Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t have an issue with the aggro area and auto-pathing back if it weren’t a double standard.

Why is it a double standard?

When a monster whines about the way I engage them in combat they get to go immune and run all the way back to where they came from, usually dragging me with them since my original intention is for them to be dead.

When I’m injured and I know I need to get away to recoup suddenly their programming changes and they will go the ‘extra mile’ to see me dead on the ground. Me? I can’t go immune and run away from combat, yet all of my opponents can? Double standard. Not to mention when they’re out of range of my abilities in downed state yet they can still successfully hit me? That’s a definite problem.

I understand why monsters are locked into specific areas and that they can’t run all over Tyria but their aggro area is still fairly small and I see no valid reason why it shouldn’t be increased. I also don’t think that because some players could abuse the system the entire player base should be punished for this through the way the combat mechanics work.

If this is a serious issue with exploitation abuse then it can be addressed in other ways than making the combat system a double standard and a complete nuisance.

I had not run into anyone until today who thought the respawn rate didn’t need adjusting because it was too quick. However, I should note that the respawn rate is too quick only in certain instances which should be reasonably obvious, maybe not.

For example, if you run in a group then no, you probably wouldn’t notice the annoyance with the quick respawn rate because you’re able to kill a wider variety of creatures at one time increasing the duration before they respawn one by one. Most groups will kill off an area and move on before they see many creatures respawn but that doesn’t mean they don’t respawn within 20 seconds after you leave.

The real issue when this is noticeable is when soloing in an area where there’s few to no other players around. You could probably kill 2-3 monsters before you see the ones you just killed reappear. But I have seen monsters, sometimes, respawn within seconds of being killed. Whether this is intentional or not I don’t know.

Also this respawn rate issue may vary depending on the class of character you play. I’ve noticed that with my warrior, while the issue still exists, it’s much less noticeable. The warrior in my opinion is the easiest character to play both in stats and combat mechanics. Other characters, wearing light armor and specializing in ranged combat are at a much more significant advantage.

So to say this simply isn’t a problem from one perspective is shallow. There have been times when soloing where I have killed all of the minions of a veteran or two and then taken on the vets. But before I can completely take the vets down their minions respawn making the fight twice as difficult because now I’m not just having to dodge one or two but a half dozen. On some characters, like my warrior, this problem may seem insignificant, but on others it is not.

Now you might ask why am I soloing in an MMO? Because sometimes I like to. I do spend a majority of my time probably playing with others but the game is supposed to be able to handle both solo and grouped players. It’s a set of features Anet has boasted about, scaling.

- So to end this post, this is an issue that can’t be looked at from one angle.

^ This.

You see false spam reports on Youtube all the time if someone doesn’t like what you’re saying. The same thing could happen with that type of automated system here.

Anet is working on gold selling as well as hacked accounts, which go hand in hand. If you haven’t already seen what they’re working on, you can view that here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/mike-obrien-on-account-security/

That article focuses on hacked accounts, the new systems they have and will be implementing to prevent this, and how you can prevent yourself from falling into such traps but as I said these two topics tend to go hand in hand.

Every game, even fantasy games, have a certain amount of realism in them or we wouldn’t be able to put such games into a perspective that made any sense to us or gave any value to being played. Finding the balance between realism and fiction is pretty important for immersion’s sake.

With that being said, I’m not opposed to mounts being added to the game as long as it is done so realistically. If this were to be done, I’d like to see normal mounts, not circus side shows that don’t make much sense in their own environments.

I don’t want to see that horribly disgusting WoW mount that looked like ‘My Little Pony’ anywhere near GW2.

The mounts should be heavily based on the existing lore of the game so as to not dilute its contents and story. The mounts should provide little more than convenience and the ability to say, “yeah I have one.”

And it definitely shouldn’t help with combat as I know some might want to suggest. All that being said though, I’m pretty sure they won’t be adding in mounts, ever. The waypoint system currently could use improvement but otherwise works well enough for quick traveling.

Rofl, you’re not going to pull me into a troll match. You’re the first person I’ve come across to disagree with one or more of my points and the way in which you went about your response tells me you’re not serious about discussing the issues.

“I’m too good, I just steam roll everything in the area so I don’t worry about spawn rate. It’s fine just how it is.”

