Guild Wars 2

The combat in Guild Wars 2 is like a blend of traditional tab targeting elements and action game inspired elements. Tab targeting is a staple of MMORPGs and even Guild Wars 1 had it even though it’s not really an MMORPG. The action game elements might be similar to Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, or even Resident Evil 4 if you’re playing with ranged weapons. I say similar because Guild Wars 2 is still an RPG at heart so you don’t really get that twitchy gameplay or that over the top action. I included Dark Souls mainly because of GW2’s dodge mechanic being very similar in that how its use is limited by endurance. Making the game too action focused would alienate certain players and I think in GW2’s case take away from the synergy in group situations. I will get back to this later. My position is on GW2 actually having a lot of combat depth but it’s just not instantly recognizable.

First of all, people need to stop focusing on gear and builds and start thinking about combat in terms of the fights themselves. The stats are normalized so every profession will each benefit from certain stats like power, vitality, and toughness. They should still be important but shouldn’t be the deciding factor between victory and defeat in a fight. Traditionally, you would have stats that benefited certain classes/professions but not others. Such stats included intelligence, defense, and agility. Certain builds in this game would no doubt benefit more from specific stats. This was all done to take the focus away from builds/gear and move it towards player interaction.

What the game lacks in depth in stats it certainly makes up for by providing much more involved fights than what players are used to in traditional MMORPGs. You could argue that it’s really just about moving out of red circles and dodging telegraphed big attacks. However, not all red circles are made equal. For instance, you have the instant damage spikes by Subject Alpha versus the persistent AOE that the last boss of CM path 2 leaves on the ground. Of course, there’s Giganticus Lupicus who in addition to red circle AOEs does shadowstrikes and the occasional projectiles which are both dodgeable. That’s just the enemy side of things. You really have to react differently to different abilities. Sometimes you can simply walk out of a red circle while others if there are multiple red circles overlapping in a small area you have to dodge. Managing your endurance often becomes crucial in keeping yourself alive.
There’s also the skills available to your character. Sure, only a select few skills from your plethora of skills is available for active use but each of these skills has a real purpose. In the traditional MMORPG you had tons of skills and they were all active and maybe even necessary but they were all just variations of one another. Because you’re responsible for your own survival for the most part your utility skills have a much bigger impact. Still, cooperation plays a bigger key in survival and in the success of a group. With a thief’s smoke screen you can completely nullify projectile damage, a guardian’s sanctuary goes one step further by preventing enemies from physically getting to you and your party members, and an elementalist’s geyser (water field) lets other players heal themselves by using blast finishers in addition to its own healing effect. A traditional MMORPG can’t include skills like these because they would trivialize the role of the dedicated healer and even to a certain extent the dedicated tank.

I think people need to see past what they have been used to in the past. They claim that taking away the trinity actually takes away depth and places a limit on creating innovative fights. They could not be further from the truth. As mentioned above, utility skills that outright mitigate damage could not be included in a game with trinity and that limits what skills are available to choose from. The synergy between successful everyone in a group of dungeon runners would be limited to only the tank and healer. Bosses would also have to deploy completely unavoidable skills, which further limits the possibility of making something truly innovative. The frequent deployment of combo fields, the damage mitigation skills, the focus on everyone doing damage and staying alive, and most skills being able to be cast while in motion really add depth to the combat in the game.

GW2 is by no means perfect in terms of its combat. The underwater combat still needs a bit of work, many of the bosses need to be made slightly more interesting, and there are some minor (or major) annoyances like enemies going invulnerable and their health resetting the instant they lose aggro. A lot of these things can be fixed although many are tied to the core game mechanics and will likely stay the same. A lot of issues, some of the worst, actually stem from GW2 being too much like traditional MMORPGs.

Enemies going invulnerable because you’re hitting them from range on an elevated platform is definitely one of the most annoying things in the game. The justification is that they have no way of hitting you back so you’re exploiting the game and so they put in a safeguard to prevent you from doing it. In any other game that isn’t an MMORPG such exploits would be fine because you’re playing strategically. Another annoying thing is crowd control and this some people would disagree with me. Yes, you have stability to mitigate it and there are skills that let you break out of crowd control. However, it doesn’t change the fact that crowd control by itself takes control of the character away from the player. Think about it. When you’re knocked down, what are you able to do during that time? You have no control whatsoever and it’s already been acknowledged by the developers of this really big MMORPG that it’s not fun when the player has no control of their character. The problem in GW2’s case, like this big MMORPG, is that crowd control is part of the game’s core mechanics and can’t just be removed outright. In some cases crowd control can add depth but something else very similar could take its place. For example, if you’re knocked down you could still fire your ranged weapon or you could burn your entire endurance bar to jump back up right away.

Overall, there is quite a bit of depth in GW2’s combat even though there are still some flaws with it. A lot of its shortcomings aren’t due to its simplified interface, the streamlined skillset, the lack of dedicated tanks and healers, or interesting boss fights. ANet is really working on improving bosses as made evident with the Molten Weapons Facility and Aetherblade Retreat. What really holds GW2 back are archaic systems like crowd control and enemies going invulnerable for no good reason. That’s not to mention that you can’t knock enemies (not including players) off cliffs and have them take fall damage. The inclusion of AOE loot should accommodate this but we don’t know if ANet is going to explore this.

ANet is definitely going in the right direction with GW2’s combat and we know for sure that the future will have good things in store. They’re still learning how to design content around this relatively new combat system so if anything we’ll continue to see better boss fights and content overall. We know they want to incorporate jumping into fights more and that will literally add a new dimension to combat. Give ANet some time and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what they will have in store.

To sum it up the combat sucks

Interesting points. Not all of them are accurate (at least one completely contradicts existing facts), but good presentation and well thought out regardless of inaccuracy.

Ashen.2907:

Interesting points. Not all of them are accurate (at least one completely contradicts existing facts), but good presentation and well thought out regardless of inaccuracy.

Thank you. I’m just curious as to which one that is simply because I want to look into it. I don’t think of myself as being right all the time because if I did I probably wouldn’t improve at anything and that includes this game.

They need to delve deeper into the ‘soft trinity’ concept. This game is way too chaotic and needs some order before any decent boss mechanics can ever be developed. If not, the ‘KILL IT WITH FIRE!’ strat will be king forever.

Two simple changes to go in that direction. The first I have been wanting for a long time, make the bar (6) heal we all have, be castable on others. Same heal and cooldown, but we can burn it on others if we wish. I see zero pushback on this and zero negative effects in PvE or PvP and it adds a great dynamic.

The second is up for debate, I can’t see any real problems but some others may. This change would make CCs way better in PvE. I know a long stun or knockdown in PvP is bullkitten but for PvE, that’s a different story. Taking out an annoying add or breaking up a big trash pack adds strategy.

I’ve played MMOs for a lot of years and IMO, a proper dungeon run should be around 30-45 minutes, with some reaching an hour with a really great reward at the end. No more and especially no less. I see players post videos about 3 minute speed runs and I just /facedesk… Where is the fun in that?

MMOs are going off the rails atm and the first one that rights the ship, will be the next big one.

Veteran mmo players would agree that GW2 combat is kinda slow.
For me its fast but its not that fast to pump up my adrenalin level sky high during combat unlike some other mmos i’ve been playing for years.
I’ll name GW2 combat a “Relaxing Combat”.
Even mmo with GCD seem to be much faster.

Every skills, animations and cds should be made a lil bit faster for all classes.
Then it is perfect.

zeromius.1604:

Ashen.2907:

Interesting points. Not all of them are accurate (at least one completely contradicts existing facts), but good presentation and well thought out regardless of inaccuracy.

