Power creep in movement speed

Power creep in movement speed

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Posted by: Julenal.3907

Julenal.3907

In the last three years game has had quite remarkable change in movement speed and mechanics in it. At launch there was variance between classes and classes that didn’t have good access to swiftness or great passive movement speed buff really appreciated when they got support from others that were able to provide swiftness.

These days it’s almost mandatory to have passive 25% movement speed if you even try to kite anything or catch something as many players are using +25% from some source. Due to wide spread use of passive movement boost Swiftness has lost it’s value and seems to be coming non-mechanic. Role of swiftness is further reduced as it seems that AE Super Speed is coming to many classes…

I have short history of moment speed detailed in spoilers, skip if you want to continue to rest of the text:


Here is rough information from mid 2012 (launch) about movement speed on every class: (not blinks, leaps etc)
Necro Signet passive 10%, trait 10% with main hand dagger and 5% with offhand and trait 15% while in Death Shroud
Thief Signet passive 25%, trait 33% in stealth with,
Elementalist Signet 10% trait 10% while in air and stacking 5%/10s->25% after 50s
Ranger Signet 10% ,
Mesmer trait 5%/illusion (only in combat and very conditional),
Warrior trait 10% from with melee weapons
Guardian permanent swiftness with staff and shouts
Engineer trait 10% in combat

From there on movement speed has got mainly buffs:

2012
December – Elementalist and Ranger Signet 10%->25%, Thief stealth trait 33%->50%, Necro signet 10%->25% and dagger trait main hand 10%->15% and offhand 5%->10%, Engineer trait 10%->25%

2013
Early – Rune of the Traveler and Speed 6th bonus was 5%
June – Warrior’s Sprint trait 10%->25%, Necro Death Shroud trait 15%->25%
September – Rune of the Traveler and Speed 6th bonus 5%->25%
October – Elementalist trait stacking air speed->super speed when attuning, Necro dagger trait 15% with one dagger 25% with two.

2014
September – Rune of the Trapper 4th bonus Super Speed on Trap skill.

2015
June – Elementalist trait while in air 10%->25%, when attuning trait super speed 1.5s->3s, Necromancer Dagger trait to passive 25% when wielding a dagger (+other bonuses in same trait), Ranger got Super Speed to Quickening Zephyr, Mesmer got trait that adds Super Speed to Glamours.

Future: Chronomancer getting 25% passive, AE Super Speed to Tempest and Herald, more blinks, leaps and everything!

Just compare these versions of wikipage of Movement Speed:
6 November 2012
Now

Now virtually every class has got access to passive 25% movement speed or near permanent Swiftness. Compared to few classes that had 25% passive at launch and when only Engineer had Super Speed. This culture of movement speed buffs and power creep has lead to situation where even Guardians are whining to get 25% passive. (Examples 1 2 3 4)

Problem isn’t only that swiftness has lost great deal of it’s value, but players are in situation where they have to make forced decisions “how I can get 25% movement speed to my spec” and movement in combat in many areas of the game (like WvW) has come and is coming quicker all the time. In WvW importance of the placement on the battlefield is greatly reduced as many players move at least +25% speed all the time and this problem is further highlighted when near immunity to soft CC is kind of meta for melee classes. This also somewhat effects boon ripping as valuable boon removal might hit swiftness and enemy’s movement speed is only reduced by 8%.

I really don’t have great solutions to this as it seems that most players hate in/off combat movement speed. One possibility might be to reduce +25% passive movement speeds to 15% to make clear difference between swiftness and passive movement speeds. If 25% passive is something that ANet wants to keep then maybe boost swiftness percentage.

Still I would like to ANet to acknowledge this trend and consider is this power creep really something that they want for the game.

GM of Finnish gaming community guild “Frozen Dawn” [FD] since GW2 announce
GW player of 14+kh and Passionate Mind Wracker since 2005

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Posted by: Ciome.1075

Ciome.1075

I agree. If every class receives a passive skill with +25% speed boost, it’s like no one has it anymore. And swiftness becomes almost pointless. Also, when I started with my first char (a thief) I was so happy to see that, as thief, I could move faster than others, just to see that it wasn’t really like that. What’s the point of being a class that should be more agile than others (while using a passive skill), if almost every class has the same speed (with the same system)?

Guards/mesmers are the only classes without it.

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Posted by: Aetrion.8295

Aetrion.8295

Movement speed boosts are one of those things that people are going to want to have active at all time, because it’s both convenient and extremely powerful. (In PvP being faster than your opponent by even just a small margin gives you a ton of ways to avoid fights you would lose and force them when you’re sure of victory. In PvE there are tons of monsters that are just easier to deal with if you can walk slightly faster than them.

