Guild Wars 2

This has been discussed in passing in other threads before, but I thought I’d bring this topic up for discussion again.

Has anyone come across a situation where you’re doing some non-challenging content and half of your skill bar is useless? Maybe 1-2 skills on your bar actually offer a damage increase over autoattack. It’s pretty boring to be honest. The same can be said if you’re fighting an enemy that is immune to a particular condition you have. Lets say an enemy is immune to bleeding. In most cases a given skill that applies bleeding, if the condition damage is taken away, will do considerably less damage than whatever you autoattack is. This is, for at least the immediate future, a dead skill on your bar.

“But, Draehl, skills are supposed to be used for certain situations and used skillfully rather than simply as a part of a damage rotation.” And to that I would say I agree. I don’t want to see this become another “stare at the boss and spam 12131114” type of game. At the same time, this is an RPG. Players want to use skills and be pressing buttons. Combat is this game can get incredibly dull at times. Certainly not when you’re fighting for your life, but in run-of-the-mill basic combat it seems to devolve pretty quickly into watching your character autoattack and I dont find that enjoyable either.

“Well, what do you propose Anet should do?”

Simply make sure that every weapon skill does a little more damage than autoattack would in a given timeframe. Not so much that you want to use the skill just for damage, forgetting about the primary purpose of the skill, but enough that you still want to use it in situations where the primary effect isn’t needed. Let’s take Necromancer dagger as an example, as it’s one of the worst offenders.

Lets say I’m fighting an Ettin with Dagger/Dagger. I open with Enfeebling Blood for the bleed. I could also jump into Death Shroud for a Dark Path for more bleeding. After this point it’s autoattack all the way. The big hits I can dodge. The little hits I outheal passively via blood magic traits. At this point skills #2, #3, and #4 are all useless to me. Life Siphon does less damage than auto and I don’t need the healing. Dark Pact does laughable damage and I don’t need to immobilize the ettin for any reason. Deathly Swarm… I really don’t need the blind or condition transfer.

“Switch to another weapon” you say. What weapon? Staff? It has the same exact problem as dagger. Axe? A laughable. Scepter? A nice weapon, but not for a power build.

I think you get the point. Necro, admittedly, exaggerates this more than most other professions, but I see it as a problem for every profession. Would increasing the damage of 2-5 skills be that bad of a proposal? If the relative damage gain was minor then in challenging content you use the skills exactly as you would now as the conditions/boons/etc would certainly outweigh the minor damage increase. The only difference being that in easy content or content where a certain skill isn’t needed you would have the ability to do something aside from watching your character autoattack and be slightly more engaged in the game. And for anyone who likes the current implementation, well, you can keep on just autoattacking it at only a very minor hit in effectiveness.

Obviously this concern isn’t as pressing as getting all the professions working properly and is a second tier concern, but I would greatly appreciate Anet looking into this after the pressing balance/design concerns have been addressed.

My only issue with auto attack is that it stops working at random and very frequently (at least for me). Recently I was fighting the druid ice champion thing in Frostgorge and my auto attack stopped working at least 30 times in that fight alone.

I will likely get flamed for this, but I actually miss the energy system that was in GW1. This allowed skills to have shorter cooldowns, but balanced by the fact that they had an energy cost that had to be managed.

This means that skills would see use more often, and I think the use of skills was more strategic because using skill A might mean you don’t have energy for skill B. Also, skills very often required specific conditions to be met to have full effectiveness.

All that being said, I do like some of the bar compression that was introduced into GW2. You no longer need to carry a rez skill, whole skill chains are put onto one skill slot, and you have skills that have different modes of use.

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Paul.4081:

My only issue with auto attack is that it stops working at random and very frequently (at least for me). Recently I was fighting the druid ice champion thing in Frostgorge and my auto attack stopped working at least 30 times in that fight alone.

I have this happen ALL the time but usually just starting an attack. I have to attack twice for it to work.

