Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Please do not assume that because a particular comment or post was not replied to that it was ignored. This is simply not true.

There is no bias toward any type of criticism/discussion as long as it is productive.

As i mentioned we need to have more focused topics and more time to be able to fully enter into the discussion. This is something we are actively working on.

Please do not try to derail a thread about how we can improve by building arguments around assumptions.

Finally this initiative is extremely important and should be treated with respect with the focus on evolving a great game. And the first round of CDI around Living World was extremely useful.

Chris

Then please tell us, what is your thought about that particular comment which we assumed got ignored? In other words, can developers please “share with players” something useful for once instead of giving premeditated answers that forces players to just ‘assume—- oh, that is probably what he/she means’? When we see something that we suggested multiple times not being implemented into the game, those of us who supports the idea would obviously appreciate being told about why the idea did not fit the development criteria.

EDIT: Some of us outside of the community has great ideas to offer, but I guess negative attitudes on the forum tends to easily influences your decisions making as game developers. This is how I picture a typical Anet Dev talking to a GW2 critic:

Critics: I didn’t really like the dungeons in GW2.
Anet: —-—
Critics: Hello.
Anet: Your points have been dismissed for its lack of factual reasoning. Have a good day.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Stop ignoring what you don’t like and answer the questions.

This happens to be my honest thought about the whole feedback system between GW2 Arenanet and its players. Some of us simply aren’t very intrigue with our words, and it seems that whatever facts we use to support our critism of the game, you guys believe that your data are more accurate so our feedback seems to have less impact of the game than others who “fits your agenda”.

Honesty is what we need here. If the players ask a question, could you guys just answer them in a way that doesn’t cause anyone to start speculations?

Players will always appreciate brutal honesty more than soft lies that are caused by pride and fear of personal offenses.

And sometimes being accused of something does not mean that the person lacks the communication respect, but once again the individual may be just seeking a definitive answer for their question.

Share your agenda, Share your process. I’m sure everyone’s attitude will be much less aggresive if you let us understand where you guys are at developing the game. That is all we care about when talking with developers; we understand you guys ultimately make the decision, but we would like to understand what you guys value in GW2’s game developments. You know all about our personal opinions but we do not know yours.

Try having a discussion with the players instead of one comment and response here and there.

boring skill mechanics

I’m having the same issue. Worked fine until a few hours ago.

Waiting for a response back from the game crash report.

I really don’t see the point of these reposts about asking “can we have additional weapons plzzzzz”, because:

a) Litrally any weapon would fit for any character if Anet wants it to.
b) New weapons affects balancing therefore the act of repetitively suggesting for new weapons – or skills – or even classes is utterly pointless (they’ll never find a way to do it in away that can fit for everyone’s preference).
c) Anet’s bond to take forever to pass their new weapons/skill through their so-called “internal balancing legislature”.

case & point op: Whatever you wish Anet to do it’s a good thing to get it off your chest because your excitement for the game will soon turn into “look I’ve been patience with y’all but I guess this gaming company simply doesn’t care to simply give the people what they want or at least let everyone try to have some new personal exploration with crazy but awesomely cool unbalanced builds”.

Naw, this has to be done ‘perfectly’. Though so much for that Anet.

Dyno.9467:

Obviously not worth you coming back. You dont like the game, so i cant understand why you even have to ask.

Not to be harsh but I definitely agree with dyno’s point; if some game just aren’t for you then you shouldn’t force yourself upon liking it. But just putting facts out there, the game’s PVE has not changed for the most part other than new contents which generally has just the same gameplay concepts stacked upon original concepts. So I doubt that the game will be any different of an experience.

1) Structured competitive game modes.
2) Class/role philosophies
3) Map structures

1) Class skills/skill mechanics
2) Quests/Dungeon mechanics
3) Living world combat process

when`s the new update coming?

4 chars in total. one for each race (except norn cuz I find them fairly similar to human).

Randulf.7614:

Imperatora.7654:

ColinJohanson.2394:

stay tuned! (and no the reveal is not an expansion!)

Half-life 3 confirmed!

I just choked on my drink at this one lol

+1.

