Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been playing gw 2 for a week or maybe two and I still can’t seem to find a class that I actually enjoy. They all seem to be fun on paper, but the more I play them the more bored of them I get. I feel like that is because the classes and the combat itself is VERY simple and lacking any kind of depth whatsover, as well as the “skill ceiling” on pretty much any class is super low.
I know people will go “bs’’ ’’go f yourself moron” on this one and let me say I am no pro gamer by any margin, but I literally feel like I can master a class at about 95% by reading one guide, playing few hours of sPVP and getting level 10 or 20. And it’s not a easy to learn, hard to master thing it’s just easy to learn and easy to master, honestly there is pretty much nothing to master.
Now I feel there are multiple reasons why classes are this way imo top 2 are:
1. Lack of abilities that require skilful use and not just to be spammed off coldown, or lack af abilities in general. having 10 spells to use just doesn’t cut it imo, it’s not league of legends, we don’t have 100 proffesions.
2. Lack of any sort of interaction or timing between abilities (there are combo field but let’s be honest they just suck, don’t wanna expand on that since it’s a wall of text already)
Now some people will say "this is a team game men it’s part of the design’’ the thing is – it’s not. League of legends is a team game. Gw2 is an MMO and it’s a solo play + team based play mix.
Anway, what do you think about proffesions and combat of guild wars 2 in general? do you find it has enough depth to it and allow for a skillful solo play?

- There should be more abilities. Like utilities, where we can switch them out depending on the situation and playstyle.
- The combo system should improve, i think. Doing combos should have a larger effect.
- The skill ceilling isn’t THAT low. Mastering a profession isn’t easy for the common player! (Keyword: Mastering)

My 3 cents.

I do think that there’s a lot room for skillfull play, especially in SPvP, and you are underestimating the lots of different abilities that you need to develop in order to play that game mode succesfully. It’s not only about the mechanics of your class or difficult to use/highly rewarding skills ( I agree, the game lacks more of those ), but knowledge of the enemy classes, teamwork/coordination, and most importantly situational awareness and management of downed state.

Having bigger skill bars won’t help at all.

P.s. Unless you are top 100 Qualifying Points I don’t think you can claim about how easy the game is to master. Otherwise, if it’s so easy, why are you not up there?

See how far you get in paid tournaments and then talk. Some of those teams are pretty kitten good. Much better than other teams. So there must, logically be some skill involved.

In fact, SPvP itself is less about 1 guy and more about the entire team anyway. If you’re soloing PvP and thinking you’ve learned your profession, you probably haven’t.

Vayne.8563:

See how far you get in paid tournaments and then talk. Some of those teams are pretty kitten good. Much better than other teams. So there must, logically be some skill involved.

In fact, SPvP itself is less about 1 guy and more about the entire team anyway. If you’re soloing PvP and thinking you’ve learned your profession, you probably haven’t.

This would be the case even if every class were the same and only had one button to press, so pretty irrelevant to the discussion.

I would say GW2 rewards skillful play far, far more than alot of other games around now do…

Indeed some ‘casual’ players are put off GW2 because its too hard in places and there is no way of adjusting the difficulty to be challenging and not impossible to some people.

Meglobob.8620:

Indeed some ‘casual’ players are put off GW2 because its too hard in places and there is no way of adjusting the difficulty to be challenging and not impossible to some people.

I thought players like Kai are an example of how the game is actually deceptively easy at times. When you can be successful enough by spamming abilities and discarding combos, to a degree where you genuinely think you’ve ‘mastered’ the combat, then it really isn’t hard enough yet.

GW2s problem, from the very start, was that it isn’t obvious enough that playing it like any other MMO isn’t the right way to play, since you’re still good enough to convince yourself you’re doing it right. There’s just not the right type of feedback to encourage players to learn how combat actually works in GW2.

Yaki.9563:

Vayne.8563:

See how far you get in paid tournaments and then talk. Some of those teams are pretty kitten good. Much better than other teams. So there must, logically be some skill involved.

In fact, SPvP itself is less about 1 guy and more about the entire team anyway. If you’re soloing PvP and thinking you’ve learned your profession, you probably haven’t.

