Guild Wars 2

This looks like something that would make a great minigame/activity, but I wouldn’t like it for normal combat for a variety of reasons.

Auto & AI-attacks
I would agree that automatic-attacks of any nature should be reduced in dps power for all classes (-25%) – not only skill#1 but even pets, turrets and the like.
Likewise haveing conditions or extra-specials (i.e. thiefs sword root) being applied automatically without any player interaction …is a bad design choice imho.

Passive Heals
In general a good mechanic, but maybe some passive heals are too strong. Still, auto-cleanses are not a good design choice. To cleanse player interaction should be required.

Additional Endurance bar
Maybe a good idea, IF you start every fight with the amount of endurance currently in place.
This way passiveness in dogeing (and chargeing up) would “pay-back” with a little more endurance later in-fight.

Charged skills/Power-up attacks
I like this idea, too, and it would deepen combat meta a lot – while low entry “button smashing” skill ceiling would remain mostly the same. Its a system which worked very well in old Arcade sidescroll-shooter and not too complicated for novice players to grasp and use.

My take on this would be:
- Holding a button, would charge a bar (and every Power-up-step showing on screen with a flashy Number)
- Charegeing ONLY possible IN-FIGHT
- Costs endurance
- No other attack possible while holding the current attack, except for movement
- Maybe even showing this by prolonging the telegraphic part of the attack animation
- the more endurance you invest, the more dps or “extras” you will gain like:
—> additional condi-effects
—> enlarged area of effect
—> higher dps
—> more condi stacks
—> extra special attacks (i.e. cc-effects)
—> prolonged duration of effects

i.e. Thiefs Sword Skill#1 could still root, but at the cost of 1 endurance bar and holding the autoattack-button for 0,25-0,75sec. Holding the button for a max duration of 1,5-3sec. could prolong the root duration, or give some extra dps or even enlarge the attacked area.

i.e. Eles churning earth could be instant but would only be 1/3 in diameter and do only 1 bleed stack/lesser dps. Holding the button for the full duration would resemble its current effects but also cost some endurance (maybe some extra condi like pain to compensate for endurance cost).

Ideas becoming other ideas can be interesting. I think your thoughts about modifying the endurance bar might be too much of an upset as you yourself suggest, but even a simpler version of your original vision could be compelling: Let’s say some of the more powerful abilities do cost some endurance, if you have it. You can use the skills any time they are off cooldown, even with low/no endurance, but if you have endurance, some or all of it will be expended. This way you can continue to have the combat flow we’re seeing currently, while also making you decide if it’s worth a defensive sacrifice to use the powerful offensive ability. Naturally, you would have to adjust the vigor boon as well, or it would become even more useful than it currently is, but I cannot for the life of me understand people who are keen to point out problems with an idea that could easily be adjusted.

Solid suggestions, but as others already mentioned, many things – most notably endurance-generation traits/sigils, limited access to vigor by some classes, and the current spammability of relatively hard-hitting autos on some classes together with passive play – would need to be toned down first before linking strong hitting skills to endurance

Also, I’m susprised no one mentioned the prime example of how Anet reinvented the risk vs reward concept:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge

Here’s a question. If we throw out game mode, class balance, build balance, gear balance as factors, and we get 2 players with identical builds to duel.

What class build in the current game most resembles the kind of gameplay we want?

I’m not too familiar with thief builds, so i won’t comment there. But the old bull rush / 100b warrior seems to be leaning towards this direction.

Rieselle.5079:

Here’s a question. If we throw out game mode, class balance, build balance, gear balance as factors, and we get 2 players with identical builds to duel.

What class build in the current game most resembles the kind of gameplay we want?

I’m not too familiar with thief builds, so i won’t comment there. But the old bull rush / 100b warrior seems to be leaning towards this direction.

Right, but that build was the definition of a cheese build. One powerful gimmick, then nothing. There was a lot of “action strategy” in baiting out dodges (or saving dodges), stunbreaks, etc. But it wasn’t actually that fun, since at its core it was so simple to counter. I don’t think we really want to go back to that.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Rieselle.5079:

Here’s a question. If we throw out game mode, class balance, build balance, gear balance as factors, and we get 2 players with identical builds to duel.

What class build in the current game most resembles the kind of gameplay we want?

I’m not too familiar with thief builds, so i won’t comment there. But the old bull rush / 100b warrior seems to be leaning towards this direction.

Right, but that build was the definition of a cheese build. One powerful gimmick, then nothing. There was a lot of “action strategy” in baiting out dodges (or saving dodges), stunbreaks, etc. But it wasn’t actually that fun, since at its core it was so simple to counter. I don’t think we really want to go back to that.

So tell me which mirror match would you choose to be a good example of your desired gameplay?

I fully agree with the OP. I love the combat of GW2 and it always sorta felt like something was missing. Ive pondered the charge skill thing for a long time and ide love to see some form of that back in the game. If anything I want my other skills to be the REAL threats rather than Auto attacks. Dragon’s Tooth and 100b are perfect examples of what our other skills should resemble. Powerful abilities that you need to work at to make happen, you feel great when you land them and your opponent feels equally great if he dodges them. I think that kind of playstyle would be something everyone could enjoy.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

This issue is evident with wars and thieves. S/D ones, of course.

With S/D there’s no way to effectively punish the thief unless he wants to fight you.

No range requirments to spam Inf strike allows the thief to set the port back miles away AND he will still be able to close the gap, basically if things go wrong just port back, change to a softer target, rinse and repeat.

With evades you can still time your skills and use them in real attack time span: there’s no possible counter to a thief porting back at will ( coming from a thief main).

Same with war burst skills: the CD is ridicolously low, and skull crack is istant; a mace/shield war will ALWAYS, sooner or later, hit with its skull crack, and you’ll lose automatically the second time it lands on you.

Reason why the only effective counters to wars are mesmers and blind thieves.

There’s no good risk vs reward in these 2 cases ( especially) altough there are tons of more examples: do what you must, don’t nerf hammer abilities which have nothing to do about the OPness of cheese proffs ( like you said, shaving Larcenous strike boon stealing is a worthless move, won’t change anything).

You say you understand there needs to be a good balance between risk and rewards: show us.

Kill spirit ranger build, nerf S/D thief porting, perma stun wars, and necro condi spam. Give us a possible counterplay to burning procs or totally remove them.

These things by themself would balance risk vs reward without doing overhauls like the OP suggests.

