Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is a game that prides itself in trying to be “different.” This has led to quite a few innovations, but it also a few things done halfway. Nothing embodies halfway more than the game’s combat system. The system is half-styled in the form of action game where control of one’s character is often held to a superlative degree, and half-inspired by MMO conventions where order of skill execution and setup abilities are most important. This in itself is not the reason for the game’s often inelegant combat system. It’s the fact that many MMO conventions the game adopts have not been adapted to be suitable for the pace of an action system, and this has led to a slew of problems. Get ready for a long read, sPvPers, as I present to you a select few problems and possible solutions to them

Problem 1 (out of several billion, and I’m only half joking): Stuns, Dazes and Immobilize rob the victim of too much control
This is also true for cripples and chills to a lesser extent.

Spontaneously taking away a player’s control may be common in MMO’s, but that kitten don’t fly in action-oriented games. This is because, unlike in MMOs, player’s have much control and a distinctly more immersive perspective in combat; they have a much greater degree of control and choice. Going from that to helpless is the big and disorienting change. Hell even conventional MMO player don’t like it happening to them.

In GW2 cc is commonplace and accepted as part of the meta, and part of that is because cleanses and stunbreakers are abundant. I however say that their availability coupled with the widespread availability of cc has made the problem worse than it should be. Because stuns, dazes immobilize are so powerful and readily available most non-GC professions will be pressured into picking utilities and skills that deal with them. This decreases build variety and boils down combat to a game of cc, anti-cc burst and bunkerfest. Even the idea itself is silly because it functions as a check rather than a choice. “Players must carry X ability in order to not lose control of their character and be helpless.”

So how can ANet fix this?
In any competitive multiplayer games, the best abilities are often designed from the perspective of the player the ability is used. What kinds of options does X ability have on the victim after it lands? How does it make the fight more interesting for them? If the answer falls somewhere along the lings “resort to one particular option or take a lot of damage” then something is wrong with the ability. And something is definitely wrong with this game’s usage of Stun/Daze/Immobilize.

My suggestion is to make the conditions themselves offer an interesting choice of options for the ones they’e used on. For stuns allow the player to move around and use skills normally, but make it so that they are completely stopped for a set amount of time after one skill usage. This allow the player an option to run away, set up defense or risk a high damage type of skill. Dazes on the other hand should stop cooldown timers, and not simply prevent usage of all skills. This will allow the inflicter of the daze to exploit openings in offense which can be exploited, but doesn’t make the victim helpless. I haven’t thought of an alternative for immobilize but I’m sure you guys get the idea.

To compensate for this change, there will of course need to be a reduced amount of stunbreakers and cleanses, and some tweaks to certain professions, increased duration to CC, etc.

Problem 2: Animations! Animations! Animations! Animations!

Animations! Distinct animations! Skills, especially powerful ones, need distinct animations. In action oriented games, the screen is the only thing that gives the player cues on what to do. When you have abilities that look almost the same, are too fast or small, or ones that blend into the environment it becomes needlessly confusing to the player. Players have complained time and time again at how combat is one big cluster-kitten in PvP, and that’s because of how sloppy the animations have been handled. A prime example is the thief’s Cloak and Dagger. Sure it has a long channel and is dodge-able, but how is the player (especially new ones) supposed to know to dodge it when the animation for it is so discrete that it’s obscured just because the camera angle is a bit off? If it’s such an important set-up move why does it look like an auto-attack but slower? How is the player supposed to process that this is a setup to a potentially dangerous move in a team fight where there’s so much going on? They simply can’t.

Because I’m such a generous person here’s some advice to remedy this issue
Add in effects, such as blade trails, to differentiate moves and make them stand out. Take the the warrior’s GS autoattack and 100b for example. The autoattack uses animations that are very similar to 100b but slower. Some weapons blend into the background or into the user’s armor, further blurring the differences outside of speed. For a veteran player this may not be an problem but for inexperienced players, speed may not be a good indicator of the difference in power. My suggestion to remedy this issue is to give 100B a distinct and colored bladetrail. This may sound like an insignificant change, but this visual cue for the opponent by making the attack pop out indicating that it’s a significant ability. At the very least it would be better than not having it.

