Guild Wars 2

Right now the combat mechanics are awesome, dynamic, and everything synergizes very well. But I’m starting to feel what I was afraid to encounter : mechanics boredom.

All in all, and like in every MMO after all, every fight consists of repeating the same few buttons in the same order, kill after kill. I tried 5 classes (Thief, Mesmer, War, Engi, Elem), and it’s the same problem. My Thief is lvl 80, and I was expecting Trait builds to diversify those mechanics, but no, they just tunnel them even more towards a unique order.

As a mmo vet, I already know those patterns, those rotations … since a decade. And I’m pretty sure I’m really not the only one in this case.

So I wanted to ask ANET if there were any plans of adding depth to combat mechanics ?

Like adding more skills, more procs, more conditions (like “if I use this, this will give me a new effect when I use that, which will then trigger a CD reduction on this other one”, etc…). In fact it’s not necessarly about having more skills, but changing their effects when some conditions are met, so we never have the same fight two times in a row.
Skill#1 ’s dynamism (press once-> become skill#1B -> press once more -> becomes skill#1C) is a great example of how things could become more dynamic.

What do you guys think ?
(even if I know that in general people don’t really care about combat complexity, as long as they can kill things with big numbers in shiny armor ^^)

I too have grown bored of just spamming auto attack for the majority of every fight, sometimes using the odd utility skill (most have stupidly long cool downs) or weapon skill that has a minor cool down. More reaction based short cool down skills are needed to make combat more involving and less of a snore fest. Lets make those fights with mobs that have stupidly high health pools more than just auto attack spamming and dodging before they sneeze on you shall we?

not really sure what youre talking about. i have to use all my skills to link up combo finishers and maximize my dps and survivability. why are you asking for more abilities if you cant even use the ones you have to their maximum >.< no one should be spamming autoattack for anything. i mean you could, but youre kittening yourself.

nerva.7940:

why are you asking for more abilities if you cant even use the ones you have to their maximum

Why are you assuming that I don’t use them to their maximum … ?
I didn’t write this thread “just like that”. I tried a lot, lot of different min-maxing, weapon/traits configs, before jumping to that conclusion about being bored, believe me. And yes, I am aware of cross-class combos, I was even copy pasting how-to’s during headstart in dungeons groups, when most people weren’t aware of them.

But right now, the sensation is still there ..

Well combat here I assume is suppose to mirror Moba combat, which is key usage of a few skills at proper intervals to maximize effectiveness.

Isn’t this the case with all MMO games?

SameHH.1048:

Isn’t this the case with all MMO games?

Like I wrote in the OP, sadly, yes it is …. :/

So basically you want a true combo system, I dont see them adding that honestly. What Id like to see is combos that are created from grouping with people, separate you’re strong but together you become something more kind of thing..would make grouping with different classes unique and interesting

i hope they eventually add all weapons to every profession. it would add a ton of diversity to the profs and we’d see all sorts of creative builds.

Ditton.3149:

So basically you want a true combo system

Not necessarly
Just … “something deeper” than the actual state of combat. Like I said, it can be more procs, more skills, more traits, or just more layers of complexity to existing ones.
Or yes, more combos. It can be anything really, and that anything to find is the job of a gamedesigner, tbh

The only thing I’m able to quantify is the amount of mechanic layers I’d like : twice than the actual ones.
As to why some of us feel already bored of combat … There is one explanation : most of us already have beaten to death the basic mechanics of mmos, like combo building, DoTs, rage meter, resource management, interrupting, blocking, etc …
GW2 was obviously brilliant in its own approach of triggering them, but in the end it’s still the same mechanics all over, the same order of application, of reaction.

ANET doesn’t have a huge job here to satisfy people like me, though, because the core design is perfect. It only misses “more choices”, “more personal strategies”, imho.

I think its just time..Gw1 skills were not all available at launch. the biggest thing they had was that it was dual class…which offered a bit more diversity than we have

If you’re only using a 3 skill rotation playing an engineer or an ele, you’re doing it wrong.

Most MMO’s have attacks that consume little to no resources.
Most MMO’s have auto aim and target lock.

