Guild Wars 2

Incidentally, I think Risk vs. Reward does come into play a little bit, when it comes to build making and team combat.

Obviously building glassy vs. tanky is an easy example, although in GW2 it’s a bit lopsided since the best builds are those that can build glassy whilst surviving via methods that don’t sacrifice offensive stats/traits. Or the opposite – being extremely tanky whilst still having good damage due to the natural power of certain attacks.

As for team play, the down state is the main risk/reward mechanic in a team fight. If you make a mistake and go down, your teammate has to make the choice of whether to revive you and risk being AOEed, or try for a rally, or let you die.

And the Conquest format has its own Risk/Reward intricacies when it comes to team composition, and player positioning.

I think GW2 has some good mechanics at the macro level of teams and builds, but when you get down to the micro of individual fights and duels, I think some major changes need to happen.

This is exactly what needs to happen, I don’t really agree about using endurance for skills completely though, and I don’t think that would happen.

But auto attacks do need to just be safe, small filler instead of the main spammable massive dmg it is now.

However they could still easily make bigger attacks riskier to get off by just having longer animations or cast times or channels required.

Ever notice when the third auto attack in your auto chain is your biggest hit and to get it off you have to give up dodging to get it off? Meanwhile the mob your attacking attacks you then so you either get hit and get the dmg off or you interupt it to dodge.

Same thing would apply here, think of killshot, or 100 blades, or any sort of high dmg channel skill, you can’t dodge and still get that dmg off.

Something I like about GW2 is that it has the RPG feel of dps, armor, stats, etc—but also rewards you for landing skillshots or dodging key attacks. It’s a hybrid. I guess it could go all to one side, to where the game revolved completely around landing/dodging key abilities, just like a fighting game. That would probably feel weird to most people, though. GW2 is an RPG, even if they wanted to challenge convention.

It seems a bit unfair to say “hey, you made a nice RPG but you really should have made streetfighter IX.”

NevirSayDie.6235:

Something I like about GW2 is that it has the RPG feel of dps, armor, stats, etc—but also rewards you for landing skillshots or dodging key attacks. It’s a hybrid. I guess it could go all to one side, to where the game revolved completely around landing/dodging key abilities, just like a fighting game. That would probably feel weird to most people, though. GW2 is an RPG, even if they wanted to challenge convention.

It seems a bit unfair to say “hey, you made a nice RPG but you really should have made streetfighter IX.”

The problem is the balance is skewed too far away from the “fighting game” style, there should be a nice blend of that strategic RPG CCG GW1 style of play and the twitch action FPS gameplay, it’s too heavy on the latter atm though.

Knote.2904:

The problem is the balance is skewed too far away from the “fighting game” style, there should be a nice blend of that strategic RPG CCG GW1 style of play and the twitch action FPS gameplay, it’s too heavy on the latter atm though.

I thought you wanted it to put more emphasis on dodging/landing key abilities? That would be heavier to the twitch side.

Taking it to the strategic side would be something like removing active dodging and introducing resource management. But I wouldn’t want that either.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

The problem is the balance is skewed too far away from the “fighting game” style, there should be a nice blend of that strategic RPG CCG GW1 style of play and the twitch action FPS gameplay, it’s too heavy on the latter atm though.

I thought you wanted it to put more emphasis on dodging/landing key abilities? That would be heavier to the twitch side.

Taking it to the strategic side would be something like removing active dodging and introducing resource management. But I wouldn’t want that either.

Active dodging/landing key abilities is BOTH strategic and twitch play.

Which is what this game should be.

Right now it’s twitch gameplay only because the TTK is so low and there is so much dmg spam thrown around, dodging is just used randomly to just help mitigate dmg instead of used strategically.

Hell the last I can remember actually using my dodge in a way that actually felt rewarding was back in the day (beta/release) when Bull Rush/100B warriors were everywhere and I would dodge the whole combo.

Knote.2904:

Active dodging/landing key abilities is BOTH strategic and twitch play.

Well fighting games do have a lot of strategy, but I’m still a bit confused as to which direction you wish the game would have taken. It’s much further toward the action side than 90% of other MMOs, which feels like too much to you—but these suggestions basically make it even more action-oriented. I like the feeling I get when I dodge a skill that I was waiting for and trying to avoid, but I also like that that’s not the only part of the game—some of it is positioning, steady damage, math calculations, juggling cooldowns, defensive skills, etc, just like a traditional RPG.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Something I like about GW2 is that it has the RPG feel of dps, armor, stats, etc—but also rewards you for landing skillshots or dodging key attacks. It’s a hybrid. I guess it could go all to one side, to where the game revolved completely around landing/dodging key abilities, just like a fighting game. That would probably feel weird to most people, though. GW2 is an RPG, even if they wanted to challenge convention.

It seems a bit unfair to say “hey, you made a nice RPG but you really should have made streetfighter IX.”

Well, in the entire history of internet gaming forums (and newsgroups/irc/maillists before them), there will always be people who say, “I am playing Game A. But I like Game X. Please make Game A more like Game X.”

I like action games. I’ve always hated MMO combat. I want GW2 to be more like action games and less like MMOs.

Clearly, you feel the reverse (there’s plenty who want GW2 to be more like GW1, after all.)

However, it’s not just agreeing to disagree – we have to state our case to why our opinion is better.

To me, GW2 is far enough towards the action side, such that it breaks the RPG side. But its action side is not developed enough to be fun and meaningful.