Additionally certain skills, notably CCs, need animations because they’re so important for setting up. Some of the animations for these moves are either too fast, too small or involve an arbitrary signet appearing above the head of a user that doesn’t at all indicate a target. When a player isn’t given a fair chance at dodging these moves because they can’t see them clearly enough, the moves become akin to cheese mechanisms. You’re helpless now and there’s little you could have done about it!

Problem 3 “Burst is bad” TwoBit rant edition
I don’t think I need to regurgitate the many complaints about burst classes in GW2, but I will explain a simple reason as to why they’re bad. They remove choice and momentum. Player on the defensive of burst must often act in a specific way using specific skills or die in several seconds. Burst users, on the other hand, must play a certain way to be useful, do nothing, or die in several seconds. Fights with burst often end in less than ten seconds. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if GW2 combat was a contender for “most interesting 10 seconds or less,” but the choices made available through the system keeps the game light-years away from that level.

Don’t Attack, Fast!

There’s no way to fix this outside of overhauling certain professions and their specs, but as ANet are most certainly doing that because they care about the health of your game and all, they should consider that PvP is a tale of player choices. It needs to have a certain pace, the choices that build up need to be interesting and there needs to be an ending. In the same vein, I suggest basing burst attacks around setups and skillful execution, making the combat less of a front-loaded face-roll. A setup ensures that both the burst user and the one on the defensive will be presented with a set of choices, and this helps to pace encounters and keep different and interesting. Skillful execution will help ensure that burst is not mundane aspect of the game, but something inspired and exciting even if it fails.

Problem 4: Bunker, yada yada yada

I won’t say much about bunkers, because they’re the same problem with burst but in full reverse. This isn’t a good thing by the way. Extreme bunker and healing is the elimination of the impact of player choice. It’s the promise that no matter what the opponent does, everything will be set back to a near-zero state. In the context of conquest it is setting the the fight back to zero while gaining incremental advantages, with the advantage going to the player who reaches the point first. If a bunker’s experience in GW2’s PvP was written out as a tale, it’d be summarized as “I got here first and some things happened but they didn’t really matter in the end.” How exciting!

Unlike bunkering the problem will not fix itself if things stay in one place.

But unfortunately bunkering is an endemic problem in conquest games that is as stubborn as the type of gameplay it promotes. I don’t see an easy fix, outside introducing new modes or reinventing conquest. But since ANet is most assuredly considering tweaking or redesigning some skills, I suggest replacing passive defenses associated with bunkers, such as regen, invuln, protection, with a form of execution-based damage mitigation. This would at least make defensive gameplay a projected choice to the player rather than a passive ability.

I enjoyed the read. I’m too tired to decide if I agree with all of the proposed changes, but I do think there are interestingly glaring problems with the system, especially when you can have aimed skillshot abilities in a game right next to something like Heartseeker, which homes in on the target, closes distance, and does solid damage. Not everything in the game has to be a skillshot, but you’d think the ones that aren’t have some sort of disadvantage compared to those that are.

Enjoyed the read and I think you make great points that are perfectly explained. Also, I’m making “I got here first and some things happened but they didn’t really matter in the end.” my new sig.

Also, one of my bigger complaints about the combat in this game (even though I love it) is the visual cues. First, there are far too many combat effects blinding me to be able to make out specific animations, let alone the fact that there is such a disparity between races (ie. Norn / Asura). In the heat of battle where particles are flying like lightning all over my screen, there is no way I can tell if that Asuran character is casting a super blaster 9000.

felivear.1536:

Also, one of my bigger complaints about the combat in this game (even though I love it) is the visual cues. First, there are far too many combat effects blinding me to be able to make out specific animations, let alone the fact that there is such a disparity between races (ie. Norn / Asura). In the heat of battle where particles are flying like lightning all over my screen, there is no way I can tell if that Asuran character is casting a super blaster 9000.

