Guild Wars 2

No more 100+ blobs in WvW? I might actually play WvW now…

I posted about this on one of WP’s videos when he mentioned this issue. There are some pretty big problems with implementing this which the average gamer won’t realize.

You simply cannot stick the camera inside the character’s head and call it a day. You would only be able to see the inside of the head polygon, effectively blinding you to the game environment. To solve this you could turn the head invisible, but then you will run in to animation clipping issues. When the character swings a sword or waves a staff, the animation is designed to look pretty from 3rd person. It wasn’t animated to look good from 1st person. Arms, torso, and other objects will clip through the camera randomly.

The reason games like Skyrim work is because they animated everything twice essentially. There are a full set of animations for 3rd person, and there are a completely different set of animations for the arms in 1st person. When you go into 1st person in Skyrim, your 3rd person model is switched for a different version which has no head, torso, or legs. It’s just a pair of floating arms.

What does this mean for GW2? You are basically asking Anet to go back and create a whole new set of animations for every weapon, and every skill in the game, on every race, for the arms and legs in 1rst person mode. And you are asking Anet to design a system for swapping the 3rd person character model for the 1st person floating arms/legs version.

This isn’t as easy as ticking a couple check boxes in Maya. It’s possible to implement, just not easy or cost-effective. It requires a hell of a lot more work from multiple departments. Easy way out? Just turn the whole body invisible, which is what we got.

No offense or anything, I just wanted to point out how some animators and game designers cringe when people say there was a “missed opportunity” here or that this update was disappointing. Some things are just out of scope and would cost too much time and resources. If GW2 had been designed from the beginning for this feature, it would be a different story. You are trying to put wheels on a car that don’t really fit the frame.

No profession is the best at everything. It all depends on what content you are talking about. In general, necromancers are the least useful for open world PvE and dungeons. However they kick kitten in pvp. That’s not to say necromancers can’t clear dungeons. Saying they are worse than anyone is like saying a 5/16th wrench is worse than a 3/8th wrench.

A kanabo would be pretty cool.

I wish they would take more inspiration from the Souls series for armor and weapons.

• I’m 25.
• I’m a 3D animation student.
• Currently working on a 3D film about an alien hillbilly farmer who grows sunflowers on the sun. Due spring 2016.
• I love to go fishing and hiking (though I rarely get the opportunity).
• I live in Florida, but I’ve been out west many times to all the big national parks. I love mountains.
• I love science fiction.
• Despite how I may sound on the forums, I’m actually a very quiet and nice person in real life.
• Hope to one day have a job in the game industry.

I think chill will lower the number of > pips by 66%. At least that’s what it should do…

Ralanost.8913:

Fixate would probably be a more appropriate and less confusing word to call it.

Now that I think about it, I agree Fixate would be a better name for the effect. However, I think “Taunt” would be the best name for a skill which causes the effect; most likely a warrior shout.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Xenon.4537:

I don’t know why you would have thought the release would be spring/summer when all the evidence points to fall. The biggest piece of evidence is the earnings report saying they expect massive income in Q3 2015.

Like in 2013 and 2014 from the same company outside of ncsoft that are nothing else but a speculations huh?

If they wanted to release expansion so late we would be preparing for ls s3 already.

None of us have any idea how far along the expansion is in development. Don’t you think if they were releasing it in spring they would have announced the exact date by now? Besides, you saw how unfinished the Revenant was. And they haven’t showed us anything more than the 1 tiny section of the new map where the snipers hang out on the hill. It’s pretty obvious we have many long months of waiting ahead of us.

@Nike

Well even the ones you listed were at least useable by more than 1 profession. Maybe not every single profession, but more than just the one they are named for. My point was that if the Rev rune is based on Legend swapping, then absolutely no other profession could use it, which is unprecedented so far.

Argon.1563:

Theres a big tooltip telling you what Taunt is if you hover over it. I doubt people can get confused considering its wrote across their screen. All they have to do is use their eyes if they’re confused.

Nope. First of all people don’t read tooltips before complaining. This has been going on since the dawn of time.

