The future of underwater combat

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

I assume this has already been discussed quite a few times but I would like to state my opinion on the subject and hope if we agree we can give an incentive to ANEt to make what we think is right.
Since this is going to be a very long post, I tried to put some structures to it.

Do we want underwater combat (UC)?
That is the first and most crucial question. While we all agree that in the current state, UC is not satisfactory, the question is what are the inherent positive and negative points about it.
First the minus:

  • The z-axis handling is difficult, and estimating distances is a nightmare.
  • To be realistic, the fights should be slow as hell.
  • We don’t have much experience of it in our world which makes it difficult to design weapons+skills
  • It’s obviously a lot of work to create/balance a good underwater combat system.

Now some of the plus actually come directly from the minus:

  • it creates welcome variety. New skills, new mechanics, new enemies.
  • it is beautiful down there! I mean IRL, people go underwater breathing bottled air and withstanding huge pressure just for that right!
  • It allows to add a whole new set of skills/builds… without having to balance them with the old ones (like elite specializations which should in principle be balanced with existing core specializations).
  • Since we have little expectations of what UC should look like, there is a lot of space for imagining cool stuff (I mean this is fantasy right).
  • Quaggans!

And finally an important point I think: we currently have UC. So much work has already been done and it would be a waste to completely scrap it by drying out the whole world like they already did with some maps. On the other hand, having this clumsy mechanics reflects poorly on the game.

The current state

First let us be fair, few games have satisfactory UC, and gw2 may actually be among the best ones. They decided to remove some of the annoying mechanics (you can breathe underwater, yeah!) and make the combat faster than what would be realistic. They went for water-themed weapons with their own water-themed skills. They have underwater enemies/allies,…

And yet, we all know we often try to stay away from water. And when we are there, we feel very fast constrained by the environment and only hope for returning back on lands to find our power.
Here are I believe the main problem of gw2 UC:

  • lack of diversity. You have only 1 or 2 weapons available meaning that you don’t make a choice but simply equip all available weapons. Many (sometimes most) of the utilities/elites cannot be used underwater. Making builds is the core of the guild wars series, but you just cannot make underwater builds because of this lack of diversity.
  • lack of motivations to go underwater. There is no good and unique reward attached to it. You only take a dive to get your hero point and already this is a pain.
  • because of that we don’t spend enough time underwater to even know our skills, so we often end up just pressing everything on cooldown. Really not fun
  • somehow, it feels like ANEt tried to make UC even clumsier by making many of our UC weapon skills mobility skills. So you just move around without the slightest idea of where you are and where you left your enemies. Also, there is almost only one personal story episode which is fully underwater (Temple of the Forgotten God) and it is awful design. You have to move around trying to find the doors making the underwater 360° even less bearable. Finally, one of the greatest day in my underwater carrier was to realize one can bind a key to « swim down », why isn’t it done by default???

(edited by Silverkey.2078)

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Where are we going right now?

It seems that ANet has temporarily given up on UC. They have removed quite a while ago the UC from PvP, with the new borderland map, they are removing it also from WvW, and I haven’t seen much water in general in HoT.

On the other hand, the core specialization patch normalized somewhat the trait system for UC. Now it seems all UC weapons have a trait for them (together with land weapons traits), necro’s death shroud traits now also work in UC…

Also and more importantly, lore-wise, there is an underwater dragon. It would seem gw2 expansions will now be attacked to a specific dragon, so that could imply an underwater expansion. Also, there is currently one dragon per playable race (human-Zhaitan, Sylvari-Mordremoth, Norn-Jormag, Asura-Primordius, Charr-Kralkatorrik), so we should be able to see a new underwater race to go with the underwater dragon.
Of course, there are many ways ANet could shy away from this. First, they could group 2 dragons together so that the expansion has at least half on land, or they could find a way to still fight the underwater dragon on land, or even tweak the lore so that the dragon just… disappears or is dealt with by someone else while we kill another one.

But that would be sad I believe.

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

My advice to the team

I strongly believe UC is promising and I would love to see it happening. It is for sure a lot of work but I believe this is not that much more than any additional elite specialization. So here are a few simple (or not that simple) things which could solve the UC combat and make it a worthy addition to gw2.

