’t mean they have anything short of “class complexity” compared to others.

They have attunements, you’re supposed to memorize the four attunements and swap them in battle to make effective use of a good Elementalist class. (Giving you 20 skills per weapon.)

FurySong.6348:

Elementalists cannot swap weapons but that doesn’t mean they have anything short of “class complexity” compared to others.

They have attunements, you’re supposed to memorize the four attunements and swap them in battle to make effective use of a good Elementalist class. (Giving you 16 skills per weapon.)

20 skills per weapon

Er, yeah. 20.

Woops

Try a different class. I found the lack of weapon swap crippling for Ele’s as well, was much happier as Guardian and Mesmer.

Jemmi.6058:

Hey there,

I somewhat agree; however, I think you are judging to simplicity too soon. Yes, you only have those skills on your weapon slots, but you are missing other things.

1. Traits, these affect how you use those skills
2. F buttons, these can change depending on your class/trait/weapon set up
3. Utility Skills, you have quite a few to choose from and the 3 you choose are important
4. Elite skill, you have a cpl to choose from and generally it’s an easy decision

5. Dungeons, the combat mechanics in dungeons are much different than the open world, and it is much harder to keep alive. You really need to be on your toes and use the right skills at the right times (As you are penalized with long cool downs which sucks if your timing is off) I did a dungeon the other day and my roommate came home, he asked me to hit the button on the TV cuz I was beside it and I did, I lost half my health in the 1 second I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.

The utility skills are also annoying though in the fact that some just outclass others completely.

I have started to unlock traits, but it takes a good few levels before they really become anything useful, like, a really good few.

And annoyingly I am far from dungeon level, not to play hardcore fan, but the fact warcraft has low level dungeons to play through and level up with was pretty good, it gives you something else to do from constant questing or event grinding.

Aeonblade.8709:

Try a different class. I found the lack of weapon swap crippling for Ele’s as well, was much happier as Guardian and Mesmer.

I have seen a few mesmers on the battlefield, I’ll admit they intrigue me, mine like level 2, really must start to play her :P

Will give that a go instead.

Quortza.1235:

Jemmi.6058:

Hey there,

I somewhat agree; however, I think you are judging to simplicity too soon. Yes, you only have those skills on your weapon slots, but you are missing other things.

1. Traits, these affect how you use those skills
2. F buttons, these can change depending on your class/trait/weapon set up
3. Utility Skills, you have quite a few to choose from and the 3 you choose are important
4. Elite skill, you have a cpl to choose from and generally it’s an easy decision

5. Dungeons, the combat mechanics in dungeons are much different than the open world, and it is much harder to keep alive. You really need to be on your toes and use the right skills at the right times (As you are penalized with long cool downs which sucks if your timing is off) I did a dungeon the other day and my roommate came home, he asked me to hit the button on the TV cuz I was beside it and I did, I lost half my health in the 1 second I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.

The utility skills are also annoying though in the fact that some just outclass others completely.

I have started to unlock traits, but it takes a good few levels before they really become anything useful, like, a really good few.

And annoyingly I am far from dungeon level, not to play hardcore fan, but the fact warcraft has low level dungeons to play through and level up with was pretty good, it gives you something else to do from constant questing or event grinding.

There are low level dungeons in GW2 as well, start at level 30.

Yes some utility skills outclass others, but as you come from WoW you can appreciate that many skills outclass others in WoW as well.

Also the effectiveness of utility skills varies depending on
1. Traits
2. Equipment
3. Playstyle
4. Group make up
5. What you are fighting

This adds a lot of depth and variety to what you can do.

Vol.5241:

Go play tPvP if you want complexity rather than facerolls

Fixed that for you. sPvP are still facerolls/zergrolls/imbalanced groups/people leaving in the middle of the match because they’re down by a hundred points.

Jemmi.6058:

Quortza.1235:

Jemmi.6058:

Hey there,

I somewhat agree; however, I think you are judging to simplicity too soon. Yes, you only have those skills on your weapon slots, but you are missing other things.

1. Traits, these affect how you use those skills
2. F buttons, these can change depending on your class/trait/weapon set up
3. Utility Skills, you have quite a few to choose from and the 3 you choose are important
4. Elite skill, you have a cpl to choose from and generally it’s an easy decision

5. Dungeons, the combat mechanics in dungeons are much different than the open world, and it is much harder to keep alive. You really need to be on your toes and use the right skills at the right times (As you are penalized with long cool downs which sucks if your timing is off) I did a dungeon the other day and my roommate came home, he asked me to hit the button on the TV cuz I was beside it and I did, I lost half my health in the 1 second I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.

The utility skills are also annoying though in the fact that some just outclass others completely.

