Showing Posts For Swagg.9236:

Worst PvP You Have Ever Seen

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Runescape. I just can’t imagine how any PvP could be worse than this: hit-wait-gorge fish-hit…

Yes, because “spam rotation – mash auto-attack and strafe – press healing button – spam rotation” is much more engaging. I suppose it is. GW2 is effectively Runescape in many ways except that the player can simply move while pressing attack buttons. It’s rather innovative.

Why no GvG ANet?

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Because additional game-modes won’t improve GW2 PvP. It’s not worth buying an expensive dress just to help a corpse feign a shallow prettiness.

Why is PvP supposedly "poorly designed?"

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Also forgot to mention that the highest level of pvp that seeks to replicate a “competitive” environment in GW2 is equivalent to joining a pub server in a Source engine FPS.

Worst PvP You Have Ever Seen

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

The card game war.

Matches take long and are determined by rng.

Turn-based games with an RNG element actually do an excellent job of being up-front with the player about the potential end of a match. A player’s victory isn’t set in stone, but it’s understood that there is an RNG element and that the player—while still able to do all that he/she can to work against that element of randomness—is ultimately held at the whim of the shuffle and draw. More importantly, many of these kinds of encounters are made to resolve as quickly as possible. The only time that turn-based games drag on is because there is a palpable sense of tension regarding player choices.

GW2 is among the worst examples of a pvp experience because it has all of the elements of an RNG turn-based game, except that these elements are slapped over top of a non-turn-based system. In effect, what is happening is that the game tricks the player into thinking that his/her in-combat choices matter, when in reality, the fate of pvp combatants has effectively been decided before anyone in a match even pressed the queue button. Worse yet, GW2’s combat drags on and on for 10 to 15 minutes at a time instead of resolving quickly; forcing players to repeatedly and unduly experience the reality that they are either hard-countering someone on the other team or vice-versa.

GW2 is a terrible pvp experience because it’s a lie. There is no skill; there is no choice. There are only hard-counters to carry players through combat; there is only passive footsie with enemies until cool-downs come off.

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Why is PvP supposedly "poorly designed?"

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

MMOs are poorly designed for skill-based game-play because of latency. The world isn’t physically going to get any smaller so MMO combat will always be bad for a very long time if not forever.

MMORPGs are the attempt of people to make TRPGs into an active event without breaks or turns. The only problem is that the MMOs which commercially succeeded in the gaming industry kept the (broken) mechanics which worked out in a turn-based encounter, more or less just slapped them over an non-turn-based system and then expected everything to play out fine.

So now in today’s world of MMOs, not only does the player forgo a lot of aiming, timing and general positioning with respect to other enemies or allies, but then we also have hard-counters everywhere that trivialize player choice and forge stagnant, narrow metagame character set-ups that dominate everything.

Playing a contemporary MMO is in effect trying to play Magic: The Gathering and not adhering to a turn-based system. Little kids throw cards everywhere and one of them ends up winning because he stocked his deck with cards that counter some other kid’s deck because chance favored him before the competition even began. MMO PvP (especially GW2 PvP) is a single game of rock-paper-scissors stretched out over a period of 10-20 minutes.

The Emotional Damage

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

MMOs are poorly designed for skill-based game-play because of latency. The world isn’t physically going to get any smaller so MMO combat will always be bad for a very long time if not forever.

MMORPGs are the attempt of people to make TRPGs into an active event without breaks or turns. The only problem is that the MMOs which commercially succeeded in the gaming industry continued to keep the (broken) mechanics which worked out in a turn-based encounter, but more or less just slapped them over an non-turn-based system expecting everything to play out fine.

So now in today’s world of MMOs, not only does the player forgo a lot of aiming, timing and general positioning with respect to other enemies or allies, but then we also have hard counters everywhere that trivialize player choice and forge stagnant, narrow metagame character set-ups that dominate everything.

Playing a contemporary MMO is in effect trying to play Magic: The Gathering and not adhering to a turn-based system. Little kids throw cards everywhere and one of them ends up winning because he stocked his deck with cards that counter the other kid’s deck because chance favored him before the competition even began. MMO PvP (especially GW2 PvP) is a single game of rock-paper-scissors stretched out over a period of 10-20 minutes. You’re a silly, hapless individual for repeatedly subjecting yourself to it in hopes that you might one day “git gud” or that things on the whole will improve.

Passive Skills!

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Guys, let’s turn players into walking clouds of particle effects.

