Guild Wars 2

Rhaps.8540:

kineticdamage.6279:

I’m pretty astonished by the amount of knee-jerk reactions right here … and by the amount of people who mock the OP without having even read it entirely. [Snip]

I’m sorry but in their defense it was very unclear what you were getting at. I figured English wasn’t your mother-tongue but I don’t think others did because you have a very good vocabulary. Next time try to be a bit less florid and verbose and just focus on getting your point across as succinctly as possible. Also a TLDR should really summarise your main points which “please MMO industry, stop forgetting your nerds.” doesn’t do in any way shape or form.

As for the message however, I agree wholeheartedly. There needs to be more depth to the game in term’s of character variety/development. Hopefully the first quarter updates will unlock more potential across the classes with new viable builds and refined combat mechanics but we will really just have to wait and see.

I understand about the OP I changed it and clarified it.
About waiting and seeing … Yes, that’s what we should always do. But what gives us the confirmation that it will be worth the wait ? That layers will added ? Normally, that kind of confirmation can be found in dev blogs, just like the ones ANet shared with us during development. But right now … I don’t see one anymore :/

Erasculio.2914

The irony is that the reason why some people think this game is too simple is their own ignorance about how the game works. Requests to bring the game back to a more simplistic “tank/DPS/healer”

1) You should not assume that “people who find it too simple just want the trinity back”.
I for one don’t want the trinity back. I just want the actual GW2 mechanics, but with 3x more choices and spell intrications. It’s not because the only other form of complexity you know is the Trinity that people asking for changes are automatically asking for that form. Please widen your view.

2) You should not assume that “people who find it too simple didn’t grasp all the subtelties yet”. Sorry, I was one of the guys copy pasting short tutorials about class cross combos at the start of each instance, only 1 week after release. One month after release, I had that whole Sunday where I didn’t die a single time in 4 hours straight in sPvP.
I’m not telling I’m an ace, but only to prove that some people asking for more complexity may really have “grasped all the subtelties”. I’m sorry if you feel offended by the fact that what you find super complex I find it easy to understand, but I won’t lie either. The game is as complex as a beat ’em all, that is all. (which is nice, but not enough for some players)

Erasculio.2914:

Players from classic MMOs who don’t want to understand anything more complex than “tank/DPS/healer” settings don’t know how the combat system in GW2 works, so they keep pointing flaws that do not exist.

I could do it backwards :

Players from arcade games who don’t want to understand anything more complex than “push button A now !” settings don’t know how a proper combat complexity works, so they keep being happy with 4-5 skills.

I’m sorry if some are not understanding how we could feel this game is too much arcadish and not enough complex, but no offense : we already played beat ‘em up before. There’s nothing new in this “complexity” you’re talking about.

@Gehenna : Spot on about what I feel too.
I didn’t touch GW2 for 3 monthes, waiting for a glimpse of a hint about some complexity being added in mechanics. Still waiting …. :/
Man I love this game’s world, graphics, ambience, animations, music… and even the core mechanics (boons/conditions are clever). So being left with so few choices, it’s really frusrating.

Ok, some new notes in the blog about balancing and making some builds more viable.
But I just wish there would be something more in future patchnotes than :

Skill #3 does now 30% more damage

I’m pretty astonished by the amount of knee-jerk reactions right here … and by the amount of people who mock the OP without having even read it entirely.

Thanks to the few people that took the time to read, understand, and relate.

To others …

Sithaco.4673:

I read that entire thing and didn’t understand what you were complaining about, is it that you want more skills?

The answer is in the OP, at the end :

kineticdamage.6279:

It just needs way more layers of choices.

FateZero.8536:

Nope, OP wants GW2 to be like all other MMO. Clearly, he didn’t learn about the game he was buying and he couldn’t get used to GW2 because he spent 10 years+ playing other MMO.

Failed assumption.
Here is what should have prevented you from assuming such a thing :

kineticdamage.6279:

The gamedesign team did a fantastic job with the core combat mechanics, as they are clean, simple, and promising. They’re not a mess like other WoW clones.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Maybe it’s because, and this is just my guess, nobody wants to read through lots of text which starts with complaining and their relationship to other games. Specifically when it goes on and on trying to compare this game to others. This game is not other games.

Failed comprehension.
An experience, a feeling, is not tied to a specific game. You can feel the same adrenalin before starting a fight in two totally different games.

HighCAT.5924:

Was that a poem?

Sort of :p
More like an attempt to talk to mmo veterans global experience about what they wishnext gen mmos would bring to the combat mechanics table.

Ok, sorry, English is not my mother tongue, so maybe I sucked at being clear enough.
I juiced up the OP a bit.

But to resume, Blissified got it perfectly :

Blissified.8369:

Some people have horrible reading comprehension, man it happend on my (now deleted ) thread, i posted a lengthy thread opener, NOT ONE out of the 8 first posters read my post and only read the thread title / first sentencess.

i used paragraphs.

The o.p wants new gameplay mechanics added and more viable skills and i think he would want different / more weapons with different skills plus different skills for the same weapons.

That’s exactly the point. With the latest blog, I feel that as usual, yet another mmo will focus on the dreaded [Gear, Bosses, and Currency Exchange] trinity.

