Guild Wars 2

Lucky.9421:

A lot of great points here.

I would like to add that these events, while being for the GW2 community, are also meant to reach out to the gaming community in general. There is an opportunity to advertise this game and bring people in, thereby growing and strengthening our player base.

That said, full teams of Asuras do not necessarily represent the game accurately. Variety of player races is a strength of GW2.

Maybe instead of banning Asuras from future tourneys, we can mandate that there one of each of the 5 races present on the team?

Yeah that’s another big issue I have with the over abundance of Asura in this Pax tournament. I would think a lot of people who don’t play the game but might be interested in it would be turned off if they see that it’s only a bunch of midgets fighting each other.

I appreciate all the suggestions from people about making permanent changes to Asura models and can understand it. But for the tpvp games I play, which aren’t at nearly the same level as the teams playing in pax, I always find a more mixed bunch of races, even have some norn and charr! So for me the bigger problem currently is how 90% of the players in these proper tournaments are running asura which could easily be improved with no work by simply not allowing them in tournaments that will have lots of people watching and lead to a much better viewing experience.

It would be great to have an option to enable standardized models, like the avatar placeholders in WvW culling. Players themselves could enable this to focus on the game, but for Observers they could disable this to watch all the shiny avatars.

I personally feel that self expression is really important, especially when the progression system is based heavily around Aesthetics. So I feel that using base human models is not the way to go, the proper way to deal with the situation would be to just simply standardize the size of models, there are even some human females that can get really tiny, but their animations are far easier to see and deal with compared to asuras, so this is a problem that’s fairly exclusive to Asura.

I knew this day was coming, and used to bring this topic up quite often only to be met with laughter, and here we are.

omg just make an asura yourselves!

I hope the system will kick in as soon as a 2v2 fight starts. It doesn’t take much to obscure the vision :p

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please refer to the snip I took of our release page (attached). Here’s the link for the full page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/august-06-2013/

This should help address the concerns about effects covering animations.

I’m pleased to see this coming, but effects were only part of the problem for me. Even in the 1vs1 fights where there weren’t many effects but both players were asura it still wasn’t very nice to watch because of how asura animations are just inherently harder to read. I know there won’t be any changes for the NA qualifiers but I would just like to know if banning asura from future tournaments is something you might consider to make for a better show. Again I’m only talking about proper tournaments with lots of people watching, not all pvp.

Tharium.7325:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please refer to the snip I took of our release page (attached). Here’s the link for the full page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/august-06-2013/

This should help address the concerns about effects covering animations.

I’m pleased to see this coming, but effects were only part of the problem for me. Even in the 1vs1 fights where there weren’t many effects but both players were asura it still wasn’t very nice to watch because of how asura animations are just inherently harder to read. I know there won’t be any changes for the NA qualifiers but I would just like to know if banning asura from future tournaments is something you might consider to make for a better show. Again I’m only talking about proper tournaments with lots of people watching, not all pvp.

Seconded, Asura’s are the main problem here, while particle effects have been an issue on it’s own, it’s not directly related to the problems pertaining to Asura, which have to do with animation masking, reading, countering, and seeing even what type of weapons they’re holding, which is nigh impossible.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please refer to the snip I took of our release page (attached). Here’s the link for the full page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/august-06-2013/

This should help address the concerns about effects covering animations.

Also, note that when I mentioned the hit box, it was in response to the post before mine. I didn’t have time to quote and make it fancy. I’m fully aware that it’s not completely to do with the hit box.

Allie the problem isn’t screen pollution from particle effects (although that’s a great thing to fix). The problem is that animations on Asura are MUCH smaller and MUCH less pronounced than on the larger, humanoid races. For instance, larcenous strike on an Asura is MUCH harder to see than on a Human/Sylvari because of the size difference.

The BEST solution would be to normalize all asurans to medium/small human + sylvari heights. This technology is already feasible (SAB + caledon forest mushrooms use this effect). Thanks.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please refer to the snip I took of our release page (attached). Here’s the link for the full page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/august-06-2013/

This should help address the concerns about effects covering animations.

Also, note that when I mentioned the hit box, it was in response to the post before mine. I didn’t have time to quote and make it fancy. I’m fully aware that it’s not completely to do with the hit box.

Hey Allie, thanks for the info. Could we get some more detailed info (for us geeks) on how exactly this system works? Will we notice it even in the smaller scale fights?