It’d be ugly and it would obscure already poorly defined attack animations. Stop deluding yourself that GW2 PvP will ever be good at any point in history without a drastic overhaul of the game’s fundamental balance philosophy, engine physics and developer staff.

Also the way that you type game me cancer. Makes sense, though, since you play a cancerous class.

Show me how thief is OP

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Swagg.9236

B-but, thief does hard counter things! Look at all of these things that the thief can hard counter according to me!

Yes, and none of the things that you mentioned was a dedicated healer. Without that on the opposite end of the spectrum to balance out thief’s existence, the thief simply kills DPS classes (or classes that aren’t stocked with invulnerability mechanics) with minimal effort (not to say that anything in this game requires effort).

GW2 isn’t balanced around hard counters.

Channeled blocks
Invulnerability/immunity skills and/or passive procs
Stun/Fear/Daze/Immobilize chaining
Projectile reflection
Stability

These things trivialize player choices. A player encounters one of these things and is forced into a very narrow set of responses (most of which end up being “pop my own invulnerability mechanics” or “run away or around in circles until his invulnerabilities wear off”). That is what is called a hard-counter. If you come back with the “Hey, I can strip stability or I can use an unblockable attack or I can just use melee versus the guy with a projectile reflection,” then congratulations, you have hard-countered the enemy’s hard-counter. Now his choice has been invalidated and the way that you geared your character before even pressing the “Join game” button has won you the day.

This isn’t skill or improvisation, this is extended Rock-Paper-Scissors with more colors and particle effects.

A day in the life

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

This game’s competitive rankings are determined by the equivalent of TF2 center lobbies. It’s a trash system that doesn’t mean anything. Stop being sad that you’re losing the rock paper scissors minigame. Instead, just play a better game or do something else entirely.

List of OP stuff

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Swagg.9236

L2P issue……Mesmer needs the most help of all the classes. Leech necro can literally. 1shot people spaming 1… But mesmer auto attack is too strong. Lol

Mesmer GS is one of the worst designed weapon sets in the game. Moreso than even other weapon sets, Mesmer GS invites the player to press every button as quickly as possible when off recharge (outside of its 5 skill in only the most blatantly obvious of cases and even that won’t stop or even punish most twitchy players because it’s almost impossible not to just off-handedly interrupt someone’s action in this game), and worse is countered by nothing except line of sight and pure invulnerability. It’s a brain-dead weapon befitting a rather brain-dead class.

That said, there are plenty things fundamentally wrong with GW2 to the point that it’s probably not worth addressing the issues. This game is beyond hope. You’re all better off just doing something else.

Returning to streaming pvp - pick my class!

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

You should play a better game. You don’t even have to stream at all.

Show me how thief is OP

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Thief is a brain-dead assassin-style class that serves to hard-counter the dedicated healer. Without the dedicated healer, the thief just moves about the field and murders people who are looking in the other direction or just murders people in general because that’s what they are designed to do and there isn’t a player on any team that is designed to prevent this. It doesn’t belong, but anet put it into GW2 anyway because edgy teens enjoy playing the ninja/rogue class in MMOs.

It has never been so much a matter of “Thief is overpowered” as it has been “Thief has no reason to be in GW2 at all by virtue of basic class-centric (hard-counter) balance logic.” Since GW2 is balanced around hard-counters (not that that’s a good thing; it’s actually a very lazy and uninspired balance philosophy), it makes no sense to let thief just dangle out there as a hard-counter class despite the fact that the mechanic which the thief is meant to hard-counter doesn’t actually exist in GW2 in any real way.

NA All-Stars Team

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Also Swagg is like one of those feeder fish that latches onto a shark for survival.

only u bb

NA All-Stars Team

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

So, I’m gonna set the scene for everyone here: [our team pressed a lot of buttons and their team pressed a lot of buttons, but we won even though their team is supposed to be better than ours in a game with a skill ceiling that’s like climbing into a dishwasher and trying to jump.]

Here’s a glimpse of what gamescom is going to look like for NA:
[peoplepressingbuttonsontwitchtv.com]

Sounds about right.

Looking For New Spec

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Just play a different game already.

PIC! Learn to ROTATE please!

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

tl;dr version:

Control your player numbers on the map, because the only way that you can succinctly and efficiently earn victories in Rock-Paper-Scissors Online is by always going into even-numbered fights with an invulnerability tank who sits on the point and presses buttons while a DPS spammer stands off of the point and presses buttons or by simply making every fight an “(x+1) vs x” affair in your favor.

Guys, please....

