Guild Wars 2

ChoChoBo.6503:

u can’t really compare gw2 to moba/arts. gw2’s combat system is ‘fast action-tab targeted’ and really different from moba/arts games, even if stronghold objectives are the similar.
gw2 is more comparable to other action based games than it is to moba’s. that’s why, even in stronghold, a timer is still better than no timer. cuz without that timer, you’ll get tons of endless/stalled games were one team is always defending and another always attacking.

though, i want to say, 15min stronghold matches are a bit too short. there’s more than double the mechanics on a stronghold match compared to a conquest map. it takes way longer to fully use all those mechanics than the time allotted. which is why you end up with matches that are always one sided, there’s just no time to set up an attack and defend in 15mins, even with the supply drops from enemies in your lord room. OT was a good addition, but i don’t think it solved much.

as of right now, stronghold is more about PvTimer than actual PvP. and i still feels its not enough PvP and too PvE/Moba. if i wanted a moba game, i’d go play a moba. i play gw2 PvP for PvP.

The only reason I bring up MOBAs so much because I believe the idea of a tangible ending to a PvP match is a great thing, something Stronghold has the promise to bring to GW2. It makes the match feel like it has more “meaning” and has provides a clear end goal. There are healthier ways to avoid stalemates than timers, like by adding mechanics, such as the ones I have recommended throughout my posts. I’m not saying we need to change combat at all or anything like that, and I actually enjoy being able to get right into the action, unlike MOBAs with long laning phases. You even say you don’t enjoy feeling like you are playing against the timer, which is my reason behind this post, I don’t either. So why have a timer when other games have demonstrated it’s not necessary?

The Wizland.8435:

Simply put, to prevent eternal stalemates. I don’t like them. I will say overtime as is needs tweaks and I’d like to see it work differently, instead of being based on points. I think a good way to do it would be to have the two lords (as well as supporting minions) come out and duke it out in the middle of the map (where supply is held). Each remaining gate for your side grants a 10% damage bonus to the lord and your minions.

Another idea is to set the minions on a sort of overdrive. As the match progresses further into overtime, the summoned minions gain increased health and speed and the lords health is reduced. Mist essence channeling time is decreased and it spawns more often. Eventually this would result in players being unable to keep up and someone would lose. Personally I prefer the former, but this works too.

Yes, I can appreciate that about the timer, but I think there are better ways that feel more “natural” than a time limit to prevent stalements. The ideas you presented are better than a timer, but I don’t think they will be necessary so long as mist essence rapidly spawns at both locations later in the game, eventually one team will keep sending so many heroes the defending team won’t be able to keep up. But who knows, if the timer were removed and extremely long games became an issue I wouldn’t mind either of your ideas being implemented. Mist heroes could have an extra “stalemate preventing” special effect, like say if a team has already summoned 5 mist heroes, their future summoned mist heroes will use their battle cry every 10 seconds. Surely that would overwhelm a team playing defensively for too long?

Jaxom.7310:

cause its already too long as it is

i’d rather play 10, 3 min matches than 2, 15 min matches.

least w/ 10 short matches, u gat a chance of having sum good matches.

w/ 2 long matches, a real good chance u could get stuck w/ both the match ups being terrible and just wanting to pull ur hair out for 30 min straight, not fun in my book

I can understand not wanting to get stuck in crappy matches, it’s one of the things about MOBAs I don’t like. But I think it’s just a sacrifice you have to make in order to get those truly epic matches. Maybe a surrender vote could be implement after 15 minutes (like /resign from GW1). And if you like short matches there is already Conquest, which is another reason why I don’t see why Stronghold needs to pigeon holed into this time limit so badly. Short matches is a niche already filled by Conquest, so why do we need another game mode for that? Don’t get me wrong, I think short Stronghold matches should be possible, but I don’t think they should be absolutely forced as they are now.