This would be the case even if every class were the same and only had one button to press, so pretty irrelevant to the discussion.

Indeed, the team vs team modes, scale in difficulty with your opponents skill level as a team much more then anything else, so it’s really not relevant at all how high am I on ladder (which I am pretty sure doesn’t even exist aside from the ‘’/played’’ QP one)

Now, for people saying that proffesions are harder to master then what I have described, just pick any class and tell me what exactly separates the ’’master’’ of said class from average joes (not complete newbs from pros, but actually decent players from pros).

Traits unlock the depth you’re asking about. The traits you choose can have a significant impact on your game play, with some professions like the Mesmer, being extremely reliant on them. If you’ve only been playing the game for less than two weeks and you’ve already tried multiple professions, then I guarantee that you haven’t unlocked enough traits for them to have much affect.

You learn your weapon skills early. This will also let you see which skills allow you to self-combo, which can be pretty important when no one else is around. If you can’t see the value of combos, you need to look more closely.

Swapping weapons is the next step and don’t underestimate how important it can be to incorporate weapon swapping into your combat. Some builds hinge on frequently swapping their weapon sets.

Next up will be your traits and you won’t unlock the full diversity of them until level 80. But realistically, by level 40, you should have a pretty good idea of how they can change your game up. Whichever level you’ve attained since you started, combined with your admitted altaholism, means you haven’t played enough to see the depth and you haven’t mastered a thing.

gear and rune’s also help with your builds depth , much of that you never realy focus on much tell you reach level cap

Meglobob.8620:

I would say GW2 rewards skillful play far, far more than alot of other games around now do…

Indeed some ‘casual’ players are put off GW2 because its too hard in places and there is no way of adjusting the difficulty to be challenging and not impossible to some people.

I got a friend of mine involved with GW2 a few weeks ago. He didn’t stop complaining about pretty much everything until he got his Guardian to about level 40ish. Now, after hours upon hours of one-on-one tutelage, he’s happy and just plays the game.

The beginner experience can be a rough one. I know for a fact that my friend would have given up on it before level 10 if I hadn’t been there to walk him through everything. And I mean everything. Now he plays every night and is prodding me to get online. It helps a huge amount though, to be able to tell someone to STFU and listen, and they actually do it. That only works between actual friends. Hard to incorporate that effect into a tutorial.

Wolfheart.1938:

P.s. Unless you are top 100 Qualifying Points I don’t think you can claim about how easy the game is to master. Otherwise, if it’s so easy, why are you not up there?

I agree with what you posted except what I quoted. Easy and Time are two different things. Something can be really really easy so that anyone could master it, but require 300 hours to climb up the rankings. So while most people could do it and get to the top not everyone has the time to do so.

Well, if you tried some spvp you would probably realize that the people there would most likely wipe the floor with you. I don’t mean this as an offense, but rather to illustrate that there obviously is a difference between someone starting out and someone who has played for a while.
That being said, the game really is bland and repetitive in it’s design quite often, so while I wouldn’t say that it is particularly easy to play top-notch, it does get boring because you don’t really have that much options for building, because the overwhelming majority of your “build” is set in stone whith your choice of amulet and weapon sets, which really is quite underwhelming at times, especially if you compare it to what they did in gw1.

Rifter.6591:

Wolfheart.1938:

P.s. Unless you are top 100 Qualifying Points I don’t think you can claim about how easy the game is to master. Otherwise, if it’s so easy, why are you not up there?

I agree with what you posted except what I quoted. Easy and Time are two different things. Something can be really really easy so that anyone could master it, but require 300 hours to climb up the rankings. So while most people could do it and get to the top not everyone has the time to do so.

I know that Qualifying Points are not entirely based on how good a players is, but rely a lot on how much he plays. It’s a faulty sytem, Arenanet acknowledged that and already said it’s going to be replaced, but it’s the only system to evaluate skill we currently have. Otherwise, can I just ask OP how many paid tourneys he has won, if any?