  • 1) Add a UC tutorial early in the game. Motion underwater is not easy at first.
  • 2) Add some simple controls: the up motion already exists by default (space), add the down motion by default too and make it so that if you’re on the surface, down makes you dive.
  • 3) Add some filters to make the distance more clear (the further from you, the darker/bluer)
  • 4) Add an underwater city, most likely with a new playable underwater race. That would be a nice place to roam underwater, get used to the mechanics without being constantly harassed by enemies
  • 5) In general, make sure many underwater areas are risk-free so that one can just stay there without getting constantly attacked and learn our skills, make our builds…
  • 6) Remove the aquabreather and put instead a mastery for underwater where you learn from Quaggans (or the new playable race) to breathe underwater (magic rocks!). This would be the first one to unlock. Then add better dodging and other stuff, this way, one can keep the dynamism of the UC fight even if this would be realistically impossible but still coherent with gw2 lore. The UC race could have the exact same mastery for above water.
  • 7) Let you have a different build which automatically activates when you go underwater with its own set of armor etc. Armors could be the same as on land if not provided (the same way the main-hand is the same upon weapon switch if you don’t provide it). This way underwater could have his own stats, traits and utilities. The traits are the same system as on land (no new specialization line), but you can have a different specialization selection than above land.

I believe the above changes are easy to implement and would already be a huge improvement. But of course, one should also add:

  • 8) Add more underwater weapons. If spear is greatsword, trident is staff and harpoon gun is riffle, it is easy to add a concept for the main-hand version which would correspond to sword, scepter and gun. Then add a few underwater concepts: a torch-like should be possible, a defensive one (shield-like) could be invented.
    Add new skills in order to reproduce the different roles the classes usually have. Note that it should not be a 1-1 match with above lands. The staff and trident should not behave the same. You have here the opportunity to create new weapon skills which you cannot add to the current above land combat. I just say that you should have a variety of range, defensive/offensive, CC, damage/condition…. which should be on par with the variety we have on lands.
  • 9) Make all utilities working underwater or replace them with an alternative set fulfilling the same purpose. Change ground targetting to a bubble which you can adjust the distance on the current plane your vision is defining. You could easily make some UI to temporarily « embody » the current plane while targetting. This should allow consecrations, wells, traps… as well as teleport… to work above water. Make the spirit/conjure weapons use the corresponding underwater weapon.
  • 10) Balance this whole mess. Yes I know that’s easier said than done

Now doing this will hopefully make the UC better. Now give incentive for people to use it with meaningful content.

  • 11) Make one or more UC dungeons (on the same format as current ones) with a corresponding unique armor skin fitting the underwater theme.
  • 12) Add a UC PvP map or restore the previous one.
  • 13) Add more open world UC maps with interesting events and rewards

I believe the ideal would be to implement changes 1-7 and maybe a first iteration of 8-10 first as part of a « feature pack ». See how well the community reacts. Hopefully the community should be positive so you can then release a full expansion for Jormag+underwater dragon which adds a lot of land content but also some meaningful UC content including 11-13. The presence of land content (for Jormag, even if there is plenty of water there) ensures a back up if people still don’t enjoy UC.

Conclusion

So thanks for anyone who read on to that point, and please give me your opinions. Am I the only one who wants to see a comeback of UC? Will the suggested changes fix everything and make UC as fun as land combat? What do you think is the plan of ANEt currently?

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Posted by: BunjiKugashira.9754

BunjiKugashira.9754

When UC was first announced I was hyped, but I quickly realized that it feels like ANet stopped at about 50% of implementing UC and didn’t implement the rest. Most underwater-areas were way too crowded (which was already fixed mostly).

The biggest problem today is that underwater doesn’t feel like you’re playing your class. It feels as if you played a completely different class that you don’t know. Introducing more underwater-weapons that resemble the overwater-weapons and making all utilities available could fix this.

Currently, as an elementalist, I can only choose one weapon (trident) and one elite-skill. There’s not much choice regarding a build left. And if the weapon and elite-skill don’t support my build that’s bad luck and no fun underwater for me.

Most people already came to the conclusion that they don’t like UC. If you rework it, you still have to crack open the minds of all those that already closed them.

