Guild Wars 2

felivear.1536:

Wow, I can’t believe you a really said the combat in this game feels clunky and SWtoR felt fluid. When I read that my eyes popped out of my skull. There was about a 500+ page thread on the SWTOR forums after release that went into great detail describing the ability delay and how clunky the game was. It was the reason I quit. I even made a video going into detail about where that game had major flaws in the fluidity. The game designers, after the thread grew so big they couldn’t ignore it, stated they knew there was a problem, thanked me for my video, and vowed they would work diligently to fix it. They never did, that game is now free to play.

Still can’t believe I just read that.

I’m not going to change what I said due to extremeists, because I know SWtor got a lot of hate, it ended badly and put a VERY bad taste is some peoples’ mouths, but I’ll elaborate.

In SWtor, I’ll admit, there were some unusual spell cast delays, but that wasn’t due to clunkiness or responsiveness. Its because the game was heavily animation based. THAT part I don’t really agree with. For example, Throw Projectile in that game, Sages had to animate lifting then throwing it, while the counter parts had an instant shock. Yes, that wasn’t good. But that isn’t really my point, often enough in that game your abilities worked when expected, and the bigger more vital part to my argument is (beyond casting abilities) instant skills even with animations didn’t cause an animation self immobilize. Again while the sage lifted the object, while moving, you just kept moving even though it was lifting. That’s the fluidity I’m referring to. When I pressed it (regardless of how annoying the animation was) I got what I was expecting.

As for the complaints mentioned on buttons not working, I’d have to say the game probably had some lag issues much like GW2 does. I can’t really defend that, but I can say I never had those issues. The only issues I had were a few abilities that had animation delays, but those were frustrating and GW2 has quite a handful more than SWtor did. (All of this excluding having to stand still to cast, SWtor was a traditional MMO in that perspective, I didn’t love it, but it can’t be compared.)

This really isn’t about a SWtor vs GW2, I could have referenced numerous other games, it was just an example, especially given that I didn’t have the claimed lag issues people were complaining about. Maybe that’s why I did so well in the game. Take it as you will, remove the SWtor out of my post, my point stays the same.

So I have a pretty simple question, how in the world do you handle RtL? People tend to use it as a mobility, not always a gap closer, so how do you do it given these restraints:

I almost feel the necessity to have on autotarget for dealing with slippery/stealth classes.

Auto target causes RtL to target someone and dash to them not where you’re pointing.

How do you quickly deselect targets fast enough to use it effectively?

3. Reliance on long cooldowns.
This may just be a personal opinion, but I feel like all of the abilities need much shorter cooldowns, maybe at the cost of putting Utilities on the global cooldown. I haven’t played many games where cooldowns aren’t a large factor, but they really don’t need to be. If the effects are evened out, and placed to where one character can’t get TOO much CC to create a perma-CC build (the less CC in a game, generally the better anyways.) I know I said this isn’t a FPS, it isn’t a combat action brawler, neither. But I do feel there is merit in that having to look at your bar less, and weaving less “powerful” moves together to create a powerful effect is lightyears more fun than having to rely on your “auto attack” while you wait on your “cooldown”. Both of these terms plague mmos, though, I think other games coming around are starting to realize this and utilize that knowledge. I’d much rather have to press 1 to swing, 2 to do an uppercut then 3 to finally slam your weapon down causing them to be knocked down (assuming you land it) than let 1 do its thing until your 20 second cooldown comes off so you can slam your weapon again… o.O I feel thats all I have to say about that, really. And again, that’s where fluid combat comes in too. Making your abilities reflect on one another is much more fun than having them feel completely segregated buttons you press on cooldown.

4. Sigils & other “on crit” abilities.
This is a personal distaste. I feel that the massive amount of “on critical damage” sigils say "if you’re not running a typical burst-crit build, most of these are useless. I’m also not a huge fan of inconsistancy. Why not have sigils say, instead, On hit gain a “strike of air”, when you reach 10, your next attack deals lightning damage, also? Or, if that doesn’t work, how about EVERY attack does some minor bleeding or fire aoe, just with a much smaller actual effect. In general, and I know this is an RPG, but in my feelings, PVP isn’t a place for randomness. I beleive most players like to know what they expect their characters to do, not get frustraited because their 15% chance didn’t work as hoped.

5. Builds limit customization rather than broaden it.
This is the last thing I’ll point out for now. I feel like the trait system is really broken logically. For a lot of professions it basically tells you how to play. If you expect to be a useful bomb engineer, you have to put points here, and so forth. That said, overall I just don’t like it. There’s not enough room for trying new things. For many classes you’d be just as well adding the traits to the initial design of the skills and removing the trait tree for them, then just give them a few extra stats. Here, I don’t really know how to get into whats wrong with it without wanting to just scrap it and trying again which one, I don’t have the time to do, and two, would just be very confusing.

So these are my current feelings on PvP combat. I realize this would effect PvE as well, but I just felt like mentioning my concerns.

2. Burst and Tanking.
Bursting and in smaller casses tanking is out of control! The amulet in SPvP provides such an alarming amount in either direction that it’s almost (if not actually being) the most important part of a build… There’s little room for inbetweens since the game, as it stands comes down to “fast, fast, fast!” 22k bleeds in 2 seconds, Frenzy, Bullscharge PEW PEW, haste pistol whip spam, 3 clones and BOOM! I mean… Sure, it’s fun for the average noob to pick up a Google build and feel like a good player because he can mindlessly kill someone in about half a second. But that doesn’t promote competitive, or even really decent casual play at all. Going from a tank to a damager you shouldn’t go from tanking 3 (non burst, of course) players, to killing anyone and any build in .5-3 seconds. That sort of thing just doesn’t really have a place in MMO pvp, if you ask me. This isn’t a FPS.