Those features alone offers few penalties for poor play. Assuming an environment where there would be no auto aim and target lock; that feature alone would separate the men from the boys.

robber.4613:

If you’re only using a 3 skill rotation playing an engineer or an ele, you’re doing it wrong.

The 2-3 skills rotation part was a bit biased by frustration, I admit, but in the end there’s not that much variety, is there ?

I do hear what you’re saying and I while i wouldnt be opposed to more skills and customization, the 2 classes I mentioned have quite a few to play with.

I’m about to hit 50 on my kit engineer, and its a sweet spot for me, because I have skills for every situation, and I can swap my kits instantly, so there’s no boredom there. My eles only 26, but its actually overwhelming me how many skills I need to memorize to try to find good synergies between them.

Again though I do agree that for some of the other classes new skills wouldn’t hurt, more choices are always nice.

Its like this for me… I’m a dual dagger elementalist

1 foe- spam 1
2 foes- spam 1 and use another skill occasionally
3 foes- I start combining the skills, adding conditons, dodging evading, moving about.
4 foes- same as above and with some element swapping.
5 or more or a champion or veteran level boss- Full on strategy kicks in and I’m doing everything to stay alive

Usually I start in air. I ride the lighting then back draft, aura up, then lightning flash on the foes →earth magic then earth quake then magnetic grab a straggler, use 2 and 5 (churning earth), I go back to air and repeat the process then go to water for health and more boons (if needed), then fire and back to earth. Process starts anew until all foes are dead.

I would be happy with more utilities that are intended to be used in most/every fight as an extension of your weapon setup, instead of the 40-200 second emergency buttons. In that vein I would also like basic weapon skills to be balanced with that assumption. 40+ second cooldown skills have no business hogging one of those precious 5 slots (should be utilities then, despite that contradicting with my other concern, its better having the choice on utilities then being forced into it on a weapon).

The ideal change without massive rebalancing would be to give 1 additional utility slot and some short cooldown utilities, and give each weapon 1-2 more skills that are switchable for into any slot position of that weapon. Preferably one with auto-attack capability so you have an alternative there.

Thank you kineticdamage, I’m glad someone is saying this. As a longtime MMO vet, I’ve seen all these mechanics before, and they are all too familiar. What’s more the ideas behind the mechanics are incredibly simplified because of how few skills there are to choose from. Casual players and newcomers to MMOs won’t understand this, and will insist that this isn’t the case. It’s a shame really, I was reallly hoping GW2 would be “the one”, but I don’t see any future than simply moving onto the next promising MMO.

Name any game, Where you are not doing the same thing over and over again.

There are not many of them

Personally the combat itself doesn’t really need to be deeper – that will come with expansions.

However- the combo field system needs tuning. Originally I thought it would be very helpful to use skills bounced off other players to defeat dungeon bosses, but really it isn’t required at all. Nor is it hugely noticeable.

The real problem is that those players looking to improve…. don’t really have any chance to in sPVP or in PVE, because of two things:

1) Anet has made no structural system to inform a player of how he/she should improve in the game, especially in sPVP (where you can’t just scrim competitively for free). And for those looking for more challenges in sPVP, that’s a huge turn-off.

While in PVE, the mobs mechanics are terrible (even in dungeons) to a point that it’s more about knowing these tricks rather than focusing on improving your combat mechanics. I would say, for any competitive gamer out there; that being able to improve their combat skills the more that they play the game is an essential part of the game’s combat system. But that’s not possible when in competitive sPVP matches; new players simply get rolled over by pros running the same builds & have no way to improve because there’s no rentable private servers or free scrim maps available for players to play competitively (summary: pros farming tickets all day, noobs join and get owned and have no chance to improve).

2) In PVE, combat improvement is not necessary at all (you can beat every dungeon by using the same build that players find to work each time….). It is just like in sPVP where everyones running bunker guardian and tele. mesmer in every competitive matches, one dimensional builds works so well… players that wants to improve knows there isn’t a place to go (unless you want to maybe do the dungeon in 30 mins instead of 40 mins?….)