Although I think for all it’s worth revealing hints to more of these unknown updates are at best just more opportunities to bring hype to GW2, which I’m sure many of us are (especially those who’s been around GW2 forum since pre-orders last april) fairly use to seeing by now.

players who are impatient in dungeons…. are most likely grinders.

Vayne.8563:

FluffyDoe.7539:

Vayne.8563:

FluffyDoe.7539:

ilr.9675:

But yeah, there was also some really good points in here and elsewhere about why D.E.’s by themselves let the Players down first, way before the players let Anet down.

This might sound somewhat accusing but, Anet has been making changes to GW2 the game in a way that seems suspecting according to the feedbacks on this forum (from personally what I saw for nearly a year now).

Even though I can’t be sure of this; but from the outside looking in, it seems Anet only responds to feedbacks that fits their pre-constructed personal and cultural idea for the game even if some aspects of the game play designs would be better off going in another direction than where it currently is headed. [of course, these are just my personal view of the game’s progression since GW2 launched several months ago]

Logically speaking, a company can do nothing else. Because feed back on forums is very seldomly one sided.

Even when they’ve increased rewards (which was based on feedback) there were people posting here saying rewards should be nerfed.

It’s very easy to get the idea that the feedback you see is what most players want…the problem is most players don’t give feedback and the most vocal players also tend to be the hardest core, or at least those with the most stake.

Take the dragon events. They were sort of fun before Anet increased the rewards. They went from relatively fun events to horrible zerg events. The loot effectively destroyed the events, but they were more popular than ever. I don’t think Anet ever saw their game as a loot train…but they still made the change.

So no, I don’t think this analysis is necessarily accurate. By the same token, they won’t make a change that derails what they want to do with the game, because there are people who like that stuff too.

I mean every time a new patch comes out, the place gets mad crowded. Someone must be playing it and liking it.

To me it sounds like you are on the side that supports Anet, and also on the side that doesn’t actually believe there is a solution. aka. the side that’s objectively doing nothing because they’re afraid to screw up a mediocre game (sorry if that sounded harsh although that’s imo the truth).

You’re wrong. What I think we have is different things work for different people period. The farmers are happy that they can farm, but those who don’t want to farm and don’t enjoy finding end up far behind if they don’t farm. Inflation, because a portion of the population does have money, puts many things out of reach of those who don’t want to farm. Both sides can’t be pleased, because both sides what different things.

Anet’s job is to find a compromise that works for both sides, and that’s not going to happen for everyone. So the problem persists.

But that doesn’t mean I do nothing. I fight for the stuff important to my side.

You are missing the point. Anet does not compromise the different sides of community, they only compromise “collected data results” with “community feedbacks”, so when you think Anet is simply our mediator (a person who gives compensations for different sides) for this virtual society right here, in fact Anet has total control of what happens.

And based on the amount of commotions in this forum for the past “10-11 months” (a long time), the lack of truly solid improvements of the game is questionable at this point of time.

IMO it is a marketing strategy like the Dallas Cowboys in American Football → every year they make you believe that they’ll do something special and every year they find a way to mess it up.

Take that analogy and put it beside GW2: every update they make you believe that a big change is coming to DEs and such and the every next update I see, all that happens is: player switch dungeons to zerg.

Vayne.8563:

FluffyDoe.7539:

ilr.9675:

But yeah, there was also some really good points in here and elsewhere about why D.E.’s by themselves let the Players down first, way before the players let Anet down.

This might sound somewhat accusing but, Anet has been making changes to GW2 the game in a way that seems suspecting according to the feedbacks on this forum (from personally what I saw for nearly a year now).

Even though I can’t be sure of this; but from the outside looking in, it seems Anet only responds to feedbacks that fits their pre-constructed personal and cultural idea for the game even if some aspects of the game play designs would be better off going in another direction than where it currently is headed. [of course, these are just my personal view of the game’s progression since GW2 launched several months ago]

Logically speaking, a company can do nothing else. Because feed back on forums is very seldomly one sided.

Even when they’ve increased rewards (which was based on feedback) there were people posting here saying rewards should be nerfed.

It’s very easy to get the idea that the feedback you see is what most players want…the problem is most players don’t give feedback and the most vocal players also tend to be the hardest core, or at least those with the most stake.