There be a kittenstorm a brewin.

(also reason why this game will never be esport)

ah hah hah ahaeueheueheue

To problem 2: I don’t get why they took out the skill-activating bar. Where in gw1 you could see, which skillz he used and based on that you could interrupt etc. For example the ranger with mel-shot to avoid cripple…

Very good and interesting read. However there are some points which I disagree with you.

Crowd Control
First of all, while I agree that CC can be annoying and in some cases forces the player to choose some kind of stun-breaker they are a big part of what makes the game interesting. Here are a few reasons why that is so:

-The player has to be economical in his use of abilities (i.e. he can’t just spam whatever button he wants)
-It encourages strategical thinking
-It encourages teamwork (fx when a teammate is downed, you can use fear to prevent him/her from being stomped)

That being said; I can see how that sometimes limits your choices when selecting between the already scarce utility options, but in the end the choice is still up to you – which brings me to my next point.

Casual vs. Hardcore
I think that you fail to make an important distinction between casual sPvP and hardcore sPvP and the implications that it will have for each. Making animations more vivid will for example result in the game being too predictable in the end-game. It would turn into an endless battle of dodges and no one hitting their target (which is just as frustrating as being CC’ed all the time).
As it is now, players who take their time to learn the game animations (hard though it might be) will have the edge over those who didn’t – and that’s one of the gaps that separates the casual from the hardcore.

Bursts, Glasscannons and Bunkering
This was probably the part where I agreed with you the most. I agree that some burst-classes / builds are currently too powerful and takes away from the overall experience. No one thinks it is fun to die in less than 10 seconds. There are many kinds of solutions to this problem of course – but I don’t think that nerfing is the best way to deal with it.

I’ve made this point in another post (probably on the thief-forum). I believe that burst damage should be something that is rewarded or in other words something that you build-to-get. This can be done in different ways, (perhaps through % of life bonuses) or through conditions. In case of the dreaded Haste+Pistol Whip burst that thief carry, I suggested a change of the ability itself.

Currently most glass-cannon-builds are a risk reward thing. And I kinda like the way that you have to be careful about how you roam around, because you might deal mean damage – but you also die just as quickly if you’re not careful. Especially during team-fights. Which brings me to the last point I want to make:

Teamwork
Many of the problems that you have mentioned are mostly only problems when it comes to 1vs1 scenarios or small skirmishes. In the grand scheme of things many of the crowd-control effects are supposed to be utilities for the team as a whole. If you think about it, all CC’s have a purpose in a team fight. Stuns can save your buddy’s life if he’s about to be stomped, dazes or immobilization are great doing chases or for assisting an escape.

Bunkering becomes meaningless if you are overwhelmed by hordes of enemies and bursts are a lot less dangerous (and attractive), when you just blew half your cooldowns and still find yourself surrounded by enemies. It’s also a greater risk.

Anyways, nice post and I hope you like the response

Bigest problem witn Crowd control in this game, isn’t CC itself but stupid idea of putting only 3 additional special skills to use.

In most MMO’s player have around 3-6 Skillbard to use. each one can contain up form 8-12 skills.
For exmaple WoW and Aion.

Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control.

Same goes to Conditions. They are far to powerfull and far to easy to stack ( bleed ) and there are not so many condition removals untill Your a Guardian.

3 special skill slot spaces are far to low as for such game.
Cause either you will take some DPS helpfull skills or stuns etc with blink. or You have to sacrifice that for stun breakers/condi removals or You will simply lose a duel.

Other mmos don’t meet such problems because of much of variety when it comes to skills and skill bars. You have a lot of skills ( Aion on this example had around 60 usefull skills for every class so your 4 skills bard were totaly full ).
And each skill was usefull for every situation whcih made that game really good pvp wise.

