Verdict on Guild Wars 2's innovations

[Gray_Matter]

Hah! Now every time I get aggro from a boss I'm going to hear, "Run away, little girl!" in my head.

For me, the lack of the trinity makes things more realistic. If there are 4 people in a room beating on seriously big dude. Does anyone really think that he will stand there and hit the biggest, strongest one carrying all of the heavy armor and ignore the others? He will pick on the smallest, weakest one and wipe them out first.

Running away is the soundest strategy for the small guy he is chasing.

Trinity basically just gives people jobs to do in the fights. Make sure you have enough people of each type for each job.

What would be really cool is if the bosses could learn from the fights. Players just use AOE and he starts to avoid it. Players hit him and then hide behind a pillar. He destroys the pillar.

I remember a karate game that did that when I was younger. If you kept doing round house kicks, the boss would start blocking them.

[Faldric]

For me, the lack of the trinity makes things more realistic. If there are 4 people in a room beating on seriously big dude. Does anyone really think that he will stand there and hit the biggest, strongest one carrying all of the heavy armor and ignore the others? He will pick on the smallest, weakest one and wipe them out first.

Yeah but is realism really that important in a fantasy game? As it is now, most bosses are exactly the same mechanics with different boss models. And at least for me it got old pretty fast. The lack of enough abilities or short cd power ups just make every fight a big borefest. You autoattack until the boss turns to you then you run away and when he is done you repeat that until his millions of hp are down. It felt a little like Molten Core on my hunter. When the group is big enough I just go autohit afk.

I would immidiatly trade any realism for bosses who are not glorrified trashmobs.

[Meledelion]

Yeah but is realism really that important in a fantasy game? As it is now, most bosses are exactly the same mechanics with different boss models. And at least for me it got old pretty fast. The lack of enough abilities or short cd power ups just make every fight a big borefest. You autoattack until the boss turns to you then you run away and when he is done you repeat that until his millions of hp are down. It felt a little like Molten Core on my hunter. When the group is big enough I just go autohit afk.

I would immidiatly trade any realism for bosses who are not glorrified trashmobs.

This is the case for all games though.

[Faldric]

This is the case for all games though.

Which part do you mean?
I think one can state that the bosses in MMOs with trinity are a lot more varied than the ones we have in GW2. Maybe one can explore new grounds in boss design without the trinity but atm voidzones is as good as it gets.

[Meledelion]

Which part do you mean?
I think one can state that the bosses in MMOs with trinity are a lot more varied than the ones we have in GW2. Maybe one can explore new grounds in boss design without the trinity but atm voidzones is as good as it gets.

As it is now, most bosses are exactly the same mechanics with different boss models.

If you think bosses are more varied in for instance WoW you're in for a shocker, they're all the same. We had this discussion somewhere in this thread before I think. A good example would be (if you still play) to explain any boss from cata/mop (I haven't played those) and you can only use mechanics from wotlk, I promise it won't be hard.

Taunt rotations etc, aren't of any concern to 90% of the raid and having to manage that usually means that tanks don't have to manage something else. It looks like things get more "complicated" but once you take the polish off you realise that no matter what, it's always the same (regardless of there being a trinity or not)

Since this is all comparative and not rlly on-topic I encourage you to PM me if you want to continue our talk

[Gray_Matter]

Well, it doesn't matter and it's not particularly noticeable. XD

Everything has so much fucking HP yet there is rarely any DPS check that it is almost academic to deal 640 vs. 580.

But if everyone in the dungeon was slacking then it would make a huge different. 30% from the stats and another 30% from gear over 5 people. That's 69% more DPS per player over 5 players. That means killing the boss almost 4 times quicker.

It would be nicer if there were more DPS checks but the problem is that is in direct conflict with the anyone can do anything mantra.

---------- Post added 2013-03-11 at 03:17 PM ----------

Yeah but is realism really that important in a fantasy game? As it is now, most bosses are exactly the same mechanics with different boss models. And at least for me it got old pretty fast. The lack of enough abilities or short cd power ups just make every fight a big borefest. You autoattack until the boss turns to you then you run away and when he is done you repeat that until his millions of hp are down. It felt a little like Molten Core on my hunter. When the group is big enough I just go autohit afk.

