Guild Wars 2

kash.9213:

Slamz.5376:

I do agree that WvW needs to be larger and with more sandbox elements. What they have is good but it’s too small and too canned to be something anyone will play for a whole year.

But I don’t think we’ll see it this year, if ever. Some other game will do it and we’ll all move there. :-p

It’s not all that small really, just so much of the maps are not used and avoided, and the entire jumping puzzle is basically disconnected and instead of being part of our w3 world, it’s a queue slot hog to many. Sieges happen much too fast and with features to cater to pvers like map swords and aoe limits, you can’t even think about exploring or doing puzzles. Putting sandbox elements into these maps, even if the map sizes were increased, would be wasted effort unless they axe some of the features that just don’t make sense.

I agree with your point about siege occurring too fast. Players can zerg down keeps and structures so quickly that claiming and upgrading them becomes less meaningful. It makes it far more difficult for smaller populations to defend when large zergs can afford to rush keeps with golems and mesmer portals. They’ll need to fix that before anything else.

Mrbig.8019:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Nice post Folly. I agree with your points overall, though I’m going to speak primarily to your points about communication, community involvement and transparency.

The trick with our communication, is to find a good balance, on multiple levels.

First, we have to be conscious of the balance between how much time we have to be posting on the forums and writing blog posts, with how much time we have to be working on actual development: bug fixes, profession balance, designing new features, implementing new content, etc.

Next it’s important for us to be conscious of the balance between saying too little, leaving people pessimistic about when things are coming out and guessing about how those things will work, and saying too much, harming our ability to later change, postpone or abandon something that we’ve already publicly committed to.

Finally we need to consider the balance between relying on community feedback too heavily, where it’s super time consuming for us to process and leaves us feeling unable to make a change without first asking for a community vote, and relying on community feedback too little, where we might miss some key information that could impact the success of our future releases.

Hopefully we are getting this balance pretty close most of the time, and if not, it’s always something we are working towards improving.

Anyway, keep up the good, constructive posts!

I’m sorry , but you’re nowhere near to finding that balance.
it’s not about HOW MUCH you talk, it’s about HOW TRANSPARENT you are.
As players, we have literally no idea about what you’re doing, what are your plans for the future anf how are you going to realize them.

we have literally no idea

have you ever heard of social dilemmas ?
altough this is not properly the case, the psychological implications are pretty much the same.
the only difference is that while in social dilemmas, without informations about the common resource, ,people get mad and don’t care about the better way to use it, in this game, without informations, people just get mad and leave.
LEAVE.

your “customer care” marketing strategy is one of the most awful things I have ever seen.
at least it gives me hopes I’ll be good at my job (that is marketing, guess what).

if you really think you’re being trasparent enough, than I hope the small playerbase you’re going to hold with your terribad communication, will be at least profitable.

personally, I don’t know how long I’m going to last with this game.

This is true. People are more likely to jump to conclusions the less they know about something. When things turn sour, and things currently are, silence feeds concerns.

I agree, especially with…

Please, stop social engineering my play time! Or at least have the decency to let me turn the screen notification monthly/daily off, because I don’t want it in my game.

Pirhana.8935:

i think once they add the wvw rank / ability system next month it will be alot more fun and you will feel like your always building / improving your character. Hopefully they do it similar to DAOC’s realm rank system, that kept people building their characters for years. it also promoted better rewards for NOT zerging

I’m going to be cautiously optimistic about the skill system. As we’ve seen from Wow, giving players power progression as an incentive to play is a slippery slope. If the WvW abilities are separate from actual player power then I think it might add a much needed sandbox type progression and playstyle.

I think one of the things they could do to improve WvW outside of dangling power in front of players is to turn it into sort of a faction war. Let factions freely travel between maps, form alliances and so forth. Also, I personally think it would work in favor of WvW if they took away the score system and replaced it with something more meaningful and make the “matches” persistent battles. This way, players will get to choose their loyalties and how and when they’ll fight, and their playing won’t be dictaded by an arbitrary score system.

It probably won’t be “WvW” anymore if these changes occur, but it might be for the better. The whole server-wide match system doesn’t seem to be sustainable to me. If anything’s an indicator, PS2 is using nearly the same persistent PvP battlefield format and it’s also been dropping players left and right despite being f2p.

Sylosi.6503:

TwoBit.5903:

Guild Wars 2 is a game that requires viewers to understand the intricacies of the hidden profession traits and utilities chosen before the match even begins. Non-GW2 players watching a GW2 steam are not going to know that the Elemenalist who’s dodging in Earth Attunement into a lava font is actually stacking might because he’s happens to be carrying Evasive Arcana or that his Guardian friend is pounding aimlessly into the field to buff the team with more might stacks. The decisions behind those actions isn’t visible to these viewers. When you factor in the speed at which combat takes place, each fight is like the game is yelling a thick and foreign language at these viewer without first priming them; it can be incomprehensible and even disorienting.

Sorry, but your post makes no sense, if I put someone in front of SC2 who has never played they will be just as clueless about the decisions as they would for GW2, they don’t know why a player uses one type of unit against a certain type of unit of his opponent, they would need knowledge of the game, the decisions behind the actions of players in SC2 (or LoL) are no more visible to players than they are in GW2.

In fact I’d suggest GW2 as a match is easier to understand than a MOBA, the maps in GW2 are simpler, capture / hold the points, get points for the NPCs (the new viewer may miss that they also buff), compare that to LoL map for a new viewer who has no knowledge of the game, it is much more complicated, and even though they can see certain build aspects they will not understand them without knowledge of the game (e.g – they won’t understand the choice of composition of heros / bans before the gaems start, they will learn nothing from when the player spends gold, not they they will even see the choices much of the time as teh player will make those choices too fast).

