Guild Wars 2

Peter.8047:

Yeah, I got GW1 when it launched (even got the Collector edition <3 my glowing hands) and it was the only game I put significant time into. I played it all the way up to GW2 launch. I am only rank 11 in sPvP, but so far I feel GW2 is 10 steps back from where GW1 was and sort of wish GW2 never existed because most of the GW1 player base is playing GW2 now and wont go back.

I would trade GW2 for a brand new GW1 expansion.

How great it would be to have GW1 that had devs who were actually able to balance it themselves… I quit GW1 once euros dominated with hexway builds that required minimal brain usage and Anet never caught on to fix it.

O, the dream I will never realize.

Sol Haer.5187:

GW1 started as a pvp based game and ended in a balancing train wreck, OP did you even play it?

Alright, now that I am at home and at my computer, I want to talk about this point. It leads into some very interesting conclusions.

GW1, when it was first released, had Three random arenas, GvG and tombs. There was a level 1-10 arena, I believe the next one was 10-15 or maybe 18 and the final random arena we were familiar with was originally not just 20, it was either 15-20 or 18-20.

At the time, the developers did not create it as a pvp only game. Their goal was to create a game where pvp and pve were entwined together. At any moment in the game, pvp was available to you and you could compete in it.

Slowly, they began to realize that the pvp in their gamed worked out great. People really enjoyed it. Of course, there were some complaints, for example sub level 20s in RA and GvG. It was more difficult than they wanted it to be to get into pvp. There was no actual reward system for pvp. It was also sort of all over the place.

Time goes on, and they handled each one of these problems separately. Each one changing and further dividing their original goal. The learned they needed to have a max level arena, pvp should give some kind of reward (faction was born), pvp just didn’t fit into the realm of pve (they created the pvp isles). The next biggest accomplishment was when they decided to directly split pvp and pve forever, creating separate set of skills that allowed them to balance two games at the same time.

This brings me to two important points.

1: Multiple game modes- Sure, I would love for something to waste my time with when I am at the mists that does not include hot join or running in circles. However, if you want something other than that for multiple game modes, it will never work. It is not possible, without extra levels of complication, to create alternative game modes that are in any way competitive or balanced. The reason this is relevant is due to the extreme observation of the need to seperate skills. Different contexts ask for different objectives. Which means different set of skills will be of greater use, which means a different set of skills will be imbalanced. Point, balance is impossible in the multi game set up.

2:Anet really didn’t grasp the core of their game. Seldom to never did they make any changes or observations of the actual game play. All of their major changes were focused on separating the two modes. This explains why they took that lesson away and not the other. It is also interesting to note that there weren’t any dev teams that could truly play GW1. They relied heavily on player testers to tell them when something was balanced or not. This created a HUGE bias in the balancing category of the game and is what I contribute strongly to the fallout of balance in GW1.

So yes, I did play GW1.

Funny you should ask. I played GW1 gvg for about 5 1/2 years nearly non-stop.

I already posted an extremely long post discussing how I feel about the game.

In short, the game is alright but it is drastically less impressive than it otherwise could have been. It definitely, at it’s current state, won’t be a game I will spend 5 1/2 years playing unless if it is very off and on.

(The long version/justification… https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Lost-potential/first#post310726)

Seether.7285:

Diage.6451:

The five minutes is valuable time to configure a build based on your opponents and the map. I am all for the five minutes, but I come from GW1 where every tournament had a pretty decent amount of wait time between matches, and in those there wasn’t a ready up option. Once you begin to figure out hey, I can adjust my build or situation based on who I am against, you will start to value that time.

The fact is, this time is rarely used for these purposes. I would be fine with 5min pre match times if we were using a match making system, the fact that it is a tournament system means that 5min waits happening in other peoples matches affect you as well.

My team generally uses most of that time setting up. It would be a pity that people who haven’t grasped the most effective way to set up your team to cause us to lose that precious time. Their ignorance shouldn’t be my loss.