One of the reasons why berserk gear is so prevalent is because of action mechanics – since you can dodge/defend against damage, defensive statistics are completely devalued. It’s even worse because this effect is too lopsided – you can use action mechanics for defense (dodge/invul skills) but you can’t use action mechanics for more offense. (there’s no equivalent of counter hits doing more damage, Dark Soul’s back stab, FG combo attacks, etc.)
Well timed dodges/evades/invuls can reduce incoming damage by a lot. But, usually, well-timed attacks do not have the same effect. (barring a few specific classes and attacks, like Ele burst, Warrior BullsRush+100blades, etc.)

If anything, my suggestion might bring a bit more balance back into the RPG stats. Having a high innate defense means you can save your endurance for offensive skills, and the reverse is true as well. How you choose to build your character RPG wise, will determine how to best use your character’s action mechanics.

Of course, those who support the status quo have a powerful argument that beats everything: “This is how it is, and ANet is unlikely to change it.”

@Rieselle:
I really like the concept of making the game a little more “actiony”.

It’s also interesting that you mention Risk vs Reward by incorporating Endurance, because the old design of GW2 actually incorporated it. And you can see it when looking back at the history of Charge skills . In the case of Charge Skills, these skills did more damage the longer they were charged. In the case of the “old” Arcane Blast and Churning Earth and Obliterate (replaced with Crushing Blow); these skills actually did consume Endurance/Energy and therefore made Offence a necessary sacrifice of Defense.

You can see the legacy of some of these skills in Churning Earth and Killshot today – long channeling, highly obvious animations that root you in place for a return of terrible terrible damage . I believe that the game can be much improved by bringing back some of these mechanics that were originally discarded, if only in a reduced state.

Obviously right now players have learned to combo these high-risk high-reward skills with CC (Bolas → Killshot) or Teleports (Churning Earth → Lightning Flash) but making more skills a Charge Skill would do much to bring back some of the skill floor.

One side effect of making more skills Charge skills is that Interrupts are suddenly more important as well. For classes like Mesmer, we could finally see a return of a lockdown Mes in a Charge Skill meta.

It should also be said that many skills are way too automated right now. Certain gap closers like Savage Leap or Rush or Ranger Sword Pounce or Thief Flanking strike have automated tracking on target instead of using something like the Whirlwind attack reticule to manually aim it. Ride the Lightning, too, has automated tracking.

When you then look back at the Thief forums and the complaints that Flanking strike received it was largely to do with its auto-tracking. The fact is that many manual aiming skills and skillshots are already in the game and fully exploited by players. Rush and Fiery Rush are already used when de-targeted; you just can’t use the slash component. I hit Net Shot more frequently as Engi by de-targeting and manually leading my shot. I feel that removing some of this automation can improve the skill floor and open up plays that are only possible with manual aim.

Not very well thought out.

The second you take away auto-attacks damage is the second you destroy power damage, there would be no reason to use power over condition damage.

We already have a condition damage meta, this would make power damage just worthless…

Also from your post history, I notice you play an Elementalist, the class which relies least on using auto-attacks because they spam so much. You would have to lower the damage of all four attunements greatly to compensate for having double the abilities after you removed the auto-attack’s damage.

So because of all that trouble, problems and work alone. I will have to give it a big fat “No”.

@Daecollo:
The main reason why combat is so spammy at the moment is because autoattacks are so strong, whilst some weapon skills are so weak/have too long cooldowns for what they do. Ranger is a good example: Shortbow 1 does too much, whilst 2,3,4,5 are entirely too situational. Compare that with Thief Shortbow where you have useful skills for 2,3,4,5 but your 1 is only good to finish someone off; not pressure someone down like Ranger Shortbow 1.

Weapon skills being poorly tuned is just one part of the problem. As for Elementalist, Daecollo, if you “spam” as you so generalise then you will die. Simple as that. There are set rotations and combos for each situation and knowing them is as elemental (pardon the pun) as comboing in fighting games. It is true that Elementalist auto-attacks are in general pretty bad, but that sidesteps the issue.

Condition damage meta is only a problem because of crit-procs inflicting conditions, and auto-attacks being able to stack up conditions all by themselves, like Necro Scepter 1. You can put 3 conditions on someone just by spamming Scepter 1 with Dhuumfire. If you’re Engineer, which I also play, a Grenade “autoattack” puts up to 3 stacks of Vulnerability with possibility of Burning and Bleeding on crit when running the standard 30/5/0/20/15 Grenadier build.

Your response reflects a lack of understanding of why the condition meta exists and persists. Power builds have been viable not because of auto attacks, but because the best skills are on 2,3,4,5 and require comboing to get the most out of them. Arguably the best power class of them all, Warrior, doesn’t do the best damage by spamming GS1, but by comboing CC with 100b, Bolas with Killshot (most entertaining trash build), or Mace 4/5 into Axe Eviscerate. I could go on, but with so many power builds I’d run out of word limit.

The difference here with conditions is that conditions with autoattacks in some classes and builds are actually too strong ; not the other way around. You don’t need to land your Necro Scepter 2,3 when you can just auto them for Dhuumfire (well you’d be doing a lot better, but you still stack up Bleed and Poison pretty well with Scepter 1).

You’d see a lot less crying about Necro and Engineer if Crit-procs were removed in favour of something more active, that’s for sure. Maybe if Dhuumfire was tied to DS, or Incendiary Powder tied to Toolbelt use. I don’t know. And Ranger Shortbow to have its condi stacking put on 2,3,4,5 and 1 to be steady pressure with little possibility of Bleed stacking.