I would immidiatly trade any realism for bosses who are not glorrified trashmobs.

I would prefer more realistic fights. Not knowing what the boss will do next keeps people on their toes. Forces people to adapt to the fight.

Let me put it this way. With the trinity, people have specific roles. They know that as long as they do X they will be fine. X can be stand on the mushroom, avoid the fire, run across the room to spot y, etc. The principles are the same. Do the fight 3 times as a role and you know what to do. Practice makes it perfect but it's still the same fight regardless. Want a different perspective, switch to another role (healing, tanking, ranged or melee). That may buy you 3 more fights and they you are bored with the fight in general. After that, it's just farming the fight for tokens, loot or something else.

Without the trinity, it's pretty similar. You may not get as many encounters out of the fight before you become bored because you can't really switch roles to make it different. What you do get is an element of randomness. You need to be a bit more aware of your surroundings. If the boss chases you, run while still avoiding X.

That's one of the things I like about Fractals. You don't just get the same dungeon every time. It's 3 different events. The only problem is that you are limited to 9 to chose from. It would be much better if there were 20 or 30. It would stay interesting for much much longer.

Now, back to why I say I would prefer realism. I think that bosses should have more AI. Give them abilities, fine, but also make them smarter the higher up the difficulty tree you go. Let them react quicker at higher levels. So at lower levels, they almost never dodge a blow or interrupt you. But get to the higher ones and you have to be careful to release that 2 second hammer blow. Make sure you do that sort of thing when he won't react, maybe when he is stunned. If he is chasing you, get him to behave like a player and maim you so that he can catch up a bit. Let them use combos when they get to higher levels to do more damage or to distract you with adds so that they can run off and heal a bit. Doing more damage shouldn't be the only throwback from a higher level.

Games, especially MMO's, are getting more immersive, but only in the world environments. They are failing miserably when it comes to organised encounters. That's part of the reason why I quit WOW, I couldn't bare to do another raid where I ran through doing the same things, fight after fight, just trying to get a slightly better item of gear. For the first couple of times on Dragon Soul, I really enjoyed the encounters, but after the fifth or sixth time, it started becoming a chore because it was really nothing different. This is not a complaint about WOW but the whole concept of bosses and strategies. You learn the strategy and the encounter is no longer interesting. It's one of the reasons why I really enjoyed the PVP encounter in TOGC. Realism, if done properly, will make fights far more interesting. Trinity prevents that from happening because the bosses are then bound by rules. It has been around for so long that people don't realise that it actually reduces the flexibility in fights. I am not saying that GW2 is doing the "no trinity" story right at the moment. I don't believe that anyone is doing organised encounters right just yet.

[Svifnymr]

Which part do you mean?
I think one can state that the bosses in MMOs with trinity are a lot more varied than the ones we have in GW2. Maybe one can explore new grounds in boss design without the trinity but atm voidzones is as good as it gets.

I liked the trinity well enough and like the non-trinity well enough, they're different.

But a healer playing a game of whack-a-mole and a tank doing his job via macro doesn't mean they're more engaged or varied. It also results in the blame-game way too often.

[Karizee]

For me the only time the trinity was exciting was when people stepped out of their trinity roles. Like a warlock pulling a last minute tanking maneuver out of his ass which saved an encounter or a healer popping that last bit of dps to get a boss down. Those were the moments that had you cheering, not the boring, you can do only one role brain dead fest the rest of it is.


A recent post from reddit illustrates why the no trinity system in GW2 is always exciting.

"Grawl is a special fractal IMO. I always have a very particular feeling when the party reaches up to the end of the bridge, right before jumping down, beholding the transformed shaman holding his deadly bow and listening to the background soundtrack. Even before jumping down I already start to see myself dodging arrows and AoE'ing fire grubs. We took our brief moment to slot appropriate skills. Personally, as a glass cannon elementalist I usually take Mist Form and Arcane Shield for overall rez'ing and self defense and Signet of Fire for the little DPS increase. I have no idea if that's optimal or whatever.

We jumped down and started beating. There were few arrow hits. The shaman was very close to a captive when the first bubble popped up so he regenerated back up. We got through the "first bubble" again and then to the second, but wiped. There were no "change of strategy" discussions since we were pretty much doing our jobs well. Shit happens, though, and in these levels there is less room for error. I'm pretty sure lag was the villain behind at least most of our arrow misdodges. Our second try was when the dance started.

