Guild Wars 2

I picked up this little tidbit from the dulfy page on the dev livestream notes.

No more underwater weapon slots
Retiring Capricon, the only map with underwater combat.

Getting rid of underwater combat? I remember back when underwater combat was hyped up to be this awesome, incredible thing no one has ever done before!!

Fast forward to today where underwater combat has been a huge letdown. Honestly it only saw it’s “fair share” of play in sPvP and WvW. Now it’s being removed from sPvP. This shows to me that underwater combat DID NOT go as planned and has basically been scrapped all together.

What are your guys thoughts on underwater combat? Does it need to be taken out of the game? or just what the heck do we do with it?

… Read Again. It’s PvP only.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

… Read Again. It’s PvP only.

I already made that point, since I mentioned sPvP.

I’m talking about underwater combat, in the game overall.

It certainly needs some work, but having said that..in pve I absolutely love it. Alright, a lot of the skills really need a rework, but the overall ambience is amazing for me.

I suspect if we ever go up against Bubbles, that will be the time they rework UW stuff though and maybe bring it back to pvp after that.

I wont disappear from pve, partly since it isn’t worth the re-work to maps. And we’’re off to Maguuma next and there’s no water there to worry about, giving them more time to work on the problem and develop it properly.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

… Read Again. It’s PvP only.

Uhhh, maybe you should read his post.

@OP: Underwater combat is boring and kind of wonky for lack of a better word. I don’t do much pvp, but I can imagine many players probably won’t mind it.

I don’t like it, I don’t hate it. If you can swim and explore, you might as well be able to fight under there too.

I strongly doubt that.
There are many Personal Story steps, Dungeon areas, Fractal, events, JPs … all bound to underwater content.

It sure need work to get improved … a lot … but still it is too important to be just removed.

I have always liked underwater combat…its sad to see a entire map deleted from the game just to get rid of it. Also, sad to see PvP dumbed down even more.

Chance’s are, we are never going to see any additional underwater combat in GW2 as a whole at any point in the future…a few of us had visions of ship vs ship sea battles but no chance now.

Belzebu.3912:

I strongly doubt that.
There are many Personal Story steps, Dungeon areas, Fractal, events, JPs … all bound to underwater content.

It sure need work to get improved … a lot … but still it is too important to be just removed.

Underwater combat seems like a relic of past inspiration and constant reminder of “this could have been awesome” to the devs. It’s fallen far by the wayside with almost none of the fairly recent content we’ve had, having anything to do with the underwater areas.
Kessex Hills, Bloodtide Coast, Sparkfly Fen, Straits of Orr, Mount Malestrom, and Frostgore Sound come to mind for zones not utilised for their sizable underwater portions.

First problem with underwater combat is that you have to assign a “sink” key, like space is assign to float.
Second problem is the players don’t even bother learning their underwater weapons, they just randomly spam every attack.
Third is the fact not every utility and elite can be used underwater and players end up just throwing anything there.

In short, theres nothing wrong with underwater combat but the players lack will for it.

The only difference from land to water combat is the movement, you go from moving in a plane (land) to move in a volume (water), and different weapons and other utilities, not learning how to is the only real problem here.

blakdoxa.7520:

I picked up this little tidbit from the dulfy page on the dev livestream notes.

No more underwater weapon slots
Retiring Capricon, the only map with underwater combat.

Getting rid of underwater combat? I remember back when underwater combat was hyped up to be this awesome, incredible thing no one has ever done before!!

Fast forward to today where underwater combat has been a huge letdown. Honestly it only saw it’s “fair share” of play in sPvP and WvW. Now it’s being removed from sPvP. This shows to me that underwater combat DID NOT go as planned and has basically been scrapped all together.

What are your guys thoughts on underwater combat? Does it need to be taken out of the game? or just what the heck do we do with it?

Underwater combat is horribly balanced in PVP (and downed state is a joke too) that doesn’t mean they could ever remove Underwater Combat from the game entirely, it plays an important role in PVE.

The only map with underwater combat in PVP, Capricorn, was never used in tournaments or competitive PVP, since they are removing that one map, they are also removing Underwater combat from PVP. Nothing to do with PVE

maddoctor.2738:

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blakdoxa.7520:

I picked up this little tidbit from the dulfy page on the dev livestream notes.

