Guild Wars 2

It would help for a few reasons:
1. It would reduce the knowledge barrier required for new players to get into PvP (e.g. they could actually see which spell was putting a specific debuff on them).
2. In certain zergfests, it can become almost impossble to tell who is casting what.
3. It would reduce the advantage Asuras have over other races in PvP.
4. Honestly I feel like, at times, the animations in this game are not clear enough to justify not having enemy cast bars (certain spells do not give enough warning).

I actually see no real reason for there not to be enemy cast bars.

As right as you may be, cast bars will not return to GW2 for the simple reason that they were in GW1.

It would have been fine if animations were all unique, clear, cast times long etc etc but somewhere down the line they stopped doing that. Besides, interrupting skills in this game has no real effect either way unless you’re trying to stop a stomp, which isn’t really a skill. At the most your enemy will wait a few seconds before trying again, unless you managed to down them with the window opened by that single interrupt.

So this probably isn’t even on their list of problems, nor will it be on there after you bringing it up.

That, and most cast times are anywhere from 0.5s —> 3s with most skills being on the shorter end of that spectrum. This means that most of the time, by adding a castbar, it won’t help anyone, and the people that look at/for it will end up getting hit by the skill by the time they finish reading it, if not before.

im torn on this. at this point, probably not, id rather not have enemy cast bar. if any effort here – better animation clues.

I am going to agree that we need changes. This should be changed as my asura warrior with rifle (same color as armor) is OP.

No one sees the killshot.

read my forum topic I made about it.

Not to insult anyone, but I feel anyone arguing against this is just wrong. I guarantee enemy cast bars will be in a year or two from now.

Lopez.7369:

Not to insult anyone, but I feel anyone arguing against this is just wrong. I guarantee enemy cast bars will be in a year or two from now.

I’ll be willing to make that bet. You can quote me on it, in fact. Cast bars will never be in GW2.

I would think it to be completely reasonable to see enemy cast bars on at least specific skills Namely Moa Morph. Unless of course they reduce its sheer effectiveness then I wouldn’t mind not having them.

When I was first introduced to GW2, I rather liked the idea that one would need to use animations and sounds to judge what skills were being used and react accordingly.
The problem with that is that a loooooooooooooooot of skills simply don’t use sufficiently distinct animations and audio.

If just about everything were as distinct as, say, a warrior’s Eviscerate, no cast bars would be fine, but that isn’t the case, and so I really think they should be implemented.

I have 2 theorys for why this migth be ok:

1) Cast bars shoudn’t display the name of the skill being used.

2) This would be good for people who have lower end FPS, since seeing the animations can be very difficult.

3) There can be an option to have it on or off.

Yay or nay?

That you can’t see skills like killshot or moa morph is a reason for me to leave the game -.-

Nateeight.1498:

I personally don’t want them,

Might as well allow macros and add-ons if that’s the case. Heck, even allow spell alert with the audio that tells you what everyone is casting. If you’re going to allow cast bars, then for the visually impaired, the audio version should also be allowed.

If that’s the case, might as well just go play WoW. I like the clean simple, you actually have to use your brain version of Gw2.

This.

I do feel for people that cant afford a performant rig.

Gaming has become far too dumbed down as it is.

THIS IS THE BEST POST I’ve ever seen! Finally someone who agrees with me on enemy castbars!

1. agreed
2. agreed
3. agreed
4. agreed. AND I can also add on this point that many spells has the same casting-animations. So it is impossible to know what spells they are casting at some points. You have to GUESS, which is kinda bad in a esports game imo.

watch out those who ask for castbars. this is a step towards turning game into interface monitoring and ultimately into spreadsheets.

awareness of enemy actions from monitoring immersive combats rather then interface is an ambitious challenge, but being hard is not a reason to give up on it. i agree thakittens difficult now, but id rather work towards more readable animation. and btw, id rather not have 100%. awareness, not everything is known in real world either. mix of awareness and UNcertainty imo makes the best mixture of combat, which is both skillful, but also dynamic and unpredictable.

gesho.9468:

watch out those who ask for castbars. this is a step towards turning game into interface monitoring and ultimately into spreadsheets.

awareness of enemy actions from monitoring immersive combats rather then interface is an ambitious challenge, but being hard is not a reason to give up on it. i agree thakittens difficult now, but id rather work towards more readable animation. and btw, id rather not have 100%. awareness, not everything is known in real world either. mix of awareness and UNcertainty imo makes the best mixture of combat, which is both skillful, but also dynamic and unpredictable.

Dude have you even played GW1? GW1 had them and guess what, it was not a spreadsheet game and you would do very badly if you were under the illusion it was. I have no idea what games you’ve played in the past but stop using this silly slippery slope argument.

It is all well and good saying improve animations etc but it is also all well and good saying “balance the classes”. Including cast bars is actually the easiest thing for the developers to do at this point, rather than redoing so many animations. Doing nothing is the most easy of all, of course.

Yes cast bars would bring back the type of builds made as shutdowns in team matches. It will bring a new element to the game.

for the people saying cast bars would dumb the game down:

1. this is wrong. not having cast bars only increases the difficulty in understanding what your enemy is doing. it’s a barrier to entry, so to speak. it does not provide increased game depth.
2. you can only see 1 enemy skill bar at a time. skill animations would still be very relevant to observing the entire battlefield.

