Implement a toggle to initiate the “Ready to Duel” status. When a player toggles this status other they may accept challenges from nearby players.
This system prevents the issue with “dueling spam.” It is a self-imposed status others may respond to as opposed to a system where the player may sends the request to unprepared players or spam requests to harass certain players.
No
The current combat system isn’t suited for conquest mode. Skills don’t take into account the depth inherent in positioning, and the action is generally too fast with being poorly telegraphed animations. Why make players fight over a circle on the map when most skills don’t care where the enemies are? How does the game expect to be an eSport when the action is nigh illegible?
….This game isn’t for you if you like to be good….
Let’s be serious, this game is very crude in that the reward system is based on senseless killing. Acting selfishly is highly rewarding too. With that as it’s core values, no wonder the social aspects are so weak.
I’m all for smash and bash in a game but, I’ve never experienced a game that felt this off about it.
For me, the aesthetic of the game has changed from cooperative MMO to cooperative loot treadmill. The game simply insists loot dangling tactics. Rewards are nice and all, but to be honest it’s hard for me to enjoy the game for the gameplay when the game itself does its best to assign value to every minutia of input. It feels like I’m doing data entry rather than playing a videogame.
If you want a good amont of strategic and execution depth, fighting games are a good place to look. The Persona 4 Arena is one such example.
MMOs rely less on execution depth and more on strategic depth, i.e. predicting your opponent’s strategy and using your skills in an order that would counter it. The problem with GW2, IMO, is that many skills reduce the number of choices for the players they’re being used on. For instance, thief back-stab combo needs to be countered with a stun-breaker, and due to stealth countering them is more of an execution challenge than a strategy.
In general, the game is very dps based and there’s often little difference between the order of skills used. Axe rangers are a good example of this. You can press 1-3 in any order and the damage would be the same. The difference in choices is meaningless, and therefore gameplay often devolves into unloading dps in based on cooldowns rather than strategy.
There’s also the fact that the game does a lot of steering for the player due to tab targeting, and that reduces potential depth of execution.
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Too lazy for a preface, so I’ll just cut to the chase.
- Fixed range casting/min casting range
Currently, players are allowed to cast anywhere within their max range. This is inherently bad for for a game that tries to promote positioning because it effectively subverts strategic positioning. There’s absolutely no difference between fighting an Ele at 300 range and fighting at max range. The Ele can AoE you all the same, regardless of position.
By making certain abilities cast at a fixed range or adding a minimum range you effectively make positioning more relevant. Re-balancing and re-designing skills will obviously be necessary.
- More varied AoEs
Contrary to the game’s logic, AoEs can exist in shapes outside of circles and lines. Based on the shape, an AoE can be directional, adding some depth to its use. They also don’t have to be static. For instance a slow moving fireball that hits multiple times effectively rejects the area it’s currently at and the area in its movement path. Moves like this are well-telegraphed by nature, and also pretty interesting because they add more position and execution depth.
- Channel casting
Strong AoE skills need some kinds of drawback, and sometimes the answer to it is to require players to commit themselves to channeling it. For instance Time Warp is an absurdly strong skill because the Mesmer can simply cast it, but if the Mesmer was required to channel the skill to keep it up, the skill would then be more balanced since enemies can stop it.
- Tone down the graphics.
Not related but holy kitten is it hard to see when there are AoEs everywhere. Players like being able to see, ya know. Tone it down.
Please note, I’ve said a lot of times . . . I have done that fractal exactly once, and it has never come up instead. If we had been talking about swamp? Yes, I get that almost every time. Uncategorized? Not more than once.
Understandable. I didn’t post to say “OMG, U R WRONGZ N00B!”. I merely wanted to share a situation in which the Invulnerability mechanic makes it very tough to progress when it kicks in.
The funny thing is, that most gamers would love to have games where terrain plays an integral role. Instead, we get the same old permastun/instagib ‘challenges’. This forces players to flee into exploits (which do use the terrain) which then get fixed and take even more possibilities out of the game.