TL;DR – Lack of competitiveness is killing the sPVP in GW2, and the ability to win with just one build in sPVP & PVE is causing players to feel absolutely bored of GW2’s combat.

The one thing I love about this game is the combat mechanics. I’m working on my 4th level 80 at the moment and have really gotten into looking for the synergies inside the trait and weapon set systems to complement my play style.

I play the game very dynamically in that I almost never use the tab to target and often take on multiple mobs. I like being highly mobile regardless of the profession. For me the combat in this game is less about the DPS and more about not taking damage through a dynamic play style and mitigating conditions, that and knowing how to take advantage of your combo fields and finishers.

Sure, I would like to see more traits down the road but hate it when MMO’s have fluff build systems where you are forced to take 15 useless traits / skills in a tree to get the one up the chain that might have an impact on your build.

What I like about the way it’s done in GW2 is, when you take a trait it has an impact to your build and by stacking the related synergies between the traits and the weapons you use you can really effect how that profession plays.

Lovin my Mesmer build at the moment it’s a freight train of death.

As others said this is a profession specific isssue, Warriors and Rangers can be effective while using only one or two skills at their disposal, on the other hand Elementalists and Engineers need to use all the tools at their disposal in order to survive.

It is a design choice, afaik devs wanted some profession to be easier to use than others.

Dont get me wrong, I dont mean to say all Warriors and Rangers are noobs, I would never consider it, I’ve seen a lot of great players using those professions

But there’s a night and day difference between my Elementalist and my Warrior.

While playing the former I have to swich attunements, use a lot of different skills and even trigger combos to get more damage and buffs.
The latter requires a tenth of the effort, I only die when I get overconfident and pull too many mobs.

Also combos will make a big difference to me: I will notice a greatly increased damage when I’m running around with 15 might stacks from fire fields and the various blast finishers my Elementalists has.
And the healing I can produce when playing with my Ranger and Guardian friends is incredible: Ranger has a very long lasting water field which me (d/d Ele) and my friend (Hammer Guardian) will blast 6 or 7 times in less than 10 seconds every minute or even less. This kind of “burst” healing can top eveyone’s health bar in no time.

An interesting spec I went with back in one of the BWEs was an Asuran Ranger. You had the versatility of a Ranger, but then if you took Radiation Field, you also had to decide if you wanted to drop it on a group of mobs, or in front of them and Volley through it. It might not be exactly what you’re looking for, bit it’s a fun dynamic.

It is, unfortunately only in the elementalist class.

Minion of Vey.4398:

It is, unfortunately only in the elementalist class.

That’s precisely what I feel by the looks of it.
Which is kind of frustrating when you want other playstyles … and what’s even more frustrating is that every class playstyle does feel unique, this very problem taken apart.

I understand that in theory not every class can be made complex, so that every audience is satisfied. But in practice there are so many ways to leverage complexity (traits / talent trees being one). Because that’s why MMOs are so interesting : they make you feel evolving over time. And at max lvl, if you don’t want to fall into Gear trendmill, the only other way to create evolution is with gameplay. Actually in MMOs the only way they found was talent respeccing. Starting from that point, one suggestion would be to give tools to player to leverage the complexity of their gameplay at will (and at max lvl), but not only with talent respec.
GW2’s core design has the tools for that, with weapons swap and skills alternatives (skill#1A, skill#1B, etc). ANET really got the tools for giving vet mmo players a bigger bone to chew in term of game mechanics, so why not going forward ?

I’m pretty sure there’s room for proposing very complex combat mechanics, as alternative to simpler ones, within the same class.
(sidenote : complex doesn’t mean tedious, if done right)

Anyway that’s a great discussion we have here, thanks guys.
I’d like to know the devs point of view on that matter.

I think that the only way for combat to be any deeper would be going back to having dedicated healing and cc classes.

There’s really only so much you can do with a combat system that uses target selection.

This one is especially odd because it allows projectile dodging for the target but no corresponding available action on the part of the shooter (e.g. leading the target) to combat the fact that projectiles can be dodged.

