Guild Wars 2

Hello,

So something I noticed in Gw2 is that there is a lot of passive teamwork. There are very few instances where teamwork is taking place that isn’t in a passive sense. Now you may be asking what I mean. What I mean is interacting with other players during combat to further/do better in the fight.

I’ve been watching some turnys, a few dungeons, WvW here and there, one thing I notice is that players seem to ignore one another while in combat. There are a few instances where they work together, but I feel there should be more push for this.

Combofields are a major factor in this. They allow players to interact with one another without actually communicating (there are different times where this isn’t true, though they are few. Shadow Refugee, timewarp are two i can think off of the top of my head). This is also the same in open world. Dynamic events allow players to work together without actually having to communicate a lot. This is also the same for WvW with commander tags. I see stacking and portal bombs as instances that show this isn’t true, but when PUGs join a zerg, they just follow the tag. In PvP this is also true. After watch recent turnies players seem to find a target to attack and focus that target. Not a lot of using different skills on one another, support, etc. The only time they do is when someone is downed and they use rez skills or heal them.

I tried something different while playing in the open world today and that was actively communicating. I did this 2 ways. I choose a support build and I started commanding and doing world bosses that aren’t timed. I would go and call a vote in an area with a large amount of people (LA, end of other boss events) and ask which one they’d like to do and I would go start them. These events would have pre events that no one does and need work to start the bosses. Karka queen, convington, flame temple, ogre wars, modniir, and catacombs boss are the ones I did. What had happened was that I got a group of 10-20 people that followed me around as we did these events. We talked with one another and communicated a lot more. It was 10 times more fun because we were actually interacting with one another. Then with my build, I would actively seek out players who were low in the area and heal them. Saying if you need healing or condi removal call my name. I would run up to people saying “Healing on X player” and have other players run to me for a quick heal. It added a ton of depth to the game and really made combat more interesting.

I just feel that Anet should start making it so that actively interacting with other players, especially in combat, is more rewarding. Not just shadow refugee, time warp, and rez skills. It could make the combat so much more immersive and fun.

I don’t actually get what you want. Not an insult I just don’t understand.
More communication? Join a guild.
Everyone working together? Join a guild.
More skills? I don’t know how to answer that.

Gizmo.9178:

I don’t actually get what you want. Not an insult I just don’t understand.
More communication? Join a guild.
Everyone working together? Join a guild.
More skills? I don’t know how to answer that.

I’d like more communication while in combat. There’s usually a lot of pre combat talks, especially when talking about mechanics of fights or who to focus. I hardly ever see in the middle of battles people saying “Laying down X combo field”, “doing X combofield”. With the way AoEs are setup and how pretty much all support skills are setup, they are AoE so when you cast them you dont really have to tell someone you’re casting them.

I’m saying I’d love for it to be more required for players to actually communicate with one another. I understand Guilds add more comms, but it still isn’t that large. I’m in one of the best PvE guilds on my server and I’ve done high frac runs and it isn’t a huge difference. Sure they say stand here, or do this; but when we are in combat we dont actively interact with one another with skills besides rez skills. I hate to use WoW as an example, but back in the days when I played it the support skills were single target and usually had set functions. As a result you’d often call out when casting them. Ok X player, Purging you. Casting shield on you. Things like that. I hardly see that happen in this game and I really wish they would make it more rewarding to do that. Combat is so much better when you’re not just staring at target attacking it.

I like to communicate during a fight too. I just don’t have the skill to do it TYPING. That’s why I do stuff with my guild. We use mumble We communicate all the time. We get through dungeons and stuff in voice chat.

Toward that end, C3 is a free voice communications software that you can use without paying for a server. During the BWE I had a public C3 voice channel set up that anyone in the other forum I used to moderate could use. We had people popping in and out all day.

Not everyone can fight and type at the same time. Some people can and some people can’t. And for some reason, some people HATE voice communication, even though it’s ten times more effective than typing.

We had one guildie who adamantly refused to use voice chat for years (she was in my Guild Wars 1 guild also) and finally she agreed to go in and listen during a dungeon. Dungeons are much better for her now.

Most guilds have a voice chat server, but even in my guild, not everyone uses it. Expecting me to type..or even read text during the heat of a battle?

Not nearly as efficient.

