Verdict on Guild Wars 2's innovations

[Valeron]

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I much prefer the chaos and unpredictability that the fights bring. I found WoW (just as an example) fights incredibly boring in the way that everything was formulaic and predictable. My favorite fights were actually the ones in which taunts weren't usable and aggro was unpredictable, such as the princess fight in majester's terrace (I know I'm in the minority here, almost everyone else hated that fight).

[Fencers]

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I much prefer the chaos and unpredictability that the fights bring. I found WoW (just as an example) fights incredibly boring in the way that everything was formulaic and predictable. My favorite fights were actually the ones in which taunts weren't usable and aggro was unpredictable, such as the princess fight in majester's terrace (I know I'm in the minority here, almost everyone else hated that fight).

Personally don't mind the chaos of combat. I don't prefer it to more exacting styles of combat though.

Tend to think of the issue like I do strategy games; some are built around fast action, reaction and dynamic thinking. Company of Heroes or Starcraft, for example. Others might be more cerebral and slower paced. Rewarding grand strategy or logistical planning. Things like Heroes of Might & Magic, Panzer General or Galactic Civilization. Bah, blah, blah.

Likewise, I might be in the mood for a free-wheeling/chaotic pace to combat [GW2] some times. Other times, I want to figure out a large scale raid boss with precise mechanics [EQ or something].

Neither is better or more right as a design choice. As long as those games deliver on their premise [I think they do] it's fine. Might not be everyone loves GalCiv or Starcraft equally, natch.

Such is life though.

[Valeron]

Well I'm referring to mmos and mmo-like video games in this respect.

For orderly and tactical type fights, I much prefer games such as the Total War games.

[draykorinee]

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I much prefer the chaos and unpredictability that the fights bring. I found WoW (just as an example) fights incredibly boring in the way that everything was formulaic and predictable. My favorite fights were actually the ones in which taunts weren't usable and aggro was unpredictable, such as the princess fight in majester's terrace (I know I'm in the minority here, almost everyone else hated that fight).

No it's definitely you, fights that have unpredictable aggro are horrid, at least when aggro goes wrong in wow I know who to a blame I really can't fathom aggro in Gw 2 it just doesn't 'work' for me. I'm aware it's due to my trinity like mentality but I don't think in game aggro has been done well.

[Fencers]

Well I'm referring to mmos and mmo-like video games in this respect.

I am too.

Genre isn't very relevant. I could have used fast paced shooters and methodical shooters as an example. Or arcade racers vs. sim racers.

Some games aim for a more reactionary [which is classically, Arcade] experience. Some do not.

[Maarius]

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I much prefer the chaos and unpredictability that the fights bring. I found WoW (just as an example) fights incredibly boring in the way that everything was formulaic and predictable. My favorite fights were actually the ones in which taunts weren't usable and aggro was unpredictable, such as the princess fight in majester's terrace (I know I'm in the minority here, almost everyone else hated that fight).

I'm with you here, I had the best moments in WoW when everything went wrong and the "tank" (most of the time a random deathknight-dps-"tank") died. Playing a shaman as off-tank was quite interesting ^^ and getting compliments afterwards for being a better tank than the actual tank... yeah there were some great moments in WoW - when chaos started to happen.

[Svifnymr]

I'm with you here, I had the best moments in WoW when everything went wrong and the "tank" (most of the time a random deathknight-dps-"tank") died. Playing a shaman as off-tank was quite interesting ^^ and getting compliments afterwards for being a better tank than the actual tank... yeah there were some great moments in WoW - when chaos started to happen.

Same with my Warlock and Boomkin, both were a lot of fun when everything went wrong. I don't mind the trinity exactly, but it does seem to focus some folks to the point they don't understand how to operate independently.

Like pulling a guy out of a group so you can kill them one at a time rather than jumping into the group and getting in over your head, a process lost on most.

Same with kiting stuff, plenty of folks used to kite when needed, but as time went on, it became more of "wipe and blame the tank" rather than "handle things and recover".

It persists in GW2 of course with many folks rushing in over their head and then calling to get rezzed. It's a shame most of the group events become zergs for that reason.