I’ve yet to see a mmo that would spend huge chunks of production into expanding gameplay mechanics, once it’s released. The most mechanics addition we could get would be maybe 5-10% more, per year.
In a word : once you chose a class, you’re bound to the same interaction for litterally years.

Why am I expressing this here ? Because Guild Wars 2 has in my opinion the best core mechanics of all mmos. And cherry on the cake : the most flexible ones. There’s just a sour taste of “not enough”. And judging all the communication since 6 monthes, it seems like the evolution efforts are put anywhere but in this domain.

Before release, there were tons of excellent blogs about how they wanted to design new combat mechanics. They even gave us a full wiki with all technical details about each spell effect and intrications. This was just a hardcore mmo gamer’s paradise. The dream of the min-maxer. I have to admit this was 90% of what hyped me for this game. Some data to chunk, to milk. Some strategies to plan, to theorycraft, multiplied by 8 classes …

But now, since release ? Complete silence. Left with the class tricks we already mastered 4 monthes ago, and apparently for 6 more additional monthes.

In the latest blog about what Guild Wars 2 is planning to offer in 2013, I felt sad.
Because as usual when a mmorpg starts to settle, it settles on gear, dungeons and currency exchange.

And as usual, it loses focus on expanding what makes the definition of a game :
the gameplay, the interaction.

I’m sorry, but watching my new shiny sword is not interaction.
Watching a cutscene is not interaction.
Watching a boss AOE’ing a zone that a party already avoided is not interaction.
Clicking on “Buy Material, Build sword”, or on a flower is barely interaction.

The interaction is what happens if I use my keyboard, how it happens, and what other ways to interact it opens.

In a word : I was saddened too by this total lack of word about expanding combat mechanics.

For players who are new to the game, or who see the fights as a routine more than a source of excitement, it may be fine. I understand there is an audience who’s happy with repeating the same 4-6 skills for 800 other hours, switching between the same 3-4 build variations, as long as it will give them new visual assets (armor, weapon, etc). Each to his own pleasure, good to them.

But what about mmo players who have been used to these playstyles for literally a decade ? What about people who have spent so many hours in the last 10 years of mmos that they already found all the secrets of their Guild Wars 2 character barely at level 20 ?
And these people are not a few, potentially : in 2012, according to a ESA study, the gamers average age is 30. That means people who are potentially playing videogames since the beginning, and more importantly who may be playing mmos for a decade.

“Back in the days” (yeah old fart style), this very crowd was the kind to spend hours and hours milking class spells data, only to find the best strategies for their playstyle.
Experimenting stuff, testing spells, trying impossible things (even not intended possibilities).
That was called “min maxing” (and no, this didn’t start with WoW). Chunking, mining, trying tons of build templates. Customizing our class playstyle by establishing personal strategies.

The best part of it was that devs answered to that need, and leveraged the mechanics layers more and more. Back in the time …

Now, it just seems like this audience is being completely forgotten. What prevails is Gear, Consumable content, Currency and cosmetics, whatever the mmo. It happens with any of them.
And that’s what the latest blog slammed into my face once again. A currency screenshot, a lot of talk about gear, about occasional events, about socializing … and gear ! Did I mention gear ?

But what about the thrill of the hunt ? The personal strategies ? The tools to animate a fight ?

Personally, I lost that thrill 1 month after release. Skills were understood, situational setups were learned, and trait builds were wrapped up. Switching them kept me entertained for a few more weeks, but it faded quickly. It became muscle memory.

Really, you could promise me 30 new awesomely designed armors, 30 new 6k DPS legendary swords … I couldn’t care less. I’m not playing to watch numbers, or to expose myself in a golden armor so I could impress random players on their way to the bank.
I’m playing to interact with my avatar. To think about how I’m going to react with other’s actions. To use my brain, feel the adrenalin, and most of all not feel bored after the 100th fight.

It’s not necessarly about having more skills. You could perfectly still have 5 skills, but that would dynamically change upon my previous choices, my current build, and my timing.

The commonly used technique in recent mmos to iterate that “thrill of the fight” is bringing new encounters. New “bosses”. But in my opinion, that’s just pushing that layer of interaction one step away from me. Because between the boss and me, there is my avatar. And if I chosed to create this avatar in this world, it’s because I want to interact with him, before having to interact with a NPC.
Tyria is already huge, there are already tons of reasons to lurk in its woods, in its plains, in its deserts and oasis for hours. But right now, I wish those tons of reasons to interact started in the very first layer : my character. My skills. My traits. My choices. The moves and actions he/she makes when I push buttons, and its effects on my target.

The gamedesign team did a fantastic job with the core combat mechanics, as they are clean, simple, and promising. They’re not a mess like other WoW clones. Plus the tools are already there : cross class combos, dynamically changing skills, and some clever boons/conditions. It just needs way more layers of choices.

TL;DR : please MMO industry, stop forgetting your nerds.

Would be interesting to know from people who are satisfied/dissatisfied with actual mechanics their experience in MMOs, and their average playtime per week.