Allie, the problem with asuras aren’t the particle effects, but the moves. You often have to read spells from the way characters lift their hands or how they swing their sword – nearly impossible to read on an asura.

Gandarel.5091:

Allie, the problem with asuras aren’t the particle effects, but the moves. You often have to read spells from the way characters lift their hands or how they swing their sword – nearly impossible to read on an asura.

Not to mention that it’s often extremely difficult to even identify the weapon set used on an asura b/c the weapons themselves are so much smaller than on all the other races.

Again the simplest solution is to just normalize (scale up) the size of Asurans to medium height human/sylvair. The technology to do this is already ingame!

Lowering overall partial effects will help, and I understand they want to first see if that eliviates the issue enough since moving towards a standard character model would be pretty drastic for a game focused so heavily on cosmetic self expression.

But after watching the qualifiers this weekend, I can say for myself that the size of asura is an independent issue. There was one necro asura in particular who I believe was wearing the arah dungeon chest piece, and there was just no way I could tell what those stumpy little arms were up to in those big billowy sleeves. And that was with me as a spectator watching her specifically. I can only imagine what it’s like as a player. I think the fact that auras are choosen so often should be evidence enough that the small size and stocky proportions makes a difference.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please refer to the snip I took of our release page (attached). Here’s the link for the full page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/august-06-2013/

This should help address the concerns about effects covering animations.

Also, note that when I mentioned the hit box, it was in response to the post before mine. I didn’t have time to quote and make it fancy. I’m fully aware that it’s not completely to do with the hit box.

The issue is completely separate from the hitbox. Asura characters using the smallest sized weapons and skin colour to match those weapons make for incredibly difficult to read character models. This has nothing to do with particle effects either. While cleaning up some particle effects would help, it doesn’t actually deal with the problem itself.

Recognizing certain animations is critical in certain matchups. Banish was a classic example last year, when certain teams had no issues holding onto mid on certain maps vs anything other than an Asura guardian. Cloak and dagger’s trail effect is far harder to see on a small character model.

The response to this is to randomly throw out predictive dodges rather than reactive dodges, which makes many matchups frustrating and unenjoyable due to the removal of counterplay elements.

There are additional issues with visual information in the game as well; Large names, titles and other pieces of information will clip through walls even if your character model is completely invisible. This gives an additional advantage to characters who have short names and forego titles. The difference is pretty significant, too; a character with a 4 letter name can hide behind the braziers mid on temple, or the mausoleums/ledges.

This has been a significant issue since release. Please work on it.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok guys, since you are all only focusing on tiny portions of my posts, I am just going to stop posting to prevent further confusion.

I will say again though; I don’t want anyone to be confused that I think hit boxes or skill effects are the only things that matter. This is very much NOT what I was saying. Not at all.

That’s FINE Allie, but could we get an acknowledgement that Asuras confer the advantage of smaller + more difficult to see weapon sets + animations?

This could very easily be solved by using EXISTING ingame technology to scale up Asura models ONLY WHILE IN PVP

[Edited by Moderator]

No, just scroll up and read the posts by people who haven’t bothered to read the dev posts in context and then write up a long statement that is completely meaningless because it addresses something that was never stated.

Its like talking to a brick wall.

Just look one post above Allie’s and you’ll see this exact phenomenon.

The issue is known, it has nothing to do with the sfx changes incoming but they will certainly relieve part of the problem. Yet you have posts that say exactly what I just said in that sentence as if it were never stated and no one realizes it.

Oh Anet… while making this poorly telegraphed game its like they never stopped to think… but wait, we want people to actually watch this game and know what’s happening…

Oh lordy.

Kind of reminds me of when they said “but we have to work out kinks for 1/2 a year after release, to get observer mode to work in this game engine we entirely remade specifically for an esport based game”

People whine on here about lack of communication, and when they get it, they snipe at it and take things way of context. It’s like trying to feed a bunch of screaming little babies that don’t want anything to eat, but claim to be hungry anyway. Ridiculous.

How about making the characters look like humans / sylvari / norn just to the spectators?

Thedenofsin.7340:

How about making the characters look like humans / sylvari / norn just to the spectators?

It’s not about the spectators. It’s about the players. Good players can counter enemy plays by identifying the animations of their skills. If you can’t read the animations because the character model is too small, then good play is punished.