The other thing about Power damage needing (???) auto-attacks is also false. Engineers have a ridiculously strong auto-attack in Rifle 1 (pierces without trait, better Power coefficient) but it’s not used as much because comboing 2 with 3, 5, then 4 is better. As strong as Rifle 1 is, it’s relegated to finishing people off and as poke damage. As it should be. Same with Warrior’s Hammer/Longbow. Hammer 1 is ridiculously strong, but it’s only used as poke or to finish someone off after a Stun combo. Longbow uses Dual shot to poke, but we all know the best deeps is in Combustive Shot and Arcing Arrow.

What you’re describing Daecollo – “weak” autos in Power builds – already exists.

Weakening them further and buffing 2,3,4,5 simply emphasises the actual skills instead. You could also go halfway and backload most of the damage for autoattacks into the second and third strikes of the chain skill and increase the third strike cast time.

Are Warriors crying because their Weapon skills are too weak? No. Elementalist? No. Their autos are actually weak aside from Lightning Whip. Thieves? Nope. Well, certain dual skills have too much and 4,5 for Dagger is questionable but that can be improved. Rangers? Shortbow 1 is too strong and 2,3,4,5 is situational and look at the way they’re played now. Engineer? The only weak autos are Pistol 1 and FT1. Guardian? I actually like Guardian autos, especially Staff 1. Mesmer? Only Scepter is questionable. Necromancer? Scepter 1 is best auto in game for condi builds.

Yea, I would like to see a more action game too.
I really hope to see a developer jumping here saying “kitten it, you’re right! Let’s rework this!”
I guess it is only a dream after all. Stubbornness is stubborn.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

Active dodging/landing key abilities is BOTH strategic and twitch play.

Well fighting games do have a lot of strategy, but I’m still a bit confused as to which direction you wish the game would have taken. It’s much further toward the action side than 90% of other MMOs, which feels like too much to you—but these suggestions basically make it even more action-oriented. I like the feeling I get when I dodge a skill that I was waiting for and trying to avoid, but I also like that that’s not the only part of the game—some of it is positioning, steady damage, math calculations, juggling cooldowns, defensive skills, etc, just like a traditional RPG.

That’s the thing, there’s not that much of that going on, it’s too mindless and spammy atm, there’s not much option for intelligent play/dodging because most of the dmg is coming from non stop spam.

Daecollo.9578:

Not very well thought out.

The second you take away auto-attacks damage is the second you destroy power damage, there would be no reason to use power over condition damage.

We already have a condition damage meta, this would make power damage just worthless…

Also from your post history, I notice you play an Elementalist, the class which relies least on using auto-attacks because they spam so much. You would have to lower the damage of all four attunements greatly to compensate for having double the abilities after you removed the auto-attack’s damage.

So because of all that trouble, problems and work alone. I will have to give it a big fat “No”.

That’s not true at all lol.

You’re taking this too literally, reducing dmg from auto’s means reducing the overall dmg output that comes from passive/auto attacks, not the literal base direct dmg from auto attacks…. this also means reducing condition dmg output from auto’s and put more on active skills.

Rieselle.5079:

Of course, those who support the status quo have a powerful argument that beats everything: “This is how it is, and ANet is unlikely to change it.”

Also the fact that it would cost a lot of money and that making a core-design level change would break the game for a while until it got polished/balanced back out…but I know what you mean

One thing that confuses me is that you mention zerker gear is really popular. Relatively few people use zerker gear in PvP, so I’m curious as to what your perspective is. Thieves use it regularly, mesmers use it often, and some very rare, brave eles use it, but anything outside of that is considered a niche build.

Knote.2904:

That’s the thing, there’s not that much of that going on, it’s too mindless and spammy atm, there’s not much option for intelligent play/dodging because most of the dmg is coming from non stop spam.

Maybe. I never said it was easy. I enjoy the fact that not everything has a massive tell—some skills are very powerful just because they’re hard to avoid. Usually the only way to dodge those is to get into your opponent’s head, which is another aspect of RPGs that I enjoy.

Lol Gw2 isn’t spamy because of auto attacks its because of having many skills with weak costs to them.
Eg being a root calms down zealot defense, PW and 100b cost decreases spam. Cast time, root and cool down keep earthquake down to earth. Initiative cost makes missed CnDs crippling.

Necros can throw their staff auto but its easy to strafe its not contributing to spam. If they use up marks you weapon swap for more skills.

How does the auto attack factor in for spam it rarely does.
Skill spam is costs of weapon skills being low given that you can swap weapons. For thief its ini traits.

the best example imo for a risk and reward fail is the s/d thief

Knote.2904:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

Active dodging/landing key abilities is BOTH strategic and twitch play.

Well fighting games do have a lot of strategy, but I’m still a bit confused as to which direction you wish the game would have taken. It’s much further toward the action side than 90% of other MMOs, which feels like too much to you—but these suggestions basically make it even more action-oriented. I like the feeling I get when I dodge a skill that I was waiting for and trying to avoid, but I also like that that’s not the only part of the game—some of it is positioning, steady damage, math calculations, juggling cooldowns, defensive skills, etc, just like a traditional RPG.

That’s the thing, there’s not that much of that going on, it’s too mindless and spammy atm, there’s not much option for intelligent play/dodging because most of the dmg is coming from non stop spam.

Daecollo.9578:

Not very well thought out.