Since you cited League of Legends and I used to be quite into that game, I’ll make an example and hopefully be as clear as possible. Let’s take Master Yi, a pretty easy champion to pick up and play: no skillshots, no difficult timings, just the usual 4 skills and the mighty right click. Would you argue that a 2200 ELO Master Yi ( or Mordekaiser, or Warwick, etc ) is as skillful as a 1200 one just because, mechanically speaking, these champions are easy to master? Of course there’d be a bigger difference with champions such as Anivia or Cassiopeia, but mechanical skills are just a (small) portion of what makes a good player. If you want that kind of mechanical challenge go play the Engineer.

And since you seem to disregard the -team- part of what is SPvP and focus solely on personal play in a team oriented pvp, pick a Guardian and come at me bro. ( I play almost solely Guardian )

Wolfheart.1938:

P.s. Unless you are top 100 Qualifying Points I don’t think you can claim about how easy the game is to master. Otherwise, if it’s so easy, why are you not up there?

- This argument is poor. Tetris has very little depth in it, but some players are faster (better) at playing Tetris than others. Abbehemoth asked what depth is. Depth is how far in the decision making you can go. Chess is a good example of game that is very deep.

Typically in cases where one choice is undeniably superior to other choices in every situation, depth is shallow. If skill 2 does bigger damage than skill 1 and applies vulnerability too, the strategy of playing skill 2 whenever it comes off cooldown is the correct one. Since skills have high cooldowns, you can basically just play whichever is currently not on cooldown to maximize your damage output.

Wolfheart.1938:

I know that Qualifying Points are not entirely based on how good a players is, but rely a lot on how much he plays. It’s a faulty sytem, Arenanet acknowledged that and already said it’s going to be replaced, but it’s the only system to evaluate skill we currently have. Otherwise, can I just ask OP how many paid tourneys he has won, if any?

When the system so transparently doesn’t evaluate skill, we shouldn’t use it, even if it is the only system we have. I thought the post of the OP was pretty indicative of how deep his knowledge of the combat mechanics is, do we really need a number stacked on top of it to qualify his experience?

http://youtu.be/jVL4st0blGU

A nice video about depth vs complexity in games.

Zenith.6403:

Typically in cases where one choice is undeniably superior to other choices in every situation, depth is shallow. If skill 2 does bigger damage than skill 1 and applies vulnerability too, the strategy of playing skill 2 whenever it comes off cooldown is the correct one. Since skills have high cooldowns, you can basically just play whichever is currently not on cooldown to maximize your damage output.

That’s the difference between a system with 30 skills, where each skill does exactly one thing, and a system with only 10 skills, where skills have multiple functions.

In the former, it’s a non-decision, the ‘skill’ required here is being able to read and understand the tooltip and remember what button you bound the skill to.
In the latter, you need to make the decision if you use the skill for its effect A now, or save it to use it for effect B in a few seconds. That of course only works if there actually are situations in combat where you really need effect B, but that’s a question of designing combat properly, not neccessarily the professions themselves.

CC should be more relevant. That way, players actually hold onto the skill instead of spamming it off cooldown. Look at stuns, fears, knockdowns … they are all forms of control, but you cannot chain stun or chain fear a player. Hence, you end up using them either off cooldown to provide an opening, or not at all …

You seem to keep harping on my Qualifying Points argument as it was the only one I used. The system is faulty, as I said, but it’s the best we can do, or else we give each and every single player the right to pretend that they’ve mastered the game, they’re not in the ladder just due to time restraints.

And again, since you don’t like QP, how about everyone claiming they’ve mastered the game because it’s too easy posts a screenshot of how many paid tournaments they’ve played, just to filter out clueless people. Going 22/0 with Tryndamere @ 1000 Elo doesn’t mean you’ve mastered LoL, just as doing good in hotjoins means nothing over here. Keep in mind this is not ad hominem to OP or to anyone, just something I’m reiterating because people tend to voice opinions on things they’re clueless about.

P.s. nobody has yet to address my words regarding mechanical skills vs overall skills, or Tosha’s link regard complexity vs depth. GW2 PvP is simple ( good thing ), not shallow.