I think I will reiterate my position on this. Guardians do their job well. Their tankiness comes mostly from their skills. Shutdown kills them, but the thing you have to understand when playing against a guardian is that once you take a point from them, it is difficult for them to get it back from you unless they too collapse to a point to capture it. A guardian is not that effective at taking a point (if you know in the slightest how to dodge their knockbacks which is pretty easy if you’re observant.)

As a guardian, every effective strategy against me comes down to spreading away from the point to spread the opponent out and attempting to control or contest one point. Then doing a collapse on the guarded point and take it quickly or at least neutralize it. From there it becomes difficult for them to get it back from you.

But honestly, it isn’t necessarily that a guardian is required, but what is required is some kind of bunker. The most op part of a guardian is honestly retaliation, I do believe that needs to be fixed badly. Other than that, they do their job well and you just need to coordinate you collapses better and take advantage of every second they don’t control a point.

By the way, in my opinion, sending just two people to handle a guardian is a bad idea. Send either 1 or 3. 1 if they can neutralize it 3 if you want to cap it quickly. 2 is a waste of your players time.

A guardian who can’t hold off two people for some amount of time becomes completely useless. If your argument is that a guardian is op because they can live against two people for some amount of time and eventually die, it is a terrible argument. Any good bunker build should be able to live against 2 people until either help arrives or they take advantage of extra person else where.

The five minutes is valuable time to configure a build based on your opponents and the map. I am all for the five minutes, but I come from GW1 where every tournament had a pretty decent amount of wait time between matches, and in those there wasn’t a ready up option. Once you begin to figure out hey, I can adjust my build or situation based on who I am against, you will start to value that time.

Thank you all for enjoying it, I’m quite surprised at how many people actually read it, let alone agree with me. It’s good to know I am not the only one who feels there was a real missed opportunity with this game. Hopefully, Anet can see that there is something missing from their pvp and will attempt to rectify this.

You know, I figure if you make capture points linear and change the entire scoring mechanic and altered the secondary objectives, I’d be willing to be that would help to drastically improve the orientation of combat. Consider the case where you HAVE to fight over a single point OR go for a secondary objective in order to be the most effective. (BTW, by linear I mean you would have to have all points between your base and the one you want captured prior to being able to capture the next one. It will most likely result in a prolonged fight over the middle point.)

I would love to see a compromise. Something that can bring in the team oriented combat and yet not require them to deviate far from the game they’ve tried to make. It doesn’t require GvG to be a team oriented game, it just needs to be something that forces you to have to fight together to obtain victory rather than just fighting as a collective group of individuals.

It’s not even about implementing other modes. I am all for fewer modes. It becomes impractical to balance around the other modes and they are just imbalanced battles where people get a high ego and don’t learn anything effective about playing the game.

You and I think pretty similar thoughts

We also both write gigantic walls of texts.. lol

It’s a good read and I agree with you in spirit and have only a few asterisks here and there to apply. Instead of stating them explicitly, I want to post the link to my post. I would like to see a constructive discussion going to figure out or at least draw attention to the extreme lost potential of GW2 pvp.

My post is here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Lost-potential/first#post278783

O no, it isn’t a balance issue about being less survivable. It is a play style issue. I play a guardian a certain way. I have my traits specced, amulet chosen, runes placed.. all to accomplish a certain play style. However, as soon as I touch the water, that play style is devastated. As a guardian, my choices are either ranged damage or melee damage. If I hadn’t specced for damage prior to entering the water, then I am practically useless under water. No control, no heals, no survivability. My entire play style is compromised. That, is absolutely no fun to me. It ought to be that when I enter the water, my choices about how I want my character to play should be preserved. It’s nice to have the potential to play along the z-axis and to have the complex fights that could develop, but since the downed mechanic in water is weak and my character is of 180 degrees different from on land, it makes the entire experience pretty crappy.