That’s why free-shooting games like Team Fortress 2, etc. offer infinitely more dynamic gameplay, despite having fewer “skills” per character. The importance of position, cover, and movement are all greatly reduced when your enemy is permanently locked onto you.

kineticdamage.6279:

SameHH.1048:

Isn’t this the case with all MMO games?

Like I wrote in the OP, sadly, yes it is …. :/

Not with Dragon’s Nest.

EDIT: As a guy who enjoys most fighting games, I’d like juggling to be introduced.

Mik Hell.8206:

As others said this is a profession specific isssue, Warriors and Rangers can be effective while using only one or two skills at their disposal, on the other hand Elementalists and Engineers need to use all the tools at their disposal in order to survive.

It is a design choice, afaik devs wanted some profession to be easier to use than others.

Dont get me wrong, I dont mean to say all Warriors and Rangers are noobs, I would never consider it, I’ve seen a lot of great players using those professions

But there’s a night and day difference between my Elementalist and my Warrior.

While playing the former I have to swich attunements, use a lot of different skills and even trigger combos to get more damage and buffs.
The latter requires a tenth of the effort, I only die when I get overconfident and pull too many mobs.

Also combos will make a big difference to me: I will notice a greatly increased damage when I’m running around with 15 might stacks from fire fields and the various blast finishers my Elementalists has.
And the healing I can produce when playing with my Ranger and Guardian friends is incredible: Ranger has a very long lasting water field which me (d/d Ele) and my friend (Hammer Guardian) will blast 6 or 7 times in less than 10 seconds every minute or even less. This kind of “burst” healing can top eveyone’s health bar in no time.

I agree with this. There is potential out there with several classes to be more complex and thoughtful with how you play and it certainly makes you more effective if you do so. Then you have classes like Ele and Engi where it’s required. But you need to have easier classes because a lot of people prefer that.

I’m an Ele and I love the class, but do you know how many people post in the Ele forums complaining that it’s too hard, or it’s a bad class (because they aren’t playing it properly), or that it’s ineffective compared to other classes, etc. Heck even non-Ele’s I see posting things on the forums don’t even understand the class and it’s potential sometimes which means they haven’t seen enough good Ele’s. So clearly the simpler classes are needed.

I do think though that classes like the Mesmer offer more potential than you’re giving it credit for. Sure you can get by without doing much, but you can certainly play a more complex playstyle with the Mesmer and get much more out of it.

On the topic of complexity though, it’s a very delicate balance. You need the complexity to actually be useful for starters – we’ve seen in other games where a ton of skills and complicated mechanics went unused, and everyone uses the same “most optimal” build and the same few keys in their rotation and that was it. You also need to find a good balance between too many options and not enough. And personally I think too many skills and too complicated combat gets overwhelming and feels pointless – complexity just for the sake of complexity is stupid.

There needs to be a reason. Sure I can sit down and figure it out if I have to, but I don’t want to. I can keybind 50 skill but I don’t like it. I can make an optimal build and optimal stats, and learn the best times to use which of my 50 skills in whatever different ways, but is that always fun? I mean I understand where you’re coming from. I originally started playing healers way back when because standing around in a raid as a DPS spamming the same rotation is mindless and boring – I wanted something that required me to think and that forced me to make the right move or suffer consequences. So I healed in that game and then moved on to better ones. But it gets old after a while if it’s not done thoughtfully. I actually enjoy the action combat MMO games better (or ones like GW2 and TSW that are hybrid action combat) because they focus more on proper usage of skills and the ability to adapt and make combat interesting that way instead.

Not many people are good at the whole ‘trait building’ (math calc.) stuffs, but many players are good at keyboard maneuvering. Don’t mind if they make the skills actions more complex…. just keep the skill mechanics simple to understand like they had been.

Leiloni.7951:

There needs to be a reason. Sure I can sit down and figure it out if I have to, but I don’t want to. I can keybind 50 skill but I don’t like it. I can make an optimal build and optimal stats, and learn the best times to use which of my 50 skills in whatever different ways, but is that always fun?

Of course, we’re all assuming that such changes would be made right, bringing fun
Once again, complexity doesn’t mean tedious
(and that’s the job of gamedesigners)

FluffyDoe.7539:

Not many people are good at the whole ‘trait building’ (math calc.) stuffs, but many players are good at keyboard maneuvering. Don’t mind if they make the skills actions more complex…. just keep the skill mechanics simple to understand like they had been.