I played a bit of revenant in PvP this weekend, and I tried a support/healer role. For this role Soothing Bastion seemed like to best choice as a Herald Major Grandmaster trait, primarily for the +2 sec boon duration from shield skills. However, triggering crystal hibernation at 25% was just as awkward as I imagined it would be. Being suddenly rooted/unable to cast spells all of sudden was rather disorienting, and I would sometimes also think I unknowingly used the shield #5 myself. I would like to see this trait improved by either having this low health proc aspect removed and buffed somehow else or it could be slightly reworked – to either proc infused light (maybe too strong) or trigger crystal hibernation upon fatal damage (1% HP), so I would know that at least it really did save my life even if it did interrupt my healing/support. Something like an AoE heal around yourself upon hitting 25% wouldn’t be bad either and could emphasize the support role even more.

Once upon a time it was planned that Stronghold and Conquest would be in the same queue. So that people could expect a consistent amount of the time they have to dedicate once queuing up, stronghold was given a timer of 15 minutes. People complained about how bad of an idea it was to have two game modes which required entirely different builds in the same queue. Thankfully Anet realized this was true – after all these are two entirely different game modes and should not be treated the same! However one issue remains… a blight upon the game mode, an artifact of the queue sharing days, that is the 15 minute time limit in stronghold. Now that people can queue for Stronghold separately from Conquest I can not comprehend why it has a 15 minute timer. There are a few pros I can see, which I will list below, but I can not see these out weighing the cons. Simply put, one of the things conquest was lacking is a visceral “climatic” ending that we see in MOBAs which have grown hugely popular (and this game mode is clearly based upon). Pushing into the enemy’s base with your entire team, or defending your own base from the enemy’s team, not being sure who will overcome who and make a final push for victory, is exciting not only for players but also for spectators. Now why would they promote the promise of adding this missing component to PvP and then slap a timer to potentially remove it? I should be fighting the enemy not a timer.

They added overtime to partially address this issue, but it doesn’t feel good at all. If your team is defending with less points, which if fairly common since you are rewarded many more points for being offensive, then the moment you stop the enemy from attacking your lord you lose… So what is the point of even defending in overtime? The only way it works is if you have an ally sneak their way to the enemy team’s lord while your team is fighting at your lord room and your ally engages the enemy lord before you wipe the other team (and probably lose because you have less points). It’s unlikely this will ever work though, because by sacrificing that extra person (or however many you send) your team on defense will likely be outnumbered.

Pros of Timer:
- Guaranteed Game Length (potentially +6 minutes with overtime)
- Good for scheduling tournaments
- Easy to keep reward system consistent

Cons of Timer:
- Chance for a “disappointing” ending if game ends before timer.
- Needlessly increases the complexity of the game mode by adding another win condition by points.
- I was personally disappointed when I would bring friends into this game mode explain to them our goal of killing the enemy lord (which they are familiar with due to playing MOBAs) but then the game would end by a timer and I would have to explain that there is an arbitrary timer in place which determines how long games can be.
- Makes comebacks nearly impossible after ~13 minutes, depending how close the game is.
- Overtime is awkward and a poorly placed band-aid for a bigger issue.

For stronghold to be ideal to me, I would like to see the timer removed. To avoid games lasting forever death timers could be increased steadily after 15 minutes, and we would be allowed to spectate teammates while we wait to be ressed (adding a moment of glory for teammates if you ever spectate them during important plays). Additionally I’m sure there is a concern for rewards, for which I suggest increasing the rewards after 15 minutes as well, scaling up to double the rewards of a 15 minute match if the game goes on for 30 minutes, but the scaling stops there (to avoid abuse). I think it’s unlikely for games to last much longer than 15 minutes anyway, most games are currently over in under 15 minutes, which if fine by me. My experience with the timer has been less than pleasant however, and I have only had it stop close games prematurely.

Maybe I’m missing some benefits of the timer, such as stopping OP team comps, but as it stands now I look at the timer with resent, as it stops many team strategies from developing in the first place. You are required to be very offensive in under 15 minutes so anything that lacks that is not going to be a valid strategy. I don’t think turtling will be too strong of a strategy, since mist essence spawns very rapidly late game, which can also be a tool they use to make games end in a reasonable time.

TL;DR: Time limit in Stronghold seems unnecessary and removes the entire concept of the gamemode. Overtime is an awkward mechanic to fix it, as defending with less points just means you delay your defeat. More natural mechanics should be implemented to prevent excessively long matches.

