Guild Wars 2

Does anyone still remember the meta from the first three months of the game? Two bunker eles and a mid guard on every team? TTK was MUCH higher back then, condis were virtually irrelevant and the gameplay basically boiled down to this: both teams cap their home point, send 4 mid, and whoever caps mid first wins the game. Once in a while you split a backstab thief (sometimes S/P), Portal Mes, or D/D ele to far point and have a 3-5 min duel in which the bunker usually wins.

There’s a big problem with increasing TTK: map size and number of objectives. Maps are tiny and there are only three real objectives. With the mobility available to roamers it’s already absurdly simple to counter roamer splits on most maps (especially foefire and khylo). If you increase TTK it will become virtually impossible to do anything effective at far point without splitting at LEAST 2 (more like 3) people and the game will degenerate back to the status quo at the start of them game

I’m not saying that’s necessarily bad (or even that it wouldn’t be an improvement over the clusterkitten spam meta) but it’s definitely something to consider. I personally enjoyed the meta those first 3 months much more than what we have now. It wasn’t perfect but strategic decisions like when to split + use long-cooldown utilities (portal sanctuary, etc). were MUCH more important. You don’t see the usage of those cool, game-changing utilities anymore because every class has to dedicate all three of their utilities to the handful of short-recharge which are necessary just to survive longer than 30s.

My ideal solution: Dramatically cut the damage of bleeing, burning and torment in order to return condition damage to a SUPPLEMENTARY source of damage + UTILITY. It’s incredibly difficult to balance TTK when conditions can match the DPS output of power specs while only depending on one stat (while power depends on three). Next increase the size of maps and introduce secondary mechanics that are IMPORTANT to the outcome of the match (things like the flag stand from GW1 or even the blood lust shrines we have in WvW now). This will increase the importance of strategic decisions like when to teamfight and when to split.

These are just my thoughts, and they’re based on my preference for a slower-paced, more strategic style of gameplay. I’d love to get a discussion going about TTK and the effects of TTK, map size, and mechanics on gameplay and the PvP scene.

You made some pretty good points. I don’t like one-shot mechanics but I also think that every build should be able to be beaten 1v1 (given enough time). The idea that a bunker should need more than 1 person to take down really annoys me, I just don’t find that type of gameplay fun. If you increase time to kill then I agree with you that you have to put extra objectives to keep the meta from being a very static/boring thing, but I’d hope instead that we bring in the extremes (burst to bunker) a bit. I want a roamer to be able to take down a bunker, even if it takes several minutes.

Bunkers are another thing that need to be squashed, somewhat.

Something like, nerf the selfish effectiveness of support skills, and buff the altruistic effectiveness of support skills at the same time.

Take warrior shout healing for example, nerf the self heal by like 15-20%, buff the outgoing heal by like 40%.

It’s probably not going to be such a simple change now that the game is a year in and rooted in its ways already… but yeah.

This is what I’d probably like to see instead :

Bunker = More dmg, less self sustain/tankiness, more altruistic healing/support. They become a bit squishier but gain a bit more dmg and a lot more support for others.

Glass Cannons = 90% dmg, 10% survivability, change it to something like 80% dmg, 20% survivability, or something like that to start.

Do that with just the stat gear, I think if stat gear can be homogenized more (despite being “less options”) then they could instead increase the options in Traits/Sigils/Runes etc instead, in a way other than stats. I don’t think the stats should necessarily determine what you are/do, but the traits/build should.

TTK = time to kill, for anyone who’s confused.

ArenaNet has expressed many times that they believe in resolution of fights rather than going the WoW approach of having long, drawn out fights just for the sake of it.

I personally do not agree on slowing down combat to make it more “strategic”. Because of the threat of a quick death, really good plays are required to stay alive – this is more rewarding, and also entertaining to see. It’s similar to League of Legends in this sense: you can die in a blink of an eye in LoL, or you can pull out some amazing plays and not die, whilst killing everyone. (Doublelift’s Vayne is a good example of this.)

GW2’s fast paced style of combat is what makes it unique from other MMO PvPs.

Hype.8032:

You made some pretty good points. I don’t like one-shot mechanics but I also think that every build should be able to be beaten 1v1 (given enough time). The idea that a bunker should need more than 1 person to take down really annoys me, I just don’t find that type of gameplay fun. If you increase time to kill then I agree with you that you have to put extra objectives to keep the meta from being a very static/boring thing, but I’d hope instead that we bring in the extremes (burst to bunker) a bit. * I want a roamer to be able to take down a bunker, even if it takes several minutes.*

I think this is important. I appreciate the importance of bunkers to gameplay and I think they’re good for the game health. I don’t want bunkers to go away, but they should not be immortal either. A good solo far point push should be able to beat a back-point bunker, but it should not be an easy task for either player. The deciding factor should be which player makes better uses of their available dodges + utilites.

Another interesting thing to consider would be reducing the number of evades available. It seems like built-in evades and energy restoration traits + boons are much more available now than they were at launch. I’d like to see the number of “baked-in” evades reduced significantly and have the number of traits that restore endurance taken a look at as well. This will force people to carefully consider when to use their dodges and bursts.