MistyMountains.3751:

Defense specs slow down death…dont prevent it…tried a sword N board defensive spec warrior for a while…3100 armor/ 26k hp…still some dps spec thieves slaughtered it…which is sad…kinda defeats the basic paper rock scissor concept…like they pick and choose when this cliche should be used in game and when it doesnt go

The guardians strengths honestly isn’t in their stats, it’s in the utility of their skills. Guardians have some of the lowest base hp I believe and still maintain a near unkillable at times survivability. You need to maintain bearable stats, but to be a true tank on a guardian, it is all about how you manage your skills and make certain you always have a way to save yourself until your next skill is off cooldown. As soon as your bar is all black, you’re dead.

The warrior doesn’t have the same set of utility, so even as a very tanky spec, you most likely over reached a marginal point somewhere. As a warrior, you probably should have a lot of control combined with those stats if you want to be survivable. They simply don’t have the large number of defensive options that a guardian does.

Just feel like mentioning. The only real problem with Capricorn is the underwater combat in pvp. It sucks that as I go underwater, my guardian has ridiculously less survivability. Most of the skills are damage oriented, and unless I stack power I am pretty much useless. They need to make sure that they can maintain that if you build a character to play a certain way on land, it should mimic that play style in the water.

Personally, I change my utilities almost every game. I hit b, look who I am against, and determine what will do the most damage to me. From there, I pick what I need to get the job done.

The normal set of skills I go in with are wall of reflection, stand your ground, and sanctuary. I almost always carry sanctuary with me, imo one of the best utility skills in the game. The other two I swap out though..

For example, if I look and see a lot of theives/warriors I figure there will be a lot of burst, so I will swap my wall to either contemplation of purity, save yourselves, or hold the line. Which just depends on what happens during the match.

Or perhaps, there is a huge amount of condis, then I might go to conemplation of purity and purging flames.

Then, whenever I am on khylo, I always start with stand your ground and hollowed ground if they have any potential for cc. Pretty much everyone takes cc on that map for middle.

Stun break, sanctuary, stack might and kill the glass cannon and you win

Added: Oh, and it sounds like you have shamans amulet. Perhaps consider changing the jewel to the one with a lot of vitality and adjusting your runes to something with more benefit to vitality for a boost which you don’t lose too much of what you have.

I think you’ve over specced your armor. High armor is good, to a point. My guardian has about 17k hp, still not a lot, but enough to last me through most any spike. Other than that, if you know you’re gonna go against a lot of stun/spikes swap out a utility for stun breaks and save you aegis for when you get spiked. It should work out in your favor if you time things just right through that. Also, often times you can read people and dodge at the right moment to mitigate a large amount of damage. You might also consider the heal that blocks attacks, es op against melee spikers.

My argument mainly rests on the point that Arenanet already did a lot of work that would have resulted in a less complex setting. Further, I didn’t say we need GvG. All I want to see is something that focuses on team. The great thing about that concept is you can make it so that the individual professions are relatively easy to learn and the challenge would actually come from playing as a team.

I suppose, the moral is that I honestly believe it shouldn’t be ease of access versus complex mechanics, it should be a compromise of the two and Anet had the opportunity to do that and instead they went 180 from that.

Added: Oh, and thank you for reading and enjoying it

Everyone asks for a guardian or a mesmer. Thieves are strong, but I think there are plenty of those. I am biased towards guardian because I rather enjoy that profession so far.

Added: Oh, and if you can learn to play ele really well, you will be quite coveted (however pick up teams might be skeptical about taking you if they don’t know you.) Ele is a high skill cap prof that I personally believe is extremely strong once you learn them.

One of the nice things about the tournament system so far is that you are able to leave, swap characters, and come back in based on your enemy. Or even swap to a different char between matches. I applaud the ability to plan ahead prior to a match and react accordingly. I think the changing of players you are talking about is just the same player going on a different character. All in all, you should expect that you can’t leave a tournament because a tournament is a match you have to commit to before you agree to play.