We did not just beat the shaman. We danced together. It was a fucking synchro. I felt like watching the olympics. We were given everything that can be offered by that fractal boss. Somebody had told me you have to CC him before the bubble comes up, or else it won't connect. I haven't checked it out yet, but because of that I tried to time Frozen Ground as close as possible to the moment I thought the bubble was going to pop up, and man, I was fucking having premonitions last night. I just tried to watch its health bar and I know I'm just not that skiled, but last night I felt like "the King of Grawl Bubble CC'ing". I managed to place Frozen Ground for the first and second bubbles within a half fucking second and one second from each bubble respectively. I couldn't CC the third bubble since I was probably too busy rez'ing or fleeing or healing up or whatever. There were so many moments where walls of reflection were successfully placed even with the shaman's arrow already in midair towards an already downed target. Many times either the guardians took the time to walk into my Lava Font's before Pull'ing in or I waited for them to Pull to place it afterwards.

There was one very special moment where one of our guardians was down and with very little health after having been hit by an arrow and an AoE. The shaman was about to shoot (you can tell when he's about to shoot because he stands there, just flapping his wings for one or two seconds, staring at you in a particular grining way :P and fellow fractal frequenters know what I'm talking about). I popped Arcane Shield and rushed in for the rez, fearing what was to come: the next arrow and the double downing of that guardian. Before I could reach the downed friend, the shaman rose his bow. I could already see his grayed out party portrait and feel the fire burning my feet while having to rez him for a whole minute when BOOM: a fucking "Saved Your Ass" elite banner crossed the globe from the eastern hemisphere to pierce the ground where we were standing. Simultaneously, the three of us dodged away from the arrow's impact point. Somebody took the time to party chat: "nice banner". I thought to myself: "Your mom is nice. That was a fucking GODLIKE banner!" I had to give a quick speech before readying up. I told them how awesome a fight it was and that I'd like a party screenshot at the end before everybody left."

[Fencers]

Holt trinity class design is not meant for action games. It was meant for stat based, stat determinant gameplay.

Not all MMOs are action/twitch based.

You are playing an Action game in Guild Wars 2. You are playing a dice rolling RPG in Everquest. In the old days, one would refer to gameplay in the style of Guild Wars 2 as "Arcade".

Misplaced desire / poor understanding of video game design and history leads to low posts as above.

[SamR]

For me, the lack of the trinity makes things more realistic. If there are 4 people in a room beating on seriously big dude. Does anyone really think that he will stand there and hit the biggest, strongest one carrying all of the heavy armor and ignore the others? He will pick on the smallest, weakest one and wipe them out first.

But random AI means it's not scripted. In your example, you're talking about a scripted AI who goes for the weakest player first. If that was always the case, the players would just think up ways to beat the script by using the weakest player to tank/kite the boss.

In any case, many people enjoy a game with roles even if there's no computer AI involved. For example, Team Fortress 2. All those role-based mods were developed for FPS in the early days because a lot people wanted to play with individual roles in a team context instead of your standard FPS DM maps where everyone was the same.

[Lane]

For me, the lack of the trinity makes things more realistic.

I personally don't find it realistic. Maybe I would if there were any rhyme or reason to how "aggro" works in the game, but near as I can tell there's not. Bosses don't even follow what I call "PvP rules" in terms of who to take out first. They just randomly select players and then attack them for a random amount of time.

[Fencers]

GW1 didn't have a holy trinity either. Though it did have healers.

The aggro and logic of enemies in GW1 was pretty realistic; smart mobs would focus on healers (a good strat in elite missions was hiding healers), baser mobs attacked what was closest, etc. Mobs capable of energy drain would seek to hit energy dependent players (again "hiding your true mana was a strat), ranged took out softies, etc.

GW1 was a really sophisticated game.

GW2 uses a modified version of the GW1 system. Yet there are more variables due to the action combat in GW2. That's why it "feels" chaotic. Because combat is far more dynamic than most other MMOs.

