Guild Wars 2

This thread is for complaining about major design decisions that are too late to change. It seems, and to some degree is, unconstructive. Im going to contend that by identifying the things we miss and WHY we miss them, arenanet can find ways to sate our nostalgia / frustration.

Lets start with the monk profession. This was a fun class in gw 1 pvp. I understand why we wanted to do away with healers in pve, but why did pvp have to suffer? There weren’t throngs complaining about not being able to play because the monk was missing, the monk was fun, people wanted to play it. Arenanet made the funnest healer i have ever found in an rpg and then tossed it in the trash. What i missed? Reactive game play i guess. Positioning was huge in gw 1, you cringed when you saw someone over extend. Gw2? … misses that.

Lets talk about the downed state. It makes the most sense in spvp by far. Wvwvw it just helps whomever has the most players even more, in dungeons its a replacement for the healer they took away i guess? Except people usually die by standing someplace bad. So spvp. It adds teamwork here and is sort of its own mini game, im for it (after its rebalanced) but i know a lot will disagree.

Why exactly are we trying to make this an e sport? We have a limited pvp type so as not to fragment the community… with a small team size to keep prize pools down. So there is a cost. What did we gain? Not many of us are going to go pro, so we lost the hope of being in the top bracket, those slots will go to people that dont aspire to real jobs now.

I agree with the problem with not having healers = no meaningful impact with positioning, melee can dive all the way past whole enemy team to hit the glasscannon ranged class in the back because he does not have to worry about not getting heals. Also you have to fight very close to the node at all times or you are mostly useless, delaying incoming opponents is fine further away, but once they get to the node, you have to be there too.

Gw2 needs some sort of mechanic to make positioning meaningful, I have no idea what it should be, I assumed that anet would have figured it out because they did away with holytrinity in the first place.

I actually think of my ele as a melee class currently, there is no way of me keeping proper range, outside of enemy focusing my team mates rather than myself, AND my best nukes happen to be ones that I have to be in melee range anyways so…

ps. I also agree with gw1 having the most fun healer ever in any pvp game, especially mo/a protection healer with short cast times and decent mobility. <3333 I miss it so much.

Actually, I would argue that the positioning subject is not due to the loss of monks but more due to the style of game play. GW2 doesn’t focus on team fights or kind of combined (above say 3) effort to fight in an even match. If you had to fight in a more prolonged fight that had attrition in it, you would see those lines start to develop. I agree, it is sad to see the monk go. But getting rid of the backline isn’t the worst thing in the world. There is still, if the game play were to be redesigned, room for a midline which would become the backline and a frontline mentality. Shorter range on most skills also allows for the concept of over extending and positioning actually takes a greater role because of this. If the fights were team focused, you would need to position yourself effectively for spikes. In GW1 it was only really the warrios (and maybe a ranger or ele if LOS needed) who had to worry about their position for a spike.

I have a stupid long post on these forums no doubt hidden on page 5 or 6 that describes what I believe is problematic with the current sPvP format. The biggest thing is just the complete 180 for the style of gameplay from something completely original to someone expected and encountered in many other games.

Yea and healing causes prolongued fights with attrition. Positioning mattered for the monks a lot too. They had to know how and when to move forward in support of a warrior that dived.

So it sounds like we agree the most identifiable thing we miss from the monk is the definition of lines and positioning. Is there a way to get that back in a game where skirmishes are mostly 2v2 or 3v3 with maybe the occasional 5v5?

Downed states, yea… i want to hear more detailed thoughts. I know a lot of players are very unhappy with them but i want to hear that explained (in spvp, i get it elsewhere).

I happen to like the idea, it adds some strategy because of stability and invis, push back and interuption. That said the current downed state bars are poorly balanced at best.

I admit gw2 doesnt have the stacks and filo system of gw1, but with polish and time it might, and stability will be a key boon to purge.

I know this isnt constructive but… i just wanted gw1 gvg and hoh with a z axis and new graphics… i gave and will continue to give this new game a shot, but does anyone else wonder why they reinvented the wheel into a more squarish shape?

i don’t like heal class. and necromancer life steal must be more viable………….

Downed state in small scale spvp makes sense. It does add more dynamics to the game and another element to think of, and it’s why a lot of people, especailly in tournaments, and making builds in line with stomping/rezzing etc. This isn’t including in 8v8 as no one is really thinking of anything there other than “kill kill kill”, not “this guy is almost dead, but they have 2 guardians and a warrior here, which stability utility do I have/can I save to finish him without being interupted”.

A lot of the skills you see today created by the anet devs in thier internal testing, they already had a meta there, and they created skills around finishing/revivng. I wouldn’t expect any huge changes happening to this mechanic, otherwise you’d see a complete overhaul of skills for a lot of weapon sets.

I do see them balancing downed state as I mentioned in a lot of threads. They already changed the mesmers from bw1 + 2, and I forsee potentially more changes, but for spvp, mainly tournament play, it adds more skill and team play to the match.

If you’re 5v5ing a team spec with stability/invluns/interupts vs 5 individual 1v1 specs with purely offensive utilities, it doesn’t matter how many times the 1v1 specs kill anyone, no one will ever die.

I think removing a dedicated healing class was one of the greatest inovations arenanet made, especially for pvp. Also, I think it is nonsense to say positioning is not important in this game.