@ Declan:
You, my friend, are proving my point. Go and try to do any decent PvP match spamming CCs on cooldown (I’m even starting to memorize CCs cooldowns on Guardians and predicting them against bad players) and see how you do. CCs are crucial to interrupt stomps/revives and to keep players off points, or set up bursts with warriors/thieves. CCs are relevant and you’d know that if you had played anything other than hotjoin with <r10 players. And you can definitely chain-CC any player that has no stability, it just requires team coordination and not a single warlock spamming fear… Not that having a low amount of heavy CC is a bad thing, nobody likes being stunlocked forever with no counter

Abbehemoth.2471:

Care to explain what depth is from you perspective? Same for the OP, what do you mean by depth?

There had been already tons of thread about the subject.

And they always follow the same pattern :

- OP tells he’s bored with current state of combat mechanics
- people will tell him that he doesn’t know the subtelties
- OP says he does, backing up with facts
- then people will say they don’t want more skill slots
- one guy will say that you don’t necessarly need more skill slots to add depth, that you can for example add several skills to chose per slot, like utilities. Or have more intrications between skills (with traits).
- then people will say they like the current state of combat anyway
- others will say they don’t
- thread dies because nobody has a clue about what the devs will do about it

… and the constant :

- still no word about combat mechanics evolution from devs themselves

Here are a bunch of threads created on this exact topic :

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Expanding-on-the-current-skill-system

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/This-game-needs-more-skills

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Slots-1-5-I-m-seriously-baffled

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/In-my-view-combat-is-the-weakest-part-of-this-game

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/It-s-not-about-the-shape-of-the-sword

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/GW2-Depth-of-Combat-Discussion

And one I created a looooooong time ago, to show how the problem was already foreseeable in November ’12 :

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-Combat-Mechanics-be-deeper

But as long as we won’t have any detailed plan from ANet (like the ones they used to write during development ….), we will be going full circle with threads like this popping up here and then.

The question was even asked during Chris Whiteside’s AMA on Reddit, couldn’t answer at the time, hinting at some future AMA about this subject. But we never got it.

declan.3968:

CC should be more relevant. That way, players actually hold onto the skill instead of spamming it off cooldown. Look at stuns, fears, knockdowns … they are all forms of control, but you cannot chain stun or chain fear a player. Hence, you end up using them either off cooldown to provide an opening, or not at all …

That was a design decision, players hate being CCed.

Naqaj.6219:

Zenith.6403:

Typically in cases where one choice is undeniably superior to other choices in every situation, depth is shallow. If skill 2 does bigger damage than skill 1 and applies vulnerability too, the strategy of playing skill 2 whenever it comes off cooldown is the correct one. Since skills have high cooldowns, you can basically just play whichever is currently not on cooldown to maximize your damage output.

That’s the difference between a system with 30 skills, where each skill does exactly one thing, and a system with only 10 skills, where skills have multiple functions.

In the former, it’s a non-decision, the ‘skill’ required here is being able to read and understand the tooltip and remember what button you bound the skill to.
In the latter, you need to make the decision if you use the skill for its effect A now, or save it to use it for effect B in a few seconds. That of course only works if there actually are situations in combat where you really need effect B, but that’s a question of designing combat properly, not neccessarily the professions themselves.

The functions of the skills themselves is something often overlooked when people talk about depth in this game (I overlooked it myself in responding). And it’s not just that a skill can be used for damage or something else, but that most skills are used for damage AND something else. Knowing when to activate it is key.

And then there are the skill states, which several skills possess. Even many auto-attack skills are more than just auto-attack because each sequential skill phase has the potential to do something different.

For instance the Mesmer scepter skill 1. The first two phases of the chain are straight up damage, but the third one summons a new clone, which could be a pivotal. Interrupting that chain could deprive the Mesmer of the third clone needed for a full shatter, which can be very detrimental. It might be smarter to wait a few seconds for phase 3 to execute, before activating another skill that has just come off cooldown, rather than punching it immediately.

Plenty of depth just in the skill design.

