Guild Wars 2

I must be one of the few ones that never reached lvl80 with any class, cuz i get bored of the weapons and skills

Yesterday I connected to my Thief, looked at my skill bar, pictured instantly the half-dozen skills I was mainly going to use in the next 100 fights (apart from the situational ones) … and disconnected to char selection.

So I switch to my elem, but after 20 minutes of fights I miss the skills cross combos of the Thief, so I switch on my Engi, but then I miss the punchy feeling, visceral gameplay of my Thief / Warrior.
Then I disconnect :/
That explains quite well this “core design is awesome, but something is missing” feeling I got with every class.

So new patch, no drastic change, and not even a word from the devs in the latest Kotaku dev interview about how skill mechanics will evolve over time ( http://kotaku.com/5960951/the-lead-designer-of-guild-wars-2-is-answering-your-questions-right-now ). No player did even ask about it.

Due to this overall silence, should I conclude this is a non-issue ?

edit : Looking at the Thief forum right now. I’m a bit sad. People are coming up to arms because of some big-shiny-numbers nerf. Don’t care about the way they build their dps, but are outraged if one number is modified.
Broad, obvious, easy results in favor of subtelty. After 10 years of MMOs, I’d have suspected gamers (at least veterans, like some in this thread) would have understand that big-numbers are worthless in term of longevity for a mmo gameplay.

For example in this case, you could have all the nerfs you want for a direct damage skill, if this class had a way to build a superior strength for a given amount of time by triggering a stream of well timed mechanics, there would be no more problem (this is for ex what made the Warlock class so strong in WoW).
Another important side of mechanics over “big numbers” : they are the perfect way to avoid giving big fat, instant bursty numbers, without lowering the ability for a class to win a fight. Plus, they are also a perfect way to bring pure strategy and mindgames to a fight. Therefore, they’re perfect to separate skilled players from bad ones (aside from pure agility/reactivity).
Put it simply, they’re the key to a proper balance. But nobody barely cares about it. Why ?

edit 2 : ah, some people seem to care about it, nice

A true combo system would be really nice, tbh. Some classes have something resembling control combos (hammer warrior, for example), but for the most part combat falls down to who has the most stun breakers and who can kite better.

Stamina could be used for more than just rolling. If a player’s stamina drops to 0 at any time, they could be vulnerable to hit stun, opening up the possibility for the opponent to perform true combos. Likewise, regular attacks could be specced to remove stamina and dodges could become cheaper to compensate.

Another thing to consider – Anet’s current target audiance, the casual gamer, does not enjoy an abundance of depth. If something becomes like work to learn, then they want nothing to do with it. Why should these gamers have to memorise an optimal combo chain in order to be successful? They have a life and a job! No, it’s more profitable to make everyone do lots of damage with the press of a button, with very basic control mechanics thrown in here and there to give the illusion of depth and skill-based gameplay.

Lifelike.5862:

A true combo system would be really nice, tbh. Some classes have something resembling control combos (hammer warrior, for example), but for the most part combat falls down to who has the most stun breakers and who can kite better.

Absolutely right. I always thought self-combo systems (= with group combos on top of it) were the key to avoid gameplay fatigue in MMOs. Some mmos did try to implement that (AION, for ex), but none did go very further inside the system.

Lifelike.5862:

Another thing to consider – Anet’s current target audiance, the casual gamer, does not enjoy an abundance of depth. If something becomes like work to learn, then they want nothing to do with it. Why should these gamers have to memorise an optimal combo chain in order to be successful? They have a life and a job! No, it’s more profitable to make everyone do lots of damage with the press of a button, with very basic control mechanics thrown in here and there to give the illusion of depth and skill-based gameplay.

I completely understand the need to please every audience, including casuals. But as been discussed earlier in the thread, an experienced gamedesigner could always find meanings to bring different layers of complexity inside a same given class.
More depth levels for Self-Combos would be a perfect solution to that, imho.

