Guild Wars 2

Hello,

So my question is simple. Do you find Gw2’s Combat interesting to play? Why or Why not?

Also do you find the combat interesting to watch? Why or why not?

I just feel for a game that is trying to become esport material, we have very low twitch views for the “hardcore” pvp side of it. I’d love to see what people think of the combat on the forums to maybe discuss and brainstorm ways to make it more interesting and possible increase entertainment value while watching it.

I have my own opinion that Ill put in a reply.

At first when I just purchased this game and was able to play BWE1 the combat was amazing – I have never seen such an interesting control system for characters. The ability to block, dodge, evade attacks by pressing actual skills and not relying on % of block % of dodge from your gear was great.

But now the combat became I spam my stuff you spam your stuff who is standing after spam wins. It is still better then most other mmorpgs, but not as good as I anticipated.

I find combat extremely boring to watch, tried watching tournaments and there was no way to tell who was doing what – most people use asuras, there are a lot of effects that could block even the biggest character and everyone spams.

I find it a good test for this is to show games to people that have not played them and observe their reactions. For example showing cs:go mostly everyone understands what players are doing. I showed gw2 combat and most of them had no idea what was going on, some had strained their eyes, one person understood that the fight is for colored circle, one person asked is this some kind of mutant rat (asuras) gladiator arena.

So in short the combat is not that interesting to play and definitely bad to watch.

So this is my personal opinion on the matter.

So I feel the combat has a certain level of fun, however it lacks interesting mechanics/fights. I think this is in part due to the game mode, but the combat overall.

So here are some things I’ve been thinking about doing with the combat to help increase its entertainment value.

1. I really like skyhammer’s movement adding things. Not the pitfalls to your death, but the jump pads. I was watching The Hobbit today and those both gave me an idea. Why not increase things in maps that add to mobility in a both negative and positive manner. An example is not only jump pads, but also rivers. Remember in SAB the rivers that if you fall into them they throw you back to the start of the level or make you fall. Put in rivers that if you fall into, you start “going down river” and you have to get out. You dont fall to your death at the end, but it similar aspects could make the combat a bit more interesting to watch.

2. AoEs and combat. Theres a lot of AoEs and a lot of combofields. I feel like combofields can really take up the reigns of the gap that is left by no roles. So today I went into the short list of common builds for each class and took one build that I felt like I see a lot. Out of all the classes a total of 52 AoEs are present in the current meta. This is not including cleaves. 14 of the skills provide a combo field. Some class have many combo fields compared to others. Some have none. Out of these combo fields the only ones that are good are etheral, lightning (which isn’t in the meta), and smoke. The rest are very poor due to the fact that what they applied is easily applied through common utility skills.

So what if we take these combo fields and heavily reduce their accessibility to classes. Make it so that each class only gets one type of combo field and that combo field is unique to that class. They can then trait and change that combofield and the skill its tied to. We then take these effects and make them a lot more meaningful in battles. Ethereal is good because of its simultaneous boon application and condi application. Smoke is good because of how strong a long lasting blind and stealth is. Lightning is good because of its stun lock potential. Then we make it so that not every one is just a circle combo. Some are walls. Others could be like a type of cone. Not everything has to be a circle. I just feel like the combofield system can be refined to something great and make combat 100 times more interesting.

ban asura from casted tournies. instant improvement for viewership.

“spam” is a misnomer imo. GW2 has very low cooldowns so the APM feels spammy, but it is still the most skillful application & timing of abilities that win fights.

a part of the problem is that skilled players are always leaving, so the top level is always in a state of flux & the best players don’t have the proper competition to continue to elevate their game, so instead less intelligent application of cooldowns can still be successful when by all rights it shouldn’t.

Small scale combat is fun to play but boring to watch, larger scale combat is fun to watch but not as fun to play.

faeral.7120:

ban asura from casted tournies. instant improvement for viewership.

“spam” is a misnomer imo. GW2 has very low cooldowns so the APM feels spammy, but it is still the most skillful application & timing of abilities that win fights.

a part of the problem is that skilled players are always leaving, so the top level is always in a state of flux & the best players don’t have the proper competition to continue to elevate their game, so instead less intelligent application of cooldowns can still be successful when by all rights it shouldn’t.