But perhaps most importantly, your whole theory is predicated on a false premise, that games are watched by people with no interest or knowledge of the game, even the most popular “e-sport” LoL only gets figures equivalent to about 25% of its active userbase (and that is for finals, normal viewing figures for LoL are much less), when you factor in ex-players who may watch, how many of its viewers do you think have zero knowledge of the game, I’d suggest very, very few and most of those few will not be watching it as an “e-sport”, but merely to see if it is game they might try.

You seem misunderstand my post. The point isn’t that viewers would understand everything presented to them all the time. The point is that SC in all its complexity is able to presented itself as drama.

But ignoring that, decisions in SC (I never mentioned SCII, but this kind of applies as well) are still very easy to understand as the little intricacies of unit choice, build order and upgrades can be explained in no more than one sentence. It’s the same deal with MOBAs. The complexities like laning, fog of war, buffs, wards in maps are easy to understand when you’re watching the game because they’re intuitive. The intricacies are these games are no more difficult to understand than football. If anything both games, like football, have announcers and broadcasters that make it even easier to understand and usually more exciting. Guild Wars 2 has no such luxury.

It’s true that overall strategies in GW2 are indeed easy to understand because conquest is simple, but that’s not a strength. Because conquest is so simple there’s little room for interesting decisions. Most of the interesting decisions occur with profession matchups, but as I’ve previously mentioned combat in GW2 is very fast and complex. Because the build process and premises behind them are hidden from viewers, they’ll be less likely to understand the skills used during fights and therefore less likely to understand the reasoning behind strategy. These intricacies are not easy to explain nor are they always intuitive.

Assuming that people with no interest at all in the videogame is absurd. That’s why it’s not my premise of my statements. The premise was that eSports like SC and the Dota clones are exciting to watch and easy to understand. That helps to bring new viewers in and that’s intrinsically good for them because it makes them popular to watch and the promise of popularity brings in sponsorships, and so forth. And, as you said, this also helps bring in new players who want to try the game. Intrinsically good.

I haven’t been keeping track, but what’s the raw number of active LoL players? And how big is 25% of that? Seeing as how LoL is the most casual of the clones, 25% of the entire active player base being interested in watching high level play may not be unsurprising. Maybe the other 75% aren’t interested in high level play. Does this take into account the Korean base where the eSports scene is at its largest?

Cactus.2710:

Master of Timespace.2548:

This indeed. That guy knows what he is talking about. And you are right, WvW tries to be sandboxy but fails miserably due to several elementary design flaws, one of those being simply bad map design.

Hopefully the next patch brings some new life to this game young game that already feels older than it’s precursor.

Sorry, but the most exciting thing for WvW I’ve come to expect from any new patch is what new bug might have been introduced.

Seeing as how bugs actually open up interesting ways of playing, I guess you can call them features instead of bugs XD

To preface this thread, watch this video below. It’s 15 minutes long and a bit tangential, but the guy’s arguments are truly edifying.

Riveting stuff, especially the part about sandbox games. So if GW2’s PvP was to be an ESport, and the PvE a themepark, why not make WvW more of a sandbox? I say “more” because the many of the fundamental premises and mechanics all fit within the definition of sandbox as they all promote “emergent gameplay”…. or at least they try to, fail and as a result gameplay boils down large groups of players banging on doors.

After seeing this video, I can’t help but the think of the possibilities. What if players were not only able to fight over and capture territory, but to reshape that territory into something that would help them defend or be worth defending.

• Farms that supply rations to NPC defenders or even players.
• Player built defense towers and barricades.
• Resource competitions. (It’s called WvW, not AntagonisticWorldsThatLiketoShare.)
• Reshaping the map in general!

It’s no secret that WvW can get stale fast, and the community has suffered greatly because of it. Do you agree or disagree that the addition sandbox elements will help re-liven the WvW community by adding more “emergent gameplay?” Post your thoughts below.

Some vague suggestions that may or may not help

Since I’ve yet again gone out of my way to criticize GW2’s PvP, I may as well turn that criticism into something constructive.

1. Telegraphing and presentation are of the utmost importance in a sport. Poker was almost unwatchable until someone figured out a way to broadcast it that gave a bit of drama to each draw of from deck.
If the game is to include an observer mode, take into account things that would help the viewer better understand the match. Things like player statistics (attack, health, etc), weapons and utilities may be factors that the viewer should know. This will help ease the fact that most of the decision making is done through traits and utilities.

2. Get rid of needless complexity. Many of the traits and skills in the game have their own subset of rules, and thenthere are rules on top of those rules that to restrict them. Abilities like these are intrinsically difficult to telegraph and difficult to understand during the course of the fight. For instance the numerous Elementalist speed abilities should either be consolidated into one trait or be done away with altogether. They don’t even work with swiftness! Just remember to keep the traits simple but meaningful and logically intuitive.

4. Redesign your conquest mode to include deeper decisions (plural). The way matches play out is obviously not interesting enough to retain viewers much less the players themselves. Dividing members to stand on nodes and fight others is only one isolated decision, because combat is really only one decision. There should be some sort of build-up.

5. If your current MMO PvP/Conquest format isn’t working as a viewable sport, don’t force it to work. If you abandon it you’ll only be kitten off up to the few hundred people who are still playing it.

6. On that note, if you do abandon the format don’t follow a template with your new one. It may be tempting to copy games like StarCraft now that I’ve played them up, but don’t do it. If you copy and succeed, GW2 will be a clone. If you copy and fail, GW2 will be a derivative clone.

Greetings GW2 PvPers. It’s Sunday and I’m bored, so I’ve taken the liberty of writing another long rant, this time about the viewability of GW2 as an ESport. What better way to start off a long rant than with a long tangent?

A long tangent about complexity, Starcraft and Esports viewability

Before I go on, I should probably explain what I believe to be complexity in a videogame. Yes, this will be a tangent within a tangent. When I’m speaking about complexity I’m referring to the various factors and conditions that add up impact to gameplay. In an RPG much of this boils down to builds and statistics that create an effect; the complexities of dealing 10000 damage to an enemy exist not in the number itself, but in the conditions and statistics required for it. In the context of a viewed sport I believe it helps to look at these conditions in terms of a dramatic arc where each condition is a part of the rising action, and the payoff is the climax.

