Guild Wars 2

Before I get started on this I want to warn everyone that I cannot help but be slanted by my opinions here; however I intend for this to be an open discussion and welcome civil comments/suggestions (preferably not ‘lol u just suck at it’ posts). I apologize if some of these ideas have been posted already.

I will start by saying that I really enjoy SPvP the same way I did in Guild Wars 1, I would not say it is perfectly balanced but it isn’t far off. It’s very addictive, and the amount of viable builds is greater than most people will realize. I don’t play this game for just SPvP and I’m only rank 20, so I may not have seen everything yet. With that out of the way, let me get to a few of my points here…

Glory/Point allocation

• Issue:
  Something that concerns me in most of my SPvP games is that you will see at least one person that really has no interest in fighting beyond what they have to; they will run from node to node, collecting points in the most stable way they can. For other people that don’t do that and prefer to defend or fight over nodes, that person is then missing and hurting the team by not being there to help over large® battles.
  Furthermore, the incentive for staying still or guarding is very little.
  A Guardian that holds out 3 enemies on a point is unlikely to be able to kill any of them in most cases, yet is helping out the team a great deal. Players that build support-style are also inclined to lower rewards and scoring, based on the majority of glory being awarded based on doing enough damage as to count towards “player kill”.

• Solution:

1. First, I would suggest that less points (half, let’s say) be awarded to capturing uncontested points, and more (15 up from 10) be awarded for capturing a contested point. I understand glory is rewarded for being an ‘objective assaulter’ as well, however this does not always even out based on contribution; it seems to be proportionate to damage dealt. This leaves more support-styled players in a deficit that is not exactly deserved.
2. Following that, I would suggest that players inflicting large amounts of control, as well as players that reach a ‘healing done to others’ threshold (similar to damage done) be awarded for their assistance to players. This would give a greater incentive to be less of a ‘selfish’ player that ignores downed teammates and people being focused down.
3. Finally, I would implement a ‘Martyr’ system (similar to League of Legends’ in Dominion, for those of you that have played), where someone that puts up the good fight on a point and dies is still given some reward. Just because they couldn’t kill someone in a 1v3, or they were the first to die because they were the first into a 4v4, doesn’t mean they didn’t help.

Maps

I have less to offer here, as for the most part I enjoy the maps and find them balanced. What I do have to say may not earn me any friends, but let’s get to it anyway.

• Raid on the Capricorn issues

1. Sharks.
   My god, sharks. With squishier classes and/or builds, one will bite you for over 2,000 damage. Considering that a rush to the Ruins point will collect you about 4 of these sharks, this is devastating. Of course, it is possible to kill them before you get there, but they actually have a sizable health pool and it becomes quite the PVE venture, which I don’t really feel has a place (at least, to this extent) in a PVP environment.
   The sharks discourage most anyone from the underwater combat element of this map, and you will commonly see everyone avoiding it. What’s worse, they seem to have aggro tables; thus classes inherently prone to AOE damage (Elementalist, for example) are going to end up being eaten alive even if they weren’t the ones to pull the sharks. In fact, based on these aggro tables, one of the strategies I’ve seen is for people to just sit opposite of each other on the beach and wait for someone to go first after the ruins point.
   This large scale PVE content is regarded, in my experience, as a big detriment to the map – many people will leave as soon as Raid on the Capricorn comes up in rotation, and a large portion of those that stay will avoid the water (and often complain about it).
2. Cannon/Ship
   The cannon is underused, I would say in equal parts due to the chore of running cannon balls back and fourth, and the obscured vision of the two points people are likely to be contesting over (dock, in particular, has a very large palm tree in the way). The ship itself, then, never really plays host to battles – which is just a shame as there are fun fights to be had using this environment.

• Raid on the Capricorn solutions

1. Sharks
   One way to deal with these is to lower just how powerful they are in terms of HP pool and damage. Personally, I still feel like the issue would continue to be there if this happened, just to less of a degree. My suggestion would be to simply remove them. Battles would start taking place underwater, people would use it more for travelling between the points, and you wouldn’t see so many PVE deaths scrolling on the right of your screen.