The second you take away auto-attacks damage is the second you destroy power damage, there would be no reason to use power over condition damage.

We already have a condition damage meta, this would make power damage just worthless…

Also from your post history, I notice you play an Elementalist, the class which relies least on using auto-attacks because they spam so much. You would have to lower the damage of all four attunements greatly to compensate for having double the abilities after you removed the auto-attack’s damage.

So because of all that trouble, problems and work alone. I will have to give it a big fat “No”.

That’s not true at all lol.

You’re taking this too literally, reducing dmg from auto’s means reducing the overall dmg output that comes from passive/auto attacks, not the literal base direct dmg from auto attacks…. this also means reducing condition dmg output from auto’s and put more on active skills.

You can’t reduce condition damage without reducing the damage of every condition attack in the game.

I am taking it literally, because honestly this post offends me.

Daecollo.9578:

Knote.2904:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

Active dodging/landing key abilities is BOTH strategic and twitch play.

Well fighting games do have a lot of strategy, but I’m still a bit confused as to which direction you wish the game would have taken. It’s much further toward the action side than 90% of other MMOs, which feels like too much to you—but these suggestions basically make it even more action-oriented. I like the feeling I get when I dodge a skill that I was waiting for and trying to avoid, but I also like that that’s not the only part of the game—some of it is positioning, steady damage, math calculations, juggling cooldowns, defensive skills, etc, just like a traditional RPG.

That’s the thing, there’s not that much of that going on, it’s too mindless and spammy atm, there’s not much option for intelligent play/dodging because most of the dmg is coming from non stop spam.

Daecollo.9578:

Not very well thought out.

The second you take away auto-attacks damage is the second you destroy power damage, there would be no reason to use power over condition damage.

We already have a condition damage meta, this would make power damage just worthless…

Also from your post history, I notice you play an Elementalist, the class which relies least on using auto-attacks because they spam so much. You would have to lower the damage of all four attunements greatly to compensate for having double the abilities after you removed the auto-attack’s damage.

So because of all that trouble, problems and work alone. I will have to give it a big fat “No”.

That’s not true at all lol.

You’re taking this too literally, reducing dmg from auto’s means reducing the overall dmg output that comes from passive/auto attacks, not the literal base direct dmg from auto attacks…. this also means reducing condition dmg output from auto’s and put more on active skills.

You can’t reduce condition damage without reducing the damage of every condition attack in the game.

I am taking it literally, because honestly this post offends me.

I meant literally as in, “reducing base dmg on autos” when I mean, reducing overall dmg output on passive attacks.

And offended? What? Lol..

Daecollo.9578:

You can’t reduce condition damage without reducing the damage of every condition attack in the game.

I am taking it literally, because honestly this post offends me.

@Daecollo:
What? How is Knote being offensive?

The aim of this thread is to put back some risk and reward mechanics into offense and open up the possibility of punishment.

One of those ideas is to put more condi stacking into 2,3,4,5, with auto-attacks only being good for “poke” condi application. Simple as that. By tying condi application more to 2,3,4,5 skills that actually have a cooldown, you can have equivalent or almost equivalent condition application; whilst raising the skill floor.

The result is this: You actually have to land your skills to land your conditions. How exactly is that a bad thing? What’s wrong with shifting Ranger’s Bleed stacking to other skills on Shortbow, or shifting Poison/Bleed stacking on Necro Scepter more into Grasping Dead?
Or at the very least, backloading most of the Power damage/Condition application for autoattacks into the last attack of the chain that has a longer cast time, but longer duration to allow for dodges but still allow for Condition stacking?

I get the feeling you’re not reading the thread fully and just responding on your gut feeling. Which is also fine, but it kinda undermines your point.

Daecollo.9578:

You can’t reduce condition damage without reducing the damage of every condition attack in the game.

I also find it interesting that you would conflate “reducing condition damage” with “reducing the damage of every condition attack in the game.” when the discussion has revolved around risk/reward, not condition application. When was it brought up that condition application should have been nerfed across the board? Please elaborate with quotes.

Anyway, Condition application and Power damage of auto-attacks is part of the discussion, certainly, because right now condition application is pretty easy when you can stack up condis with auto-attacks and pressure someone down that way. An entire Engineer build that relies on conditions gleans much of its Burning pressure just from Incendiary Powder, for example. Other Conditions like Vulnerability, Bleed, Poison, Chill and Blind are just there as “cover” for it.

Critical-hit procs like Dhuumfire and Incendiary Powder also make it a lot more viable to put things like Burning or Bleeding or Vulnerability and so on through RNG crits. When something as powerful as Burning is accessible through RNG, of course you’re going to spam your lowest cooldown attacks (autoattacks) to “roll the dice” as often as you can. It’s the reason why Dhuumfire was met with almost overwhelmingly negative response from players playing against it – when even an autoattack can put 2k worth of armour ignoring Burning damage on a target, of course you’re going to want to dodge even auto-attacks.

It’s basically “poke damage” turned into actual pressure thanks to a crit-proc. And herein lies the crux of the problem; you don’t have to sacrifice your safety when even your auto-attacks have the potential to hit for 2-3k.

I didn’t talk specifically about condition damage, but yes, condition damage as it’s currently implemented is kind of messed up in terms of risk/reward too.

Unfortunately condition damage has very few parallels in action games, so there’s no easy example to learn from. In dark souls condition damage isnt commonly used, it mainly provides pressure and reduces healing.