Toning down auto-attacks is a good idea, and I’m all for it, but it must be done carefully, so that they are still strong enough to be worth the time spent using them.

For example, how many people auto-attacked with a sword mesmer? Well, I’m not sure how things are since it was buffed, but before the third skill in the chain was buffed to foes without boons, not many people cared about auto-attacking with a mesmer. In pvp, the best play was always making a quick burst and killing as quickly as possible. Auto-attacking was an exception. And in pve, where auto-attacking is king, it was one of the main reasons why mesmer’s dps was lower than normal, but that wouldn’t probably be a problem if other professions’ stronger auto-attacks weren’t as strong as they are.

Assuming that such a change would need a split, it would also be a good opportunity yo buff some auto-attacks for non-pvp environments. I’m thinking of most elementalist’s auto-attacks, because they’re the most obvious examples.

However, would this change be better with a split, or if it was universal? The effectiveness of auto-attacks have a big impact on how easy to play the professions can be. But pve’s current meta is already so much driven by auto-attacking, which is boring. Even elementalist’s main strategy is to auto-attack (Lightning Hammer builds). Many world bosses can be beaten with auto-attacks, even if they were buffed and now require more surviving skills.

Now that world bosses have a timer, toning down auto-attacks in pve might have a positive impact on how those battles are fought, because passively auto-attacking would take a longer time to beat them, which in turn would make the chances to fail increase unless the players actually use their other 4 main bar skills. lol

Even excluding world bosses, I think a general toning down would be positive to pve’s endgame min/maxing content and how fun it would be (how boring it wouldn’t be) BUT would make the game harder to play for newcomers.

Regardless, I think more important than splitting auto-attacks through diferent modes, is making sure they are all about on the same level first. Even if most auto-attacks were to be toned down for a single mode or for all modes, if no one bother to use some auto-attacks currently, no one would suddenly start using them after the nerf, as long as there are more viable alternatives within the same profession. Again, an ele is the most obvious exception: nothing in MH dagger compares to Lightning Whip, for example. And LW isn’t op at all, in my opinion.

Slightly off-topic, I know, but it was a direct response to J.Sharp’s post.

This sounds like a great idea.
Been lazy about reading the whole thread, lots of walls of texts, so sorry if things have already been said.

I’d really like it if the combat system in GW2 became kitten ring.
It’d really benefit from having more use from the combo system, that is a very interesting and unique system with high potential, however not that used.
It’s not really what this thread is about but I think more skills should combo and there should be more possibilities for combos.
It’d consume alot more bandwidth, but it’d be interesting if unique abilities from combo fields affected combo finishers.
An arrow through a Static Field could become unblockable and stun, inheriting the features of the combo field.
In that way you could make new skills from comboing existing ones allowing for deeper tactics and really making combos count. Currently they’re mostly about creating might and not much more.

More on topic I really like the way thieves manage their skills and I think “endurance” would be much more realistic and interesting than cooldowns. I guess that basically this goes back to the old system with mana, but it is a good system and it makes sense.
Now it’s “spam everything as fast as you can and don’t think because it takes too long time”. If one used an endurance system for the skills, it’d create a deeper, yet simple risk/reward feeling, basically as OP says. But what would be really interesting would be no cooldowns and instead only “endurance”. I mean… why can’t I cast Meteor Shower 5 times in a row if I have the energy for it? Doesn’t really make any sense. GW2 removed mana but I think it should have removed cooldowns instead.
Energy feels more interesting, gives a deeper strategic thinking, still keeping it simple and forces players out of the auto-attack-to-win mentality.

And I really don’t think this or the decrease in auto-attack damage should be split between pvp and pve because I think it’s needed in both areas. You should be punished for not playing the game while playing the game (mindlessly zerging and autoattacking) and rewarded for doing more elaborate combos and other skills.

The reward for breaking a skill with no cooldown that still is a huge massive attack would be that the player casting it loses his energy spent from it. Also you don’t get hit by it. And there should definately be more fast-cast interrupts in all classes for it to work properly. But of course not to the point where it’s impossible to do anything.

I mean for example in street fighter, the reward for dodging a superattack is that the enemy “energy” meter is depleted and he did no damage.

Just some thoughts. I’d really like to see some change to the fighting system but I realize that it’s hard to remake and rebalance something that’s already in.

Hmm auto-attack nerf suggestion or just rebalance strong auto attacks and weak ones.

I prefer a good balance on auto attacks across the board but auto attacks are different for every weapon for every class and different in builds.

D/D ele for example I think all auto attacks are good in there own way but Fire and Water for example should have projectile finisher chance for example. Water adds vuln so either remove the vuln or bump the damage. Fire I feel is fine but projectile finisher chance just makes sense to me.

Warriors autos are pretty good across the board.

Mesmer staff depends on what your running, scepter is the worse auto attack in the game imo, GS is good, sword is actually decent just that the way rotations usually play out for mesmer you aren’t really forced to auto attack for dps unless your phantasms are destroyed and other skills are on cooldown.

Thief autos are pretty good but I would say pistol is good if your condi if not then its kind of meh filler.

Necros autos are good except staff it gives life force and has range but its just filler not as bad as mesmer scepter auto attack only because of its range and life force regen but its close to as bad.

I definitely wouldn’t want auto attacks to be useless and weak. What happened with Warrior Axe auto I think is fair the damage is still there but it isn’t front loaded.

JonathanSharp.7094:

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

I guess non of these applied to the elementalist staff.

Why not just remove auto attack altogether? Make every skill a “main bar” skill with a cooldown. Just make auto attack look like a combo, but give it a 2 second cooldown, decrease its damage, and make it primarily for utility/filler.

Better yet, make it a modular skill. We need more skills to swap out on the main bar in general, give us a choice of what type of auto-attack skill is assigned to our weapons (the same way we change out utilities). As a D/D thief, I find it annoying that my 3rd strike is poison-damage when I don’t give a crap about conditions on him. I’d much rather have a short-duration cripple or something.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

always felt that some weapons have too many leftovers from that time, with ele focus being the big one for me. the ele focus has skills with longer recharge than some elites, and stupid cast times for skills that don’t really serve all that much *cough*firewall*cough*

i don’t think longer cast times and cooldowns would make the game better, it would just make every non-thief sit on autoattack for longer. however, i feel like a bigger emphasis on interrupts would be really good. as it is, interrupting is only useful for four seconds, but shutting down a skill for its entire cooldown would be too much. maybe make interrupted skills go on 50% cooldown (minimum being 5 seconds), and make chill stronger on the “slower skill recharge” effect. also, find a way so that these two apply for thieves as well, because it’s kinda unfair to other classes.

of course, that would mean rebalancing interrupt skills and chill application, as well as skill tells so that interrupters can actually see what skill is being used so they know when to interrupt. heals are a great example of skills that have a good tell: one second cast time with an obvious, almost universal animation and effect.