Secondly, a lot of these people came from WoW or XYZ mmo where they have a threat system for aggro, and taunt means something specific to those games. GW2 comes along and adds something called “taunt” even though it’s not exactly the same, and people freak out. That’s just how misconceptions work. All we can do is keep explaining to them how GW2 is not WoW or XYZ mmo.

I don’t know why you would have thought the release would be spring/summer when all the evidence points to fall. The biggest piece of evidence is the earnings report saying they expect massive income in Q3 2015.

This is one of the reasons why I think certain elements of the expansion will bleed over into the base game. They can’t gate every nit picking thing behind the pay wall. It would screw with the balance of the game as a whole.

Bunmaster.9734:

Oink – invul tank http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Oink

Glorious!

Test.8734:

Xenon.4537:

I’m gonna laugh because there will be yet another profession that’s better at conditions than the supposed “master of conditions.”

If it makes you feel any better, the condition-based Revenants will likely be as useless in PvE as the necromancers.

True that, but I still hold hope that one day they will do something about that condi cap and maybe add more enemies that are vulnerable to condi. And on that day Revs and Engies will be out-dpsing Necros. :P

MaXi.3642:

—> Xenon
you don’t understand what I mean… they have their own game engine and programming IN game engine and programming game engine are two different things… you just used some tools from engine, but when engine don’t support something, you have no chance to do it until you implement it into the engine… that’s why they called it new tech, because engine didn’t support that kind of skill before, it’s not meant to be new invention, just GW2 engine update

Ok I get what you mean now and that makes sense. It’s still a bit like calling a “trunk” new technology on the next car they invent, just because they had to build and design a trunk for that car. Again, it’s not new to gaming (or even programming), just new to GW2.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Secondly, while I get Xenon’s point to add hobo packs and attunements towards shapeshifting, I do not agree with this point of view. Though I agree that the mechanic for possible druid shapeshifting must differ from what we got in game right now to a certain degree.

I was only saying that mechanically they are similar. I wasn’t saying the hobosacks are shapeshifting. They replace your 1-5 skills and are readily available for swapping. That is essentially what people want from shapeshifting aside from the cosmetic effect of changing their avatar into a wolf or bear.

All I really want is for people to brainstorm some useful ideas about the mechanics, because at the end of the day that is what Anet can use in their design process. Changing cosmetically into an animal is easy and actually has little to do with designing a profession specialization. So if they really want a shapeshifter, they need to talk mechanics. That is what Anet will be looking for in a discussion like this.

MaXi.3642:

Xenon.4537:

I love how he calls it “new tech” when all they did was find a way to bind the wall to the player controller (avatar). I mean I’m sure it took some doing, but its not like they split the atom or anything.

you don’t know anything about their game engine so you shouldn’t judge new tech, it could be more work in the engine than it looks like… and I think you don’t know much about programming when you compare it to splitting the atom to trivialize their work…

Um actually I do have a little experience making games in a game engine. It’s not brain surgery. It’s object oriented programming. They figured out how to parent the wall effect to the avatar so that it moves along with the avatar. It’s not exactly new in gaming, just new to GW2.

Pretty Pixie.8603:

If you reread the blogpost and interviews out there, Roy says that ‘new tech’ allows these powers.

On the upside, this means that it’s likely the specialisations will have them.

I love how he calls it “new tech” when all they did was find a way to bind the wall to the player controller (avatar). I mean I’m sure it took some doing, but its not like they split the atom or anything.

Tom Gore.4035:

Lol at all the people thinking you can use Taunt often and that it’s a long effect.

It’s a CC effect and as such, will have a relatively long CD and a relatively short duration. Just like all the other CC effects in the game.

If it would be spammable with long duration it would just break the whole game, period.

Wake up.

Someone thinking clearly on the internet? gasp

Oh. Mah. Uh-Gawd…

+1 Internets for this man!
+1 Quaggans
+1 Miniature Giant Wooden Dolyak in the gemstore for “only” 800 gems

I really want to see the mesmer spec because that’s my main, and the evidence is hinting at chronomancer which sounds super cool.