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Swagg.9236

… just give up on strider’s defence. I’m almost sure, you’re going to raise that trait to 50% next balance patch (after the upcoming one) and then it will become too powerful and then you will nerf it back down again which will then make it useless again.

So please, I’m begging you with all the creative ideas I have. Just change the trait.

I sort of wish that I still knew where to find that video of me discussing the new traits when they came out. I called this nonsense when they were previewed. Then again, we all know that using a hard-counter-centric philosophy is the only way to balance anything in GW2, right guys? We have to preserve the integrity of Rock-Paper-Scissors Online: Rotation Whack-a-Mole edition.

Please explain why this needs buffed.

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Swagg.9236

Turret Engineer is fine. What’s not fine is that you didn’t roll the hard counter to the turret Engineer who you knew that you would be fighting before you pressed the “Enter queue” button. Stop being a bad player.

Let's be honest

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Swagg.9236

Yea, no kittening kitten. But you kind of need a clue to do that.

kittening imbecile.

Just because you’ve never seen something done right doesn’t mean that that thing isn’t easy to do. No need to get so upset.

Let's be honest

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Swagg.9236

The people who could assist in balancing this game are mostly gone. The remaining few could assist in balancing just don’t give a kitten anymore because you have a philosophy major trying to balance a game that requires at least a minor in math.

What a joke. Game balance is just basic logic wrapped in world building. It’s not something for which someone has to go to school for—much less into a specific field.

Let's be honest

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

GW2 has always been just online rock-paper-scissors with more colors and particle effects. You should know by now that choice and player skill is an illusion of this game. Honestly, you should be grateful that anet is speeding up fights so that your in-combat choices are trivialized faster. Who would want to play a game of rock-paper-scissors in which when someone beats you, you both have to stand there for another 5 minutes to reflect on your match? I wouldn’t, and apparently anet doesn’t want you to do that either. It’s a good change.

wishes for a future PvP patch

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

There are already many posts with requests to nerf thives, eles, engis, rune of pirate, celestial, skyhammer, and so on.
Keep them coming. Let’s make this game perfect.

This game was critically flawed since before its launch. It will never be anything more than a poor execution of Rock-Paper-Scissors Online: Rotation Whack-a-Mole.

Is PvP Too Complex to be an esport?

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Whack-a-Mole isn’t e-sports.
Nor is Rock-Paper-Scissors.

GW2 is both of these.

Cancelling things with escape.

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

“Guys, help, s/d fresh air isn’t fast enough.”

please delete

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

And by “fantastic and functioning system,” you mean “a system that makes us money.” Your GW2 economy is as broken as the current world debt-based economy on exactly the same levels.
- It has the capacity to generate money from literally nothing.
- It has the capacity to destroy money instantly for no concrete reason in order to curb inflation.
- Most of the wealth and movement of the market is focused into the hands of a select few that often have inside information on upcoming market changes.
- Constant inflation over time eventually drives people to accrue debt (in GW2 this comes in the form of putting real money into the game in order to receive gems; by losing real world money, the player creates a set amount of in-game money from literally nothing) in order to pay for popular and expensive items.

Your economy is about as alive or vibrant as the scene of a middle school science student drawing shapes in a petri dish culture. Nobody fixes it or questions it because it was created with the sole purpose of generating money for NCSoft. I’m not saying that a company that’s making money off of a game that they are producing is bad, but let’s not lie about whether or not the economy of that game is broken or not.

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

So you’re telling me that all along the TP data could have told you guys that people on the official forums could have designed a better GW2 than you guys ever could have dreamed? Seems like a wasted resource to me.

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Remove AI builds.

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Swagg.9236

All of them are not viable

Pretty sure that power minionmancer and turret bunker are very powerful in their own rights. Also, every class becomes an AI class if they just wear the right runes.

so i don’t know why u are complaining cause they can be easily countered

The counter is always AoE. If you’re not a power well Necromancer, a Grenadier or a zerker staff Elementalist, you’re probably going to have some issues simply because you didn’t accidentally roll your rock to their scissors during the period before anyone had even pressed “Join Game.” I guess a d/d Elementalist would work now too because they’re now even more broken than they were when the game was launched. I can’t care enough to think of other examples that would hard counter an AI cloud, but the point is that AI clouds are specifically “hard” countered. It’s never a matter of skill.

I am afraid is l2p issue

Please don’t attempt to imply that there is some level of skill development in Guild Wars 2.

Might as well remove Mesmer and Ranger from the game.

Also this.