Take the dragon events. They were sort of fun before Anet increased the rewards. They went from relatively fun events to horrible zerg events. The loot effectively destroyed the events, but they were more popular than ever. I don’t think Anet ever saw their game as a loot train…but they still made the change.

So no, I don’t think this analysis is necessarily accurate. By the same token, they won’t make a change that derails what they want to do with the game, because there are people who like that stuff too.

I mean every time a new patch comes out, the place gets mad crowded. Someone must be playing it and liking it.

To me it sounds like you are on the side that supports Anet, and also on the side that doesn’t actually believe there is a solution. aka. the side that’s objectively doing nothing because they’re afraid to screw up a mediocre game (sorry if that sounded harsh although – that’s imo the solid truth).

ilr.9675:

But yeah, there was also some really good points in here and elsewhere about why D.E.’s by themselves let the Players down first, way before the players let Anet down.

This might sound somewhat accusing but, Anet has been making changes to GW2 the game in a way that seems suspecting according to the feedbacks on this forum (from personally what I saw for nearly a year now).

Even though I can’t be sure of this; but from the outside looking in, it seems Anet only responds to feedbacks that fits their pre-constructed personal and cultural idea for the game even if some aspects of the game play designs would be better off going in another direction than where it currently is headed. [of course, these are just my personal view of the game’s progression since GW2 launched several months ago]

Amadan.9451:

are you people even reading what other people said before you?

No.

I just read the OP and I agreed with him. Not everything has to be up for discussion man.. especially when it’s true period.

That’s all this game is now…. farm and grind. This game simply has been progressing to no where, all that’s really left; are for those who loves collections and completions.

[Completing the Title]

When Gear Progression Pushes You Away

Introduce Skill Progression.

a bit off topic… but I’ll just like to mention that mesmer is OP for mob tanking especially in the aether dungeons (* so it’s a good thing that I main a mesmer)

EDIT: and mesmers are also great vs. single mobs (ok imo vsing. bosses or players)..

Adding weapons most likely means adding more single hand weapons for additional skill combinations – if that’s the case then I would absolutely support these changes, or else please don’t give up on the idea on expanding weapon-skills variations to all existing weapon!

the new dungeons still have lag issues and combat still feels ‘meh’ at best, and all in all the pointlessness of doing dynamic events simply makes the fighting aspects of gameplay mediocre at best.

I would suggest updating your engine anet… there some games coming out late 2013 which (from preview gameplay) simply looks astonishing…. like they’ve raised their gameplays experience to a:

(0:10)

TL;DR – if any expansion is happening, please be focusing on the dynamic events (in story mode and dungeon mode) and please do not implement anything new unless an adequate game engine power exists support them. This game has much greater potential I believe that we (as players) have yet to see.

the new dungeon was fun except my fps is like 10 which simply doesn’t cut it for some parts of the dungeon. but overall, some of the new ideas and tactics used in the dungeons were quite fascinating and definitely a better improvement from other dungeons.

pc spec:
GTX260
FX 6100
8 Gig ram.
Window 7

edit: I can run on lower settings with minimum fps improvement (average around 17 fps) but at low the game really looks bad, and it is quite stupid thing to just tune the settings down for one dungeon (every other dungeon I have no fps lag except for certain fractal dungeon maps).

I don’t agree with the skeptical dungeon team comp that the OP refereed to because never were team comp a problem for me in dungeons (and I’ve ran them all at all levels). But I do believe the class skill mechanics in this game are overly locked-down for each classes, in general the weapon skills gets boring fairly quick; yeah there are traits to modify each skills but soon it gets boring.

Honestly it just feels like the class skills in this game leaves players wanting more but…. last time I check it’s been almost a year now since release and not a single major change done to class skills (only some scaling and putting stat effect changes here and there solely for PvP players).

TL;DR – Basically GW2’s servers organization system needs major improvements.

I wish Anet could create a grouping system where people can have party search put on ‘global notice’ (ie. every single server) if the party leader wishes to do so, like if your server seems very empty, then asking people on other servers to come would help both get the party going and fill up that server. If things gets overloaded then they can automatically move that party to the ‘next more emptier server’ all in guest mode.