My main gripe is that, when I use skill and smarts to beat an enemy, I get punished by game mechanics whereas if I facetank it, I can beat it.
Agreed. In many games terrain isn’t something that’s there to look pretty, it’s there to provide strategies. Players are supposed to feel smart using tools, not punished for it.
Most games have two models for the same hairstyle, one for characters with hats and one for characters without hats. There could be several reason as to why ANet didn’t design hat-equipped versions of hair. 1) Saves time not to. There are a lot of hair styles in game. 2)There are too many shapes of hats and it would be difficult to create a hair mesh that would be fitting for all shapes without clipping. 3) It would incredibly difficult to do so for Sylvari Hair; to keep races equal they decided not to create hat-equipped versions for all characters. Blame the tree people.
But anywho, I agree with TC. I go out of my way not to wear hats in this game, even though some of them are really nice. It would be great if these nice-looking hats didn’t render my characters bald.
Personally, I see too much emphasis being put on extrinsic motivators in GW2. Things like dailies and the legendary grind are rewards to playing fairly static content; they can become extrinsic real quick, especially when you consider the most efficient methods of completing them. Even WvW can be extrinsic if all you’re doing is playing for the score system, without which there would be little purpose in many of its premises.
I believe the problem with traits is that the ones that scale vertically in efficiency are always the most preferred one. This extends to DPS, sustain, and boon duration, etc. You’re more often than not building for some type of efficiency rather than looking for new and distinct playstyles. Each profession only has 1 or 2 max efficiency paths and it’s easy to think that you’re forced into them because everything else just doesn’t work as well. To be fair this is the case for all mmos, and the only way to fix it would be to severely limit vertical scaling.
L2C
Learn to cope.
All joking aside, I agree that the game is far too forgiving with cheese maneuvers. This is probably the result balancing around checks and counters as opposed to deep and skillful execution.
CC itself isn’t a bad mechanic (although I think games can do without it), but there is such a thing as poor implementation.
What newly revamped AC does is attempt to make the stability boon relevant in PvE, and it does so by making it absolutely frustrating without it. It’s a blatant check, nothing interesting or skillful about it. And it makes guards even more desirable than they were before.
As for the OP, I think immobilize should be re categorized as a cc, because functionally it basically is a CC.
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Sort of like the Inner Armor system that Vindictus uses? Yes please.
With warriors and thieves as dps oriented as they are, players of those professions will naturally follow what gives their class more dps. Boon hate and whatever else gives them the most dps will be a natural choice for them, and with trait lines taking only less than half of the available trait points they’ll surely have enough points to choose boon hate and optimize their general dps.
I’m not so optimistic about the mechanic being properly implemented. Right off the bat, all indications point to it being gimmicky band-aid mechanic. Instead rebalancing the boon granting/stripping dynamic and making it something deeper, it aims to solve the problem by simply scaling up damage. The last thing this game needs is for damage to be more relevant than skillful, strategic play.
I’d to see more boon stripping too, but you have to look at how it applies overall. Stripping by itself as a method to counter boon reliant characters would be strong as it would severely inhibit those who apply it less infrequently. A warriors who blows his clutch stability with balanced stance to mitigate an oncoming CC train to save his life will have it whisked away in an instant under the pressure of any boon stripper meant to break bunkers. It’d be another case of hurting more options to deal with dominant one.
Obviously since this is all hypothetical, if the implementation forces players making the builds to choose between going between being more efficient boon killers or straight damage it will be a good change. Depending how much you stack against boons, your damage will fluctuate depending on the opponent you face, say your standard 0/10/0/30/30 boon bunker cantrip D/D ele versus S/D 0/20/0/20/30 vital striking arcane utility dps. One is far less reliant on consistent boons for its play than the other resulting in less efficiency on the basis of how you fight. 3k less on a crit could easily be the difference between a win and a lose. Boon hate builds if anything will have to be selective of their targets.
Current utility implementations of thief and warriors aren’t that imaginative either, and focus almost entirely on stacking damage modifiers for maximum damage potential rather than focused role potential. I’m sure hybrid builds will exist, but that is three options ‘Straight dps, hybrid dps, boon hate’ that weren’t there before.