Same for WoW. tho here except of Self anti cc skills You have healers. most cc skills have a spell efect like curse which can be dispelled by healer. So you were excluded form combat for that time which took healer to realize that you need a dispell.

This game ( GW2) will never be good and any near good/fair in PvP because it favors to much some classes. Best example is Thief & necro & ranger for condi stacking. I’ve seen many guardians fighting those and losing even while they have best condi removal in game.

I saw good example in Tpvp video not long time ago when warrior got 17 stacks of bleed form thief. Used shake it down and after 2-3 seconds had 10 stacks again.

Another part when this game CC is bad and never should happen is HP pool & burst.

In WoW you need at least 4-7 seconds CC on a healer to kill DPS class ( in Tournaments 3v3/5v5 ) when 2-3 ppl are dpsing same person.

Here (gw2) all you need is proper 100b combo or backstab thief & steal combo to bring someone with 20k hp down in 1-2 seconds.

Worst part is that in most cases You don’t even see it comming.

In WoW thief class could expose himself by standing to close to enemy player.
In gw2 you can even put a kitten in front of enemy while in stealth and he still can’t spot you. You don’t even have a stealth reveal skills while in other MMo’s such skills exist.

I agree with some of the issues you brought up and some of your proposed solutions are interesting. Though, I don’t agree with a couple points.

Making animations more distinct.
The “big” animations are already pretty easy to catch, you just have to be aware. If we were to make it easier for inexperienced players to see then we’re just dumbing down the mechanics of the game and not rewarding the attention, awareness, and practice many other players have already committed to becoming better. It’s up to new players to decide whether they want to put in the time and effort to become better and learn the animations of major skills.

Changing the mechanics of Daze.
Dazing, in my opinion, is a well balanced effect; it doesn’t even stack! It’s easy to avoid if you are paying attention to what your opponent is doing and to what you’re doing. This comes back to learning the major animations and having experience.

There are two potential solutions to these problems:

1. Ask your friends for help learning their class’s major animations.
2. Use the combat log! Seriously! Maybe someone did something you’ve never seen or heard of before, look at your combat log and figure out what it was so you can avoid it next time.

The biggest problem PvP has is the lack of a ladder system. Too many people get matched against others that are much more experienced, and skilled, than they are. This leads to the all-too-familiar QQ threads about class X or mechanic Y is OP; OMG NERF PLZ. But that’s a whole other topic.

Mrowqa.3861:

Bigest problem witn Crowd control in this game, isn’t CC itself but stupid idea of putting only 3 additional special skills to use.

In most MMO’s player have around 3-6 Skillbard to use. each one can contain up form 8-12 skills.
For exmaple WoW and Aion.

Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control.

Same goes to Conditions. They are far to powerfull and far to easy to stack ( bleed ) and there are not so many condition removals untill Your a Guardian.

3 special skill slot spaces are far to low as for such game.
Cause either you will take some DPS helpfull skills or stuns etc with blink. or You have to sacrifice that for stun breakers/condi removals or You will simply lose a duel.

Other mmos don’t meet such problems because of much of variety when it comes to skills and skill bars. You have a lot of skills ( Aion on this example had around 60 usefull skills for every class so your 4 skills bard were totaly full ).
And each skill was usefull for every situation whcih made that game really good pvp wise.

Same for WoW. tho here except of Self anti cc skills You have healers. most cc skills have a spell efect like curse which can be dispelled by healer. So you were excluded form combat for that time which took healer to realize that you need a dispell.

This game ( GW2) will never be good and any near good/fair in PvP because it favors to much some classes. Best example is Thief & necro & ranger for condi stacking. I’ve seen many guardians fighting those and losing even while they have best condi removal in game.

I saw good example in Tpvp video not long time ago when warrior got 17 stacks of bleed form thief. Used shake it down and after 2-3 seconds had 10 stacks again.