Veritable ESports games such as Starcraft and the DotA clones spoon-feed their viewers the build process from the beginning to the end of each match. It’s literally built into the game’s structure itself. In any Starcraft match, a Terran player starts off just as any other Terran player until they begin to make complex decisions that would result in a build. The same player could have completely different capabilities several minutes later into the game depending on series of decisions that occur throughout the match. In short it’s a dynamic and complex series of decisions and payoffs that build up from zero.

Much of the decision-making is actually balanced outside of the match in language and math that would likely give average people aneurysms, but Starcraft’s ability to telegraph the result of that complexity into a viewable build process is its greatest strength. It turns what would have otherwise been the game’s self-contained logic into drama that even newcomers could enjoy, while its complexity leaves room for emergent styles of play. I wouldn’t be doing the game justice if I said it was pretty darn amazing.

Because this tangent isn’t all that aimless, here’s how it relates to Guild Wars 2

If a match in Starcraft would encompass a complete dramatic arc, a match in Guild Wars 2 would spam from near the end of that arc, from somewhere right before the climax to the denouement, and then drag on somewhat. In other words, it doesn’t really start from zero and there are fewer decisions to be viewed. This is the irritating result of the MMO PvP format, where most of the decision-making happens backstage and the actual fight is mostly a matter of execution. I say mostly because maps often impose one or two mechanics that try to promote choice, but abusing those mechanics often become formulaic (Elementalist on Treb, anyone?).

Watching the execution of each build can be fun to players who are already invested in the game, but because much of the actual build process is hidden, viewership excludes everyone else. Guild Wars 2 is a game that requires viewers to understand the intricacies of the hidden profession traits and utilities chosen before the match even begins. Non-GW2 players watching a GW2 steam are not going to know that the Elemenalist who’s dodging in Earth Attunement into a lava font is actually stacking might because he’s happens to be carrying Evasive Arcana or that his Guardian friend is pounding aimlessly into the field to buff the team with more might stacks. The decisions behind those actions aren’t visible to these viewers. When you factor in the speed at which combat takes place, each fight is like the game is yelling a thick and foreign language at these viewer without first priming them; it can be incomprehensible and even disorienting.

Edit: Grammar and typos.

CureForLiving.5360:

TwoBit.5903:

GW2’s downfall is that it’s narrative is weak. The lore it’s built upon is rich and there’s little interesting tidbits of information strewn about, but the delivery is totally unstructured, almost schizophrenic.

As overall fun as the dynamic event system is I have to agree that the dynamic event system does fall short in being able to deliver a complex narrative, beyond A is attack B because A doesn’t like B alot.
However I don’t necessarily think that implementing classic quests is a must to convey narrative.

How about something like a vista but for lore, you go to the specific area or speak to a NPC and you get a few minute long audio / video giving you the history of an area or some insight into the locals. Alternatively mobs can drop lore related items, books/scrolls etc. that convey some plot and narrative. I know there was once a suggestion that GW2 could copy something Rift (I think, never played it) does for it’s area lore.

Furthermore some mechanism that are already in the game can be improved to convey narrative, for example NPC dialogue in town can be very useful in giving you some idea of what’s going on (presently the dialogue is nice but I feel under utilised). The personal story instead of heavily focussing on some giant looming threat can be more focused on a smaller more detailed scale and be used to flesh out the lore of the world. Mind you this might go against the “I’m the hero” mentality usually associated with RPG-single-player-stories.

Of course we still haven’t seen what ANet is going to do with the living stories yet, so hopefully it would be used to convey narrative while the dynamic events can remain as a fun gameplay mechanic.

I agree. Structure is what’s important for the delivery of information, and quests are only one tool that can help writers and developers structure the information they wish to convey.

You bring up a good point about loot. One of my main issues with the loot system is that mob drops don’t feel endogenous. When I kill a skelk I somehow have a high chance of getting a piece armor that the animal carrying around inexplicably. That piece of armor that I may get doesn’t teach me anything about the mob or the environment it’s living in.

NPC dialogue is definitely a narrative element that can use some work. It’s been brought a few times before that much of the dialogue is generic and I have to agree.
You get a few bits of information here and there that can be very evocative, but most everything else feels somewhat detached. The writing feels as though the NPC is reading about a character living in the world rather than speaking as one. It’s something I can’t really put my finger on. Perhaps it’s because there’s little to distinguish between each races’ dialect. There’s probably more to it than that.

Quests are effective because they’re informative- they’re tools that help to deliver the game’s narrative. GW2’s downfall is that it’s narrative is weak. The lore it’s built upon is rich and there’s little interesting tidbits of information strewn about, but the delivery is totally unstructured, almost schizophrenic.

No matter how much boogeyman the quest system, you can’t deny the potential of its effectiveness.

Jacobin.8509:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Really people shouldn’t use stream numbers as an indication of much. Its better people playing than watching the game. And there are technical issues with twitch which are effecting alot of the smaller unpartnered channels. Twitch seems to be struggling to cope with the massive demand from league stream/tournaments and this is making most of their other streams unwatchable for a large number of people.

Yes but many other games experience the same issues, but consistently have much higher viewership like Smite for instance.

As for the patch, adding a new map is pretty much a smokescreen for not adding competitive features or structural changes that people are asking for. It also makes little sense when they are currently locking the paids map.

Spvp could have 50 of the tired and played out conquest maps, it won’t bring in anybody for more than a few days.

Maps are probably the best way for GW2 devs to churn out content. I think it comes with their combat-focused PvP format. Since combat mechanics are so complex (I’d say needlessly so) it’s very easy to break the entire game with the addition of new weapons or professions. Game’s like Dota2, Lol, and Smite have simple yet deep strategic map mechanics. Their well-established hero archetypes provides a good format for adding in heroes as content to an already attractive game. The game’s engine probably makes it easier to do all of this as well.