There’s also a problem with particle effects. They are too flashy, and can make a big fight on a small point completely unreadable (example: fight at mid in temple of the silent storm).

When you can’t tell what’s going on, spamming is the only option left.

The combat used to be interesting back in beta and shortly after launch when most people ran Power builds and before conditions got completely out of hand.

These days most people try to run condition builds because they are the easiest, most simplistic builds around.
They reward skill spamming and don’t punish poor timing of skills because of how conditions can be constantly applied to a target through auto-spam and procs. Whereas power builds need to time and ensure big hits land or they lose lots of damage.

This is shown by how for the last 6 months everyone has been trying to make condition specs for their professions + AoE on everything, who needs skill and aiming when you can just put down AoEs on the small points we have to fight over.

Since the patch there has been a rise in condition spec Warriors, Thieves and Mesmers, added to the high number of condition spec Necros, Engineers and Rangers.

Only Ele and Guardian remain as just Power specs with a small amount of conditions.
Conditions actually work well on Guard and Ele as their either supplement damage or provide short duration control conditions, well balanced and not something you can spec to spam and kill with.

The game balancing is slow, too little, ineffective and has not got to the root of the problems with condi-spam and passive play for over 6 months.

In fact the latest patch has introduced more passive play and condi-spamming.

I see GW2 continuing to lose PvPers after the novelty of the latest patch has worn off and people realise that it’s only really got worse.

Lukin.4061:

I find it a good test for this is to show games to people that have not played them and observe their reactions. For example showing cs:go mostly everyone understands what players are doing. I showed gw2 combat and most of them had no idea what was going on, some had strained their eyes, one person understood that the fight is for colored circle, one person asked is this some kind of mutant rat (asuras) gladiator arena.

Seriously? Counterstrike is a shooter, everyone knows what a shooter is, it’s as simple as 2+2. An MMORPG is not the same, not even close. I watched a match of some RPG’s that are very renowned like DoAC and Warhammer but without having played them, I don’t understand kitten what’s going on.

@above me: you read my mind. Everything that I wanted to say, you summed it up perfectly. Just 2 hours ago, I was playing the old DD burst thief and it was a lot of fun but 1 dodge or blind could mess me up incredibly. Meanwhile, a condi engi just had to static shot me and my HP kept on dropping (shadowstep on cooldown) There was literally no chance for me to survive while he just kept on blocking and dodging and putting even more conditions on me.

yes, i think combat in gw2 is interesting

it is more active and doesn’t rely as much on armor + downstate is something i didn’t see before

would really love if anet would stop adding more passive crap and did something about condi/aoe spam on point though

I absolutely loved the combat in GW2, especially right after launch. It was fast paced and reminded me of what I enjoy from fighting games. However, in the last six to eight months I would say that I’ve lost a lot of that enjoyment. I still would rate it as interesting and is what keeps me doing pvp.

I wouldn’t say it’s particularly fun to watch. I think it’s too cluttered at this point and someone who is interested in learning how the game works would be completely lost. If I’m specifically watching a video for pointers/strategy and know what I’m looking for, then yes it serves it’s purpose. As far as being interesting to someone who isn’t already familiar with the mechanics, I would say no it’s not great to watch.

I agree it used to be better, back when a thief could burst you down fast but if you saw him you could drop him just as fast

Now there is so little counter play. Attack an engi? Engi pulls out bombs and spams til you die or leave. Attack a necro? Get condi dumped + feared by unreadable attacks while you struggle to cleanse them 1 at a time. Attack a warrior? Get ready to have to dodge earthshaker/pin down 5+ times because the fight is gonna last at least that long. Even theifs are turning into grindy sustain with their small heals, stealth and blindspam.

They are pushing things totally in the wrong way, this was supposed to be an action game.

So it seems a lot of people are talking about how the animations of the game don’t properly do justice to what is going on or cause too much screen clutter.

combat IS interesting, but it needs to be slowed down to prevent spam. vigor needs more nerfing and endurance should have another function: being used to charge up certain attacks.

right now, too many things are happening too fast, limiting skill-based play.

