Guild Wars 2

http://i.imgur.com/Shwkr.jpg

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I’d have to second that. I don’t think I’ve ever used the assist feature. In general the UI could be a tad more intuitive. I’m wondering why they omitted cast bars from Guild Wars 2, when they were a big part of Guild Wars 1.

I would imagine that there will always be a problem with “band-wagoners” that simply move to wherever they see a free meal ticket. That being said however, even these kinds of people will have to get established with a guild/friends at some point and stop moving around so much, so the enormity of this issue will dwindle over time.

In the mean-time however, as a JQ “native” or “chest-thumping diehard” as we’re lovingly referred to, I have to say I am not at all thrilled to play host to those that don’t enjoy a struggle for their wins. I can’t say for everyone, but a large portion of the server is already reminiscing over finer battles, and opponents that didn’t simply give up during prime time play. As frustrating as HoD and SBI were in the past, it was better than this. Most of us are PvPers here. I want the fight really, not the win.

Perhaps clear to you, that isn’t what I read however; but let’s not split hairs on that matter.

1. Indeed, more skill slots may be something to be introduced as ANet moves forward with the game. I should mention here that I main an Elementalist, so I’m currently quite happy with the number of skills at my disposal. The only other class that isn’t allowed weapon swapping is Engineer, whom are similarly given a large number of skills via their bundles. For the other classes, the weapon swap feature is something that can’t be ignored and really iterates choices for your class. Even a Warrior, arguably the most simplistic to play, has some choices to make. GS Warriors offhanding a Rifle sacrifice defense for offense and range. Change your swap to axe/axe and the combination of the two makes you one of the most potent offensive melee fighters around. So, it’s not really 5 skills, to be fair. It’s 10 at any given time.
2. I have to disagree that the traits are somehow a wow clone. The traits give you not only stats towards a particular build, but often times completely redefine how you play the class. As D/D Ele, you can very easily select a glass-cannon style build via your traits and amulet, that will allow you to burst out some incredible numbers. If you trait into, say, Arcane & Water though, the style completely changes into a boon duration build that allows you to keep yourself alive through some serious punishment.
3. I also have to disagree with the removal of Downed State. It’s one of the major discouragements for these super burst builds. I don’t want to get back stabbed standing around 4 of my allies and just immediately fall over dead waiting for respawn. I also have to agree with the above poster that this is a matter of opinion for Downed State. At this point it is an established part of the game, and I feel it does add to the overall experience. This doesn’t mean your take on it is invalid however. Perhaps what you could push for is, instead of complete removal of this system, a game mode or specific map that disables it – like a pure death match arena.

mjharrison.3209:

Definitely agree with the comment about excessive use of particle systems – a 1v1 is bearable to watch but anything more than that it looks like crap. Case in point — the red circles on the ground wouldn’t serve a purpose if the game had a normal amount of particle systems.

However, by far and away my biggest dislikes of GW2 PVP are 1) the skill system is too rigid, too simplistic, and 2) downed state in PVE works, but PVP it sucks.

1) the skill system sucks because it is too rigid, and too simple.

Simply put, the skill system in GW1 was so much better. I daresay the main draw of the game was theorycrafting/playing with different skill sets (builds). I don’t have an issue with weapon being a constraint on skill choices but why oh why does there only have to be exactly 5 (2h)/3 (m/h)/2 (o/h) skills per weapon? There doesn’t. The game should have released with a pool of ~10/6/4 weapon skills per weapon, and we should have been able to mix and match.

I hate the GW2 (weapon) skill system. It’s unimaginative, and just plain lazy.

2) Downed state sucks in PVP

I wholeheartedly embrace the motivation behind the introduction of downed state and universal rezzing but the current implementation is bad in the PVP context. In a nutshell it makes stomping/reviving more important than the actual combat.

In WVW, downed is especially bad — it encourages zerging and discourages small-man teams. There is also the issue of downed intel gathering, where oft times the best thing you can do for your team is stay dead, rather than getting back into the action.

I don’t know what your data/surveys show, but anecdotally, I don’t know anyone who likes downed in PVP. IMO, get rid of it, at least for PVP.

I would have to start by disagreeing with the overall tone of this. Not to discourage feedback of course, but no practical alternatives are really being offered for these two quite harsh complaints. I understand the sentiment that the style of GW1’s customization has for the most part not carried over. However, while you cannot define your core abilities any longer, you are instead offered numerous alternatives in traits and gearing. Traits and gearing are two things that Guild Wars 1 did not have, and your customization is largely derived from those. I like this system and I am far from knowing about all the viable combinations of traits, gear, and utility slots. Perhaps more weapon skills will be added in the future. What would you suggest?