No more underwater weapon slots
Retiring Capricon, the only map with underwater combat.

Getting rid of underwater combat? I remember back when underwater combat was hyped up to be this awesome, incredible thing no one has ever done before!!

Fast forward to today where underwater combat has been a huge letdown. Honestly it only saw it’s “fair share” of play in sPvP and WvW. Now it’s being removed from sPvP. This shows to me that underwater combat DID NOT go as planned and has basically been scrapped all together.

What are your guys thoughts on underwater combat? Does it need to be taken out of the game? or just what the heck do we do with it?

Underwater combat is horribly balanced in PVP (and downed state is a joke too) that doesn’t mean they could ever remove Underwater Combat from the game entirely, it plays an important role in PVE.

The only map with underwater combat in PVP, Capricorn, was never used in tournaments or competitive PVP, since they are removing that one map, they are also removing Underwater combat from PVP. Nothing to do with PVE

It just seems like anet is backpedaling further and further away from the underwater environment and just not touching it anymore. It stays for the players in PvE/WvW but there are no improvements whatsoever with the majority of changes (emcompasses everything in gw2) focused entirely on having your character on land. Right now underwater relevance only pertains to whether you roll it in fractals of the mists or path 2 of Honor of the Waves. I don’t mention anything about personal story because it’s been tossed to the side in favor of “alternatives.”

Good riddance. I stopped liking underwater combat ever since they Nerfed Thief spear. It also sucks being the only class with nearly all it’s utility and elite skills locked in the water (and even your class skill depending on if you’re holding the wrong item upon entering), while other classes like Guardian have only 3 or less locked. Water combat is fail because they never finished designing it.

I’m trying to understand why this was moved to sPvP section when this is about underwater combat, in the game period.

Evan Lesh.3295:

… store far less data inside templates when those happen.

THIS excites me Are we going to be able to store templates? That would really be a big big step!

WoW

I found underwater combat to be extremely fun in GW2 and am extremely disappointed in its removal from Spvp.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Erskine.5206:

Evan Lesh.3295:

… store far less data inside templates when those happen.

THIS excites me Are we going to be able to store templates? That would really be a big big step!

No ETA on templates. However, the new build tech brings us muuuuch closer than before.

:D This sounds good. Maybe for PvE too? Either way. Yay.

blakdoxa.7520:

I’m trying to understand why this was moved to sPvP section when this is about underwater combat, in the game period.

I know, I flagged it up to a mod, so hopefully it will return to general since it’s a discussion about UW combat in general, not pvp…

Would you guys bring it back at some point in the future or is Water PvP combat gone for good? How about making a map alteration for Capricorn to remove the water and replace it with… something instead?

I think removing underwater from pvp was right since they never even bothered to balance it in the first place.

I mean on my necro i dont remember ever losing underwater 1v1 unless it was also a necro. Ok maybe i never fought someone on my level underwater, but the underwater version of ds is really strong (probably op, but no one ever was interseted in underwater combat so whatever).

I must say i 1000% Disagree with Anet that ‘underwater is either not fun, not exciting enough for pvp’. Forgive me my wording (no offence meant, just rather a trying to get to why you guys did it), but do I sense a bit of ‘lazyness’ there? I mean the windows shown in spvp, had tons of space at bottom. All you have to do is add a helm slot and two underwater weapon slots, that’s it. 3 icons and settled. Ready to go…

‘require you up to 6 more pieces’ what are you talking about. If you count sigils yes…

If ‘new players’, are your priority, then just add a subchannel (different tab), to player can ignore it if they are new, and advanced players can use it if they want to. If anything this new system would have made capricorn so much better. Cause i still didnt put 7th rune in my set, to take advantage there, and with this new UI it would be peace of cake.

There is simplifying. And there is to much of it. Wardrobe simplifying = good. This? No. More = better then less. This mistake is WAY to often made at arenanet. You guys worry way to much ‘but if this is still here, it will be more work for us, and for players’. Lemme turn that sentence around positively as it should be: ‘More is always better, rewarding players more various playstyle, longer lasting appeal to play the game, and ultimately ’boredom’, will kick in much later’. Get it?