LoreChief.8391:

Why not just remove auto attack altogether? Make every skill a “main bar” skill with a cooldown. Just make auto attack look like a combo, but give it a 2 second cooldown, decrease its damage, and make it primarily for utility/filler.

Better yet, make it a modular skill. We need more skills to swap out on the main bar in general, give us a choice of what type of auto-attack skill is assigned to our weapons (the same way we change out utilities). As a D/D thief, I find it annoying that my 3rd strike is poison-damage when I don’t give a crap about conditions on him. I’d much rather have a short-duration cripple or something.

but auto poison is so good lol. without speccing into condis, you have something that lets you screw up enemy heals, making dagger mainhand one of the best ways to handle regen warrior without a condi build right now.

I really dislike the concept of this thread because it’s looking at game play all wrong.

The feeling of punishment should come from defeat.
NOT FROM MISTAKES.
Mistakes lead to defeat.

The feeling of reward should come from victory.
NOT FROM SKILL.
Skill brings victory.

The feeling of risk should come from surviving.
NOT FROM TIMING.
Timing comes with surviving.

You are not looking at the whole picture. Rather, you are just examining what is obvious.

It’s limiting. Very, very limiting game play style.
Making it a focus of combat would be a bad idea.

Imagine playing League of Legends and the ONLY champions were AD carries. It would get very boring, very fast.

The answer to better combat is not always more intense combat.

You want to reward victory and punish defeats and doing so by diversity.
More play styles and more game modes.
_____________________________________________________
I believe Guild Wars 2 PvP needs more diversity with it’s play style rather than builds. There are way to many weapons and traits that offer nothing for uniqueness. When I put 30 points into Fire Magic, I want it to feel vastly different than 30 Points into Earth Magic other than what numbers I see flying.

Guild Wars 2 has the mechanics but it does not have play styles.

It also needs a punishment system. Losing a capture point is a slap on the wrist plus there should be a better end goal than just 500 points.

Right now there are only fights, no battles, no war.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

Could you please not unbalance WVW any further - it is a pvp game mode and should be a more balanced than it currently is… do you guys realize how insane warrior regen is with the new runes, food and sentinel gear. Sorry don’t mean to get off topic, just getting more and more frustrated by how you seek to balance pvp yet completely ignore wvw balance and let things toned down in pvp exist in wvw in their unbalanced state… (please don’t try to deny that… perplexity runes and 3s revealed are more than enough proof…).

On topic, this sort of brings up a problem with thieves. Most of the complains about thieves such as black power-HS spam, sword 2/3 spam, CnD spam, unload spam (ok maybe now that one :P) is due to the lack of CD’s and how easy it can be to migrate risk when you have a ‘resource’ cost associated with skills instead of balancing each individually. I don’t think that can be fixed with the current init system… but does need to be considered…

Another point is how you changed mesmers to increase most CD’s by 20% outside of full shatter builds – as a result the class feels a lot more ‘sluggish’ in terms of mobility and movement than it used to… though if you use a shatter built it has no effect, which is really imbalanced…

Regarding the first point… isn’t a lot of this due to the nature of the meta over the last few months… though I really question how much anet is actually going to tone down based on the details they have provided. The idea of risk vs reward really seems to have been lost as the game progressed.

I really miss seeing high level play where you could distinguish that high skill, not just people being carried by over the top mechanics and builds.

No single ability in any game I’ve played has encompassed the idea of Risk vs Reward better than Frenzy.

But Risk vs Reward was a different era of gaming, these days it’s all about accessibility and protecting your players from being too stupid.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

Could you please not unbalance WVW any further - it is a pvp game mode and should be a more balanced than it currently is… do you guys realize how insane warrior regen is with the new runes, food and sentinel gear. Sorry don’t mean to get off topic, just getting more and more frustrated by how you seek to balance pvp yet completely ignore wvw balance and let things toned down in pvp exist in wvw in their unbalanced state… (please don’t try to deny that… perplexity runes and 3s revealed are more than enough proof…).

I really miss seeing high level play where you could distinguish that high skill, not just people being carried by over the top mechanics and builds.

very very much agree with you. u nerfed mesmers confusion to spvp level, whereas it needed a nerf, but nowhere near spvp level at all. u took away the only viable aoe source we had in wvw and now u never buff us again as we are good duelists. wvw is not based on duels, its group fights.

mesmer confusion is now a around 35% of this

now u keep buffing warriors and we are already at this

and this is the current meta(usually more necros present though)

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

Could you please not unbalance WVW any further - it is a pvp game mode and should be a more balanced than it currently is… do you guys realize how insane warrior regen is with the new runes, food and sentinel gear. Sorry don’t mean to get off topic, just getting more and more frustrated by how you seek to balance pvp yet completely ignore wvw balance and let things toned down in pvp exist in wvw in their unbalanced state… (please don’t try to deny that… perplexity runes and 3s revealed are more than enough proof…).

On topic, this sort of brings up a problem with thieves. Most of the complains about thieves such as black power-HS spam, sword 2/3 spam, CnD spam, unload spam (ok maybe now that one :P) is due to the lack of CD’s and how easy it can be to migrate risk when you have a ‘resource’ cost associated with skills instead of balancing each individually. I don’t think that can be fixed with the current init system… but does need to be considered…

Another point is how you changed mesmers to increase most CD’s by 20% outside of full shatter builds – as a result the class feels a lot more ‘sluggish’ in terms of mobility and movement than it used to… though if you use a shatter built it has no effect, which is really imbalanced…

Regarding the first point… isn’t a lot of this due to the nature of the meta over the last few months… though I really question how much anet is actually going to tone down based on the details they have provided. The idea of risk vs reward really seems to have been lost as the game progressed.