EDIT: There seems to be a big concern over stalemates. To prevent games from dragging out mist essence could spawn very rapidly after the 15 mins. Additionally, mist heroes could have an extra “stalemate preventing” special effect, like say if a team has already summoned 5 mist heroes, their future summoned mist heroes will use their battle cry every 10 seconds. These are just ideas, all I really want is the timer removed. Short games around 15 minutes are fine, but let the mechanics of it feel more natural.

Shiren.9532:

I think it’s a scaling and balance issue.

…

Balance: Certain professions and skills are “OP” against break bars. While most stuns etc have cooldowns and power levels on weapons that take into account the strength of their CC (Point Blank Shot is the only one on the ranger longbow and has a decent cooldown). Other skills and professions have unintended power levels as they are fitting into an NPC mechanic that doesn’t accommodate their design. Unyielding Anguish is a four second, pulsing CC that will usually work once against a regular player but on a boss, they will not be displaced and be hit by several “displacement” attempts, greatly increasing the power level of this skill against a break bar (other skills like the guardian’s Sanctuary likely have similar power issues)…

You make a very good point, I’m not sure what they can do about abilities like Unyielding Anguish. It would be nice if they could make it so they only count for 1 tick on the defiance bar, rather than the whole duration a player wouldn’t normally endure. And I agree with cooldowns being tied to strength of the CC. In theory that is how it should work – abilities that put a dent in the defiance bar should have a lengthy cooldowns or high energy costs. Abilities with soft CC, like chill, cripple, and blind, should bring the breakbar down a very small amount compared to hard CCs like stun and daze. The soft CCs should just help lower the regen of the defiance bar, but the regen should normally win out. For this I think soft CCs should be nerfed on defiance bars and the regen of defiance bars (when not broken) buffed.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

VaLee.5102:

So having the break bar go empty in 0.5secs it’s on spot for you?

Agree with the op, the mechanic is useless in zergs, can ignore it completely.

Get that gross exaggeration out of here as it is not needed. So, yes, it’s spot on.

Did you fight the Wyern at the end of Lord Faren’s event chain this weekend? If so, you would have noticed the Wyern would “randomly” fall on the ground and be stunned. But this wasn’t really random, instead the wyern was supposed to gain a defiance bar that needs to broken or else it takes flight and shoots lines of fire on the zerg. The bar was just so weak that the zerg was apparently spamming enough abilities with hard and soft CCs that were thrown out at random that they instantly broke the bar. No one was timing their CCs, since no one even saw the bar, it simply was not scaling enough (if at all) to compensate for the number of players around. So he isn’t really exaggerating when he says some bars were broken in under 0.5 seconds. You can’t honestly tell me that is “spot on” or even intended.

Most mobs in the new zone that had breakbars were able to be broken with little effort. The Wyern was especially concerning as the flight phase wasn’t even noticeable – the wyern would be stunned without the bar even showing up due to the zerg spamming CC effects (not timing a “spike”). This likely means the bar needs to scale better to players and/or soft CC’s need to drain the bar less. Additionally I think all mobs need to have their bar regenerate a bit faster (before it is broken), as it seemed very slow and saving cool downs for a “CC spike” was never really required. Most of the time the bar is for abilities that can be dodged anyway, such as the Mordrem Punisher’s overhead smash – so asking yourself if you have enough CC off cooldown to stun them or if you should just dodge the ability should be a bigger deal.

The idea of the breakbar seems great, but right now it seems too weak to be a core concept of combat against enemies as it was promoted to be. I understand that the open world shouldn’t expect very good coordination, so the bar shouldn’t require everyone using well timed CC’s to break it, but the lack of scaling on the Wyern and overall ease at which the bar breaks on all mobs is concerning.

One problem I have with conquest type games is that there is no final objective to strive for in a match, you just wait for the points to tick down once you get an advantage. A lot of excitement usually builds up around Lord rushes on Legacy of the Foefire, and I thought it would be neat if the guild lord was inserted into each map as a final objective, much like GW1. Conquest would stay, a team will need 500 points in order to begin attacking the other teams base (there could be some force field protecting it before).