You guys always say ‘forum is to negative’. Well I gave you a positive vibe. Of course that won’t work, if you keep underwater fully removed. I had some of the most engaging battles in capricorn underwater. What’s the point of the memory? To learn ‘meh Anet doenst care and removes it?’ I hope you guys know better then this.

If this is so much of an issue that you want ‘water’ out of rotation, make a singular map, that people by free choice can access that has water (might even use capricorn for it).

Feature patch has convenience? yes. Does it have feature? To be honest, nothing so far. If anything content is being removed already.

Personally, Capricorn was one of my favorite maps and pretty much the only reason I will jump into hot join anymore occasionally instead of sticking to team and solo queues exclusively.

It was a small map that had good fights, the boat was under utilized by players and the underwater point with shark allies was a nice mix up from all of the other maps.

I think underwater areas in games just get a bad rap overall because players aren’t comfortable with having to consider that additional axis. This is also observed in flight/space based games. The most popular are on rails that only untether the player in certain circumstances. And the ones that aren’t only find a niche audience.

The underwater system (aside from the insane gravity when you try to jump out and miss) is among, if not thee, best that I have seen in any online game or MMO. And the environments themselves in most cases have just as much going on as the surface areas.

It’s a shame they either get the axe altogether or end up neglected because players reflexively dismiss the concept of underwater features at the mere mention.

Edit: Why not the opposite? Anet has been undergoing this huge movement the last few months to teach people to play the game better via boss mechanics and LS encounters. The issue with UW isn’t that it’s not good, its that people aren’t good at it and its been traditionally bad in gaming as a whole, so they respond negatively. A better solution would have been to make an entire Underwater map that focuses on the freedom of movement and pitch. Throw it in hot join rotation and customs arenas so people can learn and adapt. That leaves open the possibility for more underwater content and hybrid maps later instead of removing the potential completely.

You can still fight underwater in forest…… With just your utilities

Underwater fights were quite imbalanced and frustrating at times due to the lack of stomping. Good riddance.

Why not just drain the water and keep the map…….?

Dean Calaway.9718:

Second problem is the players don’t even bother learning their underwater weapons, they just randomly spam every attack.

How is this any different from land based combat for most players?

Evan Lesh.3295:

No ETA on templates. However, the new build tech brings us muuuuch closer than before.

thats what i thought when saw new pvp ui. hope save, load and template buttons will be next

I’m glad they removed it. I hated that map worse than skyhammer. Whenever I hot joined waiting for my queue to pop I would hate when that map came in rotation. Nobody ever went to the underwater cap point or if they did it was usually one person and they held it capped the whole time cause nobody wanted to go over there. PvP underwater combat just isn’t enjoyable. PvE is a different story. I rather enjoy it there. Just keep it out of PvP

Whit.2385:

Why not just drain the water and keep the map…….?

New Meta: Fall damage reduce traits for everyone!

(seriously… you would most likely die if you walked/jumped out of the gate without the water there….. it is a pretty long fall.)

buckeyecro.9614:

WoW

I found underwater combat to be extremely fun in GW2 and am extremely disappointed in its removal from Spvp.

Underwater comabt in GW2 is a million times better than any other MMO has done, but it is still something people dislike and it honestly does need some work.

Here’s my take on underwater combat. Please forgive as this is primarily based on PVE experience, but I can see this carrying over to PVP and WvW with the particular points I’m going to make.

Underwater combat effectiveness and fun entirely depends on the class being played underwater. Some classes the weapons work great under water, such as My warrior, or my ranger. My necro isn’t bad, for weapon skills. My engineer, worst weapon underwater ever. It is way to slow and does to little damage, especially if you are fighting a group.

Now utility skills the variation of what works underwater and what doesn’t, Most of my rangers Utilities are pretty useless underwater, granted I don’t spend a lot of time there, so someone might know of something that works. Some skills Just don’t work and there is no real reason why, such as my Necro’s flesh golem. almost every other Necro minion works in water, why not the flesh golem???? Now the Engineer, the Kits are the only way to fight underwater.

