Guild Wars 2

Turbo Whale.1738:

This is your way of stylishly pretending to quit the game because of its PvP, when in reality you are on your knees begging to the Anet gods to fix it and clinging on to to your character for dear life. You don’t have to act cool.

LOL qft. Best first response ever.

Ya… they reinvented the wheel alright. Looks rather square shaped this time around.

@aydenunited… dude positioning is a concept of strategy that gamers are very familiar with and enjoy. This game just doesnt have it. Somewhere between conquest points, downed states, and gap closers positioning got simplified to “spread out”.

This thread isnt a knee jerk reaction to arenanets attempt at innovation. I and several others saw very early on that this game had new concepts and we gave them a good try with an open mind w others squabbled about fine class balance points.

This thread talks about how the new innovations are just bad and points to an example of good, and talks about some of the obstacles between the current bad and desired good. Elephant being anets stubourness about this esport first (fun later) business.

The paid tournament system didn’t exactly have the desired effect. Organized teams didn’t flock to the challenge of facing competent rivals, instead they stayed to stomp on pick up groups.

On one hand, if they were denizens of the internet who love PvP games… I mean how would you not see that comming? They must watch a lot of TNG and play very few FPS titles without fierce auto balance systems. You’d think just watching the way people stack WvWvW servers would have told them what was comming.

On the other hand, it was a very nice thought. I mean the theory was sort of sound if you assumed you were dealing with… not the internet?

shrug I disagree, I’m still haunting the forums because I want to push the development team towards some really significant changes. But I don’t find the pvp fun at all and it’s not for lack of success. I’m playing DotA2 and Tribes Ascend for a while. I’ll come back with fresh eyes eventually, either when they’ve made some significant changes or when I’ve decided to give it a second try.

Naw, they’ve thrown a few subtle balancing decisions out but no major changes. Which is good really, you want to see that kind of approach to game balancing decisions most of the time.

I’m a little dissapointed because I find PvP fundamentally unfun, which requires sweeping changes… but it doesn’t look like we’ll get those.

Ya it’s a burst game, like you know – FPS games… but without the aiming that makes FPS games challenging.

I guess they replaced that with the twitch reflex that is the dodge mechanic and other support / control options – which with a clear head, observant eyes and good reflexes determine the gap between skilled and unskilled players.

I’m very underwhelmed.

It even goes against their own trash can argument that they want this to be an esport, becaus the most important part of becomming truly skilled at this game is being intimately familiar with the different profession abilities and casting animations on different races.

Ya I am playing other games until I read that they made some major changes, like game types, or got rid of downed state. Their PvP is just… boring.

Really dissapointing comming from the people who made GW1, I guess I should have seen it comming though, every expansion since GW1 Prophecies has made the PvP worse… I just feel let down.

ya that was part of why, when you saw people post agreeing the Elementaist downed state was week, they mostly all said: “so lets nerf everybody elses to be like this.” and very few people said “lets buff ele.”

But anet is doing their own thing with downed state, that not very many people seem to agree with or support… either we just don’t understand the genius or they’re pulling a Diablo 3, I guess time will tell.

Yea I was really looking at that PvP blog to take a stance on issues like this.

We need at least SOME of the options to be locked. Changing characters for sure. After that we can talk about gear swaps out of combat, utility skill changes, and trait selection.

I personally favor locked everything except utiilty skills, but I know others may disagree. I look forward to changes like this and some real discussions.

@buttski

your name is buttski, yet we continued to read your opinin before deciding wether or not it had merit.

@Armageddonash… no I think downed state is awful for WvWvW, it gives another advantage to whomever brought more people to the fight. Downed state is pretty mediocre in what few dungeons I’ve experienced too. It’s really only ‘good’ during the leveling experience, which I’ll give it sure.

It’s just a bad idea, that’s okay they happen and hearing downed state described (and even trying it) I thought it had potential for a while. No way to know before you tried with this one. But we’ve tried, and it is a bad idea, and it’s well past time to admit that and come up with a better idea.

Given that the downed and rally system already give amplified favor to whichever team brought more people to the fight, how would this change not devolve the tactics into: everyone team fight in mid.

