Guild Wars 2

Devs,

Maybe you should focus on making an in-depth, in-game manual explaining how your combat system and it’s respective values synchronize? I mean, being developers shouldn’t you guys document your software? (Maybe that’s a little too old school, who knows?)

At any rate, ask yourselves the following question (or perhaps pass it off to upper management);

“What’s the point of introducing something new when everything old is still vague and poorly defined?”

The title of this thread is bang on…

I personally think this game it utter garbage, but I dropped 60 bucks on it a year or so ago and feel as though I haven’t gotten my money’s worth out of it. Needless to say, I still log in to play.

So, with this new Living Story episode I once again try to keep an open mind and give it a shot.

It appears as though Lion’s Arch has been attacked by something that was part of the other episodes – something I haven’t given much attention to because, well… It’s not intellectually appealing. At any rate, I run into this huge, ugly mess of combat skills, players and can’t see a frigging thing. The group eventually runs towards a giant robot that one shots everything now and again, and take a ridiculous amount of time to kill. As a matter of fact, I can’t even tell if I’m having an effect on said robot. I just swap to ranged weapons and spam skills over and over. It all became very boring, very quickly and I logged out.

Today, I thought I would give the game one more chance. Maybe there’s something I’m missing? Maybe my understanding of the functionality of this piece of software is flawed? Who knows?

I travel to Lion’s Arch, and there’s no one there. Can’t complete the Living Story. Back to square one – thinking GuildWars 2 sucks. Money wasted.

Blade Syphon.4325:

..I really don’t understand how people get so irate over the idea of having Anet add in a historian NPC that lets players relive the Living Story…

I mean, these people are essentially saying that they don’t want additional content in GW2, and are content with the pathetically hollow and shallow content we have now in the game.

Imagine if all the content over the past year of LS was still in the game. I would actually be praising Anet instead of constantly criticizing them for being able to put out that much content into the game over the course of the year. GW2 would be bursting at the seams with things to do, people wouldn’t feel forced to log into the game every two weeks and hurry through the story segments to start their achievement grind, and we’d have more PvP game modes than you could shake a fist at.

Remind me how any of that is bad? How would having the Tower of Nightmares instance present through a Historian NPC be bad? How would having the Molten Facility and Aetherblade Base present as new Explorable Dungeons with their own unique skins be bad? How would having the Zephyr Sanctum still be present, with all it’s fun time happiness mini games, be bad?

And of course, how would having what essentially amounts to a second personal story, re-playable whenever you make a new character, be bad?

Do people really not realize that when they’re arguing against the idea of having LS content be entirely permanent, they’re quite literally arguing against having more content in the game? Or has Anet actually managed to brainwash people into thinking the LS is a good idea, and that having temporary content is better than bucket loads of permanent content.

This is EXACTLY the problem with this game. I’ve been playing it for over a year, and I barely recognize any of the stuff he’s mentioned. Why? Because it’s here today and gone tomorrow, more or less.

The combat system. It’s horrible.

All the skills seem as though they were designed as cool animations and given damage numbers without much forethought of how they would actually fit into the game. This is why combat looks like such cluster-mishap.

The skills. They’re incredibly boring.

Counter shot and blocking? Those are supposed to be a developer’s joke, right?

Anet should really consider hiring seasoned developers with a couple decades of game-design under their belts. I know hiring Millennials at sub rates is cost-effective but it’s hurting what would otherwise be a totally awesome game.

Chain quest mode.

Give us more to do and develop the lore of GW2 further.

Paponzi.1637:

Really? Skills must be used in that order, not based on the situation?
Not sure if…

Of course not.

You can always arrange every skill you’ve acquired for each weapon your class uses and rearrange them in the skills bar…

Oh, wait… Maybe not.

Jski.6180:

So you like the game up to this point but you hate combat that was in the game from the start?

No, the combat has always sucked.

Think about it. Let’s use a D/P Thief as an example;

- The first skill is a a close-quarter combat skill. You use it to stab your opponents when they are in range.

- The second is an attack that closes the distance between you and your opponents.

- The third is basically the same as the second with an added condition.

- The fourth skill is a ranged attack that dazes your opponents, rendering the, unable to use skills for ¼ of a second.

- The fifth skill is another ranged attack which lays down a combo field.

So, if my first attack is to stab my opponent, it would stand to reason I would be in range wouldn’t it? What would be the point in using the four other attacks according to their intended game-play functionality? Unless of course, Anet’s intention was to have your toon stand there and bore the socks off of you. If that’s the case, then “BRAVO!!!”. They did it with uncanny gusto!

cpg.7140:

Check the box in the top right of the screen with the living story info. If she’s attacking a zone, it’ll say which zone. New zone every hour, starts on the hour.

Oh. That’s good to know.

Ummmm… I dunno.

The Queen give a speech then some chick shows up with a bunch of robots.