There still are a lot of details to be adjusted – such as whether or not to add more NPCs to the guild lord base, and if points should do anything for a team that already has 500 points (such as lowering the other team’s guild lord’s health). And I believe such decisions would require play tests. As for adding a side objective to Legacy, since it’s current one would be mainstreamed, I suggest adding 4 ghosts aligned with the team in control of the point around the center node (Graveyard) that once killed will drop an orb that can be carried to a nearby brazier, if the other team manages to light all 4 braziers the graveyard will be neutralized or in their control, depending on whether or not it was neutral before. This will help reduce the snowball nature of the map.

Anyway, I want to main point of this post to be about adding a Guild Lord to each map as the winning objective – once a team gets 500 points they can begin attacking their opponents base. Also, the 15 minute timer on matches would be removed. What do you guys think of this?

The thing about support that bothers me is that there are 0 abilities that target allies in the game, even when it would make sense with the ability (like the guardian’s Merciful Intervention, or single target rally abilities). It would make playing support more interactive and interesting, I understand the desire to stray away from making a pure healing class, but what’s wrong with having some abilities that cure conditions on an ally and heals in an area around him, maybe going so far as allowing abilities like the elementalist’s staff auto-attack in water attunement to target allies?

As a mesmer I would like to able to throw my Greatsword 2 ability at allies for the might. There could also be an ability for mesmers which places a clone on an ally and heals for a small amount over time, and when you shatter it will have a beneficial effect based on what shatter it was [Larger heal (maybe AoE), retaliation, cure 1 condition, 1 second invulnerability (in order for f1-f4 shatters)]

This would also allow for more support focused weapon sets, as they could be viable solo as well with the lack of a pure AoE emphasis (like the guardian staff). Just make it so that you will automatically cast a single target support ability on yourself if you have an enemy targeted.

Anyway I feel like I ranted enough, the point is that I think having no single target support spells (that allow you to select who you cast it on) is silly especially with tab targeting. It’s one of the reasons I believe you don’t notice players being around you that much a lot of the time (as you don’t have those moments where you call out for an important ability that could save you). Right now there is a lot of “Accidental” or “Passive” support.

ronpierce.2760:

Nope. The coodown is 60 seconds, they last 60 seconds. If they die by time out, that initial CD stays, but if you do kill them the Cooldown resets to a full 60 seconds.

I literally just tested in the Heart of the Mists on the NPCs, unless it’s different in sPvP (Because HoTM is considered a PvE zone for some reason) I’m going to say you’re wrong. And I haven’t noticed any difference in PvP from what I’m saying when I play tPvP.

ronpierce.2760:

Actually, you have a lot of reason to kill them. They only have no cooldown if they die by timer. If they die by the blade that cooldown restarts…

I’m almost positive that the cool down continues based off of when you summoned them, so if you summoned the spirit 30 seconds ago and someone kills it the cool down will be 30 seconds.

So I’ve been playing spirit Ranger recently to see how good they are, and it is actually a lot of fun. One thing that bothers me however is that the spirits start their cool down once you summon them, meaning enemies have very little incentive to kill spirits as they will likely be ready to summon again anyway, also with the trait Nature’s Revenge they will even be punished for doing so. The only spirit worth killing is the Elite one, for obvious reasons. Having nearly 100% up time on my utility spirits just feels unfair honestly, and that’s probably why the build is so strong right now. I suggest the cool down should be lowered to about 45 seconds, but only starts after the spirits die.

If people are so afraid of counter picking in then why don’t they just lock you in your base and not allow you to see what the enemy team has by pressing B? I can definitely see how being able to switch roles would be beneficial in Solo Que; being versatile and willing to help your team before the game even starts should not be punished.

GW2 uses the same tab-target system as most older MMOs, and it’s something I think that feels old. Sure, there is a lot more mobility involved than most other MMOs and there is weapon swapping, but there is also quite a bit of downtime of only using the auto-attack. After playing games like Tera and Neverwinter I find myself wishing that GW2 used the same reticule system these games use, much like the combat mode mod. But the mod isn’t quite the same, as you don’t have to hold down the mouse button to continue auto attacking, and there still is the old targeting at play.