Oh, developers can will a game to esport status. Did you play wow arena when it first started? Blizzard threw sooo much money at that thing to make it popular. It was trash can status, but with prize pools you get competition, and eventually make the game interesting.

What about league of legends? The MOBA for babies that put a viewer counter into their game client so it would list everyone online and playing as a spectator even though they werent. But add investors were fooled at least a little and still sponsored show matches with money.

A company can make a bad game an esport just fine. Thats why we dont have different game modes, it would fragment the community and they might now watch the pros playa game mode they dont have any interest in.

It can be an AAA pve mmo, aside from under water combat it seems fine there. This PvP is just not fun, or complex, or interesting.

Yes i inderstand the void that downed state fills, and that simply removing it isnt an option, it needs replacement. But it NEEDS replacement.

So i was more aiming towards the: downed states help make positioning of minimal importance in this game, make moderately skilled 2 man combos impossible for 1 person to beat, and are not in any way fun. No person involved in the stomping act thinks its fun. The downed player, stomper, rezer, and even interupter all feel like chores to play.

Its a really poopy mechanic that replaced a really good one (gw monk). How many people complained about having to play a healer? How many complain about stomping? 

Downed state in PvP… if anet keeps trying to keep this mechanic, they will not be a AAA title for PvP. Their PvE can be fine, but this was a bad decision and they appear to be doubling down on it instead of moving away from it.

Yea… this is on the list of things that make gw2 pvp not fun, over half your typical team comps has a boring job.

Gw1, so i want you to think of both teams as single organisms with 8 parts. The two monk parts are particularly adept at maintaining the other 6, so a careful strategy must be laid to deal with or bypass these two. The other 6 will work hard to stop you while attacking your monk parts.

What enseus is a battle of positioning and tactics, as peices threaten areas.

Gw2: without downed state your entire depth of strategy is little lore than calling focus fires.

Gw2: with downed state now the peices have to move near one another. This combines with gap closers to create an environment where positioning is of minimal importance.

Where before there was a complex and intricate dance and weave, we now have a cluster kitten

I feel like george lucas was in on this sequel to gw1 pvp. I look at the genius of the first success and have no idea how the sequel came from the same source.

pobably because it’s a huge pile of dissapointment and few who enjoy pvp still play this game (in it’s current state.)

Ya i left because the sPvP isnt fun, and downed states are probably the key component.

Ill be back i think, but im not gonna lie, im pretty let down. I have higher hopes for the pve than i do for pvp at this point, and i dont think thats ready for launch yet either.

Gameplay in gw2 is full of chores, and downed states are a big one

+1, don’t buff elementalist just nerf everyone else.

Better yet, remove the chore that is downedstates from the game so it’s fun to play and replace it with a different resource.

Well, those videos were god awful for proving that point.

But yea the staff elementalist bunker/support build is kinda popular. Especially on BoK.

Theres a holy trinity system in both games. Tank/healer/dps == guardian/thief/mesmer right?

Both games are significantly different, gw2 borrowed little from wow, and theyre stronger for it. Even this truly 1/2 kittened pvp is worlds better than world of warcrafts

I say nerf the scaling on the glass thief.

Balanced thieves are maybe just slightly too good, and the problem isnt their damage.

Glass thieves arent good at all at a high skill level, but they are a problem in spvp. Its not often i recomend a balnce decision for lower tiers of play but this i think warrants it

Theres no defense for a 10 second cc that cant be removed.

No i read moa pre beta and thought: “that must be a pve skill, they said pvp would be balanced appart from pve this mist just be the pve tooltip.”

The i played the game and said “well thats ridiculous, but its beta so it must just be that anet hasnt done a round of balancing on pvp yet, ill bet by launch.”

…

Now i just said kitten it and i play tribes ascend and dota 2, because contrary to what was said arena net did not wait until it was ready. From the looks of the blog theyre still half a year away from ready.

Im with op. Its exploit. But im also with everyone else who says that its your fault for going in the water when water combat is as poorly balanced as downed states.

1) if you l2p then this problem lessens / goes away. So anet doesnt see it as a big problem, as its already balanced for higher level play.