Shana Flamewielder
Sylvari Elementalist of [SFF]
Abaddons Maul

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Posted by: Nakatsu Hime.3520

Nakatsu Hime.3520

A short answer to a lengthy question:

As it stands, underwater combat is handled reasonably well and is as ‘fun’ as ground-based combat. Sure, you need a bit more work to handle the Z-axis, and I do find myself floating at exactly the wrong depth sometimes.

It’s good enough.

(edited by Nakatsu Hime.3520)

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Posted by: narwhalsbend.7059

narwhalsbend.7059

I have up and down bound to L-ALT and Space and I have few issues with underwater combat. In fact, I wish there were more.

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Well “it’s good enough to have fun” is actually not good enough. If there is no variety and thus no build, there is no serious thing every happening underwater. Plus I think many people will even disagree with the statement “it’s fun” . So far, of all the classes I’ve tried, only the spear on my mesmer was fun to me. And sure, there are land weapons I don’t like much with each class, but there is not enough underwater weapons to pick if I don’t like one.

Now I perfectly understand if you think ANet should not prioritize that aspect of the game. That’s the perfectly open question. My point above is I think they can fix it with some work, but maybe they should just work on something else as they don’t have infinite resources. I would love to see more UC, but not everyone agrees.

@BunjiKugashira
Yes I agree, many in the community have probably already made their mind. Which is why if they released an underwater expansion, it would just not sell and that is something ANet is well aware of. I believe the problem may be less severe if they release for free a big overhaul before spending too much time on a underwater expansion. But that is also a risk they may not want to take.

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Posted by: locoman.1974

locoman.1974

One big step to improve underwater combat, IMHO, would be to allow you to have alternate underwater builds.

To use some examples, my guardian’s build is focused on symbols (using hammer that does a symbol every 3 autoattacks and mace that has a low cooldown one on 2)… thing is, there are no underwater symbols so half of my traits become useless the moment I go underwater. Same thing happens to my flamethrower engineer.

It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training,
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.

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Posted by: JackDaniels.1697

JackDaniels.1697

Would scrapping UC in its current state be unlikely? This is Anet we are talking about, they will reconstruct anything if they feel it needs it.

I honestly don’t know how to make UC better, you have a lot of ideas though, that’s a start.

But if it were up to me, I would scrap combat completely and simply make underwater an explorable world with nooks and crannies all over. Every place you wonder to would be filled with lore, with many secrets to uncover. Maybe quest lines that cover the whole underwater map, when once complete, you uncover something special. It could be certain areas require some combat, like a boss, and only the immediate area activates your UC.

Land combat (LC) will always be superior, so UC definitely needs some rework.

“I got a fever! And the only prescription, is more COWBELL!”

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Posted by: fixit.7189

fixit.7189

Always hated under water combat and avoid it at all costs. You are so limited in skill choices and many classes are really boring to play in it. Also it’s really hard to judge distances so it just isn’t very fun to me. Land combat >>>>> underwater imo.

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Well but that’s the point I tried to raise (although it was probably not clear). I believe much of that is not inherent to UC but simply the fact that they did only a half-implementation. Skill choice and bad skills are only design issues. Distance and 3D awareness is the only inherent problem and thus a tough one to fix (I suggested the filter “the furthest the bluest/darkest”, but it may not be a good solution).

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Posted by: Test.8734

Test.8734

Do we want underwater combat (UC)?

Nope.

Let’s be honest – we know ArenaNet is starved for resources. There are too many examples of this to count, but the latest is how it took them a week to deal with a game-breaking exploit, and their answer was to remove content from the game, not to fix the exploit. Meanwhile, a literally massive bug (the wrong crit areas in the world bosses) has been left to rot.

Now, underwater combat is broken. It’s not a matter of simply adding more – ArenaNet would have to fix a large amount of bugs, including dealing with the Z axis and with the way enemies are reset, in order to make underwater combat even half decent.

Is it worth it? Nope. It would take more resources than ArenaNet has, to fix something that wouldn’t be that fun anyway.

I agree with a poster above – I wish they would just remove underwater combat from the game, while keeping underwater exploration. Remove underwater skills (use the same skill bar interface as when we’re swimming in the surface of the water), remove all underwater enemies (often they’re just the same enemies we fight on land anyway, see Orr), and just let us explore down there in peace. It would be simpler for ArenaNet and better for the players.