The thing is even with profession runes, the 6th ability is still at least remotely useable by any profession. Having it grant boons when swapping legends breaks this rule, because no one else has legends.

@tyler

Dude you have no idea how weird it is for me to read “Xenon is right” in a sentence. Usually the internet gets fussy when I say something logical.

Anyway I tried to come up with another idea. I feel like any attempt to make shapeshifting use quick swapping is going to feel too much like engineer or elementalist. For example if you have 3-4 different forms readily available, lets say wolf, bear, tree, and bird. Lets say you can swap to any of them at any time, and it puts the previous one on cooldown. Well that’s exactly like elementalist. If you remove the cooldown, its exactly like engineer.

I’m thinking what if we made the shapeshift into a more permanent effect. This is going to sound a lot like the current Norn skills, but hang with me for a sec. Make the Druid forms be elite skills. You have to chose which one you want before battle, and the skill will change your avatar and weapon skills for a long period of time (say 2 minutes). You could cancel the form any time, but it would have a 3 minute cooldown regardless. While in the form you have your pet control skills replaced with some sort of burst ability. so you lose some control of your pet while transformed, but you gain increased stats, different attack skills, and some burst skills. The idea is to make the shapeshifter a major threat on the battlefield. He’s like a warrior or guardian getting in your face and messing you up. The catch is you have some longer downtime between shapeshifting.

Just an idea. I still like Kaiyanwan’s idea about shapeshifting into the type of animal your current pet is.

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Drama queen…

Taunt as they describe it is no different from Fear, other than the direction it makes you run.

Potato Slayer.3107:

Was this a dissertation for an internship at Anet?

If I were Anet I would not hire this guy. He thinks he can objectively demonstrate flaws in a class that has not even been publicly demo’d yet, using bits of superficial information that was only intended to give players a rough idea of what the class is like. Furthermore he thinks he can do better than Anet by reconstructing the class into something he asserts is better, but which really is just a monument to his personal opinion.

How about we wait till we get the chance to play the Revenant before criticizing its mechanics? I mean personally the class looks a bit convoluted to me, but I’m not going to demand they completely redesign it based on two pictures of the skill bar. Besides, “Visionary” is a dumb name for a class.

Tman.6349:

What I would really like to see is fore the Chronomancer to be able to caste Quickness on enemies. Strategic use of this in combination with the use of Slow would have some epic, outside the box control potential for PvP and could, at the same time, solve the uselessness of Confusion in PvE. Not to mention the sweetness of their applications of Torment if they also get access to Taunt. This would be more similar-ish to Mesmer’s combat control in GW1 without shoehorning anything that goes against GW2’s design for them, ie. getting rid of Illusions. Although, that could still happen, but something major would have to take their place for survival. I don’t see spamming interrupts, Shutdown style, as a path that the Devs would want to get tangled up in.

Reminds me of how SABway necros worked in GW1, which I like. In GW1 hard mode monsters attacked 33%-50% faster. On top of that you could use Reckless Haste to boost that a further 25%. This would allow things like Spiteful Spirit to trigger much more often, making enemies kill themselves up to 75% faster. It would go a long way toward making confusion/retal builds worth something.

I want Verata and Kuunavang.

Isgarren would be pretty mindblowing too.

I’m gonna laugh because there will be yet another profession that’s better at conditions than the supposed “master of conditions.”

Soon™

fifteenquaggans

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Taunts don’t last long in WoW either. From what I remember they last only 1 second in WoW.

Is the duration and name of the effect really having people tripping this much? Lol.

You are forgetting the fact taunts in WoW also affect agro. If you like WoW so darn much, why don’t you play it?

If you hate WoW so much, why don’t you quit MMOs altogether?

That doesn’t even make sense yo.

If you are a spaceship, then why do you like pineapple?

BrunoBRS.5178:

Torsailr.8456:

I’m probably in the minority here, but I’m kinda hoping the specialization will put more emphasis on mantras instead of phantasms/clones.

not necessarily mantras, but i want more emphasis on shutdown mesmer play. more emphasis on manipulating the enemy and less on creating butterfly explosions. in fact, if they somehow scrapped illusions entirely (really doubt it), i’d love them forever.

