GW2: good bye static rotation, welcome active battles!

[Malthurius]

looks and plays no diff to wow, like ive said any times after playing the demo at eurogamer it nothing new, hit a few cooldowns in a rotation then spam 1 button.
You people shouldnt get hyped over it so much because you will only be dissapointed when its something you think it should be but clearly is not on release.

You're a funny man Suggs... that's why I'm going to kill you last. [schwarzenegger mode off]

You obviously didn't play the game at Eurogamer, and if you did you probably spent the entire time hunting normal mobs and playing like it's WoW. Surely in your mind "If I can beat nerfed mobs in a demo by playing like WoW, then I must be able to do everything like that."

[Maarius]

@Jit: thanks for the nice comparison ^^
...half of the screen bars and numbers... Oo

[masterpiece]

Honestly I'm going to miss addons, not all the dps meters but I like being able to customize the look and location of everything.

[Malthurius]

Honestly I'm going to miss addons, not all the dps meters but I like being able to customize the look and location of everything.

You'll be able to customize your UI in GW2. GW1 had it, I don't see why GW2 wouldn't.

[masterpiece]

You'll be able to customize your UI in GW2. GW1 had it, I don't see why GW2 wouldn't.

I know you can move things around, but can you re-skin and change the layout of your bars like with bartender? I like having 2 rows of 5 rather than one of 10 skills.

[Artravus]

GW2 definitely looks.. different. However, you simply CANNOT judge how good a game is by exhibitions. Wait for the game to release and then see how it is. I hope it's good, the MMO market needs competition for MMOs to improve. However, it would be nice if the 'disgruntled former WoW player GW2 fanboys' simmered down.

[jackofwind]

Ranged combat is fairly different, but to be perfectly honest, melee combat is actually a lot more similar to the MMO standard than people take into account.

If you aren't already positioning yourself behind a boss or player in a standard MMO (ie: dodge cleaves/no parry etc.) you're doing it wrong. You can bet that melee players will move as little as possible in order to better keep up their damage - it'll end up being little more than a rotation around the boss to keep facing its back, while maneuvering to avoid taking damage - just as it is under the current model.

But like I said, having a ranged reticle is pretty different, and appeals to me greatly.

[bosey17]

melee combat is actually a lot more similar to the MMO standard than people take into account.

Very true, but don't forget that it will mostly likely be the melee fighters who are going to be using their dodge buttons the most. There are also a few weapon sets that have a block or parry skill

[Shinen]

Ranged combat is fairly different, but to be perfectly honest, melee combat is actually a lot more similar to the MMO standard than people take into account.

If you aren't already positioning yourself behind a boss or player in a standard MMO (ie: dodge cleaves/no parry etc.) you're doing it wrong. You can bet that melee players will move as little as possible in order to better keep up their damage - it'll end up being little more than a rotation around the boss to keep facing its back.

But like I said, having a ranged reticle is pretty different, and appeals to me greatly.

I understand what you mean, but I think you are thinking about a tank enviroment. Remember there is no tank nor healer, so I highly doubt it will just be stand in his back and do max dps. I also highly doubt the mobs will remain in place.

[HaruGlory]

I only hope that the dungeons aren't like they showed in their gameplay preview, it seemed like all they did was standing still mashing the buttons :/

[Newbryn]

[/COLOR]

Personally when i saw that video, i took it more as " look at the dungeon surrounding " rather then " Look at the gameplay in the dungeon".

That's actually the story mode of the ascalonion catacombs dungeon.

[Razeo]

This is to everyone saying the combat resembles WoW's, if any of you have ever played Kingdom hearts 1 and 2(if not go youtube it). The combat system in GW2 (melee anyways) mostly resembles that instead of WoW's.

[Fencers]

I only hope that the dungeons aren't like they showed in their gameplay preview, it seemed like all they did was standing still mashing the buttons :/

Pretty sure we could assume such from any MMO by viewing a video only.

Gotta play 'em at release before we can truly get a sense of combat.

[Shinen]

I only hope that the dungeons aren't like they showed in their gameplay preview, it seemed like all they did was standing still mashing the buttons :/

Who are the players? Anet team? I think I saw a ranger with a longbow standing close to the mob. Not sure that's how you are intended to play.

[Lucky_]

I'm a fan, yes obviously - but I can't see why you are attacking me for handing out information which we fans collected from various official sources and people who played the game on demostations. All I see is a lot of misinformation here in the forums so I try to make this threads for people who don't got all these informations in the first place. What's wrong with that? disappointed.

I think I can help you understand why many of us are downright pensive of your behavior.

