Guild Wars 2

Each time I go back to GW2, I find myself baffled by the lack of basic features that I feel should be no-brainer components of a competitive game.

One such example are Bars, or the lack thereof; I’m referring to permanent health bars on top of each player, ally and enemy, as well as skill cast bars below them, and possibly a buffs/debuffs display.

I’m sure I don’t need to list all the reasons why they would be helpful in discerning just what the heck is going on during fights, such as knowing at a glance which skills my enemy/ally just used, or which enemy/ally I should be prioritizing with my offensive/supportive skills, and not to mention it would dramatically reduce the edge that communication gives to premade teams versus solo-ers.

Yes, I know there are the Party UI and animation/sound tells, but honestly as an average player in competitive games, even if I’ve played solely PvP since launch, in GW2 I am still unable to understand combat situations to the level I’d need to in order to play tactically, and am forced to go “by instinct” instead (i.e. lots of spamming), which gets boring quickly.

Does anyone else feel like this is a big shortcoming?

ahhhhh no, as someone who played sports competitively into there early 20’s its all realistic.

Peoples health bars are on the top of the screen once you click on them. Not knowing a person skills is the right way to do things. If were playing basketball you dont know if i have a good jump shot or post game until we actually play. Its called the in game adjustments. At no point should you see another players skill resets, its there build and you have no right to see what there gonna do to you until they do it.

People on team speak helps but ultimately it comes down to winning the fights still. Too many times ive seen people lost straight 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 and blame them being team speak when really you just got out played.

This is the realist pvp you an get period

kdaddy.5431:

ahhhhh no, as someone who played sports competitively into there early 20’s its all realistic.

Peoples health bars are on the top of the screen once you click on them. Not knowing a person skills is the right way to do things. If were playing basketball you dont know if i have a good jump shot or post game until we actually play. Its called the in game adjustments. At no point should you see another players skill resets, its there build and you have no right to see what there gonna do to you until they do it.

People on team speak helps but ultimately it comes down to winning the fights still. Too many times ive seen people lost straight 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 and blame them being team speak when really you just got out played.

This is the realist pvp you an get period

Leaving cast-bars aside for the moment, stuff like health levels and buffs/debuffs are information that is already available in this game, so permanently displaying it instead of forcing you to click on several targets or discern which of the names in the Party UI corresponds to your nearby allies would simply be a quality-of-life improvement, and a big one at that.

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I agree, we need Health bars and Casting bars like in good old GW1. It would also be another step in eSport direction, since such things make games much easier to follow from spectator point of view.

TyPin.9860:

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I don’t see why they couldn’t be optional, many modern competitive games offer this as a choice.

ilcane.3081:

TyPin.9860:

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I don’t see why they couldn’t be optional, many modern competitive games offer this as a choice.

Theres another reason why i like this. Its a unique style of game play based dodging and watching your opponents movements. I can understand your point of view but i for one enjoy the dance between me and another player in a 1 vs 1. Also as someone who has played a bit of all the classes i see and recognize certain skills and abilities letting me know what they are doing.

I disliked gw1 combat and many other combats since your watching the or players health bars and skill movements. Here its all in the moment, you might be attacking the same target as everyone else then you see a ranger on a ledge free casting and you decide to quickly rotate to him to allow other players to attack the main target.

Or a necro goes lich form and hes targeting you. You cant look to a side skill bar to see he used it. If your back is turned and you cant react fast enough he should down you for multiple reasons. Everything is about seeing what your opponent is doing and you ability to react to it which makes it special for me.

^ I still don’t see how the addition of optional bars would prevent you from playing that way.

At the same time, people who prefer another kind of information display can play their preferred way as well.

It’d make interrupt skills more potent, and would enable players to time/save them for key skills that have longer cast times. This would be excellent for Mesmers specifically.

I’m for it personally because, let’s face it. In a team fight most people are not using their CC’s to the best of their abilities due to the fast-paced gameplay GW2 provides.

ilcane.3081:

^ I still don’t see how the addition of optional bars would prevent you from playing that way.

At the same time, people who prefer another kind of information display can play their preferred way as well.

I also like that I don’t have to see a million bars and buffs flowing around…

Why I don’t like it to be optional iether is that players that use this will have the upper hand and this will force me to have this active anyway to be in par with other players who use it.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

ilcane.3081:

^ I still don’t see how the addition of optional bars would prevent you from playing that way.