Thank you. I’m just curious as to which one that is simply because I want to look into it. I don’t think of myself as being right all the time because if I did I probably wouldn’t improve at anything and that includes this game.

Well one is, you can knock players off cliffs (often to their deaths), but not baddies.

A point you touched on is the health regen of broken aggro bosses and mobs. There really should be a much slower regeneration of health over time and not completely reset fights (like lupi). Also player aggro in many situations throughout the game (especially certain jumping puzzles) you could almost be engaged in combat for too long, slowing you down and not regaining health.

I completely agree that the invulnerable state should be limited to dialog engagement, and then only when it’s required to kick off a fight. In many, many ways this state really takes away from immersion, as safe distance tactics are clearly something both players and baddies should be able to take advantage of. Flat surface fighting via direct engagement is something that really needs to be fixed.

While i agree with some of your crowd control points and that some of them could be vastly improved, for the most part, there are quite a few skills that will rebound you from crowd control. Popping stability will take you out of a KD, condition removal skills will snap you back from fear, etc.

Sadly any depth the combat system might have is not required for most content where auto attack and dodge will suffice.

I usually stand still, not even dodging circles anymore with auto attack on when leveling in the zones. It takes a little bit longer but it works. The fact that I don’t die when I just hit auto attack and let go of the keyboard and mouse entirely with most mobs in leveling zones is a clear indicator that there is a problem with the combat system.

xephire.8324:

To sum it up the combat sucks

An intelligent, well thought-out argument I see. Did you read the OP at all?

@OP:

What is missing in my opinion, to make it a true “blend” of traditional rpg and action-rpg is a better camera plus a way to AIM your skills without targeting. Take a Ranger with a bow and try hitting something in front of you without using tab first… you will probably miss and this shouldn’t happen.

As for gear, the real issue is always in dungeons. There are lots of viable combinations, but given that mobs deal too much damage and take so long to kill, it makes damage stats far more important. On the other hand, in PVP gear is way more “balanced”, with loads of differents stat combination used by different professions. The problem isn’t in the combat system, nor the professions themselves, aside from the huge issue with condition damage, but it’s more of a problem with encounter (and mostly dungeon) design.

This is more evident in more recent dungeons, like Aetherblade Retreat and Molten Facility where they used the “unique” combat features of the game (dodging, attack while moving) to the max but they still favor dps over anything else.

One thing they could do, is allow certain pieces of gear to give stat bonuses to Profession specific stats, like Intelligence for Elementalists or Virtues for Guardians, profession-specific gear could help a lot with build diversity, but I’m not sure how they could balance it.

Combat kinda opens up in PvP, although even there it lacks the synergy inside team between classes compared to GW1. But in PvE it’s often dull and too repetitive.

zeromius.1604:

The combat in Guild Wars 2 is like a blend of traditional tab targeting elements and action game inspired elements. Tab targeting is a staple of MMORPGs and even Guild Wars 1 had it even though it’s not really an MMORPG. The action game elements might be similar to Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, or even Resident Evil 4 if you’re playing with ranged weapons. I say similar because Guild Wars 2 is still an RPG at heart so you don’t really get that twitchy gameplay or that over the top action. I included Dark Souls mainly because of GW2’s dodge mechanic being very similar in that how its use is limited by endurance. Making the game too action focused would alienate certain players and I think in GW2’s case take away from the synergy in group situations.

I disagree with your points, but I would like to point how I disagree with the basis of your analysis. You are taking little small boxes and claiming GW2 needs to fit into each of them for the sake of fitting into each of them – “MMORPGs have combat like this, so GW2 should have combat like this. RPGs have combat like this, so GW2 should have combat like this”.

That does not matter. What matters is if the combat is fun or not, not how much (or not) GW2 follows the same model other (somewhat) similar games have followed in the past. The main flaws in MMORPGs today come from the fact that all those games are copying each other, often with the reason that “it’s how all MMORPGs are”.

That’s why saying “the combat in GW2 is more involved than in most traditional MMORPGs” doesn’t really matter. Or saying “strategy X works in similar games, but not in classic MMORPGs, so it should work here too” also doesn’t really matter. The combat should, above everything else, be fun; then we can access whether it fits into little boxes or not.

In other words, think outside the box. Other games be kittened, Guild Wars 2 should not try to copy them.

Erasculio.2914:

zeromius.1604:

The combat in Guild Wars 2 is like a blend of traditional tab targeting elements and action game inspired elements. Tab targeting is a staple of MMORPGs and even Guild Wars 1 had it even though it’s not really an MMORPG. The action game elements might be similar to Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, or even Resident Evil 4 if you’re playing with ranged weapons. I say similar because Guild Wars 2 is still an RPG at heart so you don’t really get that twitchy gameplay or that over the top action. I included Dark Souls mainly because of GW2’s dodge mechanic being very similar in that how its use is limited by endurance. Making the game too action focused would alienate certain players and I think in GW2’s case take away from the synergy in group situations.

I disagree with your points, but I would like to point how I disagree with the basis of your analysis. You are taking little small boxes and claiming GW2 needs to fit into each of them for the sake of fitting into each of them – “MMORPGs have combat like this, so GW2 should have combat like this. RPGs have combat like this, so GW2 should have combat like this”.

That does not matter. What matters is if the combat is fun or not, not how much (or not) GW2 follows the same model other (somewhat) similar games have followed in the past. The main flaws in MMORPGs today come from the fact that all those games are copying each other, often with the reason that “it’s how all MMORPGs are”.

That’s why saying “the combat in GW2 is more involved than in most traditional MMORPGs” doesn’t really matter. Or saying “strategy X works in similar games, but not in classic MMORPGs, so it should work here too” also doesn’t really matter. The combat should, above everything else, be fun; then we can access whether it fits into little boxes or not.

In other words, think outside the box. Other games be kittened, Guild Wars 2 should not try to copy them.

I agree that the combat should be fun. I didn’t want to impose my own preferences on this but I do find the combat in Guild Wars 2 to be more fun than any other MMORPG I’ve played. I haven’t played very many so take that with a grain of salt if you like. I know Tera actually takes the action oriented combat one step further by requiring you to physically aim your attacks but I haven’t played it yet. I wanted to present a balanced analysis of what Guild Wars 2 combat feels like more than what I want it to be. Personally I’d rather not have tab targeting and actually have much faster and over the top combat like in Bayonetta. It may not be to everyone’s liking and I think ANet recognized this so they went for a happy medium.

I also mentioned that the parts of Guild Wars 2’s combat that makes it less fun actually happen to be elements lingering from the age of traditional MMORPGs like crowd control, being forced to fight melee-only monsters on level terrain or they go invulnerable, and one thing I didn’t mention earlier: enemies that don’t react to you. The last point is actually about the enemy AI or lack thereof. Right now bosses will follow some script and either cast things randomly or cast them on a timer so you can for the most part predict what the boss will do. A good example of this is Subject Alpha. If you did it the old way, before people discovered you could just stand in his red circles and dodge at the last moment, it was a fun and frenetic fight. Now you have everyone stack somewhere and burn this guy down. If he was smart he’d think, “I’m taking a lot of damage standing in this cluster ****, I’d better get out.” I mean this is just one example but I think making all enemies and even NPCs smarter would make things feel more dynamic. I don’t think ANet would invest in this but one can still hope.

I think in a group, what GW2 lacks is people working together. Since everyone takes care of their own(dodging, healing, dmg mitigation).

But when I try to solo some of the dungeon. You actually get the idea what action combat mean.

You need to watch enemies animation, watch use stamina, dodge, etc. Use of every weapon and skill to solve problem.