I really miss seeing high level play where you could distinguish that high skill, not just people being carried by over the top mechanics and builds.

very very much agree with you. u nerfed mesmers confusion to spvp level, whereas it needed a nerf, but nowhere near spvp level at all. u took away the only viable aoe source we had in wvw and now u never buff us again as we are good duelists. wvw is not based on duels, its group fights.

mesmer confusion is now a around 35% of this

now u keep buffing warriors and we are already at this

and this is the current meta(usually more necros present though)

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

Was this pre-launch?

Cause I don’t think I notice that much of a difference from here and during beta weekends.

I have to agree that it feels better in PVE, having bad sustained dmg and nothing but burst cooldowns makes general solo PvE kind of a pain.

Like leveling on a Mesmer, or leveling with Ele sceptre, nothing but slow cooldowns to do dmg and it doesn’t flow very well. On the other hand however, having a super strong auto like Lightning Whip makes it easy, but also pretty boring, doing anything other than Lightning Whip is a dps loss really.

I want to say that the changes would actually be an improvement for PvE encounters as well, instead of just spamming auto’s to win, but I can see why it would be hard to justify such changes. =/

Splitting might be the best way to go, shaving dmg off auto’s in PvP doesn’t change the abilities themselves too much, though it would be nice to have changes that don’t need splitting.

Also I think it might be a good idea to put more utility on auto’s, it could even possibly give them more depth as well and cement them as solid filler attacks even in cases where dmg is low. For example :

Take the Thief trait that has a chance to give initiative on auto attacks, even if the dmg is low it becomes decent filler for recharging initiative for better attacks, and reminds me a bit of how Focus resource for WoW hunters works, with steady shots being filler that provide extra resource.

For other classes however, having extra utility on autos such as Mesmer Sword or Ele Staff Earth is also nice so there’s a use for it out side of just “dmg spam”.

And then there are cases like Ranger Greatsword auto with the evade chain, and Guardian Hammer chain with the aoe field, although having passive evade in the case of GS isn’t very “healthy”, it does provide some depth to the attack in that you could purposefully time your attack chains to provide a different function other than “dmg spam”.

Like you can interupt the Greatsword evade to cast it again for a controlled evade or double evade, ways to give more depth to auto chains like that would be fantastic. In fact, I think every auto should have a chain, where Ranger Longbow/Shortbow don’t, not only for depth, but also for risk/reward, the chains require you to commit to them in order to get dmg out and dodging interupts that, that’s a good way to add risk to Auto’s.

Something to chew on. =p

In spvp i’m all for toning down auto attacks, it will promote smart play, and not so much ‘lotus/wild/double’-strike spamming thiefs. Those thiefs alone without much punishement can take most of your hp down by this (if they are helped by allies).

One big concern though, if this will be the future of the game, do not affect other gameplay environments (pve/wvw). Secondly, don’t make the game a boring turn based final fantasy. I want to be right in the middle of the action, feeling like i’m battling for my life right there. That’s what i love about the current situation: this feel is totally there. You must be very carefull of not making auto attacks to dull either. I think some of them don’t even need a nerf (engineer pistol for one), ranger axe, etc.

tune down easy spammable skills, ranged AoEs, Large AoEs, auto attack,

or buff skills like final thrust and rip.

voila.

if spamming attacks and ranged, large aoes are more effective then these skills(when hit) then there’s no much to talk here.

Risk vs Reward is a great avenue to pursue in shaping the game’s meta; I do think that is on the developers’ minds, but…. I’ve never really been able to pin down what they’re trying to go for.

The game is active for a MMOG, sure. Your combat actions are as fluid as your skill/build choices. One can be strongly supportive, strongly damaging, but never the unstoppable spear or the unbreakable shield.

But I’ll take a leap in insight to say I don’t see my connection with other players. After a year of play, I’ve come to the conclusion that this game was build for 1v1, and all of your teammates potentially make interesting 1v1 fights significantly less skillful. Matches are easy once someone is rolling with you (and that is very much the spirit of Guild Wars!) However, with the current damage meta, hypothetical other dude is really only good for helping maul some other poor sod; he’s not going to play any other role than that; he can’t heal me for much, and he probably won’t throw me any boons (he’s probably built to kill other people as well).

So, if things are going to be that way, so be it; I have had a ton of fun with it during the year, and will continue to do so. But I’d really like to see some drawback to running damage; if not for the fact that players know how to exploit the damage build to its optimum by now, at least for a reason to back up and run with other players.

I dont see how “poofing” with thief is such a difficult way to deal with the thieves, just find out where he ported FROM and run there, itll force him/her to repostition.
but i do see your point in the hammer builds…insance damage, healing, damage reduction in one build…you rupt 1 skill that would be part of his lockdown chain, hell just switch weapons and keep you locked. thieves themselves cant take down a warrior like that, if only they get past 90% Thick Skin trait then MAYBE you could widdle it down…

This is why many other action MMOs make you stay still while casting or using an ability. You are locked in place during the animation. Games like Tera and Neverwinter do that. They do it mainly due to risk/reward because without that mechanic combat becomes a mindless click fest.

Fighting games also do that. You are locked in place during the animation. Because you invest in that ability and you go for it. During that time you are vulnerable which is how combat should be.

I love PvP ( favourite aspect of GW2 ) but I don’t play a lot… So correct me if I’m wrong :
What I understand is that globally in PvP:

• The “macro” ( map control, player positioning) feels great, is enjoyable to watch and to play
• the “micro” ( fights between players, the reward you feel when landing or dodging an important skill) is not enjoyable to watch/to play… Because of bad visibility in the middle of all the skills effects and/or because of the spam-fest/little strategy when it comes to choose when to active our abilities…

The main ideas here where to re-introduce a mana/energy mechanic, decrease the power of #1 abilities or put big abilities on longer cooldowns… But the problem was that the game felt too slow or the #1 abilities felt useless or we can’t make too big changes at this state of the game…

So here’s an idea I had when reading this amazing thread. ( But it’s definitely not an amazing idea, I’m open to all criticism x) )

Add a new type of effect in game that would link the abilities in some sort of combo.
An example is better then longer explanation: take the engineer rifle.