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Posted by: Kamara.4187

Kamara.4187

Personally I think they have it just about right for the classes I play, which are guardian, ranger, and warrior (more to follow soon).

I had to make real sacrifices as to what runes I could use. Did I want the boost that travelers offered with the speed or a rune that would give me better defense/ damage.

As a guardian I already have access to great heals and condi cleanse with a couple of specials for closing distance. I could rely on the speed boost that the staff offers with a special, but its not a constant bump to speed with the amount of time for the cool down.

Its about choices and making sure that no one class has it all.

(edited by Kamara.4187)

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

" In WvW importance of the placement on the battlefield is greatly reduced as many players move at least +25% speed all the time and this problem is further highlighted when near immunity to soft CC is kind of meta for melee classes. "

But nerfing swiftness would create an even bigger problem of people being rooted to one place whereas speed is needed to position oneself more favorably. Speed also shortens the time of mat farming and makes it easier to disengage from fights I don’t want to engage in. Stupid dredge/raptor/zombie/whatever, if I wanted to fight I would have hit you. I usually engage but sometimes I really want to get the farming out of the way and some mobs take too long to kill especially considering that their drops are RNG based.

“In PvP being faster than your opponent by even just a small margin gives you a ton of ways to avoid fights you would lose and force them when you’re sure of victory. "

If I wanted to continue fighting I obviously wouldn’t be running away in the first place.

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Posted by: Rump Buffalo.2594

Rump Buffalo.2594

This is indicative of a larger problem. In an attempt to let every class do everything and let you play what you want to play as any class, the game was created (and has become even more) homogenized.

This takes away class identity, and makes differences soft. I honestly don’t feel that different when swapping between classes, except maybe the ele for having tons of attunements available. The presence of a particular class doesn’t mean much when all buffs and debuffs are the same across all classes. On top of this, buffs don’t seems important. If I strip boons, they just get put right back up because access to them is so widespread and easy to spam. Same goes for condition stripping. The game has become a buff management game, and I am not a fan of that.

This is my biggest complaint in the game aside from might-stacking being the end-all be-all of damage output, and dungeon design not having any idea how to design dungeons for this game’s combat system.

Those are the three major things that make me play this game less and less

(edited by Rump Buffalo.2594)

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Posted by: Khristophoros.7194

Khristophoros.7194

Ever since launch I’ve always felt like the base movement speed was too sluggish and it really REALLY irritated me, so I played sword/horn warrior with signet of rage. I didn’t use the 10% trait because it didn’t stack with swiftness so it actually didn’t do anything.

Then I leveled my necro and I really liked it in general, but I felt like I had to use warhorn and spectral walk for perma swiftness. Of course I didn’t use any of the 10% or 15% stuff because why would you when it doesn’t stack with swiftness?

So I don’t see it as power creep so much as making some traits and signets actually functional options to take instead of rotating swiftness skills.

And personally I still can’t stand mesmer and guardian because of their poor movement speed options.

My thoughts on this have always been that the base movement speed should be increased by 25% and all the passive crap like signets and traits should be removed, and swiftness should be shorter in duration.

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Posted by: quaniesan.8497

quaniesan.8497

oh my, so now there’s folks complaining about “speed buff everywhere”. Everything are complainable these days.

I dont see any “power creep”. It’s an imaginary paranoia at best. For the increased speed, the person at issue has to sacrifice a trait or skill slot for it, limited him from something he could have had in exchange for abit more mobility in combat. It’s a tradeoff. Speed outside of combat is nothing more than convenience, nothing else worth losing hair about.

If ya no longer see me after this post,
it means THEY got me for " neg criticism in clever disguise".
Know that it has been fun and I love ya all.

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Posted by: Kamara.4187

Kamara.4187

oh my, so now there’s folks complaining about “speed buff everywhere”. Everything are complainable these days.

I dont see any “power creep”. It’s an imaginary paranoia at best. For the increased speed, the person at issue has to sacrifice a trait or skill slot for it, limited him from something he could have had in exchange for abit more mobility in combat. It’s a tradeoff. Speed outside of combat is nothing more than convenience, nothing else worth losing hair about.

This! 100% spot on.

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Posted by: Blaine Tog.8304

Blaine Tog.8304

There’s no power creep, just “convenience creep,” which is actually good for the game. Really, though, ANet should just take it a step further and give everyone the same level of convenience, leaving speed boosts as a purely combat application.