Because sure, if it is one guy’s first MMO, and if he only plays 3 hours per week, then the current depth would feel totally satisfying.
But for a guy who has been playing MMOs for 2-10 years, 15 hours a week … aka the average mmo player … unless he watches TV while playing GW2, I can’t see how his brain would keep being active after 4 monthes during fights. After basics have been learned.

I just love the 9500g AND ONE COPPER.

Namu.5712:

Adding more weapons doesn’t solve the problem. Adding ways to customize the skills used with existing weapons and build into something unique however does solve that problem. And like I menchoned earlier if they were to add skill chains and triggers that allow you the ability to choose what ability to use given the situation… well there is your combat depth. On the weapon/skill side of things atleast. I think movement is fine….. though boss’s need to be harder imo.

Precisely.
The mechanics you explained earlier (and which I also suggested in this old topic : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Will-Combat-Mechanics-be-deeper) would fit perfectly for mmo veterans who are bored of the same old basics, while still not penalizing newcomers, as it would be player’s choice to dive into complicated combos or not. (although once again, I’m really not sure the mmo crowd got more newcomers than veterans … but well that’s another debate)

Plus GW2 core skill system already implements such tools (skill self combo), it would be really a waste not to implement that.

You seem to confuse agility with depth, Dedalus. We’re not talking about the same topic at all.

Depth is not about timing the use of a static pool of skills.
Depth is about thinking which skill you’d better use at a certain time, under a certain condition. Or “what can I do during each fight ?”
So right now, there’s as much depth as there are different skills that you can use on every global cooldown. Which means not a lot.
Maybe for the first 20 levels, having to learn 5 – 10 skills will force you to think, but once you understood them, as they have no real interdependancy, what you call “depth” quickly becomes “muscle memory”.

And yes I know about combos, and about elem/engi. I tried them all, but still, I feel there’s a huge lack of choices, of brain use. And repeatedly denying it by saying “yes there is depth” won’t change that feeling, sorry.

“Depth” is how many layers there are. If you feel ok with a game that offers as many layers as Bayonetta (which is a great action game imo), then fine.
But let’s also accept that a large majority of people are not at their first mmo, hence are expecting their 100th fight not to feel the same as their 52th, or their 101th.
Some people are in love with the MMO genre because you can stick to only one game, one world, one character… your character. Every evening.
This is the genre that is opened to the biggest time commitment. 80% of what we do in a MMO is fighting (and that’s absolutely fine). So the less combat choices there will be, the more this commitment will feel like a chore.

TL;DR : It’s not an action console game. It’s advertised as an MMO, built upon the MMO model. We’re supposed to fight thousands and thousands of times per character. So to avoid simple brainwashing, you’d better have tons of choices.

Silentstorm.7531:

So I bet you will find the same people saying the game lacks depth also complained it was too hard a month ago.

Sad but true.
Sometimes I just wish gamers would think a bit more ahead of time about the potential problems they might encounter with a gamedesign, before being overly enthusiastic about the “new big thing”.

I’m bored to find myself, at each recent mmo release, raising a warning about combat risking to become shallow after the 1000th fight, having 90% of people not caring, and find that monthes later a lot of people are saying “the combat is shallow”.

I mean, it’s like everytime a new mmo comes out, most forum posters look like it’s their first one … they close their eyes on future replayability problems, and complain about gamedesign being “too complex” at release, only to find themselves bored 2 monthes after, once they mastered it.
Except that once a gamedesign dev cycle is over, you have to wait monthes, if not years, before there’s any big change …

MMOs are supposed to last monthes, years. MMO playerbase is supposed to already have 3 to 10 years of mmo experience.
So I was expecting mmo players to think a bit more ahead of time before complaining about “game being too complex / too hard” at release.

TL;DR : devs, stop giving so much importance to “it’s too complex / too hard” complainers during the beta / first Live month. And please stop considering your playerbase as people who never touched any MMO, if not any videogame. Most of us already know the basics, take away the training wheels once and for all.

Asking more depth doesn’t automatically mean asking more skills.
One example of how you could add depth without changing number of skills :

1) every skill could work like skill#1 : press once -> skill#3a, effect 1, press again -> skill#3b, effect 2, press once more -> skill#3c, effect 3. And if you don’t press in time, skill chain resets to skill#3a.
For people who would not want such complexity for all their skills, there could be a “skill lock” option on each one, slightly buffing it so there is no disadvantage.

2) builds and traits could add far more skill interdependancy. For example, imagine the 3rd step of skill#3 being “Stomping Hammer : if target suffers condition, creates a fire field under its feet”. Then a trait that says “you have 30% chance on criticals to unlock Stomping Hammer instantly.” I’ll let you imagine what these 2 combinations alone can add in term of choices and dynamism.

But that is the job of a gamedesigner.

- “Dying is not fun”

Captain Obvious to the rescue !

I wish there was a word by class designers about all of this.

Clearly not enough depth.
GW2 feels like a multiplayer Bayonetta with statistics.

Just give us 2 x more skills, 3 x more skills interdependancy, and 2 x more build complexity, so it’ll start to look like an RPG. (aka choice)
What gives me more hope in GW2 though, is that its core mechanics are brilliant. There’s just not enough of them. At all.