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Sad, I thought there would be more supporters of underwater combat…

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Posted by: Jermoe Morrow.9501

Jermoe Morrow.9501

I. LOVE. UNDERWATER. COMBAT!

I was devastated when they yelped it from pvp and greatly diminished it in wvw, but I main ranger. And ranger spear= gs, and I can have a pet shark….

80s(name-race/class):Jermoe Morrow(main) – H/Ra
Blue Dorito-S/Re|Transitor-S/En |Tina Feyspirit-N/M|
Bmoe-A/T|Peter Whatsherface-H/G|Acolyte Rin-H/N

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Posted by: Soja.5918

Soja.5918

I solved the z-axis problem by using Spacebar to ascend and Shift+Spacebar to descend. Has worked well for me for at least three years at this point (implemented the bind in Public Beta 2).

I also very much enjoy the ambiance of underwater environs. I wish ANet would expand on the exploration of those areas somehow. On land you have jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons and so forth… underwater doesn’t really have any of that. You’d think it’d be prime for buried treasure and the like.

The Crystal Desert beckons us. Ascension awaits us.

Keirlann Aurion – Ranger – Chieftain of the Ace Guard [AceG]

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Posted by: Tarasicodissa.7084

Tarasicodissa.7084

What puts me off the most is what they did with aquabreathers. Is there any logical reason why we cannot craft them like EVERY OTHER type of armor? It’s just an underwater version of helmet and so far, the best quality available to us is exotic and getting it required disproportionate amount of effort.

Am I the only one who thinks this doesn’t make any sense? Getting you underwater gear is more difficult than the normal gear, even though you don’t get to use it or get any benefit from it nearly as much.

Me and a lot of my friends do all dungeons daily except for HotW…. yeah, you guessed why. Unless I feel rewarded for it, there’s no reason why should I invest my time and resources in preparation for all of the underwater content. So far it only seems to me Anet wants to discourage players from even touching it.

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Posted by: Fadhli.9086

Fadhli.9086

Sad, I thought there would be more supporters of underwater combat…

I had to log in to post this:

I bought this game some 3 years ago because of a video I saw on YouTube about the seamless change of skills/traits when a player (a necro to be exact) transition from land to underwater combat.

I’ll be honest, I was enticed by underwater combat! SAY YES TO UNDERWATER COMBAT! Who knows, given the speed of combat, we might be seeing potential aerial dogfights :P

Chieftain Snuffy – Guardian
Founder | Smaash Gaming Community

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

Underwater combat is … okay.
Lack of a separate underwater build sucks.
Skills that put you right next to an enemy while simultaneously CCing yourself suck even more. Who thought these were a good idea and why?

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Posted by: Vax Tezhme.7128

Vax Tezhme.7128

I think with a good amount of focus, underwater combat could be a lot of fun.

I think the OP makes a lot of good points – I’ll just agree with that post instead of rewriting large parts of it

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Posted by: Fiennis.4387

Fiennis.4387

Underwater combat is fun. I play video games to have fun. Enough said.

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Posted by: Basandra Skye.4031

Basandra Skye.4031

Let’s be honest – we know ArenaNet is starved for resources. There are too many examples of this to count, but the latest is how it took them a week to deal with a game-breaking exploit, and their answer was to remove content from the game, not to fix the exploit. Meanwhile, a literally massive bug (the wrong crit areas in the world bosses) has been left to rot.

Do you even know the amount of effort it would take Anet to fix something as “simple” as Symbolic Avenger’s super-functional issue? At best it’s messing around with the entirety of the code related to that trait alone. At worst? Entirely picking apart the combat system coding. All of it. I’m not even going to begin to guess how many lines that would be.

As for the other one, are you sure it’s even a bug? Or is it a “I can only range with a target and cant hit the crit spot so it must be a bug” bug?

Finally, dont use hyperbole or exaggeration as the basis of a standpoint. It topples pretty easily.

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Posted by: Test.8734

Test.8734

Finally, dont use hyperbole or exaggeration as the basis of a standpoint. It topples pretty easily.

Hyperbole or exaggeration like…

Entirely picking apart the combat system coding. All of it. I’m not even going to begin to guess how many lines that would be.

… That? I agree, it looks rather ridiculous.

As for the other one, are you sure it’s even a bug? Or is it a “I can only range with a target and cant hit the crit spot so it must be a bug” bug?