It’s not the players’ fault that no MMO has never really succeeded in making a well-designed “pet” class (or even really attempted to make a good one after WoW released the Hunter). I mean, it is the players’ fault for playing such awful classes as the Ranger or the Mesmer, but honestly, they also play GW2, so we already know that they aren’t making good decisions.

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

OMG so many necromancers up there! Just goes to show how good necromancers are in top tier PvP!

top tier [Guild Wars 2] PvP!

“Top tier GW2 PvP” is an oxymoron.

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Do you not have a hobby, Swagg? I think that’s more upsetting.

Rescue operations don’t stop after the disaster has passed.

Which is more upsetting? Someone scrambling through the rubble in search of survivors who may not exist or someone trying for months and months to fill up a sieve with water, and then people walking by only to encourage the poor fellow to keep following his dreams of filling a sieve with a liquid?

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

The man has put his life into this game and its PvP scene.

That was a very upsetting sentence to read.

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Yo dawg u stupid cus SSBM is more alive now than it was 10 years ago.

as i type this smash has 120k+ viewers, isn’t even finals yet

Alright, then I’m wrong about Smash’s current popularity. Even so, the point remains that GW2 has no skill ceiling.

Also, as much as I like SSBM, you guys really need to get a 2-stock/99 second limitation put on EVO Smash. Standard Smash really does mess up the schedule blocks something fierce. Having a tighter time regulations on individual matches/games would probably up your chances of getting back into EVO more consistently.

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

surprised i found you in the top 1000 leaderboards tbh

I’m still in the top 1000? That’s a 10/10 joke because I haven’t played this game in forever. This game’s competitive scene is about as dead as TF2 or Super Smash Brothers: Melee, but at least those games have a concrete sense of skill variance.

But honestly, to even think that you doubted by skills in “Rotation Whack-a-Mole Wars 2: Rock-Paper-Scissors Online Edition.” For shame.

Attachments:

(edited by Swagg.9236)

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Can’t teach what you don’t have either

You take that back. I’m excellent at Whack-a-Mole and rock-paper-scissors. These skills translate directly to “high-level” GW2 PvP.

Attachments:

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

There is no merit to competing or “being good” in a game with such a negligible skill ceiling.

Perhaps you can teach all those all-stars how to play then.

One can’t teach a skill that doesn’t exist.

International All-Stars Vote Discussion

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Swagg.9236

There is no merit to competing or “being good” in a game with such a negligible skill ceiling.

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Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

You don’t like this game, so don’t post here. Go play something else.

I don’t play GW2 anymore. I just dropped in to tell the devs that their balance philosophy is flawed, their class design is lazy and that GW2 won’t be saved by a bunch of meaningless blog posts. I know that this game is beyond help. It’s honestly just irresponsible to keep supporting a developer that’s done a complete 180 on its original game design philosophies. People here should honestly jump ship on a genre that is honestly dated given that its associated developers no longer really seek to push the envelope for what an “MMO” give to its players in terms of input-driven game-play.

You should replace “skill-based” with “style-that-I-prefer”

Yes, because something with player input on the level of wavedashing, rocket-jumping, mind-gaming someone in a fighting game, tribe skiing or even just aiming is definitely comparable to “press button; hit opponent.”

Pity-posting a video of Diago styling on Justin a decade ago won’t make you any less wrong.

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

I’m sorry, but why would you look for components of Shooters and Brawlers in a MMORPG?

Because they actually do exist within the code of GW2. Moreover, GW2 was billed as an action MMO with that all-important phrase: “dynamic combat™.” I still believe that there was a point at which Anet actively worked to blend the qualities of 3rd-person shooter, fighter and MMO together (there is evidence of this), but ended up quitting because it was too hard and instead produced the mess that is GW2 today. And if you’re going to ask “But, where’s the evidence??” well good luck getting me to spoonfeed it all to you, kiddo, but you can go find it yourself. You’d be well aware of such things if you actually played GW2 at some point.

I don’t care enough anymore to prove anything to you or to anyone else that clearly doesn’t know why GW2 is so bad on a fundamental level.

Here, I need a game which has a high skill cap but a low skill requirement (for winning), and in PvP makes everyone feel as if they contribute while ideally masking that on a technical level.

There’s nothing technical or skillful about any GW2 game-play. Every skill does exactly what it says it does 100% of the time. There’s no utility or accidental physics exploit to put the game more into the hands of the players. Wavedashing in Super Smash Brothers: Melee is technical; rocket jumping in Quake or TF2 is technical; getting more sanics off of a nitron grenade in Tribes: Ascend is technical.