Old topic about the precise subject of depth :
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-Combat-Mechanics-be-deeper

TL;DR : please stop making “Perpetual Tutorials”, devs, and take off the training wheel from our gameplay. Make us use our brain, on a regular tempo.

Any idea when the Class Skill & mechanics’ AMA will be set ?
(as hinted by Chris in this one)

I cannot find the will to play more than an hour per week now, if not less.
And now I won’t even come back to the forum until there’s an AMA about class mechanics future.

Combat is clearly too simplistic.
I don’t give a single kitten about gear superiority, or grind, as long as the way I’m reaching it is not boring. Which is not the case currently.

(but I’m rather keeping more hope in ANet than other studios for making it evolve quickly to interesting grounds)

Yasha.5963:

kineticdamage.6279:

This thread is becoming ridiculous, with people who don’t even play a thief coming to complain about how they don’t want to lose against a Thief anymore.

We had a legit and serious discussion in the spvp forum about one particular aspect of thief gameplay underwater making it almost impossible to take the node from them. That thread was closed and the mod said to post in here.

:(

This thread is becoming ridiculous, with people who don’t even play a thief coming to complain about how they don’t want to lose against a Thief anymore.

@Star Ace : I was speaking in game’s terms
So yes, acquiring a legendary proves that a character is legendary, sorry
From that point, if you don’t want to extend that attribute to the player himself, that’s your choice.

Others have said it well, but the level of entitlement is so ridiculous that I have to say it too :

Gmotagi.3641:

I really dislike crafting and I have a life so I wont farm the ridiciolus amount of mats that are currently needed.

This means that you are not legendary.
Therefore you don’t deserve anything legendary.

tkalamba.2541:

kineticdamage.6279:

tkalamba.2541:

kineticdamage.6279:

So … while I salute Chris ultra dedication for this AMA (9 hours straight, wow) …
He didn’t give answers on the most important topic about current boredom :

“PD1: GW1 had hundreds of skills for each of it’s classes. Can we expect skill additions for GW2 as well? If so, will they only be added in expansions? Are there plans to add them with major non-expansion content updates?”

(and moreover, PD1 to PD4)

I was waiting for this precise answer to know if I’d log on again …

People were so maniac with the gear questions that he duplicated the same answer about it around 10 times. I don’t play for gear, I play for playing the game. It’s crazy how majority of players are still obsessive with the shiny armor syndrome.

What you’re asking for may not be feasible in a dynamic world where balance is key. You simply cannot balance hundreds of skills and please everyone. Honestly, Gw1 and Gw2 are such different games, many of the mechanics are simply not translatable.

You won’t be seeing hundreds of skills like before, atleast not profession based skills. New skills will likely be tied to new weapon types. Simplicity in this case works, especially if this game is intended for casuals. Increasing the skill count makes it that much harder for people to learn the game and get into it.

Balancing skills is actually a job, where people are paid to work on it
It would be like saying “expecting a mmo world to be visually gorgeous is irrealistic, as it would require too much occlusion culling”.
(= intelligently using player’s available point of views to reduce the amount of distant visible objects)

I understand it’s a job, but so many games already get it wrong. Hundreds of skills doesn’t make the game fun all of a sudden. To some people it just simply complicates things.

However, I too would like some new skills, but I don’t want this to be a game where there are too many to choose from. There are already balance issues, let them fix those first, and then let them worry about skills.

Actually we wouldn’t need “hundreds of new skills on our bar” to spice up the fights.
There are already tools in place in the game’s core design to allow some pretty amazing evolutions. For example, what if all skills were working like some classes’ first autoattack ? aka : press skill#1 -> effect 1, becomes skill#1b -> effect 2, becomes skill#1c, etc, and if you don’t press in time, it resets to skill#1a

This mechanic alone, which is already coded, could clearly add tons of depth into current system if it was applied to every skills (normals, utility, environmental, etc)

Want another layer of depth on top of that ? Make, for example, a trait that would give skill#2c the ability to turn skill#1 into skill#1c directly.

Another one ? Make a trait that would reset skill#3’s longer CD anytime you do a critical damage with skill#1b.

There, it’s just a rough idea, but you get it.
And for people who wouldn’t want that level of complexity, well they would just not take those traits, but simpler ones, like currently implemented.
For people who wouldn’t want their skills to change so dynamically on button press like skill#1, there could also just be some sort of “lock skill” option for each one. Balance the locking by making it slightly more powerful.

Anyway, just ideas on a forum during work pause time, but you get the idea.

tkalamba.2541:

kineticdamage.6279:

So … while I salute Chris ultra dedication for this AMA (9 hours straight, wow) …
He didn’t give answers on the most important topic about current boredom :

“PD1: GW1 had hundreds of skills for each of it’s classes. Can we expect skill additions for GW2 as well? If so, will they only be added in expansions? Are there plans to add them with major non-expansion content updates?”

(and moreover, PD1 to PD4)

I was waiting for this precise answer to know if I’d log on again …

People were so maniac with the gear questions that he duplicated the same answer about it around 10 times. I don’t play for gear, I play for playing the game. It’s crazy how majority of players are still obsessive with the shiny armor syndrome.