Didn’t mean to be harping, but was just suggesting to reconsider the value of out-of-context statistics in order to process other players’ feedback. If you are knowledgable about the game, you can tell if someone else is based on what he says.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

http://youtu.be/jVL4st0blGU

A nice video about depth vs complexity in games.

i would say GW2 is has plenty of depth, it just isn’t overly complex. but some people love there math. shrug

Blacklight.2871:

Naqaj.6219:

Zenith.6403:

Typically in cases where one choice is undeniably superior to other choices in every situation, depth is shallow. If skill 2 does bigger damage than skill 1 and applies vulnerability too, the strategy of playing skill 2 whenever it comes off cooldown is the correct one. Since skills have high cooldowns, you can basically just play whichever is currently not on cooldown to maximize your damage output.

That’s the difference between a system with 30 skills, where each skill does exactly one thing, and a system with only 10 skills, where skills have multiple functions.

In the former, it’s a non-decision, the ‘skill’ required here is being able to read and understand the tooltip and remember what button you bound the skill to.
In the latter, you need to make the decision if you use the skill for its effect A now, or save it to use it for effect B in a few seconds. That of course only works if there actually are situations in combat where you really need effect B, but that’s a question of designing combat properly, not neccessarily the professions themselves.

The functions of the skills themselves is something often overlooked when people talk about depth in this game (I overlooked it myself in responding). And it’s not just that a skill can be used for damage or something else, but that most skills are used for damage AND something else. Knowing when to activate it is key.

And then there are the skill states, which several skills possess. Even many auto-attack skills are more than just auto-attack because each sequential skill phase has the potential to do something different.

For instance the Mesmer scepter skill 1. The first two phases of the chain are straight up damage, but the third one summons a new clone, which could be a pivotal. Interrupting that chain could deprive the Mesmer of the third clone needed for a full shatter, which can be very detrimental. It might be smarter to wait a few seconds for phase 3 to execute, before activating another skill that has just come off cooldown, rather than punching it immediately.

Plenty of depth just in the skill design.

thats why i often compair GW2 CC more to a fighting game combo braker than i do your standerd MMO

@ kineticdamage – you sir get +1

I dare to add a few to your list…

- someone mentions how the GW1 skill selection was far superior, allowing for many many builds.
- others respond that the GW1 system was flawed, citing that other players “forced” them to play certain builds.
- one person says that the skill balancing was hard for the GW1 developers, but does not actually cite any references.
- someone mentions WoW
- a couple of people say that GW1 is better
- more people say that GW2 is better
- the only thing people agree on is that GW1 isn’t GW2

Gw2 actually has the illusion of depth. To people who have little experience of complex play or are actually getting into a games mechanics for the first time they think there is a lot of dept but there isn’t. Just going to raise a few small points.

The illusion of depth in GW2.

Class synergy- This is by far the worst aspect of the game, class synergy is so poorly done that it bottles down to actual skills of a class rather than skillful play of classes. Class synergy in GW2 is “we need a Mesmer for TW” or “We need a guardian for projectile blocks”. or “we need a theif for SR”.

Traits – The biggest illusion of depth , Each trait line gives players less choice then they actually think for instance the Zeal line of the Guardian tree putting points into the tree automatically increases your condition duration whether you like it or not, which is actually forcing the player down a linear path of I need to make this sub trait useful which it isn’t which is why most have said Zeal is the worst guardian trait line.

Traits- 20% cooldown reduction and +5% damage with X weapon traits fitted into specific trait lines, another way the illusion of depth fouls people. This doesn’t allow you to define the way you play at all instead it just adds to limiting build diversity.

Build Diversity- The thing is people here don’t realise is that people have been complaining about build diversity or the lack of it in SPvp for ages, the trait system creates cookie cutter builds as certain proffesions are actually useless outside those 2 builds. E.g look at the Engineer in Spvp (bombs or 100 nades) , Ranger (traps only), Guardian (bunker only). This has hurt Spvp so much that it’s actually caused the loss of many many many players and it doing nothing but hurting this games pvp scene.

There’s a reason hardly any people are interested in playing or watching Spvp as it’s seem as a broken mess by most with a never ending meta of bunkers and bursts which ANet seem to like.

