Guild Wars 2

GW2 is too spammy with low risk builds that arn’t fun to watch. The commentators don’t even know what is going on half the time or they follow a thief around just to explain to the audience that “NOOBREAPER420 blew his defensive CDs to get away from enemy thief who spanked him!”.

flameshield on

dude GW2 is a Action Combat Game, and it isn’t a slow paced one, not even comparable to DotA/LoL. And if you think the combat is about spam you don’t truly understand the mechanics around it.

Wow, an opinion from a DotA player, I shall value this opinion highly, and above all others!

as someone who’s played many years of dota and gw I can safety say two completely different games what did you expect

Let the dot a player fight a lockdown mesmer.

NeXeD.3042:

Let the dot a player fight a lockdown mesmer.

I got a better one. AH shout guard guard vs regen ranger. Slow paced combat for however long you want.

It’s a valid complaint and I hear it a lot. TTK is much higher in this game, and the combat in general is much more different from the ever so popular MOBA style. I think the mistake you may be making however (Im assuming you recently started checking out games, if Im wrong feel free to correct me) is taking the combat in the game as the main (and possibly only) element which contributes to the game’s outcome. I feel like a lot of casters, including myself, have contributed to that thought pattern, which is actually fairly wrong. What’s really important to look at are the macro elements of the game. Things such as positioning, who is fighting who, the strategy the team is playing, rotations, etc. can often contribute much more to the outcome of a game than the actual combat itself. I’ve spectated plenty of games before where a team was getting wrecked the entire match in fights but because their opponent wasn’t watching their points correctly they would still constantly be in an opponent controlled 2 cap scenario.

To draw a somewhat loose comparison; it’s kind of like the draft in DOTA. The opening picks in a game of DOTA are so crucial to the outcome of the game, but you only see if for the first few minutes. Those elements decide advantages in lanes, and can in some cases give a team a huge advantage in the match. It translates pretty nicely to GW2, but there are two key differences in the fact that those mechanics aren’t really explained too well to the player and often are lost to newer or unfamiliar viewers and that that “macro” phase of the game constantly can shift and fluctuate throughout the entire match.

The fact that a game can change so suddenly due to one player being mispositioned or someone loosing what would seem like an inconsequential 1v1 is an incredibly fascinating thing to me, and is one of the reasons I am so enthralled by this game and it’s combat. Conquest seems incredibly simplistic and boring on the surface (and it is), but in my own opinion it is an incredibly in-depth game mode to those who know it well enough, but it takes a lot to really know how the game is played and truly appreciate a well executed strategy. This hidden mechanic as it were may be one of the things that’s holding the game back from a spectator standpoint. Im kind of hoping future spectator mode improvements can help with this, but we’ll have to see. I’m always trying to improve my casting as well to explain this better, but it’s often hard kitten much happens so quickly, and you often aren’t left with adequate time to explain plays and movements.

Prysin.8542:

NeXeD.3042:

Let the dot a player fight a lockdown mesmer.

I got a better one. AH shout guard guard vs regen ranger. Slow paced combat for however long you want.

Nah it wouldn’t matter what he’s fighting or what he’s using he would still die on a tank to a tank if he doesn’t know what to dodge and I bet he doesnt.

Well said Blu.

i play LoL/mobas and various mmorpgs. and honestly you can’t really compare them. imo MOBA style games a very simplistic even at the top levels its still a simple game to understand without knowing anything.
the pvp in mmorpgs tends to be alot more complicated especially the more complex and varied the build possibilities are. the game modes themselves are simple and easy to understand but the combat and strategies are often much more complex and hard to understand.
i may have just started playing GW a short while ago, but it is definitely not a spammy game from a players perspective. i haven’t listened to the commentary at all so not sure if they make it out to be like that.
i’ll agree tho that moba style games are much more viewer friend for the layman.

I’m with blu in saying that the comparisons are more subtle. As an offlaner in dota, if you can keep the supports busy, it means they aren’t ganking other areas of the map. You are being a good offlaner (and not dieing) if you do this because you are “creating space” for the rest of your team. In gw2, a similar tactic can be employed by trying to keep 2 people on 1 node and not dieing in the process. This generates an advantage for your team somewhere else on the map. Map vision is a huge deal in dota, and it’s also a huge deal in gw2. In dota, you play bounty hunter, nature’s profit, and other similar heroes almost exclusively in the fog. This is because the simple non-existence on the map tries to force people into not playing too aggressively, or else they might get ganked. The same can be said for gw2 in which you can’t get too greedy on your positioning if you can’t see potential gankers on the map. As a thief, you might force a mesmer at mid to jump into the hut on temple (can’t be blinked to). Even the doctrine of gw2 combat follows closely to dota: damage, control, and support.