Quite honestly, “for soloing”, the combat is one of the best I ever have in any mmorpg, it is even better than most SRPG. They probably should rework a solo mode for all of the dungeon. Since the combat is actually amazing if you play the dungeon solo.

There’s so little connection with characters in this game that I honestly have my doubts if this can even be considered a role-playing game. Literally, I just got tired of playing my level 80 guardian and my level 80 ranger, so I deleted them both without batting an eye.

As for the combat, I agree with laokoko. GW2 really lacks team collaboration in anything. Anet basically said, “Screw the trinity”, and went straight for all dps. But the issue with that is that everyone focuses on the enemy and not on supporting each other during fights, so you really don’t have to constantly be aware of teammates and sometimes I forget I’m even in a group.

Galtrix.7369:

GW2 really lacks team collaboration in anything.

Have you seen the 4 vs 30 in WvW video? That was some good teamwork.

Galtrix.7369:

Anet basically said, “Screw the trinity”, and went straight for all dps.

Wrong.

Their intention was to have a soft trinity of control, support and damage.

However, it just doesn’t come out in a lot of situations, down to:

• Being able to ignore the majority of encounter mechanics
• Defiant dissuades Control builds (although I did have a Warrior build that was good at stacking Immobilize)

If you actually analyze some of the encounter mechanics, some of them would actually fit well with the whole ‘switching roles through the flow of combat’ aim they have:

Take the Lovers, with the main mechanic of keeping them separated. Completely negated by being able to throw boulders.

Now, remove the boulders, and you have an encounter where you need to switch between damage and control.

Not to mention if we expand the meaning of ‘role’ to mean ‘purpose during the fight’ outside of the control / damage / support triage, that opens a whole lot more to us.

Take CoF Effigy with the crystals. Able to brute-force it with Poison and high damage.

Now, if you alter it so:

• Having X amount of crystals causes the boss to become Invulnerable and put out increased damage, and;
• Destroying a crystal gives you a stacking debuff that ticks a % of your health to the point where you’ll die if you just keep breaking crystals without it wearing off.

Although it’s just Damage (with the potential for Support if the crystal breaker messes up), you’ve got the extra layer of teamwork in the form of the roles ‘crystal breaker’, ‘boss damage’ and ‘SHTF guy’, with these roles switching with the flow of combat.

These probably aren’t the best examples of how it could be done right, mind you.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Galtrix.7369:

GW2 really lacks team collaboration in anything.

Have you seen the 4 vs 30 in WvW video? That was some good teamwork.

Galtrix.7369:

Anet basically said, “Screw the trinity”, and went straight for all dps.

Wrong.

Their intention was to have a soft trinity of control, support and damage.

However, it just doesn’t come out in a lot of situations, down to:

• Being able to ignore the majority of encounter mechanics
• Defiant dissuades Control builds (although I did have a Warrior build that was good at stacking Immobilize)

If you actually analyze some of the encounter mechanics, some of them would actually fit well with the whole ‘switching roles through the flow of combat’ aim they have:

Take the Lovers, with the main mechanic of keeping them separated. Completely negated by being able to throw boulders.

Now, remove the boulders, and you have an encounter where you need to switch between damage and control.

Not to mention if we expand the meaning of ‘role’ to mean ‘purpose during the fight’ outside of the control / damage / support triage, that opens a whole lot more to us.

Take CoF Effigy with the crystals. Able to brute-force it with Poison and high damage.

Now, if you alter it so:

• Having X amount of crystals causes the boss to become Invulnerable and put out increased damage, and;
• Destroying a crystal gives you a stacking debuff that ticks a % of your health to the point where you’ll die if you just keep breaking crystals without it wearing off.

Although it’s just Damage (with the potential for Support if the crystal breaker messes up), you’ve got the extra layer of teamwork in the form of the roles ‘crystal breaker’, ‘boss damage’ and ‘SHTF guy’, with these roles switching with the flow of combat.

These probably aren’t the best examples of how it could be done right, mind you.

Umm, yeah, you can’t have a “soft trinity”. You either have the trinity, or you don’t. Ever tried to support your teammates with a heal in GW2? It doesn’t work well enough to be worth your while. They went straight for all DPS, and there is no doubt about it.

And I mean that GW2 lacks collaboration because there is no trinity. Sure, we can work together to kill the enemy by creating different strategies, but our characters don’t support each other. All we’re doing is finding a more efficient strategy to defeat the enemy together. I hope that makes sense.

While you both make good points about lack of cooperation, this stems more from player attitudes than from the game itself. If you’ve yet to experience high level play either from WvW, sPvP, or dungeons then it isn’t strange that you would miss out on the synergistic elements between players. Every person for themselves is definitely viable, which is a good thing, but in no way is it optimal.

I’ll use WvW as an example since I tend to pug dungeons. Of course, I’ll have to explain combo fields are first. Combo fields are basically area of effect fields that are generated as a result of certain skills that players use. These skills will have a combo field property like fire, poison, water, etc. These combo fields can modify the properties of other skills that have the finisher property. Now the interesting part is that these combo fields can be used by other players including yourself. If you create a fire field and someone else uses a blast finisher on it then everyone in the area gets stacks of might. If it was a water field then everyone in the area receives healing.

I’ve digressed a little so let me get back to my example with WvW. If you were to throw two zerg groups against each other, one that is randomly put together and the other that is an organized guild group, which group would win the fight? The answer is obvious but the question is why. See, if it’s every man/woman for him/herself then you don’t actually take advantage of your teammates’ strengths. The organized group will utilize all of the combo fields that give them offensive and defensive boons while keeping up water fields for AOE healing. The random zerg group won’t stand a chance. In many cases, the organized group can take on a random zerg twice its size simply because of the synergy between the players in the organized group.

What we can take away from this is that the lack of collaboration between players is due to the players themselves. The same would hold true of dungeon runs. Most players who join PUGs are just going along for the ride. They don’t know each other so there’s unlikely to be any synergy between random strangers. Then again, it’s still possible if people would care to communicate in chat more often about what they have and what the group needs in terms of skill sets. Dungeon runs with highly coordinated groups tend to go very smoothly and feel less like zerg fests. If you’ve ever wondered why Arah, considered by many to be really challenging, can be completed relatively quickly you now know it’s because of strong player cooperation.

What I’m saying is that on the surface the game appears to require little collaboration. I think it’s more that it’s really forgiving when a dungeon group lacks synergy. However, it can be really rewarding when there is strong synergy between group members and this applies to all aspects of PvE or PvP.

Galtrix.7369:

Umm, yeah, you can’t have a “soft trinity”. You either have the trinity, or you don’t. Ever tried to support your teammates with a heal in GW2? It doesn’t work well enough to be worth your while. They went straight for all DPS, and there is no doubt about it.

And I mean that GW2 lacks collaboration because there is no trinity. Sure, we can work together to kill the enemy by creating different strategies, but our characters don’t support each other. All we’re doing is finding a more efficient strategy to defeat the enemy together. I hope that makes sense.

By ‘soft trinity’ I mean roles that change in the flow of combat. That is, you don’t just stay as one role, and roles aren’t strict (Control and Support can easily blend into one on occasions, depending on the situation). A perfect example of this is going from damaging the enemy to reviving an ally that has been downed.

So you’re saying without hard, defined roles, there isn’t any way to have a system where you can support your allies? Because I can think of a number of different scenarios where you can support your allies without having the Trinity:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Galtrix.7369:

Umm, yeah, you can’t have a “soft trinity”. You either have the trinity, or you don’t. Ever tried to support your teammates with a heal in GW2? It doesn’t work well enough to be worth your while. They went straight for all DPS, and there is no doubt about it.

