Guild Wars 2

Revenant snip (bolded) from Massively Overpowered…

“the setup meant that the class had access to two heals, two Elite skills, and a variety of maneuvers that could be tailored to the situation.”

My personal opinions…

The Revenant (and some of the other professions such as Elementalist and Thief to name a couple) has too many different design and performance mechanics. I understand the intent was/is to make professions interesting, but I personally feel these different profession mechanics are off putting to many players. Instead of providing common UI management and control, simplifying attack and skill use with cooldowns only, ditching resource bars and streamlining play performance so it is easier for any player to pick up any profession in any area of the game, I believe the attempts at making “unique” profession mechanics only serve to alienate a lot of players. Players are instead forced to learn (or fail to learn and abandon) completely different mechanics to play competently and to also be competitive against other players. While some people may easily adapt and/or really like these different profession mechanics, I have a feeling that the above is having a negative effect on long term retention and play variety for many. Also, I believe these different designs translate to professions never really being balanced at the meta stage (especially in pvp environments where it counts the most).

To help you understand the above paragraph better… While playing City of Heroes (which had its own set of problems, but at least had carp ton of different “profession” options and build flexibility) I could pick up any archetype and powerset and it felt familiar. Yes, I had to learn how to play different roles (melee, ranged, tank, control, buff, debuff, interruption, heals, stealth play and combinations of these…) and what each power did, but every one of them had the same base controls and resource mechanics. Yes, some had secondary resource and performance mechanics (Brute Fury and Dominator Domination come to mind), but those were minor to the overall playstyle. In gw2, however, different professions have completely different gameplay mechanics, effective playstyles and resources (or lack thereof). Examples…

>Ranger- Straight forward playstyle. Abilities on timers. Two weapon swaps. One set of utilities on timers.

>Thief- Initiative resource management playstyle. Initiative allows for more “specialized” attacks to be used more frequently. Two weapon swaps. One set of utilities on timers.

>Elementalist- Atunement swap-swap-swap playstyle. One weapon set, but effectively 4 weapon sets (20 abilities) to draw from. One set of utilities on timers.

>Revenant- Resource bar management playstyle. One weapon set with super low cooldowns. Utility swapping effectively giving multiple heals and elites.

When I look at these different resource management and skill set playstyles, it kind of boggles my mind how the devs wanted players focused on playing the game and not on the UI. Combat can chaotic enough at times (particularly in wvw and spvp), and profession designs that require more UI fiddling, resource awareness and swap-swap-swap mechanics seem counterproductive to the above developer’s goal. The emphasis should be on role preference (which is kinda hard here considering everything is a version of dps) and different powers doing different things, not on professions requiring more keyboard management and memorization than others to be played proficiently.

Gw2 has a great base combat system with targeting, casting on the move and overall “smoothness” to gameplay, but I bet that the spvp community (and regularly played 80s in other areas of the game too) is small largely because of the different ways professions are designed. To exacerbate the fundamental profession problems mentioned above, there are such a minor amount of viable “high end” builds per profession that gameplay becomes very stale and people get annoyed with being pigeon holed. There are so few competitive weapon sets, skills and traits that it’s not even funny, but nothing is really done about it. I mean my gosh, Rangers have been begging to have their sword abilities function better and alternatives to pets, but the devs are making it seem like an impossible coding feat. Additionally, when I look at the pvp meta with things like Taunt (which will force opposing players to run around auto attacking even more) and that the devs are anticipating and encouraging more “perma stealth builds” in spvp (yay, because we didn’t have enough of that silliness in wvw), I feel like the development team does not care at all about having quality and balanced combat. Players have voiced major concerns with things like perma stealth, condition “carpet bombing”, immobilize stacking, continuous knock backs, some over the top burst attacks, being locked out of combat by cc abilities…, but all of them are mostly ignored while the devs shuffle some traits and numbers that run behind the scenes.