Incidentally, we should talk about healing as well. In dark souls, healing is large, but you have to stand still and not get hit/backstabbed for several seconds to get the cast off.

Needless to say, trying to heal in the middle of a fight will get you instantly killed unless you have locked down your opponent some how.

I’m not saying gw2 should go that far, but passive healing and spam healing in this game is probably too much.

Yes! Yes!
I wrote about this several months ago(that GW2 needs good resource system), and while i had another implementation in mind, making the endurance bar being a universal resource for defence and offence is the most obvious decision to make the combat better.
Also, let me add couple of points
1)To improve the game imo it is necessary to drastically remove all forms of passive interaction(healing, condition removal etc. etc.) between players, deliberately moving all of them to the skills. If the character cleansed conditions, that is because he had used skill. If ANYTHING happened in the game, that is because someone pressed a button.
Traits and other customization just change WHAT happens when player press certain buttons, but they do not do things by themselves. That is a design decision, that will remove a lot of things from the screen, while increasing the skill depth of the game. win-win.
2)Adding to the TC’s suggestion, give players two secondary attributes: Endurance amount and endurance regeneration, that they can customize through traits and equipment. Basic amount is 50 endurance and 5 endurance/second(half of the current) and maximum amount is 250 endurance and 15 endurance/second(1.5 – 2.5 of the current) Dodge and attacks cost about 50 endurance. Increasing the maximum endurance adds to the burst potential of the character, either defensive or offensive, and endurance regeneration adds to the sustainability of the character. This will add more interesting options while designing the character. Do you want our character to deal a lot of damage(berserker)? He will burn through his endurance very fast and won’t be able to replenish it any time soon.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Excellent feedback! I’ll pass this on to the team.

Thanks for the effort!

Thanks Allie!

Whilst i don’t expect a response, i enjoy talking about game design and i wish the designers would openly muse on these kinds of topics more.

Although presumably that would open them up to hordes of armchair wannabe designers calling them stupid. So maybe not :p

You just suggested to put energy back in the game. It is just dressed a bit.

Anyway i agree with this.

I don’t understand why after anet taked out energy from the equation now Allie say that. I hope they are looking for a way to reduce the brainless spamming in this game.

Those are sweeping changes that can’t really be done to a game at this point without being labeled the NGE of Guild Wars.

Also, no thanks at giving the opportunity for more dodges. The number of dodges is right, more skills just need to be changed to be more like Dragon’s Tooth and 100b, where we can visually identify the biggest threat and act on it, while at the same time punishing poor usage of dodges by using those big skills when they have no way of evading.

We’re closer to that than the OP thinks, and such big changes aren’t necessary. Just needs to be some polishing work done on existing skills to help players identify them better.

Corian.4068:

Those are sweeping changes that can’t really be done to a game at this point without being labeled the NGE of Guild Wars.

Also, no thanks at giving the opportunity for more dodges. The number of dodges is right, more skills just need to be changed to be more like Dragon’s Tooth and 100b, where we can visually identify the biggest threat and act on it, while at the same time punishing poor usage of dodges by using those big skills when they have no way of evading.

We’re closer to that than the OP thinks, and such big changes aren’t necessary. Just needs to be some polishing work done on existing skills to help players identify them better.

Yes.

Reduce Passive Healing, but Increase dodges? uhh… Evasion Rangers/Thieves are already dumb.

They only have to change animation/cast times and cd to decrease spam.
As if they’d overhaul their system.

while i think the idea needs some tuning (as ideas often do), this is one combat overhaul suggestion i can get behind. it keeps the core of GW2 intact, while offering a deeper meta-level of strategy from having to know when to risk that strong move VS when to play defensively.

a lot of work would have to be done to keep it from breaking balance though (for example, you just gave thieves 4 dodges instead of 2, and they have really high endurance regeneration and on-attack dodges), but as a long term project, it could make GW2 all the more interesting to play and watch.

wow! Imo this is the single most interesting suggestion ever.

Although I have no hope of dreaming about its implementation in gw2…ever.
to much work to balance skills and their endurance costs. it is like adding initiative to all professions. and thiefs got 2 layers of initiative to “burn” trough…
sweet idea but not very realistic :\

not happening.

with pings of 200 – 300 ms this kind of mechanics will kill the game.

MonMalthias.4763:

It’s also interesting that you mention Risk vs Reward by incorporating Endurance, because the old design of GW2 actually incorporated it. And you can see it when looking back at the history of Charge skills . In the case of Charge Skills, these skills did more damage the longer they were charged. In the case of the “old” Arcane Blast and Churning Earth and Obliterate (replaced with Crushing Blow); these skills actually did consume Endurance/Energy and therefore made Offence a necessary sacrifice of Defense.

You can see the legacy of some of these skills in Churning Earth and Killshot today – long channeling, highly obvious animations that root you in place for a return of terrible terrible damage . I believe that the game can be much improved by bringing back some of these mechanics that were originally discarded, if only in a reduced state.

I only see the concept of Charged Skills now in certain environmental weapons, I can’t remember anything specific. I think it really was an awesome concept especially to those listed in the link you gave. I don’t know the devs reason to scrap this concept entirely in weapon skills and utilities but I think these are what the skills in game should be like. Risk/reward are there and not the spam and forget type of gameplay we see for most of the popular existing builds. I hope we see the return of these types of skills in game.

Regarding excessive dodging, that’s the thing. If you tie offense and defense together, then dodging is a costly action. If you use up all your stamina on dodges and defense, it’s akin to blocking all the time in a fighting game – you’re not spending that resource on hurting me.