More strategy would be excellent. There are two elements to any game:
1) Mechanics
2) Strategy
The mechanics involve the immediate, quick, and “skillful” play. For GW2, these are the fights themselves; the skill-choice, skill use, and skill combinations.
The strategy involves the over-arching theme of the game; an ever-evolving plan centering around several objectives, from which the player must choose which to pursue. Right now there are 3 objectives (points), and the occasional secondary objective (buffs, Creatures, etc). I find that the most exciting games come from maps with powerful secondary objectives. Why? Because more strategy is involved; deeper choice and risk making for a deeper experience.
This is not solely from a player perspective. For spectators, it is often impossible to see the precise mechanics of a fight – there are too many players to follow each individual skill use. They can, however, understand the slower, steadier strategy, and become engaged in it themselves. Each immediate objective and encounter -including the mechanics themselves- has purpose behind it. The mechanics, then, serve to complement these strategies, adding that element of chance, uncertainty and excitement, and the strategy becomes the general narrative.
So, what type of strategy would I like? Inherently, more objectives and more choices. This could be as simple as – multiple capping points, some of which cap for more than others. There could be buffs, NPCs alliances, bonuses – in short, some of the strategy of WvW shrunk into a quicker, smaller map.

• It’s great to play

• Boring to watch; with all the pets, condi spam, and particle effects… its really hard for even the shoutcasters to know what is happening.

in my opinion the combat is very interesting (playing king of the hill most of the times), but there is a large gap between some builds when it comes to “thriller of the fight^^”
if i fight a hammer/axe warri, its a cool battle for example or an offguard or engi or ele… but when it comes to scepter1 necs (my second class, i dont want to QQ) or S/D thiefs, i dont like the fights that much

What makes GW2 combat so awesome is the ability to actually dodge “on demand” which enables you to influence the battle more directly. Its not about chances for evades / hits.

However, this is almost useless these days.
A single evade isnt that strong anymore, as points get covered with AoEs and there’s no burst to evade, it’s more spam / condi staff, where a singe evade isnt that usefull.
On the other side you have perma evades, which aren’t fun, either.

Deified.7520:

So this is my personal opinion on the matter.

So I feel the combat has a certain level of fun, however it lacks interesting mechanics/fights. I think this is in part due to the game mode, but the combat overall.

So here are some things I’ve been thinking about doing with the combat to help increase its entertainment value.

1. I really like skyhammer’s movement adding things. Not the pitfalls to your death, but the jump pads. I was watching The Hobbit today and those both gave me an idea. Why not increase things in maps that add to mobility in a both negative and positive manner. An example is not only jump pads, but also rivers. Remember in SAB the rivers that if you fall into them they throw you back to the start of the level or make you fall. Put in rivers that if you fall into, you start “going down river” and you have to get out. You dont fall to your death at the end, but it similar aspects could make the combat a bit more interesting to watch.

2. AoEs and combat. Theres a lot of AoEs and a lot of combofields. I feel like combofields can really take up the reigns of the gap that is left by no roles. So today I went into the short list of common builds for each class and took one build that I felt like I see a lot. Out of all the classes a total of 52 AoEs are present in the current meta. This is not including cleaves. 14 of the skills provide a combo field. Some class have many combo fields compared to others. Some have none. Out of these combo fields the only ones that are good are etheral, lightning (which isn’t in the meta), and smoke. The rest are very poor due to the fact that what they applied is easily applied through common utility skills.

So what if we take these combo fields and heavily reduce their accessibility to classes. Make it so that each class only gets one type of combo field and that combo field is unique to that class. They can then trait and change that combofield and the skill its tied to. We then take these effects and make them a lot more meaningful in battles. Ethereal is good because of its simultaneous boon application and condi application. Smoke is good because of how strong a long lasting blind and stealth is. Lightning is good because of its stun lock potential. Then we make it so that not every one is just a circle combo. Some are walls. Others could be like a type of cone. Not everything has to be a circle. I just feel like the combofield system can be refined to something great and make combat 100 times more interesting.

That’s a really good idea. I think if combo fields were a lot more prevalent then this game would truly shine especially with the reduction of condition aoe. And for the person that was talking about people not knowing what was going on in a match that goes with every mmo. You can’t even compare it to a fps. I’ve tried watching LoL’s tournaments and the announcers are saying this happened and that happened and I have absolutely no clue on what is going on. But like I said, more combo fields unique to the class would be amazing as well as a lot less condition aoe.