I actually like the auto attacking. They keep it that way so you pay more attention to the fight itself then staring at hotbars. I play some other games where I have like 4-5 12 key hotbars on my screen filled with skills and I hardly pay attention to the fights but just stare at the bars waiting for whatever skills to cooldown. I think it`s more fun with less skills and using autoattack since the autoattack is pretty quick. I would like to see more skills that I can swap out for different ones to customize my hotbar though.

Banewrath.5107:

I actually like the auto attacking. They keep it that way so you pay more attention to the fight itself then staring at hotbars. I play some other games where I have like 4-5 12 key hotbars on my screen filled with skills and I hardly pay attention to the fights but just stare at the bars waiting for whatever skills to cooldown. I think it`s more fun with less skills and using autoattack since the autoattack is pretty quick. I would like to see more skills that I can swap out for different ones to customize my hotbar though.

Agree. But again, the situations where you need to pay attention nothing will change. The intent behind this thread is for making the dull situations more interesting.

Auto-attacks being as powerful as they are is only the tip of the iceberg though. Even if they buffed the damage of 2-5, it wouldn’t be dynamic because you would just be repeating a different sequence. What other MMOs do now, is focus on things like procs, resource management, watching timers etc.

But as you know, GW2 doesn’t have resources and timers are all incidental – short duration effects on a long cooldown, that just happen as you do your thing.

So, how about procs or conditional (Not status effects)skills and traits? GW1 was filled with these.

Last Chance:
Now | Gain quickness for 4 seconds when you strike a foe with less than 25% health (90-second cooldown).
After| When you strike a foe with less than 25% health, your damaging skills recharge instantly.

Critical Haste:
Now |10% chance to get quickness (2s) on a critical hit (30-second cooldown).

After |10% chance on critical hit to gain Critical haste. Critical haste causes your next damaging skill (Not auto-attack) to act under quickness. Lasts 6 seconds, can hold up to three charges.

Fire Grab:
Now | Damage foes in a cone in front of you. Deal more damage to burning foes

After | Damage foes in a cone in front of you. Consumes burns on enemies and deals increased damage based on the remaining duration.

Sorry, but we have skill rotations:

Longbow, ranger, Press 3, 2, 1 until enemy is close, 4, 3, 2, 1 again. 5 is context based AoE.
Greatsword ranger, press 3, 5, 2, 1, 5, 2, 1. 4 is a context based block, 3 for the leap in Healing Spring for extra heals if needed.
Shortbow ranger, press 1, 4, 2, 3 and kite. 5 is a context based stun.
Sword ranger, press 1, 3, 3, 3. 2 is for mobility and running away.
Axe ranger, press 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 3.

If you have a dagger offhand, 5 is your pull , 4 is for evasion, and poison if you need it.
If you have a warhorn offhand, 4 is your pull, 5 is a buff you should use as needed.
If you have a torch offhand, 4 is your pull, 5 is like flame trap only better.

If you’re wielding a greatsword and longbow, you start with the longbow and press 5, 3, 2, 1, 4, 3, 2. Swap to greatsword, press 4, 3, 5, 2, 1, 4 swap to longbow, press 4, 3, 2, swap to greatsword and repeat.

In a party for say, a dungeon, you use your longbow. Press 5 to catch the trash, then 3, 2, 1 on the most important target. 4 is for when things get close to you.

I could go on to theif, mesmer, and elementalist, but I think that’s enough to get the point across.

With that said, yes, you can auto attack through the entire game, if you so choose. You can also play the entire game naked, with level 5 vendor weapons, and still make it through, if you so choose.

Also, your utility skills and (some times more than others) traits are what make a difference in active combat beyond those basic rotations.