Most action games and fighting games have no cooldowns and unlimited dodges/blocking. They work because all of these things are punishable, so doing them at the wrong time is very bad.

I don’t think punishable dodges would work that well in gw2, due to lag and spam, though. Hopefully reduction of offense is costly enough for dodging.

Perhaps too many dodges is a bad thing even if it costs offense, simply because in gw2 you can go full defensive, run away, and heal up. So maybe defensive mechanics cost half of your endurance (like dodges do now) and big attacks cost 1/4? Anyways, details to be tweaked through testing rather than theory i guess.

As for thieves, i guess they are a big barrier to my idea, since they uniquely implement some elements of my proposal already. If everyone gets this mechanic, then thieves might have to lose the initiative mechanic and become similar to other classes.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

MonMalthias.4763:

It’s also interesting that you mention Risk vs Reward by incorporating Endurance, because the old design of GW2 actually incorporated it. And you can see it when looking back at the history of Charge skills . In the case of Charge Skills, these skills did more damage the longer they were charged. In the case of the “old” Arcane Blast and Churning Earth and Obliterate (replaced with Crushing Blow); these skills actually did consume Endurance/Energy and therefore made Offence a necessary sacrifice of Defense.

You can see the legacy of some of these skills in Churning Earth and Killshot today – long channeling, highly obvious animations that root you in place for a return of terrible terrible damage . I believe that the game can be much improved by bringing back some of these mechanics that were originally discarded, if only in a reduced state.

I only see the concept of Charged Skills now in certain environmental weapons, I can’t remember anything specific. I think it really was an awesome concept especially to those listed in the link you gave. I don’t know the devs reason to scrap this concept entirely in weapon skills and utilities but I think these are what the skills in game should be like. Risk/reward are there and not the spam and forget type of gameplay we see for most of the popular existing builds. I hope we see the return of these types of skills in game.

Actually, one thing i really want to hear about was what happened to these skills. Why did they remove this mechanic? Did it cause problems?

If any beta tester or developer could comment, that would be really interesting.

I for one, do not like this idea.
Three reasons
1. Guild Wars 2 is a very mobile game.
2. It becomes a battle of skill recharge.
And the big one.
3. Death is not a punishment in Guild Wars 2 PvP.

Look at League of Legends. There are MANY different factors to consider than just battling. You got: Jungle, buffs, bushes, towers, minions, experience, gold, levels.

It is a very complex game.

A mistake in League could mean run back to tower, recall and heal. You lose gold and experience but you did not lose the battle.
If you are losing the battle, there are other things you can do. Gank other lanes, kill the weaker jungle minions and just be passive until you (or jungler) catches up.

In a high risk PvP. A mistake in Guild Wars 2 would MOSTLY mean death. If you lose the battle once, you will mostly lose the battle every time.

Making it risk vs. reward would ONLY enforce risky offensive play. If you fail once, resurrect. Try again. No need to be defensive when you can die as many times as you please.
There cannot be risk without punishment. Right now, there is no punishment beyond a wrist slap.
______________________________________________________________
What ArenaNet should focus on is not Risk vs. Reward but different play styles.

There are weapons (and kits) that are too perfect. They have everything you need to succeed.

The reward comes from skill, using what limitations you have to succeed.

PvP doesn’t need high risk = high reward. It needs more factors than points to truly feel rewarding.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I for one, do not like this idea.
Three reasons
1. Guild Wars 2 is a very mobile game.
2. It becomes a battle of skill recharge.
And the big one.
3. Death is not a punishment in Guild Wars 2 PvP.
.

That’s a really good point. Conquest is a strategic mode, and not really a tactical one. Winning a fight (or losing one) only has a moderate impact on the match result – a win can still happen if the strategy of splitting, bunkering and capturing points is done effectively.

Still, just like my wvw post on strategy vs. tactics, i wonder if people really enjoy strategic games where it’s often smarter to avoid battles or delay the enemy?

There’s a reason why people keep asking for duels and deathmatch.

Hopefully a middle ground can be reached where losing a fight has a real impact on the match, not just respawn and repeat.

I guess if this was a game in alpha testing, i would say, “get the combat right first, then design the game mode around it.” Sadly we are already live though.

You suggested they add something that was in GW1. (some type of energy or mana bar for powerful attacks). That is taboo

Achilles.2197:

You suggested they add something that was in GW1. (some type of energy or mana bar for powerful attacks). That is taboo

I think the dodging makes a big difference. I remember in gw1 i wrote a post pointing to sirlins article on how to achieve variety whilst still maintaining balance. One of his conclusions is that you need a robust set of universal defensive mechanics, which allow you to have a big variety of offensive mechanics without causing major balance problems.

Dodge and universal self heal goes a long way to solving gw1’s problem in this area.

Laxuar.3504:

You just suggested to put energy back in the game. It is just dressed a bit.

Anyway i agree with this.

I don’t understand why after anet taked out energy from the equation now Allie say that. I hope they are looking for a way to reduce the brainless spamming in this game.

Energy and then energy management skills … so one part of your bar is there just so you can use the other part. Ugh … don’t really need or want that again.