I’m totally on board with this sentiment. I want a mesmer that deals in sabotaging and punishing enemies and controlling the flow of combat. The purple butterfly explosions were fun for a while but I’m bored now.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Dondagora.9645:

Here’s a completely out-of-the-world hope: a Chronomancer skill that can freeze time without interrupting anything. Like, for a brief second, we can pause the game in a certain around of effect. This could be an elite or our F4 mechanic, but I’m thinking if done in a small AoE of, lets say, 240 Radius around the mesmer it could work in a really cool way.

Another idea is a “Rewind” ability where you fear an enemy, then taunt them a second after, making them run back and forth.

if they could pause the game like that, we wouldn’t have such problems with DC’s in PvP :P

I think he was talking about stopping people from being able to move or do anything while inside it, but the rest of the game world would be unaffected. That is basically just the stun effect which is already in game. The only thing is I think it would be hard or impossible to get out of the aoe even with stunbreakers (unless the stunbreaker moves you like Blink) because you would be immediately stunned again from the aoe. Stability would work too.

I like the idea of rewind, but I would do it differently. I would make it an elite skill that does something like absorb everything for 5 seconds, then for 5 seconds reverse everything. For example if you had 3 people shooting arrows at you, you take the damage for 5 seconds while taking their arrows. Then (if you are still alive) you heal the damage you took and send the arrows back to the source. This would work for any projectile, and potentially any melee attack so long as you remain in melee range during the effect.

The stop time idea sounds like an aoe stun which would be pretty OP. You could treat it like the guardian Sanctuary spell (long cooldown, small aoe) and it could be countered by stability at least. I like it, but I think a lot of people would cry about it lol.

Chrury.4627:

Well wait…if the Legends change every skill on the right side of the bar, will you even be able to slot racial skills? or Antitoxin Spray?

I’m probably confused but it read to me like you could only swap Legends.

On the picture of the UI bar for the Rev you can clearly see the little arrows to choose utility skill slots.

Edit: By the way I dunno if anyone noticed, but the first skill bar screen shot shows him in the Great Dwarf stance and the 3 utility skills are still in the process of swapping. What I mean is the icons are doing that vertical flip-flop thing. The #8 slot is particularly flat and you can’t see what the icon is.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Xenon.4537:

Nike.2631:

I’m kinda betting the existing Elite skill with be gaining Slow.

I’m hoping it doesn’t because I think it would be too OP in pvp. I mean… I’ll be right there next to you casting it in pvp if it happens, but I won’t bet on it beforehand. Besides, the specializations are supposed to change things and make you give up certain mechanics in favor of new ones. It’s not just a straight upgrade.

Maybe, but if not the Mesmer then who? I doubt Revenant will be the only class with Slow.

That was my whole point in making this thread lol. I’m saying I think the mesmer (chronomancer spec) will get “slow” by having their Time Warp swapped out for the opposite effect. I was just arguing that I doubt they will simply duct-tape it onto the existing Time Warp.

Lampshade.7569:

Not just slow, but resistance and taunt as well sound quite horrible for PvE.

-1, do not want.

How will resistance and taunt do anything but help pve?

Resistance:

Oh you mean I will actually have to pull out my boon strip skill and use it intelligently? Oh noes!

Taunt:

You mean I can try to rescue a vulnerable party member from getting squashed, or pull something to a safer spot to fight it? Oh noes!

Knighthonor.4061:

Xenon.4537:

Honestly all I see is a bunch of emotional wishes based on feelings of becoming a wolf or bear, or even a tree. No solid ideas on mechanics besides Kaiyanwan’s which I already responded to. There’s no reason for Anet to reskin the Elementalist and call it a Druid. That would be the most disappointing way to go about it. I’m all for adding a shapeshifting Druid, but it should be unique somehow.

And just because you think there will be 3-4 specs a year from now is no excuse not to at least try to make a profession mechanic interesting instead of copy/paste.