I tried to play today but couldn’t find anyone even in lions arch so I quit (and by not finding anyone I mean nobody had responded to global chat)

I find GW2 combat somewhat sluggish in terms of the way Anet let the skill-shot animations impact mobs. Like they try to make the combat reactions similar to those that one would find in MMORTS where the exact impact points of the skills doesn’t have to be 100% synchronous with the physical target (as long as it’s enough to tell a player that: a) the skill use is xxxx. b) the damage you dealt was yyyy).

Ultimately, they way skill animations work in GW2 makes combat feel ‘cheap’ IMO. And that’s terrible if you consider how much time they spent into detailing the character models by putting in new ‘enhanced character texture highlight’ and implementing all those higher level object texture graphics options.

I like dungeons in general, except I don’t really like the teamwork aspects of it. I think dungeons should require more skills fusions in term of having everyone work side by side without being bored of each other (ie. the only time of a dungeon when there’s skill interaction with another player is when we need revives on our team). I think dungeons are meant to be a fun group event that really allows players to interact at several different levels… but it turns out there’s not quite as many types of interactions as people had expected, that’s probably my biggest ideological disappointment about dungeons.

I agree with the OP entirely. But to clearify one point is that a sense of achievement comes from when you’ve done something which can’t be reverted, meaning you did it so it’s done. In GW2 all its events makes you feel like you’re going no where, just another day of w.e.

It really comes down to do you enjoy doing it? Because if – doing it for the sake of doing – is not why you do it…… *gasp, then there’s literally no point to be made about obtaining a sense of achievement. Or rather wishing that there’s ‘permanent progression’ in GW2, which is non-existence other than obtaining legendaries and getting better in PvP/WvW.

Suzu.4193:

Lets see….

-The class balance: they just described the classes back to us…..
-They still think conquest is fun….
-It really sounds like they have no idea whats going on
-No real changes coming eta:2015
-Spec mod for hotjoin???? what
-Buffing mes???
-Nerfing thief
-Banner buff……WHAT?

Im out guys.

I like your third point. Except I would add one more point that… actually, they know what ’they’re doing’ (in terms of programing cuz some of the systems they’ve developed are amazingly complex), but they seemed confused with determining whether their changes created good or bad results (they’re like an APU which doesn’t really know whether the variables they’re adding will result in a ‘positive or negative sum’).

@ post above me: I find personal feelings completely irrelevant in terms of defining what a game’s fundamental flaws are. Yes, and I mean are.

Everyone has their opinions about the game, whether personal or not, Anet does not consider feelings into the matter. They look at things from systems, these are perspectives in which most of us (unless in engineering) would not understand.

Although you’re right to some degree. There is a certain way of doing things…. but it’s definitely not based on public manifests and manipulations of the economy. Good engineers or software developers generally take “good use of talent” over “the money”…. and it’s generally impossible to maintain a complex system like a game with loop-holes everywhere.

Also, apples is a large branding company (I mean, a company that can sell simply with brand and having mediocre growth in their technology implementation) so it is different from GW2….. the larger a company is then the more management involvement exists, which typically results in having more branding marketing than one would want (again, marketing is fine up until the point where it needs to inject itself into the system and manipulate the results).

Overall skill mechanics in GW2 lacks smoothness and depth features; the recent removal of culling in the game simply made that even more obvious.

I find the OP to have contain some interesting points specifically about the dungeons and fractals. Since the tweak to dungeons, and with the recent dungeon experiences which I can recall from- the dungeons still posses scaling issues to the majority of group (either overly challenging or not challenging at all). I would agree with the solution (inferred by the posts above this post) of adding different difficulty levels with dungeon. It’s simply an ideal and also non-practical to derive a constant level scale for each dungeon., for any given reason to do so – it’s not easy to see from the players point of view and most of our experiences (ie. players consider many dungeons to become boring very quickly with a non-differentiable difficulty scale).

EDIT: Avoiding confusion above, I’m not proposing any solution, rather (@Anet) I’m thinking about what the type of dungeon scaling will result in common failures in most MMO dungeons (ie. trying to put a ‘balanced level’ for dungeon difficulty commonly points towards the wrong direction of approach for dungeon balancing).

I would love if my ele had more weapons. But to be honest, the whole game lacks that sense of weapon skills progression. As being somewhat related to the game balance, I would absolutely think it be better off separating the PvP style of play from PvE in which would lessson complications between the PvE and PvP spectrums of balancing.