An action bar as a resource that challenges players to self-balance offensive versus defensive abilities has been a strength in MMORPGs. What might not be obvious in some of my helpful posts is that I believe GW2 is the best of the genre. It has achieved a level of overall quality that I feel like I have waited to see. I think the original devs that made this amazing world were fantastic. I like that they took a risk with some design decisions. Some things I do not agree with, but I appreciate their try. Some things probably should not have been changed from standard implementation. An action bar is one standard of the genre that exists because it solves a slew of problems. Not only that, but an action bar allows for more character customization options, as has been mentioned already.

Rieselle.5079:

Achilles.2197:

You suggested they add something that was in GW1. (some type of energy or mana bar for powerful attacks). That is taboo

I think the dodging makes a big difference. I remember in gw1 i wrote a post pointing to sirlins article on how to achieve variety whilst still maintaining balance. One of his conclusions is that you need a robust set of universal defensive mechanics, which allow you to have a big variety of offensive mechanics without causing major balance problems.

Dodge and universal self heal goes a long way to solving gw1’s problem in this area.

That makes no sense man. We had monks. We also could kite for days since we didn’t get slowed down from being “in combat”

NevirSayDie.6235:

Rieselle.5079:

Of course, those who support the status quo have a powerful argument that beats everything: “This is how it is, and ANet is unlikely to change it.”

Also the fact that it would cost a lot of money and that making a core-design level change would break the game for a while until it got polished/balanced back out…but I know what you mean

One thing that confuses me is that you mention zerker gear is really popular. Relatively few people use zerker gear in PvP, so I’m curious as to what your perspective is. Thieves use it regularly, mesmers use it often, and some very rare, brave eles use it, but anything outside of that is considered a niche build.

Knote.2904:

That’s the thing, there’s not that much of that going on, it’s too mindless and spammy atm, there’s not much option for intelligent play/dodging because most of the dmg is coming from non stop spam.

Maybe. I never said it was easy. I enjoy the fact that not everything has a massive tell—some skills are very powerful just because they’re hard to avoid. Usually the only way to dodge those is to get into your opponent’s head, which is another aspect of RPGs that I enjoy.

It’s not about making it easier, it’s about balancing the risk vs reward.

Right now most dmg/attacks are low risk/high reward.

There is no intelligent dodging from auto spam, where’s the risk on the opponents end? Nothing, just tons of dmg flying at you and you spam dodge randomly to try and mitigate some of it, where’s the strategy in that situation?

I’m not so sure about endurance being universal resource is a good idea, but im sure that endurance regeneration should be lowered or there should be ways to drain enemies endurance (particular attack for instance).
However my vote is in for restoring different types of skills. Charged skills, channeled skills, more ground targeted skills and skillshots (should warrior axe 3, or guard hammer 3 typical skillshots?). Even if not in PvE (I guess the idea of theses skills was removed because they were difficult to catch up and use, and were removed to make game esier to catch up) than in WvW and PvP for sure.

Achilles2197:

Rieselle.5079:

Achilles.2197:

You suggested they add something that was in GW1. (some type of energy or mana bar for powerful attacks). That is taboo

I think the dodging makes a big difference. I remember in gw1 i wrote a post pointing to sirlins article on how to achieve variety whilst still maintaining balance. One of his conclusions is that you need a robust set of universal defensive mechanics, which allow you to have a big variety of offensive mechanics without causing major balance problems.

Dodge and universal self heal goes a long way to solving gw1’s problem in this area.

That makes no sense man. We had monks. We also could kite for days since we didn’t get slowed down from being “in combat”

My mistake. I neglected to mention i was talking about dueling in gw1, which of course is completely out of place in that game. However, due to smaller team sizes and conquest format, 1v1s and 2v2s happen quite a lot in gw2 pvp, so dueling mechanics start to matter a bit more.

hmm… this is very interesting. I like the risk and reward for attacks/ skills, and this is true if you compare it to real life situation.

If you’re planning on making a heavy attack on an opponent or an acrobatic move that is very offensive lets say in martial arts, its flashy therefore predictable. Most deadly martial arts move require preparation, focus, and energy to execute. From your post relating to endurance, this would make sense. Its also true that our #1 weapon skills ability should be just “jabs” to poke enemies and should be faster of course to compensate for the damage.

If Devs approve, these players would be very happy:

- Scepter Mesmers
- Staff Elementalists
- Longbow Rangers <3
- Hammer/Mace Guardians
Anything else I miss?

But the hard part is how would the breakdown for endurance be, if weapon skills #1 are jabs, it shouldn’t use endurance.

Possible solution would be, to make it simple for new players every attacks should be categorize to lets say: jabs, medium attacks, and heavy attacks.

Medium attacks lets say uses 5 endurance per use.
Heavy attacks 10 endurance per use.

And to make the battle flow, might need CD for skills to be reduce so it seems like everything is just flawless when you pvp since skills now uses endurance. MAYBE it might fix things.

Its not possible to change the mechanics at this stage in the game. But they could do is adopt risk vs reward, it would be more simple to do I think. Long casting time skills do big damage, instant skills do little damage. Right now, the game is being dominated by instant skills which do lots of damage.

There are already a lot of things about the game similar to a fighting game. Like warriors adrenal meter is just like a super meter found in familiar fighting games like street fighter. When you hit and take damage it increases the power meter.

GankSinatra.2653:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Excellent feedback! I’ll pass this on to the team.

Thanks for the effort!

1 year later

Allie Murdock.8152:

Excellent feedback! I’ll pass this on to the team.

Thanks for the effort!

Another more LIKELY possibility is that she did pass on the information, the devs considered it and rejected it for a variety of reasons. We can’t be sure since we are not part of the design team.