So, I can see, underwater combat needs a lot of love from devs, For time constraints of desired content planned it makes sense to remove a single map from PVP.

Does this mean it will be gone forever, not necessarily. It’s already done, It will probably be shelved until a couple devs come along with a love for Underwater, and take charge of all that is underwater. And after some time and in some future release, surprise it will be back better then ever.

Or I could be wrong and they could have the sun expand and turn the entire planet into DUNE…

The spice will flow.

To me it always seemed underwater combat was unfinished/rushed.
There are only 2-handed weapons of which you can use (I think at least for most classes) exactly as many as you have weapon slots (which almost means no choice which weapons to equip).
Underwater headgear is neither craftable nor available at max stats.
Many skills don’t work under water (especially bad with elites, which don’t have that much choice in the first place) but no skills work only underwater.
You are forced to use the same attribute allocations and armor/jewelry as on land even though the available skills/weapons might mean another build would be preferable.

I’ve never really liked it in most circumstances (though there is an underwater fractal I don’t really mind). In general I think I’d have liked the game better if underwater combat had never been in the game in the first place (or if it was more worked out), removing it from the game at this point however is nearly impossible (and shouldn’t even be tried); fixing it, on the other hand, seems possible (add a few weapon types, some underwater only skills, seperate attributes and (optional) equipment for each of PvE land, PvE water, WvW land and WvW water (PvP already having its own stats)).

for PvP it might not be balanced, but for PvE i see huge potential, but anet just dont use it.

under water only map with under water cities and giant sea world boss, omg i would nerdgasm

So… Question? what happens if I go between the bases on nif and swim out into the water?

: (

i enjoyed that map greatly.

please do not remove the map.

you removed the water from the temple of the silent storm.

why not do the same for the capricorn?

fill up the sea bed, put the capture point inside the boat.

please, do not remove that map!

I love te atmospherr water makes. In real life, I actually have a huge underwter phobia, so its nice to be able to breathe underwater in gw2, and swim with te bubbles and such.

I really like the raid of the capri corn as a map, and i was super excited when it first was released :o.

Yeah, underwater combat is extrenely imbalanced, with rangers being invincible without downed penalty. Balance doesnt really matter in hot joins though.

As for making buil crafting easier…. You dont even have a choice…. You either only get 1 weapon or 2, and always equip them all. A new player could jusst copy the sigils they use on their normal weapons.

Im definitely in favour for keeping raid of the capri corn in hotjoin, and increasing diversity :/

I do feel like this is another step away from underwater combat in the game as a whole, when it’s already pretty neglected compared to how it was talked about before launch.

I’m going to miss being on the ship all game being a pirate and making everyone mad because I wont shut up in chat, since I’m going on about plundering all the torrent sites and being all like “AVAST YE AVG!”

All the try hard hotjoin heros telling me to play properly, when I’m playing Pirates of Tyria TMD.

Good times…

This change deeply upsets me, one of the things I was most excited for in GW2 was the underwater combat and PvPing underwater, sure it needs some balance, but that’s not to say it was bad…

Is there anyway you could set it up so you have like an UW “template” and a land based “template”? IE they’re totally separate in every way (including traits).

Evan Lesh.3295:

We wanted to make build crafting much easier than it currently is on live. Part of this was removing underwater items from PvP. Only one map had underwater combat, but required you to consider up to 6 more build pieces (Helm, rune, 1-2 weapons + 1-2 sigils). Not only will the removal of Capricorn simplify build-making, it means that we have to store far less data inside templates when those happen.

It really only reduces the items to think about by 4, the sigils. The helm never needed to be thought about. The rune no longer needs to be.

I’m going to miss the map for the art. It is the most beautiful of the PvP maps currently. I hope we get a new one of similar style eventually.

Only if an underwater stomp was implemented, we would never have this subject today.
Raid on the Capricorn is awesome, it’s the reason why I hotjoin sometimes.

the only decent thing capricorn had was the art, then it was a lame and imbalance fest, obstructed underwater, lame nonsense sharks that would likely half my hp in 2-3 hit as thief, people running in the water at low hp just to make you waste a minute if you want to kill them, no idea how people liked that but i guess that’s what make gw2 a game with so many casuals.