2) it really is a problem though. They say their eye is on support elementalists, the tanky support build is the only one that isnt 1 shot by this. Burst builds like this force balance builds out of existence. So while these types of bursts can be overcome at high level play, they are still impacting high level play by limiting build selection.

Repair kits cant go through portals

Imo water can just keep the heals it already does.

Air can be given more control and boon so its a utility and maybe some confusion? On one of the weapons.

The just earth and fire are either condition or damage based.

Populated and without the mess of duplicate skills and trash the expansions brought,

Guildsource has a youtube of tl vs tp where tp

A) has no thief
B) has no elementalist
C) doesnt use mesmer as treb opperator most of the game

And tp wins.

… ill be honest im still not sure how they do this, but they do.

In fact they come from behind after they stop using mesmer as trebusitter.

I read once that GW1 was inspired heavily by Magic the Gathering, and I saw it. I spent hours theory crafting the skills and making team builds for both GvG and HoH. Arena Net really captured that flavor of fun and brought it to their own game.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have that flavor, but then that’s alright. You can’t really fit every thing into just the pvp of a game. (I think some of the jump puzzles are a totally acceptable substitute).

But I’m left wondering, what are the inspirations? What flavors of fun does arenanet try to put into their tPvP? Which games do you look at and say “we want to be like that, but in our own way.”

Just some bragging really… I say I had fun pondering builds.

When a new spirit didn’t kill the old one, I was in ventrilo with Embryo when he read the email from Anet stating it would not be considered an exploit if he used them to wall with. We won that relic run, and i dare say started a trend.

When they wrote the patch that said dropping a new spirit of one type would cause the old one to die, I wrote bloodspike to tap that endless mana battery of justice.

We had our fun with the complex skill system. I’m sad to see it go.

By the way, the part of BS I’m most poud of? The fact that it was a bunch of N/Mo with 1 R/x. Which happens to be almost the same as Edge Bomb.

I will never forget that match when we were holding altar against 2 IWAY teams when Jesus of Suberbia just starts laughing hysterically and won’t say why. So Ghost starts tabbing through and sees a lvl 16 Edge of Extinction.

But that’s all lost here. Doubt any kids on this forum (including Devs) were around back then.

Ya seriously. I don’t care about PvE people at all but I know I get pretty steamed when some PvE patch poops all over my PvP build, and I’m sure they get the same.

There are numerous quotes of Devs saying that they will balance the two worlds independantly, I hope they meant that.

Hm, whats this trash about destroying the treb? U just send someone to harass opperator during key strategic times. Destroying treb its self is a secondary objective most of the time. Its not so easy to dodge that its not worth using, lets be clear, but yea i dodge it pretty often. It adds pressure to a fight but not an unbearable amount.

I think it and mesmers are both fine. Mobile classes have no trouble harassing treb then moving to ct when the enemy runs for the kit.

Lol, lots of votes for new game modes both times. Lololol

Ya, all nerfed to be like ele +1 again.

I found the tldr in good taste and amusing.

That said, I think the blog was poor. It was hyped and then delivered no new information. (I admit the hype given by the devs was minimal, but as they can see the impact of even those small whispers was great.)

I’m annoyed that I’m still waiting for the game to be released, and starting to think the dedication and admiration I feel for arena.net after Guild Wars Prophecies was misplaced. Every successive expansion with that game detracted from the PvP scene, and the state of PvP at the launch of Guild Wars 2 frankly has me demoralized.

I was looking to this blog post for some statements of vision. It’s nice to hear that esports are important to the team, ish. … Guild Wars 1 was inspired by Magic the Gathering, and you saw it when you played. I spent hours pondering tactics and team builds, and painstakingly I eventually designed the first Blood Spike. I’m still proud of that.

What’s the vision for Guild Wars 2? Obviously not MtG, but that can be okay, I can do different. What inspires your team and makes them say “that was fun, how can we capture that flavor of fun and improve it for our game?”

What’s your opinion on swapping characters during matches? Which of these elements will be allowed to stay and which will not?

I play a staff ele with mist form and lightning flash, and sometimes armor of earth. The only solid build better at the stomp/rez game than my main is a thief with shadow refuge. And i play that build pretty well.

But the downed state isnt fun. It just isnt, even when you win it. Rallying is stupid, thats the first to go. Then a total overhaul of most classes#2 ability (nerf). And then realize that even when fixed, its not fun.