Only class that uses shape shifting in any major way is Necro.

People keep talking about Norns, but Norns are a race not a class.

What do Norn forms and Necro death shroud have in common? They change your avatar (which is purely a cosmetic effect) and change your 1-5 skills (which is the mechanics I’m talking about). What else does this? Elementalist attunements and conjure weapons. Also Engineer kits. Mechanically all of these things are the same in that they switch your 1-5 skill.

Lets set Norn forms aside because, as you said, they are racial skills. Lets look at the proposed Druid shapeshifting (not Kaiyanwan’s, but the very undefined, loose descriptions others have given).

You get the ability to become a bear, or a wolf, or a tree, or something. You get skills based on those creatures… somehow… I can only assume they mean the 1-5 skill slots. There is little mention of how conveniently you can swap forms. Can you swap in and out of bear form instantly like an Engie kit? Or is there a short cooldown like Elementalist attunement or Death Shroud? What sets it apart from any of these things which would make it worth the time to develop as a distinct specialization?

To illustrate what I mean by different, I direct your attention to the difference between Elementalist Attunements, Necromancer Death Shroud, and Engineer kits.

Attunements:

• short cooldown sets it apart from Engie kits
• availability of 4 Attunements sets it apart from Death Shroud

Death Shroud:

• short cooldown sets it apart from Kits
• extra health bar sets it apart from both Attunements and Kits
• locks you out of healing and using utility skills

Kits:

• no cooldown sets them apart from Attunements and Death Shroud
• uses utility skill slots, not F1-F4 sets it apart from the others

evilunderling.9265:

For reference, ‘Provoke’ is one of several things MMOs call their force-taunts whenever they don’t want to call them force-taunts. As I already said, the closest thing to a proper term for this class of effect in generic MMO jargon is ‘seduce’.

Xenon.4537:

There’s no reason to assume Taunt is just a stun until proven otherwise.

Taunt is already in the game and is not a condition.

Very interesting. I stand corrected. Here is my badge and gun. I shall go sit in the corner now.

Knighthonor.4061:

Xenon.4537:

The way they describe taunt it sounds like inverse fear. It’s not going to reset the aggro of a mob per se. It will probably last no more than 3-5 seconds with max condi duration and the mob can immediately turn it’s attention on another player once its over. Not to mention defiant will put a hindrance on it.

Threads like this are just a knee jerk reaction I suppose it so be expected.

Read the description people

Taunt will be used to both reposition foes and change your foes’ targets

So it also effects who the enemy will target. Not just a pull.

It changes their target while under the effects of Taunt. Says nothing about the mob’s behavior once it wears off. Do you continue running away from Necromancers when their Fear wears off on you?

Nike.2631:

Oh, I’m not saying the duration or the cooldown won’t change to offset the gain, I’m just saying it’ll be there.

Meh… I’m not feelin it. Adjusting the cooldown won’t make that much of a difference in pvp where it would matter, and lowering the duration would really suck in pve. Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if they will do anything fun with Moa Morph. :O

By the way, is Time Warp the only thing people care about? What about Fast Casting and replacing illusions? :C

Honestly all I see is a bunch of emotional wishes based on feelings of becoming a wolf or bear, or even a tree. No solid ideas on mechanics besides Kaiyanwan’s which I already responded to. There’s no reason for Anet to reskin the Elementalist and call it a Druid. That would be the most disappointing way to go about it. I’m all for adding a shapeshifting Druid, but it should be unique somehow.

And just because you think there will be 3-4 specs a year from now is no excuse not to at least try to make a profession mechanic interesting instead of copy/paste.

Nike.2631:

I’m kinda betting the existing Elite skill with be gaining Slow.

I’m hoping it doesn’t because I think it would be too OP in pvp. I mean… I’ll be right there next to you casting it in pvp if it happens, but I won’t bet on it beforehand. Besides, the specializations are supposed to change things and make you give up certain mechanics in favor of new ones. It’s not just a straight upgrade.