One of the core problem with boons is that that they’re all generic. They are treated the same with regards to stripping, and the answer to almost every boon is stripping. For stripping to work, re-balance shouldn’t be limited to tweaking numbers, but also their mechanics.
One possible fix, and I’m not sure why they haven’t done this already, would be to make stripping less random. Another would be to make certain boons dispel under certain conditions. For instance, regeneration could dispels after the user takes too many hits. Might dispels after hitting the enemy several times. These are just examples, but assuming they were implemented, the boon stripper would have to strategically use his stripping abilities based on the opponent’s behavior. In the case of your warrior, the attacker would have to specifically remove the defensive stability boon before stunning him. There could even be a some bluffing, which would make fights more interesting.
The idea opening up more specializations paths is all good, but honestly I think a passive effect like boon hate would have the game breaching the build wars mentality, especially if it’s for the generally faceroll DPS professions like warriors and thieves. The only difference between their paths is how the chosen traits dictate the speed of their dps.
The healing only takes affect at the end of the channel, as Kasama said, not during the actual skill use. It’s actually a much better trait to use with Mantra of Pain since you can spam the channel and activation very quickly. And if you absolutely need regeneration for whatever reason, your staff 3 phantasm should pulse it due to the Phantasmal Healing trait.
Also I wouldn’t invest any healing power into a build that uses it. You get terrible returns for ir. Best to use it if you need to be an off-healer while you dps.
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Boon stripping and corruption are fine as they are, in my opinion. The problem is that bunker professions can stack a variety of low cooldown boons in quick succession. The sheer variety and low cooldown to boon-granting abilities trivializes removal attempts. This is what the developers need to look at.
The addition of a mechanic through traits will only serve to further pigeonhole builds. When you have as much freedom over trait paths and utilities as players do in GW2, players will tends towards the traits that are useful most of the time rather than use builds that are truly specialized. As widespread as boons are, those with boon hate available will always pick it because it would offer the highest consistent dps boost.
Edit: Grammar. Hard to type while eating.
I don’t necessarily see how it will pigeonhole builds if the implementation is correct. Building your character for “boon hate” will probably entail investing heavily into trees and traits that define that role. To me, the majority of the time simply stacking straight damage modifiers against all opponents will be more consistently useful. It will probably be better in team play situations where someone can build themselves around countering specific opponents but still be strong in most situations(see bunker buster necros).
Its the best solution, because most other solutions have too many unintended side effects. Burst builds, the supposed natural counter to boon builds, really aren’t all that efficient at taking them down in team situations and are actually more effective at countering other burst builds. This is why we see “apex predator” burst builds with the theif and mesmer, as their available options and efficiency keep all other glass builds in check. Buffing something like vulnerability would also be adversely punishing to squishier builds with the chance of creating an opening for tankier builds.
“Boon hate” creates a natural counter to the boon factory builds without being too harsh to everything else which makes it the best solution. These will NOT make boon reliant characters useless. They will remain powerful long after this implementation except they’ll have to be more careful about their application, positioning relative to enemies and builds. Which is good for more balanced play.
With warriors and thieves as dps oriented as they are, players of those professions will naturally follow what gives their class more dps. Boon hate and whatever else gives them the most dps will be a natural choice for them, and with trait lines taking only less than half of the available trait points they’ll surely have enough points to choose boon hate and optimize their general dps.
I’m not so optimistic about the mechanic being properly implemented. Right off the bat, all indications point to it being gimmicky band-aid mechanic. Instead rebalancing the boon granting/stripping dynamic and making it something deeper, it aims to solve the problem by simply scaling up damage. The last thing this game needs is for damage to be more relevant than skillful, strategic play.
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When you try to dodge to other directions some times it dodge only backwards, yes I’m pressing it right —’
It’s sometimes caused by the games autofacing and also the fact the game causes you to steer your character in the direction he or she is facing rather than the direction of the camera. For instance, if an enemy causes your character to face towards the screen and you press A, your character will turn to your right.