Yes, I like how ANET handled buffs / debuffs : fixed base durations, fixed names, and only changing one stat. So it’s easy to recognize.

If you do not like pressing 3 skills all the time. Switch to Ele/engi they have to use all of their skills to survive even the simplest trash mobs.

The skills sistem of GW, was more immersive, because the build was yours, maybe that wasnt i simple sistem to master, but is was really rewarding! and you had A LOT of possibilities to combine skills to have your real personal build. (fast skills CD, only autoattack and long cd Skill, its was you personal choice to do so)
Now we have 10 skills and the traitline, but the build played are always the same. have 5 skills tied to the weapon choice is not smart,bacause you build choice rely in the 3 utilities and the elite skill, but the thing that you have TO UNLOCK weapons skills by using the weapon, make me think that in the future they add more weapon skills, because with the actual sistem, unlock skill that are always the same, dont have any sense.

And about the Pve balance, i think that for now monster are not calibrated, if you make a game that is mostly balanced about PVP (on paper) you cant make monster totally immune to controls, or tiny monster that come in wave of 10 and the can paralize you, or push you away, with every single blow, because my character can have stability (sometime) can clean condition, but it cant have permastability or clean conditions every seconds, because normal mobs can control ME WITH EVERY SINGLE BLOW.

and for WvW… Now we know that devs are going to split some skill to make them balanced for Spvp and Pve… BUT WvW is a PVP mode that follow Pve rules…it dont make sense! is awesome have as concept, i love going around on WvW, but please Anet, if you make some change to balance PVP, make them effective on WvW too!

Humposaurus.5764:

If you do not like pressing 3 skills all the time. Switch to Ele/engi they have to use all of their skills to survive even the simplest trash mobs.

Yep that’s exactly what I started to do yesterday
But what if I like the Rogue archetype in RPGs ? or the Warrior smasher feel ? etc.. ?

:/

MMO devs really should stop leveraging gameplay difficulty by class (it’s the same in most other popular MMOs). They shouldn’t force hardcore/advanced players to endorse a specific role just because the gameplay is more interesting to them with one class among others.
There are tons of potential solutions to set different levels of gameplay complexity inside the same class, all without breaking balance. The only thing for devs to accept is that more complex strategies = more advantages to the player.

The main problem is difficult or lack of complex fights/content. The shallowness of the combat system could be made up for with the action part of the game if fights were more difficult.

Although I really hope they make the skills/builds more complex and add more variety. Traits should definately be a little more game changing IMO. Completely changing how skills work and stuff.

Someone asked for more procs, that is the definition of bad games mate !
procs are RNG based, I’d rather see them depart from this archaic mechanic all together ! even crit is RNG based which is sadly a necessary evil because we all like to see big numbers fly around.

Latinkuro.9420:

Someone asked for more procs, that is the definition of bad games mate !
procs are RNG based, I’d rather see them depart from this archaic mechanic all together ! even crit is RNG based which is sadly a necessary evil because we all like to see big numbers fly around.

RNG are the only key to non-linearity I’m afraid
(unless we reinvent the whole mmo wheel once again)

RNG is bad, sometimes you get a lot of procs and have fun, others you get none and combat becomes even more dull.

I think complexity is achieved with interactive skills like Firegrab (if the target is burning it will deal more damage) or “aimed” skills like Burning Speed which requires your char to face the right direction and be at the correct distance for the blast damage. Try to aim it in pvp and then you will see what’s complexity

Also I think difficulty plays a major role on this matter.

Ask yourself why Elementalists and Engineers are harder to play and more complex, is it because they have more skills?

Yes, off course, but that’s not enough to make a class’ gameplay deep and varied.

You also need a reason to use all those skills: Warriors have a lot of different weapons at their disposal, but most of the times they don’t need anything but their auto attack and one or two skills. On the other hand Elementalists and Engineers cannot survive fighting like that.