The upkeep system sounds a lot like the Wrath system for the Diablo 3 Crusader. It’s almost like traditional mana. I kind of miss having mana resource systems in GW2. Hopefully it won’t be too complicated though. The UI bar for the Rev looks kind of cluttered to me, and the way the skills works sounds convoluted. I’ll just be that one lunatic that isn’t obsessed with the new class…

BrunoBRS.5178:

Xenon.4537:

The way they describe taunt it sounds like inverse fear. It’s not going to reset the aggro of a mob per se. It will probably last no more than 3-5 seconds with max condi duration and the mob can immediately turn it’s attention on another player once its over. Not to mention defiant will put a hindrance on it.

Threads like this are just a knee jerk reaction I suppose it so be expected.

it’s a stun, not a condition. Roy confirmed on twitter that it’s basically a backwards fear, so the duration would be 3s tops, and since it’s a stun, you can break it with stun breaks, or outright ignore it if you have stability (or if you’re a champion mob with defiant stacks)

Fear is both a stun and a condition. Additionally, Fear is affected by condi duration, not stun duration. It’s basically a condition that can be stunbroken. There’s no reason to assume Taunt is just a stun until proven otherwise. I was just speculating based on what I read. And I never said you couldn’t stunbreak it. I basically said exactly what you “corrected” me saying lol. Taunt sounds like the same exact thing as fear, including it being a condition, including it being stunbreakable. The only difference is which direction your avatar runs.

Test.8734:

The GW1 time warp made you and your allies act faster, with your enemies acting slower. The new time bla bla could do the same – not only quickness, but quickness and slow.

There was Time Warp in GW1?

I just wanted to speculate on the Mesmer’s specialization given the news about the new condition “Slow.”

I’m gonna call it right now. New mesmer/chronomancer elite skill:

Time Dilation – Create an area that dilates time, slowing enemies.
Range 1200
Radius 360
Pulses 11
Duration 10
Combo Field Ethereal (sadface, but you know it’s true)
Number of Targets 5

This replaces Time Warp. Phantasms and illusions will get replaced by skills which slow enemies and grant quickness to allies. The shatter mechanic will get replaced with some kind of Fast Casting system like the original GW1 mesmer. Fast Casting will allow the chronomancer to build up speed, meaning the longer the fight goes on, the faster and stronger the chronomancer gets (to a point).

That’s my theory anyway. What do you guys think?

This condition does sound counterintuitive given the problems with retaliation and confusion being so worthless in pve. I hope Anet has a plan to address this. Slow sounds like inverse quickness, which makes me think it will have similar restrictions on cooldown and duration. I can’t imagine being able to keep it up for very long.

The way they describe taunt it sounds like inverse fear. It’s not going to reset the aggro of a mob per se. It will probably last no more than 3-5 seconds with max condi duration and the mob can immediately turn it’s attention on another player once its over. Not to mention defiant will put a hindrance on it.

Threads like this are just a knee jerk reaction I suppose it so be expected.

Dante.1763:

Xenon.4537:

This has nothing to do with the community. It’s about the story. News flash! Drama helps sell a good story and get people emotionally invested. I daresay threads like this are evidence that it’s working.

Precisely this, But the idea of an internment camp is a bad one, as it isnt that, it should be “LA becomes place to hold corrupted Sylvari” would probably have been a better, and less provocative title. ’LA becomes Sylvari Internment camp" conjures up images of the holocaust where EVERY Sylvari, regardless of if they are corrupted or not are sent to it, and are tortured and killed there.

I doubt they will make it that dark, but I’m willing to bet there will at least be some prejudice in the story. I mean Rytlock in the trailer clearly says “You can’t trust Sylvari.” And we immediately see people attacking Canach as he says “We are not your enemy!” Clearly there will be some racial conflict. That doesn’t mean Anet is supporting racism, it just means the story will use racism as a plot device to conjure up more drama which is perfectly fine. Some of the best movies involve the issue of racism. The point of the story is to illustrate just how bad racism is, and glorify those who fight against it.

By the way, the whole point of a good story is to provoke a reaction from the audience. Yet you are saying they should have used something less provocative? That’s counter-intuitive.