Ideally the availability of evades + bursts should be roughly equal. Right now there are massive numbers of evades available to players, and the rate at which burst becomes available has increased to match. I think reducing the availability of burst + evade would make for much more interesting gameplay because it would force both attacker and defender to be much more strategic in their use of resources.

zone.1073:

TTK = time to kill, for anyone who’s confused.

ArenaNet has expressed many times that they believe in resolution of fights rather than going the WoW approach of having long, drawn out fights just for the sake of it.

I personally do not agree on slowing down combat to make it more “strategic”. Because of the threat of a quick death, really good plays are required to stay alive – this is more rewarding, and also entertaining to see. It’s similar to League of Legends in this sense: you can die in a blink of an eye in LoL, or you can pull out some amazing plays and not die, whilst killing everyone. (Doublelift’s Vayne is a good example of this.)

GW2’s fast paced style of combat is what makes it unique from other MMO PvPs.

LoL is a completely different game.

It is not dominion, and there is risk involved nearly every time you want to make something happen.

And a squishy high APM ADC is just one small part of the game, not everything here should be that.

And I disagree completely that it makes this game unique from other MMO’s… Nearly EVERY MMO i’ve played, the pvp TTK is extremely small. I’ve been waiting year after year for an MMO that has a reasonable TTK.

Just because WoW took it to the extreme doesn’t mean the concept is flawed.

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

You’re either super glass cannon (like dps pve gear), or super tank.

Knote.2904:

And a squishy high APM ADC is just one small part of the game, not everything here should be that.

Glass cannons should not be the one and only kind of build that everyone runs in tournaments, yes, but the potential for a glass cannon to succeed and do its job should exist. The executioner role is necessary to prevent stagnation.

Slowing down combat by decreasing burst damage, condition burst damage, increasing health and making everyone naturally tankier, etc, means the glass cannon paradigm would be quashed. It would cease to exist. That would not be good for the overall health of the game from a competitive standpoint.

zone.1073:

Knote.2904:

And a squishy high APM ADC is just one small part of the game, not everything here should be that.

Glass cannons should not be the one and only kind of build that everyone runs in tournaments, yes, but the potential for a glass cannon to succeed and do its job should exist. The executioner role is necessary to prevent stagnation.

Slowing down combat by decreasing burst damage, condition burst damage, increasing health and making everyone naturally tankier, etc, means the glass cannon paradigm would be quashed. It would cease to exist. That would not be good for the overall health of the game from a competitive standpoint.

It wouldn’t be squashed, it should be tapered off a bit.

Stat wise I don’t think you should be allowed to go pure glass, it only really benefits 2 classes that don’t rely on stats for defense (Thief/Mesmer). Focusing on high dmg should be done through traits/runes/sigils/build.

Going glass cannon would be giving up defensive traits and utilities for offensive ones. If there was less non stop high dmg spam, the glass cannon would actually have the opportunity to make those high plays because they won’t die instantly from a sneeze, a light breeze rolling by from a nearby fight chunking half your health… everyone would be in more control of their survivability then.

This is coming from someone who :

1. HATES bunkers/the concept of bunkers, with a passion.

2. Someone who almost always plays glass cannons (AP mid in LoL for example)

3. Someone who played mesmer/thief the most during beta/release (silly how survivable they are as pure glass compared to others)

And even AP’s and ADC’s will give up PURE dmg for some survivability item/s.

To make this clear : I don’t want to KILL off glass cannons.

Another thing to consider: what about increasing the time to respawn or even introducing WAVE respawns based on the timer instead of individual respawns.

A respawn timer of 30-kitten (instead of 15s) would do some really interesting things to the risk-vs-reward of running a glass dps and would place a much higher value on strategic decisions like far point push. Right now I can just rush far point, and if i die it doesn’t matter all that much because I’ll be up in 15s anyway.

In the most recent e-sport tournaments at PAX Prime, etc, the time to kill an opponent was dramatically different from what you see in hotjoin. The competitors did not die in a blink of an eye. No, they survived for a very long time because of good plays and good teamwork.

Gameplay at tournaments like Pax Prime showcase the potential of PvP. While casual hotjoin PvP may show the lowest skill floor, competitors in seasonal tournaments show off PvP’s highest skill ceiling. Should ArenaNet dumb down the entire game, or should they provide tools to encourage learning, growth, and competition so that even the average hotjoin player can be decently competitive?

Thanks for the discussion guys

Here’s the cross-post on reddit where we’re getting some really interesting discussions about condi effectiveness + role through the future and on the effect of map size and respawn timer on Risk vs Reward.

Knote.2904:

zone.1073:

TTK = time to kill, for anyone who’s confused.

ArenaNet has expressed many times that they believe in resolution of fights rather than going the WoW approach of having long, drawn out fights just for the sake of it.