[Maarius]

It persists in GW2 of course with many folks rushing in over their head and then calling to get rezzed. It's a shame most of the group events become zergs for that reason.

well in WoW the whole group died if one tank was unable... now in GW2 the group still can do well on it's own without having to rezz the Leeroy.

Groupevents in the open world have another problem imho. Mobs fall faster than you can target them when a lot of people are participating. Those mobs should 1.) get stronger / vets and 2.) should spread out more to tear the zerg apart.

[Karizee]

No it's definitely you, fights that have unpredictable aggro are horrid, at least when aggro goes wrong in wow I know who to a blame I really can't fathom aggro in Gw 2 it just doesn't 'work' for me. I'm aware it's due to my trinity like mentality but I don't think in game aggro has been done well.

Actually it's very easy to tell who screwed up in dungeon, once you understand how they play.

[Lane]

I'm with you here, I had the best moments in WoW when everything went wrong and the "tank" (most of the time a random deathknight-dps-"tank") died. Playing a shaman as off-tank was quite interesting ^^ and getting compliments afterwards for being a better tank than the actual tank... yeah there were some great moments in WoW - when chaos started to happen.

Those were my favorite moments too, but I have yet to experience that same sensation in GW2. As a hybrid in WoW I could switch to tanking or healing if one or the other died, but in GW2 it's more like trying to do it all with 5 'pure' DPS classes.

[Kelesti]

The idea with Guild Wars 2 was to have those moments 'all the time'. That every moment in combat would be that very same experience.

They kinda dropped the ball, for sure.

[Fencers]

That's just because Arena.net's encounter design is awful in GW2, frankly.

[Karizee]

I was in a lvl 26 Fractal last week with 3 of my buddies (1 on an alt that we were boosting) and a new guy.

When we zoned into Underground Facility new guy starts cussing up a storm while we laughed. I knew then we were going to have an interesting run with this fella ^.^

After getting him through the first room (he kept trying to "tank" the adds on top of the person on the panel - we ended up letting him be a paperweight instead) and him spending the bomb gauntlet on the floor, we finally get to the end. We got the Dredge Powersuit.

So I'm running the platforms and doing the pours since I have all the speed buffs, heals & whatnot, a good eye on when to pour and know how to dodge without falling off. Dingdong doesn't get out of the bombs and goes down. One of my mates tries to rez him and she goes down. Things quickly went south and both my other mates go down. I zap the boss and take a flying leap off the platform and start kiting.

I'm running my ass off, popping all my cooldowns and my adrenaline was pumping so hard and I'm yelling in Mumble, "I'm kiting, I'm kiting like a fool! Get back here!" And we are all laughing so hard and they finally make it back and I run back up to the platforms and we pick it back up and finish him off.

New guy is flipping out, "Great recovery! GJ!!!" while I finish having a heart attack.

Was hilarious.


Too bad you guys can't appreciate them because honestly, these are the most fun dungeons I've done in years

[Maarius]

The idea with Guild Wars 2 was to have those moments 'all the time'. That every moment in combat would be that very same experience.

They kinda dropped the ball, for sure.

what do you mean "would be the same experience"? The strength of GW2 is to have each time you do a dungeon with a new profession-set up a different experience. In classic mmos you had a tank who pulled everything and other classes who did their rotation, in GW2 you have a pretty different experience when you do a dungeon with 5 thieves or 2 eles and 3 rangers etc. It's up to the player(s) to find ways to play effective, there is no single-best way. You could say: but there is: take 2 guardians and 3 eles and you win - yeah it would probably the best setup (??maybe) but then you can play with any one of your friends and it doesn't matter which profession he/she plays.

I'm not trying to say it's perfect, I'm just saying that with a system without dependance on 1 single tank group compilation can vary a lot, and each profession feels different. I love the fact that it doesn't matter what profession I bring, I can play with my 4 RL-friends anytime and with any main/twink I like. And so do they.

[Kelesti]

Duplicating a run is not what I meant, and yes it does happen more with rigid combat roles.

What I had meant by saying that, Maarius, is that single feeling you get, when the tank dies and you have seconds to pull this off and it's "Do or Die Time!", that adrenaline rush, that combat euphoria, that feeling was what I was getting at when I meant you should be having that experience again and again.