There is no utility for skills in GW2 outside of their exact descriptions. That kind of environment spells the death of skill-based and creative combat in a game. Trying to develop skill in GW2 is like trying to jump while inside of a washing machine. The game is designed in a way that removes skill from an encounter. In short, GW2 plays itself. Player input is often very minimal when it comes to the calculations that go into delivering a player’s skill effect to an enemy.

As in: I need a game which allows everyone to compete. Because the underlying idea is that I can get friends, loved ones and family to play this.

You can do that too with all of the games that I listed above. You can also understand that there are drastic technical skill differences between players in those games as well. GW2 greatly struggles to produce evidence of the latter.

But still, you seem to be looking at this the wrong way: MMORPGs don’t need to provide perfect gameplay, they need to strive for playability.

You’re willing to stomach Runescape-level game-play for the sake of “playability.” You would be better off just playing a turn-based game. The best part is that you mention “playability” in a game where people still get stuck in the wall after teleporting, are suddenly stuck in a single spot after using a movement skill and still occasionally experience an inability to use any skill at all in overworld PvE. Let’s not even mention all of the shoddy AI (ally and enemy) and the associated PvE encounter bugs that still exist.

Their underlying idea is mass-multiplayer, the former of these words implies you cannot aim for a specific subset of mechanical perfection.
Which is also the common element in successful MMOs of days past.

You’re limiting your imagination. Stop doing that.

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

So, here’s a few notes on warrior:

Warrior:
Of the heavy classes, the Warrior is able to balance sustainability and damage. They bring high sustained damage and opponent control.

  • Strengths:
    • Sturdy body
    • Able to apply physical or condition damage
    • Sustained melee AoE DPS
    • Melee crowd control
  • Weaknesses:
    • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
    • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
    • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

I think more than anything else you could possibly do to improve the state of the game would be to write these lists up for all 8 profession and post them in a blog.

You would be wrong.

Many other classes look at “reliant on Adrenaline”

Having two skills that are almost always off cool-down, very easy to build to full power, and possess zero synergy with other weapon-related skills does not describe the phrase “reliant on a mechanic.” Warrior’s mechanic isn’t adrenaline, it’s passive healing and godmode. GW1 had a Warrior that was dependent on a pool of adrenaline.

(edited by Swagg.9236)

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Spoonfeed me.

Snap player movement/repositioning achieved through physics engine/game-play exploits fosters skill-based combat. GW2 doesn’t have any of that. Therefore, GW2 is crippled on a fundamental level as to how it produces skill-based, player-driven combat. Sticky targeting and excessive stat stacking also kills skill-based combat, but that’s another topic. Just go to the bottom of the first page so I don’t have to copy-paste my words again.

this is a swagg post

I don’t expect anyone that plays GW2 to understand the qualities that go into making a good game.

(edited by Swagg.9236)

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

time to start getting some serious work done on professions and combat and stop wasting the great potential this game has.

This game’s drastic lack of potential to generate player-driven, skill-based content is shockingly apparent when viewed merely from a “how do players move” standpoint.

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?

Consciously implemented hard counters are the foundation of lazy class/balance design. You shouldn’t walk the awful MMO game balance path blazed by a bunch of poopsockers from Everquest. Stop developing an expensive, online version of rock-paper-scissors with a lot of pretty colors.

A profession’s strengths and weaknesses should come from its operator and his/her ability to mindgame opponents by capitalizing on a game’s fundamental physics with the abilities provided by that profession. GW2 provides no player with any real opportunity to manipulate or capitalize on its physics engine via player abilities outside of a few gimmick situations which ultimately have no bearing on combat.

These sort of ability-based physics manipulations typically manifest themselves in player movement (rocket-jumping, wavedashing, aiming/timing projectiles and close-range/directional melee attacks, etc.) which leads to certain players consistently capitalizing on other players by achieving better positioning. GW2 has effectively none of this. Aside from leap skills, there is not a single skill in GW2 that can be utilized in a manner outside of what its description details. Outside of blinks, mid-combat maneuvers in GW2 are slow and clunky. Moreover, achieving “superior” positioning on an opponent is often instantly negated by ranged, sticky targeted abilities and/or direct-to-target teleports. If positioning doesn’t mean anything, the game is effectively equivalent to Runescape. Everyone just equips their skills and gear, walks up to someone, selects a target, and presses a lot of attack buttons. The only difference with GW2 is that, in this game, the player can strafe while pressing attack buttons.