As for structural changes, ANet said they wanted to funnel players in to a specific format. In my opinion, this is a mistake, PvP games rely on emergent content, and by that I mean that the players playing the game, setting their own standards and rules is the actual content. By giving players fewer tools use and less freedom, they reduce the amount of content.

Updated the thread.

SilverWF.4789:

SilverWF.4789:

Only upper (so, the last) field working for finishers.

Also with projectiles it’s the last field that a projectile moves through that dictates it’s combo ability.
Thus if 2 large area fields (light and water) are placed so that each rim touches the nucleus of the other, shooting a projectile through will take the combo ability of the last field it exits. (in this case then Regeneration)

Interesting, I never noticed, but I suppose it makes sense. It’s still an example of how haphazardly the current system is being handled. If say a Ranger wanted to stack regen with his water field but there was an ally’s lava font in the line of fire, the ranger’s strategy is effectively negated and replaced.

emikochan.8504:

Just a point, there is no priority list, it’s just the first field that works.

Was that recently changed? I play an elementalists and it seems that my fire fields always overwrite my ice fields regardless of the order I cast them.

Cast bars make combat messy in fast paced games. What we really need are more varied animations and ones that are better telegraphed for certain skills.

The Problem With Combos

MMO gamers have a tendency towards efficiency. It’s a result thge constant farming or repeated dungeon runs that takes place in these games. You often hear people in GW2 ask how they should build their character correctly rather than how they should play them in the most fun manner. It’s an interesting quirk that affects gameplay in various ways.

So how does this relate to the combo system? When a game like GW2 allows everyone to do everything with only cooldowns as a regulator, players are going to lean towards a front loaded playstyle. Furthermore, because GW2 offers skills that have great effect for little setup, gameplay devolves into skill spamming. This style of play has caused various issues with the combo system which, might I add, was advertised to promote smart team-based play.

These issues include, but are not limited to:

• Combos as a byproduct. Instead of carefully setting up combos with fellow players, combos are more often than not a byproduct of a spammy playstyle.

• Combos feel negligible. This is possibly a result of balancing professions that can perform their own combos or to accomodate a faster playstyle, but because they are so weak and spammy, their effects are simply noise to the sound of DPS.

• Combo Field Overlap. This is a natural result of spreading too many combo fields across too many weapon sets and the spammy playstyle. The game’s method of dealing with overlap is to punish players by negating fields on the bottom.

• Telegraphing issues. A result of many professions being able to carry and use combo fields at will and the game’s gratuitous usage of particle effects. Combos are difficult to execute because each fields require to initiate them progressively obscures the battlefield as they are spammed.

Suggested Changes
In order to address these issues I suggest redesigning the system from the perspective of combos fields; Moves that often have combo finisher effects already feel natural in their execution, so it will likely to the detriment of the game to alter them.

Rather than fields being a byproduct of certain AoE abilities, I suggest approaching them as a separate entity.

• Make their Usage More Deliberate.

There needs to be a removal of field effects from DPS skills. Instead make field abilities ones that shape how DPS is delivered.

• Give Fields persistent, Non-DPS effects.

If fields themselves are DPS, players will spam them. Instead field should an ancillary mechanic that affect the momentum of certain types of abilities. For example, lighting fields increase the movement speed of party members allowing them to kite, and thereby reducing the DPS momentum of enemy melee attacks. Careful and thoughtful implementation of field effects may open up very interesting ways to play.

• Reduce Field Distribution and Field Spam
  Limit the fields to specific weapon sets for each profession. This will create niches within professions, e.g. a Necromancer can be a Darkness “Fielder.”

Furthermore, restricting players to one field at a time will reduce the amount of screen clutter and force them into more thoughtful strategies than simple spam.

• Allow Fields to Combine

The current method of dealing with overlap is inelegant as it negates player contribution. I suggest that the game should instead allow fields to combine their effects. For example if allied players stacked fire on top of ice, the finishers that cross the field overlap will gain the effects of both fields.

Edit: Grammar and Formatting

I think it’d help to add another layer of character customization if players were able to infuse their current weapon with effects such particles, colored weapon trails, footfalls and the like. Given the game’s emphasis of cosmetics as progression, this would help add more incentive for players to keep playing the game.

Runiir.6425:

TwoBit.5903:

The speed at which players and enemies are killed affect the “fun” or engagement factor but it doesn’t make it. Better scaling is the first step in making is the first step, the next and probably most difficult one is revamping enemy encounters so that they’re actually interesting and “fun” to fight.

Case in point, GW1 instances were very well designed and scaled (technically power plateaus early on), so people naturally had “fun” running them continuously.

Speak for yourself, for every person who had “fun” there was another who thought it was nothing but a tedious grind and totally “un-fun”.

Increasing the challenge does not increase the fun. Case in point…the dungeoun changes. MANY new players to dungeouns are being kicked simply because people “can’t bother to explain a fight” and it takes too bloody long to get a downed person on their feet. If they wanted to stop the glass cannon builds than they could have made toughness have a marked improvement in damage reduction. When is the last time anyone has seen a full toughness build (every peice of gear had toughness as the top stat)?

Enemies in general need hp cut across the board. It is not fun sitting and having to dodge like crazy an enemy when they do not have to do the exact same thing to survive OUR attack. It would be far more enguaging and fun if npcs went down as fast as us (yes this includes champs) and instead had to rely ont heir own ability to dodge/mitigate damage pro-actively instead of just being walking hp sponges.