And lastly, combat is as interesting as you want to make it. Try some of these things to make it fun:
See how long you can keep an enemy from being able to move or hit you. My record is 11 seconds on a ranger.
Chain your skills in more interesting and perfectly timed combos. This gets even better with friends.
Try new maneuvers. My favorites are:
Jump Shot (where in you kite away from a crippled enemy, jump, turn in mid-air, shoot, and then continue to kite in one fluid motion. Possible on any bow/rifle/pistol build.)
Sparkly Feet (where you use the Thief skill Infiltrator’s Strike, followed by Shadow Return, to jump between two distant enemies, attacking both rapidly. Looks pretty cool. Thief only.)
And last, but certainly not least, the Distortion Bomb (where you and a few other mesmers gather a large cluster of enemies, usually 12-20, in one closed space. Gather a bunch of clones near the target mob of enemies, then Illusionary Leap, Swap, Blurred Frenzy and Mind Wrack, to kill all 12-20 enemies in under 2 seconds. Mesmer only.)

Ever fight a dragon as a D/D thief? Conditions, crits, and backstab don’t work on it.

Find a foot, auto-attack it. Before the heartseeker nerf, you might spam heartseeker, but after it, its not worth using until an enemy is at low health.

Also as far as 2-5 go, you have to compare their animation speed as well as damage to 1. Auto-attacks may do less damage per hit, but say for a greatsword warrior’s whirling blade, the time it takes to do it and the positional disorientation tends to make it weaker than auto-attack if you can’t spin against a wall.

Josher.9612:

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Not really. All an extra bar adds is more time added, depending on the system of recovery. Think of it this way:

You have 40 total energy to use on abilities. You may use potions to recover energy either instantly or over time; in the former’s case it’s redundant to timers since your inventory will be filled with potions, while in the latter you, once again, are limited by time. Not by the energy bar, but by time. Time to activate the potions, time to drink them, time to buy more potions, so on and so on. Time, time, and more time.

Saying that an extra bar makes something more deep is simply disingenuous. It doesn’t promote a fun playstyle, instead forcing everyone to take careful inventory of potions before setting out. If it’s a time-based system of recovery, you’ve just added a redundant item to the game where a hard timer on all skills would be more fair, economical, and transparent to the playerbase. I know the dev team has taken a lot of flak recently (much rightfully so, especially w/ the fractal dc issue), but they did right on the lack of an energy bar.

Paul.4081:

My only issue with auto attack is that it stops working at random and very frequently (at least for me). Recently I was fighting the druid ice champion thing in Frostgorge and my auto attack stopped working at least 30 times in that fight alone.

this is why i dont use it. also it bores me

Sorry no, GW2 gameplay is better than Simon Says with a keyboard, I much prefer the dodging, improvised supporting and “use the right skill at the right time” gameplay than what we had with previous MMOs.

WoW turned into barely more than a rotation game with proc-watching in PVE – and yes, I include hardcore raiding which had just move out of fire when DBM says so, and do X when DBM says, X being:

- Switch tanks for debuffs
- Move to specific position/formation, run when timer says
- Use a colour/switch/mechanic/ability that is the cornerstone of the encounter when the timer says

If you want to play Simon Says with a DBM/bigwigs “synchronised dancing” game, just play that, I’m sure there’s a browser game of it around somewhere.

http://youtu.be/XrcNb7JwJNw?t=9m27s

I don’t see how thats any less dodging than dodging in guild wars 2. Its a lot easier in WoW because you don’t have to deal with crap like red circles forming a venn diagram over you, or rolling from one and ending up inside another red circle, being KD’d for 5 seconds and being hit by another one because you can’t move.

WoW isn’t the absence of dodging to do a rotation, its the combination of both and being able to do both at the same time.

The only real problem I have with the auto attack is that, it either doesn’t work when I click on the enemy, meaning I have to click twice to get it to work, it stops working in the middle of the fights, or, (on my ranger) it randomly attacks things farther away than the thing standing in front of you, hitting you in the face lol.

xiv.7136:

Sorry no, GW2 gameplay is better than Simon Says with a keyboard, I much prefer the dodging, improvised supporting and “use the right skill at the right time” gameplay than what we had with previous MMOs.

WoW turned into barely more than a rotation game with proc-watching in PVE – and yes, I include hardcore raiding which had just move out of fire when DBM says so, and do X when DBM says, X being:

- Switch tanks for debuffs
- Move to specific position/formation, run when timer says
- Use a colour/switch/mechanic/ability that is the cornerstone of the encounter when the timer says

If you want to play Simon Says with a DBM/bigwigs “synchronised dancing” game, just play that, I’m sure there’s a browser game of it around somewhere.