No, I’ve had this issue too. It happened to me when I was running forward and hit dodge, and I dodged backwards. :/
The default direction of dodge is backwards…
Extrinsic Gameplay
- Any reward you get for doing something (Gold, Dungeon Tokens, Laurels ect)
- Levelling to access to newer content (Arah, CoF ect), rather than the process of levelling itself
I’d say for many, getting a Legendary weapon would be an example of Extrinsic gameplay; they don’t want to grind all that gold, but they will for the shiny sword.
Intrinsic Gameplay
- Exploring for the sake of exploring (I’m personally coming up to close 1GB worth of screenshots).
- Enjoying the process of getting to 80, as opposed to only wanting to get to 80 ASAP for reasons.
I’d personally say WvW is an example of Intrinsic Gameplay; people play it for the joy of playing it, since there aren’t any material rewards (outside of BoH).
All in all, both will depend on the person; I enjoy dungeons, and I do them just because. Bob over there might do them because they like the armour / best farming place ect, but they might not necessarily enjoy playing in the actual place.
I pretty much feel the same way about those things. Dungeons would be intrinsic for me, but I find their design to be incredibly un-fun. Don’t get me started on legendaries either.
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A bit of an unfair question, seeing as how GW2 is an MMO and all. But regardless, what in GW2 constitutes extrinsic gameplay? Can it be fixed somehow? What experiences are intrinsic?
When you try to dodge to other directions some times it dodge only backwards, yes I’m pressing it right —’
It’s sometimes caused by the games autofacing and also the fact the game causes you to steer your character in the direction he or she is facing rather than the direction of the camera. For instance, if an enemy causes your character to face towards the screen and you press A, your character will turn to your right.
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Just make sure you understand how to make support good, ignore those who cry havoc, and run the end-game like a boss.
Take a mesmer and 4 warriors, and rush end-game like a boss. Why should we break our brains trying to do something complicated when we can brainlessly spam 2 and wait to click “Collect” ?
I’ve got a question for the forums in general about this. Doesn’t the typical 4 warriors & mesmer run rely on warrior shouts to stack up AoE might, coupled with the mesmer’s signet of inspiration to double it?
I ask because wouldn’t that mean they’re all running support and damage simultaneously?
Might has no intrinsic support value outside of boosting DPS. There’s also no strategic depth in its application. You just shout and BAM, extra dps. No need to stop attacking or anything.
The underlying problem is that all classes can support and dps simultaneously, and because they can do this, DPS becomes the means and the ends. You support only to DPS because DPS is all that really matters in the end. This is reflected in how support skills rarely break the pace of DPS skills, and in some cases (as with the engineer grenades) both support and DPS happen concurrently.
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Cooldowns are a terrible way of balancing skills as it often promotes a very front-loaded playstyle. An energy mechanism could help mitigate hit and run shenanigans of professions like thieves and D/D eles, and force them to work together professions.
I also think there needs to be more emphasis on hitbox, animations and aftercasting in order to promote smarter skill usage. There should probably an option to turn off autoaiming/facing since it dumbs down a lot of the game’s execution depth..
My guess is… that everything will be the same but with bigger numbers! Yeah…
I like the idea that things are happening, but this so called teaser doesn’t seem to be teasing at much. What the developers want me to be aware of is that The Flame Legion and Dredge are working together and driving out Charr and Norn. That’s good and all but this only intrigues me on a superficial level; the changes just aren’t deep enough to get me invested in all your efforts. What kinds of social and psychological effects will this have on the inhabitants of Tyria? What kinds of cultures are lost. How is the economy being affected? How are the pre-existing NPCs reacting to this change?I know these questions don’t sound interesting, but to make an actual “living” story, the story needs to address issues on this level.
And I agree with the TC’s point. The objectives are far too vague. If you want something of a scavenger hunt, you need to at least give some clues, and “somewhere on x map” is not a very good clue.