And I mean that GW2 lacks collaboration because there is no trinity. Sure, we can work together to kill the enemy by creating different strategies, but our characters don’t support each other. All we’re doing is finding a more efficient strategy to defeat the enemy together. I hope that makes sense.

By ‘soft trinity’ I mean roles that change in the flow of combat. That is, you don’t just stay as one role, and roles aren’t strict (Control and Support can easily blend into one on occasions, depending on the situation). A perfect example of this is going from damaging the enemy to reviving an ally that has been downed.

So you’re saying without hard, defined roles, there isn’t any way to have a system where you can support your allies? Because I can think of a number of different scenarios where you can support your allies without having the Trinity:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

Agreed. The ‘soft trinity’ idea is BS. The trinity isn’t in the game and the combat suffers for it. Every class is now DPS with no real support/heals/tank of any kind. In the end, nobody feels like they really contribute. Each person just smashes their limited 2-3 buttons until the thing dies, then repeat on the next one.

The combat system is a snooze fest. No matter how much anti-WoW folks say that you just spammed the same 1-2 buttons there over and over, it doesn’t even remotely ring true. A really good play used nearly 20 different skills/items in their rotations in WoW. In GW2 I think my highest is maybe 4 or 5 buttons.

I actually find the total freedom of movement actually trivializes the AI, it makes the game too easy, either the AI needs to get better or the players need more counters to movement..

Yes a lot like the i can move and fight, but i personally would have liked a more i can sometimes move and fight scenario so AI would be a much tougher challenge.

milo.6942:

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

As it is, the actual core combat system allows for someone to build heavily for Support (ressing, booning ect), Damage (direct, condition), Control (CC, slows, damage mitigation), or a hybrid of these. As such, this type of Trinity is already in the game.

However, encounter mechanics don’t require it (in fact, it’s less efficient in the majority of cases). If encounter mechanics did require this sort of thing, however, then yes, we’d have the whole required roles thing.

One thing I should do is elaborate on the action-oriented combat found in Guild Wars 2. It’s something that is often glossed over and we’ve all taken it for granted. One of the things with traditional MMORPGs is that you often had to have a target if you wanted to use your basic attack. If you didn’t have a target and you were to use your basic attack you’d get error messages like no target selected, target out of range, or target not in line of sight. In GW2, you can use your basic attack and most other attacks regardless of whether you have a target and regardless of whether your target is in line of sight or is in range. It gives you a sense of satisfaction that you aren’t constrained by artificial limits. So what if your target just jumped behind a wall? You get an obstructed message but you can still fire your shot. It’s much better than having your spell or whatever interrupted mid-cast simply because they went out of line of sight. The tab targeting in this game is really just there to assist you.

It’s this freedom of being able to use your skills whenever you want that makes the combat fun. If you want to swing that cool new hammer you just got you can go ahead and do just that without having to look for some random monster to fight. If your selected target is out of range of your melee attacks and there happens to be an enemy right in front of you then that enemy gets hit. It’s one of those things that really adds to the ebb and flow of a fight and often goes unappreciated. In a traditional MMORPG you’d get a warning that the target is out of range and that’s it.

GW2 also borrows some elements from God of War and Devil May Cry with the weapon switching, kits, and attunements. The ability to switch from a melee weapon to a ranged weapon on the fly also adds an additional layer of depth. This also counters the lack of active skills argument. It’s something we often overlook, have taken for granted, or have simply forgotten. Being able to switch weapons means you are constantly involved with the action. For example, one weapon happens to have a skill that knocks your enemy back and switching to the other weapon lets you fire off a barrage projectiles from a safe distance.

I agree with combat being completely boring due to lack of trinity. When the game first came out I really thought the system was going to be great..now I didn’t need to sit and find a tank and some heals to do whatever. But the more I played, the more I realized how easy things were due to everything being designed around dodge. I’m sure it works for some people, but it’s just boring to me personally. I log in to do mostly jumping puzzles these days.

I completely agree with combat being completely boring due to the presence of trinity. :P You know what one of the biggest complaint with GW2 is? It’s something called RNG (random number generator), which is present in black lion chests, the mystic forge, and many other things. Dodging means that your skill plays a much larger part than RNG. Whether you get hit or not isn’t determined by the roll of dice. You determine whether you get hit or not.

It’s hard to divorce RNG combat from trinity. As I mentioned above, having dedicated tanks and healers means having to have completely unavoidable attacks. You don’t need to heal if you never take damage after all. Furthermore, you don’t need a dedicated tank either when you can avoid damage. The tank is there after all to take the damage in place of everyone else.

The best part about raids in this game I won’t name isn’t because of trinity. The best parts were the mechanics that required heavy involvement from everyone in the raid group. Take away tanking and healing and these fights would still be fun if not even more fun now that healers aren’t just spamming heals on the tanks and tanks aren’t fighting for aggro.

Yea, I get what you’re saying but, hell, i’d rather have a block button (skyrim) over the dodge system.

Some people enjoy being a dedicated role. I play a disc priest in wow and a mercenary bh healer in swtor and it is loads of fun especially in pvp atmospheres where I’m kiting people and reacting to what they do. I don’t get that at all in this game.

My pvp experience has been nothing but zerging and same with world bosses and dungeons, just a zergfest (uh oh don’t stand in red circles, seems to be the only mechanic in the game sometimes). I guess both our ideas of “heavy involvement” are fundamentally different. Like I said earlier, I’m sure this system works for some, but to me..what you call “action combat” I call boring. Like the guy said in a couple posts above me, when you can sit there and just spam auto attack and it’s GG, that’s indicative to me that something is just wrong with the system.

Too many people saying you need a Dedicated role for it to count as teamwork.

.

just no… that ship has …

.

whatever…just get go somewhere else … no one’s gonna miss that attitude b/c the people who usually say it, are always the LAST ones to want to play the Monk or the “Battery” or or Taxi anything besides Nuker… Maybe a few were Tank-hards, but are any of them REAL SUPPORT players? No, They’re a buncha Liars. They were the only Nukers or Spikers and that made them feel special, but now everyone else around them is a nuker or spiker too and they can’t stand sharing. Now I Mained Monk… but I don’t ever want to see that role come back and be required here. There’s a million other ways to make your Build actually matter in dungeon encounters besides having some Wetnurse be required for it. Anet just needs to build those encounters, then everyone else will see it too.

PS: My Guardian has 1200 Healing. Knowing that that was a complete waste of resources and no one actually wants him for that, is probably the most Liberating feeling this game gave me since the first time I pressed SPACE BAR and gained Vertical momentum…

milo.6942:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Galtrix.7369:

Umm, yeah, you can’t have a “soft trinity”. You either have the trinity, or you don’t. Ever tried to support your teammates with a heal in GW2? It doesn’t work well enough to be worth your while. They went straight for all DPS, and there is no doubt about it.

And I mean that GW2 lacks collaboration because there is no trinity. Sure, we can work together to kill the enemy by creating different strategies, but our characters don’t support each other. All we’re doing is finding a more efficient strategy to defeat the enemy together. I hope that makes sense.

By ‘soft trinity’ I mean roles that change in the flow of combat. That is, you don’t just stay as one role, and roles aren’t strict (Control and Support can easily blend into one on occasions, depending on the situation). A perfect example of this is going from damaging the enemy to reviving an ally that has been downed.

So you’re saying without hard, defined roles, there isn’t any way to have a system where you can support your allies? Because I can think of a number of different scenarios where you can support your allies without having the Trinity:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

I’m glad you did, thanks! It saved me a paragraph. But yeah, I agree, the roles he’s talking about aren’t currently supported very well in this game.