Up water isn’t that much more balanced either imo. Sure mesmer/ranger are very good underwater, yet i’ve beaten tons of them. On my thief… Yes thief can burst a bit underwater, but it’s control/escape is non existing. It all comes down to smart positioning, outsmarting your enemy. And that’s what i did on my thief. If thief can do it, anybody else can do it too. There are ways to stop ranger underwater you know. Like kill his pet while it does the ‘lick wounds thing’. If it doesnt bug out, it stops the heal and ranger dies still. In wvw every time there’s underwater combat, i’m superiorly excited. It’s just so much fun, and some skills underwater have more flavor then most skills up water. Like harpoon gun engineer 4. That skill is so much fun to use. Shoot a sticky bomb at someone, and let him wait to see it… explode. Wish above water had more skills like that.

And with that in mind, diminishing/removing water combat is wrong. Totally. Completely. It’s like removing a random dungeon, just because ‘it fits the plan of anet’. A dungeon takes time to make. That time is gone no matter what. Same for capricorn creation. Now ask yourself this, why in heaven would you condem the 8-100 hours (i dunno, no clue how long it takes to make), it took to make capricorn? If your concern is the water combat ‘haters’, then remove it from any rotation and add some hotjoin servers, that just do capricorn.

CHOICE is better then no choice. More armor choice (wardrobe) = good. Less pvp maps? No thanks. If there are specific concerns, like I SAID, just make it a separate map. Then you both make the people from this thread happy and the underwater haters. But removing for the sake of removing (wich obviously shows bad management, as it would mean you wasted 100 hours on a map, that you only planned to remove, logic? Sure templates might be a bit more work, but c’mon 6 slots is nothing compared to the 100+ options of other slots that are in mainland slots). Think about china release, would you like to have to fix your launch mistakes also there after a year? You are fixing dye’s, wxp, legendaries, pvp reward because… You are afraid mistakes, will hurt China sales. So what you think will keep a China player more occupied, more options or less option? When will he become more bored?

If my arguments still haven’t touched you, then i’m blown away.

Why do so much players love Skyrim? Choice. Anywhere, anytime, tons of possibilities. What if Bethesda decided to remove 50% of all the choices. Would that make the game worse. I think you know the answer. And that concludes that if you want to do the right thing, you’ll add capricorn again, one way or another. Not doing it is just a big fail imo.

Why are you guys so turning away from gw1. Expansion game becomes bigger. Another expension BIGGER again. Was there ever a needless removal in gw1? nope. You kept the choice open. Why are you guys, i dunno, stepping the wrong path these days? Mind boggling to be honest. And this isn’t even about player complaints that much. It’s about doing the right thing. Seen to much mistakes there lately. And of all the mistakes you made, the right thing to do, is very obvious here, unlike maybe some of the other things you did. Sleep a night over it, and think about this words please.

A lot is getting shaved off to attract new players. Why does SPvP have to be dumbed down in this way while PvE/WvW doesn’t? SPvP isn’t exactly rocket science.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Up water isn’t that much more balanced either imo. Sure mesmer/ranger are very good underwater, yet i’ve beaten tons of them. On my thief… Yes thief can burst a bit underwater, but it’s control/escape is non existing. It all comes down to smart positioning, outsmarting your enemy. And that’s what i did on my thief. If thief can do it, anybody else can do it too.

I lol-d. You say it’s not balanced and then you claim that every class can achieve what thief can. Logic overload.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We wanted to make build crafting much easier than it currently is on live. Part of this was removing underwater items from PvP. Only one map had underwater combat, but required you to consider up to 6 more build pieces (Helm, rune, 1-2 weapons + 1-2 sigils). Not only will the removal of Capricorn simplify build-making, it means that we have to store far less data inside templates when those happen.

Oh come on, this is just getting insulting now. The playerbase are not mindless monkeys that can’t figure out their builds simply because they have to consider what sigils/runes to put on underwater weapons and an aquabreather, considering that nobody crafts their build around going into water, it’s a completely moot point you are trying to make.

im glad its gone. land combat provides enough to practice your skills, i never got to learn underwater skills well. I was always torn between ignoring the ruines and still going in when needed.