Disclude.7416:

FluffyDoe.7539:

like in league of legends (which Anet is practically copying their ranking system off… please – don’t even say it’s secret (ANet), because we all know that the core of League’s ranking system is rock solid, there is no where to differentiate a better competitive rank system away from league’s).

Actually they are using a different system. League uses the Elo ranking system while GW2 is using the Glicko ranking system. They are different, but either way, you act like League of Legends is the first game to use any ranking system, which they not, they’re also not the first game to even use the Elo ranking system..so you’re wrong already..

I’m not going to even comment on rest of your thread, because it was quite ridiculous and not a lot of it made sense..

The only difference between the Glicko ranking system and ELO ranking system (in a general system) is how they write their ranking forumlas…. but in my post I was actually referring to Mr.Peters’ comments about “we might do single que rank, duo que ranks, etc..”, this comment shows that they’re still far behind in terms of setting up a good rank system but they’re afraid to tell the public that; because there’s no way in the world GW2’s ranking formula would leave out the variable to describe representation of team coordinations (ie. 5 man que, 4 man que solo que, (x) player ques, etc). Assuming they have to collect data to create a function’s relationship wrt. this variable therefore Anet will probably not be accounting proper que # into matching, which will mean that the rankings would be terrible ".

Plus the PvP gameplay would still be bad because with the way Anet is designing PvP maps they’re doing it totally wrong (= making huge PvP maps with tons of areas being irrelevant to cap points).

EDIT: Glicko formula has inputs of more complex and wide range of variables while the ELO formula usually just look at the functions associated with mainly Wins and Losses.

UPDATE: The original post has been divided into sub-topic in order to separate the individual feedback points.

[SotG Vid] What?
I’ve just watched the state of the game video (released feb. 7), and I’ve got no idea what Mr. Peters meant by “if you’re down 3-0 you’re easily the worse team, because it takes making a lot of mistakes to be down 3-0”.

I think the unclarity to this statement is simply that you can argue many ways against it and be right. For example, what if team just lost 3-2, 4-3, 1-0 in a sports game? For example, when the Seattle Seahawks lost to the Atlanta falcon did they make lots of mistakes? [answer = no], but they did make 2 crucial mistakes with 30 seconds to go.

The point I’m making is that it’s actually the quality of the mistakes that matters, not the quantity of the mistakes (in real competitive games at least). That is why most strategic game today can be lost or won even when the other team is down 3-0; like in league of legends (which Anet is practically copying their ranking system off… please – don’t even say it’s secret (ANet), because we all know that the core of League’s ranking system is rock solid, there is no where to differentiate a better competitive rank system away from league’s).

[GW2 PvP Strats.] Does strategic mistakes actually exist in the game?
In league’s PvP system, a strategic mistake can be clearly identified just by common sense, while in GW2 it’s hard to differentiate what I did wrong in PvP other than from: ‘oh, i died’.

A large part of the issue (IMO) has to do with the flaws in GW2’s PvP strats. system~

For example, any roaming assassin in league knows not to go into enemy territory without vision ( assassin class is design to be good 1v1 and kitten in teamfight… it’s suppose to be a class that require lots of skills to pick off a single player especially those around teammates). But in GW2, I see roamers picking off players easily 1v1 all day and are uncatchable even if another player is directly next to the assassin’s victim (no boundary to harrassments).

[Map Contentions] Are the places away from cap points actually important?
Every corner in a PvP map is suppose to matter in some way to at least one team on either side. In GW2 they made the maps overly massive and complicated structurally to a point that sometimes players gain advantage from the terrain but most of the time they fight on top ‘zero-purpose structures’ (ie. anything 50 feet away from a cap point or contestable structure). Players had to assume (although it may be a solid fact now) that fighting near cap points will give you the maximum benefits over your terrains, because right after each fight ends near a cap point the live players can immediately contest/cap that points.