I also thought that for the ‘right click’ with the reticule there could be a secondary ‘auto-attack’ based on your off-hand, or a set secondary attack if you’re using a 2handed weapon. For example if you had a shield you could block attacks, coming from the direction you are facing, at the cost of your endurance (With some variety between professions on a bonus effect, like say Guardians make a dome that blocks for nearby allies as well). And with a ranger longbow you could charge up an attack that would deal damage more damage the longer it is charged (to a cap) and at max it will pierce through enemies. Mesmer staff could have an attack which deals bonus damage to a single target based on how many conditions they have, which would complement it’s primary auto-attack which applies conditions. The idea is to have an alternate attack which is more situational but can have strong synergy with the main auto-attack and/or other abilities.

In addition, there could be more interesting abilities which involve some targeting, this could involve things like line AoE, or just targeting allies, because as of now you never have to target an ally with a spell. And personally I wouldn’t mind seeing rally removed, as it makes a lot of fights a bit sloppy and it feels a bit odd to sometimes want to leave an enemy at low health when you are about to be downed.

Right now combat feels like an odd mix of action-combat and tab-targeting, fully committing to neither one. Maybe tab-targeting could be kept as an option for those who prefer it, but I wouldn’t be one to complain if it was replaced.

Something I find lacking in Guild Wars 2 is the absence of single-target abilities that you can use on allies.

I understand they wanted to avoid the whole tank and healer, and looking at the UI, but I feel like this really takes a lot of activity away between players. There are also abilities like the guardians Merciful Intervention (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Merciful_Intervention) which affect only 1 ally, yet you cannot target who it affects. It would be nice if there was at least an option to choose who you target, and if you have an enemy or no one targeted then it would automatically target the lowest health ally. Also, this ability teleports you to an ally and being able to use it for that purpose alone would open a lot more potential for such a skill.

I’m mainly talking about dungeons, because half the time someone will be rallied due to killing something rather than their team reviving them. Sure, sometimes it’s coordinated, but I find it mostly being due to causalities during the fight, this also means that boss fights with adds actually become easier because there is something to rally off of.

I have mixed feelings, because it allows players to be more self-sufficient, which is nice, but at the same time, everyone is already self-sufficient enough, so it seem unnecessary and it would be nice to add that bit of teamwork. I also find it valuable for solo-play, as it gives you less downtime if you kill something, but it’s also awkward because sometimes it is best to leave an enemy at low health when faced by a lot of mobs rather than finish them off, which is counter-intuitive. The only real fix I can think of is make so that if there are no enemies within a large range then you will rally off a kill (that way you won’t have to press 4 to heal up).

In PvP it’s even harder to tell, as it is a bit odd to have to find another enemy on the ground to have any hope of rallying, but I find teamwork in focusing someone to rally off of to be stronger.

What do you think? I’m having a hard time deciding whether or not it would be good to remove rallying from the game.

Rhyis.7058:

Nut.4713:

Smigleesmits.7540:

Take for instance League of Legends, there are multiple NPC objectives that force the two teams into fighting, if you let the other team slay an NPC you are putting your team at a disadvantage

Can’t believe I didn’t even think of that, good example. Is anyone here going to call Baron Nashor in LoL “PvE” content?

LoL matches last 45 minutes tops. You can’t just sit there and kill the NPCs all day long and expect to win a game of LoL. You’ll get ganked and become weaker than the enemy… This game however lasts 7 days, you already play it at max level, and it’s actually beneficial to your score to have less PvP fights and simply take objectives from NPCs.

This game needs less PvE and more PvP. My RvR isn’t feeling like RvR anymore. The way to make WvW more dynamic is to add player kills into the end score formula some how. Like a specific objective cap limit on potential points, and the rest of your score needs to be obtained through killing.

I think the main issue with the current PvE is that it’s all so common, no one really takes notice. If it’s something that rarely happens, like how my example would only happen once, it would cause more commotion and promote something to actually be done, say if Stonemist suddenly has a big boss in the center of it, the team that controls it will probably tell most of it’s team to get there in order to get the point reward (as well as some other possible incentives) and during this the other teams could choose to come and try to take the boss for themselves, thus claiming the castle, or try to capture other points while the dominant team is busy with boss.