A “boon hate” mechanic? The last thing this game needs are new mechanics to mitigate existing mechanics. How about addressing the problem with boons themselves by re-balancing them and the existing mechanics that are meant to deal with them?
The problem is boons have no natural counter besides some necro builds and absurd burst on the lower natural hp for the classes that utilize them more. Its either a niche role for one of the classes, or is a mechanic that also craps on all other classes as well(burst). With them taking the nerf bat to some of the burst mechanics in the game(mug was specifically mentioned as being looked at)Boon hate and stripping builds will have an adequate role within the current framework to bring down certain classes while the builds remain not too powerful themselves. Hypothetically of course, building more damage against boons means you’ll be building less straight damage against those who don’t.
Its a pretty cool addition I think for a part of the game that kind of went under-tuned at launch.
Boon stripping and corruption are fine as they are, in my opinion. The problem is that bunker professions can stack a variety of low cooldown boons in quick succession. The sheer variety and low cooldown to boon-granting abilities trivializes removal attempts. This is what the developers need to look at.
The addition of a mechanic through traits will only serve to further pigeonhole builds. When you have as much freedom over trait paths and utilities as players do in GW2, players will tends towards the traits that are useful most of the time rather than use builds that are truly specialized. As widespread as boons are, those with boon hate available will always pick it because it would offer the highest consistent dps boost.
Edit: Grammar. Hard to type while eating.
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A “boon hate” mechanic? The last thing this game needs are new mechanics to mitigate existing mechanics. How about addressing the problem with boons themselves by re-balancing them and the existing mechanics that are meant to deal with them?
this isn’t something I’m proposing, this is something they are actually considering implementing.
Yeah, I just read the transcripts. Still, it seems idiotic. The last thing this game needs are more mechanics, especially ones so specialized as to deal with very specific situations. Balance and depth come from meaningful interplay of mechanics not the abundance of unnecessary ones.
A "boon hate" mechanic? The last thing this game needs are new mechanics to mitigate existing mechanics. How about addressing the problem with boons themselves by re-balancing them and the existing mechanics that are meant to deal with them?
Enemy design isn’t limited to their abilities but also their behavior patterns. GW2 currently uses 1 AI for all enemies- the zerg the players AI. To compensate, or rather as a result of this design, individual enemies have have very little threat level and but Larger groups though become exponentially more difficult to deal with. Enemy attacks lock on, and and with more enemies players have a harder time dealing with constant attacks that lock on to them from many different angles even with the availability of dodging and damage mitigation. It causes a very weird experieince where individual enemies are boring and large groups feel cheap to fight.
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One can lower his game’s animations in the settings.
Yes we can… But we want an option lower only the animation of the spell effects while keeping the rest of the graphics in high res.
I hope Anet will grant this both this request and the removal of culling in PvE.
That and animations settings don’t control the specific spell effects that make it difficult to see, like lighting and distortion. Particles are still a big problem even with low settings.
That’s because it’s not true invulnerability, it’s super-sped-up regeneration. You can drop higher rates of DPS on a target which would otherwise be “invulnerable” and kill it. In later areas, a bunch of people on a rock could technically do it.
That’s what I assumed, and it’s still a loophole to the intention of the design.
And I don’t think you need to go around and check every little tiny detail to make to find another way to do it completely; that’s why I said “unimaginative.” For one thing, I don’t think players would mind the removal of randomly roaming mobs. Players rarely ever attack them anyway and they serve little purpose other than to slow you down when you try to run past them. Why not let players spawn their own mobs in some fashion. You can already do this with certain heart quests objectives, so why not take it a step further and let them do it in appropriate areas (no safe spots) with reasonable conditions? It may even add a bit of interactivity to they very static world ANet has built. At the very least, I’m sure it would remove a bit of stress on the servers if there are fewer mobs roaming around and all.
I’d rather get drowned in lag/particle effects by dozens of players rather than feel forever alone because of the stupid culling effect. But that’s me XD
I get what you mean…but then it doesn’t solve anything.. It just bottlenecks the problem elsewhere.