I think that pure condi builds generally tear me apart. They just have to force me to waste my condi removals first. I play a guardian btw. Usually the way it’ll hapkitten if I see enough condi focused enemies, ill swap some skills to have more condi control, but even then, the cooldowns are rather high. So once I blow those, that would be a good time to start a heavy stack. I would be willing to bet that is you put 5 or 6 stacks, someone will try to remove it. After that point is a good time to stack heavier.

IMO the ele is actually better than previously thought. The only problem is that they are a high skill cap class. I’m starting to see more and more eles who actually do their job quite well and can do a large variety of jobs. If I had to ask for anything, it would be to raise all the other classes up to a similiar skill cap. I think all classes should be around that level of play.

ryston.7640:

Downed states, yea… i want to hear more detailed thoughts. I know a lot of players are very unhappy with them but i want to hear that explained (in spvp, i get it elsewhere).

I happen to like the idea, it adds some strategy because of stability and invis, push back and interuption. That said the current downed state bars are poorly balanced at best.

I admit gw2 doesnt have the stacks and filo system of gw1, but with polish and time it might, and stability will be a key boon to purge.

I know this isnt constructive but… i just wanted gw1 gvg and hoh with a z axis and new graphics… i gave and will continue to give this new game a shot, but does anyone else wonder why they reinvented the wheel into a more squarish shape?

In my opinion, downed state would truly shine in more organized drawn out combat as opposed to the current quick interaction combat we see now. As far as I am concerned, health in this game is sort of the only form of attrition you see in the game. The entire objective is to monitor your health. Now that seems obvious, but consider other games that have alternative mechanics ie energy or some other resource. These games basically pit energy as the attrition factor. If you lose your energy, you will die very very quickly. Then, health essentially is the buffer that protects you somewhat from the complete loss of energy. It’s not the case that hey, you lose all your energy and now your dead, its more like, you lost all your energy and now you are severely weakened and under heavy pressure. In this game, this is the role hp plays. It is high enough that you generally don’t instant die (and there shouldn’t be a case where that is possible either.) You can see that through the use of an auto attack that does decent damage, your health directly reflects how long you’ve been in combat. Now, the remarkably innovative thing about all this is that downed state has become the comparison of hp under old systems. It is your last ditch that protects you from instant death should your resource run out. It also drastically increases pressure throughout your team when you go into downed state (or they can just let you die, the equivalent being a tactical death to restore energy in GW1.) The only thing I would change about it is to make the penalty for repeated downs more significant.

If you are in for a very very long read, you can look at my post I made that details what is wrong with GW2 pvp in my mind and states how close they were to making something great, keeping in mind, that I still do quite enjoy GW2 pvp, it just lost a lot of potential.

(The link if you’re truly curious: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Lost-potential/first#post237996 )

Larynx.2453:

My maximum is only around 350. o_O

I don’t even know how it’s possible to get 700+.

Be against a zerg team that always sticks together and be on the treb and hitting their zerg.

My max is about 250ish.. but I play bunker guardian… So I’m pretty happy with that high score.

Actually, I would argue that the positioning subject is not due to the loss of monks but more due to the style of game play. GW2 doesn’t focus on team fights or kind of combined (above say 3) effort to fight in an even match. If you had to fight in a more prolonged fight that had attrition in it, you would see those lines start to develop. I agree, it is sad to see the monk go. But getting rid of the backline isn’t the worst thing in the world. There is still, if the game play were to be redesigned, room for a midline which would become the backline and a frontline mentality. Shorter range on most skills also allows for the concept of over extending and positioning actually takes a greater role because of this. If the fights were team focused, you would need to position yourself effectively for spikes. In GW1 it was only really the warrios (and maybe a ranger or ele if LOS needed) who had to worry about their position for a spike.