1. Cannon/Ship
   People may disagree with me that this needs to be changed, and I can understand that. However I feel that the cannon itself could improve two aspects here; lack of battles on the ship and lack of people actually using it. If the cannon were to be placed on the ship (perhaps even overlooking the ruins), then it would be a much more strategic win to take the center of the map this way. You could actually see the points from the top of the ship, and the run for cannonballs would be reduced to an appealing level. With the cannon in more frequent use however, with more cannonballs coming in, the timer between shots may need to be increased by a small amount to keep the match-up balanced.

Class Balance

• Issue:
  It may seem strange to group the balancing of classes together, but I don’t think the problem is inherently _______ is overpowered. Though there are some skills I feel need some fine-tuning, to me, the bigger issue is that some classes are offered much easier routes to accomplishing the same thing. I will give you an example (please don’t flame me);

1. A rifle-based Warrior, particularly an offensive one, can simply use volley to inflict huge amount of damage (I’ve seen volleys conclude at 7k+ damage). Follow-up with their adrenaline class mechanic (Kill shot sometimes lands for 13k), and if you fail to dodge or simply don’t have the endurance, you may well be a goner just from those two abilities. Contrast this against a D/D Elementalist, whom to accomplish this same level of damage would have to: Ride the lightning, Updraft, Fire Attunement, Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, Drake’s Breath and finally Fire Grab.
   This may be an extreme example, but this sort of thing takes place with many different classes and many different abilities. My take on the problem is the simplicity involved with the first combination.

• Solution

1. The way to solve an issue rooted in simplicity is to make it less simple. Using my example above, it would seem a much more manageable situation (and potentially more fun for the handler) if the damage was spread across other abilities more. Going back to rifle warriors, the #3 skill, Volley and the class mechanic Kill Shot are liable to do a vast majority of the damage from that weapon. Instead, reduce the damage on Volley, and give Crippling Shot or Brutal Shot more damage. Give Rifle Butt three hits instead of one. Change “Kill Shot” to be a little more complex to use – perhaps by giving it a spread of 3 projectiles that reward a closer shot on a single target, yet at longer range could be used to spread out damage amongst other targets.
   This is just an example and there may be better ways to tune said abilities, thus why I am not giving specifics for every ability on every class (It would take me a very long time anyway). But the principle would be a great improvement in my eyes.

I’m aware that changing some of the class abilities in this way would seem dramatic, and effect players outside of the SPvP environment. As such I welcome your thoughts and suggestions to help improve a game that we all love (especially if you made it through this post). Thank you for reading!

Nice post, i agree with most things you said, if not all of them. Especially what you said about defending points. There are currently no incentive whatsoever for a player to stand still and defend a point. A possible solution could be periodically awarding the player with some glory for stading on a point his team owns.

Recieving less glory for doing something that’s equally important to the team, or even more, is wrong, in my opinion. Defensive playstyles should be as encouraged as ofensive ones.

That could certainly work. I don’t think a small tick of glory (Say, 2 every 10 seconds) would amount to an unbalancing amount for the overall score, yet would keep defenders on the scoreboard for keeping people off of the point (even if they don’t want to attack because it’s defended). It’s certainly a necessary aspect of SPvP being mostly ignored.

Quickness:

Note: The issue with Quickness is not the skill that synergize well with it. Pistol Whip can generally stay nerfed but I would suggest by 10% and not 15%, given the self root (unless that is removed and the attack is made mobile). Try to bring skills like PW or Hundred Blades and other burst skills relatively but not necessarily in line with each other. Let the decrease to Quickness and added penalties discourage over reliance. This this end, I would suggest these changes:

-Decrease Quickness buff to 1.5x attack speed. Keep duration consistent across the board: 4sec or potentially 5sec to account for speed reduction. Consider these changes or similar ones for skills that offer Quickness. Leave traits that grant it as they are.

*Haste: Keep Endurance drain; on use, reduce Endurance and Initiative regen rate for x second. (I don’t know the sweet spot for that.)

*Frenzy: Increase incoming damage to Warrior to 60%.

• Quickening Zephyr: User and pet cannot be healed. Incoming condition damage is increased by x percent. (Don’t know the sweet spot here either. Not excessive. 2-4 % max.

*Time Warp: User gains 2-3 second of reduction to all cooldowns. (Hypothetically because the skill is so magically taxing or…whatever.)