@paradoxine: cast bars are easy solution, i posted that, but immersion is more fun. and mix of enemy awareness and uncertainty also makes combat more dynamic and unpredictable.
just cast bar wont turn game into a spreadsheet, but it is a step in that direction. cast bar, addons, cooldown monitoring, weakauras, frame targeting and yes, if you go down that road, it ends up being a spreadsheet.

milo: our discussion boils down to quantitative but not qualitative argument, there is a tradeoff:
is difficulty of no cast bar awareness worth fun of immersion?

there is no obvious answer to this and would vary by player. my choice at this point would be to stick with immersion, but i understand opposite. if castbars to be implemented, that should be the extent of interface over immersion sacrifice, cause as said many times, no one wants to turn the game in pixels behind spreadsheet.

Cast Bars? Why would you need this?

So you can dodge that MOA you should have seen the Mesmer cast?

So you can dodge that warrior charge?

Chase.8415:

Cast Bars? Why would you need this?

So you can dodge that MOA you should have seen the Mesmer cast?

So you can dodge that warrior charge?

you need some enemy awareness for creating space for skilled play, but you also need some UNcertainty to keep it dynamic and unpredictable. no one wants turn based combat, does it? then one gets to keep some moves unpredictable.

Nateeight.1498:

I personally don’t want them,

Might as well allow macros and add-ons if that’s the case. Heck, even allow spell alert with the audio that tells you what everyone is casting. If you’re going to allow cast bars, then for the visually impaired, the audio version should also be allowed.

If that’s the case, might as well just go play WoW. I like the clean simple, you actually have to use your brain version of Gw2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#Fallacy

@lopez: did you read your link? slippery slope is a valid argument exactly for reasons mentioned there.

the way game drives players and then players drive the game, the way corporations (arenanet) momentum works, the way discussion takes place… for many reasons one change invokes next.

gesho.9468:

im torn on this. at this point, probably not, id rather not have enemy cast bar. if any effort here – better animation clues.

This pretty much sums it up. The same holds true for PvE.

I don’t really see the need for them. Pretty much any any skill that you should be taking notice of has a distinct look, and often a sound. Things that would have a cast bar worth noting like moa morph, are long enough that you should be dodging them at least. Other skills like churning earth and kill shot both scream “interrupt me!”

Having better audio/visual cues that are not excessive effect wise would be better. Mesmer shatters for example, all look the same until the illusions shatter and even then they look very similar save for distortion.

Learning animations is just part of skillful play. Both in pve and pvp. Most things that look important, or that seem like they could hurt, do.

The real question is, can you dodge skills by simply looking at the cast bars?

gesho.9468:

@lopez: did you read your link? slippery slope is a valid argument exactly for reasons mentioned there.

the way game drives players and then players drive the game, the way corporations (arenanet) momentum works, the way discussion takes place… for many reasons one change invokes next.

Nope, but there’s not much chance of reason if that’s how you think.

Thankfully, ArenaNet likely knows better because of how Guild Wars 1 worked.

This would be so much needed. All your points are valid, especially making the game depth more easy to comprehend for new players.

I also think this wouldn’t be a hard thing to do. It is just a visual UI thing. Put the skill icon of interruptable stuff below the bar and create a small progress bar. This will become even more neccesary when we see new skills at some point.

Everything will be so much more transparent. He USED his Moa. He burned his burst and I dodged it. This would be the most healthy thing for the game they could do. This would make esport big again. Also helps people spectating and casters. I would say it is a must.

i would say, put cast bars into spectator mode. do not put them in live play.

my main argument for this would be the dodge mechanic. dodge has no cooldown, per se ( esp for builds with vigor ), & neutralizing key dps cooldowns would be far too easy.

i believe many animation cast times are balanced around the fact that you need to see them happening. many cast times would need to be adjusted with the addition of cast bars, i feel.

i would wait for the reduction of particle effects to see what impact that will have on visibility of animations & execution.

Cast bars worked well in guild wars 1.

this is guild wars 2, totally different game (picture twix factory).

we dont do things in gw2 that worked well in gw1

If i could see players under all the skill spam (even with all graphic settings on low). i wouldnt need a castbar.

Just saying

It’s just stupid that you can’t see for example moa. I want to dodge it. It would still not be easy because the dodge needs to be timed well and you need to target the right one. You don’t see this skill if you target a warrior, phantasm, clone near the mesmer. And the mesmer can still go invisible before casting moa morph.
Next thing is that i want to interrupt the heal of my foe. At the moment its just luck and btw those mesmer interruption traits are a joke. You dont see what your opponent is doing.. you just interrupt randomly. Thats boring!
So please give us those cast bars!

Flowerpower.6795:

It’s just stupid that you can’t see for example moa. I want to dodge it. It would still not be easy because the dodge needs to be timed well and you need to target the right one. You don’t see this skill if you target a warrior, phantasm, clone near the mesmer. And the mesmer can still go invisible before casting moa morph.
Next thing is that i want to interrupt the heal of my foe. At the moment its just luck and btw those mesmer interruption traits are a joke. You dont see what your opponent is doing.. you just interrupt randomly. Thats boring!
So please give us those cast bars!

ya imagine if the game had cast bars and the mesmer primary attribute was f1,2,3… interupts with different effects. like steal, long cool down, damage, exhaustion (stamina drain)…

but illusions are cool too.

I agree, Cast bars would work wonders in this game. Wanting immersive gameplay is understandable, however as a poster above me pointed out, you have character types/ color coordination that make spotting a particular skill difficult to begin with. Add to that the clutter of a large fight and it becomes extremely difficult. This is part of the reason why classes with access to perma vigor/evasion/untargeting do so much better in spvp compared to the say a warrior or necro. Those that can spam evade have a better chance of avoiding that burst skill. Nor do I think the depth of game play would be lowered, as you would still need to learn what to avoid, when to use stunbreaks etc…
Its just with castbars, the whole process would be smoother, so that instead of building a class with perma evade, we could focus on different aspects of a profession and truly use our evades skillfully.