Remember kids, just because an idea sounds good to YOU, doesn’t mean the idea is good for the game or feasible for a myriad of reasons.

One of my main problems is the ‘strong stability’ classes versus non stability classes. A stun can ruin everything in pvp. Multiple stuns will be a nightmare. Lot of classes have stunbreakers BUT on a very long cooldown. Stability however lasts 5+ sec (sometimes every CRAZY 10+ seconds). 10 seconds being immune to all control effects (except immobalize, i dont count crippling really as a control effect, more as a weakening effect). To strong. Especially in wvw. I know this is spvp, but when you balance things in spvp, please dont ruin other modes with it.

Healing signet: it’s almost ok in pvp (it’s close to op, but in a grey zone, so i’m not gonna temper the counter posts here). In wvw however it’s massive overpowered. Having to do nothing to get 400 hp/s, wich can’t be interrupted and heals more then best instant effect (one tick heal) heal: Healing surge, and you got a problem. There’s no real counter to this, other then being incredibly bursty (and making no mistakes, while warrior, makes some mistakes).

I think the biggest problem is warrior dont belong in pvp atm. I know this is gonna kitten off a lot of people, but basically the warrior design is to simple to fit pvp. And the only way to make them viable is to make their simple features strong, but it remains the most flat profession in the game. They have most hp, most armor most damage, but fall behind in most other things in the game, like combo’s (not necessary combo field + finisher, just skill combo’s), chain attacks they fall behind, doing more then just damage, they have very few things to punish an enemy other then damage. So we come back to warrior is to flat: damage, build to last (hp, armor), but nothing else is in this. Warrior has only 3 features, but those 3 of them are overextended atm. I’ll be honest though, A solution i don’t have for this.

There was an earlier thread that got locked (but was read by Jonathan sharp). I must post my worries if that post will be taken seriously as I completely disagree. He said ‘dodging is to much spammed in this game’. I completely disagree. If we want to make the game flat, with less variation/fun/excitement/different ways to kill different builds, you are right. However I want to keep the fun in the game. And dodging is main part of it. Nerfing that will essentially make this game so incredible hardcore (and boring), that it’s not good imo. stun can be spammed every 8 secs (with the long cooldown ones also counted, even more often), by warrior. Stunbreakers have super long cd (except on certain prof like mesmer – necro/engie cd’s way to long on stunbreaker). What is the only other solution? Right dodge. And spamming dodge gets punished by good players, they immediately lock you down and damage you hard. Yes Endurance goes up fast again, but hey stuns also go fast up again… 100b goes up fast again too… We must be ready for that. And the current system succeeds to do that. Nerfing dodging in ANY way will remove this fast, but fun gameplay. And it will make builds less viable, against variable builds. This means, ‘only prof X will be able to kill Y, Only Z can kill V’, etc. We DONT want that. All profs can kill all profs as it stand now. Some of them are hard but you got a chance. The dodge system is a big part of that. Please do not drastically change this Anet.

TL:DR (you wanted this devs, now please read also as promised): Warrior is a bit out of place in pvp, to flat imo. (read above for more info). Dodge system is fine as it is. Don’t overhaul it. It’s the fundamental core of what makes guild wars 2 fun and entertaining. Do not listen to naysayers to nerf it. I dont want a turn based ‘Only skill X can counter skill Y’ game. And nerfing dodging will exactly do that. It will even extend to: only build X is viable, and even in that state only good enough to kill build Y and Z. Conclusion: only tweak dodge system, never overhaul it.
Risk v reward: my input. Zerging is to much rewarded. (even in pvp using x6+ ppl, i call ‘zerging’.) You see 2-3 player, you have a lot with you, you smash them down with small chance to get killed. And you get +15 points. Meanwhile they get a long respawn timer and you can cap their stuff. change this somehow. I’ve met ‘bad’ pvp (hotjoin) teams, that still won because this zerging to win strategy. I know opponents could take time to countercap but it’s not as easy as it looks. Brainstorm to bring smart player a little more into pvp. Perhaps 5 cap points instead of 3 (will spread the ppl more and avoid zerging more, since capping is more important).

Allie Murdock.8152:

Maybe the mechanics don’t need to be changed in order to create the strong connection that the OP mentioned is missing.

And yes, I did pass this on. We don’t reject ideas instantly, either. Sometimes it is one idea that inspires other great ideas, which is why threads like this are great. Just because it’s a suggestion that could mean a possibly unlikely overhaul doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share it!

We really appreciate the feedback, and would like to see this conversation going with more ideas if you have them!

Thanks

Definately, no need for major reworks, could just take it one step at a time “shaving” the power of passive dmg (like autos) and increasing the risk/reward on 2-5 attacks.

Personally my favorite attacks in the game are those of high risk/high reward.

Kill Shot.

Staff Ele with Lava Font/Eruption/Meteor, amazing skills.

Grenade Engy (not too much risk melee range though)

Engy Rifle burst set up.

Ele burst set up (not fresh air garbage =p)

Etc. Would love to see more of this, but of course, don’t focus on making more crazy burst/spike though, if there is crazy spike dmg set up, then the set up needs to be a difficult set up (risk vs reward).

Not everything needs to be remade to becoming spike combo’s like shatter spike, or engy/ele type burst.

Stuff like Ranger Shortbow/Rapid Shot + Quickness or 100b Warrior is less spike and a little easier to counter.

I think a bad example of this is Thief backstab burst, and Fresh Air/Lightning INSTANT burst dmg.