I have a stupid long post on these forums no doubt hidden on page 5 or 6 that describes what I believe is problematic with the current sPvP format. The biggest thing is just the complete 180 for the style of gameplay from something completely original to someone expected and encountered in many other games.

Honestly, one game mode is fine. Just so long its a good game mode. Capture the flags really isn’t a good game mode. If you tried to have more than one game mode, the others become stale and boring because you can’t possibly balance for any more than just one game mode.

I was waiting a bit to respond to you to see when you are done. I think it’s close now lol.

Anyways, I agree with you conceptually, I just think the better way to go about it is to buff support/shutdown. Having big damage builds be viable is a great way to get lower skilled players opportunity to experience the game and the game play without needing that extra level of coordination. Further, having buffed support means a sufficiently good team can counter a high damage team simply by outlasting due to their support. Then, the final step is when the game evolves to something interesting and that would be when teams learn how to shut down support to create those coveted openings for pressure and maybe even a kill. Note that the downed state allows for the ability to flat kill someone without an actual team wipe or an actual kill.

I will end by mentioning that Guildwars 2 pvp is fun. It is just far from what it could have been. They ironically tried to recreate rpg pvp but ended up landing in territory that has already been visited before. The most original game I could ever imagine for pvp was and at this moment, always will be, guildwars 1. Further, I am not asking for deathmatch or for literal GvG. I am asking for any format that focuses on fighting as a team and offers alternative objectives that can act as an alternative means to an end and give the game more strategic depth. Capture points uses capture points AS the end and further does not focus on the concept of team fighting.

I apologize for the length, but I literally couldn’t stop writing as I had started. I honestly think it is worth your time to read it all, but I will offer a very quick summary below:

tl;dr: Guildwars 2 looked to be innovative, and in many cases is. However, the most innovative thing they could of done was kept the same game play as guildwars 1 gvg and just thrown in some of the already changed aspects of guildwars 2 to of made a pvp game that is simply unrivaled. Oh, and an observer mode.

Now we wait as I suspect no one will read this. Oh well, at least I got it off my chest….

Guildwars 1 was and is the only team oriented pvp in any genre of any game I have ever found. At the current rate and direction game developers are going, it appears it will remain that way. Now, there are plenty of games that have team concepts, plenty of games that require you to play collectively, but no game that asks you to truly depend on your teammates.

Coordination Versus Team Play:

Guildwars 1 As An Example:

Reality And Guildwars 2

Theoretically, for these reasons listed, Anet decided that guildwars 1 was simply too complicated of a pvp structure. I can understand that quite honestly and it pretty much was. The thing they overlooked however is how many of those problems got solved by the innate design of GW2 mechanics. Throw in an observer mode that is extremely informational and you’d of had one of the greatest platforms for an rpg game you would ever encounter. Of course, now it is important to mention why this is the case and that leads me to part 2…..

Guildwars 1 was looked on by many from the outside world as an unsatisfactory pvp model. This, however, was an unfortunate consequence of the lack of other good models. It was by no means due to the combat itself but more due to hidden in game mechanics, hard to grasp initial game play, and poor observation mode.

Hidden In Game Mechanics:

Hard To Grasp Initial Gameplay:

Poor Observation Mode:

In beta rank was how it was in gw1, or close to it. 1-15 or so were the ranks. They just haven’t seemed to remove that npc yet.

5 Tanks of any kind is honestly the first true gimmick in GW2. It is a build that, if they make sure to rez each other when they die, is nearly impossible to defeat.

Ya, well I can agree with either approach. I just wanted to make the point that they both can lead to a game that requires skill. This current approach is more interesting simply because fewer games have done it. You just need to watch where the skill is being manifested. In guildwars, its about mitigation and management as opposed to other games where its about damage maximizing. This is historically how it worked in guildwars 1 as well.