And say if any of Kanikani’s ideas were implemented, but the effects of slaying a boss lasted for around 3 hours to a day and the boss would not re spawn until then, having your teams dolyaks slowed for that long could seriously damage your team, so hopefully your world would organize a force to stop that.

Nut.4713:

salluks.6017:

Why are people hell bent on adding more and more NPCs and AI in WvW rather than PvP always beats my mind..

At this rate, there will be 98 npc’s and 2 actual players in each borderland in less than a year, similar to what LA is right now.

Wasn’t WvW intended to be a massive PvP war in the first place?

No offense btw.

Well except you could make them worth fighting over. One of the things lacking in WvW is there is really only one objective… doors. A lot of people were upset when orbs were removed, not because orbs themselves were particularly interesting, because it was an additional dynamic.

Imagine if the arboreal spirit and the grub were something the 3 servers wanted to contest. Or if some hero NPC emerged from a cave or some such to aid whichever server controlled the area. You can add content like this, just make it something worth fighting for. The game needs additional objectives. Everyone can see the declining player population in WvW, it’s pretty clear that attacking tower after tower ad nauseam isn’t enough for a lot of people.

This is spot on! I want something that encourages players to fight for other than keeps (That will likely be taken by another world anyway). Take for instance League of Legends, there are multiple NPC objectives that force the two teams into fighting, if you let the other team slay an NPC you are putting your team at a disadvantage (By letting them get a buff of some sort or team-wide gold), so to avoid that your team must organize to stop the opposing team from slaying that NPC. There needs to be some tangible benefit to fight for and keeps and towers can get a bit stale when they are so volatile, so add some variety, why not?

The thing with the current bosses is that they don’t serve a real purpose, I want something that facilitates encounters and is a more of a rare occurrence.

I’m not sure if it has been suggested before, but I think adding a world boss or bosses in WvW would be a nice additional objective – I mean as in earning actual points for your realm or some reward for your world in another way; as well as a possible way to earn tokens to get ascended gear. It would be an actual fight with a strategy of sorts, like a dragon encounter. Most importantly, these will be promoted to be disputed by the opposing worlds, the benefits could be decided by a cap point after the boss is defeated, like how claiming any territory currently works.

There’s many ways it could be added, but one I thought up is having a boss spawn in the Lord’s area in the center Stonemist (Replacing the Lord), then whichever world slays the boss gets the keep along with some point reward (Maybe even a chest with items, which could serve as a way to get ascended items in WvW with a rare chance or token system). The boss would spawn sometime between 10 hours after a new matching of WvW and 10 hours before that match ends, it would only spawn once a match and have a map wide notice (in WvW), the team must also have held Stonemist for at least an hour.

I also think little mini-world bosses that serve to give your server points would be nice, something to break the mold every now and then. The main issue I have with the current PvE “Bosses” or most things PvE in WvW is that they serve no real purpose towards actually winning (They give little incentive to be killed in general) and aren’t anything special.

For all of you saying this is just adding to PvE I would just like to point out something Kanikani put nicely, as well as other possible dynamics slaying these bosses could add, also think of this in terms of other possible objects to be added.

I understand the PvP people wanting more PvP content and less PvE. However they are thinking about WvW wrong. WvW is a strategy game, not a dueling game, it is about objectives, choke points, siege, tactics, etc. So we are not really asking for more PvE we are asking for more objectives and more complicated game play/maps.

These kinds of ideas I have listed long ago, you could extend to all PvE content in WvW. When you beat the Overgrown grub you enslave him in your keep, which causes some kind of bonus like spawning grubs in the opposing teams keeps. Or enslave the Aboreal spirit and he adds a slow on opposing teams yaks…

And a good explanation by Nut.

Well except you could make them worth fighting over. One of the things lacking in WvW is there is really only one objective… doors. A lot of people were upset when orbs were removed, not because orbs themselves were particularly interesting, because it was an additional dynamic.

Imagine if the arboreal spirit and the grub were something the 3 servers wanted to contest. Or if some hero NPC emerged from a cave or some such to aid whichever server controlled the area. You can add content like this, just make it something worth fighting for. The game needs additional objectives. Everyone can see the declining player population in WvW, it’s pretty clear that attacking tower after tower ad nauseam isn’t enough for a lot of people.