Find the bombs, kill the robots and then have a group session with some animatronic NPCs.

I’m sent to some place to look for a portal and I find it. Then I have to find a witness to something. I forget what it was. Something to do with the chick and the robots I guess…

Anyway, now I’m supposed to find places she (the chick with the robots) attacked, or is in the process of attacking? I’m not sure I follow what’s going on here…

I guess my question is “where do I find these places?” Are they marked on the map?

Not sure why these living stories exist anyway. They come and go so quickly, without leaving any real impact on the player experience.

Anet should spend the time and resources into optimizing the code and fixing horrible performance.

Using a Fight to Survive skill that kills you is kittening kittened. Fix it.

Skill 4 knocks back 170. Skill 5 has a range of 130.

This is kittened. Fix it.

Get rid of the downed state completely. It’s pointless, unoriginal and other than the attack, it’s all together useless.

It’s a cheap knock-off.

So, ya. It’s a bug…

How is someone supposed to know where the quest is if the quest indicator is where quest isn’t? If that’s not a bug… I would hate to see what a bug is for Anet.

I guess I have to use a third party tool to play GW2 – like Google.

You people blow my mind.

Lazy.
Lazy.
Lazy.

Anet, there’s no logical reason to have the heal functionality of “fight to survive” to start with a cool down. It’s a stupid idea. Get rid of it.

Secondly, there’s no point in making the healing button spammable if spamming it doesn’t do anything. Again, it’s a stupid idea. Get rid of it.

Sincerely,

A paying customer.

The strangest bug happens when downed. A red bar, with four buttons along the bottom appears, labeled “Fight to Survive”.

The first button labeled “1” does very little, and the remaining buttons “2”, “3” and “4” don’t do squat.

I can recreate this bug every time I’m downed.

Anet should squash this bug.

Thanx.

My Q9450 shoots up to 84% usage in some Divinity’s Reach..

I’ll give this a shot (pun intended).

I’ve leveled my Thief to level 80. Until this point in the game, I’ve been using solely a double dagger, and double pistol combination while utilizing traps – this has been working wonders for PvE – which I enjoy doing most in GW2.

Today, I thought I would attempt other weapon combinations. Naturally, I decided to use an alternate weapon configuration with my preexisting weapons. Thus, I decided to go with a pistol in the main hand, and a dagger in the off hand.

The first thing I noticed using this particular configuration is that this weapon combination isn’t logically consistent from a design/functionality standpoint. It does work to a point where the game is playable, but not fluidly enough to compliment the mechanics of the thief profession.

For instance, mobility is the primary attribute of this particular profession. However, the mechanics of the skills associated with this specific equipment configuration limit mobility greatly.

Based off a utilization of skill-slots 1 through 5 only, and the use of Steal as a means to compliment mobility, I found the thief hits a brick wall hard and fast! The reason for this is due to the range of the thief being nullified by cool-downs, along with the amount of initiative spent in disproportion to the amount of initiative gained.

Here’s a example scenario I’ve tested out;

1) Select a target;

2) Steal (f1);

3) Cloak & Dagger (5);

4) Sneak attack (1) then Shadow Strike (3);

5) Vital Shot (1) then Body Shot (2).

Steal will still be on a cool-down, and at this point is useless. You have other options for closing the distance, but not enough initiative for anything effective.

I would like to suggest to the Areanet developers that they do some testing and perhaps consider either Vital Shot gaining one initiative per shot (or two), or an attribute that grants the ability for the thief to gain one initiative per Vital Shot (or two).

I’m sure if they stop to consider HOW the thief functions, they will agree the mechanics they have employed for this profession do fall quite short. It’s a fun but frustrating profession to play as most of the skills don’t “flow” or cascade in a logically consistent manner.

So they really don’t have anything to do with skills? Meaning, there’s really no “Shadow Arts” , it’s just a name given to a category, of which, adds additional numbers to my stats?

Is there any good documentation about WHAT traits are, how they function and to WHICH skills they apply to?

This is what I mean…

I have “Deadly Arts” though none of my skills are “Deadly Arts”.

I have “Trickery”, do those apply to “trick” skills like rolling and dodging?

Shadow something-or-other – I’m assuming they apply to my stealth skills.

Here’s the problem though;

After I spend the traits, I find out that those hidden traits in the tree don;t apply to to the skills I’m using. Thus, I keep wasting silver trying to guess what does what.

I think Anet need to get back to the drawing board on this. There’s no logical progression in the trait system for a thief, and any of the traits offered in the tree are basically useless, except for one; the stacks from traps.

I’m not sure I understand how this skill it supposed to work in PvE.

You set the trap and draw aggro but what’s the point of having 10,000 range? I mean, or even shadow stepping when the trap is triggered or however it’s supposed to work is pointless because your target is right in front of you…

Am I missing something?

Anyone have a video of how this skills is supposed to be used?

It does?