Or maybe a different kind of talent tree, where you could chose and leverage those different layers of gameplay complexity. That’s what the WoW old talent trees did manage to do, in a certain extent. Some specs were asking to align a high number of triggers, procs, timings, in order to be efficient. So yeah, when you didn’t, you were less efficient than other direct-dumb-damage specs, but when you were successful, you were definitely stronger. Risk / Reward.

Another point to consider with target audience : a high chunk of mmo players did start their mmo experience a long, long time ago. And now they are used (and to an extent, bored) to basic rotations, skills.

It’s like a chess player. His first games will be horribly simple and predictable, but the more games he plays, the deeper his strategies will naturally search to be. All MMOs can be compared to being the same game in some way, as they all revolve around nearly the same core mmo mechanics (buffs, debuffs, direct damage, protection, healing, control, interrupt).
So imho, all mmo players can be compared to that chess player who progressively feel the need to complexify his strategies in order not to be bored.

All MMO studios seem to not realize this fact that a lot of current mmo players are actually veterans, used to these 10 years old mechanics. And that they want a new level of gameplay. ANet did a few steps in that direction with active dodging, and action combat, but clearly that’s as sustainable as basically a console action game : gameplay fatigue kicks in after nearly one month if we rely only on those “agility” mechanics.
Inevitably, we’re coming back to the need of having deeper skill strategies, therefore, mechanics.

So yeah, let’s not forget the newcomers as usual, but let’s not forget the other side of the coin

Let’s say there was a theoretical combo system in this game. I feel it would be fair if classes like Warrior, the easier ones to play, should have stronger single-hit DPS at the expense of having limited comboes. This would reward a ‘poke’ style gameplay where well-timed strikes and evasion over a prolonged period of time at minimized risk would be key to victory.

Weaker classes like elementalists would have long and involved true comboes utilising many of their skills, with an emphasis on control over damage. They should be able to make up for their frailty with the ability to control or manipulate their position more effectively while trading damage or defense.

The way things are now, elementalists do have superior positioning, but once they get in, they don’t have much of a way to convert that into damage in a safe manner. They have to pray that their updraft combo will hit, and then hope their opponent doesn’t have a stun breaker.

Yes, this kind of complexity leverage is a good idea, and somehow what the game revolves around right now. But as discussed earlier too, separating complexity levels by class is not a good idea from the start :
What if I like the visceral feeling of a warrior smashing a huge sword inside his opponents, and don’t like the casting type of Elems, but still want deeper mechanics than warrior’s direct damage ?

That’s the current problem of mmos, you’re tunneled into only one or two classes if you want complexity and strategy, even if you’re not too fond of its playstyle. You’re forced.
That’s where proposing different levels of complexity inside each class would be a good solution : every player could really choose what playstyle he relates to (caster, smasher, sneaky, ranged, protector, etc), and inside this very choice, he would have the tools to make his gameplay evolve as further as he wishes.

Classes should not be the mmo gamedesigners’ pilar of mechanics design. It’s been 10 years like that (even more with Pen & Paper Rpgs). Things need to evolve. Classes should only be cosmetics (audio & visual). A tool to deliver visual/audio feedback, nothing more. They could also be a way to separate some mechanic types (caster = burning, protector = buff, sneaky = burst, etc), but never should they be a boundary in the amount of gameplay depth they bring to a class choice.

Ditton.3149:

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

if your not already doing this your doing it wrong….

I think it’s just the nature of the genre – MMO RPG combat is and always will be a bland, boring rinse-and-repeat matter of just either mashing hotkeys in a set order or clicking on a picture at the bottom of the screen.

The inclusion of a dodge in this game is a sign the devs had an idea to do something different and interesting, but by limiting it to only two per a few seconds gave up and stuck with the old, stale system.

The only system I’ve seen in a MMO RPG that’s even remotely interesting is Terra’s.

I wish it wasn’t that set in stone, though :/

I think the combat is good for a pvp game. It should be kept somewhat simple so a level of balance can be maintained. I also dislike complicated combat in the chaos that is pvp, because there is usually so much more to keep track of.