I’m pretty disappointed by this and all activities being unable to allow you join as a party. It’s kinda sad when you get your friends together for the holiday event stuff and you can’t even play together. I hope this is something they look into changing. I don’t understand why Toypocalypse wasn’t just a dungeon however, I was expecting a sort of Mad-King instance finale.

Yeah I was hoping they wouldn’t make this same mistake from the Halloween events… I can’t find a way to join friends.

I find that most of the fights aren’t challenging enough to require team synergy that forms that ‘depth’ found in MMOs. They also need to make up for the lack of the Trinity by using environmental weapons and the likes, otherwise the only reason you have other people in the party is to help you kill mobs/bosses faster. It really does feel like you just spam away half the time too, which is a problem. An interesting idea would make endurance a sort of mana bar, so you have to choose to either unload all your spells or save up in case you need to dodge.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a sort of combat ‘overhaul’ though, where it is tuned to more of an action-MMO type combat system. With this there could be a cross-hair and locked camera, where your right click is your ability 1 ‘auto-attack’.

I have a bit of mixed feelings about the combat systems, at its core it reminds me a lot of WoW with tab targeting and truthfully I wish Arenanet was a bit more audacious when it came to changing combat. Right now it feels more like a mix of the traditional MMO targeting mixed with some more of an action-MMO twist, although not truly committing to either side. Dodging and the fact that you can always cast your spells is nice, but I find myself longing for more.

More of a Tera approach would be nice, even a combat system more like smite, with a cross-hair and locked camera. But the major issue I feel is the lack of interactivity when you have no spells to cast, so having the right click be your auto-attack would go a long way in my opinion, as well as needing to aim your abilities/attacks. Something else to consider is making the endurance bar a sort of mana-bar as well, where you would choose to either unload your spells or save up for a dodge if you need it, as right now the abilities (especially weapon abilities) are best if you spam then whenever available.

Anyway that’s enough rambling from me, what do you think? What would you change?

Fractals did a good job of getting rid of what feels like pointless trash, having small events instead of trash makes the progress to bosses seem more meaningful, as it is always a bit disheartening to run through half the mobs in a dungeon (Also make sure you can’t just run past the mobs like many instances now- even in the some fractals). Boss fights all around are rather mediocre, there’s just not enough variety in most fights when they don’t have different phases at health percentages, this also makes bosses feel rather easy, as you’re just doing the same thing over and over.

Another issue I feel is the lack of teamwork required, it often feels like I have 4 other people just to make the boss die faster, instead of actually needing them. I think it’s mostly due to the lack of trinity, but I miss that feeling of actually needing your team and cooperating with them. This can still be created through environmental weapons and interacting with the environment, a good example of this is the last boss in the dredge fractal, where you need a party member to pour the lava. Phases would also allow for shifting roles in these types of fights. I also really do not enjoy way points, as they promote zerging, a good fix would be to not allow them when anyone in your party is in combat.

Conclusion: Add phases to boss fights to keep variety and make trash little mini-events.

It’s rather annoying to be forced to split from your friends to take part in the activities, it would be nice if there was an invite group option.

After doing so many dynamic events, it has become apparent that you can tell whether or not you can complete one within the first wave, because if you can beat the first wave then you can beat every wave after that. Throwing in a veteran or two at random times could go a long way in making it feel more varied, as well as not always sending the waves from the same one or two entrances, switch between multiple entrances. It would be best for these variables to be at almost entirely random times, that way it will also help the event feel different from every completing it more than once. And while you are at it making everything bars instead of timers or number or waves really helps avoid events feeling like chores as well, unless the timer is a time limit to kill an NPC or something along those lines.

You can currently travel to the heart of mists and go through the asuran gate to LA, thus allowing everyone to travel to LA for free. Why not save everyone the loading screen for heart of the mists and just make traveling to LA free? It would also simplify the process for new players.

So there are no exotic light shoulder rewards for Sorrow’s Embrace; what looks like the intended one is labeled as medium, making two medium reward shoulder pads. Is there any info on a fix for this?

Edit – Just realized, I probably should’ve posted this in bug reports, feel free to move it.