I personally do not agree on slowing down combat to make it more “strategic”. Because of the threat of a quick death, really good plays are required to stay alive – this is more rewarding, and also entertaining to see. It’s similar to League of Legends in this sense: you can die in a blink of an eye in LoL, or you can pull out some amazing plays and not die, whilst killing everyone. (Doublelift’s Vayne is a good example of this.)

GW2’s fast paced style of combat is what makes it unique from other MMO PvPs.

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

You’re either super glass cannon (like dps pve gear), or super tank.

NO.

What Arenanet needs to do is redesign the stats, introducing new stats serves no purpose.

They already have a good set of stats why not improve it. I think someone should make a thread to talk about ways to redesign the current system of stats the benefits the whole game, but I digress (i love that word).

I think what Arenanet should do is to make Power the main damage stat, Vitality hp and toughness defense. Then make critical damge and conditional damage parallel to each other, so in your traits you can either choose to do extra damage on crit or apply a condition on crit similar to current sigils. Obviously, this would require critical chance to be reduced to because crits seem a little easy to get.

I havent thought through this enough, but the current system isn’t sufficient.

silvermember.8941:

Knote.2904:

zone.1073:

TTK = time to kill, for anyone who’s confused.

ArenaNet has expressed many times that they believe in resolution of fights rather than going the WoW approach of having long, drawn out fights just for the sake of it.

I personally do not agree on slowing down combat to make it more “strategic”. Because of the threat of a quick death, really good plays are required to stay alive – this is more rewarding, and also entertaining to see. It’s similar to League of Legends in this sense: you can die in a blink of an eye in LoL, or you can pull out some amazing plays and not die, whilst killing everyone. (Doublelift’s Vayne is a good example of this.)

GW2’s fast paced style of combat is what makes it unique from other MMO PvPs.

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

You’re either super glass cannon (like dps pve gear), or super tank.

NO.

What Arenanet needs to do is redesign the stats, introducing new stats serves no purpose.

They already have a good set of stats why not improve it. I think someone should make a thread to talk about ways to redesign the current system of stats the benefits the whole game, but I digress (i love that word).

I think what Arenanet should do is to make Power the main damage stat, Vitality hp and toughness defense. Then make critical damge and conditional damage parallel to each other, so in your traits you can either choose to do extra damage on crit or apply a condition on crit similar to current sigils. Obviously, this would require critical chance to be reduced to because crits seem a little easy to get.

I havent thought through this enough, but the current system isn’t sufficient.

Um, where did I say to introduce new stats?

Knote.2904:

silvermember.8941:

Knote.2904:

zone.1073:

TTK = time to kill, for anyone who’s confused.

ArenaNet has expressed many times that they believe in resolution of fights rather than going the WoW approach of having long, drawn out fights just for the sake of it.

I personally do not agree on slowing down combat to make it more “strategic”. Because of the threat of a quick death, really good plays are required to stay alive – this is more rewarding, and also entertaining to see. It’s similar to League of Legends in this sense: you can die in a blink of an eye in LoL, or you can pull out some amazing plays and not die, whilst killing everyone. (Doublelift’s Vayne is a good example of this.)

GW2’s fast paced style of combat is what makes it unique from other MMO PvPs.

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

You’re either super glass cannon (like dps pve gear), or super tank.

snip

Um, where did I say to introduce new stats?

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

Those are your words right? Even if you did not mean new stats having 2 different set of stats for PvP and PvE is essentially the same thing.

silvermember.8941:

Knote.2904:

silvermember.8941:

Knote.2904:

zone.1073:

TTK = time to kill, for anyone who’s confused.

ArenaNet has expressed many times that they believe in resolution of fights rather than going the WoW approach of having long, drawn out fights just for the sake of it.

I personally do not agree on slowing down combat to make it more “strategic”. Because of the threat of a quick death, really good plays are required to stay alive – this is more rewarding, and also entertaining to see. It’s similar to League of Legends in this sense: you can die in a blink of an eye in LoL, or you can pull out some amazing plays and not die, whilst killing everyone. (Doublelift’s Vayne is a good example of this.)

GW2’s fast paced style of combat is what makes it unique from other MMO PvPs.

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

You’re either super glass cannon (like dps pve gear), or super tank.

snip

Um, where did I say to introduce new stats?

This game needs to just have a different set of stats for Spvp, because right now it’s basically like we’re all in pure PVE gear playing pvp “arena”.

Those are your words right? Even if you did not mean new stats having 2 different set of stats for PvP and PvE is essentially the same thing.

Well, we already sort of have a different set of stats, but that’s what I mean : a different set of stats, not different stats. Like a different arrangement. Instead of having pure Zerker for example we could have a toned down version with more survivability so it tapers off glass cannon stats and such.

One of the things I’ve noticed since the beginning of the summer is that cool combo field plays have pretty much disappeared (beyond blasting water fields). We used to see some really complex and interesting combo field plays to drop AoE blinds, chills, chaos armor, healing, stealth, etc when mesmers + eles were more prevalent in the slower/less condi meta.

With so much emphasis on condis and trait procs there’s really no place/no need for cool combo field plays (which were one of the big selling points of PvP at launch)