I have played many games and had been an avid pvper for a very long time across different platforms, and my overall impression now is that the devs will just keep tossing in quirky game modes (strongholds), gimmicky objectives (new wvw map), and these unique profession "stuffs” (specializations) to string players along and not “reimagine” major issues plaguing the game. It also seems as if they do not have an interest in improving professions and having balanced combat (which are the most important aspects of a combat oriented game). I understand that no game is perfect (not even the one I mentioned), but I think the devs are doing a disservice to the players (and their own pockets books by extension) by making the “difficult to master“ part of professions and combat about keyboard and resource management as opposed to abilitiy/power use, timing, counter play, positioning, los…. Also, if unbalanced profession and combat mechanic “things” do not improve, then there will not be any hope of having a better wvw experience outside of blobbing or increased spvp/esports participation.

Reserved for future use

Reserved again for future use

wouldn’t it have been easier and less confusing to just post a link? also you should provide a source other than just the website you know an author

did they Demo the expansion?

Because if so, I am not liking where this is going, when the press are not interested.

You speak as if they’re just now deciding on all the mechanics of the Revenant and winging the entire thing. You know they’ve been testing and refining this for a while now, right? It’s nice that you think you have something to offer to the process, but I guarantee there is no concern you can imagine that they aren’t already trying to address during development.

Andred.1087:

You speak as if they’re just now deciding on all the mechanics of the Revenant and winging the entire thing. You know they’ve been testing and refining this for a while now, right? It’s nice that you think you have something to offer to the process, but I guarantee there is no concern you can imagine that they aren’t already trying to address during development.

Iam not sure that kind of talk will work around here, after what we went through with the NPE/Trait thing…

also the OP is right about the broken balance of many of the skills.

Remember the dreaded “new heal skills”?
they were terrible. Laughable that the developers thought it was a good idea to add those skills to the game in such poor condition.

There are many players who like complicated classes.

Simple classes for those who prefer them. Complicated classes for those who prefer them. We have both. Why is this a bad thing?

Thats a joke right? You’re saying that the devs should simplify every class. Have you played some of the major MMos on the market.
WoW
Swtor
Aion
Eve
Rift
The list goes on.

Gw2 sits along the bottom of the ‘Complex’ bar. The thing that keeps it from being boring is how deep the combat is and how varied all the classes are. which is a pretty impressive line to walk.

The Key thing for making classes that are, Different. Is finding classes that fit the playstyle of vaired players. And they do a really good job of that while still having one of the best balanced games i’ve ever seen.

Each class has a huge range of :
High to Low:
Skill Cap – Signet Vs Sword Sword Warrior
Risk: Meditation Vs Shout Guard
Class Difficulty: Ranger Vs Engi

So i can’t understand why you would want them to narrow it down.
If you don’t want to play a class that presses a lot of buttons Ranger and Warrior are always there
But if you love always having places to improve and a huge difference in how skilled you are vs how well you do Thief and Ele are there.

I beg to differ: effective high dps ranger is not easy button… it takes a lot of button presses to make the ranger worth a puppy.

Don’t believe me? Go to the Ranger subforum and look at how many complain about how difficult the sword is to use.

I’m not saying the ranger is brain dead. But (at least in the pvp setting) you can be bad at them (not maximizing your options, not doing a complex rotation, not rotating CDs) and it still very easy to preform well. Like personally just build
Read the Wind Power
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Read_the_Wind_Power_Ranger

Long bow 1 & 2, And Sword 1 & 2. And you’re killing most people.
Everything else in the build is a form survival.

While when you’re playing Thief or Ele you have to use all of your skill in just the right way to balance survival and damage because if you use them in a wanton manner you’ll die or not do enough damage.

Nothing wrong with having a profession that requires micromanaging for those who enjoy that sort of thing. Lots of choice is good. Easy professions to hard to manage professions. Something for everyone.

Swagger.1459:

The Revenant (and some of the other professions such as Elementalist and Thief to name a couple) has too many different design and performance mechanics.

Wholeheartedly disagree.

Swagger.1459:

I understand the intent was/is to make professions interesting, but I personally feel these different profession mechanics are off putting to many players.

Players have different play preferences. Some, like myself, LOATHE cooldown driven combat. Thieves, and now revenants, are GW2’s option for those players.