Another part when this game CC is bad and never should happen is HP pool & burst.

In WoW you need at least 4-7 seconds CC on a healer to kill DPS class ( in Tournaments 3v3/5v5 ) when 2-3 ppl are dpsing same person.

Here (gw2) all you need is proper 100b combo or backstab thief & steal combo to bring someone with 20k hp down in 1-2 seconds.

Worst part is that in most cases You don’t even see it comming.

In WoW thief class could expose himself by standing to close to enemy player.
In gw2 you can even put a kitten in front of enemy while in stealth and he still can’t spot you. You don’t even have a stealth reveal skills while in other MMo’s such skills exist.

[Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control]

Are you sure about that?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7764416962
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7764846721
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7763916723

and many more…

Poplolita.2638:

Mrowqa.3861:

Bigest problem witn Crowd control in this game, isn’t CC itself but stupid idea of putting only 3 additional special skills to use.

In most MMO’s player have around 3-6 Skillbard to use. each one can contain up form 8-12 skills.
For exmaple WoW and Aion.

Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control.

Same goes to Conditions. They are far to powerfull and far to easy to stack ( bleed ) and there are not so many condition removals untill Your a Guardian.

3 special skill slot spaces are far to low as for such game.
Cause either you will take some DPS helpfull skills or stuns etc with blink. or You have to sacrifice that for stun breakers/condi removals or You will simply lose a duel.

Other mmos don’t meet such problems because of much of variety when it comes to skills and skill bars. You have a lot of skills ( Aion on this example had around 60 usefull skills for every class so your 4 skills bard were totaly full ).
And each skill was usefull for every situation whcih made that game really good pvp wise.

Same for WoW. tho here except of Self anti cc skills You have healers. most cc skills have a spell efect like curse which can be dispelled by healer. So you were excluded form combat for that time which took healer to realize that you need a dispell.

This game ( GW2) will never be good and any near good/fair in PvP because it favors to much some classes. Best example is Thief & necro & ranger for condi stacking. I’ve seen many guardians fighting those and losing even while they have best condi removal in game.

I saw good example in Tpvp video not long time ago when warrior got 17 stacks of bleed form thief. Used shake it down and after 2-3 seconds had 10 stacks again.

Another part when this game CC is bad and never should happen is HP pool & burst.

In WoW you need at least 4-7 seconds CC on a healer to kill DPS class ( in Tournaments 3v3/5v5 ) when 2-3 ppl are dpsing same person.

Here (gw2) all you need is proper 100b combo or backstab thief & steal combo to bring someone with 20k hp down in 1-2 seconds.

Worst part is that in most cases You don’t even see it comming.

In WoW thief class could expose himself by standing to close to enemy player.
In gw2 you can even put a kitten in front of enemy while in stealth and he still can’t spot you. You don’t even have a stealth reveal skills while in other MMo’s such skills exist.

[Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control]

Are you sure about that?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7764416962
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7764846721
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7763916723

and many more…

If Youd reading skill was proper Youd notice that first guy asks for nerf nevert which has nothing to do about complaining on cc.

Second one is complaing about shockwave dmg form warrior tanks in arenas.

and last one is actually cry to revert again nerf brought by Mists of pandaria making few cc spells ( warlock and mages ones ) being non instant. now they need to spec around 0.5-1s cast.

So please read threads fully before You post

And rest of those threads are made by ppl who never reaches 1500 rating in even 2v2 which means they are like most common ppl on that forum comming and complaining for ccs.

Just like thread creator.

And some ppl still even having 102103102487 skills to remove cc will complain.

You wanna know why ?
Because they are to lazy to look at thier debuff bar to see that they have cc on them and they are to slow on removing it.

Thats why.

And God I sometimes miss fact I blocked my WoW account to play gw2 >.>

For talking about WoW please visit the official form of WoW.

I think acandis brings it up to the point. A ladder ranking as in GW1 would change alot.