I do find annoying how much harder is to target asura compared to other races.

Some people say that the mouse goes for the hitbox, but in my experience it’s not like that. It goes for the silhouette instead, and asura have way smaller silhouettes.

The hitboxes may be the same, but when I mouse over them, with the other races I can easily get the target, but with asura often anything else gets priority. Team members, allies, other enemies, summoned creatures… I have to tab-target to them, and that may not be fast enough when you are a warrior and need to use downed #2 on them ASAP.

It doesn’t help how small weapons look in their hands and how much less intuitive their animations are either. For example, in Southsun survival, with all other races you always easily see that they are attacking you with the bow. An asura that is a bit far may look either like readying the bow or kneeling to scavenge, specially if they set themselves to a single dark color like a midnight one so, their arms ‘dissolve’ in the rest of their body.

I was going to say that bunkers having bigger hit boxes would be advantageous because they could intercept projectiles more easily. But, ofcourse as mentioned, hit boxes are standard.

If this game had player collision larger bunkers would be better able to body block. (perhaps another tacit suggestion?)

Errant Venture.9371:

This could very easily be solved by using EXISTING ingame technology to scale up Asura models ONLY WHILE IN PVP

Scalling up asura models, hell no.
Give us an option to see enemy players as human models instead.
Aren’t they already using a similar system for WvW ?

Errant Venture.9371:

Thedenofsin.7340:

How about making the characters look like humans / sylvari / norn just to the spectators?

It’s not about the spectators. It’s about the players. Good players can counter enemy plays by identifying the animations of their skills. If you can’t read the animations because the character model is too small, then good play is punished.

People like you have derailed this thread and made it into all sorts of issues that I didn’t originally intend which has also derailed the dev responses somewhat. Lots of people here, like you, are talking about the problems of playing against asura. I started this thread to specifically deal with all of us watching proper tournaments like the current pax one. Our personal play experience never came into it. I was simply pointing out that from a viewers perspective the asura are much harder to watch than other races. So I was simply wondering if banning asura characters from proper tournaments in the future is something ANet would consider to make viewing better without needing to do any work. I was never once talking about banning asura from all pvp or even about the experience people have playing against them. It was just my experience watching the streams and really noticing how horrible watching eight asura run around is. The spell effects like dragons tooth were some of the only real attacks I could make out from them.

Tharium.7325:

Errant Venture.9371:

Thedenofsin.7340:

How about making the characters look like humans / sylvari / norn just to the spectators?

It’s not about the spectators. It’s about the players. Good players can counter enemy plays by identifying the animations of their skills. If you can’t read the animations because the character model is too small, then good play is punished.

People like you have derailed this thread and made it into all sorts of issues that I didn’t originally intend which has also derailed the dev responses somewhat. Lots of people here, like you, are talking about the problems of playing against asura. I started this thread to specifically deal with all of us watching proper tournaments like the current pax one. Our personal play experience never came into it. I was simply pointing out that from a viewers perspective the asura are much harder to watch than other races. So I was simply wondering if banning asura characters from proper tournaments in the future is something ANet would consider to make viewing better without needing to do any work. I was never once talking about banning asura from all pvp or even about the experience people have playing against them. It was just my experience watching the streams and really noticing how horrible watching eight asura run around is. The spell effects like dragons tooth were some of the only real attacks I could make out from them.

The reason why so many people are talking about this from a player’s perspective is because the race’s visibility issues are the common theme linking a number of problems.

Spectators have issues understanding what’s going on when there are a lot of Asura but so do players attempting to read skills while in-game. Given that this issue affects substantive portions of gameplay, rather than just stream viewability, it makes sense that a number of people are echoing your sentiments with a more powerful position.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please refer to the snip I took of our release page (attached). Here’s the link for the full page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/august-06-2013/

This should help address the concerns about effects covering animations.

Also, note that when I mentioned the hit box, it was in response to the post before mine. I didn’t have time to quote and make it fancy. I’m fully aware that it’s not completely to do with the hit box.

Excellent! Glad to hear you acknowledge our worries and eager to see how this develops.

I understand that completely Archer. But dealing with the Asura size problems across all pvp is something that would require coming up with a plan to eliminate it and then all the work involved to make it happen. I however was just trying to start with something simple that could be done instantly that would improve the the state of tournaments without having to do any work.