Which, most likely, we’ll get a fix for 7-8 months later * Roles eyes *
People have been asking for this since launch. You’d think we’d at least get an answer 7 months in. But since we haven’t 7-8 months later is a good estimate :/
The question remains as to why there are places where mobs can be safely attacked. I know GW2s maps are big and all, and that the developers can’t account for every of every map, but still. Why pick a system the game can’t support without resorting to this infuriating mechanic?
Please note, you can technically still kill something like this, with enough damage getting done. I’ve had to do it twice in Thaumanova’s “Ice Sector” to have any hope of getting across a couple jumps where Elementals were waiting. It is not easy.
Sounds like a loophole to a workaround to unimaginative design. Why is it like that in the first place? That’s my question really.
Why is which like that? Enemies where they can’t reach you except at range or the fast regeneration which used to be “Invulnerable” back in Beta? Cause I can answer the second one.
You said technically kill something like that. I assumed the something like that is a mob that’s under the effects of mob invulnerability, therefore a loophole to that workaround.
What I’m asking is why didn’t the developers take into account the entire thing and design around it. And by design I don’t mean leave it as is but put a mechanism to stop it. I mean actually designing encounters to take into account the terrain.
I have to agree with those that dislike the changes, but for a different reason altogether. This is because, as much as I like a good challenge, the redesign of the dungeons confirms that the game requires gimmick mechanics to deliver challenge rather than actual variations in combat mechanics. Rather than giving players a means to improve on execution and imaginative use of their own skills, the game requires them to learn new gimmicks with every path.
And before you accuse me of everything short of murder for typing this, I’m not saying combat isn’t “fun” or anything. I’m just saying that, in its current state, there may not be much room for it to evolve outside of gimmicks.
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The question remains as to why there are places where mobs can be safely attacked. I know GW2s maps are big and all, and that the developers can’t account for every of every map, but still. Why pick a system the game can’t support without resorting to this infuriating mechanic?
Please note, you can technically still kill something like this, with enough damage getting done. I’ve had to do it twice in Thaumanova’s “Ice Sector” to have any hope of getting across a couple jumps where Elementals were waiting. It is not easy.
Sounds like a loophole to a workaround to unimaginative design. Why is it like that in the first place? That’s my question really.
The question remains as to why there are places where mobs can be safely attacked. I know GW2s maps are big and all, and that the developers can’t account for every of every map, but still. Why pick a system the game can’t support without resorting to this infuriating mechanic?
GW2’s system actually reminds me of Firefall and how well its open world farming is implemented. All mobs in Firefall are spawned by either random world events or thumpers and during these encounters developers can handpick from a set of strategic spawn locations. There are no safe spots to attack from during events and the encounters themselves feel very natural with their high degree of randomness.
They said they would not ban for it.
As it does not modify any GW2 files, nor does it automate anything it is legit.
It would be like you putting a sticker on the middle of your screen for crosshairs and setting your mouse up to handle actions differently then getting banned.
Not gonna happen.
It would have to modify the UI files themselves or at the least redirect the client to the combat mode files, either way that would be modifying some gw2 files.
Actually it doesnt mod any files……. you don’t need to modify a games files to add a simple direct 3d crosshair to a screen…. perhaps you should research a bit.
Pretty much. It’s not really a UI change. On that note, there is one mod that actually does modify the UI (by hiding it) but it does so by intercepting the files before they’re processed by Direct X…or something.
What the trinity did was give depth to 3 core aspects of mmo combat by fleshing them out and giving them meaningful variations. What GW2 did was give everyone everything on the assumption that it would solve the problems inherent in the role-heavy system; it did, but the design choices that followed reduced combat to rotations independent of party members. In doing this, the game takes for granted the depth available in each mechanism that contributes to combat, and instead focuses on dps. Everything revolves around dps and efficiency of dps.