Since most fights tends to happen beside cap points, thus most of the time PvP players neglects (naturally) the majority of map resources. It also means that players have to worry frequently about "travel time vs. point capture efficiency " <- which is the most boring part of any game. This is a flawed PvP gameplay concept, where the gameplay in PvP does not progress or ‘speed up’ as time passes, and rather the PvP gameplay forces players to always retrack themselves as they spawn all the way back at their team base (has this change from what it was 1 month ago? If so then you can scrap this point – but if this is still the case…)______If players don’t spawn at the points they capture then there is no directional progression at the game, there is only ‘scoreboard progression’ which is exactly like basketball where you basically leave if it’s a blowout, or come back during the last 4 mins of the game to check the final scores (because the baskets will be scored on both sides continously so nobody knows which team will win early in the game.) Likewise, capping the point happens a lot during a PvP match, and players from opposite team constantly recap the same cap-points [it’s not as progressive as destroying a towers; if they’re destroyed they’re out of the game permanently]).

-

In conclusion (without ranting further more), I believe GW2 needs to really take more care of its PvP maps (especially the new one that’s coming up) in terms of making sure players has 100% usefulness of the terrains wrt. gameplay progression (in GW2 I think that’s simply about point caps). And do something about single player harrassments in the game…. don’t make PvP into a poke-fest (usually a ‘gimick playstyle’ for most competitive PvP games).

I don’t know what the solution is to having so much ‘useless land in PVP’…. but yah, that’s also one thing that I love about league: is that as the towers go down in league the size and usefulness of the map terrains increases (ie. those jungle bushes right across from the base walls become extremely useful 30mins+ into the game, or baron becomes ‘the place to fight’ also later in the game).

-

if you guys are arguing whether PVE is competitive… it’s definitely not competitive. Unless there is ranking or special resources to fight over the overall competitiveness in PvE is practically none existence.

And on another point, there is no such thing as a purely good, competitive environment.

Minority or not… it really doesn’t matter.

A little oil dump spreads in the ocean….. just like a little insult spreads the need to bring up the same topics over and over again. Metaphorically, the actual issue is with those people who ignores the oil, and tries to say “hey guys, look at how much blue ocean are still out there (points to the blue areas outside of the oil spill)”.

Adamentalist.3872:

So we will all come back to play GW2 in Feb – March?

It’s not your timeline. It’s theirs; if they can survive without subs there’s definitely loopholes/optimization in their marketing strategy.

And when I said optimization, I mean trading time for money. This is just how the industry is…. I think many of the players here need to be more aware of that.

Anet’s thinking process = / = Game Industry, Anet thinking process = Entertainment Industry.

Why else do you guys think they have a “feedback forum”? You honestly think they care about feedback, or is it that it’s helping them do work that they would have need to do otherwise?

—

Internet people → does not understand binary thinking. Industry people → understand binary thinking.

not a question, but just saying that this will be another “tell the players about some fixes/changes that are coming soon and then telling them again (like in every show) that all the problems we know, they know already & they’re just choosing to pick the right solutions”. #AnetDevsQ&A101.

EDIT: actually I do have a question about the PvP maps in this game. Does Anet plan on releasing a type of RTS map like League/Dota or sort of like CTF_2Fort/CTP_Well (in Team Fortress 2), in terms of having identically opposing halfs within a map? Wouldn’t you (whoever the Anet dev. is here) agree that so far, that type of terrain design has resulted in a lot competitive team strats for lots of other competitive PvP games which requires lots of so-called ‘map awareness’, and wouldn’t you say that in GW2 it’s simply a lot harder to understand the map structure visually/systematically due to it being not symmetrical and confusingly asymmetrical? (because if my side is the same as their side, it’s a) fair, b) players can learn to understand the opponent’s side by understanding their own side… of the map, c) clear map-advantage is shown on the map itself)

Yah, I agree OP…. although I play GW2 in spurts, and I personally don’t think that it’ll ever be an everyday game for me. I’ve been apart of GW1 so I know that stuff happens all the time… but eventually it’s really like spending 60 bucks to a basketball game just to see your favorite player, it’s not really cuz the game has changed or anything.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Doesn’t have to be Lakers specific. You could say we bring class x because its like have a big man in the lane. Or class y is our 3 point shooter. z is good at defense, etc.

But the Lakers also lack ‘execution’ :<…. just my opinion.

The way GW2 combat work is no different from how the lakers play basketball…. jack up the offense and have no system for team defense (like coach D said… on defense it’s all about working hard & defending as a team, we don’t need no system on defense^).