Some of these might seem controversial. Particularly having a penalty on the Mesmer elite skill. The are merely suggestions. I’ve always believed that the issue is Quickness. Address the rate and make it more about risk v. reward.

EDIT: I posted here, not to hijack your thread. But because I think it could be a good community think tank. And a well worded, polite one for ANet to read. Complaining about something? That’s a pain to read. But if we offer what we think are possible solutions, politely, they might be more inclined to listen.

Thanks Sharpclaw, I didn’t want to get into specific skills and ability suggestions just yet, but in terms of abilities I feel need tuning, quickness is certainly among them. I would suggest for Warrior’s frenzy, in place of a damage increase, that the duration exceeds that of the frenzy. A Warrior will know exactly when he needs the frenzy, and it lasts just long enough for them to complete their combo. There is simply not enough time for their target to take advantage of the weakness following Frenzy, even if they survive the initial burst.

Feel free to post without worries of hijacking, all I’m looking for here is a constructive discussion and feedback about where potential issues lie. I’m sure we can all agree that ArenaNet has done a great job so far, this is about helping them continue that trend.

Two things I’ve had problems with since the betas -

Visual noise

They want us to play the game instead of playing the UI. Fine. Unfortunately, in their efforts the only thing they’ve really managed to do was clutter the screen with a crazy amount of particle diarrhea. Once fights escalate beyond 2v2 or so, the playing field becomes an utter mess of grenade blasts, bomb explosions, flashy fields, and otherwise obnoxious AoE effects. Identifying key abilities becomes next to impossible (especially against asura) and precision dodging becomes an exercise in futility.

I understand that it looks cool or whatever, but there are times when I can’t even verify the position of my mouse cursor on screen for accurate targeting because it gets completely lost within the on-screen noise. Personally, I’d much rather play the UI if it means a cleaner playing field so that I can actually discern WTF is going on in large team fights.

Pets

Between mesmer illusion spam, thieves guild and ambush trap, MM necros, ranger spirits, and spirit weapons, there are times when it becomes literally impossible to target an actual player.

There are just way, way too many pets in this game at the moment and, in extreme situations, the resulting screen clutter is beyond absurd.

There are some other things, but those two items really bother me. The interface in a competitive game needs to be clean (this includes the UI itself and the playing field) – at the moment, GW2 is anything but.

I am disappointed by the points awarded for winning and defending a point for your team. The game promotes glass cannons and glory hounds by not rewarding people for doing their jobs.

The game needs to award more points for winning.

This is what we need in sPvP
http://www.wowwiki.com/Diminishing_returns

Or im the only who try fight against 3 player that make you PERMANENT STUN?

Definitely agree with the comment about excessive use of particle systems – a 1v1 is bearable to watch but anything more than that it looks like crap. Case in point — the red circles on the ground wouldn’t serve a purpose if the game had a normal amount of particle systems.

However, by far and away my biggest dislikes of GW2 PVP are 1) the skill system is too rigid, too simplistic, and 2) downed state in PVE works, but PVP it sucks.

1) the skill system sucks because it is too rigid, and too simple.

Simply put, the skill system in GW1 was so much better. I daresay the main draw of the game was theorycrafting/playing with different skill sets (builds). I don’t have an issue with weapon being a constraint on skill choices but why oh why does there only have to be exactly 5 (2h)/3 (m/h)/2 (o/h) skills per weapon? There doesn’t. The game should have released with a pool of ~10/6/4 weapon skills per weapon, and we should have been able to mix and match.

I hate the GW2 (weapon) skill system. It’s unimaginative, and just plain lazy.

2) Downed state sucks in PVP

I wholeheartedly embrace the motivation behind the introduction of downed state and universal rezzing but the current implementation is bad in the PVP context. In a nutshell it makes stomping/reviving more important than the actual combat.

In WVW, downed is especially bad — it encourages zerging and discourages small-man teams. There is also the issue of downed intel gathering, where oft times the best thing you can do for your team is stay dead, rather than getting back into the action.

I don’t know what your data/surveys show, but anecdotally, I don’t know anyone who likes downed in PVP. IMO, get rid of it, at least for PVP.