So you’re telling me that my example of fighting the ettin is acceptable? Because situations like this make GW2 one of the most non-interactive games one could play. When the majority of the skills on you bar are useless there is a problem. Even if it’s just fighting a single enemy or two combat should be more engaging than watching autoattack while dodging every few seconds. Please, re-read the OP and try to hold down your anti-wow rage while doing it this time.

…run-of-the-mill basic combat it seems to devolve pretty quickly into watching your character autoattack and I dont find that enjoyable either.

I dare say, you’re “doing it wrong”. There’s more to GW2 combat than just rotations. Movement is vital, and I don’t mean just dodging. I find even in “mundane” fights that if I circle an opponent (even in melee) and keep ‘em turning, I’m far more likely to avoid “gotcha” attacks and to generally avoid damage at all.

Planting your feet in one spot and going toe-to-toe with an enemy is, in my opinion, just dumb (and unbelievably dull). With few exceptions (bursts, etc.), you can attack on the move — make use of it! Time your stand-still attacks between the enemy’s knockback/knockdown attacks. If melee, dodge those knocks and gap-close back in for the burst. If ranged (caster, bow, rifle), kite the enemy, don’t just let them run up to you and get hits on you while you continue to use ranged attacks in melee (again, dumb). While kiting, be situationally aware and don’t agro more than you can handle. When you do agro, it should be intentional; time it based on the CDs you’ll need to handle it, be aware of what you’ll have available when the previous mob dies.

And lastly, combat is as interesting as you want to make it.

^ That.

So you’re telling me that my example of fighting the ettin is acceptable? Because situations like this make GW2 one of the most non-interactive games one could play.

That entirely depends on your profession. Fighting an Ettin as a melee-focused character is entirely different from your experience, by miles.

I dunno, maybe there are issues with Necro, I haven’t played one yet. But from playing warrior, ranger, guardian, thief, I have not encountered the “auto-attack boredom” you’ve described so far. Maybe Necro play style is something ArenaNet has to look at?

Josher.9612:

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Totaly agree. Also it remove a in deep management of skill reload / mana cost.
So, most skill with “powerfull” effect will have a huge reload intead of having for exemple a high mana cost and small reload.

It turn the game easyest to manage compare to GW1, but it turn the game also totaly dumb.
All class so far are nearly only : auto-attack, click other skills when they are ready to cast, or click other skill sometime

I personaly gave up all class except the mesmer because they are all limited and very boring after a real short time playing them.
Note that i dont think the mesmer is the most interesting classe to play ( in GW2 ), but its the less boring one.

There is another HUGE problem in GW2, is that they lowered a LOT the counter skill effect and impact on the game.
The rock-paper – scisor style from GW1 is nearly unoticiable and turn the game finaly not very interesting after somes time playing it ( unlike GW1 where even after 5years playing it, you still had a lot of thing to try out and learn with various skill combo )

Anyway, GW2 is basic, not more interesting than whatever random existing mmo gameplay side.
( too bad they didnt keep the awesome gameplay mecanic a variety from GW1 and improove it for GW2, its just a decline. )

I also think auto attack needs a change, but I disagree with most of you on what should be done. I think GW2 needs to learn more from action mmos and action games, rather than traditional mmos.

I like how some auto attacks are separated into combos, but there needs to be more variety and utility. The auto attack chain should include some branches that serve different purposes.

eg. for warrior axe, if you hold forward during the 2nd auto attack, the last attack will be a heavy chop that knocks the enemy down, but does less damage than the normal third hit.

eg. for warrior rifle, the 4th auto attack let’s you hold and release for additional damage, but it makes you stationary.

eg. for warrior sword, you can hold and release the 2nd attack. This opens up an entirely new chain of autoattack that has a powerful last hit, but it takes longer to reach because the entire chain is becomes 5 attacks long.