All I know to suggest is to rebalance stats. normalize hp a bit, bring up guardians and ele’s hp some, tone down the burst (or rather, scaling of condition and power at least in PvP) make toughness matter a bit more, and on some builds such as elementalists and guardians and rangers, tone down the self healing to compensate for a more useful toughness stat.

One thing I feel I could suggest to help this issue is giving ALL PvP amulets Power, Toughness and Vitality as a base, where some have more power, some have more toughness and some have more vitality, so you have to chose which to focus on, but never being without the other (in net, they become closer) and make each of the numbers a bit smaller than on current amulets. Then, have secondary stats such as Precision, Condition Damage, Healing, Crit damage, etc on the Jewels, and increase the stats on the Jewels to compensate for the loss of stats on the amulet, and so that there is enough of the stats to make a difference. Together, lessening the stat-gap between specs can improve the rate of combat by toning down burst and tankiness.

On another note, haste abilities could use a massive nerf, but compensated. Remove the penalty of using them, possibly even let them last longer, but with only a 25% haste.

We’ve probably seen enough of these, but I figured I’d throw in my two cents. First off, I’ll give a little personal information. I’m 21, I’ve played MMOs for about 9 years now starting with FFxi, then through GW1, WoW, SWtor, Tera, and so on. With that said, I’ve been around the block a few times. A huge passion of mine has always been game design, however I never quite felt safe enough, having a small family of my own, relying on a more or less subjective degree. So, instead I give my PoV from the side lines with much experience in actually playing the games rather than blindly theorizing.

I’m not sure if the reason there aren’t huge overhauls to the combat/PvP system in this game is due to lack of income from the game, I haven’t looked into it, but I do understand that money and effort can be a pretty big issue. If the net gain isn’t worth the effort, why do it? That aside, I’ll just talk in ideals, assuming the health of the game would net more income than how it is now, these are what I suggest could really improve gameplay. This is specifically around combat, not the Maps, how hotjoin works, etc.

1. Clunky game play.

First, I’d like to say I feel that the gameplay isn’t very fluid. I’ve played a ton of MMO’s, and I’ll say there are much better examples of better combat fluidity. For example SWtor, minus the horrible gear differences at max level, the 1-49 pvp in that game was amazing. You have various skills, they reflected upon one another well (without the, in my honest opinion, annoying background feature that is combo fields) making the character feel dynamic, this coupled with great reaction time made combat feel wonderful. When you pressed an ability in that game, the effect you wanted to happen did even if it was after a casting time. In GW2, for example charging someone as a warrior with a great sword, you can run up to them and sometimes you’ll attack, sometimes you end up standing there until they move, then you chase them a bit more.

Another very annoying clunky feeling aspect of combat is all of the self-immobilizing abilities from animations, sometimes even with abilities that don’t necessarily require you to stand still. It feels like when you press a button while moving the game is fighting itself deciding on what to do, and you end up losing a lot of time that way. Some abilities suggest you can’t move, others you end up finding out on your own, and isn’t a part of the overall ability design. It’s just frustrating to have your movement stop while attacking someone because of your animation. If burst was tuned down a bit, which I’ll discuss later, I’d suggest no abilities having to stop to cast ever. One fun aspect of other games, especially as a melee, is being able to attack while strafing around the enemy, you feel mobile, which a melee very well should. A few examples of abilities that have sort of clunky pauses when using them are: Pistol Whip and Warrior GS charge.

Another thing that could lessen the clunky feeling for melee specifically is to remove the cast times for abilities that aren’t “charge up” feeling abilities, such as maybe Banish for a Guardian, where you’re winding up your hammer to send them flying. Again I’ll use the example of piston whip, you have to think 3/4 of a second ahead of using the ability, which feels weird as a melee character to have to deal with cast times, and here’s why; Ranged abilities will trigger despite the enemy moving a few feet, which is why its generally okay to have casting times as ranged classes. It’s also what prevents ranged from dominating, if you can do the same thing but far away, why be in the mess storm? Melee, however you don’t have that luxury, so you always risk your abilities missing just by basic combat movement. There’s a reason why nearly every MMO allow melee attacks to trigger initially, and the delay of the ability comes from the Global cooldown. Enough of that, though.

If you’re underpowered as a mes, might wanna find a new game. Unless you’re only refering to PvE, then eh.

Hey, everyone. I’ve tried going through Google, and I just don’t have the time on my hands to theorize in depth. Most things on google were either outdated or re-mashed builds of what seemed to be a more core build. So my question is, what is the standard, most effective non “I added my little twist, because one day my tweaks will benefit me, maybe” Bunker build for an Ele (D/D).

Things I need to know about it so that I can try it out effectively:
Build, including traits taken.
Runes/Sigils/Amulet/Jewel
Then perhapse a basic guildline of what to specifically watch for to keep up effectiveness, and any “combos” ralated to the build.

I’d appreciate it.

Did they win?

It is, and copy past link to broswer it works. Havent tested build yet.

Hey, I just wanted to suggest swapping 2 team and 8 team pvp rewards. 2 team rewards are IMMENSELY easier to obtain, not to mention easier to get into due to que times, than 8 team games. Yet, 2 team rewards the better “higher tier” of armor. Seems a bit silly to me. Just throwing out my 2 cents. I don’t want the best gear to become so mainstream this fast.

Sorry if this has been answered and if I’m just overlooking it, but I can’t seem to find what happened to obtaining pPvP gear, is it merged with free trouney gear, or are the 1 round/3 round set ups exclusive???

Where can I find today’s patch notes, to read while I wait?