You’re confusing challenge with punishing difficulty. GW1 instances offered very fair challenges without being all too difficult; you just needed to figure out the comp and the rest is an execution challenge (doing things in a certain order given the situation). GW2 dungeons are punishing without actually giving players a fair challenges-instagibs, bosses that spam aoe, attacks that are untelegraphed and cheat their animations (seriously wtf on this), strict dps/hps checks, etc. I make an effort to steer friends away from the dungeon experience in this game because they’re that bad.

A good example of challenge in GW2 is fractals. Players are given a tasks they can accomplish reasonably given the abilities of their profession. It gets more punishing as you do more higher levels, but that actually adds to the fun since the challenges are fair.

As we’ve seen many, many times in the past it’s rarely beneficial for a game to take dictations from those removed from the creation of the medium (PR, merketing and their “demographics,” etc) with it’s artistic direction.

I sincerely hope someone of status within NCSoft or ANet is reading this thread and reconsidering the decision.

No one? I can’t be the only one that dislikes the it.

Solo queues would be amazing for the casual playerbase, but wouldn’t work because the game locks you into a profession before the match begins. If they did something along the lines of allowing players to change professions with their current character (no logging out) and add in build save templates, then it might work.

Good read.

I have a few things to add:

If they made an incredibly accessible and popular mode in 1v1, they should capitalize off their discovery, refine it and make it mainstream. There’s no use funneling players into the old paid tournament system. I really wish they would talk more about this.

If by “hand holding” I assume they’re going to look at making a better tutorial? The current one is so basic and doesn’t explain the intricacies of the game’s PvP. Think of how effective LoL’s tutorial would be if all it did was teach players how to press the four skill buttons.

I’m too lazy to link the quote but ANet has stated something along the lines of making AoE situational with regards to single target damage. Their concern is that players are using AoE for every situation, even when there’s only one target. Don’t quote me on this, btw.

I’m sure this has been brought up before, but because nothing has been done about it I’ll go ahead and reiterate the issues with the game’s HUD. The difference here is that I’ll argue it so well that you’ll have no choice but to stay up all night thinking about it. Get ready for a long, but compelling read.

The current HUD and why it’s bad
HUDs are generally used to relay information that otherwise couldn’t have been shown through the actions in game. For example the mini maps show the layout of the surrounding area that couldn’t be relayed through the player’s current perspective. Certain notifications placed around the player’s screen tell players the next step in their personal story quest, where dynamic events are taking place nearby, which heart quest have yet to be completed and so forth.

The game’s current HUD does this very well. In fact, it does this so well that it’s a detriment to the game’s aesthetics, most notably the aspect of exploration. Because one only need to rely on the notifications to complete maps and find events, they rely much less on the the actual happenings on the screen to gather information. With the layout, that currently allows no room for customization might I add, the information actively competes with on-screen events. If a player is looking for a nearby vista or POI, their eyes are drawn to look no further than the tiny bottom right portion of their HUD; there’s little to lead their eyes back to the beautifully crafted landscapes they try to highlight at all!

One of the worst things that stems from this is that it contributes to the check-list mentality, even for players who aren’t aiming for world completion. For players who aren’t interested in completing the map for their legendaries or the shiny icon on their map, the layout acts as an annoying entity plastered all over their screen. It constantly tells the players what they haven’t finished yet rather than remind them, and it doesn’t go away until they’ve completed what the game decides for them. This is blatant hand-holding. Worst is that it because map completion is per character, every character must suffer through the same thing every playthrough, and the deplorable thing that can happen to any game is for players to play simply for the sake of finishing what the game tells them to finish rather than them actually enjoying it.

Suggestion Time

In order to help alleviate the issue with the game’s HUD, I’m going to refer to a game that did it competently: Skyrim. Well, competently in only a few areas, but what it does do well with the HUD was that it complemented the experience rather than competed with it. It never shows information that wasn’t necessary (such as the health, stamina and magicka bars) and when it did show information the flow of attention is natural.

Nothing embodies the truimph’s of the game’s HUD more that its ingenious compass. Instead of an unwieldy and often-too-large mini-map, the players are given a compass with simple icons that lead them to points of interest. This compass is small and unobtrusive and it was positioned such that the player’s eyes would be led from the very top middle downwards, and this motion is very natural to the player. What would have made it even better is the option to turn it off, but alas.

Now I know what you’re thinking, but don’t you don’t have to put a compass in GW2 (although something as effective would be rad). Instead, follow Skyrim’s example. Make the HUD unobtrusive and make the flow of visual information intuitive. Hide whatever is unnecessary for the player to enjoy their current experience (or at least allow the players do it themselves) and allow for them to re-position information to their liking. Less is more and what little there is needs to be effective.

*Allow players to toggle them on and off the constant daily, personal story, heart quest, and dynamic event notifications. I suggest turning these off by default as well because they can hamper a new player’s experience. when they’re exploring

*The same can be said about the skillbar. The skillbar is only useful in combat, and even then, players have their keys and combo strings down to muscle memory after a while. An option to toggle the skillbar off outside of combat will free up screen clutter and help the players enjoy the scenery outside of combat.

*Allow players to toggle the mini-map and re-position it. The mini-map constantly draws attention away from the screen, even when it’s not useful. An option to adjust the map’s opacity will help to make it less obtrusive should the player keep it on.

*Icons (hearts, POIs, Vistas, etc) on the map need to stand out more. This is especially true for POIs which often blend into the map to the point where they’re invisible. On the same note, there should be an option to turn these icons off as well, because they can clutter the map once players are done with them.

The eSports scene is much larger in Europe. Something in the water, maybe? Extrapolating from that, it’s reasonable that the region with a larger pool or players would have more people willing to stick around.

Instead of ruing the facets of a certain culture, isn’t better to find ways to accommodate it? I’m sure teams of more successful game companies take the entirety of their audience into account and build around them. In my opinion, the type of mentality that creates threads like these and the derogatory sentiments within do little to help.

I agree. It’s not too common a problem for me, but when it happens I just want to toss my keyboard.