Kakeru.2873:

Class synergy- This is by far the worst aspect of the game, class synergy is so poorly done that it bottles down to actual skills of a class rather than skillful play of classes. Class synergy in GW2 is “we need a Mesmer for TW” or “We need a guardian for projectile blocks”. or “we need a theif for SR”.

If that is “by far the worst aspect of the game”, which game does this better and how does it achieve that, since I probably won’t know it?

Iruwen.3164:

Kakeru.2873:

Class synergy- This is by far the worst aspect of the game, class synergy is so poorly done that it bottles down to actual skills of a class rather than skillful play of classes. Class synergy in GW2 is “we need a Mesmer for TW” or “We need a guardian for projectile blocks”. or “we need a theif for SR”.

If that is “by far the worst aspect of the game”, which game does this better and how does it achieve that, since I probably won’t know it?

Many games did it better, not going to list them 1 because there too many and 2 im not a person who likes comparing games.

Just in GW2 some classes are clearly lacking in the ability to complete while others are given endless tools at their disposal .

+1 to you too JSmooth, that’s also very accurate lol

Winfernal.9208:

- There should be more abilities. Like utilities, where we can switch them out depending on the situation and playstyle.
- The combo system should improve, i think. Doing combos should have a larger effect.

I agree with this. I hope when they release the Expansion, they’ll add more ability selections to the Weapons (like how utilities are set up). There’s not a lot of variety right now, especially when it comes to viable set ups.

The number of abilities does not dictate complexity or skills. Take a look at DotA/LoL, which has you limited to 4 skills total. I know it’s a different genre, but there are a lot of parallels (especially if GW2 keeps trying to push sPvP).

In LoL, you select a champion, who has 4 skills. As you progress, you level those skills up. You also get active/passive abilities from items.

In GW2, our ‘champion’ is our Class+Weapon selection (5 fixed skills, with additional skills for secondary weapon for most classes). As you progress, you can improve those skills with Traits. You get active/passive abilities from your 6789-0 skills, as well as equipment.

GW2 definitely has more skills and options, but sometimes I think it makes it weaker in terms of class design. Having too many skills at your disposal reduces the number of decisions you make when building your character in terms of skills and traits. For some classes, there are very few cases when you wouldn’t take a certain skill or secondary weapon (I rarely see Necromancers without a Staff as their secondary weapon).

Balance, of course, is key, but not the kind of balance most people think about. I’m talking about balance WITHIN a class. It’s not about nerfing something that’s overpowered, but rather about making EVERYTHING seem overpowered. When everything is useful, that’s where the decisions come in. Balance between classes isn’t really all that important (except in extreme cases), because that’s not where we make our decisions. The richness comes from deciding from an interesting, powerful, and rewarding list of incomparable skills.

In my opinion, Thief is probably a good metric to look at. Your “classes” are Melee Burst (d/d), Ranged DPS (p/p), and Caster (shortbow). Most, if not all, the skills in these sets are pretty kitten good. None of these sets conflict, and none are really worse than another. They have their checks and balances. Necromancer, however, has Mid Range DPS (Scepter), Mid Range DPS (Axe), Melee DPS (Dagger), and it pretty much boils down to Axe and Dagger being thrown out because Scepter is better at everything except boss fights.

Kakeru.2873:

Iruwen.3164:

Kakeru.2873:

Class synergy- This is by far the worst aspect of the game, class synergy is so poorly done that it bottles down to actual skills of a class rather than skillful play of classes. Class synergy in GW2 is “we need a Mesmer for TW” or “We need a guardian for projectile blocks”. or “we need a theif for SR”.

If that is “by far the worst aspect of the game”, which game does this better and how does it achieve that, since I probably won’t know it?

Many games did it better, not going to list them 1 because there too many and 2 im not a person who likes comparing games.

Just in GW2 some classes are clearly lacking in the ability to complete while others are given endless tools at their disposal .

That’s not class synergy, it’s more about balancing and efficiency. Synergy is generated by things like combo effects. In other games it is enforced by the holy trinity, I’m glad GW2 broke with this concept.