For pve however I do think its a bit too simplistic. NPC enemies are generally much less interesting to fight than players so more in-depth combat is needed to keep it entertaining.

I suppose A-net is going to have to make a decision on what section of the game is actually the future they want to plan for first. It was advertised as more of a pvp game, but the recent update would suggest that they have decided to change to a pve progression game.

I guess PvE will always be the bread and butter of huge MMOs like that.
PvP is essential too, but PvE is the best justification to expand the world, the skills, the classes, the visuals, etc, to a larger extent.

I think part of the problem with the combat is that you can’t customize your play style as much as we all expected and may have been led to believe. We get to switch between weapons that determines the play style we get. We get 5 skills total that never change no mater what level we are or how far we progress through the game for the weapon that has the play style we like best. We get a handful of utility skills that complement that play style and then a somewhat confusing trait system that we try to tailor to that play style. The point is there isn’t much variety and a limited feeling of control.

The combat itself feels out of control. Spam 1-5, dodge, repeat doesn’t really suffice. There isn’t much crowd control to speak of either and the skill set up with 5 weapon skills, a heal, and only 3 utility skills doesn’t leave much room for any.

I suggested in a post of my own that weapon trainers were added that allowed you to train different skills for different weapons at different levels in the game to add customization to your weapon skills and add a sense of progression to combat (you can read the whole post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Progression-in-GW2/first#post794870) but I don’t know if that would be enough or if it would just make things worse when it comes to balance. What I do know is something needs to be done with the combat system. I like this game and I don’t want to see people give up on it so early.

Quick intervention about balancing :

Balancing workload on designer’s side should never be a barrier to adding more depth, really. It’s a job, to be honest, people are paid to balance things out
I’m writing this because I often read on different mmos dev feedbacks things along the lines of “we cannot add too many choices because it creates balancing problems”.

Well … it’s like an Art Director saying to an artist “Ok we cannot create such a region because it would require too much texture optimization”.
Or a coder : “I really can’t implement that functionality, as I would have too much analysis to make”.

Balancing is a part of the conception-to-production process, gamedesign wise. Actually it’s even what is called in certain games “lead systems designer”.
So in a mmo case, maybe one skill idea from the game/combat designer could request some tweaking in order not to make it overpowered, but unless we’re talking about thousands of different mechanics, never should that tweaking (= balancing) workload be an “issue”.

*

Now your post nicely sums up the situation I’m trying to explain, Bolthar, thanks.
(and I didn’t suspect such a high % of replies telling they do feel the same tbh)

Kineticdamage, I totally get what you’re saying. I see a lot of people complaining about a lot of the same things. I just hope Anet recognizes these issues as issues and has set down a path to fix them. I hope they’re REALLY listening to posts like these.

Well, seems like they don’t
(absolutely no mention at all about skills in future roadmap that was released lately)

Bolthar.7192:

I think part of the problem with the combat is that you can’t customize your play style as much as we all expected and may have been led to believe. We get to switch between weapons that determines the play style we get. We get 5 skills total that never change no mater what level we are or how far we progress through the game for the weapon that has the play style we like best. We get a handful of utility skills that complement that play style and then a somewhat confusing trait system that we try to tailor to that play style. The point is there isn’t much variety and a limited feeling of control.

The combat itself feels out of control. Spam 1-5, dodge, repeat doesn’t really suffice. There isn’t much crowd control to speak of either and the skill set up with 5 weapon skills, a heal, and only 3 utility skills doesn’t leave much room for any.

I suggested in a post of my own that weapon trainers were added that allowed you to train different skills for different weapons at different levels in the game to add customization to your weapon skills and add a sense of progression to combat (you can read the whole post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Progression-in-GW2/first#post794870) but I don’t know if that would be enough or if it would just make things worse when it comes to balance. What I do know is something needs to be done with the combat system. I like this game and I don’t want to see people give up on it so early.

Great post. The gap in complexity and choice between GW1’s combat and GW2’s is too great. This game offers few real choices to me as a player.