It’s a “people who actually pay attention and know what they’re talking about know it’s a bug” bug.

Finally, dont use kitten as the basis of a standpoint. It topples pretty easily.

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Posted by: lujate.5432

lujate.5432

I like underwater combat.

People’s complaints include:
-Breathers require a separate rune
-Ranger downed skills are mega OP
-Skills /Traits that don’t work

As to the question of the future of underwater combat, when was the last time underwater content was added?

“Queen of Cheese Builds”

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Posted by: Miku.6297

Miku.6297

As to the question of the future of underwater combat, when was the last time underwater content was added?

Erm let me think on that one.You mean actual underwater content that was the focus, or just a spot that had water in it?

The ONLY one comes to mind is the underwater fractal.

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Posted by: lujate.5432

lujate.5432

So the last new underwater combat was added November 16, 2012 (almost 3 years ago). In the same time, they removed it completely from sPvP and mostly from WvW.

Well that gives me a pretty good idea of the future of underwater combat.

“Queen of Cheese Builds”

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Posted by: skowcia.8257

skowcia.8257

I wont be surprise if they delete underwater combat completely. But then again we have to see revenant and his synergy in there. After all its a new class build from 0, so if he actually has workable utilities, all traits etc. Why? It will show if they care about underwater combat or not, cause if not, why they would make all that stuff useable underwater?

obey me

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Posted by: lujate.5432

lujate.5432

I wont be surprise if they delete underwater combat completely. But then again we have to see revenant and his synergy in there. After all its a new class build from 0, so if he actually has workable utilities, all traits etc. Why? It will show if they care about underwater combat or not, cause if not, why they would make all that stuff useable underwater?

Good observation.

“Queen of Cheese Builds”

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Posted by: Miku.6297

Miku.6297

They would probably make most of it useable underwater because even if underwater combat is destined to sink, there are still small portions of the game that require you be underwater.

The trait system was just redone into specs, looking at how these work with under water should give a pretty good overview of how A-net feels about making sure traits etc work well with water.

Unfortuneatly the future doesn’t look good for underwater combat

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Posted by: skowcia.8257

skowcia.8257

They would probably make most of it useable underwater because even if underwater combat is destined to sink, there are still small portions of the game that require you be underwater.

The trait system was just redone into specs, looking at how these work with under water should give a pretty good overview of how A-net feels about making sure traits etc work well with water.

Unfortuneatly the future doesn’t look good for underwater combat

They reworked traits, not weapon skills itself nor utilities. With revenant they can actually make everything functional there, if they care naturally.

And thats the point actually, if theres olny a few skills working underwater for rev then we will clearly know that underwater is officially dead. But if they put an effort and make them all usable, then theres a question..why putting resources into a dead contest without any future plans?

obey me

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Posted by: Miku.6297

Miku.6297

They reworked traits, not weapon skills itself nor utilities. With revenant they can actually make everything functional there, if they care naturally.

And thats the point actually, if theres olny a few skills working underwater for rev then we will clearly know that underwater is officially dead. But if they put an effort and make them all usable, then theres a question..why putting resources into a dead contest without any future plans?

Yep, that’s what I said, they reworked traits. I mentioned that because you brought up the revs traits.

As far as weapon skills go, are there any weapon skills that don’t work underwater?

Utilities check list
Ele: heals(2/4) utilities (13/20) elites (1/3)
Engi: heals (2/4) utilities (16/21) elites (2/3)
Guardian: heals (3/4) utilities (13/20) elites (2/3)
Mesmer: heals (4/4) utilities (17/20) elites(3/3)
Necro: heals (4/4) utilities (17/20) elites(1/3)
Ranger: heals (3/4) utilities (14/20) elites(2/3)
Theif: heals (4/4) utilities (10/20) elites(2/3)
Warrior: heals (4/4) utilities (16/20) elites(2/3)
I think that’s correct, over all the choices of heals/utilities/elites aren’t extremely limited for many classes, (thieves get a pretty bad deal on utilities though).

I would imagine most of the revs utilities will work, a few may not due to limitations of the game.

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Posted by: notebene.3190

notebene.3190

Sad, I thought there would be more supporters of underwater combat…

I love under water combat.

If they added more content and didn’t change the mechanics at all, I’d be happy.

If they decided to add more depth to underwater combat (skills, weapons, abilities, etc), I’d still like underwater combat.