Your game is crippled. GW2 will never be good. You could try again with GW3, but it would be irresponsible to waste that many more millions USD knowing full well that the fundamental roadblocks to player-driven, skill-based combat that plague this game wouldn’t be fixed in the transition.

(edited by Swagg.9236)

[sPvP]Thieves: gameplay, concerns, possible solutions [merged]

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Stealth Solution:

  • Stealthed players now gain the revealed debuff if they miss an attack (due to blind, being out of range, due to line of sight, due to an opponent evading an attack) or strike a foe that is blocking or invulnerable.

Stealth is a free attack. If you can’t capitalize on that (especially if your auto-attack flips into something that can completely wreck an opponent with the press of a button), it should be your fault (for being bad/so predictable) or the opponent’s victory (for counter-playing during your perfect invisibility duration). No player should just get multiple free shots from stealth until he/she finally deals damage. It’s unfair. This isn’t just for Thieves; this is for anyone that has regular access to stealth or gains stealth via an ally’s ability. You get one shot. Make it count.

DGC 1: Movement skills as "skill-shots"

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Dunno about the AOE targeting. All to often i feel the camera sits too low to the ground for AOEs to be practically targeted.

You probably play an asura. That said, ANet really should fix that race’s camera. In the betas, they normalized hit-boxes (because SOMEONE thought that it would be a fantastic idea to make asura hit-boxes actually smaller than humans/sylvari while norn and charr and bigger hitboxes that humans/sylvari). There shouldn’t really be a reason why they can’t normalize the camera positioning among races. The charr camera hangs in a nice place.

Moreover, when I mention the AoE attacks, these aren’t AoEs that you aim like one aims grenades or any other ranged, circular AoE. The play has to determine his/her attack direction first with a reticle, and then, after leaping/dashing in that direction, that skill’s subsequent chain skill is a very small AoE attack.

The secondary attack is an AoE simply because making it so eliminates the need for a selected target in order for it to be effective. The attack is small to minimize the chances of powerful leap/dash attacks from wrecking several people at the same time. That’s not to say that a player couldn’t do such a thing, but in the case that it happened, it would be something special and not something nonchalant as what most combat is now: select target, press buttons, target dies, leave.

I actually avoid the engineers strongest ranged attack kit, grenades, for this reason, as i get no sense of depth while trying to do larger events.

It’s not so much a sense of depth as it is a sense of timing. It’s a learned skill.

Thief overpowered? Then why....

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Somehow feel this thread was made to be inflammatory but, thief is not overpowered in structured pvp thief has a role to fulfill. Thief is only really good at one thing and that is its role.

Yes, and that role doesn’t exist in GW2. That’s why it’s overpowered.

That is to say you think the role shouldn’t exist in GW2. It does because thief is filling it (proficiently).

Anyone with half a brain knows that the “insta-gib class” exists because the “dedicated healer” exists. It’s an unfair mechanic made to counteract another unfair mechanic. Even so, it’s a lazy design that has been perpetuated from literal poop-sockers that played too much Everquest and then were hired by Blizzard to help design WoW.

“Pure classes” are a lazy design in the end. They are the easy way out. Making a triple-A MMO that incorporates such class design is little more than making a very expensive version of rock-paper-scissors.

GW2 had an opportunity to break that cycle with the whole “No healer class, guys!!” but they blew it by adding things like stability, channeled blocks/invulnerability skills, condition spam, instant-cast damage/CC, a bad stick-target system, traits (as we know them) and the Thief. To counteract these mechanics that truly only belong in a game with the “holy trinity,” they then started implemented nonsense like [Healing Signet] and Diamond Skin among others.

It’s like none of you actually see this happening in front of your eyes.

It’s only going to get worse. ANet doesn’t know how to handle a game like this. They actually had a grip on it at one point (as evidenced by mechanics and skills left over from very old starter-zone heart missions designed in early alpha or by the snowball/skill-stacking DPS effect that one can see on staff elementalist), but they mysteriously abandoned that initiative at some point for a reason that we’ll probably never know because ANet doesn’t like to converse about their internal reasoning with the player-base even if the reasons for some things are painfully obvious in some cases.

GW2 is a glorified rock-paper-scissors. ANet will do nothing except add more hard counters to the core rock-paper-scissors. They will then have to add counters to the new counters and so on and so forth. If they had just really stuck to the goal of making well-cued attacks that were aimed by the player, we wouldn’t need the overpowered mechanics that we see used every day in GW2.

Thief overpowered? Then why....