The best possible answer would be that players are playing for the “fun” of it. However, current infrastructural, design and balance issues prevent that from happening to a large portion of them.

When the game is bad, you blame the player, obv.

The speed at which players and enemies are killed affect the “fun” or engagement factor but it doesn’t make it. Better scaling is the first step in making is the first step, the next and probably most difficult one is revamping enemy encounters so that they’re actually interesting and “fun” to fight.

Case in point, GW1 instances were very well designed and scaled (technically power plateaus early on), so people naturally had “fun” running them continuously.

+1
Characterization and mystery is delivered through technique, not necessarily the lack thereof.

Chukree.1756:

Arheundel.6451:

At the moment you can run 5 ELES and beat everyone, warriors can’t even deal dmg to them, and not even close at stomping! – After discussing with people I’ve come the conclusion that, “IF YOU CAN RUN MORE THAN ONE OF THE SAME CLASS IN A GAME E.G. 3 ELES, it’s broken”.

5 Warriors team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsy1wmn1--U&feature=player_embedded

ROFL, yeah @Chukree “IF YOU CAN RUN MORE THAN ONE OF THE SAME CLASS IN A GAME E.G. 3 WARRIORS, it’s broken"…well said my friend

P.S Just another video showing how warriors are UP and useless in PvP, “3 of the same class in a game it’s broekn”…can’t stop laughing…even the developers must be laughing after reading this thread

I dont know what your point is? This is a complete kitten video with kitten warriors against a kitten team. Try let the 5 warriors fight a decent paid team.. You’re so pve’ish. vid of pugs fighting some lamers. You really know stuff about this game.

Not to mention, it’s zerging in the most extreme sense of the word.

Yep and it’s quite amazing how well it works in TF2, especially you consider the fact that it’s not an “achievement” at all.

Philosophically, you’re right it does go against the supposed principles of dailies. But players are prone to psychology moreso than philosophy, especially in videogames. There’s an interesting thing about extrinsic motivation in that it doesn’t always help players enjoy doing tasks more. They sure as hell do them because they want the reward, but having the checklist makes the task feel more burdensome and less intrinsically rewarding

Then there’s the fact that progress is plastered onto the screen with no way to toggle it off. Can you really say that the system is optional when the prizes are so desireable and game always tells you whether or not you’re done with it?

Furthermore, longer task lists that come from the revamped dailies makes gameplay more daunting to those with a small window to play each day. For these players, ANet could be clever with the system and reduce the requirements for the following days if they miss one of their dailies. For instance if I missed yesterday’s daily, today’s daily will be 20% easier to obtain, and if I miss that, tomorrow’s will be 40% easier.

Seera.5916:

So what would you change the dailies to?

Time logged in? So the people who sit and do nothing in LA get rewarded for it? The same as the player out and about in the world actually doing things?

I will be on here complaining the moment the dailies become “be logged in for x time” as the only measure. Because that’s not the purpose of the dailies. They dailies are meant to be little pushes to do things you might not otherwise do. To push the new players to try new things. To push old players who haven’t done a particular task in a while to do that task.

It’s not to reward players for simply being online.

Did you not read the entire suggestion? It’s to reward playing, but not through a a strict checklist. Afking is not playing, and I never implied that such mundane behavior should be rewarded.

+1
I can’t always be bothered to use VOIP, and I’m sure there are other players who can’t use them as well for whatever reason. I think something as simple as a macro for chat messages (that don’t appear in normal chat) would help as well.

Battle’s cd is 10 seconds, irrc, so you can get up to 9 stacks from the sigil alone if you have high boon duration.

As Lert says, battle with bloodlust stacks is the way to go.

vanRaamsdonk.8042:

ppl need to have directions else they dont know what to do, the daily is a good director too get ppl get back in the world again and it works! Since the new daily system the areas are much more populated again.

You’d think so, but I don’t think it’s as effective as that. On my server at least, areas have been more of less the same. Only a key few areas have more traffic than normal, and not by much either. Orr is more populated than ever, but I’m sure the majority will get bored of the content and move on once they receive their trinkets.

Welp, I’m a bit at a loss about reasoning behind the new dailies system. The requirements are a little more varied than they were before and I’m sure that was part of the intention, but the system comes with a nasty side-effect.

A a key symptom of something being afoul with the new system is that players are complaining about the system being more tedious than it was before rather than more interesting. I say this because I assume latter was the intent of the new system, and not the former. I believe that this is the result of an overemphasis of a task-driven system with overt and highly telegraphed tasks and reward.

When you have an obvious extrinsic motivator (laurels) with a set displayed tasks (randomization does nothing to help), the task itself becomes more mundane. This system has worked to detriment of games like New Super Mario brothers 3DS in which the coin collection and leaderboards actually made playing the game less interesting to play and more of a blatant task. In GW2, a game not built from the ground up on this type of playstyle, the task-driven mentality has negative effects on the actual play itself, and it takes the form of finding ways to taking advantage of game mechanics in order to get rewards faster. I’m no designer myself, much less an expert on the intricacies of subject but I have to ask one thing. Is players swarming to low level areas only to res spam NPCs the embodiment of GW2’s defined “fun”? I’m hoping the answer is “no” and that you’re looking for alternatives solutions.

So, ANet, my suggestion for you takes a few elements from TF2’s almost natural reward system, in which players are rewarded more often by logging in daily in random increments and timeframes with no set tasks; a system that respected the player’s capability of playing the game. I suggest reworking the system to something similar by allowing players daily progress for all tasks, but in diminishing increments. For instance players can finish their dailies by only killing a single type of enemy, but they can do it faster by killing mobs, harvesting nodes, crafting etc in less time than if they were to stick with one activity. You can even flip it around and call it a bonus for doing different things. Hide these tasks and randomize their contribution to the daily every day. This way players are encouraged to explore and do things they see in the world rather than those listed on their UI. Is it not the intention of the system for players to log in daily and explore the world?