Saying you can do this with a Guardian or you can do this with an Engineer instead does not change the idea that the actual intensity of this design, that was sold on its "chaos" factor, is underperforming because of poor encounter design.

[Maarius]

Duplicating a run is not what I meant, and yes it does happen more with rigid combat roles.

What I had meant by saying that, Maarius, is that single feeling you get, when the tank dies and you have seconds to pull this off and it's "Do or Die Time!", that adrenaline rush, that combat euphoria, that feeling was what I was getting at when I meant you should be having that experience again and again.


Saying you can do this with a Guardian or you can do this with an Engineer instead does not change the idea that the actual intensity of this design, that was sold on its "chaos" factor, is underperforming because of poor encounter design.

ah ok, I agree. Fractals were an improvement to the first dungeons, but there is still a lot of room for more interesting encounters - especially against trashmobs. I wonder why trashmobs show no specific weaknesses which should be utilized. Like: you need to burn/poison that mob to make him vulnerable to attacks. Probably because there is the possibility that no one in the group has a burn/poison attack. Hmm.

[Meledelion]

ah ok, I agree. Fractals were an improvement to the first dungeons, but there is still a lot of room for more interesting encounters - especially against trashmobs. I wonder why trashmobs show no specific weaknesses which should be utilized. Like: you need to burn/poison that mob to make him vulnerable to attacks. Probably because there is the possibility that no one in the group has a burn/poison attack. Hmm.

Chances of this are very small (apart from poison) if you take racial skills into account. Imo some easy mechanic as "if you blind this mob it starts using massive aoe dmg but is stationary, if you weaken this mob it focuses on the main source of weaknes and does a lot of single target attacks, if you stack vulnerability the mob enrages and does 150% dmg and if you put all of them at once you are now screwed "

I think the main reason why you don't get that epic feeling in comparison to when wow goes south is because in wow if you survive something like that you know you "recovered" and actually did something noteworthy while in GW2 you know this is expected/normal and thus doesn't give you the same rush.

The thing Karizee describes is the same "chaos feeling" because it was the same reason, they fckd up and recovered. If mr noob hadn't died (and thus the rest didn't either) but karizee still did everything else the same I doubt that same euphoria would've been felt.

[Fencers]

I think the main reason why you don't get that epic feeling in comparison to when wow goes south is because in wow if you survive something like that you know you "recovered" and actually did something noteworthy while in GW2 you know this is expected/normal and thus doesn't give you the same rush.

Has more to do with the fact that you are playing World of Warcraft against rules. The design of many WOW encounters are meant to function in a rather finite number of ways- they are totally scripted after all.

The encounters are execution puzzles. Not reaction puzzles.

Psychologically one feels they have "overcome" a rule set that is ordinarily strict. When all encounters are lazies-faire that particular sensation of winning in an "impossible" situation is less distinct. One remembers that one time in an encounter where the Prot Paladin died and the Druid kited the boss because it is peculiar within the rule set.

We hardly and rarely see these type of claims for example in MMOs where every class can perform the same roles or have greater flexibility. Where as World of Warcraft or Everquest are extremely singular and one dimensional in that regard.

Fairly, we can say that the combat style of Everquest and it's dynamics aren't very dynamic at all.

"OMG the rogue is kiting the boss and our tank is dead!!" is not uttered too often in RA because well every class in the game can tank, dps, kite, cc and heal by design and course. For example.

That is more or less how it is GW2; everyone can do the same basic functions. Sort of bemusement with this system is likely rooted in ignorance or a low understanding of design.

Natch, this being a World of Warcraft forum there are many users here that primarily played World of Warcraft as their most significant time investment. Thus their POV on MMOs in an over sense is often contrasted to that narrow experience and understanding.

[Meledelion]

snip

so we basically agree

P.S.: it took me ages to figure out that you meant "Laissez faire", my mind got stuck on "wtf do lazy people have to do with anything?"

[Fencers]

so we basically agree

Yup!

I was driving at the fact the only reason those "omg crazy" moments seem significant in WOW is because the gameplay of Warcraft is so limited by role. Whereas GW2 is far more free-wheeling.