Relyt Bandor, the man with the plan! Hey man love your work in Yak’s Bend doing all those events. Those WERE hella fun back when you did them. I have to agree with you that in all but a few instances teamwork is ’passive’ in GW2. However, I think that comes with the fact that there are no real set roles for people to follow, so people don’t really have to know when player x is doing y, because chances are they can do y for themselves as well. Creating more exclusive mechanics for classes or increasing the amount that the current exclusive mechanics can be used may see an increase in ’active’ teamwork. For instance, if Anet were to make Guardians the only class in the game that can enable other players to block, and instead of having it on only the 90-sec party-wide scale, have a much shorter CD option for single-target block. Those are the kinds of mechanics I’m talking about, things that would make each class have a specific ’role’ that requires their actions to be coordinated. However, with how this game is set up that won’t be possible. But I can direct you to some videos that show amazing use of called out combofields in WvW that result in some pretty epic battles/victories.

The Blind Man.3642:

Relyt Bandor, the man with the plan! Hey man love your work in Yak’s Bend doing all those events. Those WERE hella fun back when you did them. I have to agree with you that in all but a few instances teamwork is ‘passive’ in GW2. However, I think that comes with the fact that there are no real set roles for people to follow, so people don’t really have to know when player x is doing y, because chances are they can do y for themselves as well. Creating more exclusive mechanics for classes or increasing the amount that the current exclusive mechanics can be used may see an increase in ‘active’ teamwork. For instance, if Anet were to make Guardians the only class in the game that can enable other players to block, and instead of having it on only the 90-sec party-wide scale, have a much shorter CD option for single-target block. Those are the kinds of mechanics I’m talking about, things that would make each class have a specific ‘role’ that requires their actions to be coordinated. However, with how this game is set up that won’t be possible. But I can direct you to some videos that show amazing use of called out combofields in WvW that result in some pretty epic battles/victories.

Thanks :P. I still do them, mostly PvE ones like world bosses/mini dungeons. We’re having a server party today (the 15th) at 430 PM server time, you n your guild should tag along.

But I think giving classes some exclusive aspects to set them apart from other classes could make this game really interesting. The recent change to the warrior’s signet could be a sign that they’re planning on doing exactly that. Right now a lot of skills revolve around application of boons/condis and physical damage, and classes can do all of these. They should really amplify the way classes handle these things and how they can interact between allies. It is a tough cookie in terms of finding a way to do this without offering a suggestion that would imply a major rework; which i’m sure they’re trying to stay away from.

Deified.7520:

The Blind Man.3642:

Relyt Bandor, the man with the plan! Hey man love your work in Yak’s Bend doing all those events. Those WERE hella fun back when you did them. I have to agree with you that in all but a few instances teamwork is ‘passive’ in GW2. However, I think that comes with the fact that there are no real set roles for people to follow, so people don’t really have to know when player x is doing y, because chances are they can do y for themselves as well. Creating more exclusive mechanics for classes or increasing the amount that the current exclusive mechanics can be used may see an increase in ‘active’ teamwork. For instance, if Anet were to make Guardians the only class in the game that can enable other players to block, and instead of having it on only the 90-sec party-wide scale, have a much shorter CD option for single-target block. Those are the kinds of mechanics I’m talking about, things that would make each class have a specific ‘role’ that requires their actions to be coordinated. However, with how this game is set up that won’t be possible. But I can direct you to some videos that show amazing use of called out combofields in WvW that result in some pretty epic battles/victories.

Thanks :P. I still do them, mostly PvE ones like world bosses/mini dungeons. We’re having a server party today (the 15th) at 430 PM server time, you n your guild should tag along.

But I think giving classes some exclusive aspects to set them apart from other classes could make this game really interesting. The recent change to the warrior’s signet could be a sign that they’re planning on doing exactly that. Right now a lot of skills revolve around application of boons/condis and physical damage, and classes can do all of these. They should really amplify the way classes handle these things and how they can interact between allies. It is a tough cookie in terms of finding a way to do this without offering a suggestion that would imply a major rework; which i’m sure they’re trying to stay away from.

Exactly what I’m saying man, everyone can apply boons/conditions, and in fact every boon/condition can be applied by more than one class. They don’t need to get rid of their ‘holy trinity’ and thus can avoid a total rework. One thing they can do is have a profession excel at purging conditions on allies and some how turning that into an offensive force (think of this as a ‘healer’ in GW2). Then they could have a profession that deals heavy in knockdown, knockbacks, immobolize, weakness (which needs a rework itself imo), and various forms of hard CC like that. (Your ‘control/support’ in GW2). The list could go on, but instead of having every class be able to do job Y, I think job Y should exclusively be done by profession X. Imagine if you had to have one person manage control of enemy movement instead of everyone and their mother having pulls, immobolize, etc. Then people would really have to actively talk about when they are using that oh so important immobilize or knockdown.

Although if anything like this would be possible with their current game mechanics and design philosophy I don’t know. I guess time will tell, but I have much faith in ArenaNet.