I play guardian as well, and I have absolutely no trouble with ranged characters. You have enough control/survivability options to force them from that point if you learn to use them properly. A guardian isn’t meant to have a pure damage spec, they are endurance fighters. If you wish to make a guardian with damage, then he will do damage over time, probably with his auto attack, that will eventually kill your opponent because you can outlast them. Also, a staff is a good ranged weapon. Great survivability, mediocre damage, some control, and a lot of support. If you continue to have trouble with ranged classes, then consider getting wall of reflection and have a laugh as ranged classes chunk away half their hp on their own. Even more amusing when a ranger uses their knock-back skill and knocks themselves off their perch.

I don’t think I have ever seen a situation at the level of play that I have been accustomed to, where someone has died to auto attack alone UNLESS they are a pure damage spec with no defensive utility. It all comes down to you. If you die to auto attacks alone, it came from your spec or your inability to mitigate damage (by “you” I don’t mean YOU lol). Perhaps you can argue some classes have too high of a relative auto attack damage, but that doesn’t mean the concept is broken. Whether you can mitigate their damage by killing them quickly, using your skills wisely, or just realizing their spec is a counter to you and not “falling” for it, they’re all ways you yourself choose to handle that situation.

Let’s say you happen to be fighting a ranger whose moderate auto attack damage is high but his other skills are mostly utility based. Without that damage, he would do nothing. You should either do something to force him to use his mitigating skills or use your own mitigating skills.

Hmm….

For argument’s sake, i will have to disagree.

The auto attack is a moderate damage skill. Consider your health bar to be the attrition factor in a game. Without some kind of factor that you are constantly losing, there would be no challenge in playing the game. There is no mana to control or any other resource for that matter. So instead, health has to step up and be that factor. The longer you are in a fight, the more health you will lose. It is as expected and as should be. That is where your ability to manage your cooldowns and use your class as it should be used comes into play. As a character who is utility based, you can sit and do moderate damage with your weapon to force the opponent to do something, if you didn’t have that ability, then you would sit at a point all day and do absolutely nothing. This auto attack game even adds attrition to players who would otherwise be invincible. I play a guardian, and if it weren’t for this factor, I would literally never die. I have an ace for every bit of pressure and spike that comes my way, the difference between me and another guardian honestly comes down to how I manage my cool downs. If I blow them all at once to block all your skills, I will probably die to your auto attacks. If instead, I pepper in defense, use some dodges, and kite intelligently to make certain my cool downs don’t go to waste, I can live through the auto attacks.

Honestly, it just takes a bit of imagination to see how the health bar has been transformed in this game to be the attrition factor. If you want to win a 2v1, you need to be smart about your moves and mitigate as much damage as possible and not blow all your utilities immediately. If you are a class that depends on blowing all your skills at once, then you most likely won’t win a 2v1 unless you blow your skills, run away, come back and blow them again.

The factor of auto attack is something that elevated gw1 pvp quite honestly. It allowed pressure to exist if the appropriate actions weren’t taken to mitigate damage. That is how you need to think in this game. Not how can I block their big damage, but rather how can I best mitigate damage continually over time while being conservative with my utilities?

I play a very tanky guardian. Generally, I am very difficult to kill. I’ve had my fair share of holding off 3v1 at clock tower. However, my biggest strength is that I realize what can kill me and know when to and how to avoid it. Conditions beat the crap out of me, assuming they use them intelligently. And massive well-timed shutdown kills me.

I must admit though, I do think guardian can be a little bit on the too much side. But, guardian is quite close to being balanced.

The best way to beat a guardian is simply by being coordinated. There is no sense in sending one person to 1v1 a guardian. Them living with a build that is supposed to cause them to live is working exactly how it should be. Perhaps try a collapse on a guardian to knock them off a point. Against teams with a lot of defense, they tend to lack the ability to do damage. So, once you get your hands on a point, if you’re competent, you ought to be able to keep it from them. This argument, btw, works with any tanky specced class. Whether it be necro, engineer, or anything that is controlling a point you can’t take 1 on 1. Just collapse, take control, and hold.