Except it’s not even how Anet advertised their MMO in the Manifesto. It goes against their basic principals.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the topic but aren’t you already able to preview armor before buying through right clicking on the piece and then clicking “preview?” I’ve done this myself to see how karma items look but I don’t recall if I tried it on armor or if it was just on weapons.

I know you can preview weapons but I suppose I haven’t tried armor. If you can preview weapons but not armor, that’s just weird..

There’s another topic which is further along in discussion than this one already, here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Race-changing-character-redesign

Although I’m guessing there’s plenty of topics like this one in existence.

This is just my opinion and I’m wondering how others feel about it if they’ve tinkered with it during combat.

The #2 dagger ability is Life Siphon and has sufficient skill regeneration in my opinion. But I also think it lacks in range.

How did I come up with this opinion? What I often do (double dagger Necro) when I want to use the #2 Life Siphon ability which currently has a range of 600 is to use #3 first which immobilizes the target.

So in this general order:

1. Immobilize using #3 ability
2. Dodge roll backward
3. Use #2 Life Siphon ability to steal their HP and give it to myself while avoiding damage they could inflict upon me unless they are using ranged abilities or switch to ranged.

The problem with this combo is that if you dodge roll backward when they are immobilized you are already ‘out of range’ for the #2 Life Siphon ability to be useful, which sucks.

I think having to stand right next to your opponent, steal their HP, while they beat more HP out of your face, is pointless. The point of the #2 Siphon is to heal you and how can that be effective if you’re taking damage while trying to heal? Then all you end up doing is negating the effect, at best.

In reality, unless you have a trait that boosts the Life Siphon ability all you’re doing is slowing down your HP loss, not healing at all.

Thus I think it would be a significant improvement if the range on this ability were slightly increased, say from 600 to 800. I believe the units are measured in inches so a 200 difference shouldn’t be too great. I don’t believe a slight range increase would make the skill OP since the HP it takes away to heal you without trait bonuses is minimal and only a slightly effective heal. For it to really be effective you actually need to use it multiple times.

But I think it’s silly that a simple dodge roll backward would put me out of range. So how do the rest of you feel about this who have played the Necromancer with daggers? And if I’ve made any incorrect assertions or general mistakes feel free to correct me.

That’s interesting. I either didn’t notice this or was simply unaware. I played GW1 but only made it to level 15-20 or so. Maybe it’s a game mechanic that didn’t feel very pronounced because it seems intuitive for it to be there in the first place, to me anyway.

In conventional MMO’s I would agree that is how it is considered. However, this is supposed to be an MMO that “defies existing conventions.” I figured this would be a good place to improve.

Many enemies have ranged abilities in which case I don’t see how it should be considered an exploit. Although for the ranged creatures I’m pretty sure they don’t go immune since they can hit you back most of the time.

But why you would be penalized for taking advantage of your surroundings I don’t understand. If it’s not done in single player games then why do it in the MMO when it doesn’t adversely affect other players?

Even still you’ll hardly be able to employ sneaky tactics against all your opponents because as frequently as you get to utilize your surroundings to your own benefit, you also don’t always have that option depending on the terrain and type of enemy.

The “I’m invincible” option just feels cheap in an MMO that otherwise flaunts its classiness in the genre.

Exactly. I may have forgotten to mention that. It’s a game mechanic that makes no sense to me and I don’t understand its placement within combat. I highly doubt there’s a legitimate reason when it comes to pure combat sensibility as to why enemies auto-regen when they leave their small combat area or become invulnerable because they’re having a hissy.

Also, engaging an enemy, have them retaliate, you take damage, THEN once they’re at half HP….they decide to auto-regen and go back to their spawn. It’s a big time waster and definitely one of my few but big gripes about the game.

Actually what you mentioned is part of a quest where you have to trap the crabs. They made them invulnerable because the only way to complete the quest is to trap them, not kill them.

I had a slight issue with that quest the first time as well until I figured that out. But yes other creatures will go immune if they can’t get to you in order to deal damage. Being practically unable to outwit creatures with strategies other than mashing button combos and dodging is a bit annoying.

Thanks for your reply.