What I think ANet could do is re-assess each and every mechanic that contributes to combat and then find ways to impose meaningful variations on them. These shouldn’t be limited to the trinity mechanics but also to action mechanics, such as hitbox and animations, as well as mechanics unique to gw2 like the down state, etc. They then need to make more distinct paths for each profession based on these roles. The problem with the current system is that the variations aren’t meaningful outside of dps or sustain. The result is one or two paths of least resistance for each profession. All others are simply less efficient.
To make you fight enemies you otherwise wouldn’t want to fight, which is silly IMO.
I second its removal from PvE.
@LunaNosCustodit
That’s certainly something a grind could be used for, but I think there are other mechanics that fit the criteria.
A better defined process gives way to a better understanding of its effects. And by better I don’t mean thorough, just more accurate or appropriate. I think “wearing away” sums up the general view pretty nicely, but it doesn’t explain why as well as it could. How about adding “due to lack of intrinsic motivation” at the end?
And I agree with your feelings on Lost Shores event. Repetition is not intrinsically bad, and along the same lines one-time events aren’t intrinsically good. If I watch a good movie, for instance, I’m more likely to watch it again. If the movies bad, I won’t.
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So for those using pacing as an argument for grind, is something no longer considered a grind if I still do the total amount of work, but am forced to take periodic breaks?
As for the reward argument, how does one classify a reward? Is it something whose value is dictated by the game or something whose value is dictated by the player doing the grinding? Could dailies be grind for some based on perceived value or dictated value?
Watch my videos and there wont be any more of these soo called “issues”.
lol Gosh I swear… You people all just complain than learn on forums sometimes.You explain even the most basic skills in this video like it was some great secret, while completely failing to actually display any depth at all. I mean you kited an npc for about a minute while repeatedly applying cripple, wow, that’s grand. Oh the depth of it…
Seriously, that’s not what depth is. An evolving, reactive meta game could be considered depth, build diversity could be considered depth, truely customizable skill bars, the secondary profession system or something like the strategic impact of hexes, counter hexes and various interactions of skills that gw1 had certainly where depth; but what you show here is only amateurish beating (fast cast ground targetting off for gs/rifle?) on an almost unreactive ai.
Not being the best orator I’ve learned how to find good examples of things and then point to them, it also saves me the hassle of having to explain things myself.
Anyway on the topic of depth, this: http://extra-credits.net/episodes/depth-vs-complexity/
Good video and rule of thumb, but it’s still too simple and inadequate an explanation, IMO.
I GW2 goes wrong when it focuses so much on convenience and fluidity. Tab targeting and all it woes were implemented for the sake of familiarty and ease, and you can’t even turn the blasted feature off. Then there’s the ability to move and cast. I’m probably going to attract the ire of many by saying this, but move casting is one of the elements that truly dumbs down combat. It makes positioning and timing less important and encourages the a very spammy type of gameplay. But since the game is built around this feature it’s not likely to go away.
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Some specific contrasting examples would help, and perhaps other words would be better than stretching “endogenous” into this context.
“Emergent” is a word already used in gaming contexts to indicate behavior resulting from AI rules as opposed to being scripted. Emergence can also result when a greater portion of the gameplay is due to player action rather than environment interaction. Emergent behavior has the characteristic of rarely repeating, as opposed to scripted encounters which are of course the same every time. In GW2 the PvE arena is primarily scripted while the PvP arena is primarily emergent. The big downside of emergent gameplay is that it precludes storytelling, since you have to wait for it to happen naturally.
Another word, “immersive”, has already been mentioned. That has more to do with the consistency of the game-world logic, and I think is close to what you are meaning. Environmental details contribute to immersion, as does NPC voicing. If a ghost doesn’t behave like other ghosts in the game, that can break immersion, as can mobs dropping arbitrary items or building decor that is wildly off (here the Asura have lore-based leeway, otherwise they would fall under this).
But to just say that gameplay should come from the natural game system does not speak to much; that is essentially what most single-player games do, since they have only one player around which to build non-scripted gameplay. Games that break that mold, like Minecraft or Simcity, do not try to tell a story but instead present a world that is all about inviting interaction.
“Emergent” and “immersive” both describe functional qualities. I think “endogenous” is more useful for describing how elements are derived.