As long as they don’t change the physics of it, I’d be happy. Seems to work just fine now, swimming around. I never get lost or confused or anything like that. Point the direction you go, you go that way.

Suppose really the only negative now is that some existing abilities are blocked out from use underwater, but I always took it for ‘what it was’ and learned how to fight with what I had and moved on.

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Currently out of the utilities we know, all the ventari ones don’t work underwater. It seems that the utilities which aren’t working are mostly the ground-targetted and trap types. As I said (although I really doubt I was clear) you could simply create a virtual plan on the view you currently have and thus use ground targeting as usual in this virtual plan. The UI would just need to temporarily put something to let you see this plan to help evaluating the distance.

Since they try for each weapon to be counterintuitive (ranged hammer, melee physical staff…) I guess they will use a melee trident used like a fork to stab people and a ranged spear

I think Skowcia has a point indeed. Since they mention the underwater-readiness of the revenant skills, one should not see any removal of underwater content with HoT (except for new borderland). Basically my main hope for UC is the lore behind the underwater dragon implies more underwater content. And how could they give us more underwater content without a good rework of the UC?

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

For the aqua breather, that is why I suggested to remove it and add a mastery instead. I don’t think the effort needed to add 100 aqua breather skins and crafting recipes and stuff like that is worth it. Let us use our usual head gear and say we magically learned to breath underwater. I’m not against aqua breather, I just think this is a simpler idea and let the team focus on more important changes.

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Posted by: narwhalsbend.7059

narwhalsbend.7059

I. LOVE. UNDERWATER. COMBAT!
I was devastated when they yelped it from pvp and greatly diminished it in wvw, but I main ranger. And ranger spear= gs, and I can have a pet shark….

I love underwater too, but rangers are near unkillable underwater, so of course you love it.

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Posted by: Twonineone.3490

Twonineone.3490

Well, your ideas for UC are really big and I think that they are too much big. I mean: I would really love to see all your ideas implemented in the game, but it would take years to complete such a huge work.
Besides I think that UC was and it always been just a side aspect of the game, and according to your ideas it would become a main aspect of GW2. Again: I would really love it, but I’m trying to be realistic (and it’s hard :P).

I think that in the HoT we won’t have no water in which swim or, surely in all the new maps we will have less water than the same number of old maps in Tyria have. The problem are just two:

  • The z-axis handling is difficult, and estimating distances is a nightmare.
  • It’s obviously a lot of work to create/balance a good underwater combat system.

This is why I would apreciate more the fix of these two problems that not the complete revamp of Underwater World and mechanics that you are talking about.

Anyway, Silver, I totally agree with you: I love the UW and I would spend a lot of time, underwater, if we have Underwater mechanics more…fluid…

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Posted by: skowcia.8257

skowcia.8257

Currently out of the utilities we know, all the ventari ones don’t work underwater.

Why not? If they allow us to move it in z-axis i dont see any problem with it working underwater.

His skills are barrier like and im not sure how hard it would be to make a dome with 240 radius

obey me

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

I am not saying it is difficult I am saying that those are the only ones so far which are reported not to work. And they key is the placement of the tablet (skill 6) is based on ground targeting and they haven’t so far managed to do ground targeting underwater (they acknowledged it themselves when explaining why necro wells are not ground targettable underwater).

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

@Twonineone
Well yes, doing all I suggested is a lot of work, I am perfectly aware of that. However I believe the suggestion 1-6 are not too hard (without 4) are not difficult and would already improve the experience.
And balancing UC is not harder than balancing land combat. To be precise they are both hard and they just did not invest as much time for UC.

I have the feeling they had plans for more UC. Maybe they actually intended to release the UC in a later stage (with the underwater dragon?) but decided to give it a try with a simplified version to see player’s reaction… but that turned out bad and now they don’t really want to take a risk and invest time in something people won’t want to play (and buy).

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

When UC was first announced I was hyped, but I quickly realized that it feels like ANet stopped at about 50% of implementing UC and didn’t implement the rest. Most underwater-areas were way too crowded (which was already fixed mostly).

Exactly this.

It’s as if they stopped right in front of the finish line.

And it’s a giant shame because the underwater world is beautiful.