• Spell effects do compound to an overwhelming effect at times. I wouldn’t say this is normally a problem except when it’s coming from both sides. If the ground is covered in different fields and effects, the red circle really isn’t enough to go by. Should you use a finisher in the chill field, or get out of it? It can be hard to tell which sometimes.
• For this, I would again point to League of Legends – this problem arose for them, and was tackled by tinting spell effects to the color of their team; boiling blue ground for blue team, boiling red ground for red team. This would not have to be activated by default, but could be introduced as an option for those that elect to use it.

• Downed state can be frustrating at times, to be sure. A few classes have very powerful downed states (Thieves can simply keep vanishing too often by my interpretation, and the Mesmer rogue is more potent than my elite abilities, to name a few). Sometimes it seems like the downed person is very hard to kill without stomping.
• Overall however, this system works with you as much as it works against you for the most part. It also prevents someone just running into a team 4v1 and bursting down a player to instantly take them out of the fight. If I were to suggest changes to downed state, I would focus on maybe reducing the punishment one can take while in downed state. The bigger problem that needs addressing is the underwater downed state – put a timer on how often one can go invulnerable just by swimming to the surface, and allow finishers to be performed underwater.

If you disagree please feel free to reply. Please avoid complaining about something you dislike if you don’t have an alternative, however – it takes the constructive bit out of constructive criticism.

Thanks Sharpclaw, I didn’t want to get into specific skills and ability suggestions just yet, but in terms of abilities I feel need tuning, quickness is certainly among them. I would suggest for Warrior’s frenzy, in place of a damage increase, that the duration exceeds that of the frenzy. A Warrior will know exactly when he needs the frenzy, and it lasts just long enough for them to complete their combo. There is simply not enough time for their target to take advantage of the weakness following Frenzy, even if they survive the initial burst.

Feel free to post without worries of hijacking, all I’m looking for here is a constructive discussion and feedback about where potential issues lie. I’m sure we can all agree that ArenaNet has done a great job so far, this is about helping them continue that trend.

That could certainly work. I don’t think a small tick of glory (Say, 2 every 10 seconds) would amount to an unbalancing amount for the overall score, yet would keep defenders on the scoreboard for keeping people off of the point (even if they don’t want to attack because it’s defended). It’s certainly a necessary aspect of SPvP being mostly ignored.

• Raid on the Capricorn solutions

1. Sharks
   One way to deal with these is to lower just how powerful they are in terms of HP pool and damage. Personally, I still feel like the issue would continue to be there if this happened, just to less of a degree. My suggestion would be to simply remove them. Battles would start taking place underwater, people would use it more for travelling between the points, and you wouldn’t see so many PVE deaths scrolling on the right of your screen.

1. Cannon/Ship
   People may disagree with me that this needs to be changed, and I can understand that. However I feel that the cannon itself could improve two aspects here; lack of battles on the ship and lack of people actually using it. If the cannon were to be placed on the ship (perhaps even overlooking the ruins), then it would be a much more strategic win to take the center of the map this way. You could actually see the points from the top of the ship, and the run for cannonballs would be reduced to an appealing level. With the cannon in more frequent use however, with more cannonballs coming in, the timer between shots may need to be increased by a small amount to keep the match-up balanced.

Class Balance

• Issue:
  It may seem strange to group the balancing of classes together, but I don’t think the problem is inherently _______ is overpowered. Though there are some skills I feel need some fine-tuning, to me, the bigger issue is that some classes are offered much easier routes to accomplishing the same thing. I will give you an example (please don’t flame me);

1. A rifle-based Warrior, particularly an offensive one, can simply use volley to inflict huge amount of damage (I’ve seen volleys conclude at 7k+ damage). Follow-up with their adrenaline class mechanic (Kill shot sometimes lands for 13k), and if you fail to dodge or simply don’t have the endurance, you may well be a goner just from those two abilities. Contrast this against a D/D Elementalist, whom to accomplish this same level of damage would have to: Ride the lightning, Updraft, Fire Attunement, Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, Drake’s Breath and finally Fire Grab.
   This may be an extreme example, but this sort of thing takes place with many different classes and many different abilities. My take on the problem is the simplicity involved with the first combination.

• Solution

1. The way to solve an issue rooted in simplicity is to make it less simple. Using my example above, it would seem a much more manageable situation (and potentially more fun for the handler) if the damage was spread across other abilities more. Going back to rifle warriors, the #3 skill, Volley and the class mechanic Kill Shot are liable to do a vast majority of the damage from that weapon. Instead, reduce the damage on Volley, and give Crippling Shot or Brutal Shot more damage. Give Rifle Butt three hits instead of one. Change “Kill Shot” to be a little more complex to use – perhaps by giving it a spread of 3 projectiles that reward a closer shot on a single target, yet at longer range could be used to spread out damage amongst other targets.
   This is just an example and there may be better ways to tune said abilities, thus why I am not giving specifics for every ability on every class (It would take me a very long time anyway). But the principle would be a great improvement in my eyes.