Also, be mindful of players who aren’t driven by pure reward by not forcing the progress display on every player’s screen. And for these same players, don’t make the tasks unreasonably long, even with diminishing rates. As a casual gamer I’d say it’s better for players to log in the game in reasonable increments so as to avoid burn out.

I wouldn’t say that warriors are 50% less effective when snared, but everyone and their mothers has access to a combination of cripple, immobilize and chill. Cleansing often doesn’t help because of how spammable snares are in the meta game and even without being snared warriors are very easily kited and controlled by some of the more prominent classes.

Also build diversity don’t always help a game, especially when the game has questionable core mechanics. In fact I’d say that they only augment engaging games by adding variety. The strange quirk about ANet’s decision to make GW2 an MMO and an “eSport” is variety is imposed through personalization of character. Even though the metagame could do without warriors (eles and thieves fill whatever niche they could with one hand tied behind their backs), people want to play warriors because they identify with them. Instead of having a game based around bunker, roamer, point guard, you have a game that needs to accommodate all eight classes.

I agree with OP. The block function is often more than enough to deal with actual spammers.

If it were this easy they would have done it already. Incentives are only good at helping new players understand the game’s mechanisms through positive feedback and giving reason for those already engaged reason to come back. If the mode is not intrinsically engaging to players they won’t do it after receiving their reward. If the reward is too tempting and the gameplay mode is too unengaging certain players may even abuse systems in order to receive those rewards faster, and this often occurs to the detriment of others. Hotjoin is a prime example of this, and I’d also argue that the current dailies fall into this trap as well.

It’s a strange phenomena really, when emphasis is put on the extrinsic rewards the actual intrinsic motivation, motivation that comes with actually wanting to do the activity itself, goes down. Studies show that paying kids to get good grades in school actually causes them to do worse later on.

What I think ANet needs to do is to make sPvP more approachable so that new players can get a foothold (ladders and queues), make the game modes more engaging (current ones are barely watchable, because they’re so boring) in order to hook those players after the novelty wears off, and then focus on reward systems in order to maintain a steady population. Rewards are important but they should never be a premise for playing.

I’m using celestial but I’d prefer sapphire over soldier’s for the sustain. With might stacking, the difference in power between sapphire and soldier’s diminishes. The vitality difference shouldn’t be an issue if you play carefully.

The leap could be a tad faster, but it’s definitely better than the old version.

I believe the field is rounded down after the multiplier so it’s really 7 seconds rounded down from 7.8 as opposed to the original 6 seconds. You probably haven’t noticed the difference because there’s barely any at all!

FPS games draw a bigger crowd, so I’m not surprised by the initiative of both parties in forming a partnership.

@Genome
Glad you liked the read.

I often find taking away the player’s control to be the lowest common denominator of design, so I’m naturally biased against abilities that force it upon others. I’m aware of the functions of CC in GW2, but I think there are better ways to punish careless skill use and support team mates. Taking away someone’s controls is the worst way to do it, even if it means getting players to play a certain way.

As for animations, it’s a necessity. Uncertainty shouldn’t come from the game obscuring crucial information, especially if it’s often to the point of illegibility. It should come from players making good decisions, leveraging the abundance of possible strategies available. For that to happen, the game needs to be legible.

As for casual vs hardcore, that’s a bit off topic but I think it’s best to discuss it anyway since it’s an important tangent. The best thing this game can do is to cater to both casuals and hardcores. There’s often been a misinterpretation that catering to casuals means taking away something from the hardcore players, by making the game easier and dumbing it down. That is ridiculous and untrue. What a good competitive game must aim to do, especially if it’s going for an eSport status, is to make the game approachable. What I mean by this is that the game must be easy to pick up and the depth and complexity that come after must be intuitive. This is important because the casuals and other players who watch the competitive levell games need to be able to tell what’s going on at least on a very base level. This is why GW1, while catering to a hardcore fanbase, can never be an eSport. The level of complexity and depth at the competitive level is absolutely incomprehensible to new players, and it therefore alienates any potential audience.

I’m starting to rant so moving on.

Teamwork is a bit hard to define, but I’d say it comes from making decisions with the group, carrying out strategies and coordinating. The games’ systems certainly do give well-coordinated teams that crucial sense of comradery, but it does so in a way that’s uninteresting.

Also I’d argue that many of my points apply to all situations in PvP whether it be 1v1, 1v2 and so forth, and this is especially true for animations seeing as how the game becomes illegible at times.

@Chi Malady
I disagree. Targeting is fine and even necessary for certain skills. The fact that ANet uses it as a crutch for designing many of the skills is the problem, IMO.

Puff Pure.8631:

Looks good, you clearly put in lots of thought and there seems to be lots of synergy between spells, even if there is a lack of mobility which I really like about the dagger weapon sets.

Water fields with a torch seem a bit random though, what if it goes out? ^^

Because magic, that’s why!

And thanks to everyone who enjoyed reading through this.

Because I’m such a generous person here’s some advice to remedy this issue
Add in effects, such as blade trails, to differentiate moves and make them stand out. Take the the warrior’s GS autoattack and 100b for example. The autoattack uses animations that are very similar to 100b but slower. Some weapons blend into the background or into the user’s armor, further blurring the differences outside of speed. For a veteran player this may not be an problem but for inexperienced players, speed may not be a good indicator of the difference in power. My suggestion to remedy this issue is to give 100B a distinct and colored bladetrail. This may sound like an insignificant change, but this visual cue for the opponent by making the attack pop out indicating that it’s a significant ability. At the very least it would be better than not having it.

Additionally certain skills, notably CCs, need animations because they’re so important for setting up. Some of the animations for these moves are either too fast, too small or involve an arbitrary signet appearing above the head of a user that doesn’t at all indicate a target. When a player isn’t given a fair chance at dodging these moves because they can’t see them clearly enough, the moves become akin to cheese mechanisms. You’re helpless now and there’s little you could have done about it!