What you’re asking for may not be feasible in a dynamic world where balance is key. You simply cannot balance hundreds of skills and please everyone. Honestly, Gw1 and Gw2 are such different games, many of the mechanics are simply not translatable.

You won’t be seeing hundreds of skills like before, atleast not profession based skills. New skills will likely be tied to new weapon types. Simplicity in this case works, especially if this game is intended for casuals. Increasing the skill count makes it that much harder for people to learn the game and get into it.

Balancing skills is actually a job, where people are paid to work on it
It would be like saying “expecting a mmo world to be visually gorgeous is irrealistic, as it would require too much occlusion culling”.
(= intelligently using player’s available point of views to reduce the amount of distant visible objects)

Now if studios refuse to spend such an amount of time on balancing, it’s not because they don’t have the ability, it’s because they’re routing their budget towards other game elements, like visuals, lore, etc.
Which are also essential, of course, but in the last few years they really tend to reduce the fight mechanics part too much.

You spend 90% of your time fighting, in a mmo. Underestimating the importance of its mechanics is a mistake, imo.

Nabbis.5784:

“Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.”

This is the crux of all problems with modern MMO developement. Game designers, for some reason, cant get the idea out of their kitten that the only way to make a succesfull mmo is to focus on item gathering.

You can make content so fun that the reward of playing it would be enough for most people. Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

I’m happy to see more and more players voicing this fact. Thanks.

Simply, why do these devs actually focus on gear instead of mechanics ? Because everybody and their grandmother are talking/complaining/suggesting about gear (oh and big numbers on screen), instead of the way they play.
Look at this very forum .. 80% of new topics are about gear.. it’s depressing.

[Edit]

[Edited by CC: Frivolous part]

Ditton.3149:

kineticdamage.6279:

So … while I salute Chris ultra dedication for this AMA (9 hours straight, wow) …
He didn’t give answers on the most important topic about current boredom :

“PD1: GW1 had hundreds of skills for each of it’s classes. Can we expect skill additions for GW2 as well? If so, will they only be added in expansions? Are there plans to add them with major non-expansion content updates?”

(and moreover, PD1 to PD4)

I was waiting for this precise answer to know if I’d log on again …

People were so maniac with the gear questions that he duplicated the same answer about it around 10 times. I don’t play for gear, I play for playing the game. It’s crazy how majority of players are still obsessive with the shiny armor syndrome.

He said in a post that class changes, balances, bugs, PvP and WvW were all handled by a different department and he didnt want to give answers he was not sure of, but would try to get separate AMA’s for all of those parts of the game as well.

Ah, thank you Ditton I saw the PvP part, but didn’t see it was concerning the core fight mechanics too.
Thanks.

Numot.3965:

I disagree about the depth of character builds. While you have less skills to work with, you have traits to mess around with. I spend a great deal of time in build editors fooling around.

But once you tried them all, you end up seeing that your final gameplay didn’t change that much.

I agree with Apathy though, GW2 does have far better tools than others for making a huge step in mmo fight mechanics evolution.
They have the tools, but stopped at 30% of exploiting them, which is kind of frustrating, especially since most mmo veterans have been waiting for a refreshment in mechanics for ages.

edit : Apathy’s post above clearly sums it up.

Jordan.6157:

people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.

Yup, and it’s really depressing, because it won’t get us very far in the global evolution.

The perfect MMO will be the one who stops focusing on gear and content consumption speed, but who will start to focus fully on what makes this gear grinding bearable : combat mechanics diversity.

I’m sorry if I’m constantly bashing with this argument, but it really seems gamers don’t care that much about such a pilar of how we interact with the world. MMOs main interaction being fights, indeed. Gear is just static numbers and static looks. On the other hand, mechanics are dynamic, and are supposed to invest you, as gamer, every second of every fight. They are what is supposed to prevent you from falling asleep after a thousand fights.
On the other side, what does invest you directly once you equipped your super shiny armor ? Even more, how do you think you are interacting with the game during the journey to this very gear ?

Currently all MMOs are going the opposite, by simplifying to the extreme all the possible layers of strategies one class can have during one single fight. They all try to normalize the gameplay complexity.

Like if we all just discovered our first MMO, if not our first videogame.

So … while I salute Chris ultra dedication for this AMA (9 hours straight, wow) …
He didn’t give answers on the most important topic about current boredom :

“PD1: GW1 had hundreds of skills for each of it’s classes. Can we expect skill additions for GW2 as well? If so, will they only be added in expansions? Are there plans to add them with major non-expansion content updates?”

(and moreover, PD1 to PD4)

I was waiting for this precise answer to know if I’d log on again …

People were so maniac with the gear questions that he duplicated the same answer about it around 10 times. I don’t play for gear, I play for playing the game. It’s crazy how majority of players are still obsessive with the shiny armor syndrome.

The definition of a game is to “play by the rules”. If you break those rules by purpose, you’re not playing that game anymore. That, even a child does know it.

Now, from an adult standpoint, anyone knows that breaking a game’s rules will have negative consequences on other concurrent players.