You say Dark Souls, I say Monster Hunter. I enjoyed MH far more and expected nothing less when soloing a champion of legendary mob. Most legendaries really do feel like fighting something like Tigrex without the mobility. One hit from them and you’re done, essentially.

The combat is amazing. If you really want a challenge, try soloing the second boss of TA Story, where his minions will kill you in 1 shot when touched. I’ve done it on my Mantra mesmer, and it was definitely the most intense solo I’ve done. Lupicus was a bit of a pushover Pre-buff, but I’ve yet to try soloing him since. I think soloing the most difficult bosses is where GW2 combat really shines. They’re predictable and unpredictable at times, just like bosses in Dark Souls and Monster Hunter, which makes it much more engaging than a fight against another player (especially since one or two hits is death, just like DS or MH).

Rhysati.4932:

Agreed. The ‘soft trinity’ idea is BS. The trinity isn’t in the game and the combat suffers for it. Every class is now DPS with no real support/heals/tank of any kind. In the end, nobody feels like they really contribute. Each person just smashes their limited 2-3 buttons until the thing dies, then repeat on the next one.

The combat system is a snooze fest. No matter how much anti-WoW folks say that you just spammed the same 1-2 buttons there over and over, it doesn’t even remotely ring true. A really good play used nearly 20 different skills/items in their rotations in WoW. In GW2 I think my highest is maybe 4 or 5 buttons.

The trinity isn’t in more than 99% of the games ever made. I know they say statistics are just made up on the spot but I’m pretty confident with that percentage. A lot of these games are single player only or have only competitive multi-player but there are many that have co-operative play. If you’re wondering, no they don’t employ the trinity system. I think we’re stuck in this mindset that an MMORPG has to have MMORPG staples like the holy trinity or else it ceases to be fun.

I’m pretty sure people feel like they’re contributing when they’re beating the **** out of a boss. I mean, the only way you wouldn’t be contributing is if you decided to go AFK or if you keep dying and get your teammates to revive you.

The flaw of your next argument lies in the fact that you equate fun to mechanical complexity. GW2 has less keys to push so that automatically makes it less fun than other games that have more keys to push. Let’s not even get into macros because they’re a solution to a problem that didn’t need to exist in the first place. By your logic that would make all console games, which utilize a very limited set of inputs, really boring.

I’m not going to try and refute your second point because maybe you do think that something with more inputs is more fun that something with less. I’m sure there are others that feel the same way. GW2 has a stronger focus on movement, positioning, and often times reflexes. It’s definitely not for everyone but I think most people that have played either console games or even traditional MMORPGs will warm to it.

zeromius.1604:

Rhysati.4932:

Agreed. The ‘soft trinity’ idea is BS. The trinity isn’t in the game and the combat suffers for it. Every class is now DPS with no real support/heals/tank of any kind. In the end, nobody feels like they really contribute. Each person just smashes their limited 2-3 buttons until the thing dies, then repeat on the next one.

The combat system is a snooze fest. No matter how much anti-WoW folks say that you just spammed the same 1-2 buttons there over and over, it doesn’t even remotely ring true. A really good play used nearly 20 different skills/items in their rotations in WoW. In GW2 I think my highest is maybe 4 or 5 buttons.

The trinity isn’t in more than 99% of the games ever made. I know they say statistics are just made up on the spot but I’m pretty confident with that percentage. A lot of these games are single player only or have only competitive multi-player but there are many that have co-operative play. If you’re wondering, no they don’t employ the trinity system. I think we’re stuck in this mindset that an MMORPG has to have MMORPG staples like the holy trinity or else it ceases to be fun.

I’m pretty sure people feel like they’re contributing when they’re beating the **** out of a boss. I mean, the only way you wouldn’t be contributing is if you decided to go AFK or if you keep dying and get your teammates to revive you.

The flaw of your next argument lies in the fact that you equate fun to mechanical complexity. GW2 has less keys to push so that automatically makes it less fun than other games that have more keys to push. Let’s not even get into macros because they’re a solution to a problem that didn’t need to exist in the first place. By your logic that would make all console games, which utilize a very limited set of inputs, really boring.

I’m not going to try and refute your second point because maybe you do think that something with more inputs is more fun that something with less. I’m sure there are others that feel the same way. GW2 has a stronger focus on movement, positioning, and often times reflexes. It’s definitely not for everyone but I think most people that have played either console games or even traditional MMORPGs will warm to it.

I don’t think that’s what he was getting at there. I think he was saying that the combat system in this game requires less thinking, and more button spamming. I only use keys 1-5 because all of my other skills are sigils or useless skills. In WoW, you actually had to memorize what skills did what and when you had to use them. Since you had over 20 skills on your bars at once, that made it more complex, yes, but it also made the combat a lot more interesting because it required you to think about what skills to use in which circumstances. The only time this is required of me in GW2 is when someone hits my thief. Then I just pop a stealth and wait for awhile, then attack again.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but dodging, positioning, and character movement are getting extremely boring. I would rather spam my 20 skills in WoW and stand completely still than spam my 5 skills in GW2 and then move a few inches every few seconds.

As for contributing during boss fights, yeah, you definitely contribute. Everyone contributes during boss fights because of the damage they throw at the boss. But it requires a lot less teamwork and collaboration than a game with the trinity. I mean, if you’re a healer, your role is to watch everyone’s health and keep it up. If the tank does something stupid and is out of range of the healer, it’s the healer’s job to speak up and yell at him, and also tell him what to do. Also, vice versa. If the healer’s not doing his job, the tank needs to communicate with him. If the tank isn’t keeping aggro, the dps also has the authority to speak up and tell him to use more aggroish skills. Instead of “contributed”, he probably could’ve said “accomplished defeating the boss with teamwork”.

Galtrix.7369:

zeromius.1604:

The trinity isn’t in more than 99% of the games ever made. I know they say statistics are just made up on the spot but I’m pretty confident with that percentage. A lot of these games are single player only or have only competitive multi-player but there are many that have co-operative play. If you’re wondering, no they don’t employ the trinity system. I think we’re stuck in this mindset that an MMORPG has to have MMORPG staples like the holy trinity or else it ceases to be fun.

I’m pretty sure people feel like they’re contributing when they’re beating the **** out of a boss. I mean, the only way you wouldn’t be contributing is if you decided to go AFK or if you keep dying and get your teammates to revive you.

The flaw of your next argument lies in the fact that you equate fun to mechanical complexity. GW2 has less keys to push so that automatically makes it less fun than other games that have more keys to push. Let’s not even get into macros because they’re a solution to a problem that didn’t need to exist in the first place. By your logic that would make all console games, which utilize a very limited set of inputs, really boring.

I’m not going to try and refute your second point because maybe you do think that something with more inputs is more fun that something with less. I’m sure there are others that feel the same way. GW2 has a stronger focus on movement, positioning, and often times reflexes. It’s definitely not for everyone but I think most people that have played either console games or even traditional MMORPGs will warm to it.

I don’t think that’s what he was getting at there. I think he was saying that the combat system in this game requires less thinking, and more button spamming. I only use keys 1-5 because all of my other skills are sigils or useless skills. In WoW, you actually had to memorize what skills did what and when you had to use them. Since you had over 20 skills on your bars at once, that made it more complex, yes, but it also made the combat a lot more interesting because it required you to think about what skills to use in which circumstances. The only time this is required of me in GW2 is when someone hits my thief. Then I just pop a stealth and wait for awhile, then attack again.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but dodging, positioning, and character movement are getting extremely boring. I would rather spam my 20 skills in WoW and stand completely still than spam my 5 skills in GW2 and then move a few inches every few seconds.