I’m aware that changing some of the class abilities in this way would seem dramatic, and effect players outside of the SPvP environment. As such I welcome your thoughts and suggestions to help improve a game that we all love (especially if you made it through this post). Thank you for reading!

Before I get started on this I want to warn everyone that I cannot help but be slanted by my opinions here; however I intend for this to be an open discussion and welcome civil comments/suggestions (preferably not ‘lol u just suck at it’ posts). I apologize if some of these ideas have been posted already.

I will start by saying that I really enjoy SPvP the same way I did in Guild Wars 1, I would not say it is perfectly balanced but it isn’t far off. It’s very addictive, and the amount of viable builds is greater than most people will realize. I don’t play this game for just SPvP and I’m only rank 20, so I may not have seen everything yet. With that out of the way, let me get to a few of my points here…

Glory/Point allocation

• Issue:
  Something that concerns me in most of my SPvP games is that you will see at least one person that really has no interest in fighting beyond what they have to; they will run from node to node, collecting points in the most stable way they can. For other people that don’t do that and prefer to defend or fight over nodes, that person is then missing and hurting the team by not being there to help over large® battles.
  Furthermore, the incentive for staying still or guarding is very little.
  A Guardian that holds out 3 enemies on a point is unlikely to be able to kill any of them in most cases, yet is helping out the team a great deal. Players that build support-style are also inclined to lower rewards and scoring, based on the majority of glory being awarded based on doing enough damage as to count towards “player kill”.

• Solution:

1. First, I would suggest that less points (half, let’s say) be awarded to capturing uncontested points, and more (15 up from 10) be awarded for capturing a contested point. I understand glory is rewarded for being an ‘objective assaulter’ as well, however this does not always even out based on contribution; it seems to be proportionate to damage dealt. This leaves more support-styled players in a deficit that is not exactly deserved.
2. Following that, I would suggest that players inflicting large amounts of control, as well as players that reach a ‘healing done to others’ threshold (similar to damage done) be awarded for their assistance to players. This would give a greater incentive to be less of a ‘selfish’ player that ignores downed teammates and people being focused down.
3. Finally, I would implement a ‘Martyr’ system (similar to League of Legends’ in Dominion, for those of you that have played), where someone that puts up the good fight on a point and dies is still given some reward. Just because they couldn’t kill someone in a 1v3, or they were the first to die because they were the first into a 4v4, doesn’t mean they didn’t help.

Maps

I have less to offer here, as for the most part I enjoy the maps and find them balanced. What I do have to say may not earn me any friends, but let’s get to it anyway.

• Raid on the Capricorn issues

1. Sharks.
   My god, sharks. With squishier classes and/or builds, one will bite you for over 2,000 damage. Considering that a rush to the Ruins point will collect you about 4 of these sharks, this is devastating. Of course, it is possible to kill them before you get there, but they actually have a sizable health pool and it becomes quite the PVE venture, which I don’t really feel has a place (at least, to this extent) in a PVP environment.
   The sharks discourage most anyone from the underwater combat element of this map, and you will commonly see everyone avoiding it. What’s worse, they seem to have aggro tables; thus classes inherently prone to AOE damage (Elementalist, for example) are going to end up being eaten alive even if they weren’t the ones to pull the sharks. In fact, based on these aggro tables, one of the strategies I’ve seen is for people to just sit opposite of each other on the beach and wait for someone to go first after the ruins point.
   This large scale PVE content is regarded, in my experience, as a big detriment to the map – many people will leave as soon as Raid on the Capricorn comes up in rotation, and a large portion of those that stay will avoid the water (and often complain about it).
2. Cannon/Ship
   The cannon is underused, I would say in equal parts due to the chore of running cannon balls back and fourth, and the obscured vision of the two points people are likely to be contesting over (dock, in particular, has a very large palm tree in the way). The ship itself, then, never really plays host to battles – which is just a shame as there are fun fights to be had using this environment.

Bump. This is getting ridiculous, entire armies of invisible people sieging a tower is just laughably bad. This needs to be a top priority as it is making WvWvW essentially unplayable.

Certainly someone else has to have noticed this occurrence. I’m sure it was a contributing factor for some of the exploits people abused. Why would it not simply go down a list by time in queue? Is there a hidden priority of players selected to enter, beyond that?

I’ve tried to look for some information on this, so I apologize if I missed a similar thread. What I’m really looking for is some information on how queues are handled – more often than not, queues seem to select people at random to get in, rather than simply first in line. My friends will queue 15 minutes after me, and get in 20 minutes before.

I know this is happening to a lot of people, but I can’t fathom any kind of recognizable pattern to why it is. If anyone has some information they could share on the subject, I would be very grateful.