Now what if you and I were engaging a friendly fight in real life, and you say “only punches”., but after a minute I suddenly started using a crowbar ?

lesteel.7314:

For me the combat is just too boring. I tried to ignore it in beta.. “haha well it must be my fault as a player, I’m sure it’ll grow on me, there’s hidden depth I’m just not seeing..”

I just can’t take it. 10 active skills at once is simply. not. enough.

No one else seems to mind though so maybe I’m just wrong ._.

You’re not alone, don’t worry

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-Combat-Mechanics-be-deeper
+
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/thief/Feedback-about-the-thief-and-its-gameplay/858103

Now please let’s focus on the older, nicer, and much richer thread, so devs receive one big block of feedback instead of clusters here and there (and therefore noise loss) :

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/How-many-here-are-playing-less-And-why

Seriously …

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/How-many-here-are-playing-less-And-why

(page 2 on the date your hit that “Create new thread”)

Gehenna.3625:

Although I share your feelings, I would point out that there’s already a lot of threads about this subject.

This. No need to start dozens of of “me too” threads about that overall same feeling.
If every user created a new thread each time he wants to share his opinion, just for the sake of having more visibility, the forum would be a clusterkitten.

Hi,

I wrote a detailed feedback about Thief’s Trickery specialization a while ago :
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/thief/Stealing-cooldown-CD-too-long-when-specialized

About the general class mechanics, I wrote a detailed thread about all classes mechanics, but this feeling clearly started with the Thief, so the point is relevant in Thief’s feedback :
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-Combat-Mechanics-be-deeper

That said, all in all, the Thief’s combat pace is the fastest, therefore the one I prefer. But it clearly lacks depth in my taste. I’ll detail what I wish the Thief mechanics were, but keep in mind this could apply to other classes as well.

I wish there were 2 axis in my gameplay, for each fight (may it be pve or pvp) :

• first, the thinking process. Having the choice, in the same class, to either choose the mechanics simple route (= 3-4 skills rotation like now), or the complex but superior route (= if I do skill#1, then it will empower skill#3, and then if I do a critical on skill#3, it will reset my cooldown on utility#2.. or if I do skill#2 two times in a row, then … etc). This more complex route is more powerful, but more risky as it takes more time. Risk/Reward.
  I don’t feel like there is this complex strategy choice right now. I miss such a depth, because it is exactly what creates what is called “mindgames”. It’s also what creates those moments where you tell yourself : “holy cow, I succeeded in outputting this ?? now I’m proud !”
  Put it simply : Facing a situation where a fight seems impossible to overcome, unless I make the proper decisions with my strategy, in the shortest possible time.
  (yep, please don’t think all your playerbase is brain-lazy, thanks)

• second, the execution process. Actually, you just have to mash autoattack (yup I’m so bored that I turned auto-execution off, even if it’s just mashing), then time 2 or 3 skills properly. For a person who just discovers videogames, it’s sufficient. But for someone who has been playing games for more than 20 years (and we’re a lot, considering the average gamer’s age is 30), you do understand how it can feel déjàvu or console-esque. Executing 4-5 skills is good for an arcade game like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry (although they do have more combos than GW2). But for a RPG, it’s clearly too limited. I’m not necessarly asking for 50 concurrent skills, but as an example, for every skill to be like the Thief’s autoattack (skill#1a = effect 1, skill#1b = effect 2, etc, and if I wait too long the skill resets to skill#1a).
  This would put more pressure on my execution for complex strategies, sending me back to simple attacks as a penalty (= auto-attack, and 2-3 additional skills push here and there).

TL;DR : I want deeper mechanics, more choices in how I want to fight with a weaponset. Far more choices, really.

RPGs are by essence revolving around character management. Stats and gear are well known. But actions management is part of the RPG genre, too.
The purpose of RPGs, may they be Pen&Paper or Videogames, have always been to manage an archetype’s abilities to create your character. Your gameplay.
To leverage your skills at will.

You can perfectly have, in the same class (and here in the same weaponset), a base layer of simple skills mechanics, but still allow to add more and more layers when you meet certain conditions. Those layers would also be different depending on the talent (trait) specialization you choose.

This pressure leverage relying purely on class mechanics, is what made the golden days of MMORPG fights. Please think about it.

edit : additional about Thief : utility skills CD are way too long … example, Spider venom, 45sec for 5 attacks … for the fastest attacking class ? and it doesn’t stack, but just refreshes the timer ……. ? Are you serious ?

As long as people will be lazy kittens who prefer to gear check than to skill check, any multiplayer RPG will become a social hell.

It’s not the dev’s fault, it’s because people are too selfish to spend a few minutes to check a player’s gamestyle rather than his kitten gear (even if I don’t support gear trendmill mentality).

I’m super glad you took the Player Development topic about skill number and combat depth to a high priority, OP.
That’s the most important imho, far more than this Ascended fiasco.
Because if combat was not repetitive, if it was varied enough, there wouldn’t be so many players ranting about gear problems, as they simply wouldn’t care grinding thanks to a rich “personal” gameplay in PvE (= outside of bosses/group combos/etc).

sidenote : I’m not sure E7 is that important, though …

Coming to the forums daily, just to see any sign of life from devs about their vision on what made me lose the will to play : combat mechanics fatigue.