At the same time, people who prefer another kind of information display can play their preferred way as well.

I also like that I don’t have to see a million bars and buffs flowing around…

Why I don’t like it to be optional iether is that players that use this will have the upper hand and this will force me to have this active anyway to be in par with other players who use it.

You are dissenting for the visual aspect, but you are actually agreeing with my main point.

After all, all the information that even a skill bar provides is “supposed to” to be available to you right now through animation/sound tells, but my point is that it isn’t nearly intelligible enough, so having bars would be preferable.
By saying that people who use the bars would get the upper hand, you acknowledge that it would indeed make things clearer.

So is having a small additional bar under the players’ names really too high a price to pay for much greater clarity?
I’m sure they could make it non-obtrusive and customizable with little effort.

ilcane.3081:

TyPin.9860:

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I don’t see why they couldn’t be optional, many modern competitive games offer this as a choice.

Before GW2 was released, ANet emphasized that they didn’t want players to look at bars and skill icons. If you make this option optional^^ then more and more people will likely use this option, because it will likely offer an advantage (especially the skill bar, less so the health bar). This would defeat the purpose of not having bars by default and it would work against the intended feeling of game play.

You can now argue, how much sense it makes, that there are no bars, but I guess it is core to the GW2 game play philosophy and any option breaking this philosophy would ultimately defeat the intended game play feel.

I thought “not looking at bars” part was HP bars a la Monks/dedicated healers.

I don’t think this would be a good addition. It makes stuns and interrupts so much stronger. Imagine this: you wanna cast your healing skill? Interrupt. You wanna cast your elite skill? Interrupt. You wanna do your strong weapon combo? Interrupt.
All this is possible already if you have the skill for it. And it should definitely require that level of skill.
Also it would make stun lock even easier because you could see the exact time when you need to recast it. That would be horrible.

TyPin.9860:

ilcane.3081:

TyPin.9860:

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I don’t see why they couldn’t be optional, many modern competitive games offer this as a choice.

Before GW2 was released, ANet emphasized that they didn’t want players to look at bars and skill icons. If you make this option optional^^ then more and more people will likely use this option, because it will likely offer an advantage (especially the skill bar, less so the health bar). This would defeat the purpose of not having bars by default and it would work against the intended feeling of game play.

You can now argue, how much sense it makes, that there are no bars, but I guess it is core to the GW2 game play philosophy and any option breaking this philosophy would ultimately defeat the intended game play feel.

I’m well aware that the bars I’m talking about will never be implemented, I’ve been following the developments of this game long enough to know that ANet will stubbornly stick to their ideas no matter what, and will only compromise on details.

I’m just arguing that the results are unsatisfactory, whether it’s part of the “GW2 game play philosophy” or not.

ilcane.3081:

I’m just arguing that the results are unsatisfactory, whether it’s part of the “GW2 game play philosophy” or not.

It’s one of the biggest issues of GW2.
They cover failures with “GW2 game play philosophy”…

TyPin.9860:

Before GW2 was released, ANet emphasized that they didn’t want players to look at bars and skill icons. If you make this option optional^^ then more and more people will likely use this option, because it will likely offer an advantage (especially the skill bar, less so the health bar). This would defeat the purpose of not having bars by default and it would work against the intended feeling of game play.

You can now argue, how much sense it makes, that there are no bars, but I guess it is core to the GW2 game play philosophy and any option breaking this philosophy would ultimately defeat the intended game play feel.

Anet has capitulated and changed their minds on so many things that it doesn’t matter what the “philosophy” was. That was 3+ years ago, Anet sold millions before the game came out and lost mountains of players within the first several months. The philosophy changed from “no higher gear tier” to “gear grind! yay”. It didn’t work out too well. Their idea of ditching the trinity didn’t work out, it still hasn’t worked the way they envisioned, zerkers rule. And pvp is the most dead aspect of this game, how is adding transparency going to hurt something that’s already dead?

dem sum berns

@ilcane:
Unsatisfactory to you, highly satisfactory to me. Don’t present your own likes and dislikes as objective "good"s and "bad"s.

@data:
PvP in GW2 isn’t E-Sports worthy, so far I am with you. But it is far from dead. Or am I constantly battling dead people? OML (read: “oh my Lyssa”)… I see dead people
ANet has not delivered on many on it’s promises, but so far they are the closest to what I call ideal from all the MMOs out there atm. There is still potential to become better, much potential. But the design philosophy of GW2 is evidently different to many of the other MMOs out there.