Here’s what I think should happen:

1. Increase out-of-combat speed by 33%.

2. Out-of-combat speed is no longer affected by Swiftness or the passive +25% speed boosts.

Aaaand that’s it. That’s all you need to do. Now you can take the +25% speed boost traits/runes or spec for Swiftness if you like the extra mobility during fights, but you aren’t ruining your ability to travel by abstaining from them.

I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.

(edited by Blaine Tog.8304)

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Posted by: ScribeTheMad.7614

ScribeTheMad.7614

Base speed is painfully slow.

The kind of slow one would expect to find paired with a movement speed booster in the cash shop (oh hey there’s a swim speed booster)

The point of having passive 25% boosts is that you get the choice of trading another utility skill to move a bit faster.
Contrast this with a class without that signet, that has to not only pick 2-3 utilities to maintain swiftness but also has to trait for it.

I’ve long argued I shouldn’t have to build my entire character around moving a little faster when most everyone else gets a signet (and even the mesmers part time signet is better than nothing).
I think every class should have some form of smaller personal speed that doesn’t require an entire build to get.

My guardian is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever played.
Slow at the best of times but getting stuck in combat speed is like a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter.

“The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.” -AnthonyOrdon

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

the problems were that the game in general had too slow movement across most classes / builds. and also that there was absolutely no way to keep up with high movement classes/builds in all forms of pvp. they could basically just disengage and get out of combat even better then mesmers and thieves can today.

so people in general got tired of it. i personally would like to get rid of all the 25% movement speed increase traits / passives / runes, and jsut give everyone a baseline such increase.

swiftness i dont know. if you scale it up to compensate and make a new gap, then you are re-creating the original problems so i think it should stay where its at.

super-speed to me is ok as it is low duration, and only some abilities / traits generate it. super speed to me seems like an actually logical choice between swiftness speed and leap abilities. so it is good as it is.

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

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Posted by: Ardid.7203

Ardid.7203

Between 25% and 33% there is a HUGE difference. Thats why my Engie Is still using Streamlined Kits manual permaswiftness instead of the much more economic and always-on Mecha Legs 25%.

I just can’t go slower than swift…

“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks

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Posted by: Hyper Cutter.9376

Hyper Cutter.9376

The +25% speed boost is a massive quality of life improvement when playing the game (especially playing as a charr or norn), making it more widely available was the best thing that ever happened.

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

This is indicative of a larger problem. In an attempt to let every class do everything and let you play what you want to play as any class, the game was created (and has become even more) homogenized.

Oh please, in most other games speed is generally the same across classes and there is some sort of sprint ability that all classes have access to, it doesn’t make them any more homogenized. Heck a lot of other games give you mounts to increase speed even further.

Sorry I don’t see it as an issue at all.

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro

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Posted by: Erasmus.1624

Erasmus.1624

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-does-swiftness-exist/page/3#post5412802

You’re just helping prove my point. I effectively already talked about this and how its ease of access might as well just make speed boosts baseline since actual WASD movement has very little sway in combat dominated by extended invulnerability periods, ranged, rapid-travel/instant damage, and instant teleports. Movement in gw2 is incredibly sluggish to begin with, and tacking on a +33% movement speed modifier doesn’t have any substantial impact on combat outside of a few very niche situations (which typically can be negated by a weapon swap or single skill use anyway). If it’s only real usage is overworld travel with little impact on combat, why not just make it all baseline and dedicate those traits and skills to something more interesting (not that there’s really much else to which those empty slots can be dedicated in this game)?

We don’t need a boost to swiftness. Just make 133% movement speed baseline, and let small bursts of super speed take over because its effects are still felt dramatically in combat situations.

Power creep in movement speed

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Posted by: Erasmus.1624

Erasmus.1624

This is indicative of a larger problem. In an attempt to let every class do everything and let you play what you want to play as any class, the game was created (and has become even more) homogenized.

You have to realize that given how little there is to do in GW2 (heal—mostly just one’s self; damage; be invulnerable; CC), this game could have easily gotten along with a mere 3 classes at launch if we really wanted to give them distinct, fair abilities which defined particular play-styles and matched a functional flavor. Everyone already does the same thing and it’s been this way since launch; it’s only just gotten worse over time. Opportunity cost and distinction between classes are out of whack, leading to passive combat which is just a quick exchange of simultaneous (instant) opening damage and invulnerability periods regardless of which class one plays. Above all of this, WASD has never had a strong influence on combat in general.