Kai Ich.9174:

Yaki.9563:

Vayne.8563:

See how far you get in paid tournaments and then talk. Some of those teams are pretty kitten good. Much better than other teams. So there must, logically be some skill involved.

In fact, SPvP itself is less about 1 guy and more about the entire team anyway. If you’re soloing PvP and thinking you’ve learned your profession, you probably haven’t.

This would be the case even if every class were the same and only had one button to press, so pretty irrelevant to the discussion.

Indeed, the team vs team modes, scale in difficulty with your opponents skill level as a team much more then anything else, so it’s really not relevant at all how high am I on ladder (which I am pretty sure doesn’t even exist aside from the ‘’/played’’ QP one)

Now, for people saying that proffesions are harder to master then what I have described, just pick any class and tell me what exactly separates the ’’master’’ of said class from average joes (not complete newbs from pros, but actually decent players from pros).

Elementalist. DONE. (and not the bunker ele)

Trust me, you haven’t mastered that class yet.

Katai.6240:

Having too many skills at your disposal reduces the number of decisions you make when building your character in terms of skills and traits.

Please explain

It’s not only about mastering.
Some people are masters of Space Invaders, but that’s not a reason for me to be sold on mastering Space Invaders.

It’s about finding an interest in mastering. For ages, the only incentive in videogames to master them was not to die. But since then, the incentive has evolved.

Some games (MMOs particularly with their deeper combat mechanics) have provided far better incentives to master your class than just “not to die” :
- create constantly evolving metagames inside your own class
- build superior DPS, support/heal, or resistance
- carry a whole team to victory
- endorse new roles that weren’t intended in class design

That is what we’re talking about when mentionning combat depth.

Here, with GW2, except being a juggernaut that will never die in a battle, what does mastering my class will bring to my game exactly ?

JSmooth.7654:

Katai.6240:

Having too many skills at your disposal reduces the number of decisions you make when building your character in terms of skills and traits.

Please explain

That’s mainly a comment about build diversity. If you can get everything you want (and then some), there’s no decisions to be made and every build ends up the same. As much as I like the weapon swap system, we see a pattern like this: I like weapon A. Weapon B compliments it well, so I’ll use A and B. Someone else likes weapon B. Weapon A compliments it well, so I’ll use B and A.

Oh look, we have the same build :|

Right now our skill list (15+ skills per character) is very large compared to the skill pool, so we can have pretty much everything we want. There’s an illusion of decision, but there’s really none.

When I first started playing I felt the same way. BUT, after unlocking the second loadout it opened up an entirely new feeling. Now I can use a skill in one loadout and quickly swith to my second to use another skill that works very well with the first skill. The combinations are limitless it seems.

Katai.6240:

Right now our skill list (15+ skills per character) is very large compared to the skill pool, so we can have pretty much everything we want. There’s an illusion of decision, but there’s really none.

Also, some of the utility skills are pretty much a no-brainer choice. Once you get to where you “could” do the dungeon explorables at L35, how many players are slotting stun break and condition removal most of the time? More importantly, how many players in PvP are not slotting a SB and CR?

Let’s also not forget about the effect of stats and traits on weapon choice. For example, say a Necro builds for PVT, and not Condition Damage. This choice shunts the Necro to Ax or Dagger main hand. Sure, that Necro can slot a staff or scepter, but without + condition damage those weapons will under-perform.

AdamPBUD.3640:

When I first started playing I felt the same way. BUT, after unlocking the second loadout it opened up an entirely new feeling. Now I can use a skill in one loadout and quickly swith to my second to use another skill that works very well with the first skill. The combinations are limitless it seems.

I don’t know how on earth you can see combinations as limitless. I mean, let’s get serious here. It’s about as far from limitless as earth from moon.

Also for people attacking me for being a low level and clueless, I did reach level 80 on elementalist, I did spvp for a day or so and at the end of the day I just realized – this is it, there’s nothing to learn in this class anymore, I will be using this same weapon combo, these same 23 spells (or 31 in eles case) in the exact same way forever, because these spells and weapons are simply superior, no ifs or buts they are just superior to other choices.

Most would agree ‘choice’ is a good thing however unless its simply an illusion of choice.