I think the some of the suggestions people are making are good but I would rather start with small things that we can get now like banning Asura from proper tournaments and then work up to having some sort of fix implemented for them.

This isnt about Asura having an advantage in combat.

This thread was intented that Asura being a hard race to spectate. Its less enjoyable to watch, surely particle effects play a part in this aswell.
But even if that was fixed, Asura would still be the least viewable race in the game.

And thats really all that matters if you’re taking your game to esports. You need to have a game that people will watch. Its not about the pro’s, its about the viewers.

Terrahero.9358:

This isnt about Asura having an advantage in combat.

This thread was intented that Asura being a hard race to spectate. Its less enjoyable to watch, surely particle effects play a part in this aswell.
But even if that was fixed, Asura would still be the least viewable race in the game.

And thats really all that matters if you’re taking your game to esports. You need to have a game that people will watch. Its not about the pro’s, its about the viewers.

Wrong. People with their own agendas are making it to be that way. The thread was originally:

asura are popular for pvp because their small size makes it harder to read their attacks. also makes watching the game less enjoyable because all you see are little asura running around without really seeing their animations well.

I don’t agree with changing anything. Asura’s size is a non issue to decent players. I have never had a problem dealing with Asura. Ever.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok guys, since you are all only focusing on tiny portions of my posts, I am just going to stop posting to prevent further confusion.

I will say again though; I don’t want anyone to be confused that I think hit boxes or skill effects are the only things that matter. This is very much NOT what I was saying. Not at all.

You’re going to tone down particle effects. Cool. We understood it the first time you said it.

How about responding to the issue at hand, namely normalizing character size

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok guys, since you are all only focusing on tiny portions of my posts, I am just going to stop posting to prevent further confusion.

I will say again though; I don’t want anyone to be confused that I think hit boxes or skill effects are the only things that matter. This is very much NOT what I was saying. Not at all.

Zoom
That was the issue going over your head.

Nobody’s contesting that the hitboxes are different. Responding to somebody who clearly does not know what everybody else is complaining about and not the people with valid complaints doesn’t give you the right to then ignore said people with valid complaints.
So now we end up with nobody listening to the actual issue and instead the folks back at ANet going “hah remember that thread where they thought hitboxes for Asura were smaller? Our player base doesn’t know anything!”

Just put in cast bars somewhere in the UI and asura’s advantages vanish in no time.

No John, the issue is that Asuras are tiny and we need an option to have everyone appear as humans especially to the spectator. The particle effects are an entirely different issue. Don’t try to derail or compile the particle effects issue with this one because they’re entirely different issues. Spectators don’t want to see tiny Asuras all over the effing place.

BobJoeXXI.2493:

Terrahero.9358:

This isnt about Asura having an advantage in combat.

This thread was intented that Asura being a hard race to spectate. Its less enjoyable to watch, surely particle effects play a part in this aswell.
But even if that was fixed, Asura would still be the least viewable race in the game.

And thats really all that matters if you’re taking your game to esports. You need to have a game that people will watch. Its not about the pro’s, its about the viewers.

Wrong. People with their own agendas are making it to be that way. The thread was originally:

asura are popular for pvp because their small size makes it harder to read their attacks. also makes watching the game less enjoyable because all you see are little asura running around without really seeing their animations well.

Well as the person who actually started the thread I can say that Terrahero is correct and you are mistaken. This thread is just about spectating big tournaments and only requested a simple solution that would require no work to fix. I simply included the line you quoted to hopefully avoid lots of comments from people telling me why everyone was playing Asura because it’s obvious. Also look at the title, it only says about banning asura from the pax tournament, nothing else.

Zenith.7301:

Just put in cast bars somewhere in the UI and asura’s advantages vanish in no time.

I hope this game doesn’t become about cast bars. Being able to instead read the animations of people to know what skills they are using is far more enjoyable and rewarding.

Tharium.7325:

Zenith.7301:

Just put in cast bars somewhere in the UI and asura’s advantages vanish in no time.

I hope this game doesn’t become about cast bars. Being able to instead read the animations of people to know what skills they are using is far more enjoyable and rewarding.

I agree with you, but cast bars are still a good idea, IMO.

Tharium.7325:

Zenith.7301:

Just put in cast bars somewhere in the UI and asura’s advantages vanish in no time.

I hope this game doesn’t become about cast bars. Being able to instead read the animations of people to know what skills they are using is far more enjoyable and rewarding.