EDIT: you have to watch basketball (and the Lakers play) if you want to get this analogy.

dear anet,

If you guys are stubborn minded then don’t even bother reading this… because what I’m about to say you guys (as designers) either gets it or don’t.

PvP:

- Allow players to utilize the map terrains more by building a meta for how winning works. Here are some examples:

TF2 – CTP, Push the Cart, and CTF. If certain maps give one side of the team more advantage then at the end of the round allow the teams to switch sides so that each team gets a chance to be offensive and defensive.
League – monostable map for each 5v5 Map and 3v3 (customizing the arena with art for a different feel…. but essentially the way terrains work are still the same).

So basically what I’m saying is this -> where is the gameplay progression for GW2 PvP?

TF2 has progression (where your cart is at? Look at the bottom of your screen and you’ll see it, or see the points capped if it’s CTP). League has progression (where the tower is pushed at? Look at the bottom right of map and you’ll see it). Where is that option for GW2?

And look, to be quite honest with yall…. I think the fact that it’s always just teams capturing/contesting/protecting the points until one team hits a winning score, it’s utterly stupid. Look at how TF2 does it….. even in CTP_Wells, basically everyone knows where it’s at (if it’s first cap, watch for trains to run u over. if it’s second cap, they have high roof and windows for snipers, if it’s third cap there’s 3 places for enemys to come out).

While in GW2… there’s no such thing as a back door because it’s litrally like league of legends dominion. That type of map design won’t be competitive.

Again, I think a large part falls under the fail design of the way combat works ; it works, but the way it works has major bottleneck to the way a designer can expand on the given skill mechanics. Understand this: (1) auto-target means the skill is at knowing which skill to use….basically that means it’s like a board game (I press ‘1’ which stuns and he then presses ‘2’ which breaks the stun) AND, (2) a 3D game is designed to give front and minimal side visions…. basically that means that your vision becomes a superior benefit to your accuracy (because you have 0% accuracy or you won’t hit the guy if you can’t even turn quick enough to target and press a skill on the guy).

Combining (1) & (2): you get dumbed down skill-based game that will never be more skillfull beyond anything – but stat watching. This is why you get players complaining about the follow two type of things 24-7 on the PvP forum:

1) Class skill damage (and vice versa is the lack there of damage)
2) Class with vision advantage (mesmer clones & thief stealth).

Trust me… it’s because y’all (anet) did not see the vision mechanics as a huge factor in determining combat advantages in this game (let’s just be naive and give thief stealth cuz what’s a thief without stealth… whats a mesmer without clones….. Litrally, there’s too much of these emphasis on ‘cool skills’, which is ironic because there are complaints bout lack of skills in the game… and then not enough focus on innovating the way your combat mechanics work). The only combat mechanics y’all did different was nerf strifing speed moving backwards, which is litrally the most ignorant change towards not wanting people to dodge skills by moving backwards because now it’s a forward-only game, like the way Lakers are currently playing atm^).

lastly, I would like to point out that it’s a flaw to always put your skill balancing philosophy just on the “give and take” factor, that’s not wrong if you’re talking about skill mechanics in “2D RTS games”, but in 3D there are other major factors involved (mainly with the limitation of the way camera has to work in a 3D environment).

PvP needs major work. that is why I’m predicting that the updatings coming up in feb & march are a waste of time for PvP players. y’all can come back sometime later in the summer & MAYBE combat would have improved by then.

as for Pve, let’s just say i can find the same thing in other games nowadays like Defiance & ESO -> the only difference is that GW2 had theirs out first. That’s all.

have a good day anet.

Shockwave.1230:

Lots of people are mistaking combat problems for specialization problems…

…Personally I find GW1 to be a superior game from a combat perspective, because of the specialization it allows for. But the actual mechanics of Guild Wars 2 are obviously superior. That’s just one person’s opinion, though._

No offense OP… but it sounds like (to me) that you’ve just contridicted yourself by saying that the combat specialization problems don’t have anything to do with combat.

A game’s combat is how you fight (plain and simple). And essentially in GW2, combat requires everything from weapon skills, traits, to mechanics such as mouse-targeting and keyboard controls.

And I believe “class specializations” should fall under (if not already) there as a subpart of combat.