1. #2 Net Shot put an effect “combo 1” that last a few sec on the target hit.
2. #5 Jump Shot put a “combo 2” on the target hit if already affected by “combo 1”
3. #3 Blunderbuss has double damage (or stuns) if the target is affected by “combo 2”

That way we can still use frequently enough our nice fun abilities separately ( so that the game doesn’t feel slow) but we can also build something bigger and stronger if we want to play more tactically… And the opponent will have something easily recognisable/important to dodge or interrupt.
Of course making different combos for each weapon set/ utility skills would be too troublesome/ difficult for new players to understand. So I thought that, considering the GW2 philosophy of movement-based combat, it would be cool to base the combo1 on the crippling/immobilising abilities and the combo2 on the “getting in or out of combat” abilities… It could improve the importance of those abilities but just if we play them well, not because they’re stronger or on longer cd.
And moreover it will give a recognisable pattern for everyone, whatever the profession: CC => movement => boom! So that people would learn to dodge and to place those patterns.
Also it could be THE thing people will look at when spectating :" He just got crippled! Will he be able to dodge the Bull’s Charge?! No!! Now he only got one chance left or he’ll be in serious trouble!! " CC and movement-based abilities are the most recognisable in the game right now…

In team-fights, it could improve team cooperation… Even though I understand it would make 1vsX combats way harder… It definitely needs improvements and more thoughts, but here was the basic idea…
I don’t know, perhaps the movements abilities could remove one “stack” of “combo” if used on an ally… Or the only way to self-remove the “combo” would be to do a “out of combat” ability so that we forced to take risk or to play safe…
Or the combo pattern could be longer, so that the increasing tension could be greater and it would be easier to survive… For example you will need to place 1 CC then 1 weakening condition ( weakness, poison, vulnerability) before placing the movement-based skill… I don’t know, I’m brain-storming with myself here! x)

So here you are, I’m eager to hear what are the problems with this idea, what you think of it and if it’s feasible/improvable!

Honestly long cooldowns make the combat much more boring.
For instance a Sword Guardian has to autoattack a lot of the time, which is more boring than say a Warrior or Elementalist who always has some non-autoattack skill ready.
Still, it’s good design that autoattack is your DPS and other skills are situationally useful (stuns, cripple, etc) because you need to use skills at the right time rather than just spam everything.
I’m also very happy most cooldowns on utilities are down to 1 minute max now, that was indeed a good design decision.

That being said, I don’t think casuals would appreciate such a drastic change.
This would be a hell of a risky move.

Red Falcon.8257:

Honestly long cooldowns make the combat much more boring.
For instance a Sword Guardian has to autoattack a lot of the time, which is more boring than say a Warrior or Elementalist who always has some non-autoattack skill ready.
Still, it’s good design that autoattack is your DPS and other skills are situationally useful (stuns, cripple, etc) because you need to use skills at the right time rather than just spam everything.
I’m also very happy most cooldowns on utilities are down to 1 minute max now, that was indeed a good design decision.

That being said, I don’t think casuals would appreciate such a drastic change.
This would be a hell of a risky move.

Lol, I think you actually contradict yourself.

“Still, it’s good design that autoattack is your DPS and other skills are situationally useful (stuns, cripple, etc) because you need to use skills at the right time rather than just spam everything.”

I’m assuming you’re talking about Ranger Shortbow as it’s the best example of this. If auto attacking is where 95% of your dmg is coming from then you’re, guess what, doing nothing but spamming auto attacks like you said with Guardian Sword. Which is equally boring.

Not only that, but as you said “because you need to use skills at the right time”, this only applies to the cc/utility, all of your dmg in this case, however, is “just spam everything”.

I also don’t think there should be long cooldowns, I even said before that playing Mesmer or Sceptre Ele in PvE can be a bit of a pain which so many long cooldown attacks which is the majority of your dmg. Longer cooldowns does nothing to increase the risk/reward for attacks though.

Dear Mr. Sharp,
I guess you played those old sidescroller-spaceship-arcades, too (Atari/C64 times)…?
Auto-fire aka autoattack all the way…but for the extra dps you would once in a while hold your joystick button a little longer and power-up…

This could very well work in pve, too…and not even be very complicated for the newbies, but would rather helpful.
Just sayin…think back how it felt/played out back then…

Allie Murdock.8152:

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

Thanks for the effort!

Original poster requires a commendation for his well thoughtout comments, along with others who has warmed/agreed with his idea.

As a die-hard d/d elementalist, I would welcome some of the OP suggestions/ideas and after Allie’s comments, I feel there’s hope yet for this game yet.

Regards

Candar

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

I think it may be better to go half-way with regards to nerfing auto-attacks:
For those auto-attacks that currently do not have a chain skill, add a chain.
Currently many weapons, especially those that are used at range are extremely flat in design with regard to auto-attacks. With melee weapons, chain skills encourage risk reward by discouraging dodging while the chain is executed. Ranged weapons do not feature chain skills and so their safety at range is compounded by even safer auto-attacks.

One way to change this is to make chain skills for ranged auto-attacks, to discourage dodging while the chain is executed.

• Then make the first and second skill in the chain useful, but only useful for poke.
• In this way, ranged weapons are on the same footing as melee, and some lackluster ranged weapons can even be given a boost to their capabilities given that there is now more risk involved.
• The third chain skill can be slow in execution but higher damage so that most capability is backloaded into the third strike to discourage dodging

Skills without chain as auto-attacks:

• Ricochet
• Rending Claws

• Explosive Shot (nerfed into ground shortly after launch, this auto is only good to proc Incendiary Powder and is very shallow)
• Vital Shot

• Elementalist Dagger mainhand attacks (Elementalist Lightning Whip is strong without being OP, and this is the level to which other Attunement auto-attacks should strive, especially if given chain skills)

• Orb of Wrath
• Elementalist Scepter mainhand attacks (Most auto-attacks for this weapon are pretty weak which makes Scepter a burst weapon. I think only Arc Lightning and Stone Shards are relatively well designed.)

• Spatial Surge (This reverses the Risk-Reward by making a safe range more damaging . Not sure why.)

• Dual Shot
• Long Range Shot

• Bleeding Shot
• Hip Shot

• Crossfire (Honestly one of the most boring skills in the game on the most boring weapon)
• Trick Shot

• Elementalist Staff auto-attacks (I hear there are some buffs coming to staff so I won’t comment too much; but Staff is once again, a very “flat” weapon.
• Wave of Wrath (Good for crit-procs on Sigils…otherwise boring)
• Winds of Chaos
• Necrotic Grasp (Kinda meh to be honest)

By changing these “flat” skills and adding chains, higher risk can be implemented and thus a split can be avoided between PVP and PVE.