Coming from a game where this happens: http://youtu.be/hczMNyLr0ek and stun breaks are uncommon, I think GW2 handles CCs fine.
I don’t get this mentality that you need access to all your skills at all times.

Dual.8953:

Coming from a game where this happens: http://youtu.be/hczMNyLr0ek and stun breaks are uncommon, I think GW2 handles CCs fine.
I don’t get this mentality that you need access to all your skills at all times.

Great job comparing a side scrolling action game. Hey i might aswell compare Tekken to this game if your going to use that as an example.

I agree with OP, but really there’s no point in even stating where the problem is at anymore SO MANY PEOPLE have gone over what the problems are but A-net just don’t seem to care at ALL and with that most of there players have lost interest and so have I. You stop giving a kitten about one part of your game that players want to enjoy and those players will just stop caring and stop playing.

Mrowqa.3861:

Poplolita.2638:

Mrowqa.3861:

Bigest problem witn Crowd control in this game, isn’t CC itself but stupid idea of putting only 3 additional special skills to use.

In most MMO’s player have around 3-6 Skillbard to use. each one can contain up form 8-12 skills.
For exmaple WoW and Aion.

Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control.

Same goes to Conditions. They are far to powerfull and far to easy to stack ( bleed ) and there are not so many condition removals untill Your a Guardian.

3 special skill slot spaces are far to low as for such game.
Cause either you will take some DPS helpfull skills or stuns etc with blink. or You have to sacrifice that for stun breakers/condi removals or You will simply lose a duel.

Other mmos don’t meet such problems because of much of variety when it comes to skills and skill bars. You have a lot of skills ( Aion on this example had around 60 usefull skills for every class so your 4 skills bard were totaly full ).
And each skill was usefull for every situation whcih made that game really good pvp wise.

Same for WoW. tho here except of Self anti cc skills You have healers. most cc skills have a spell efect like curse which can be dispelled by healer. So you were excluded form combat for that time which took healer to realize that you need a dispell.

This game ( GW2) will never be good and any near good/fair in PvP because it favors to much some classes. Best example is Thief & necro & ranger for condi stacking. I’ve seen many guardians fighting those and losing even while they have best condi removal in game.

I saw good example in Tpvp video not long time ago when warrior got 17 stacks of bleed form thief. Used shake it down and after 2-3 seconds had 10 stacks again.

Another part when this game CC is bad and never should happen is HP pool & burst.

In WoW you need at least 4-7 seconds CC on a healer to kill DPS class ( in Tournaments 3v3/5v5 ) when 2-3 ppl are dpsing same person.

Here (gw2) all you need is proper 100b combo or backstab thief & steal combo to bring someone with 20k hp down in 1-2 seconds.

Worst part is that in most cases You don’t even see it comming.

In WoW thief class could expose himself by standing to close to enemy player.
In gw2 you can even put a kitten in front of enemy while in stealth and he still can’t spot you. You don’t even have a stealth reveal skills while in other MMo’s such skills exist.

[Both have stunning amount of crowd control skills. But noone comaplins for them. Why ? because you don’t have to sacrifice skills X for skill Y just to break from crowd control]

Are you sure about that?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7764416962
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7764846721
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7763916723

and many more…

If Youd reading skill was proper Youd notice that first guy asks for nerf nevert which has nothing to do about complaining on cc.

Second one is complaing about shockwave dmg form warrior tanks in arenas.

and last one is actually cry to revert again nerf brought by Mists of pandaria making few cc spells ( warlock and mages ones ) being non instant. now they need to spec around 0.5-1s cast.

So please read threads fully before You post

And rest of those threads are made by ppl who never reaches 1500 rating in even 2v2 which means they are like most common ppl on that forum comming and complaining for ccs.

Just like thread creator.

And some ppl still even having 102103102487 skills to remove cc will complain.

You wanna know why ?
Because they are to lazy to look at thier debuff bar to see that they have cc on them and they are to slow on removing it.