EDIT: Read what the poster above me wrote & you’ll absolutely understand why in the case of gw2, its class specialization is absolutely related to its combat design.

I wish support does more than they do right now…. in terms of “the ability to assist” in any way/shape/ or form; I think GW2’s – “assist gameplay” – could be built on a lot more and not just being always about “taking leadership roles in dungeons & PvP” (I don’t find that part of teamplay particularly interesting as most of the time it leads to players not wanting to play with impatient/ignorant teamates..).

For the benefits of the majority of pub players I think their groups would benefit tremendously from implementing a ‘logic flow to the way team combat works’ so that at least players understand how to go about playing a role in their classes (that’s the nice thing about the builds in MMOs… it’s a way to play the game which won’t be nitpicked by most pub players, there’s no way to blanket a player playing support that doesn’t do either heal/debuff/buff/ or [redirect damage away] for their teamates).

I JUST WANT TO SAY…. (even though I may be looked upon as ignorant for skipping through 2 pages of posts)…. THAT I AGREE WITH YOU OP.

Look here, I’m a nice guy typically, except when I get into the topic of “GW2 Combat”. People need to understand that selling players who’ve quit on the same combat they saw during launch won’t bring anyone back.

Players can analyze GW2 combat all they want; but at the end of the day _ it is what it is. Putting it nicely/ or bringing the urgency of the issue down will only result in more confusion for the devs. (and thus slowing everything down because they aren’t certain what is wrong).

Look here Anet: The lack of viable skill builds for each class, inbalance of AoE dmgs, conflict of builds between PvE and PvP <- everything that I just mentioned are considered combat issues.

Listen fellow players: How do you ‘combat’ enemys in GW2? Does it not require skill builds, AoEs, and playing according to the the goals of which environment you’re in (PvE & PvP)? :: Are they not all part of combat?

And Anet, stop sitting there just listening, please start to actually try stuffs… you can sit there listen to our ideas for 6 months or you can try the method of test- fail- test -fail -test -succeed! <- that’s the only way you’ll ever innovate anything, stop day dreaming about not making mistakes…. in the past it seems the more you guys try not to kitten up the more it happened.

And cmon… if you guys don’t have any solid information to give on Interviews… just stop doing them. We like you as people… but that don’t mean we’ll like your game more because of it; it’s not what you say it’s what you do.

Zenith.7301:

Easier than a thief? More frontload than a thief? Hell no.

The only thing ele has over thief is aoe damage/support and bunker ability. Thief is pretty good still; bunkers are just dumb good in a conquest format with classes that can 3-shot nonbunkers.

I would like to see a thief that doesn’t do dmg but does aoe damage/support. That would certainly be interesting :x (forget about it being thupid, let’s just throw a bunker thief idea out there they can be like the gear cosmetics for builds^)

Fox Soul.4809:

Frotee.2634:

FluffyDoe.7539:

Lily Miranda.5407:

From dulfy’s transcript:
we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs."

The problem here is that, for staff eles and staff necros, we use aoe skills on single targets because we don’t have many single target spells. Ele staff fire 2 and Necro staff 2,3 are all AoE skills I use in every fight because they are a necessity.

This is why they need to introduce more viable builds for certain classes…. and they said in the interview that they would. I would be shocked if any AoEs stats were changed before they add more build options to the heavy AoEs reliant classes.

But I don’t want to be *forced into melee just because my ranged options are AoE heavy*

Welcome to eles World! We only have 2 skills ( in d/d ) that isn’t AoE. So now, we will only use earth 1 for kill enemys So fuuuuunnn. NO.

now I guess you’ll need to have a word with Mr. Sharp then about the ’ lack of single target builds for eles.’….. gl with that :X

killcannon.2576:

Sooo…with all the bugs, glitches, exploits, and myriad ways the improve the game…they decide to nerf aoe. I would have liked to have been at that meeting.

Trust me broseph you were lucky that you weren’t there…. I was only there cuz I like reading 0.1ms rage posts on the side of livestreams (so funny).

If they nerf the AoE damage on single targets then they should in terms increase the AoE damage on multiple targets in some way, then I would have absolutely no problem with this change.

But before changing anything to AoE they should think about giving each classes more builds (especially for AoE reliant classes; elementalists & necromancers).