Completely appreciate that you’d prefer yet another cooldown driven profession because that’s what you like. But, ugggggh. You’ll get SEVEN new cooldown driven specs. One attached to each of the existing SEVEN cooldown driven professions. And they’ll each potentially get MORE cooldown driven specs in the future.

It’s not the end of the world if there’s a few professions you don’t love, especially if it leaves room for players with different tastes to also find enjoyment in the game.

Stop directing responces at OP lol
He copy-pasted an article.
Send e-mails to the author instead.

DocZed.6973:

Stop directing responces at OP lol
He copy-pasted an article.
Send e-mails to the author instead.

You are mistaken on all counts lol

The OP copied a snippet – bolded as they pointed out, from the massively article. The rest, which I responded to, was the OP’s own words, ideas, thoughts etc.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nothing wrong with having a profession that requires micromanaging for those who enjoy that sort of thing. Lots of choice is good. Easy professions to hard to manage professions. Something for everyone.

I believe there is something wrong with having different ways of “micromanaging” professions. It can alienate people from playing certain professions purely based on the levels of keyboard and resource management proficiency required to be competent and/or competitive in any area of the game. All professions should be on equal “control” footing and equally manageable. Choosing what profession(s) to play should be about personal preference (preferred role(s) and aesthetics), not based on “easy or hard to manage”. These imposed “difficulty levels” are an unnecessary gate to playing certain professions and are particularly detrimental for end game.

Let me spin that “lots of choice is good” statement. Look at the spvp meta and tell me that there are lots of choices there. Tell me there are a plethora of viable “high end” team compositions, weapons, utilities, traits… On the flip side, in owpve and wvw players can run around in a zerg while auto attacking and aoeing their way to victory with a bit more forgiving build options, but that has a limited enjoyment lifespan for some. Also, the zerg and stack game hides many of the core profession and combat issues that I mentioned in my original post.

Overall, the main problems are that the higher you go in any area of the game, there are less and less optimal build choices and flexibility. These problems are made worse by the profession “difficult level” designs. Colin mentioned wanting all the skills to be meaningful to use, so by extension that means all professions will need work and “things” need to be better balanced. When the devs have to account for all these different profession mechanics and such, it makes balancing and progression much more difficult. Also, the devs want to build better and more meaningful game content, and that starts with fixing/working on the flawed profession and combat foundations.

Think about this… NPE was designed so the game would be more user friendly because things were “too confusing for new players”. At the moment, all professions are not equally user friendly and can be “too confusing for new players”.

Swagger.1459:

I believe there is something wrong with having different ways of “micromanaging” professions. It can alienate people from playing certain professions purely based on the levels of keyboard and resource management proficiency required to be competent and/or competitive in any area of the game. All professions should be on equal “control” footing and equally manageable. Choosing what profession(s) to play should be about personal preference (preferred role(s) and aesthetics), not based on “easy or hard to manage”. These imposed “difficulty levels” are an unnecessary gate to playing certain professions and are particularly detrimental for end game.

Let me spin that “lots of choice is good” statement. Look at the spvp meta and tell me that there are lots of choices there. Tell me there are a plethora of viable “high end” team compositions, weapons, utilities, traits… On the flip side, in owpve and wvw players can run around in a zerg while auto attacking and aoeing their way to victory with a bit more forgiving build options, but that has a limited enjoyment lifespan for some. Also, the zerg and stack game hides many of the core profession and combat issues that I mentioned in my original post.

Overall, the main problems are that the higher you go in any area of the game, there are less and less optimal build choices and flexibility. These problems are made worse by the profession “difficult level” designs. Colin mentioned wanting all the skills to be meaningful to use, so by extension that means all professions will need work and “things” need to be better balanced. When the devs have to account for all these different profession mechanics and such, it makes balancing and progression much more difficult. Also, the devs want to build better and more meaningful game content, and that starts with fixing/working on the flawed profession and combat foundations.

Think about this… NPE was designed so the game would be more user friendly because things were “too confusing for new players”. At the moment, all professions are not equally user friendly and can be “too confusing for new players”.