The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Miss Lana.5276

Miss Lana.5276

These are the things that deter me from UW combat:

- There is no incentive to use skills other than 111111111
- There is absolutely no variety in builds
- It feels like I’m playing a watered-down (pun intended) version of my profession
- A whole bunch of utility skills don’t have UW versions
- A whole bunch of elite skills don’t have UW versions
- If I have a melee wep and the mob I’m attacking is melee it’s the see-how-many-times-you-can-swim-past-each-other-before-one-of-us-dies game (this is the reason why I will choose ranged UW weps over melee-no matter what class)
- You can craft armor. You can craft UW weapons. You can’t craft UW breathers. Where’s the logic there?
- On land I know the approximate aggro range I have. UW it’s just aggro-everything-and-good-luck-to-you

And my absolute biggest gripe of all
- Mobs can swim THROUGH THE WALLS. Want to advance in Forewarned is Forearmed? Well guess what? You’ll be in combat all the way because a mob is now obstructed! And guess what else? Forgal has magically joined them!

I’d be happy if it was scrapped like someone has suggested. Remove UW mobs and still let us explore.

That being said I’d also be open to trying it if it was given a complete do-over, but as it is now I only touch it for world completion.

It’s not fun. It’s a chore.

EDIT
Forgot to add this
- If you’re swimming along the top of the water in Orr and a mob spots you, you can get perma immobilized on top of the water. This means NO skills, NO heals and absolutely NO chance of getting out alive. The LEAST that could happen is that they make it so you get your skills back and go UW when the mob immobilizes you!

48 Characters|Necro|Raider|Fractaller|PvPer|Singer
So long Treeface.
“…Kormir? I know not of whom you speak.”

(edited by Miss Lana.5276)

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: PookieDaWombat.6209

PookieDaWombat.6209

the biggest fix for underwater combat would be trying to find a way to make things above you appear as a different color from something “on your level” and also from things below you. So if enemy is above me in water they are bright blue on the map and if below me a bright yellow.

[OTR] – Greck Howlbane – Guardian
Soraya Mayhew – Thief
Melissa Koris – Engie – SF for Life!

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

I like underwater combat and I only wish for a few significant fixes:

  • Every skill should have an underwater version — if it can’t be identical, then find a substitute.
  • You should be able to set your water traits/skills while on land and they should swap automatically.

IMO, the community can work out everything else except the above.

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Zergs.9715

Zergs.9715

I love underwater combat. I really hope it returns one day in a full swing, but right now I can only hope that they don’t remove it entirely. It’s a shame that they are removing it from pvp for god knows what reason. I personally love to see new set of skills when I go underwater, different than the one I’m mashing whole day long!

To fix some of the gripes I’d suggest they start with water surface combat. It really doesn’t make any sense that you cannot fight while on the water surface.

The other problem is camera that keeps bumping into surface of the water. Other than those minor problems there’s nothing wrong with it whatsoever.

If you’re too incompetent to handle more than two ground based weapon don’t go into water. If you’re having problems with Z axis, don’t go into water.

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: cagiepoo.8162

cagiepoo.8162

It seems Anet are more focussed on land-based combat more than underwater combat. Underwater combat seems like it was implemented into the game but was only half finished and not much forethought was done to it, only added as an extra mechanic to the game.

I love underwater combat. But nothing ingame lures me to go underwater and battle mobs apart from when I need to kill mobs to achieve my daily quota for event completions and completing maps. Something needs to be done to attract more to enjoy underwater combat.

Hopefully Anet are already addressing this problem and looking towards the future of underwater combat. Here are a list of my suggestions to improve on the current underwater combat we have ingame:

(Sorry if these have already been mentioned in previous posts)

1. Water-based Utility Skills/Elite Skills
2. More underwater weapons or land-based weapons that also have an underwater mechanic to them as well.
3. An incentive for players to participate in underwater combat:

  • New underwater maps
  • An underwater race
  • An underwater city
  • Epic Boss battles
  • Underwater dungeons/jumping puzzles/pvp/WvW
  • New craftable underwater armors/weapons whether exotic/ascended/legendary
  • Underwater skins/weapons in Cash Shop

Anet have got a good thing with underwater combat. It just needs improving on the current state it is. I can’t see it being deleted from game. Yet on the other hand, I hope Anet are considering something to entice more to take up underwater combat. Something needs to be done.