Except if that remains the case asura will always have a big advantage as you must be delusional to think they’ll ever re-do asura animations to make them as noticeable as the other races.

Animations are set in stone after a game ships. Don’t expect changes to them.

There is a reason you don’t see male norn in tournaments.

Jax.5261:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok guys, since you are all only focusing on tiny portions of my posts, I am just going to stop posting to prevent further confusion.

I will say again though; I don’t want anyone to be confused that I think hit boxes or skill effects are the only things that matter. This is very much NOT what I was saying. Not at all.

Zoom
That was the issue going over your head.

Nobody’s contesting that the hitboxes are different. Responding to somebody who clearly does not know what everybody else is complaining about and not the people with valid complaints doesn’t give you the right to then ignore said people with valid complaints.
So now we end up with nobody listening to the actual issue and instead the folks back at ANet going “hah remember that thread where they thought hitboxes for Asura were smaller? Our player base doesn’t know anything!”

Zoom

That was Allie’s acknowledgement that they are monitoring more than just skill effects and “perceived” hitboxes going over your head. Does it really need to be written in crayon for people to understand?

It’s this hostility towards any/all dev posts that creates an environment that discourages actual productive discourse between the devs and the community. People scream and clamor for a dev post, then they get multiple, and just rip them to pieces like a piranha frenzy.

Then they complain about not getting dev posts.

I just… >:(

They better make this optional (if ever). If for no reason, my char looks totally different from how i want it to be, i would be really really upset.

/edit: Also atleast in the PAX matches i watched, i was always able to tell what’s going on…

Since asuras are so small it would make more sense if they took more damage.. right? Just to make up for their “being tiny” advantage.

http://imageshack.us/a/img35/6795/xj0l.jpg
Not even that cute little armor will save you from my hammer of justice!

If norns move at 20% movement speed, charrs leap after every rat that appear and flee from ranger dog pets, sylvari instantly die when burning and humans have to log into facebook every 2 mins…sure.

There have been dozens of threads about asura harder to spot animation unbalancing pvp. That isn’t a matter of opinion, you just have to look at tournaments. That’s great that you’re addressing spell effects but the fact there so many responses to this thread and not one addressed this is absurd.

Are you denying asura animations are harder to spot for viewer and players? Are you denying that in a animation based response game that matters a good deal? Are you denying that in a game with so many cool races the fact most pvp players flock to one is detrimental to the fun of it? If you’re not denying those things then maybe say something about what the plans are to address this specific problem?

JonPeters.5630:

We believe the majority of the issue is the effects spam. News on that front coming VERY soon. Once that is out of the way we can start to address other concerns.

Jon

The ultimate solution would be to implement skill cast bars. I can fully understand that you want to make stuff actually visible through the game itself and not castbars but with 5 races and 8 classes there will be always a huge advantage for small scale races like asura.

It would also help new players to learn the animation of each skill, would be cooler for spectators and would put more emphasis on interrupts. I really think you should try to do that at some points.

Oh and give stability a visual indicator beside the buff icon. <3

Imho nec are the bigger problem than asuras (dont get me wrong, atm nec is pretty much okay, fears are still a bit too powerfull, but no OT here)

Do they even have different animations? It feels like every single nec-skill looks the same. The marks itself look completely the same. If you could properly see which mark does fear you, it would be much better…. Same for corrupt boon or signet of spite for example. the signet just looks like an autoattack…

Supertramp.5430:

Since asuras are so small it would make more sense if they took more damage.. right? Just to make up for their “being tiny” advantage.

http://imageshack.us/a/img35/6795/xj0l.jpg
Not even that cute little armor will save you from my hammer of justice!

No that doesnt make any sense lol.

Stability should have a visual indicator, maybe some stone-ish effect to indicate unmovable position?

Winning team of the EU Invititional:

Team Paradigm (sp?)
Teldo – Asura
Ranger – Asura
Ashene – Human
Xeph – Human
Other – Human

So basically what we have here are a bunch of never going to be competitive jacktards whining about something at a level they’ll never play.

Alkaholic.3875:

Winning team of the EU Invititional:

Team Paradigm (sp?)
Teldo – Asura
Symbolic – Asura
Ashene – Human
Xeph – Human
Phantaram – Human

So basically what we have here are a bunch of never going to be competitive jacktards whining about something at a level they’ll never play.

fixd