Just using warrior because I’m familiar with it (my other main is an ele and they’re probably busy enough with attunement swapping) but you can see where I’m going.

make most auto attacks into a branching tree of different skills. you vary your combo via a variety of different controls – hold/release, pushing a direction, even rolling during a combo. each branch has different trade offs and reasons to use them.

since many classes seem to be designed to rely on auto attack for damage, with the other skills used situationally, they should make using the auto attack more involved and tactical. This would make it more interesting and fun.

As long as they don’t get rid of it, I’m open to suggestions.

Paul.4081:

My only issue with auto attack is that it stops working at random and very frequently (at least for me). Recently I was fighting the druid ice champion thing in Frostgorge and my auto attack stopped working at least 30 times in that fight alone.

I hate how quickly it’ll go off when you are circle strafing something. For 2/10s of a second the thing gets off the screen, and wham, you have no target and/or pick up a new target, and you aren’t attacking the thing you want to be attacking.

It also happens when you turn your camera (not your character, mind you, your character is still facing the target just fine) using, say the left mouse button and moving the mouse, and sometimes it’ll stop working then.

I’m sure it’s happening because they don’t want you to attack behind you, which I agree with, but whatever the hooked into with their solution is finicky and too sensitive.

My 80s are ranger and guardian.

Ranger: my 3-5 on shortbow are a dps loss from 1
Guardian: the cooldowns are so long, but I’m mostly 1-2 on every weapon set I use.

JunkyardWolf.4126:

…run-of-the-mill basic combat it seems to devolve pretty quickly into watching your character autoattack and I dont find that enjoyable either.

I dare say, you’re “doing it wrong”. There’s more to GW2 combat than just rotations. Movement is vital, and I don’t mean just dodging. I find even in “mundane” fights that if I circle an opponent (even in melee) and keep ‘em turning, I’m far more likely to avoid “gotcha” attacks and to generally avoid damage at all.

Planting your feet in one spot and going toe-to-toe with an enemy is, in my opinion, just dumb (and unbelievably dull). With few exceptions (bursts, etc.), you can attack on the move — make use of it! Time your stand-still attacks between the enemy’s knockback/knockdown attacks. If melee, dodge those knocks and gap-close back in for the burst. If ranged (caster, bow, rifle), kite the enemy, don’t just let them run up to you and get hits on you while you continue to use ranged attacks in melee (again, dumb). While kiting, be situationally aware and don’t agro more than you can handle. When you do agro, it should be intentional; time it based on the CDs you’ll need to handle it, be aware of what you’ll have available when the previous mob dies.

And again, like everyone else, you’re describing a scenario where you’re worried about dying and have a need to avoid damage and position yourself. The game is just fine in those scenarios. What about the rest of the time when you’re just fighting a mob and there is no need in taking action to not die? That’s the entire point I’m trying to make. This game is so perfectly set up when you’re seconds away from taking a dirt nap. So perfectly, that Anet didn’t bother to make the game at all interesting when you’re not in that type of situation.

EDIT: And I do actively seek to put myself into those dangerous situations. The problem being that players are better rewarded for killing large numbers of harmless enemies than they are soloing champions, etc. where the game’s strengths truly show. An adjustment is needed to reward these high difficulty scenarios, but also to make the low difficulty scenarios slightly more interesting.

Fights should be like a whole chess game in a (mmo) rpg.
i.e tons of potential strategies due to tons of potential actions.

4-6 skills rotations are not meant for rpgs, they are meant for console games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry.

Well the problem with GW2’s pve is that it seems to be designed with the traditional rpg combat in mind. With that I mean your pve enemies casually run up to you and do one or occasionally two types of attacks while standing absolutely stationary.

How the games combat is designed that means the pve side of things loses a whole lot of depht compared to pvp where the combat system shines. Monsters will rarely leap at you, apply conditions, never ever attack on the move, purge their own conditions etc etc…
So as a result all those skills that are more situational are never really useful in pve, the way pve difficulty is scaled it becomes more about dodging and kiting enemies rather then having a solid strategy.
And that is what I think really misses compared to GW, the need for strategy in pve.