This game definitely has ‘lines’ and overextension punishment…

As a condition necromancer, I am generally on the ‘back line’ so to speak. I can’t be in the center of the point, or else I will get Hundred Blades’d or Pistol Whipped to a down state. If I am downed there, it will be difficult to revive me, because the enemy team will be able to use interrupts, stuns, and stomp me more easily than if I was on my team’s ‘side.’ Am I still on the point? Maybe; I am on the edge of the ring of the Graveyard in Foefire, or in the corner of windmill / mansion on kylho, but definitely not hanging out in the center of the clocktower point without a well of darkness down; that’s a quick death.

If you overextend, you become a sponge for the cleave effect of most melees, and become a more valuable target for the enemy’s ‘back line’ members to hit, because they see you as more threatening(you’re getting closer to the squishies); in short, you get focused because it’s harder for you to escape and you’re easier to hit.

I was originally very taken aback by several things… I found the game spammy, it was hard to know what to do in hectic situations, things felt unbalanced, downed state seemed like a chore.

Basically I wanted my warm security blanket of what I was used to.

Now, I’m thoroughly enjoying PvP after countless matches and being rank 20+, and I’m thankful this game offers up enough variety to make several specs viable in PvP… for the first time ever, I can actually make my character however I want and my playstyle determines my success, not having to use the “only” viable PvP build as other games get pigeon-holed into.

I think the PvP is amazing and heading in the right direction, and is the most balanced I’ve seen an MMO for launch thusfar. It’s by no means perfect, but the posts about things being “broken and unplayable” are just silly.

Hsulf.9370:

Downed state in small scale spvp makes sense. It does add more dynamics to the game and another element to think of, and it’s why a lot of people, especailly in tournaments, and making builds in line with stomping/rezzing etc.
…

I do see them balancing downed state as I mentioned in a lot of threads. They already changed the mesmers from bw1 + 2, and I forsee potentially more changes, but for spvp, mainly tournament play, it adds more skill and team play to the match.

It does add another layer to the gameplay but imo not a good one. Down state got progressingly more important with the development in the game as opposed to weakened. It is currently at a state where 7/8 classes can interrupt a finisher, making it possible rezz every single time if you just try to non-stab-stomp.

On another note the downstate dps is ridiculous, i do not approve at all of mesmer’s 3 critting for 5k and warriors throwing 1k dps stones in your face etc., not to mention that a balance of survivability/dps/utility in the actual downstate between the professions is pretty much non-existent.

What down state should’ve been in my opinion, is the all-access ability to an in-combat rezz, that requires an active involvement of the downed players team to stop stomps rather than the downed player being able to circumvent the majority of stomps itself.

What the down state has come to is an easy access to a quick non-cooldown in-combat rezz that requires both teams to save the majority of their cooldowns to when someone is actually downed rather than downing someone in the first place.

In my opinion there is currently far too much emphasis on the downed fights and 3v3’s easily end up being a rezz fest because it is so much easier to rezz someone than to stomp them which should imo be actually the other way around.

I’d love to see rezz-speed decreased, stomp speed increased and every single 2 ability in down state taken out of the game. No it does not make sense that you can “cheat” death immediately after being downed, yes it is okay that you just die after being downed because it should be your team that makes an effort to ressurect you not you bringing the interrupt right to the table.

res speed is fast already making it even faster just promote zergfest and make pvp more boring.

Agreed about the team effort to ressurect, though im not opposed to some utility existing i do think it should be on slot 3. (By utility i mean stomp defence)

Some actual utility like cripple on skill 2 could be neat. (Immobilize i find dubious)

ryston.7640:

Downed states, yea… i want to hear more detailed thoughts. I know a lot of players are very unhappy with them but i want to hear that explained (in spvp, i get it elsewhere).

I happen to like the idea, it adds some strategy because of stability and invis, push back and interuption. That said the current downed state bars are poorly balanced at best.

I admit gw2 doesnt have the stacks and filo system of gw1, but with polish and time it might, and stability will be a key boon to purge.

I know this isnt constructive but… i just wanted gw1 gvg and hoh with a z axis and new graphics… i gave and will continue to give this new game a shot, but does anyone else wonder why they reinvented the wheel into a more squarish shape?

In my opinion, downed state would truly shine in more organized drawn out combat as opposed to the current quick interaction combat we see now. As far as I am concerned, health in this game is sort of the only form of attrition you see in the game. The entire objective is to monitor your health. Now that seems obvious, but consider other games that have alternative mechanics ie energy or some other resource. These games basically pit energy as the attrition factor. If you lose your energy, you will die very very quickly. Then, health essentially is the buffer that protects you somewhat from the complete loss of energy. It’s not the case that hey, you lose all your energy and now your dead, its more like, you lost all your energy and now you are severely weakened and under heavy pressure. In this game, this is the role hp plays. It is high enough that you generally don’t instant die (and there shouldn’t be a case where that is possible either.) You can see that through the use of an auto attack that does decent damage, your health directly reflects how long you’ve been in combat. Now, the remarkably innovative thing about all this is that downed state has become the comparison of hp under old systems. It is your last ditch that protects you from instant death should your resource run out. It also drastically increases pressure throughout your team when you go into downed state (or they can just let you die, the equivalent being a tactical death to restore energy in GW1.) The only thing I would change about it is to make the penalty for repeated downs more significant.

If you are in for a very very long read, you can look at my post I made that details what is wrong with GW2 pvp in my mind and states how close they were to making something great, keeping in mind, that I still do quite enjoy GW2 pvp, it just lost a lot of potential.

(The link if you’re truly curious: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Lost-potential/first#post237996 )