Problem 3 “Burst is bad” TwoBit rant edition
I don’t think I need to regurgitate the many complaints about burst classes in GW2, but I will explain a simple reason as to why they’re bad. They remove choice and momentum. Player on the defensive of burst must often act in a specific way using specific skills or die in several seconds. Burst users, on the other hand, must play a certain way to be useful, do nothing, or die in several seconds. Fights with burst often end in less than ten seconds. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if GW2 combat was a contender for “most interesting 10 seconds or less,” but the choices made available through the system keeps the game light-years away from that level.

Don’t Attack, Fast!

There’s no way to fix this outside of overhauling certain professions and their specs, but as ANet are most certainly doing that because they care about the health of your game and all, they should consider that PvP is a tale of player choices. It needs to have a certain pace, the choices that build up need to be interesting and there needs to be an ending. In the same vein, I suggest basing burst attacks around setups and skillful execution, making the combat less of a front-loaded face-roll. A setup ensures that both the burst user and the one on the defensive will be presented with a set of choices, and this helps to pace encounters and keep different and interesting. Skillful execution will help ensure that burst is not mundane aspect of the game, but something inspired and exciting even if it fails.

Problem 4: Bunker, yada yada yada

I won’t say much about bunkers, because they’re the same problem with burst but in full reverse. This isn’t a good thing by the way. Extreme bunker and healing is the elimination of the impact of player choice. It’s the promise that no matter what the opponent does, everything will be set back to a near-zero state. In the context of conquest it is setting the the fight back to zero while gaining incremental advantages, with the advantage going to the player who reaches the point first. If a bunker’s experience in GW2’s PvP was written out as a tale, it’d be summarized as “I got here first and some things happened but they didn’t really matter in the end.” How exciting!

Unlike bunkering the problem will not fix itself if things stay in one place.

But unfortunately bunkering is an endemic problem in conquest games that is as stubborn as the type of gameplay it promotes. I don’t see an easy fix, outside introducing new modes or reinventing conquest. But since ANet is most assuredly considering tweaking or redesigning some skills, I suggest replacing passive defenses associated with bunkers, such as regen, invuln, protection, with a form of execution-based damage mitigation. This would at least make defensive gameplay a projected choice to the player rather than a passive ability.

Guild Wars 2 is a game that prides itself in trying to be “different.” This has led to quite a few innovations, but it also a few things done halfway. Nothing embodies halfway more than the game’s combat system. The system is half-styled in the form of action game where control of one’s character is often held to a superlative degree, and half-inspired by MMO conventions where order of skill execution and setup abilities are most important. This in itself is not the reason for the game’s often inelegant combat system. It’s the fact that many MMO conventions the game adopts have not been adapted to be suitable for the pace of an action system, and this has led to a slew of problems. Get ready for a long read, sPvPers, as I present to you a select few problems and possible solutions to them

Problem 1 (out of several billion, and I’m only half joking): Stuns, Dazes and Immobilize rob the victim of too much control
This is also true for cripples and chills to a lesser extent.

Spontaneously taking away a player’s control may be common in MMO’s, but that kitten don’t fly in action-oriented games. This is because, unlike in MMOs, player’s have much control and a distinctly more immersive perspective in combat; they have a much greater degree of control and choice. Going from that to helpless is the big and disorienting change. Hell even conventional MMO player don’t like it happening to them.

In GW2 cc is commonplace and accepted as part of the meta, and part of that is because cleanses and stunbreakers are abundant. I however say that their availability coupled with the widespread availability of cc has made the problem worse than it should be. Because stuns, dazes immobilize are so powerful and readily available most non-GC professions will be pressured into picking utilities and skills that deal with them. This decreases build variety and boils down combat to a game of cc, anti-cc burst and bunkerfest. Even the idea itself is silly because it functions as a check rather than a choice. “Players must carry X ability in order to not lose control of their character and be helpless.”

So how can ANet fix this?
In any competitive multiplayer games, the best abilities are often designed from the perspective of the player the ability is used. What kinds of options does X ability have on the victim after it lands? How does it make the fight more interesting for them? If the answer falls somewhere along the lings “resort to one particular option or take a lot of damage” then something is wrong with the ability. And something is definitely wrong with this game’s usage of Stun/Daze/Immobilize.

My suggestion is to make the conditions themselves offer an interesting choice of options for the ones they’e used on. For stuns allow the player to move around and use skills normally, but make it so that they are completely stopped for a set amount of time after one skill usage. This allow the player an option to run away, set up defense or risk a high damage type of skill. Dazes on the other hand should stop cooldown timers, and not simply prevent usage of all skills. This will allow the inflicter of the daze to exploit openings in offense which can be exploited, but doesn’t make the victim helpless. I haven’t thought of an alternative for immobilize but I’m sure you guys get the idea.

To compensate for this change, there will of course need to be a reduced amount of stunbreakers and cleanses, and some tweaks to certain professions, increased duration to CC, etc.

Problem 2: Animations! Animations! Animations! Animations!

Animations! Distinct animations! Skills, especially powerful ones, need distinct animations. In action oriented games, the screen is the only thing that gives the player cues on what to do. When you have abilities that look almost the same, are too fast or small, or ones that blend into the environment it becomes needlessly confusing to the player. Players have complained time and time again at how combat is one big cluster-kitten in PvP, and that’s because of how sloppy the animations have been handled. A prime example is the thief’s Cloak and Dagger. Sure it has a long channel and is dodge-able, but how is the player (especially new ones) supposed to know to dodge it when the animation for it is so discrete that it’s obscured just because the camera angle is a bit off? If it’s such an important set-up move why does it look like an auto-attack but slower? How is the player supposed to process that this is a setup to a potentially dangerous move in a team fight where there’s so much going on? They simply can’t.

It’s unfortunate how the torch is such a unique and interesting weapon that’s underwhelming for all professions that can use it.