So yeah unless pve opponents get a complete overhaul to their combat mechanics a whole lot of situational skills are never really useful, or at least drasticly less useful. Other side of the coin is a whole lot of skills that are powerful but can be countered are stupidly strong in pve, like aoe ground targeted effects.

It’s a shame really, pve should be some sort of preperation for pvp fights but it such a different beast. I’m finding it hard to see how pve can be made challenging without resorting to one shot scenarios or non strategic challenging boss mechanics.

Rieselle.5079:

I also think auto attack needs a change, but I disagree with most of you on what should be done. I think GW2 needs to learn more from action mmos and action games, rather than traditional mmos.

I like how some auto attacks are separated into combos, but there needs to be more variety and utility. The auto attack chain should include some branches that serve different purposes.

eg. for warrior axe, if you hold forward during the 2nd auto attack, the last attack will be a heavy chop that knocks the enemy down, but does less damage than the normal third hit.

eg. for warrior rifle, the 4th auto attack let’s you hold and release for additional damage, but it makes you stationary.

eg. for warrior sword, you can hold and release the 2nd attack. This opens up an entirely new chain of autoattack that has a powerful last hit, but it takes longer to reach because the entire chain is becomes 5 attacks long.

Just using warrior because I’m familiar with it (my other main is an ele and they’re probably busy enough with attunement swapping) but you can see where I’m going.

make most auto attacks into a branching tree of different skills. you vary your combo via a variety of different controls – hold/release, pushing a direction, even rolling during a combo. each branch has different trade offs and reasons to use them.

since many classes seem to be designed to rely on auto attack for damage, with the other skills used situationally, they should make using the auto attack more involved and tactical. This would make it more interesting and fun.

Sounds very much like a fighting game.

Draehl.2681:

And again, like everyone else, you’re describing a scenario where you’re worried about dying and have a need to avoid damage and position yourself. The game is just fine in those scenarios. What about the rest of the time when you’re just fighting a mob and there is no need in taking action to not die? That’s the entire point I’m trying to make. This game is so perfectly set up when you’re seconds away from taking a dirt nap. So perfectly, that Anet didn’t bother to make the game at all interesting when you’re not in that type of situation.

How could one possibly expect interesting gameplay in a fight where there is no possibility of defeat?

I think that is where the problem lies, not with deficiencies in auto-attack damage balance. ArenaNet have run head-long into a problem that so far plagues MMORPG devs everywhere, namely: How to make the ordinary feel “not ordinary”.

The problem here is two-fold, but they are intertwined.

First, the typical over-world fight against a single normal (not Vet or Champ) enemy has basically no danger attached to it. As pointed out, it is possible to simply stand and auto-attack, soaking the trivial conditions and whatnot, until the enemy is dead. Rinse and repeat.

This is mostly the fault of the 1990’s-era A.I. in the game, where an enemy simply stands still and applies its rotation of attacks/conditions/whatever to the player until one of them dies. Having enemies that move around, try to flank the player, occasionally dodge player AoE attacks, would be vastly more interesting, dynamic, and overall just more entertaining. However...

The hard part is implementing such a dynamic A.I. in a way that doesn’t overly punish the player when faced with adds, because adds — whether from rapid respawns or just dense enemy population — are the routine in this game. Fighting one or two dynamic enemies could be exhilarating; fighting 4 or 5 of them could be agonizingly frustrating. This is a tough thing to balance in a game with not only high enemy population density, but high respawn rates on top of that.

Of course, if the devs were to do an “A.I. pass” on all enemy types and make them individually more dangerous, they’d also have to go through the population densities and respawn rates to balance this accordingly (although A.I. improvements would be the hard part, pop/respawn balance easy if tedious). Currently, the player’s toolset has been dramatically improved (for an MMORPG) while the enemy A.I. is still operating the same as MMORPGs a decade ago, and the former has only served to cast a glaring light on the deficiencies of the latter.