Fortitudinem et honorem

[iQ] Intrinsic Quality

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: TwoGhosts.6790

TwoGhosts.6790

I like underwater combat.

It provides a different challenge and some variety to the game.

The underwater environments are often quite beautiful.

Much like other areas of the game, however, there are some idiosyncrasies / bugs that could use some love, but nothing major.

Underwater combat with my Guardian and my Mesmer is really great fun, even a bit OP really.

I’d be disappointed if they phased out underwater combat entirely.

Ahh, barracudas, how I would miss thee.

~TG

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Snow.2048

Snow.2048

This game is too difficult to understand as it is (according to Anet design) -> Many people can’t seem to handle UWC/are bad at UWC -> The majority of these therefore also hate UWC -> Nothing related to UWC will come out anymore -> It’ll be removed by some future feature pack, with some feature they were going to release anyway given to take attention away from the removal.

I like it, I was decent at it, but the balance around it was a joke. It is buggy, and that is why even more people dislike it, however they could perhaps be won over by a big fix.

However, ANET needs cheap solutions (usually ignoring the problem or deleting it a la twilight arbor), preferably that caters to the lowest common denominator. That’s why my little slippery slope might actually, to some degree, come to fruition.

But hey, we’re getting more guild features three years after release (and losing some at the same time, but so goes Guild Wars 2), miracles can happen =P

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: hellsqueen.3045

hellsqueen.3045

For the most part of all of this I agree.

But one issue is with the idea of Mastery based learning to breathe underwater. There are hearts and such that occur underwater before you would have access to the mastery. You can’t just take away everyone’s ability to breathe underwater, I mean you can breathe without one before you get a rebreather. Lower levels and even people just starting to get masteries going in HoT would be disadvantaged in all of the maps that contain water. I mean tangled depths is already confusing, imagine suddenly being unable to breathe to get the hero point there, it would be ridiculous.

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: hellsqueen.3045

hellsqueen.3045

This game is too difficult to understand as it is (according to Anet design) -> Many people can’t seem to handle UWC/are bad at UWC -> The majority of these therefore also hate UWC -> Nothing related to UWC will come out anymore -> It’ll be removed by some future feature pack, with some feature they were going to release anyway given to take attention away from the removal.

I like it, I was decent at it, but the balance around it was a joke. It is buggy, and that is why even more people dislike it, however they could perhaps be won over by a big fix.

However, ANET needs cheap solutions (usually ignoring the problem or deleting it a la twilight arbor), preferably that caters to the lowest common denominator. That’s why my little slippery slope might actually, to some degree, come to fruition.

But hey, we’re getting more guild features three years after release (and losing some at the same time, but so goes Guild Wars 2), miracles can happen =P

The underwater dragon would cause them to need to implement and fix it. They added gliding which was a game changer. In a recent leak they may supposedly adding mounts. Them repairing something with the help of the community to make effective underwater combat should be easier because they already have a decent basis. Personally, I don’t mind underwater combat. It is beautiful and the animations for many skills are quite lovely, though there is definitely a need for more weapon choices that reflect the variation in on land builds and some skill changes needs to be fidgeted with so people feel they actually have an impact underwater of more than just moving around and being confused.

Land and Water should be separate, there should be a tab in our equipment section and our build section that allow us to switch between Land and Water, so that you can actually build for each situation. For an example, my druid is completely ineffective underwater, she is a healer and one that relies on glyphs and staff. Most of the druid tree is irrelevant to me underwater. I can’t use glyphs and my underwater weapons don’t allow me to heal. This then makes my armor of healing redundant underwater and makes me weak in underwater combat because my DPS underwater weapons that I get no other choice on, do not reflect all of the armor that I have.

PvP they currently don’t have Underwater combat and very few people do Underwater combat in WvW. The WvW system would obviously be the same as PvE for setting the builds. And in PvP it would be as simple as changing them through the builds tab. This would include different amulets and runes, not just traits and such for underwater.

The future of underwater combat

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Posted by: Faaris.8013

Faaris.8013

Krait.

That’s all that needs to be said about underwater combat. Remove Krait from low to mid level and people might start enjoying underwater combat more. Or give people a chance to counter their pull, so we are not their playball. Krait are what stays on my mind about underwater combat, and that’s why I hate it.

Herleve – Ruins of Surmia