So even if Warriors, or your Thief, had access to say 4 different weapon sets using F-keys there wouldn’t be any reason to use them.

so what you are saying is you want to press 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 instead of just 1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5.

It doesnt matter how many different skills you have, someone with no life will come up with the perfect rotation for each class, post it online and thats all anyone will do.

Until someone comes up with a new combat system button mashing in rotation is all we will get. Plus, you have to account for the console generation. You can’t have anything too complicated for them.

Yes, I do think they will be. I have a suspicion that ANet erred on the side of caution, and low-balled a lot of the abilities so balance would be easier. I think they’re waiting to see how the metagame develops before addressing core mechanics and making deep changes to combat and professions.

I think we’ll see a more tactically nuanced, deeper combat system, but it won’t happen for a long, long time.

We’ll see how things turn out with the next patch, which seems to change a lot of things.
One way of adding more diversity would sure be to lower some certain overly long utility skills cooldowns … like the Thief Spider venom … come on, 45s for 5 attacks ? :/
(considering Thief is the fastest autoattacking class)

I see your point, but as far as MMORPG go, GW2 is doing fine (not saying it cannot be improved by a lot). Personally, I hope GW2 is a stepping stone to MMORPG/beat-em-up hybrids (not of the button mashing variety obviously). If you know Dragon´s Dogma, imagine that on a MMORPG scale. But then, MMORPG players are not good computer players in general (not trying to insult anyone here, but our reaction time, hand-eye coordination and what not are far inferior to enthusiasts of other genres), so that may be a big road block for companies taking that direction. But one can hope

Algreg.3629:

Personally, I hope GW2 is a stepping stone to MMORPG/beat-em-up hybrids (not of the button mashing variety obviously). If you know Dragon´s Dogma, imagine that on a MMORPG scale.

No idea what you are talking about here. Last time I played Dragon’s Dogma, all I needed was 2 buttons to win. High Bolide and High Maelstrom.

Great game, but I wouldn’t want to see its current combat system in GW2. It had some flaws. :/ I am sure (or at least I hope) they will improve the combat system of GW2 later down the road, though. I tire of the “rotations” that MMORPG’s have.

Edit: I agree that classes need to be more complex. The combo fields are nice, but also pretty simple. There needs to be more complexity with the rest of the skills too.

You people complaining about this maybe need to try dungeons or sPvP or WvW. leveling is not the only thing to do in the game…

….

kineticdamage.6279:

In fact it’s not necessarly about having more skills, but changing their effects when some conditions are met, so we never have the same fight two times in a row.

It’s called combo fields, and it is already in the game.

The reason why you spam 1-3 in every major battle is because you’re too lazy to figure out how to actually play your class.

For example, I play an engineer. Sometimes when I go to Dragons I just sit there auto attacking the dragon, and I’m fine with that – other times, I run around dropping turrets and healing people and dropping elixers on people and I am also entertained. Other times I run around and see what interesting things I can do that I have not yet done like combo finishers with mesmer fields or elementalist or guardian.

I am starting to think many people should buy the prima guide to GW2 because there are lots of game mechanics people simply do not know about, and then they complain that they aren’t implemented in the game, but they are, I assure you. Give the wiki a read over sometime. This is not the same MMO design you’ve played for 10 years, and if you think it is…well…Why are you playing still?

I think PvE pretty much feels the same every time. But PvP seems like it will always put an interesting kink into the mix.

Personally, I see GW similarly as I do Counter Strike. Sure, I’m doing the same thing every time (every single game, I go for the 2-1 shotgun. Here’s how I begin my matches→ b21b82b84,,,,. → (you only need so much secondary ammo). I haven’t played CS in 3 years, and yet that key sequence is still drilled into my brain--I didn’t get tired of it. I just moved on to TF2 because all CS servers in my region died.

To me, it’s all about reacting to the event. I guess it would be similar to when someone plays a platformer—you know every single jump, but executing them still bring tears of joy to your eyes.

If you’re always looking for new mechanics, then it is probably high time that you move on.

BrickMcThornbody.7094:

kineticdamage.6279:

In fact it’s not necessarly about having more skills, but changing their effects when some conditions are met, so we never have the same fight two times in a row.