Continued…

Furthermore, when you engage in a fight the person/monster will quickly run back to its original location as soon as it feels you’re violating the ‘out of my aggro area’ rule. BUT! If you are near death and running away from a person/monster suddenly the aggro rule becomes, “YOU WILL DIE NOW if I have to chase you to the end of the earth!” So basically they can run away from you and auto-regen path back to their location but if you run away from them near death their aggro area doubles or triples. Why?

An example:
About 30 minutes ago I was fighting inquest by myself on my necro, no one else around. I entered the inquest lab and was swarmed by a half dozen or more inquest and ran out of endurance immediately dodging AoE. I knew I was out gunned and headed for the exit. I made it outside but the inquest I had just killed outside had respawned and were chasing me down. I switched to shroud mode and back, slowed the inquest down with cripple, etc. I got pretty far away and this one inquest won’t let me go as I’m almost in downed now. I go into downed mode. I start drawing his HP to heal myself but he’s ranged and doing a good bit more damage to me than I’m taking away from him to heal myself. I cast fear on him hoping to give myself enough time to use my #4 heal ability but it was useless because the fear cast lasted all of 2 seconds. But there was another issue altogether. He was now out of range of my #1 ability but he could still hit me. Why?! Needless to say I died.

So let’s review.

• You are penalized for not staying within your opponents invisible aggro area.
• Yet it seems the game recognizes when you are badly injured and punitively chases you to the ends of the earth to kill you for your insolence! Sounds like a double standard to me!
• Spawn rate is way too high in many areas!

There may be other topics like this although I did a basic search and found nothing which addressed this issue.

While I greatly enjoy GW2 and its massive improvement on the fantasy MMO genre, I have a serious disagreement with the way aggro works in this game in its current state and at times it feels like I’m being punished when attempting to outsmart opponents.

In addition, and this doesn’t require elaboration, the respawn rate on almost all creatures is way too high. For a game that advertised in the MMO Manifesto that it would feel as if you were impacting the world around you, it doesn’t when the respawn rate is so fast you can’t clear an area by yourself before things respawn again. Sometimes not even with friends. I kill 10 out of 20 rats. I kill the other 10, 10 more respawn. This makes soloing some areas nearly impossible or at the very least incredibly annoying. That sums up the respawn rate issue.

If you’re lazy and/or don’t have time to continue reading all the way down, even though you really should for completeness, then you should skip down to the second continued post.

Everything has a radius of aggression and leaving that fairly small radius auto-regenerates their HP usually and they auto-path back to their original location. This feels unrealistic, looks unrealistic, and disallows for more strategic planning and overall gameplay. If I want to setup a single trap, set of traps, ambush, etc. and it goes outside of the aggro radius then I’m out of luck and will usually have to start the process all over again.

This doesn’t just force me to play by the person or monster’s rules but punishes me for not doing so because of the auto-regen/immunity while they path back to their location.

Why should we be punished for thinking before engaging in combat? For example I could, as a ranger, attack from an elevated position making it difficult for what I’m fighting to retaliate but not impossible if the person/monster has ranged abilities too.

Instead the game somehow detects that the monster isn’t able to sufficiently walk up and down my corpse and thus they become immune after the first few shots and auto-regen. I’m sorry but this is a completely unintelligent response from the combat system.

I’ve played every single class of character, including during the beta. The warrior/melee oriented classes have it easy as far as I’m concerned. I like that as a melee inclined character I can’t just sit there and ‘tank’ like in other MMO’s, you still have to be careful. But as a warrior with only 5 points in vitality and toughness I have few problems in melee and I also find that I tend to kill things much faster in melee than range meaning I can mop up multiple foes and heart areas pretty quick.

As a ranged character, some more than others, this isn’t nearly as easy and the light armor classes don’t take kindly to a face smashing. Even my necro who does pretty well in double dagger melee has to be quite careful when choosing to enter the melee arena. Otherwise I can go from full HP to no HP in a very short time.

With that said, the primarily ranged classes would greatly benefit from being able to outwit their opponents just as they can in WvW or SPvP. I often find myself already attacking from a significant range from my opponent and I end up pulling farther and farther back or in a radius around what I’m fighting. In which case what I’m fighting says, NOPE! They auto-regen and path back to their starting area forcing me to * sigh * and play by their rules. Endlessly dodging and running in circles around my opponent when I could otherwise simply prevent them from reaching me in the first place.