I just got 32 bonus points for a win. At level 21. Where is the incentive to win the matches? AGreed with above poster, the game encourages zerging by not scoring more points for wins and important objectives.

Nothing yet, but ANet is working in a PvP system with ranking! Stay ready for the glory!!!!

mjharrison.3209:

2) Downed state sucks in PVP

I wholeheartedly embrace the motivation behind the introduction of downed state and universal rezzing but the current implementation is bad in the PVP context. In a nutshell it makes stomping/reviving more important than the actual combat.

In WVW, downed is especially bad — it encourages zerging and discourages small-man teams. There is also the issue of downed intel gathering, where oft times the best thing you can do for your team is stay dead, rather than getting back into the action.

I don’t know what your data/surveys show, but anecdotally, I don’t know anyone who likes downed in PVP. IMO, get rid of it, at least for PVP.

unfortunately without healers and with system that allow “burst builds” the game would be actually worse without it … the whole game is designed around downed mode so there is no way how to remove it without rebuilding the whole game

btw hi, I pretty much like it … now u know at least one
and I give u one reason – I see downed mode as part of the combat so for me this:
it makes stomping/reviving more important than the actual combat
doesn’t apply

mjharrison.3209:

2) Downed state sucks in PVP

I wholeheartedly embrace the motivation behind the introduction of downed state and universal rezzing but the current implementation is bad in the PVP context. In a nutshell it makes stomping/reviving more important than the actual combat.

In WVW, downed is especially bad — it encourages zerging and discourages small-man teams. There is also the issue of downed intel gathering, where oft times the best thing you can do for your team is stay dead, rather than getting back into the action.

I don’t know what your data/surveys show, but anecdotally, I don’t know anyone who likes downed in PVP. IMO, get rid of it, at least for PVP.

As someone who plays a lot of TPvP, I love the down state and everything it brings. I would like to see some changes and more of a normalization of abilities for downed players but it is a great aspect of the game.

I agree with most, except 2) Downed State. It’s execution is rough, but its basic idea has very much a place in sPvP in my opinion. It encourages field awareness, and, in the random format, teamwork, curtails spike builds and generally slows the fights down, particularly if it’s larger than 2v2.

However, many class mechanics needlessly drag it out, foremost thieves and to a lesser extent mesmers.

mjharrison.3209:

Definitely agree with the comment about excessive use of particle systems – a 1v1 is bearable to watch but anything more than that it looks like crap. Case in point — the red circles on the ground wouldn’t serve a purpose if the game had a normal amount of particle systems.

However, by far and away my biggest dislikes of GW2 PVP are 1) the skill system is too rigid, too simplistic, and 2) downed state in PVE works, but PVP it sucks.

1) the skill system sucks because it is too rigid, and too simple.

Simply put, the skill system in GW1 was so much better. I daresay the main draw of the game was theorycrafting/playing with different skill sets (builds). I don’t have an issue with weapon being a constraint on skill choices but why oh why does there only have to be exactly 5 (2h)/3 (m/h)/2 (o/h) skills per weapon? There doesn’t. The game should have released with a pool of ~10/6/4 weapon skills per weapon, and we should have been able to mix and match.

I hate the GW2 (weapon) skill system. It’s unimaginative, and just plain lazy.

2) Downed state sucks in PVP

I wholeheartedly embrace the motivation behind the introduction of downed state and universal rezzing but the current implementation is bad in the PVP context. In a nutshell it makes stomping/reviving more important than the actual combat.

In WVW, downed is especially bad — it encourages zerging and discourages small-man teams. There is also the issue of downed intel gathering, where oft times the best thing you can do for your team is stay dead, rather than getting back into the action.

I don’t know what your data/surveys show, but anecdotally, I don’t know anyone who likes downed in PVP. IMO, get rid of it, at least for PVP.

I would have to start by disagreeing with the overall tone of this. Not to discourage feedback of course, but no practical alternatives are really being offered for these two quite harsh complaints. I understand the sentiment that the style of GW1’s customization has for the most part not carried over. However, while you cannot define your core abilities any longer, you are instead offered numerous alternatives in traits and gearing. Traits and gearing are two things that Guild Wars 1 did not have, and your customization is largely derived from those. I like this system and I am far from knowing about all the viable combinations of traits, gear, and utility slots. Perhaps more weapon skills will be added in the future. What would you suggest?