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Somehow feel this thread was made to be inflammatory but, thief is not overpowered in structured pvp thief has a role to fulfill. Thief is only really good at one thing and that is its role.

Yes, and that role doesn’t exist in GW2. That’s why it’s overpowered.

Thief overpowered? Then why....

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Why Guild Wars 2 are choosing the path of self-destruction?

Why?

Because the developers at ANet have absolutely no idea what they are doing and tried to attract the WoW crowd with their game. For real, “Let’s try to compete with/kill WoW, guys!” When has that never killed a game? Ever?? ANet is just incompetent. They don’t know how to design a good game. If they did, the Thief would have never made it into GW2. Plenty of other things would have changed as well, but the Thief’s absence would rank as one of the more noticeable differences between this game and Bizarro GW2.

DGC 1: Movement skills as "skill-shots"

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

@ YamsandJam
Look into binding ‘Lock Autotarget’ for a deselect key.

@digiowl
Oh, I was pretty fond of Neverwinter’s system too.
Camera-centric targeting systems are a big hit with me anytime the combat has a decent pace to it.

This game, though. I’ve never seen a game try so hard to straddle the line between traditional mmorpg and action mmorpg control schemes. Granted, in practice this goes together about as well as peanut butter and motor oil. But for better or worse, that does seem to be the intent here.

Which is why I’m wondering why they seemed to move away from it (the game clearly possesses the code to make most attacks into skill shots) if that was indeed the case. I mean, a more camera-based or directional-targeting-reticle-based combat system would be a lot more natural in a lot of ways. This game plays like a third person FPS in a lot of ways except for the fact that everyone gets a clunky aimbot for ranged attacks because ANet thought that it would be a good design.

Moreover, it’s not even like that aimbot is really well-designed in the first place. We look at a profession like the Mesmer. If the Mesmer can’t select a target, that Mesmer is entirely worthless about 95% of the time. It’s a trash system. AND THEN ANet, in their infinite wisdom, added stealth! I mean, it’s absolutely bonkers! I can’t even believe this nonsense!

For real, the class that I play most in this game—if I play it at all—is staff Elementalist. Staff ele plays very naturally. It’s easy to determine where your damage is going because you can just target areas that you feel need damage or CC and not have to worry about maintaining or juggling selected targets all the time. Then I go and play anything else and the game’s awful targeting system just slaps me with the reality of its awful design. It’s not skillful, it’s not enjoyable to use and it’s not rewarding.

DGC 1: Movement skills as "skill-shots"

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

Yeah, that’s the goal. Make suggestions that are feasible to implement.

You don’t tell a guy with terminal cancer that he has the flu. GW2 deserves better than what it’s getting and the saddest part is that a lot of the mechanics that could fix it are already implemented in the game in many forms.

To implement your assortment of suggestions that you’ve stacked atop of one another, the game would have to have nearly every aspect redesigned, including camera behavior, hit detection, netcode, etc… At that point, you may as well just make an entirely new game.

My skill changes use mechanics that already exist in the game.
The changes that I’ve proposed here use mechanics that already exist in the game.
My upcoming trait changes also use mechanics that already exist in the game.
The Combat Mod (which is a potential solution for making ranged abilities more skillful and natural) literally had a toggle on-off button that a player could use while playing GW2.

Moreover, it’s not like your button commands wouldn’t require additional coding themselves: a way to internally save “last target selected” for any given player; a separate code for “this is my personal selected target”; a complete updating of the code that determines target priority (because every AI unit and all players all share the same priority it seems) so as to implement a button that attempts to only select enemy players."

You’re trying to take the easy way out and it’s not even the easy way out. Use your imagination and knowledge of the game. It’s very possible to improve GW2. You’re simply not working hard enough.

Thief overpowered? Then why....

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

If the thief is so overpowered then why:

- wvw blobs are 80% war/guard
- top pvp teams only use 1 thief
- most roamers rerolled to engineer ( better 1vXcapability)
- lfg post says heavy only

PvE and WvW zerging (which is effectively PvE) do not accurately represent sPvP or small-number encounters in WvW. Majority Guardian/Warrior zerg blobs function because they bathe in stability and retaliation because those mechanics are overpowered in their own right. This makes groups of players temporarily immortal and capable of wrecking other large groups of players by simply running around and pressing buttons (not unlike how players net kills in rest of the game).