Fatigue not because too tedious, but the opposite : because not enough refreshments.
I’ve wrote enough posts in this topic ( http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Will-Combat-Mechanics-be-deeper/first ), no need to explain further.

• 2. When did you start playing less?

After hitting 80 with my Thief, when I started leveling alts to search a playstyle that would feel complex enough for not being bored in 2 weeks. Right now I tried all the classes, with all their skills/weaponsets, and still didn’t find.

• 3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?

Before, a bit of explanation of why :

I’m not the “content eater” player type, searching for new content every week.
And I don’t care if I have to grind for hours and hours.
I’m far more the “gamer” type, who constantly searches new ways to interact with the world he plays in. And casual interactions, like simplistic boss mechanic, environmental weapon here and there, etc, are not satisfying my gamer personality.
The only thing that I find satisfying is the mechanics diversity. The choices to create different situations, and adapt to them. And these choices have to be numerous.

You could ask me to grind the same pack of mobs for hours and hours, as long as I have to think about the skills I will have to use, and their order. Like a chess game. If any simplistic execution pattern starts to show itself, the thinking process will stop and turn to mindless execution (aka : no surprise).

Still like in a chess game, the best way I noticed for me not feeling bored in mmos was skill interdependancy, aka combat mechanics.
Ex : skill#1 triggers an effect that empowers skill#3, which can empower skill#2 if critical, and if talented can reset the cooldown on skill#8.

That kind of complexity.
Because like a hella lot of gamers, I’m not new to videogames at all, whatever they are, so basic mechanics quickly feel déjàvu. Been there, done that, etc.

So, What caused the decline in time spent ?
The fact that I couldn’t find this type of skills interdependancy depth in any of the class, alt after alt.

Totally agree with you Luna. My thoughts exactly.

This is the direct consequence of the gear treadmill implementation.
Players want their team to have the best possible stuff, instead of just trusting the playstyle.

Well, seems like they don’t
(absolutely no mention at all about skills in future roadmap that was released lately)

Fights should be like a whole chess game in a (mmo) rpg.
i.e tons of potential strategies due to tons of potential actions.

4-6 skills rotations are not meant for rpgs, they are meant for console games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry.

Nexon could be for ANet what Activision was to Blizzard.
We all know the story …

I’m trying not to jump to conclusions btw, but I’m fed up of witnessing a pattern that happened too much in videogames, really.
- A great studio produces a great title,
- then a cash-shark bangs in, just at the tipping point of the success wave,
- game is ruined by money-driven bad gamedesign decisions

It’s especially a big damage for mmos, as mmos are supposed to live over years.
Players create emotional attachment to their chars, but get banged in the process.

So yes, yes, I know, it’s a business beforemost. But I also know that some businesses were able to be run without screwing things up. GW1 anyone ?

AcidicVision.5498:

And Im not sure there is anything we can do to change it. Just gonna watch investors influencing bad design decisions

This is like the story of videogames since they went mainstream.

Great observations, OP.
My opinion : This is why we can’t have nice things.

I’ll also refer to one article I wrote that Kotaku published about this “WoWization” :
http://kotaku.com/5884948/stop-copying-world-of-warcraft-start-making-a-better-mmo

And one thread I created at SWTOR forums before the game turned into WoWization, which became huge, right after that WoWization (people telling “you were right, it happened”) :
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=94889

p.s : this thread is epic, if OP’s hints are true.

p.p.s : about that Kotaku article, look at how ironic the first user comment is (article published in feb. 2012)

Quick intervention about balancing :

Balancing workload on designer’s side should never be a barrier to adding more depth, really. It’s a job, to be honest, people are paid to balance things out
I’m writing this because I often read on different mmos dev feedbacks things along the lines of “we cannot add too many choices because it creates balancing problems”.

Well … it’s like an Art Director saying to an artist “Ok we cannot create such a region because it would require too much texture optimization”.
Or a coder : “I really can’t implement that functionality, as I would have too much analysis to make”.

Balancing is a part of the conception-to-production process, gamedesign wise. Actually it’s even what is called in certain games “lead systems designer”.
So in a mmo case, maybe one skill idea from the game/combat designer could request some tweaking in order not to make it overpowered, but unless we’re talking about thousands of different mechanics, never should that tweaking (= balancing) workload be an “issue”.

*

Now your post nicely sums up the situation I’m trying to explain, Bolthar, thanks.
(and I didn’t suspect such a high % of replies telling they do feel the same tbh)

I guess PvE will always be the bread and butter of huge MMOs like that.
PvP is essential too, but PvE is the best justification to expand the world, the skills, the classes, the visuals, etc, to a larger extent.

I wish it wasn’t that set in stone, though :/

Yes, this kind of complexity leverage is a good idea, and somehow what the game revolves around right now. But as discussed earlier too, separating complexity levels by class is not a good idea from the start :
What if I like the visceral feeling of a warrior smashing a huge sword inside his opponents, and don’t like the casting type of Elems, but still want deeper mechanics than warrior’s direct damage ?