There are also more subtle tactical comparisons. In dota, if you are capable of pushing a lane, you start to develop more control over the map, and your team becomes more capable of snowballing late game. The same can be said about gw2 and it’s capture points. The more control you have over the capture points, the better the chance to snowball. Capitalizing on player deaths is a huge deal in dota, and the same can be said about gw2. There are also more “macro tactical” comparisons that blu talked about. You see similar team strategies in dota as you do in gw2, and how certain synergies exist with different builds.

There are a lot of contrasts too. The blatant ones are the non-existence of towers, creeps, and gold in gw2. But there are more subtle ones as well. In dota, if you get chained stunned, there is a very good chance that you’re going to die. In gw2, you have more options of escape – you rarely get stunbreaks (items like linken’s sphere) and absolutely no dodge rolls in dota. The way combat flows is also very different. You have to stop and attack in dota, in gw2 you can move and attack – this is a huge difference. There are even deeper differences. The way the two games evolve is vastly different. In dota, there are heroes who have high impact at different times in the game. This is primarily because of the item purchasing system they have in the game, and the lack of immediately having access to all skills available to you at the start of a match. In dota, you go from a farming phase to an attack phase. This, along with long cooldowns on skills, forces the game into 30 to 45 min matches (and that’s if your team is doing well). In gw2, it’s always gogogogo.

So yeah, I’d say there are some well defined similarities, and some major differences.

Nope, we do not need Dota or LoL player opinion ( i know, your clicking ability is beyond godlike). all we need is WoW player Opinion or different MMORPG player opinion, i heard blizzard gonna launch Warlords of Draenor, any news on whats in that content is? prolly some Pve content right.

Chapell.1346:

Nope, we do not need Dota or LoL player opinion ( i know, your clicking ability is beyond godlike). all we need is WoW player Opinion or different MMORPG player opinion, i heard blizzard gonna launch Warlords of Draenor, any news on whats in that content is? prolly some Pve content right.

I gave my opinion a lot (on this and my main acc) and im probs the most experienced wow player on these boards (plz correct me if im wrong).

Its not about the pve content. Its about in what manner they changed the combat flow. Stuff like rotations, new abbilities, new maps, new implementations of pvp variations is what does matter.

What did they do with the advice of veteran pvpers like myself…etc etc.

Same applies to Anets GW2. The main focus points should be:

- build up and depth of combat: meta builds should be deep and interesting to play. If you dont have that youll will lose a big group of players who couldve been the building blocks of a real proper esports scene (like my old teammates).
- readability of micro gameplay: pulling of a quality “move” should be noticeable for everyone who has a bit of experience with the game. Especially in a game that evolves around reflexes we should have more moments in top tier tournaments where the audience can enjoy the “woah did he just do that” highlights.
- A solid competetive system that makes people play more, push for higher ratings and get rewarded for it when they do. At this moment we have a system that rewards everyone equally which means ppl getting bored. There is no incentive to play more for a relatively big group of players. And dont get me started about placing totally new players in the same games as top 20 players with 10k+ games under their belt.

supvil.3470:

Chapell.1346:

Nope, we do not need Dota or LoL player opinion.

I gave my opinion a lot (on this and my main acc) and im probs the most experienced wow player on these boards (plz correct me if im wrong).

Same applies to Anets GW2. The main focus points should be:

- build up and depth of combat: meta builds should be deep and interesting to play. If you dont have that youll will lose a big group of players who couldve been the building blocks of a real proper esports scene (like my old teammates).
- readability of micro gameplay: pulling of a quality “move” should be noticeable for everyone who has a bit of experience with the game. Especially in a game that evolves around reflexes we should have more moments in top tier tournaments where the audience can enjoy the “woah did he just do that” highlights.
- A solid competetive system that makes people play more, push for higher ratings and get rewarded for it when they do. At this moment we have a system that rewards everyone equally which means ppl getting bored. There is no incentive to play more for a relatively big group of players. And dont get me started about placing totally new players in the same games as top 20 players with 10k+ games under their belt.

Thank you good sir for some good input, may they read this and think what is valuable in terms of MMORPG.