Second, and not completely unrelated to the first, is that as the game stands now, when fighting “ordinary” enemies, players simply do not need to pay much attention in order to not die. This trivializes those fights, and makes them mere speed bumps along the way, rather than a genuine threat to overcome. Making those enemies more dangerous, whether through A.I. improvements or simple stat boosting, would again require a rebalancing of enemy density and respawn rates.

Long story short: There’s no simple way to make “ordinary” fights more than ordinary without requiring a lot of rebalancing in other areas, or otherwise trivializing content in the process. Somehow, I don’t think we should get our hopes up on any of these fronts.

I always thought it would be interesting if some weapons had more than one auto attack on the weapon, especially considering the various effects and traits of some auto attacks, I think they could make it pretty interesting.

To be honest I am more concerned about the long cooldowns of my slotted skills rather than the damage output of my auto attack.

To OP when you complain that other skills do not have the damage output of your auto attack the usual correction MMO’s seem to make(If they make a correction) would be to decrease your auto attack rather than increase your slotted skill damage.

or put slightly differently:

Be careful what you wish/lobby for.

E Tan.7385:

Josher.9612:

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Totaly agree. Also it remove a in deep management of skill reload / mana cost.
So, most skill with “powerfull” effect will have a huge reload intead of having for exemple a high mana cost and small reload.

What you just described is not an in-depth management over the current system. If the mana cost is high, without potions you’re relying on your regen timer…with potions, you’re bypassing the system entirely, thereby requiring potions for combat (moneysink). It all boils down to timers, so go ahead and say it: you want shorter timers.

@JunkyardWolf

Well said. AI improvements would certainly have this effect, but that’s probably not likely very soon, if at all. My solution would be to either make auto-attack interesting and engaging as to require a certain degree of movement, positioning, etc as to make it interesting in that regard. Or to implement a psuedo-rotation scenario like in the OP so at least doing damage, even against a target dummy, is entertaining on some base level.

The trick would be getting the numbers right so you want to use other skills rather than autoattack in the “target dummy scenario”, while not hurting the integrity of the original skill design when engaged in difficult fights. I certainly prefer GW2’s implementation over that of WoW and would certainly err towards it, but if done correctly you can have the best of both worlds without the downsides of either. Rotations when the skill effects dont matter in trivial content. Using skills as originally intended when engaged in difficult content.

Draeka.5941:

E Tan.7385:

Josher.9612:

Removing the energy/mana-like system that most RPGs have, took away a lot of depth in the combat system.

Totaly agree. Also it remove a in deep management of skill reload / mana cost.
So, most skill with “powerfull” effect will have a huge reload intead of having for exemple a high mana cost and small reload.

What you just described is not an in-depth management over the current system. If the mana cost is high, without potions you’re relying on your regen timer…with potions, you’re bypassing the system entirely, thereby requiring potions for combat (moneysink). It all boils down to timers, so go ahead and say it: you want shorter timers.

Did you play GW1? Have you played any game with resources past like, 2005? In GW1, your natural energy regeneration, even for 4-pip classes in generally insufficient to keep doing things for a long period of time. Instead, you had to take skills or in the case of rangers/asssassins, certain point allocations to allow you to do so.

There were more expensive skills or builds, and those required more drastic energy management.

One thing I loved about EQ2 was that it did not have an autoattack. Every skill was on a cooldown and no one skill was a “core skill”. That sort of concept could work in this game as well.

Is there another EQ2 than Everquest 2? It has an auto-attack, probably the most powerful one of any MMO out right now.

You can gear for up to 6 additional attacks per swing, so if you dual wield, every swing is 14 hits.

But if SWTOR taught me anything, its not the presence or absence of auto-attack that really means anything – It doesn’t have one, and doesn’t feel any different.

Bumping for further discussion.

Sure, I’ll discuss it further. As long as you aren’t talking about getting rid of it, I’m open for discussion.

Also, there is an option to turn it off? Would that not be as if it didn’t exist and provide the desired challenge?