That’s the current problem of mmos, you’re tunneled into only one or two classes if you want complexity and strategy, even if you’re not too fond of its playstyle. You’re forced.
That’s where proposing different levels of complexity inside each class would be a good solution : every player could really choose what playstyle he relates to (caster, smasher, sneaky, ranged, protector, etc), and inside this very choice, he would have the tools to make his gameplay evolve as further as he wishes.

Classes should not be the mmo gamedesigners’ pilar of mechanics design. It’s been 10 years like that (even more with Pen & Paper Rpgs). Things need to evolve. Classes should only be cosmetics (audio & visual). A tool to deliver visual/audio feedback, nothing more. They could also be a way to separate some mechanic types (caster = burning, protector = buff, sneaky = burst, etc), but never should they be a boundary in the amount of gameplay depth they bring to a class choice.

Lifelike.5862:

A true combo system would be really nice, tbh. Some classes have something resembling control combos (hammer warrior, for example), but for the most part combat falls down to who has the most stun breakers and who can kite better.

Absolutely right. I always thought self-combo systems (= with group combos on top of it) were the key to avoid gameplay fatigue in MMOs. Some mmos did try to implement that (AION, for ex), but none did go very further inside the system.

Lifelike.5862:

Another thing to consider – Anet’s current target audiance, the casual gamer, does not enjoy an abundance of depth. If something becomes like work to learn, then they want nothing to do with it. Why should these gamers have to memorise an optimal combo chain in order to be successful? They have a life and a job! No, it’s more profitable to make everyone do lots of damage with the press of a button, with very basic control mechanics thrown in here and there to give the illusion of depth and skill-based gameplay.

I completely understand the need to please every audience, including casuals. But as been discussed earlier in the thread, an experienced gamedesigner could always find meanings to bring different layers of complexity inside a same given class.
More depth levels for Self-Combos would be a perfect solution to that, imho.

Or maybe a different kind of talent tree, where you could chose and leverage those different layers of gameplay complexity. That’s what the WoW old talent trees did manage to do, in a certain extent. Some specs were asking to align a high number of triggers, procs, timings, in order to be efficient. So yeah, when you didn’t, you were less efficient than other direct-dumb-damage specs, but when you were successful, you were definitely stronger. Risk / Reward.

Another point to consider with target audience : a high chunk of mmo players did start their mmo experience a long, long time ago. And now they are used (and to an extent, bored) to basic rotations, skills.

It’s like a chess player. His first games will be horribly simple and predictable, but the more games he plays, the deeper his strategies will naturally search to be. All MMOs can be compared to being the same game in some way, as they all revolve around nearly the same core mmo mechanics (buffs, debuffs, direct damage, protection, healing, control, interrupt).
So imho, all mmo players can be compared to that chess player who progressively feel the need to complexify his strategies in order not to be bored.

All MMO studios seem to not realize this fact that a lot of current mmo players are actually veterans, used to these 10 years old mechanics. And that they want a new level of gameplay. ANet did a few steps in that direction with active dodging, and action combat, but clearly that’s as sustainable as basically a console action game : gameplay fatigue kicks in after nearly one month if we rely only on those “agility” mechanics.
Inevitably, we’re coming back to the need of having deeper skill strategies, therefore, mechanics.

So yeah, let’s not forget the newcomers as usual, but let’s not forget the other side of the coin

Yesterday I connected to my Thief, looked at my skill bar, pictured instantly the half-dozen skills I was mainly going to use in the next 100 fights (apart from the situational ones) … and disconnected to char selection.

So I switch to my elem, but after 20 minutes of fights I miss the skills cross combos of the Thief, so I switch on my Engi, but then I miss the punchy feeling, visceral gameplay of my Thief / Warrior.
Then I disconnect :/
That explains quite well this “core design is awesome, but something is missing” feeling I got with every class.

So new patch, no drastic change, and not even a word from the devs in the latest Kotaku dev interview about how skill mechanics will evolve over time ( http://kotaku.com/5960951/the-lead-designer-of-guild-wars-2-is-answering-your-questions-right-now ). No player did even ask about it.

Due to this overall silence, should I conclude this is a non-issue ?

edit : Looking at the Thief forum right now. I’m a bit sad. People are coming up to arms because of some big-shiny-numbers nerf. Don’t care about the way they build their dps, but are outraged if one number is modified.
Broad, obvious, easy results in favor of subtelty. After 10 years of MMOs, I’d have suspected gamers (at least veterans, like some in this thread) would have understand that big-numbers are worthless in term of longevity for a mmo gameplay.

For example in this case, you could have all the nerfs you want for a direct damage skill, if this class had a way to build a superior strength for a given amount of time by triggering a stream of well timed mechanics, there would be no more problem (this is for ex what made the Warlock class so strong in WoW).
Another important side of mechanics over “big numbers” : they are the perfect way to avoid giving big fat, instant bursty numbers, without lowering the ability for a class to win a fight. Plus, they are also a perfect way to bring pure strategy and mindgames to a fight. Therefore, they’re perfect to separate skilled players from bad ones (aside from pure agility/reactivity).
Put it simply, they’re the key to a proper balance. But nobody barely cares about it. Why ?

edit 2 : ah, some people seem to care about it, nice