They specifically designed the game around not having cast bars, so you would have to watch the character and not some bars. I personally hope they don’t provide cast bars.

And as much as saying “just make it an option” sounds like a nice compromise, if it goes against the design philosophy of the game, I think it’s a bad idea.

Cogbyrn.7283:

They specifically designed the game around not having cast bars, so you would have to watch the character and not some bars. I personally hope they don’t provide cast bars.

Lets watch silly little Asura and his animations >_>’

TyPin.9860:

@ilcane:
Unsatisfactory to you, highly satisfactory to me. Don’t present your own likes and dislikes as objective "good"s and "bad"s.

When did I ever say otherwise?
Am I supposed to end each sentence with “IMHO” or something?

I assumed that goes without saying.

ilcane.3081:

I’m just arguing that the results are unsatisfactory, whether it’s part of the “GW2 game play philosophy” or not.

These were your words. And I assumed this is the bases of your argument. I am sorry, if I mistook your words, but it very much sounds as if the instance of “unsatisfactory” is your actual point.

ilcane.3081:

TyPin.9860:

No, please no health bars, please no skill icons and cast bars. I love that in GW2 I am not urged to look at growing and shrinking bars and actually can focus on the actual movement and actions of my opponent.

I don’t see why they couldn’t be optional, many modern competitive games offer this as a choice.

Extra important information is never a choice.

^ It is not “extra”, it’s just an alternative way to relay that information, which now comes in the form of Party UI, Health Bars on click, and animation/sound tells.

TyPin.9860:

ilcane.3081:

I’m just arguing that the results are unsatisfactory, whether it’s part of the “GW2 game play philosophy” or not.

These were your words. And I assumed this is the bases of your argument. I am sorry, if I mistook your words, but it very much sounds as if the instance of “unsatisfactory” is your actual point.

The “I’m just arguing that” part makes it sound pretty subjective to me, if I had meant to claim it was an absolute truth, i wouldn’t have needed to argue it in the first place.

ilcane.3081:

^ It is not “extra”, it’s just an alternative way to relay that information, which now comes in the form of Party UI, Health Bars on click, and animation/sound tells.

Cast bars, skill Icons and generally displayed health above each each player is “extra” information.

^ But it is the same information you are “supposed to” get right now, my whole argument is that Bars would be much more effective at relaying it.

It would simply amount to a huge quality-of-life improvement.

If you need a comparison, you currently have the option to turn off AoE rings right?
If you decide to do so, you’ll get the same information through visual effects and knowledge alone, but it isn’t nearly as intelligible as the actual display of the rings; nonetheless, some people might decide to disable them if they feel like they don’t need/like the extra help.

The issue of adding health bars was that people will have too much build transparency. However, now with spectate, there is no secrecy in builds. Anyone can copy anyone’s idea anyway. This sort of update would improve warrior, Mesmer, ranger, thief and other classes stun lock builds. It may also make dodge less of a movement skill and more of a dodge skill while reducing spamming.

To be honest…

[+]:
-> Game easier to learn for newcomers, you still need to know what to dodge and when to do so.
-> Players could see what is going around them in team fights. Don’t tell me, you’re watching nine (9!) other characters and you can tell what they are doing or what they are going to do by watching their casting animations.
-> Much more esports. Viewers often don’t have large game knowledge (they don’t know each single animation in game and even if they know each single animation for humans standard enemy models aren’t used there).
-> We wouldn’t be forced to use standard enemy models for Ranked… since we’re forced to do so, since it’s close to impossible to read animations of non-humans.

[-]:
-> Using this feature would be required to compete at top lvl.

Old thread i know, but I’m being turned off playing my support character because of a lack of information on the fly.

As far as I know, were still not expecting any changes.

I do NOT want cast bars to be available. That technically adds information that we currently don’t have access to, and more importantly makes watching your opponent pointless.

But we DO have access to health bars. There needs to be an option for them to be displayed at all times. for enemies and allies

Casting bars would make interrupting and dodging more intuitive while also making the game easier to understand for viewers. I’m all for it.

This is not World of Warcraft, I played World of Warcraft a long time and I don’t miss those bars, but what would be great to see is how much life has the opponent you are targeting, nothing else.