You see, you're building up a picture that is simply impossible to deliver on. Take your current thread for example: "no static rotation in GW2". To help understand the sheer absurdity of this claim and your logic let's take a look at what "static rotation" actually is.

Definition: The concept of rotation means that there is a "way to use your skills in certain order that will allow you to play the game in most efficient way". Static means that this doesn't change, so you could technically macro the entire rotation into one button and just hammer away at that button and be the most efficient you can be (or at least get very close).

In WoW, there is a concept of rotation in top end play. This means that classes and specs have been both theorycrafted and experienced in such depth that people have identified and understood most if not all of the meaningful ways to play the class and found the optimal ones. Note: meaningful is used as a mathematical concept, referring to differences fitting inside margin of error and therefore not being a meaningful factor in the outcome.

Will there be a "rotation" in GW2? If there are enough people interested in the game to figure out the optimal way to play characters, absolutely. Rotation is simply a symptom of player optimization. Most games using wide arrays of skills have "optimal rotations", but they are not known because there aren't enough people interested in finding that depth of optimization playing them and exchanging information amongst themselves.

What we established above: There will be an optimal rotation for every class in guild wars 2 for every facet of gameplay. The question is whether the game's mechanical complexity and lack of player interest will prevent us from finding it or not.

Now comes the real meat of the argument: level of rigidity (or as many like to call it, static) in the rotation. Many people coming from WoW seem to fail to realize that WoW's rotations are in fact very dynamic by measure of MMOs in general. This is out of necessity, WoW is theorycrafted and practiced to such depth that even a small allowance for rigidity makes game a "one button macro" affair. We had those moments in WoW, most notable being in TBC (destruction warlocks), and across last two expansions one of the main design directions has been the move away from static rotation towards the dynamic one. Dynamic rotation is the kind of optimized gameplay that needs to react to significant amount of environmental and skill variance input to constantly adjust itself. For example, a "priority system" a la current frost death knight is a dynamic rotation (read on elitistjerks guide for details if you're struggling with the concept).


As a result, we can most likely conclude that GW2 aims for dynamic rotation, at least based on information we have about how the game plays. Problem is that the hype likes to claim that this is a divergence from WoW model. It is not. WoW has essentially killed static rotations in patch 3.0 and ever since then whenever any sort of static rotation emerged as a viable game style, it was killed within days, weeks at most through either hotfixes or a client-side patch.


So in conclusion: Pointless presentation of the current MMO behemoth as something it most certainly is not and has strived to not be for many years, while painting upcoming game as something that "solves this problem" that has been in fact solved in the aforementioned behemoth leaves a really bad fanboy aftertaste for those informed, and a lot of sense of entitlement and hype in those that do not. Notably, one of the biggest reasons people seem to be unsubbing from SWTOR is not that it's a bad game per se, but the chasm between what they have been promised in the hype, and what they got.
It would be wise not to do lift the hype to the same unattainable levels with GW2, lest it joins SWTOR in the long list of "disappointing MMOs that didn't deliver on their promises".

[Maarius]

However, it would be nice if the 'disgruntled former WoW player GW2 fanboys' simmered down.

I'm not disgruntled I'm harmless.


to clarify: with static I meant: people standing around doing nothing but their rotation. You will need to move, that's what I'm trying to say.

[Newbryn]

Who are the players? Anet team? I think I saw a ranger with a longbow standing close to the mob. Not sure that's how you are intended to play.

The ranger with the Longbow is Eir an npc from Edge of destiny,also there is no minimum range in gw doubt its going to be in 2.

[Valeron]

I can understand why in a lot of the videos people think it seems similar to wow, because the players are playing it like they are used to from wow.

I really hope that as you level (since it should be a learning process as you level) that the game really starts to punish you if you play it like that.

[Fencers]

Lucky_ pretty otm here. It's not a matter of saying, "Here is how combat or dungeons work in GW2". It's crouched in fan-ism and hype; "GW2 will have more Hardcore dungeons than any MMO!".

And that just leads to either, "Ehhhh" or "Right on, GW2 is gonna be a revolution!".

[HaruGlory]

Don't get me wrong, I'm counting the days to play this game, I was just commenting on what I saw on that video. Mobs seemed to just stood there while the players smashed them with abilities. Of course this could be maybe because it's the story mode or just a demo to show the dungeon, but that doesn't mean that I totally liked the gameplay that I saw. The same goes for DE's like Tequalth (spelling?), the dragon just stood there while the players hit him or his minions. Hopefully we will see more engaging combats when the game goes live.