Given the CHOICE between trying to kill something with a wet noodle or sword most folks would pick the sword. See – there was a ‘choice’ but in reality there was no choice.

‘Depth’ in combat means there is more than one way to beat a target. In GW2 there is direct damage and condition damage. Unless condition damage alone could bring down a target in the same (or less) time then direct damage there is no depth as its simply a matter of melee or ranged direct damage.

I like where someone above eluded to ‘all OP’ choices.

When configuring my player, at any given tier I may be presented with 5 ‘choices’. However, much like many political elections in the US my ‘choice’ boils down to ‘which of these traits suck LESS’ rather than ‘I really want ALL of these but have to decide on ONE’.

I’ve never played PvP or PvW so my experience is strictly in PvE where ‘depth’ comes down to 1-3 professions spamming DPS.

Kai Ich.9174:

AdamPBUD.3640:

When I first started playing I felt the same way. BUT, after unlocking the second loadout it opened up an entirely new feeling. Now I can use a skill in one loadout and quickly swith to my second to use another skill that works very well with the first skill. The combinations are limitless it seems.

I don’t know how on earth you can see combinations as limitless. I mean, let’s get serious here. It’s about as far from limitless as earth from moon.

Also for people attacking me for being a low level and clueless, I did reach level 80 on elementalist, I did spvp for a day or so and at the end of the day I just realized – this is it, there’s nothing to learn in this class anymore, I will be using this same weapon combo, these same 23 spells (or 31 in eles case) in the exact same way forever, because these spells and weapons are simply superior, no ifs or buts they are just superior to other choices.

This is a balance problem, as in, many classes have useless skills/traits and it’s relatively easy to iron out with time. Also since you keep ignoring my questions about your experience I’ll just assume that you tried every class 1 day in SPvP and then opened the thread, which speaks volumes. No, leveling doesn’t count as it’s an entirely different game and much easier, too.

Having rolled two chars to 80.. i can say the lvl of combat depth is dependant on the user. Unfortunately the pve open world is so crazy easy…players don’t realize this until much later. Keep playing and learning your characters…

Abbehemoth.2471:

Yaki.9563:

Vayne.8563:

See how far you get in paid tournaments and then talk. Some of those teams are pretty kitten good. Much better than other teams. So there must, logically be some skill involved.

In fact, SPvP itself is less about 1 guy and more about the entire team anyway. If you’re soloing PvP and thinking you’ve learned your profession, you probably haven’t.

This would be the case even if every class were the same and only had one button to press, so pretty irrelevant to the discussion.

“ok”

Care to explain what depth is from you perspective? Same for the OP, what do you mean by depth?

He means its not like the game he “was” playing. Thats what all these posts mean actually.

gw2 has lack of depth because you can beat anything by spamming auto attack

seriously, a no-cost no-cooldown skill that does the majority of your dps was a bad idea

Veldan.4637:

gw2 has lack of depth because you can beat anything by spamming auto attack

seriously, a no-cost no-cooldown skill that does the majority of your dps was a bad idea

I can steer my car with my feet, but that doesn’t mean I want to drive that way. Seriously, if thats how you want to play, fine. But its not all about dps.

GW1 only began when you reached lvl 20.

GW2 just begins when you reach lvl 80.

Flamenco.3894:

GW1 only began when you reached lvl 20.

GW2 just begins when you reach lvl 80.

You’re kidding right?
GW1 was a story based game, the game revolved around the storyline and the missions. It started at level 1.

there is enough “deepness” for most player.

choosing your 2 weapon sets
choosing the sigils
choosing the armor stats
choosing the runes
choosing the trinket stats
choosing traits
choosing powers on hotbar

i mean.
i use to be greatsword+staff
but then for fun i started playing with mace/focus.
i discovered a whole new way of playing the guardian, more symbols, more stable, more tanky!

my only problem is that its kind of expensive to get another set of armor to get another set of runes to fit with your new build.
way too expensive..
runes shouldnt be “destroyed” when you replace them.

dunno, i find anet isnt promoting endgame deepness by not allowing people to play around with different builds.

but deepness is definitely there