Dodging, active blocks and evades on skills give huge amount of counterplay, which I really appreciate. The downstate leading to stomping and ressing is also a massive bonus that really ups the skill level. The 8 professions all feel completely unique, are clearly defined, which is a massive plus for interesting combat. There are options for lower skill builds with good reward, spirit rangers, hambow warriors but even these offer enough of a spectrum for there to be people that are far better at them, this is largely down to the movement that is required and the ability to know when to dodge. There are also specs that have a very high skill ceiling and require a lot of muscle memory. There is a lot of potential for theory crafting, and the gametype encourages different types of builds.

I think all these things are hugely beneficial to the enjoyment of combat in GW2. What you’re actually asking is if the combat is interesting though. I’ll stick with my guns on it being enjoyable, and I find the general combat system very interesting, there’s enough going on to have kept me in the game all this time anyway. However, I think some of the builds out there are very dull, I have played the Spirit Ranger, even the Condimancer and really don’t feel challenged by them, not to sound arrogant at all, its just that there is little to them compared to other specs.

I recently picked up far point assault engi, as cheesy as the spec is it takes I think a great deal more skill. Managing a weapon of skills, 4 toolbelt skills, two weapon kits that you can seamlessly switch out of. I have to actively think about the way I use some of the traits, though admittedly not all, and it’s a whole new kind of fighting.

I find tournaments relatively interesting to watch, I understand whats going on if I watch from a single players perspective for that player, and 1v1s are easy enough to work out both. However I think watching an overview of a large team fight can be dull, except for clutch ressing/stomping. It’s very difficult to really get a sense of whats going on even for experienced players. Watching the general gameplay though, i.e the movement of the players and strategies of the teams, I do find interesting.

I don’t think the game in its current form has any appeal for non GW2 fans. The combat simply has too much going on and too much to explain. A basic video could outline the way that the map works, but how interesting is watching the strategy of 5 people running from point to point if you arent invested in the game? If you’re not invested in the game, and have never played it, you will never be enthused enough to learn enough about the classes to understand the combat to a level at which you will find it interesting, if you’re not going to buy the game anyway.

I think the main way you can improve the stream viewers is buy popularising PvP with the current community. There are plenty of threads that would explain how you do that. That obviously has a limit, so I think after that you need to bring more people to the game.

In terms of popularising the game with other people, I think there is generally a snowball from the games PvP side of things becoming more popular and slowly more outsiders starting to watch. LoL won’t be played by everyone that watches it, but everyone who watches will have a good general idea of whats going on and the combat system. But that game in terms of builds and combat is far far simpler, without dumbing down GW2 completely, I think it will really struggle to become an Esport popular with a wider community. I’d hate to see them do that, so I hope it stays as a smaller competitive game.

In response to the talk about combo fields, firstly you missed the best field of all in my opinion, water fields. I once saw a setup that played Guardian with a hammer, Engineer, Ranger, Thief (with SB), and I think a warrior. The tactic? Blast field all day long in Water fields, massive AoE heals, avoiding putting down other fields as much as possible. The guardian was then able to be an offguard providing some DPS, while still providing condi clears, Ranger was spirit support, Engineer just had tonnes of blast finishers, condi specced, think the Thief also had bursty backstabs and the Warrior was quite controlling, Hammer + GS if I remember correctly.

Now that to me was really interesting exciting combat and something I’d love to see more of. However I think it stopped because the range on a Water Field blast finisher is actually quite small, I’ve never actually seen anyone ask what the radii on combos is, or how it is calculated. Shows how much attention people are paying to it.

Combat is fun for certain specs.

Mind numbingly boring for others.

You should easily figure what those are though.

The actual combat animations are really cool and the all flow together so much smoother than any other MMO. However I agree with the general consensus that many skills are TOO flashy. Maybe flashy is the wrong word, perhaps it would be more apt to say that many AoE’s obscure the other animations. If they were more subtle you would be able to see everything else and as a result it would be more fun to watch.

yes. the combat is very fun to play
as for watching? I don’t know. I’m not much of a spectator in general

BurrTheKing.8571:

The actual combat animations are really cool and the all flow together so much smoother than any other MMO. However I agree with the general consensus that many skills are TOO flashy. Maybe flashy is the wrong word, perhaps it would be more apt to say that many AoE’s obscure the other animations. If they were more subtle you would be able to see everything else and as a result it would be more fun to watch.