Gw1 had an awesome monk setup for pvp. I get why they dropped support characters from pve, but in pvp they were fine and fun, and this bad substitute is bad. What ever happened to assessing the needs for balance in pve and pvp separate?

Ya i heard nobody has been truly pro downed state since alpha yet its still ruining pvp? To clarify, i was one of the few who said it sounded neat and we should try it. …

So it needs replacing, not removal, but its been tried, and there is nothing a about it. The only place its posative is leveling up pve. In dungeons, wvwvw, and pvp… its a poop.

Ya… the tpvp balanced around haste doesnt sound nearly as fun as tpvp balanced without it.

Whatever, at this point, your blog is either going to be a golden rainbow of insight and genius or im going to be mostly convinced guildwars prophecies was blind luck and now youre just sort of meh with a great art department.

There are a number of viable elementalist builds, most using staff or scepter mainhand.

The best for tournaments is, i argue, staff tank support.

Regardless of other details, all of the viable ele builds go 30 arcana. Most go 20 or 30 water as well.

While this is a dissapointing lack of diversity, its really not bad when you compare it to other classes.

Well there are rifle engineer builds too but i dont think those have been viable since bwe3

Guess it got missed.

Tell me a burst build that isnt also a dps build please?

I see ppl arguing wether burst or dps builds should counter bunkers… but im at a loss to think of a burst build that cant dps, and i cant think of any dps builds commonly run that cant burst. The fact is that to make a dps build youve already taken most of what it takes to burst, so the remaining cost of opportunity between burst or survival…

The ONLY exceptions that come to mind are the ranger dot build, which has questionable dps, and my total lack of understanding regarding necro builds.

Ya ya its already in translation. They can do a follow up if we have some good ideas that are missing.

1). What is arena nets vision for changing characters/gear/utilities/traits mid match/tournament? Right now almost anything goes, i expect that to be changed… but a real discussion can be had about it. Does it hurt to have utility skills unlocked in the pre match area? What about character swapping for specific maps?

2). What is arena nets vision of balance? That each class have two+ viable builds/roles per map? Or per tournament if character switching is stopped?

3). What is arena nets vision for the downed state?

4). Their stance on alternative map types someday when they have the development time to handle it?

5). What exactly is a back end fix in this case? Will our minds be blown? Or is this an under the hood kinda fix?

Im sure ill have more thoughts as will others.

Honestly i could care less about bunker guardians and such for the short term, its important, and im glad anet has their eye on them, but i dont really need to hear more about it.

Well… 8 classes and 5 slots… 3 capture points.

Obviously the map demands some form of splitting, which allows for the team to be designed into two or even three smaller teams.

A.net apparently cares about balancing the classes..

I guess im curious what their vision of the word balance is? Is balance having 2+ builds(and roles) viable in tpvp? Which begs the question what about character switching during and between maps?

Is that in / can it be added to the blog please? Your view of character, utility, and gear changes? When if it all will it be allowed?

Re: dps build = burst build atm… maybe necromancers? Im still confused about how those work.!

Pretty awesome if its real.

Uh… yea gw1 pvp was superior. At least back in prophecies, didnt play rest.

Ive been wondering tho, wtf is up with this balancing bs? Classes in gw werent balanced, my answer is k. Who cared? Really truly why did warrior/ranger need to be as viable as warrior/elementalist?

If they add RELIC RUN style maps…

Anyhow i read a comment somewhere once that they dont want to fragment the community by addind too many pvp types. But then i also read somewhere once that different sources of speed boosts would stack without a cap… ah well cant really blame them for changing their minds on either of those bad decisions.

I agreeish. They released too soon. Their explorable modes arent polished enough to be endgame content. Their pvp lacks the tools listed here, and they have a huge workload of bugs and balancing to work through before they can really address either of these.

But… from where they stand now, they have to fix whats broken first. It will take time. Just pretend the game didnt actually launch yet. Play mop or bl2 or dota2 or ta or whatever for a couple months. Theres no subscription. Gw2 will be here for you eventually

problem solved… shrug maybe it was just a couple days worth of high server latency or something? I have no idea.