As for contributing during boss fights, yeah, you definitely contribute. Everyone contributes during boss fights because of the damage they throw at the boss. But it requires a lot less teamwork and collaboration than a game with the trinity. I mean, if you’re a healer, your role is to watch everyone’s health and keep it up. If the tank does something stupid and is out of range of the healer, it’s the healer’s job to speak up and yell at him, and also tell him what to do. Also, vice versa. If the healer’s not doing his job, the tank needs to communicate with him. If the tank isn’t keeping aggro, the dps also has the authority to speak up and tell him to use more aggroish skills. Instead of “contributed”, he probably could’ve said “accomplished defeating the boss with teamwork”.

Playing a thief myself I’d have to agree that thieves are relatively simple to play compared to other professions. It’s not indicative of all the professions though because they are different enough to make them all unique. An elementalist for example has 20 active weapon skills. Many of them have uses for specific situations and they include heals, condition removers, blind, projectile reflection, and straight out damage.

I think the problems that everyone brings up with the lack of trinity are due to the content of the game rather than its system. To date, there haven’t been many fights that fully utilize or exploit the game’s combat system. Many of the bosses feel like they could’ve worked with a tank and healer. So the problem isn’t the lack of trinity but rather content that is designed as if a trinity was needed. This isn’t a problem with all bosses but there are a few bad apples that fall in this trap.

Someone brought up trinity lite being in the game. I think it’s nice to have that option but I think making it a requirement would constrict design decisions for content. I also want to refer you to my above post about player synergy in the game and the combo fields. Cooperation isn’t a must in most cases, making some people feel that there is no cooperation required. Rather, cooperating by tailoring playstyles to one another like having one person throw down fire fields and another blasting it for might will increase the group’s overall damage output. Sure, you can treat bosses like zerg fests but you won’t be as successful.

I really enjoy the combat and after playing another not yet released mmo and Tera I can say that GW2 nailed it for me. It’s not only the movement but also the dynamic of fights – dogding, combofields, projectile blocking, risk vs reward if you ressurect someone in a boss fight.

But I do think way to many encounters don’t require any special movement. Most of the time it is just the boring circledogding but we are seeing alot of new boss fights that at least try to get away from those 100%-0% Singlephase DPS Spam Bossfights

zeromius.1604:

Galtrix.7369:

zeromius.1604:

The flaw of your next argument lies in the fact that you equate fun to mechanical complexity. GW2 has less keys to push so that automatically makes it less fun than other games that have more keys to push. Let’s not even get into macros because they’re a solution to a problem that didn’t need to exist in the first place. By your logic that would make all console games, which utilize a very limited set of inputs, really boring.

I’m not going to try and refute your second point because maybe you do think that something with more inputs is more fun that something with less. I’m sure there are others that feel the same way. GW2 has a stronger focus on movement, positioning, and often times reflexes. It’s definitely not for everyone but I think most people that have played either console games or even traditional MMORPGs will warm to it.

I don’t think that’s what he was getting at there. I think he was saying that the combat system in this game requires less thinking, and more button spamming. I only use keys 1-5 because all of my other skills are sigils or useless skills. In WoW, you actually had to memorize what skills did what and when you had to use them. Since you had over 20 skills on your bars at once, that made it more complex, yes, but it also made the combat a lot more interesting because it required you to think about what skills to use in which circumstances. The only time this is required of me in GW2 is when someone hits my thief. Then I just pop a stealth and wait for awhile, then attack again.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but dodging, positioning, and character movement are getting extremely boring. I would rather spam my 20 skills in WoW and stand completely still than spam my 5 skills in GW2 and then move a few inches every few seconds.

As for contributing during boss fights, yeah, you definitely contribute. Everyone contributes during boss fights because of the damage they throw at the boss. But it requires a lot less teamwork and collaboration than a game with the trinity. I mean, if you’re a healer, your role is to watch everyone’s health and keep it up. If the tank does something stupid and is out of range of the healer, it’s the healer’s job to speak up and yell at him, and also tell him what to do. Also, vice versa. If the healer’s not doing his job, the tank needs to communicate with him. If the tank isn’t keeping aggro, the dps also has the authority to speak up and tell him to use more aggroish skills. Instead of “contributed”, he probably could’ve said “accomplished defeating the boss with teamwork”.

Playing a thief myself I’d have to agree that thieves are relatively simple to play compared to other professions. It’s not indicative of all the professions though because they are different enough to make them all unique. An elementalist for example has 20 active weapon skills. Many of them have uses for specific situations and they include heals, condition removers, blind, projectile reflection, and straight out damage.

I think the problems that everyone brings up with the lack of trinity are due to the content of the game rather than its system. To date, there haven’t been many fights that fully utilize or exploit the game’s combat system. Many of the bosses feel like they could’ve worked with a tank and healer. So the problem isn’t the lack of trinity but rather content that is designed as if a trinity was needed. This isn’t a problem with all bosses but there are a few bad apples that fall in this trap.

Someone brought up trinity lite being in the game. I think it’s nice to have that option but I think making it a requirement would constrict design decisions for content. I also want to refer you to my above post about player synergy in the game and the combo fields. Cooperation isn’t a must in most cases, making some people feel that there is no cooperation required. Rather, cooperating by tailoring playstyles to one another like having one person throw down fire fields and another blasting it for might will increase the group’s overall damage output. Sure, you can treat bosses like zerg fests but you won’t be as successful.

What you said makes sense, and I agree. If bosses were designed to do different things, such as stack conditions on players, or throw meteors from the sky, we might see more build diversity and teamwork. And yeah, I’ve seen a guardian whose sole purpose was to provide buffs to his Elementalist friend so he could do as much dps as possible. It worked quite nicely.

kokiman.2364:

I really enjoy the combat and after playing another not yet released mmo and Tera I can say that GW2 nailed it for me. It’s not only the movement but also the dynamic of fights – dogding, combofields, projectile blocking, risk vs reward if you ressurect someone in a boss fight.

But I do think way to many encounters don’t require any special movement. Most of the time it is just the boring circledogding but we are seeing alot of new boss fights that at least try to get away from those 100%-0% Singlephase DPS Spam Bossfights

Yes, a good example of this is the last boss of the Molten Weapons Facility that in addition to dodging also requires jumping. There has always been potential for more interesting fights using the current system.

The three games that break the mold which I refer to as the unholy trinity are TERA, Neverwinter, and Guild Wars 2. The former two also go with the new action oriented combat system but they also suffer from an identity crisis. By having dedicated tanks and healers they can’t seem to decide if they want to be action games or traditional MMORPGs. They’ve taken two steps forward and one step back. This is why I prefer GW2 because ANet has taken a bold step.

zeromius.1604:

Ashen.2907:

Interesting points. Not all of them are accurate (at least one completely contradicts existing facts), but good presentation and well thought out regardless of inaccuracy.

Thank you. I’m just curious as to which one that is simply because I want to look into it. I don’t think of myself as being right all the time because if I did I probably wouldn’t improve at anything and that includes this game.

zeromius.1604:

skills that outright mitigate damage could not be included in a game with trinity

This one in particular jumped out at me because the claim is not correct. A game can have trinity while also allowing individual characters to have damage mitigation skills.

milo.6942:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

CCing enemies that are downed/low on health is very very widely used in PvP, either sPVP or WvW, also in non-boss encounters in PVE too, or at least it should be used by non-brain dead players.

Buffing is something that is well used by good groups in the game. Just watch those speed kills of Lupicus and see how much they buff each other, might stacks, blast finishers on fire fields etc Same goes for any well “trained” WvW group, they always stack and buff up before rushing to wipe their enemies, and it DOES make a big difference, allowing groups of fewer people to defeat larger forces. Stability buffs make certain fights/encounters far easier.