• Spell effects do compound to an overwhelming effect at times. I wouldn’t say this is normally a problem except when it’s coming from both sides. If the ground is covered in different fields and effects, the red circle really isn’t enough to go by. Should you use a finisher in the chill field, or get out of it? It can be hard to tell which sometimes.
• For this, I would again point to League of Legends – this problem arose for them, and was tackled by tinting spell effects to the color of their team; boiling blue ground for blue team, boiling red ground for red team. This would not have to be activated by default, but could be introduced as an option for those that elect to use it.

• Downed state can be frustrating at times, to be sure. A few classes have very powerful downed states (Thieves can simply keep vanishing too often by my interpretation, and the Mesmer rogue is more potent than my elite abilities, to name a few). Sometimes it seems like the downed person is very hard to kill without stomping.
• Overall however, this system works with you as much as it works against you for the most part. It also prevents someone just running into a team 4v1 and bursting down a player to instantly take them out of the fight. If I were to suggest changes to downed state, I would focus on maybe reducing the punishment one can take while in downed state. The bigger problem that needs addressing is the underwater downed state – put a timer on how often one can go invulnerable just by swimming to the surface, and allow finishers to be performed underwater.

If you disagree please feel free to reply. Please avoid complaining about something you dislike if you don’t have an alternative, however – it takes the constructive bit out of constructive criticism.

Actually both my criticisms had (IMO) clear resolutions:
1) Introduce more skills per slot per weapon (ie: you have perhaps 2/3 choices for each slot of each weapon.

As for traits (aka WOW talents) being the replacement for GW1 skill choice, as I intimated in the OP, I think it was — more than anything — lazy to simply drastically limit the skill choice and essentially copy WOW’s talent system in its place.

2) Remove downed state in pvp; you just die and you can choose to respawn or a living player can use a specific resurrection skill, much as it was in GW1.

Taking a step back, ask yourself – what does downed state really offer the player? is it fun? does it introduce interesting new mechanics? if the answer to those 2 questions is “no” or “not really” then what’s the point of it?

mjharrison.3209:

…
Taking a step back, ask yourself – what does downed state really offer the player? is it fun? does it introduce interesting new mechanics? if the answer to those 2 questions is “no” or “not really” then what’s the point of it?

sry but this is not an argument – it’s personal opinion

I can answer yes and yes … and who is right now?

Perhaps clear to you, that isn’t what I read however; but let’s not split hairs on that matter.

1. Indeed, more skill slots may be something to be introduced as ANet moves forward with the game. I should mention here that I main an Elementalist, so I’m currently quite happy with the number of skills at my disposal. The only other class that isn’t allowed weapon swapping is Engineer, whom are similarly given a large number of skills via their bundles. For the other classes, the weapon swap feature is something that can’t be ignored and really iterates choices for your class. Even a Warrior, arguably the most simplistic to play, has some choices to make. GS Warriors offhanding a Rifle sacrifice defense for offense and range. Change your swap to axe/axe and the combination of the two makes you one of the most potent offensive melee fighters around. So, it’s not really 5 skills, to be fair. It’s 10 at any given time.
2. I have to disagree that the traits are somehow a wow clone. The traits give you not only stats towards a particular build, but often times completely redefine how you play the class. As D/D Ele, you can very easily select a glass-cannon style build via your traits and amulet, that will allow you to burst out some incredible numbers. If you trait into, say, Arcane & Water though, the style completely changes into a boon duration build that allows you to keep yourself alive through some serious punishment.
3. I also have to disagree with the removal of Downed State. It’s one of the major discouragements for these super burst builds. I don’t want to get back stabbed standing around 4 of my allies and just immediately fall over dead waiting for respawn. I also have to agree with the above poster that this is a matter of opinion for Downed State. At this point it is an established part of the game, and I feel it does add to the overall experience. This doesn’t mean your take on it is invalid however. Perhaps what you could push for is, instead of complete removal of this system, a game mode or specific map that disables it – like a pure death match arena.

I’d like to add that the current “assist” thing doesn’t help much. I vote for “target-of-target” option.