You can believe anything you want but on a high competitive level the difficulty to learn a profession is irrelevant.
And when it comes to NPE not all professions have to be equally user friendly, hell if every class was the same it would just be boring, most ppl need new mechanics and ways to play to keep themselves interested, if playing a thief and an ele was basically the same cooldown managing mechanic then what incentive would i have to play it?“oh you can hazz fireeeeee and water and air and earthss” someone might say but that will just be the same thing i was already doing with different effects.
So no i do not think every class have to use the same resource managing mechanics or be equally user friendly, every class should be whatever they need to be so that it is engaging and interesting enough for someone that rolled x class to want to roll z class, if they so choose to, and not have to feel like it’s all the same but with different graphic effects.

Swagger.1459:

Choosing what profession(s) to play should be about personal preference (preferred role(s) and aesthetics), not based on “easy or hard to manage”. These imposed “difficulty levels” are an unnecessary gate to playing certain professions and are particularly detrimental for end game.

I can appreciate that. Personally one reason I never played GW2 as my main game was I could never settle on a profession. I liked the theme of some. Hated their mechanics. Like the mechanics of others. Hated their theme. Until revenant.

If I’d had my way all professions would be like thief and revenant. Kitten you and everyone else who doesn’t like that style of play.

That’s why you’re still wrong and why ArenaNet is rolling in great big dirty piles of money. Smart game design involves catering to as many different tastes as you can.

Caeledh.5437:

Swagger.1459:

Choosing what profession(s) to play should be about personal preference (preferred role(s) and aesthetics), not based on “easy or hard to manage”. These imposed “difficulty levels” are an unnecessary gate to playing certain professions and are particularly detrimental for end game.

I can appreciate that. Personally one reason I never played GW2 as my main game was I could never settle on a profession. I liked the theme of some. Hated their mechanics. Like the mechanics of others. Hated their theme. Until revenant.

If I’d had my way all professions would be like thief and revenant. Kitten you and everyone else who doesn’t like that style of play.

That’s why you’re still wrong and why ArenaNet is rolling in great big dirty piles of money. Smart game design involves catering to as many different tastes as you can.

What I find wrong or “off” is that Gw2 has some great game elements, but they were not in the top 10 f2p games last year and gw2 china did not do so spectacular. Certainly makes you wonder what the problems are and why this game doesn’t appeal to a broader audience. The only answers I can come up with are the poor profession designs, major combat issues that have been ignored and lack of regular and meaningful balance updates.

Swagger.1459:

What I find wrong or “off” is that Gw2 has some great game elements, but they were not in the top 10 f2p games last year and gw2 china did not do so spectacular.

I don’t know what top 10 list you’re referring to, but GW2 isn’t even a f2p game. It’s b2p. I bet WoW also wasn’t on the list!

Swagger.1459:

Certainly makes you wonder what the problems are and why this game doesn’t appeal to a broader audience. The only answers I can come up with are the poor profession designs, major combat issues that have been ignored and lack of regular and meaningful balance updates.

I certainly wouldn’t argue that there aren’t problems with the game. But you can’t ignore the fact that it has been one of the THE most financially successful MMOs in recent years with sales figures that make other developers bitter with envy. I’ve seen some practically curse GW2 in their forums.

But offering different profession designs is one aspect they got absolutely right. Not to my tastes it has to be said. One of the reasons I only ever played occasionally until now was I’m the opposite of you and didn’t like the combat for most professions. Love the, story, world and lots of other things but the only prof with combat really to my tastes was thief and I don’t like their theme at all. Engineer and warrior are probably top of the pile for me, for having no / shorter weapon swap cooldown (which I find annoying).

It is smart to offer players variety. That increases the likelihood of any given player being able to enjoy your game. GW2 has been this kind of smart in other ways too, like there being different ways to get materials for ascended crafting. There aren’t many MMOs where you can do that without setting foot in a dungeon (though personally I like them in GW2).

If every profession played exactly the same way then it would appeal to a much narrower audience. That’s obvious and obviously bad.

Watch the revenant demo vids. I haven’t seen anyone say they don’t like the revenant prof mechanics and wish they were like the other 7 cooldown based ones. Rather the opposite. They love it and many others will too.