Clearing conditions on the entire party is used in other encounters too, an Elementalist is an excellent condition cleaning machine, or a Guardian.

Riving allies is obvious. However there is still party synergy when riving too, a Thief using Shadow Refugee to stealth the downed ally, a Guardian using Shield of Absorption to knock back enemies so allies can rez, and so on.

And the most often used party support, Reflections. When was the last time you were standing behind a wall, or inside Feedback, while fighting a boss encounter? That’s a widely used support option, viable in lots of different situations, both PVP and PVE.

That people don’t want to use the tools given to them by the game is a completely different story, but the tools for party buffing and support are there.

maddoctor.2738:

milo.6942:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

CCing enemies that are downed/low on health is very very widely used in PvP, either sPVP or WvW, also in non-boss encounters in PVE too, or at least it should be used by non-brain dead players.

Buffing is something that is well used by good groups in the game. Just watch those speed kills of Lupicus and see how much they buff each other, might stacks, blast finishers on fire fields etc Same goes for any well “trained” WvW group, they always stack and buff up before rushing to wipe their enemies, and it DOES make a big difference, allowing groups of fewer people to defeat larger forces. Stability buffs make certain fights/encounters far easier.

Clearing conditions on the entire party is used in other encounters too, an Elementalist is an excellent condition cleaning machine, or a Guardian.

Riving allies is obvious. However there is still party synergy when riving too, a Thief using Shadow Refugee to stealth the downed ally, a Guardian using Shield of Absorption to knock back enemies so allies can rez, and so on.

And the most often used party support, Reflections. When was the last time you were standing behind a wall, or inside Feedback, while fighting a boss encounter? That’s a widely used support option, viable in lots of different situations, both PVP and PVE.

That people don’t want to use the tools given to them by the game is a completely different story, but the tools for party buffing and support are there.

i was talking about dedicated roles

milo.6942:

maddoctor.2738:

milo.6942:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

CCing enemies that are downed/low on health is very very widely used in PvP, either sPVP or WvW, also in non-boss encounters in PVE too, or at least it should be used by non-brain dead players.

Buffing is something that is well used by good groups in the game. Just watch those speed kills of Lupicus and see how much they buff each other, might stacks, blast finishers on fire fields etc Same goes for any well “trained” WvW group, they always stack and buff up before rushing to wipe their enemies, and it DOES make a big difference, allowing groups of fewer people to defeat larger forces. Stability buffs make certain fights/encounters far easier.

Clearing conditions on the entire party is used in other encounters too, an Elementalist is an excellent condition cleaning machine, or a Guardian.

Riving allies is obvious. However there is still party synergy when riving too, a Thief using Shadow Refugee to stealth the downed ally, a Guardian using Shield of Absorption to knock back enemies so allies can rez, and so on.

And the most often used party support, Reflections. When was the last time you were standing behind a wall, or inside Feedback, while fighting a boss encounter? That’s a widely used support option, viable in lots of different situations, both PVP and PVE.

That people don’t want to use the tools given to them by the game is a completely different story, but the tools for party buffing and support are there.

i was talking about dedicated roles

You can support your allies and do great teamplay without the requirement for dedicated roles, there is no need for them.

maddoctor.2738:

milo.6942:

maddoctor.2738:

milo.6942:

• CC’ing an enemy that is heading towards an ally in trouble (downed, low on health, heal on CD)
• Giving damage reduction boons (Protection, Regen, Vigor)
• Clearing conditions
• Reviving allies
• Taking my CoF example, swapping with an ally when stacks get too high.

How are these sorts of things not supporting your allies?

i wanted to butt in and say those examples you’ve give are the sorts of things I’d like to see more of in this game. but they are not well supported by the game currently. reviving allies is a given and barely worth mentioning btw. something to think about however, is that if these aspects were made more viable, then would a trinity (or more plainly in English: an allocation of roles, whatever those roles may be) form? “you take some cc and be a dedicated resser/supporter/ccer” or whatever

CCing enemies that are downed/low on health is very very widely used in PvP, either sPVP or WvW, also in non-boss encounters in PVE too, or at least it should be used by non-brain dead players.

Buffing is something that is well used by good groups in the game. Just watch those speed kills of Lupicus and see how much they buff each other, might stacks, blast finishers on fire fields etc Same goes for any well “trained” WvW group, they always stack and buff up before rushing to wipe their enemies, and it DOES make a big difference, allowing groups of fewer people to defeat larger forces. Stability buffs make certain fights/encounters far easier.

Clearing conditions on the entire party is used in other encounters too, an Elementalist is an excellent condition cleaning machine, or a Guardian.

Riving allies is obvious. However there is still party synergy when riving too, a Thief using Shadow Refugee to stealth the downed ally, a Guardian using Shield of Absorption to knock back enemies so allies can rez, and so on.

And the most often used party support, Reflections. When was the last time you were standing behind a wall, or inside Feedback, while fighting a boss encounter? That’s a widely used support option, viable in lots of different situations, both PVP and PVE.

That people don’t want to use the tools given to them by the game is a completely different story, but the tools for party buffing and support are there.

i was talking about dedicated roles

You can support your allies and do great teamplay without the requirement for dedicated roles, there is no need for them.

The roles don’t need to be dedicated but the roles do need to exist, just in a more fluid way, with specs and weapon swaps. A 1.2 second knockdown is not CC. A 3000+- heal over 7 seconds, for characters that have 15K+ health is not a heal. Having decent armor/toughness and vitality, but no threat/agro is not mob/boss control in PvE.

Every character in GW2 is a dps with some very minor (janky) support tacked on. This lack of depth breeds the bunker and berserker builds that really turn a lot of players off to GW2. The massive zerginess is also an issue.

No RPG before or since GW2, has tried to completely destroy trinity, think about that (aint broke, don’t fix it). GW2 imo, is the best MMO out atm, yet it lags behind what I consider to be one of the worst MMOs atm by a significant margin. If GW2 can’t squash the husk that WoW has become, it will have a lot of issues going forward.

If we could just cast our heals on others and gave tanky classes some real threat, I think that would provide some real depth without breaking the current model too much and provide some really good development options.

You all can ignore me, call me a troll, know it all, or a complete kitten but I have called every bad move an MMO has made from the fine steel dagger nerf, to NGE, to alien invasion, to Westwood selling out to EA (Sunset, nevar forget) to bus shock and to the Cata disaster that destroyed WoW.

Fluid class roles, is what GW2 needs.

Gehenna.3625:

Sadly any depth the combat system might have is not required for most content where auto attack and dodge will suffice.

I usually stand still, not even dodging circles anymore with auto attack on when leveling in the zones. It takes a little bit longer but it works. The fact that I don’t die when I just hit auto attack and let go of the keyboard and mouse entirely with most mobs in leveling zones is a clear indicator that there is a problem with the combat system.

I’m not sure that’s a problem. It’s just a reflection of the combat system being forgiving enough for beginners to get along blindly mashing buttons, even if, as you say, it’s slower. But if you want to kill mobs faster, you have some headroom to get skilled.

Of course if a player is used to being forced to up their skills in MMOs because a combat system is unforgiving, then they might feel something is missing in this system.

But what a system like this does is leave it totally up to the player how much they want to concentrate, how skilled they want to get, etc.

Primernova.5791:

They need to delve deeper into the ‘soft trinity’ concept. This game is way too chaotic and needs some order before any decent boss mechanics can ever be developed. If not, the ‘KILL IT WITH FIRE!’ strat will be king forever.