I have started to unlock traits, but it takes a good few levels before they really become anything useful, like, a really good few.

And annoyingly I am far from dungeon level, not to play hardcore fan, but the fact warcraft has low level dungeons to play through and level up with was pretty good, it gives you something else to do from constant questing or event grinding.

There are low level dungeons in GW2 as well, start at level 30.

Yes some utility skills outclass others, but as you come from WoW you can appreciate that many skills outclass others in WoW as well.

Also the effectiveness of utility skills varies depending on
1. Traits
2. Equipment
3. Playstyle
4. Group make up
5. What you are fighting

This adds a lot of depth and variety to what you can do.

Yes true with the utilities, but again with the whole, unable to change during combat, you can only really have them set for one thing at a time e.g. personally I use the next 5 shots will always crit as one of my 3 traits (I forget it’s name) for my elementalist, for obvious reasons, but this is really only useful in fire attunement as the other elements are simply too weak. (IMO)

As well as the burn trait which inflicts burn and a dot, which in turn benefits fire attunement abilities which deal more damage on targets which are burning.

One of my main characters is an Ele (the others a Mesmer and Thief).

I would recommend you trait down the Arcane line. This will allow you to swap between attunements more quickly, and you can also double the size of your AoE’s. This is really useful if you use staff primarily (which IMO is the best weapon, but lots of people like D/D as well).

You may want to familiarize yourself with combo fields too. If you throw down the number 2 skill on Earth with staff, then swap to fire and throw down number 2 you will grant Area Might, which makes your do more damage. Eruption (earth #2) also stacks area blood and does a lot of damage and Fire#2 does a decent amount of damage. This will rock most things in the open world for you.

Other combo fields with staff
Eruption + Water#3 = Area healing
Eruption + Water#5 = Area regen
Eruption + Air#5 = Area swiftness

You can replace Eruption with a utility skill Arcane Blast. Some people say it is easier, but I found eruption is pretty easy.

Other tactics that you can use..

Water #2 will do decent damage and will grant vulnerability to your enemy, which makes your other attacks do more damage.
Water #4 will slow your target and allow you to kite easier

Air#2 will blind your target which makes it fail it’s next attack against you
Air#3 will push your target back
Air#4 will grant swiftness so you can move faster
Air#5 will stun your enemy

Earth#2 as I said will help with combo fields, stack blood and do lots of damage
Earth#3 will reflect projectiles
Earth#4 will cripple your enemy, great for kiting
Earth#5 will immobilize and bleed your foe.

Yes fire does the most damage, but if used in combination with other elements you can stun/immobilize/cripple or chill your foe to kite easier, you can make yourself move faster to kite easier, you can make your foe more vulnerable to your attacks and you can stack up bleeding for a lot of damage over time.

Quortza.1235:

Jemmi.6058:

Hey there,

I somewhat agree; however, I think you are judging to simplicity too soon. Yes, you only have those skills on your weapon slots, but you are missing other things.

1. Traits, these affect how you use those skills
2. F buttons, these can change depending on your class/trait/weapon set up
3. Utility Skills, you have quite a few to choose from and the 3 you choose are important
4. Elite skill, you have a cpl to choose from and generally it’s an easy decision

5. Dungeons, the combat mechanics in dungeons are much different than the open world, and it is much harder to keep alive. You really need to be on your toes and use the right skills at the right times (As you are penalized with long cool downs which sucks if your timing is off) I did a dungeon the other day and my roommate came home, he asked me to hit the button on the TV cuz I was beside it and I did, I lost half my health in the 1 second I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.

The utility skills are also annoying though in the fact that some just outclass others completely.

I have started to unlock traits, but it takes a good few levels before they really become anything useful, like, a really good few.

And annoyingly I am far from dungeon level, not to play hardcore fan, but the fact warcraft has low level dungeons to play through and level up with was pretty good, it gives you something else to do from constant questing or event grinding.

The Elementalist class is a very fun class if you learn your own style, with swapping out of attunements depending on the situation. Also the first dungeon is at level 30, have you only been playing 10 minutes a day to not be close to that level?

FurySong.6348:

Every other class can swap weapons in combat, btw. Elementalists cannot.

Try new classes.

Weapon swapping in other classes does allow you access to 10 skills. Elementalists are allotted 20 skills just from one weapon by switching attunements. In this regard, I think elementalists have more options.

Give the game some time, and start doing PvP to get into the combat more. Even with a limited ammount of abilities the combat does have quite a bit of depth. Also explore the combinations of abilities you can get between classes with your friend

The game rewards reflex quite a bit aswell due to dodging!

it’s built for casual long term players. this usually means it need to be simplified. the few need to have a game be difficult to play. the many do not.

who will they gain more profit from? the many or the few?