• At the same time, being able to individually tune 3 chain skills allows for more granular balance
• Auto-attacks can then truly be “poke damage”, but can still hurt if the whole chain is allowed to execute.

For all those struggling with this concept.

Mrbig.8019:

Kill spirit ranger build, nerf S/D thief porting, perma stun wars, and necro condi spam. Give us a possible counterplay to burning procs or totally remove them.

Pretty much this…anything with low skill high reward should be removed, you see r20 necros spamming kitten on points all day and you actually have to play really good to bring down someone who has no clue and just spams random stuff around…same for spirit rangers, s/d thieves and so on…i see ppl going in tournament without even knowing their traits, many just go in with unknown copy-pasted builds from forum succeding just because their class is totally bs…srsly this kitten Fotm Wars 2 must end once and for all

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

Hmm, it sounds like your intention is for the “cost” of a skill being dodged/missed is the fact that it’s now “wasted” and you can’t use it until cooldown ends.

Personally (and the entire point of this thread) I’d like to see reduced cooldowns across the board, moving away from this paradigm.

I think it “feels” better to have the action game model – you can use any of your skills whenever you want, but you rarely want to, because using them foolishly will get you killed. In GW2, it’s too drastic to have zero cooldown, but under my original proposal we could have shorter cooldowns, people will still ration their energy-using attacks because they want to retain the ability to dodge and avoid damage.

Expanding on this (and stealing more FG mechanics):
- You can no longer cancel a charge/cast by simply moving. You have to dodge or use a defensive skill.
- Canceling a cast via dodge/skill use will cost additional endurance. (eg. double.)

Basically, I want to find a way where your skills are almost always available, but you never want to spam them mindlessly. I think that’s the ideal. (The opposite exists in GW2 – your skills often have a long cooldown, and thus it’s preferred to use them as soon as you can so you dont waste recharging time.)

Regarding auto-attack, I think it’s a bit simplistic to say “it needs to do enough damage not to feel like a waste of a slot.”

Good games are all about interesting choices. When it comes to attacks, GW2 currently has 2 choices – auto or use a skill. Quite often, there is no choice – your skills are on cooldown, so spam auto. This is not interesting.

Since this is an MMO with internet latency (and for the pve crowd too), an auto-attack of some sort is necessary since you dont want to rely on people mashing attack buttons. But we need to set up an interesting choice between autoattack and doing nothing at all. We also need to make it possible to do nothing easily in the UI.

When it comes to melee, it’s easy to do nothing – you just walk out of range and your autoattack will stop.

I propose a similar mechanic for ranged autoattacks – they require you to be stationary for a moment to activate. (ie. you won’t shoot while moving, but if you stop, you will instantly begin the shoot animation and be able to move 1s later or so.)

This sets up risk/reward for both ranges – if melee wants to attack, it needs to be in range, which makes them vulnerable to other melee, PBAOEs, etc.

If ranged want to attack, they have to stop and shoot. Their DPS goes down the more they choose to move and kite. This makes them vulnerable to slow projectiles, AOE DOTs, and melee attackers.

Mrbig.8019:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.

Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

This issue is evident with wars and thieves. S/D ones, of course.

With S/D there’s no way to effectively punish the thief unless he wants to fight you.

No range requirments to spam Inf strike allows the thief to set the port back miles away AND he will still be able to close the gap, basically if things go wrong just port back, change to a softer target, rinse and repeat.

With evades you can still time your skills and use them in real attack time span: there’s no possible counter to a thief porting back at will ( coming from a thief main).

Same with war burst skills: the CD is ridicolously low, and skull crack is istant; a mace/shield war will ALWAYS, sooner or later, hit with its skull crack, and you’ll lose automatically the second time it lands on you.

Reason why the only effective counters to wars are mesmers and blind thieves.

There’s no good risk vs reward in these 2 cases ( especially) altough there are tons of more examples: do what you must, don’t nerf hammer abilities which have nothing to do about the OPness of cheese proffs ( like you said, shaving Larcenous strike boon stealing is a worthless move, won’t change anything).

You say you understand there needs to be a good balance between risk and rewards: show us.

Kill spirit ranger build, nerf S/D thief porting, perma stun wars, and necro condi spam. Give us a possible counterplay to burning procs or totally remove them.

These things by themself would balance risk vs reward without doing overhauls like the OP suggests.

I wouldn’t keep my hopes up. A-net has continually shown limited knowledge about proper risk and reward balance. The stronger specs have almost always been face-rolling nonsense an average player could master in a couple days. Thats how something becomes FOTM fast its easy to play and over-powered.

I would actually like to see every class rebalanced to use the Thief’s initiative system.

It’s a rather daunting task but requiring active resource management would definitely introduce a baseline level of risk/cost vs reward for every skill.

MonMalthias.4763:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just so you guys know:

There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.

Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.

I think it may be better to go half-way with regards to nerfing auto-attacks:
For those auto-attacks that currently do not have a chain skill, add a chain.
Currently many weapons, especially those that are used at range are extremely flat in design with regard to auto-attacks. With melee weapons, chain skills encourage risk reward by discouraging dodging while the chain is executed. Ranged weapons do not feature chain skills and so their safety at range is compounded by even safer auto-attacks.

One way to change this is to make chain skills for ranged auto-attacks, to discourage dodging while the chain is executed.

• Then make the first and second skill in the chain useful, but only useful for poke.
• In this way, ranged weapons are on the same footing as melee, and some lackluster ranged weapons can even be given a boost to their capabilities given that there is now more risk involved.
• The third chain skill can be slow in execution but higher damage so that most capability is backloaded into the third strike to discourage dodging

Skills without chain as auto-attacks:

• Ricochet
• Rending Claws

• Explosive Shot (nerfed into ground shortly after launch, this auto is only good to proc Incendiary Powder and is very shallow)
• Vital Shot

• Elementalist Dagger mainhand attacks (Elementalist Lightning Whip is strong without being OP, and this is the level to which other Attunement auto-attacks should strive, especially if given chain skills)

• Orb of Wrath
• Elementalist Scepter mainhand attacks (Most auto-attacks for this weapon are pretty weak which makes Scepter a burst weapon. I think only Arc Lightning and Stone Shards are relatively well designed.)

• Spatial Surge (This reverses the Risk-Reward by making a safe range more damaging . Not sure why.)