I’d have to second that. I don’t think I’ve ever used the assist feature. In general the UI could be a tad more intuitive. I’m wondering why they omitted cast bars from Guild Wars 2, when they were a big part of Guild Wars 1.

The biggest problem with the assist function is that, due to the way assisting is currently implemented, only one target can be marked at any given time across the ENTIRETY of a team. It’s a serious drawback when you have fights happening on opposite sides of a map and it’s especially problematic when you take into consideration the number of pets that can exist on-screen at any given time and the amount of intermittent stealth mechanics that repeatedly drop target.

There really needs to be a way to mark multiple targets simultaneously and assist on each separately. Either that, or make it so that assisting happens off of friendly players rather than directly off of targets – although that might demand either an in-client scripting engine or a modular UI to facilitate quicker access to friendly player frames.

Either way, the current implementation is very limited and one-dimensional.

I’ve been waiting for conformation on another mode for two major reasons:

1. Conquest is incredibly frustrating

2. Conquest is compounding OP issues and the way we view them

1) (Conquest fun-factor) 1v2 isn’t feasible with such short TTL/TTK, even before the downed states. That makes ganging up on people the defacto strategy here. This AND the point system promote zerg. Communication and sheer numbers are more effective than knowing your class and executing well. Conquest is a mode for players who want to strategize around objectives. It does not lend itself well to pugs or hotjoins because it demands too much communication and responsibility.

2) (How we see OP) Thieves find great reward in conquest by using the clusterfog of war to tear a player down in seconds, and then run off with the highest mobility. With superior defense mechanisms (class-relative OP) AND no need to stand and fight, do these guys even need to put any points in toughness for this mode? (conquest OP) Another example, 100B wouldn’t land near as often if people weren’t getting stun-locked in 1vX scenarios. Now everything revolves around bunker builds… this wouldn’t be an issue without points to bunker! It seems clear that many more builds will become viable in an arena setting, while others will lose the constant obligation and scrutiny.

Ranking: I just wanna add that class bugs and balancing absolutely need to be worked out before this can happen, otherwise many people will feel cheated. We can’t decide who is more skilled until we’re all functioning properly, and with (more) equal powers.

Arena Net: Please provide an Arena

> Indeed, more skill slots may be something to be introduced as ANet moves forward
> with the game. I should mention here that I main an Elementalist, so I’m currently
> quite happy with the number of skills at my disposal. The only other class that isn’t
> allowed weapon swapping is Engineer, whom are similarly given a large number of
> skills via their bundles. For the other classes, the weapon swap feature is something
> that can’t be ignored and really iterates choices for your class. Even a Warrior,
> arguably the most simplistic to play, has some choices to make. GS Warriors
> offhanding a Rifle sacrifice defense for offense and range. Change your swap to
> axe/axe and the combination of the two makes you one of the most potent offensive
> melee fighters around. So, it’s not really 5 skills, to be fair. It’s 10 at any given time.

It doesn’t change anything. Fact of the matter is, all classes have weapons & skills that just don’t get used because they 1) suck 2) don’t fit their current build 3) don’t fit their current playstyle. Further, when you see someone with a certain weapon, if you know the class, you instantly know all their skills, and can probably extrapolate from that their entire build. Lastly, a key defining characteristic of Guild Wars I was the ability to choose every one of your 8 skills. In GW2, your choices are very limited.

Ele is a great case in point – can you build a long-range single target nuker with a few AOE skills? no, because staff has only AOE skills on it. Can you even build a specialist single-target nuker? no, because all the air skill choices on all the weapons are too limited & you’re forced to switch attunements to burst or CC. There are dozens of other, similar examples.

> I have to disagree that the traits are somehow a wow clone. The traits give you not
> only stats towards a particular build, but often times completely redefine how you
> play the class.

Traits are exactly like WOW talents, there is no difference. Assigning points in talent trees modify the effects of skills & give character stat improvements in exactly the same way.

> I also have to disagree with the removal of Downed State. It’s one of the major
> discouragements for these super burst builds. I don’t want to get back stabbed
> standing around 4 of my allies and just immediately fall over dead waiting for
> respawn.

This is because the game is balanced around having a downed state. Removing downed state would mean reducing burst and increasing TTL (time-to-live).