Funny. Never noticed anything but a bunch of people running around shooting at the same target.

Could you provide me of an example of how these events are noticeable? I mean, other than a bunch of NPCs in one area being replaced by another…

Thanks.

What " a 0/30/30/10/0"?

Jiiub.7135:

-.- wow, people like these exists… aiming with controller is so much worse then a mouse, so much slower, soooo much les sprecise and still somehow people like them?.. soo many buttons less aswell…

oh well please use them makes it alot easier for me to kill you in WvW

As I said, if you’ve ever bothered to play other “action” MMORPGs then you would know how ignorant you statements are.

For instance, one button to cycle through targets is just as efficient as pressing “tab”.

Camera rotation speeds can be adjusted.

Activating 10 skills with only 6 buttons is more efficient than skirting across a keyboard attempting to manipulate 10 keys.

Don’t believe me? Download Tera, or Champions Online. Give it a go. You’ll see how wrong your opinion is.

Not sure if you’ve even had the chance to play other “action” mmorpgs, but controllers win hands down.

Why not?

Anet has almost everything else from every other game in there? I think it would give the GW2 an added edge to it.

Nothing has to be taken away from the game to add chain quests to it, and people have other options in-game for experience and the like. I just think it would be cool to have, and attract more players, like myself, who enjoy the more traditional elements of this particular video game genre.

YES!

I was thinking the EXACT same thing. This game is totally built for controller support. I was shocked when I found there’s wasn’t native support for it.

One of the main reasons for a lack of controller support in MMOs is due to the amount of skills present per class. For instance, in another popular MMORPG, the player has a plethora of skills visually available to him/her all at once.

The pace, and action of GW2 demands greater control. Considering the length of cool-downs and duration of combos fields, you don’t have a lot of time to respond physically; if you blow that small window of opportunity, there’s a bit of a wait until you can do it again – coupled with trying to position your toon correctly for a proper execution makes it almost impossible to perform combos consistently. It gets very frustrating very quickly.

Far too often I’ve blown the chance at a really awesome combo because of the clunky combat interface.

Having NATIVE controller support would definitely make the game-play more enjoyable, and save me from having to shell out a few bucks to purchase a third-party solution.

Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really do enjoy the game so I’ll just have to adapt to the game mechanics until they’re improved – if they’re improved.

Something as simple as tear-away buttons on the skill bar would do the game more justice. Missing combos due to button mashing takes away from the game play, imo. It feels like more of a chore than an escape.

Hopefully it’s something the Developers will consider. It would really improve the game play by leaps and bound if players were able to setup logically consistent chain attacks of their liking, with the visual cues of the skills bars to match.

I’m already having a hard time handling movement and casting.

Trying to cast a field, then a finisher is almost impossible when you have to span the distance of 7 or 8 keys in addition to manipulating a camera angle AND character movement all at the same time. Having to press shift and a number is making it more complicated than it needs to be.

Truth of the matter is that the skills do not function in logically consecutive order, nor can they be mapped out in the bar to do so. This is a problem and a huge oversight by the Devs – which is why I wonder if they even play the game themselves.

For instance, I play a Thief. I just started using a short bow. Now, I have to press 4 to lay a field, then 2 to layout a cluster (2 again if I want to explode it in mid air) while making sure I lay it down at the right distance from the target. If I lose focus from the target, the cool-down is too long, the effect it too short, the target is too fast for me to be able to pull it off a second time. So, I just backup and auto-shoot until the target is dead; usually backing up into other mobs.

If I could simply map out a sequence of actions – problem solved and the game is fun to play. Not a frustrating experience. I’m starting to see WHY a trail wasn’t released.

I understand this is supposed to be some sort of unique “action mmo” but sadly, things happen too quickly to be able to juggle the UI and INTENTIONALLY perform combos while playing solo.

Mashing keys is boring and does nothing but demonstrate how poorly designed the combat actually is.

It would be nice if they compensated for horrible game mechanics by allowing the players to set things in a more logically consistent order.

Ya, I just posted basically about the same thing. Very poorly designed system. I’m wondering if the Devs even played this game?

The combat in this game handles like a shopping cart with a busted front wheel.

Trying to manage dodge, skills and strafing around a target effectively while employing combos is virtually impossible.

How can I strafe, lay down a comb field and a combo finisher in consecutive order when the UI doesn’t conform to the necessary tweaking needed to perform it?

To be honest, it’s a dog’s breakfast.

Or, perhaps the Devs could put out a video or two of them playing THEIR game to show how awesome the combat is supposed to be. Personally, I still don’t get it.

I’m almost level 40, and I’m still just spamming four or five skills in no logical, discernible order.

It would be nice if I could set up the skill bar to use my skills in a specific order, and not have to mash keys hoping to pull off combos.

40 levels later, and about 70 bucks poorer, I’m trying real hard to like this investment – but I’m feeling a little ripped off right about now.