Thats why.

And God I sometimes miss fact I blocked my WoW account to play gw2 >.>

Do you actually read the arena forum? Do you fail to see sarcastic thread throught people’s thread? For someone calling out readind comprehension skill, I think it’s really sad. Shockwave only usable by tank warrior? Rly? Do you even play wow, or are you just a 1500 hero who knows nothing about pvp? Because none of what you say is even true: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/7702178/Dev_Watercooler_Mists_of_Pandaria_PvP-10_31_2012
Read the comments, and tell me no one complains about cc.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/kiljaeden/Poplolita/simple

Look if you want to bring misinformations, do it somewhere else. Thank you.

This game needs a manual aiming system, similar to what The Elder Scrolls Online will be using. You can’t have an action game with auto-target.

@Genome
Glad you liked the read.

I often find taking away the player’s control to be the lowest common denominator of design, so I’m naturally biased against abilities that force it upon others. I’m aware of the functions of CC in GW2, but I think there are better ways to punish careless skill use and support team mates. Taking away someone’s controls is the worst way to do it, even if it means getting players to play a certain way.

As for animations, it’s a necessity. Uncertainty shouldn’t come from the game obscuring crucial information, especially if it’s often to the point of illegibility. It should come from players making good decisions, leveraging the abundance of possible strategies available. For that to happen, the game needs to be legible.

As for casual vs hardcore, that’s a bit off topic but I think it’s best to discuss it anyway since it’s an important tangent. The best thing this game can do is to cater to both casuals and hardcores. There’s often been a misinterpretation that catering to casuals means taking away something from the hardcore players, by making the game easier and dumbing it down. That is ridiculous and untrue. What a good competitive game must aim to do, especially if it’s going for an eSport status, is to make the game approachable. What I mean by this is that the game must be easy to pick up and the depth and complexity that come after must be intuitive. This is important because the casuals and other players who watch the competitive levell games need to be able to tell what’s going on at least on a very base level. This is why GW1, while catering to a hardcore fanbase, can never be an eSport. The level of complexity and depth at the competitive level is absolutely incomprehensible to new players, and it therefore alienates any potential audience.

I’m starting to rant so moving on.

Teamwork is a bit hard to define, but I’d say it comes from making decisions with the group, carrying out strategies and coordinating. The games’ systems certainly do give well-coordinated teams that crucial sense of comradery, but it does so in a way that’s uninteresting.

Also I’d argue that many of my points apply to all situations in PvP whether it be 1v1, 1v2 and so forth, and this is especially true for animations seeing as how the game becomes illegible at times.

@Chi Malady
I disagree. Targeting is fine and even necessary for certain skills. The fact that ANet uses it as a crutch for designing many of the skills is the problem, IMO.

I completely agree with the OP. Also, I have seen so many people, friends, forum posters, and myself point out the “pacing” issue, even though sometimes it’s been called different aliases.

All the successful esports, including Starcraft, Dota, and Counter-Strike have all had great pacing. Sadly, this component of success is just lacking.

Kakeru.2873:

Dual.8953:

Coming from a game where this happens: http://youtu.be/hczMNyLr0ek and stun breaks are uncommon, I think GW2 handles CCs fine.
I don’t get this mentality that you need access to all your skills at all times.

Great job comparing a side scrolling action game. Hey i might aswell compare Tekken to this game if your going to use that as an example.

I agree with OP, but really there’s no point in even stating where the problem is at anymore SO MANY PEOPLE have gone over what the problems are but A-net just don’t seem to care at ALL and with that most of there players have lost interest and so have I. You stop giving a kitten about one part of your game that players want to enjoy and those players will just stop caring and stop playing.

Actually it’s a 3d brawler. And was in the WCG (World Cyber Games) more then once, advertised along side SC2 in Korea. I know it’s not an Rpg but even in Gw1 they proved you don’t need an insane amount of action buttons to have depth.