• Dual Shot
• Long Range Shot

• Bleeding Shot
• Hip Shot

• Crossfire (Honestly one of the most boring skills in the game on the most boring weapon)
• Trick Shot

• Elementalist Staff auto-attacks (I hear there are some buffs coming to staff so I won’t comment too much; but Staff is once again, a very “flat” weapon.
• Wave of Wrath (Good for crit-procs on Sigils…otherwise boring)
• Winds of Chaos
• Necrotic Grasp (Kinda meh to be honest)

By changing these “flat” skills and adding chains, higher risk can be implemented and thus a split can be avoided between PVP and PVE.

• At the same time, being able to individually tune 3 chain skills allows for more granular balance
• Auto-attacks can then truly be “poke damage”, but can still hurt if the whole chain is allowed to execute.

This exactly, chain skills add risk to Auto attacks.

FYI elementalist scepter autoattack on air is actually working as a chain!!
It has a channel time close to 4 sec and the first hits hit for very low while the later hits hit for more.So if you want to avoid its damage(which is low to begin with) you dodge at the end of those 4 sec and you pretty much take zero damage since the fisrt hits hit for like 100 each on a a burst build

Not sure if chain skills on auto are a good solution. Either the damage on the last hit is “worth it”, in which case we have people sitting around just spamming auto most of the time, or the damage isn’t worth it, in which case we’re still in the situation where auto is just something you do to fill time. (thus it’s no great loss if you need to dodge and lose that last hit – how often can you dodge anyways? You’ll still get a chain off soon afterwards)

Rieselle.5079:

Not sure if chain skills on auto are a good solution. Either the damage on the last hit is “worth it”, in which case we have people sitting around just spamming auto most of the time, or the damage isn’t worth it, in which case we’re still in the situation where auto is just something you do to fill time. (thus it’s no great loss if you need to dodge and lose that last hit – how often can you dodge anyways? You’ll still get a chain off soon afterwards)

It is a good solution, it adds risk.

And if you have no cooldowns to use, you’re gonna auto even if the dmg is low… there’s nothing else to do.

Nova Stiker.8396:

It also needs a punishment system. Losing a capture point is a slap on the wrist plus there should be a better end goal than just 500 points.

Right now there are only fights, no battles, no war.

I’m not sure if i agree a 100% with your other points, and I like the intentions of the OP, but what you are saying here is very important.

The question is, how do you recreate a war-like situation. Because this is in fact what makes “fights” interesting and intense and, perhaps even more so, interesting to WATCH.

If PvP consists solely of running around in circles, capping/decapping, fighting, running, capping/decapping with no other goal than accumulating abstract points on the top of the screen, then the intensity of the “war” and the combat simply vanishes.

Now, what creates “war-like” PvP? You need to have a concrete/visible end goal on the map and not abstract numbers on the screen. In other words, you need territorial progression with secondary/primary objectives REACHED BY TERRITORIAL PROGRESSION!

This is why SC2 and Mobas are so popular as esports, especially seen from a spectator point of view. This is also the reason the Dominion map in LoL has been a failure.
I don’t want GW2 to become a MOBA, though.

But think about it: lets say you tune into a GW2 PvP (or Dominion) game on twitch.tv (i.e. MLG invitational). You look at the map, trying to figure out whos in the lead and how well the teams have done. But there’s no way you can tell. You just see running/capping/decapping and endless (unwatchable) fights. You have to look at the top of the screen and read abstract numbers to figure out who’s winning the “war”.
Add to this that there is no space for tactical pauses and thus no building up of intensity (as the OP also mentions) – which would have been on a map with spatial progression.

There is of course many other problems with PvP and PvE gameplay as has allready been mentioned in this thread. I just think this one is neglected.

Allthough I don’t see why OP’s points have much to do with RPG vs Action combat, I agree to a large extent with OP, at least with hes intentions.

Here are some of the usual suspects:
- skill spam and lack of risk/reward (both in PvP and PvE)
-autoattacks (especially in PvE since exp dungeon players just speck full berserker, mellee autoattack and dodge/block + a bit of reflect and might =win)
- Skill effects (in PvP, but atleast as much in PvE). Just watch the preview video of Twilight dungeon: The commentator talks about a brand new enemy you have to take care of right away, and the only thing you see is a blue/white sparkling thing (guardian skill effects); I didn’t even see one single skill animation and have no idea what the enemy looked like…). Then how can you play skillfull?
- too many passive effects that creates no depth, demands no skill and only creates complexity (which is always bad).

Greetings.

kitten s.7421:

For all those struggling with this concept.

I totally understand the concept and I wish the game’s risks vs rewards match that of the graph. It is sad that the risk vs reward in game is no where close to what you posted.

Example: Mesmer’s GS. You do more damage the further you are away. This encourage taking less risk for higher reward. And don’t get me started with Izerker, a 1200 range 4-6K damage. Blurred Frenzy – mini 100B but without the risk. I’m not calling for nerfs – I’m just using this as an example.

It seems like they have bigger problems to deal with and I highly doubt they will ever get to balance this.

Sifu.6527:

kitten s.7421:

For all those struggling with this concept.

I totally understand the concept and I wish the game’s risks vs rewards match that of the graph. It is sad that the risk vs reward in game is no where close to what you posted.

Example: Mesmer’s GS. You do more damage the further you are away. This encourage taking less risk for higher reward. And don’t get me started with Izerker, a 1200 range 4-6K damage. Blurred Frenzy – mini 100B but without the risk. I’m not calling for nerfs – I’m just using this as an example.

It seems like they have bigger problems to deal with and I highly doubt they will ever get to balance this.

Yes, it is somehow strange that Mesmer GS #1 gets stronger the farther you are away but:
Its damage is also becoming weaker, the closer you come. I think, this is what ANet intended: To counter GS #1 just get into Melee an its Damage is low.
Additionally, for Spvp, escecially tpvp, how many Mesmers have there been focusing on “sniping” from 1200 Range?
Mesmers usually do most of their damage by shattering, which usually happens in melee-Range, as in other cases its extremly easy too dodge, or by using Phantasms / Conditions, which both dont rely on GS #1.
Another important fact is, that in sPvP most fights happen on the capture points, where space is very limited and range attacks arent that usefull anymore.

And now I’d like to comment on what I actually came for:

Commenting on the Risk vs. Reward Issue:

If I get the first posts right, it was about endurance (or alternativly some other “energysource”) used for defense and offense:

The problem i see there:

If this would happen, combat could look like this:

Player A uses its Energy for attack
Player B uses his for Blocking the attack
-> At some point, both will have no Energy left.