Two simple changes to go in that direction. The first I have been wanting for a long time, make the bar (6) heal we all have, be castable on others. Same heal and cooldown, but we can burn it on others if we wish. I see zero pushback on this and zero negative effects in PvE or PvP and it adds a great dynamic.

The second is up for debate, I can’t see any real problems but some others may. This change would make CCs way better in PvE. I know a long stun or knockdown in PvP is bullkitten but for PvE, that’s a different story. Taking out an annoying add or breaking up a big trash pack adds strategy.

I’ve played MMOs for a lot of years and IMO, a proper dungeon run should be around 30-45 minutes, with some reaching an hour with a really great reward at the end. No more and especially no less. I see players post videos about 3 minute speed runs and I just /facedesk… Where is the fun in that?

MMOs are going off the rails atm and the first one that rights the ship, will be the next big one.

Any type of trinity is quite impossible since you cannot get your stats high enough for just one type of role. Everyone is basically a hybrid support/dps support/tank support/heals.

Primernova.5791:

Fluid class roles, is what GW2 needs.

Your post reminded me of Champions Online. That game has a system where the class roles are fluid. i.e. every toon has the same ability to be hybrid and support and be tough themselves, but they can also (with a reasonable CD) go into roles, which up their stats and automatically tweak their build in certain ways.

It actually works quite well, except that it still doesn’t seem to avoid the zergfest mentality. But that’s mainly due to mob AI being simplistic enough that all-damage is still usually the way to go.

I have a suspicion that to have a clkitten or fluid class system work well, you have to compensate by having mob AI be much more sophisticated. And maybe the problem with that is it’s a much harder task to solve for programming.

Primernova.5791:

No RPG before or since GW2, has tried to completely destroy trinity, think about that (aint broke, don’t fix it).

It depends, Diablo/Diablo2 is an RPG, or better yet an Action-RPG, and there is no actual trinity there. Now that I think about it, a good amount of Action-RPGs don’t have dedicated tanks and healers either. Different types of single player RPGs don’t have trinity either, like Mass Effect (I know it’s a sci-fi game but it’s an RPG). Older Single Player RPGs don’t have Tanks/Healers either, nor a mechanic to draw/keep agro, while others have only healers but no tanks, for example Baldur’s Gate or Neverwinter Nights. In Guild Wars 1 there was no “tank” role, or at least you could live without it and do everything in the game without someone dedicated in drawing agro and surviving (there was a healer there though).

It’s not that RPGs don’t use the trinity, it’s only the MMORPGs that almost always have some trinity system, there are countless examples of RPGs that don’t have any kind of trinity or really dedicated roles, or have some roles missing (have healer but no tank) And those other games can, and do have, more engaging and fun team fights than MMORPGs, the trinity isn’t important to make RPG fights hard, fun and challenging.

Primernova.5791:

The roles don’t need to be dedicated but the roles do need to exist, just in a more fluid way, with specs and weapon swaps. A 1.2 second knockdown is not CC. A 3000+- heal over 7 seconds, for characters that have 15K+ health is not a heal. Having decent armor/toughness and vitality, but no threat/agro is not mob/boss control in PvE.

That’s all mostly to do with the pvp side of the game. 1 second knockdowns chained together in a team fight is some pretty insane pvp CC. All those small heals add up over the course of a fight to make a big difference in deciding the winner. What they need to do for PvE is change how Defiant works so that coordinated groups can effectively mitigate damage using control instead of dodge spam. This would negate the need for a threat mechanic as well.

No RPG before or since GW2, has tried to completely destroy trinity, think about that (aint broke, don’t fix it). GW2 imo, is the best MMO out atm, yet it lags behind what I consider to be one of the worst MMOs atm by a significant margin. If GW2 can’t squash the husk that WoW has become, it will have a lot of issues going forward.

I think you mean no MMO has. Plenty of RPGs have no trinity. Diablo 2, 3, Torchlight, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, off the top of my head. I think people’s preconception of what they think the term “MMO” is supposed to mean stops them from realizing you can have the same class freedom and action of those games, coupled with the massively multiplayer experience. There doesn’t have to be a wall arbitrarily placed between those two worlds. Anyway, putting the trinity in GW2 won’t do anything to help it defeat WoW. The very idea that it has to defeat WoW is the real problem.

Ashen.2907:

zeromius.1604:

Ashen.2907:

Interesting points. Not all of them are accurate (at least one completely contradicts existing facts), but good presentation and well thought out regardless of inaccuracy.

Thank you. I’m just curious as to which one that is simply because I want to look into it. I don’t think of myself as being right all the time because if I did I probably wouldn’t improve at anything and that includes this game.

zeromius.1604:

skills that outright mitigate damage could not be included in a game with trinity

This one in particular jumped out at me because the claim is not correct. A game can have trinity while also allowing individual characters to have damage mitigation skills.

You’re right about this one. There are skills that can completely mitigate damage but they would be clutch skills. It means that you would save them for emergencies rather than use them on a regular basis kind of like how you only pull your car’s hand brake when you have no other choice. This design is intentional. The ones I’ve seen so far either prevent you from doing anything or lower your damage so much that it wouldn’t matter either way. The point being you can only manage your own survival up to a certain extent before you have to rely on the healers which is probably the majority of the fight.

I think a lot of you are missing out on the depth of combat roles in this game. I love being able to swap around, healing/support roles for ranged DPS. This game doesn’t force you into slotted roles and that’s fantastic. People really need to think outside the box the forced trinity has provided in the past and become more versatile.

I’ve yet to actually see someone in support of trinity refute the argument that most other games, many of them RPGs with cooperative play, don’t have dedicated tanks and healers and are still great games. Many of them I would argue are better than games with trinity. I’m not saying you can’t refute it but you’d probably have a really hard time at it.

We have to understand that these dedicated roles originated with the original Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper game. As many of us know, D&D is something that many western RPG developers grew up playing. It is their inspiration, their guide, and appropriately enough their rule book. D&D wasn’t the only player on the market at the time of pen and paper RPGs but it was the biggest and hence the most influential.

Every MMORPG had to have it because unlike a single player RPG your character was no longer the hero. When you brought other players into the equation, you were just another piece on the chess board. It’s a reflection of our own society. Not everyone can be a doctor; it’s not necessarily because people just aren’t good enough. It’s because we need people to fill other roles or else everything falls apart. You can’t be a hero when you’re just a cog in the machine.

The early 2000s advent of eSports has started a new trend where individual player skill is more emphasized. This has also led to a resurgence of developers thinking outside the box and challenging the commonly accepted design patterns. People have been saying for a long time that the industry lacked innovation and yet innovation is often met with open hostility. People like to cling to what they are familiar with and its different to overcome this.

It’s not all negative though. We know for a fact that there are new players that have never seen the trinity and will likely not even notice a problem.

I don’t see why anyone has to refute anything about any other games. Just because some games made systems that work well without dedicated roles doesn’t mean that’s the case in gw2. You’ll never get 100% support on either side of the argument. Your statement about the advent of esports emphasizing individual player skill is pretty far fetched considering there is a wide range of game types that are used in esports and the most notable ones certainly are not focused on individual player skill (LoL? Dota? Quake? COD and Battlefield?) All team oriented gameplay, but that isn’t to say one on one championships aren’t popular (Starcraft). Discounting one’s impact over the other is a stretch.

True freedom in a game would to be able to be what you want to be..if someone wants to be a healer then they should be able to be a healer. They don’t need to require people to have a healer, that doesn’t mean the opportunity shouldn’t be there. Same with Tanks. GW2, in my opinion, went for a more first person shooter type of gameplay with their action combat. Spamming aoe’s and whatnot is essentially the same as spray-n-pray.