The narratives or Minecraft and Simcity are self evident based on human nature. In Minecraft players would want to survive and I suppose in Simcity all elements lead players to build.
You are failing to realise what people consider a grind is a state of mind. No discussion can be had until you admit that. My previous posts stands like a house. You can’t put a definition on what people feel is a grind just what a grind is and that has been established.
Also anet didn’t say the game wouldn’t have grind just no mandatory grind. If that is still the case is a different discussion all together.
I did say that. I said it’s an experience. You quoted me on that. What’s more useful is defining the the processes that cause the experience, and the current definition of the process is too vague and inadequate.
And this discussion is related to ANet’s definition of grind, not the implementation or their intent with it.
(edited by TwoBit.5903)
@DigitalKirin
An agreement of the disparity and varieties in meaning can be a consensus, no? At least this way people can probe the meaning of other people’s grinds whenever the discussion comes up, instead of attacking and writing it off.
@Bluewanders
A book is a tangible, physical thing. A grind is an experience.
Apples and pears I’m afraid. Both books and grind can be quantified. For a book it of course would be a collection of pages with sentences that form some sort of coherent whole. A grind as stated it a singular repetitive action performed to obtain a specific goal.
What you are comparing is the quantified item, book, to the negative or positive feeling when grinding. The feeling associated with grinding has nothing to do with the definition of it. To go back to the book you are not quantifying the book, but rather whether you like it or not.
Grind is defined, but if something is considered a grind is personal.
Books have also been around for centuries. The definition of grind is only a few decades old. The connotation can very well be part of the definition, especially when ANet uses fun in theirs. You can hardly like or dislike the existence of books. You can like or dislike reading them, but the existence themselves warrants no like or dislike. But apparently you can for grind. That is, in ANet’s opinion at least.
And didn’t I already show how inadequate the common definition was? Many games require repetition of action, often singular action. In shooters you shoot, over and over. Often the situations and even environments are repeated.
Depth is often the mileage the game gets out of one mechanic, or in other words the variety of gameplay or situations the game allows per game mechanic. By mechanic I mean things like dodging, movement, hitbox, conditions, etc.
GW2 goes for variety of mechanics rather than depth. It can be fun and there can very well be variety, but each individual action is less meaningful than it could be.
I swing my sword. I swing it again…
I think that part of this is because some mechanics cancel out the possibilities of others. For instance Tab targeting and auto aim makes movement against ranged less meaningful unless the player is running out of range or is already out of range. And then you have other mechanics like AoE that often subvert positioning because they can be cast anywhere within range. Not to mention they’re almost always variations on a circle. There’s are very few that are directional, and even then those aren’t really AoEs.
@DigitalKirin
An agreement of the disparity and varieties in meaning can be a consensus, no? At least this way people can probe the meaning of other people’s grinds whenever the discussion comes up, instead of attacking and writing it off.
@Bluewanders
A book is a tangible, physical thing. A grind is an experience.
(edited by TwoBit.5903)
You guys are taking it too literally. Not every single interaction has to intrinsically affect or be affected by the world. That’s unreasonable. It simply needs to give the feeling or illusion. Games are largely smoke and mirrors, after all. They’re not worlds in the literal sense.
@Zenith
I don’t think it’s fundamental decision. It’s a direction based on the setting, and as we’ve seen with ANet’s handling of GW2 direction can easily change. Lots of issues in GW2 can be fixed with more detail and interactivity, like with NPCs. ANet is attempting to do just this with the living story.
I did have a definition for grind, and thanks to GW2 I’m revising it simply because of well, everything.
I can save up my Karma from doing a variety of things to purchase armor with exotic stats, but to make it look pretty I need to either play the game for several months to get 30 gold for ONE ITEM, or run the same dungeon over and over to get the tokens.
And don’t event start me on legendaries. Bad design in my opinion.
Would you say your experience in accumulating currency isn’t fun and therefore grindy? Or is there something else?
I’m asking for the definition, not the amount you think is in the game.