I like more how it’s at the moment:

Player A uses his attackskills (defensive skills remain)
Player B uses his defenseskills for evading As attack
Now, that A has wasted his attacks, B can attack and A must use his defensive skills in order to survive this attack.

This is what makes GW 2 combat so enjoyable (except of some balancing-issues)

EverythingEnds.4261:

Commenting on the Risk vs. Reward Issue:

If I get the first posts right, it was about endurance (or alternativly some other “energysource”) used for defense and offense:

The problem i see there:

If this would happen, combat could look like this:

Player A uses its Energy for attack
Player B uses his for Blocking the attack
-> At some point, both will have no Energy left.

I like more how it’s at the moment:

Player A uses his attackskills (defensive skills remain)
Player B uses his defenseskills for evading As attack
Now, that A has wasted his attacks, B can attack and A must use his defensive skills in order to survive this attack.

This is what makes GW 2 combat so enjoyable (except of some balancing-issues)

You’re not seeing the whole picture. Besides, in your example:
Player A usses attack skills. Player B uses defense skills. Player B uses attack skills. Player A uses defense skills. Now both players have to wait for skill recharge.

I fail to see how this is much different from your “out of energy” scenario.

But all of that is besides the point.

Remember, the title of my post is “Offense vs. punishment”. The key to making a risk-reward system is the ability to punish someone for trying to do something (and failing.)

Let’s re-iterate and revise my original proposal:
- Energy bar, 4 segments.
- Powerful attacks use 1 segment. (autoattacks and other weak attacks are free.)
- Dodges and defensive skills use 1 segment.
- Powerful attacks have a windup and can be defended against on reaction.
- Powerful attacks root you in place, leaving you vulnerable to other powerful attacks.
- Attacks can be “canceled” only by dodging or performing a defensive skill.
- Canceling an attack costs an additional energy segment.
——————————-

So let’s begin with your naive example:
1. Player A uses up 1 energy to make a powerful attack. (3 left)
2. Player B uses up 1 energy to dodge it. And then uses 1 energy to punish with his own powerful attack. (2 left)
3. Player A cancels his attack with a defensive skill or dodge, using an additional energy block. (1 left) Then attacks again (0 left.)
4. Player B cancels his attack. (0 left.) He can attack Player A freely with autoattacks.

So in this basic scenario, Player A comes out behind, slightly. He is left vulnerable to autoattacks with no energy left to dodge. This is good, because he did his first big attack in a really telegraphed way and got punished for it.

But mind games are where it becomes interesting.

What if, in step 2, Player B decides not to use a big attack to punish? What if he moves in and does autoattacks, or one of his free attacks?

-> If player A gets “faked out”, and decides to dodge anyways:
2. Player B dodges and decides to do an autoattack instead, as a feint. (3 left)
3. Player A gets faked out, and cancels his attack. (1 left)

Immediately we see that suddenly Player B has a big energy advantage over Player A.

Let’s say Player A is on autopilot and always does a big attack in retaliation:

3. Player A gets faked out, cancels his attack, and does a big attack in retaliation. (0 left.)
4. Player B was in autoattack, so he dodges for normal cost (2 left.) He now has 2 energy to do a big attack that knocks down, allowing for a 2nd big attack.

So what do we get? In fighting games, the initial situation is called “neutral” or “footsies”. This means, initially, both players will stick with autoattacks/free attacks, because committing energy to a big attack will get you punished.

They will circle around, trying to use their movement and free attacks to do damage and fake the other player out. Sooner or later, the equilibrium will break – either one player will be outdamaged by autoattacks and be forced to defend/heal/escape, or one of them will get faked out / impatient and use energy in a dodge or attack.

Then the back and forth mindgame scenario described above will play out, with players making the decision of whether to cancel their attacks at additional cost, or eat damage, versus punishing with big attacks (at the risk of being punished) or punishing with free attacks.

Of course, this is a team game and other players are involved too, so that adds additional factors.

Also, whilst I hope skill recharges can then be reduced across the board, we’ll probably still have recharges. So if your opponent has recently used most of his dangerous attacks, then you know that you don’t need to cancel your attack, just eat the damage and be ahead in energy, etc.

(to be continued)

(continued from above)

With this basic system in place, we can then add additional layers to make things more interesting. For example:

- Skills that work in an RPS fashion: If you use 100blades, I can use bullrush, eat 1 hit of damage, but knock you down. We both spent 1 energy, but I end up with an advantage. If you use bullrush, I can use riposte to block your rush and then hit you for big damage. If you use riposte, I can use 100blades. I’ll eat your counter damage, but you’ll take the entire 100blades and come out in a worse situation. Etc.
-> This means you can spend 1 energy and combine defense/offense/punishment, thus breaking the simple situation described above, but only in specific situations.

- AOE skills: If I cast a Dragon’s Tooth for 1 energy, but I make 3 opponents dodge it, then my team has an advantage.

- Skills with delayed effects: I can lay a trap or necro mark, and then regenerate the energy cost. If I can lure the opponent onto the trap (eg. dodge over it and then try to punish) then I get to take advantage of that 1 energy I spent before.

- Ranged attacks and gap-closers: The attack-dodge-counter cycle is greatly altered if there is a mix of melee and ranged.

- Weapon swaps: Many games have unique mechanics when you weapon swap. For example, what if it’s a free way to cancel an attack? This can set up interesting situations for defense and combos.

Anyways, many of these mechanics already exist in the game. But without a system to tie offense, defense and risk together, I think it becomes very ad-hoc and hard to balance across the large variety of skills.

I remember some pre beta video with a dev explaining stuff, including an ele skill called icy spikes or so. You could cast it instantly or charge it up. Churning earth would have been cool that way too, maybe with tapping the button again to explode it.

Channeling attacks to increase their effect would make many skills more useful.
Ranger longbow knockback could be a channel too. Instantfire to make someone back of or channel to snipe someone of a ledge if greater force.

It would help if classes had something to manage besides just cooldowns as well. Thieves have initiative and mesmers have clones, but the way they’re implemented right now and how fast both resources regenerate they might as well just not be there at all and only promote spamming. Even ranger pets are pointless to kill as they’ll just keep swapping through them. Classes need something to pace them and build up to the damage output we have right now, resources that require actual thought to use correctly and add a sense of risk to fights if they’re used incorrectly.