Guild Wars 2

I had an crazy fun idea I thought I’d share. So let me attempt to organize this so it’s easier to read.

The Idea
Auto-attacks seem to be the most dry and boring aspect to the combat system. It’s the one skill(s) we see the most often and therefor it’s lends itself to be the most unappealing. So I thought up a new mechanic that could help make auto-attacking more tactical, which would emphasize on strategy, yet also it would be a hell of a lot more fun to play. In addition, this new mechanic wouldn’t actually take away from the current system.

• Super Attacks! That’s right, what if we had a super attack we could build up and use as a final attack via the auto-attack skill slot?

How It Could Work
Here’s a general idea on how to implement it.

• First of all, there would need to be a new F# skill button. This button would have a cool little animated effect which will display charges being built up. At a full charge, the icon would have a more prominent effect to let the player know it’s ready to use.
• When you have a full charge and press the F# button, your #1 skill slot will then be replaced by your new super, which you then choose to use.

Depth
Sounds simple, but there’s a lot of depth to gain from this. This is the most important part and will explain why this system could not only work, but also amplify the combat system.

• There would be a new and unique super per each auto-attack skill in the game.
• Each super could have new animations & effects. For example, a Mesmer’s greatsword super will shoot out a massive beam for two or three seconds.
• To add to animations, there would be a few seconds where the character would prepare their super. Taking the Mesmer again, he/she would start by having surges of that purple energy shoot through and around them all while they’re reacting to it etc.
• There could be new dialog being said while the character preps for the super.
• The variety of weapons and classes lets the devs have a lot of freedom with what kinds of supers could be made. The ideas are endless.

Balancing
Clearly the most problematic, however, it’s not much of an issue when you consider delays etc.

• Charging the super attack will be based on your auto-attacks and only your auto-attacks.
• You would need to have a set amount of consecutive hits in order to obtain a full charge for your super. If any of the auto-attacks miss, then the charges will be depleted and you have to start over.
• Swapping weapons will deplete any charges you had set prior, obviously because each super is different and based on different weapon sets.
• After a super attack has been used, there will then be a cooldown of something like 10s+.
• When you obtain a full charge, you will have 30-seconds to press the F# button and put the super into your #1 skill slot.
• When the super is in the skill slot, you then have 3-seconds to use it or else it’s gone and then cooldown takes place.
• There will be plenty of time for players to respond to supers by noticing the cool new animations that characters have as they “prepare” their super.
• Supers won’t have any special conditions that prevent players from dodging, so strategy becomes valuable.
• Supers can’t be stopped once a player activates one. You have to play out the full attack, even if you missed and thus are left at a disadvantaged. More strategy!

Counterattacks? More Depth? Score!
To open up the box, what if counterattacks were also apart of these new supers?

• Counterattacks would work by using the charge you have saved for your super. So let’s say we have two enemies that both have their supers charged and ready to use. Enemy A is about to use their super on Enemy B. Once Enemy B is within range of Enemy A’s super, their super icon will change for a brief moment, allowing Enemy B to add a counterattack into their #1 skill slot instead of their super.
• Doing this will waste your charges and still have a cooldown, regardless if you succeeded or not.
• The counterattack will not only block the super being used, but also redirect a lesser amount of damage back at the player.

Obviously Changes
The term ‘super’ can easily be changed to something with more of a Guild Wars feeling. The same goes for ‘counterattack’ or ‘charges’. Yada yada.

So, what are your thoughts? Any ways to expand on my idea?

Blackmoon.6837:

So, what are your thoughts? Any ways to expand on my idea?

Have you played a Warrior? There’s a lot of functional overlap here with the Adrenaline/Burst mechanic, which is a problem (risk of confusion between the Super gauge and the adrenaline gauge). Your suggestion would also complicate PvP balance by giving attrition/bunker characters the ability to suddenly deliver a high-damage spike. You mention that the Super attack would be dodge-able, but a player could simply Immobilize their opponent before activating the Super attack. “Consecutive hits” also seems a bit silly or arbitrary (“You were in range and used your skills judiciously, but you received a Blind condition when your arrow was already in-flight and so technically you missed an auto-attack. Say goodbye to all of your charges!”).

Aside from those specific objections, I don’t fully agree with the premise. Auto-attacks are only really boring if you’re fighting at long range. If you close into melee distance then you always have “something to worry about”: trying to lure enemies together in order to improve the effectiveness of friendly AOEs, planning where you’re going to use a Pull skill whose cooldown is almost complete, watching for attack cues and deciding whether to sidestep or use a dodge (or a weapon-skilll evade), deciding whether an ally is hurt badly enough to warrant a switch to Water attunement, determining which target to attack next, figuring out where a Projectile Reflection field would be most useful, trying to determine whether a clone or pet has too much aggro (and, if so, do I need to recall or shatter it?), deciding where to plant banners and turrets, etc. Auto-attacks themselves are a bit boring, but that isn’t a huge problem because they’re just filler – you see them a lot, but your attention is elsewhere.

Being based on hits/miss, there’s plenty of room for the warrior’s adrenaline to function without conflict. Maybe I’ll drop a warrior in pvp tonight and check it out.

That’s sort of the whole point though with the hit/miss aspect – the rarity of how often it’ll actually take place. It’s not a skill to be abused, but more a skill that’ll make people feel rewarded for their efforts in combat, regardless of pve or pvp. Not only would people feel like they truly accomplished a feat for successfully using a super, but the cool animations/effects/dialog etc. would make it fun.

PvP isn’t much of an issue, at least from my experience. I’m rank 30 right now, been playing pvp actively for the past month. To knock off a set of consecutive auto-attacks is pretty challenging. People are constantly on the move and evasion is crazy active, so chances are it would be even more rare to see a super in pvp than pve. If so, even more rewarding.

Sounds interesting.

Personally I’d like to see the social aspect of group combat improved greatly via improving and fixing the combo system. It has a lot of potential, but unfortunate inconsistencies with it, not to mention seemingly common bugs, make it something that seems hardly worked on. Players should be rewards significantly more for taking the time to work out combos with each-other in battle situations.

I concur, however, this new mechanic wouldn’t take away from the improvements that can be made to the current combo system.

I think a lot of people play this game and go by not even noticing combos because it’s easy to ignore the effects or rewards of pulling one off. The other problem with combos is due to that simplicity. They’re easy to trigger, even in pvp.

My suggestion is part of developing the complexity.