TPvP teams run 1 Thief because it’s all you need to automatically kill any other roamer in the entire game that isn’t a Thief. It also serves as a relative counter to another Thief because Thief vs Thief is an obnoxious dance of stealth, blinds and teleports that nobody can properly interpret and can last for a long time somewhere off-point effectively doing nothing but reducing the game to a 4v4 for some time. The Thief also moves across the map in record time. Furthermore, condition cancer is more effective at murdering bunkers, so that’s why we don’t often see multiple Thieves on a team.

Don’t try to defend one overpowered mechanic by saying that “But this is also really popular/overpowered too!” Engineer roamers are good because condition cancer is good. This has nothing to do with whether or not Thief is broken.

If your lfg posts say “heavy only,” then your dungeon/fractal community is pretty bad at the game or they already have an elementalist in their party. As said before, PvE is a different (even more brain-dead) game than PvP.

Thief is overpowered because it serves a role that doesn’t need to exist in a game without a dedicated healer or damage-mitigation class. GW2 wasn’t built for pure classes. An argument could be made that pure classes are a burden on any MMO altogether. In any case, Thief outright shouldn’t be in GW2 because it breaks a lot of common rules that go into balancing combat.

You’re welcome.

DGC 1: Movement skills as "skill-shots"

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

We’ve found three problems here which contribute to the problem which you describe. These problems are not exclusive to leap skills, and the health of the entire game would be improved if they were addressed. With this in mind, I can solve the problem you describe with two or three additions, without 5 posts worth of skill changes.

1. A detarget/retarget keybind. Alternatively, a “suppress targeting” option which causes your skills to ignore targeting while it’s active and instead causes them to aim forward.
2. A change target keybind which completely ignores minions.
3. Individual focus targets. We already have group focus targets in Ctrl T, but not individual focus targets.

Your solution is cumbersome and does not address any of the above problems at their root.

And your “solution” preserves the skill-filter that is the GW2 targeting system. It’s an additional step that a player must complete before dealing most ranged damage instead of simply being able to judge distances, timing and player movement, and then using a skill accordingly. Not only does the latter not have an extra, unnecessary step in the process of using a ranged skill to deal damage to a target, but due to the lack of a targeting system, the effort and reward of hitting a target is entirely placed on the shoulders of the player.

I’m eliminating a tedious step from the damage-dealing process. Making more buttons just to feed the skill-filter is not an actual solution to the trash that is the GW2 targeting system. Freeing ranged skills from the targeting system is a solution to a lot of the skill-less game-play that plagues GW2.

DGC 1: Movement skills as "skill-shots"

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Swagg.9236

Swagg.9236

While gw2 was still being made, I think arenanet was playing with the idea of having a combat system without targeting. Unfortunately they decided against it. I can’t remember their reasoning

I suspect it is the same reason that Jon Peters gave on Reddit for not having the option to toggle mouse look, “it made the game too action focused”.

Except that i for one find the game right now to be a action game with a awkward control scheme, thanks to the number of AOE circles and such i have to keep dodging during most events. May as well give me mouse aim and turn the game into a third person shooter, so that i can circle strafe that big bad until the cows come home…

Seemingly they don’t want us to stand still during a fight, yet they don’t want to make a “action game”. They can’t have it both ways!

This post probably best defines the issue: GW2—with the movement available to players—plays sort of like a 3rd-person shooter, but the targeting system just gives everyone a clumsy aimbot that only works well on selected targets. Not only does this make it difficult to juggle multiple targets, but it also makes the combat unfair and not necessarily enjoyable or rewarding for either the attacker or the target.

In the end, the only thing that GW2’s targeting system truly accomplished was to lower this game’s skill ceiling to claustrophobic levels and frustrate the development of fluid combat and player control. The targeting system filters the vast majority of player skill out of the act of striking an opponent. Moreover, given that the vast majority of ranged damage (whether it be leaps, projectile-based attacks or even direct-to-target teleports) must pass through this filter in order to hit reliably and can only strike single targets.

This all combines to make juggling targets, making effective snap re-targeting decisions and capitalizing on positioning something that is not only far more difficult than it should be but also far less rewarding in general because the game typically plays itself for the operator from the moment that a ranged player selects a target.

The so-called “Combat Mod” (I’m not sure if it’s still in use or not) was an interesting development for GW2, because it not only gave the player a reliable means to snap target with single-target ranged attacks, but it also just gave the ranged player’s attacks a reliable path by fixing the camera positioning (the ranged player always knew where his attacks would go even if he didn’t have a selected target). However, despite those innovations, the Combat Mod did manage to make AoE-centric play-styles somewhat more frustrating to use because it fixed most attacks to a single lane directly in front of the player.