It’s called combo fields, and it is already in the game.

The reason why you spam 1-3 in every major battle is because you’re too lazy to figure out how to actually play your class.

For example, I play an engineer. Sometimes when I go to Dragons I just sit there auto attacking the dragon, and I’m fine with that – other times, I run around dropping turrets and healing people and dropping elixers on people and I am also entertained. Other times I run around and see what interesting things I can do that I have not yet done like combo finishers with mesmer fields or elementalist or guardian.

I am starting to think many people should buy the prima guide to GW2 because there are lots of game mechanics people simply do not know about, and then they complain that they aren’t implemented in the game, but they are, I assure you. Give the wiki a read over sometime. This is not the same MMO design you’ve played for 10 years, and if you think it is…well…Why are you playing still?

Please stop assuming that people who say they are bored are automatically inferior beings who didn’t manage to wrap around all the mechanics.
So once again :
- yes I do know about group combos, read the thread, I’ve already talked about it.
- yes I do know that some classes are more complex than others, but that’s another problem : for example, what if I love the Thief archetype in general, but want complex gameplay ? This has also been already mentionned in the thread. Don’t reply until you read all the posts.

In the discussion, we’ve been talking about the Elementalist. Let’s take this example : yesterday I talked with a friend who did try all the classes, and who might have hundreds of played hours in the game.
Long story short : he knows what he’s talking about. And we were talking about this exact subject, when I brought the Elementalist proposition to find a more complex gameplay.. What he replied struck me, because that was exactly how the Elem feels even at lvl 15 (he played one at 80 indeed) :

_ – “The elem is more complex than others, because you have to switch, but in the end it’s still repetitive. Because you have to switch in a certain order to maximize your efficiency and to survive. There’s litterally no surprise at all. You end up switching the same skills, the same attunements, in the same order, all the time (nearly).” _

And that’s precisely how I was seeing myself ending up with mine. Air, weakening, Earth, conditions, Fire, damaging, Water, healing/further weakening. Rinse and repeat.
(Yes I know it’s a bit less a fixed order, but still, not far from reality).
So in the end, after tons of discussions all around, wiki read, vid watching, I ended to the conclusion that players who are used to mmo mechanics, therefore who are searching for a complex and unpredictable gameplay (= surprisingly varied), are only left with one choice : the Engineer. One class.
That doesn’t feel right, because it tunnels us to one playstyle in a 8 classes game :/

Group combos are awesome, yes. But you’re not always playing in group, and even in group, spamming group combos does have its limitations in term of DPS and efficiency on the long run. They are essential to understand and to use in hardcore situations, but not a solution (yet) to the lack of mechanics depth some of us might feel. The core of that depth, is indeed each class mechanics by themselves. Individually.

Xocolatl.6890:

If you’re always looking for new mechanics, then it is probably high time that you move on.

I’m ready to accept that
But there is so much potential with that game … That’s why I’d love to have the lead designers opinion about it.

p.s, reminder for late joiners : I love the game, and find its core absolutely brilliant, though. Just this very point is tickling me.

Archmagel.1350:

Algreg.3629:

Personally, I hope GW2 is a stepping stone to MMORPG/beat-em-up hybrids (not of the button mashing variety obviously). If you know Dragon´s Dogma, imagine that on a MMORPG scale.

No idea what you are talking about here. Last time I played Dragon’s Dogma, all I needed was 2 buttons to win. High Bolide and High Maelstrom.

Great game, but I wouldn’t want to see its current combat system in GW2. It had some flaws. :/ I am sure (or at least I hope) they will improve the combat system of GW2 later down the road, though. I tire of the “rotations” that MMORPG’s have.

Edit: I agree that classes need to be more complex. The combo fields are nice, but also pretty simple. There needs to be more complexity with the rest of the skills too.

well, I was talking gamestyle, not the actual difficulty of that game

Rainbow Eyelids.8461:

You people complaining about this maybe need to try dungeons or sPvP or WvW. leveling is not the only thing to do in the game…

….

btw combat mechanics are the same in PvE, sPvP and WvWvW.