I think this game is not much different than other MMORPGs when it comes to flashiness.

But other MMORPGs are not animation based. And this is still a problem even for them.

So yeah, reducing AoE and AI clutter is important.

I think the combat’s interesting when it’s something like a d/d ele bouncing around in combat and setting up burst that telegraphs and has actual counter play. However I think 90% of the time the devs at Anet seem to confuse kittenty gimmicks that are incredibly annoying to fight against as interesting gameplay. Invisibility, clones and ai spam, evade spam, spammy ranged attacks with no downside, certain classes having ridiculous disengage tools, hard counter immunitites everywhere, ridiculously low time to kill that doesn’t allow for skill based back and forth matches. It’s all crap.

Sweetbread.2679:

I think the combat’s interesting when it’s something like a d/d ele bouncing around in combat and setting up burst that telegraphs and has actual counter play. However I think 90% of the time the devs at Anet seem to confuse kittenty gimmicks that are incredibly annoying to fight against as interesting gameplay. Invisibility, clones and ai spam, evade spam, spammy ranged attacks with no downside, certain classes having ridiculous disengage tools, hard counter immunitites everywhere, ridiculously low time to kill that doesn’t allow for skill based back and forth matches. It’s all crap.

when you take into consideration they said team fortress 2 was inspiration for this game, it all suddenly make sense. they wanted to make an fps.

Yeah they made a fps with no aiming, no skill shots, no ammo, and no class balance. Maybe they should have just made an actual sequel to Guild Wars instead of this boom headshot moron zergfest that we now, which is pretty much the complete antithesis of the original game. It’s so far beyond idiotic that I’m just amazed.

To sum up, combat is mostly fun overall, with variation, until i meet an engineer.

Then it just becomes a blurry mess filled with smoke, explosions, conditions, cat like lives, and circles runs.

1.Do you find Gw2’s Combat interesting to play?

Fairly, sometimes I’m like “wtf is this” when I see that a Healing signet + regen, will out HPS the DPS of trick shot while poisoned.

Also do you find the combat interesting to watch? Why or why not?
Im not much of a spectator in general. But I rather sit in a corner facing a wall for 10 minutes and meditate than watch GW2.

If there was minimal A.I (one pet/illusion per person), minimal stealth and minimal ranged aoe I think combat in this game would be tons more fun. Its still fun but it had so much more potential to be better.

Too much spam.

Ground effects, conditions, Mesmer clones and Necro minions cluttering the screen with so much crap. Then there’s other rules that don’t make sense and are mixed in like downstate, rally, out of combat health regeneration and movement speed boosts.

Take all the screen clutter spam you can think of and add a bunch of game rules that don’t make sense into a blender and you get GW2 combat.

Calae.1738:

Too much spam.

Ground effects, conditions, Mesmer clones and Necro minions cluttering the screen with so much crap. Then there’s other rules that don’t make sense and are mixed in like downstate, rally, out of combat health regeneration and movement speed boosts.

Take all the screen clutter spam you can think of and add a bunch of game rules that don’t make sense into a blender and you get GW2 combat.

Yeah screen clutter from everything is a bit much. I really wish I could heavily reduce of the size of the UI stuff.

I love the combat. High apm =! spam. I enjoy that the game is more about how well you understand the different abilities than managing a resource bar, min/maxing stats, etc.

The game is very simple at its core but with a lot of nuances, which I like. I enjoy the fact that any player below rank 30 is probably not good, because it means the game is hard/complicated enough that it takes time to learn well. It’s the furthest thing from a “standard” possible. There are games that I could just pick up and play well just because they’re a “FPS,” or “RPG,” or whatever, and I know exactly how they’ll work before I install. GW2 is not one of those.

Do you find Gw2’s Combat interesting to play? Why or Why not?
yes. because it is fast, fluid, no network lag, nice animations. dodge. etc.

Also do you find the combat interesting to watch? Why or why not?
not sure. i have not really watched many battles.