Guild Wars 2

not really a question since the answer is “it’s not here”
but just for discussion, why was it not included? was it considered?

the mechanic:
in GW1 while your character was using a bow you would gain additional (and scaling) range and damage if you were at a higher position to your enemy,
so if you were several feet higher you’d likely see no difference, but stand on top of a castles walls and you’d really see a benefit!
this was brilliant and added a point and purpose to holding the high ground.

one of my favourite experiences in any game was defending fort aspenwood in GW1 as a sniper ranger, really feeling a sense of a home-field advantage.

(for anyone who didn’t play the original GW i’ll help you imaginewhat it was like,
imagine if the keep walls in wvw were 1000 high (so enemies need to get right up close to hit the defenders on top of the walls with their 1200 ranged weapons),
now imagine that your range from on top of the wall is 2000 (and you have a damage increase of 25%), allowing you to hit people as they approach your walls before you enter their range, thats how it was in GW1, you really felt like you had the advantage of a castle’s walls.)

GW2 is missing this sense of a home-field advantage, if your base is being attacked by a large zerging force there is nowhere you can attack from where you are’nt instantly dying to your enemies spamming the walls with aoe.

height enhancing range/damage adds a real depth to strategic positioning, and makes holding the high ground a really epic experience!

Think of all the poor melee characters!

Guild Wars 3 rise of the Bearbow!

stale.9785:

Think of all the poor melee characters!

Oh man those poor hammer warriors or walking wave of wrath dispensers, I feel so bad for them.

Ramiel.4931:

stale.9785:

Think of all the poor melee characters!

Oh man those poor hammer warriors or walking wave of wrath dispensers, I feel so bad for them.

I think it really is supposed to be a buff to pure melee meta. Every class in the game has access to melee and ranged weapons but in the end, attack range means very little especially when glitching dungeon bosses into a corner.
According to the wiki most content is actually easier as a melee character so it’s save to assume Anet didn’t want to give range attacks too much advantage – for balance’s sake.

There is no reason to grief about this loss though, because stat-based combat leaves very little space for realism and related strategies. In fact, while ranged combat in terms of war evolved around the idea of troop positioning and environmental advantages, attacking a player only once from a difficult or inaccessible position is considered highly unfair in a game like gw2.
The only exception is WvW walls (not towers they obviously aren’t made to be a good position) which is dominated by siege weaponry that is a) unessential and b) available to everyone.
An absolute negative peak of this was back in WoW when they had extremely fortified and high walls/towers merely as background because there was no class with enough range to attack anything below.

TL&DR
It got lost in the optimizationprocess for 1v1 – 5v5 and casual dungeons

This was the mechanic the OP was referring to:
Projectile weapons inflict more damage against foes at lower elevation and less damage against foes at higher elevation.

• Testing has yielded attacks that can do up to 200% of the listed maximum damage (not including modifiers)
• Critical hits are not affected by elevation. If the elevation bonus is higher than a critical can achieve, then that value is used instead.

Taken from the wiki

“Elevation bonus.”

Part of the reason why I mained a ranger in GW1.

Obviously it is easier for the projectile to miss at longer ranges, but at least the mechanic was there, it makes games feel polished, where ranged classes actually have a chance to play as ranged classes. Combined with a few of the increased projectile speed preparations/attacks you could hit a bit more consistently.

I one shot a poor Luxon Assassin on the Grenz Frontier alliance battle map, from up on that reaaaaalllly high up bridge. It was almost impossible to ever hit anyone from up there, simply because if they change direction even slightly, you miss, and everyone always moves slightly.

Yet somehow I landed Keen Arrow on this Luxon, he took 500 something damage to the face and died, a pure 1 in a million shot.

GW2 is all about the melee face roll, just look at the stupid invulnerable mechanic that every AI target gets when you try use the environment in combat, or if you drag it too far (yep, I main a warrior now, ranger does not resemble its GW1 counterpart at all).

What is the point of making these vast and beautiful landscapes and environments, especially with the ability to climb it, if you can’t use it to your advantage by being a SMART player. Pretty sad really.

Ranged attacks are inefficient across the board in GW2, not just for rangers. The game is slanted in favor of melee. I’d imagine ANet doesn’t want this in the game partly for that reason, and partly because range limits are a tightly controlled mechanic and increased range is something that they are not willing to expand upon.

I really do miss that mechanic, made you really aware of your environment and made holding the high ground a very legitimate strategy.

thaooo.5320:

I one shot a poor Luxon Assassin on the Grenz Frontier alliance battle map, from up on that reaaaaalllly high up bridge. It was almost impossible to ever hit anyone from up there, simply because if they change direction even slightly, you miss, and everyone always moves slightly.

Yet somehow I landed Keen Arrow on this Luxon, he took 500 something damage to the face and died, a pure 1 in a million shot..

ouch! XD
i used to run with the armor passing skills aswell as the spirit of favourable winds for the super fast arrows and camp the walls at fort aspenwood, you could snipe down the turtles before they even get close!