[Zilong]

But random AI means it's not scripted. In your example, you're talking about a scripted AI who goes for the weakest player first. If that was always the case, the players would just think up ways to beat the script by using the weakest player to tank/kite the boss.

In any case, many people enjoy a game with roles even if there's no computer AI involved. For example, Team Fortress 2. All those role-based mods were developed for FPS in the early days because a lot people wanted to play with individual roles in a team context instead of your standard FPS DM maps where everyone was the same.

I posted about this in another thread. Aggro should be scripted but it could change...maybe by race, dungeon, boss, situation. I do think it's more exciting and realist to have no holy trinity (been playing alot of wow and gw2 and thinking about it), but the way that gw2 has it now does not help us that way just yet. Right now aggro is all over the place, feeling completely random. But If we had a tell or even by telling us beneath health bar wouldn't hurt. And possibly even change aggro script during the combat since we have so much Health encounters (which falls into the "evolving" like someone said earlier if the encounter aggro adapts to the group set up).

@Fencers

Pretty much that. That logic is missing in gw2 to make it interesting, specially in pve. It would certainly "define" roles better and it would actually provide a more team/strat/based encounters. The fact that gw2 have no holy trinity but doesn't support other roles more openly really sucks (making it almost a 1 role for all) kind of forced. The game has the potential to put some thought into pulling "aggro" and dealing with different situations within it (regardless of how fast-dynamic the combat feels).

[Meledelion]

@Lane

GW1 didn't have a holy trinity either. Though it did have healers.

The aggro and logic of enemies in GW1 was pretty realistic; smart mobs would focus on healers (a good strat in elite missions was hiding healers), baser mobs attacked what was closest, etc. Mobs capable of energy drain would seek to hit energy dependent players (again "hiding your true mana was a strat), ranged took out softies, etc.

GW1 was a really sophisticated game.

GW2 uses a modified version of the GW1 system. Yet there are more variables due to the action combat in GW2. That's why it "feels" chaotic. Because combat is far more dynamic than most other MMOs.

To add to this, it looks like agro has been figured out for GW2.
Armour>Proximity>DPS

Proximity depends on mob preference, some mobs will work like fencers described and go for the closest, others will go for the furthest away.

The reason why agro feels so random is probably because you're pugging a lot (and not running a lot of dungeons), it can be that your tough/vit ele has most toughness 90% of the time but if a war joins who went balls to the walls toughness with the added toughness when using a shield he'll be pulling agro.

[Sorrior]

Holt trinity class design is not meant for action games. It was meant for stat based, stat determinant gameplay.

Not all MMOs are action/twitch based.

You are playing an Action game in Guild Wars 2. You are playing a dice rolling RPG in Everquest. In the old days, one would refer to gameplay in the style of Guild Wars 2 as "Arcade".

Misplaced desire / poor understanding of video game design and history leads to low posts as above.

Tera would like a word i suspect..It's action based AND uses the trinity.

[Fencers]

Tera would like a word i suspect..It's action based AND uses the trinity.

And does it terribly. As does Raiderz, Neverwinter, etc.

None of those are twitch based either. There is hard combat lock in Tera, Raiderz, Vindictus, Neverwinter, Mabinogi, etc.

As I already said, in the old parlance one would refer to Guild Wars 2's style as "Arcade".

---------- Post added 2013-03-11 at 01:36 PM ----------

@Fencers

Pretty much that. That logic is missing in gw2 to make it interesting, specially in pve. It would certainly "define" roles better and it would actually provide a more team/strat/based encounters. The fact that gw2 have no holy trinity but doesn't support other roles more openly really sucks (making it almost a 1 role for all) kind of forced. The game has the potential to put some thought into pulling "aggro" and dealing with different situations within it (regardless of how fast-dynamic the combat feels).

Well, there is that class singularity. Or as I term it; "DPS with options"

Though I don't think it is a function of the trinity-less combat. It's more that Arena.net make terrible encounters in Guild Wars 2. Frankly.

That is the root of the problem. Arena.net's dungeon and encounter designs are terrible.

[Svifnymr]

For me the only time the trinity was exciting was when people stepped out of their trinity roles. Like a warlock pulling a last minute tanking maneuver out of his ass which saved an encounter or a healer popping that last bit of dps to get a boss down. Those were the moments that had you cheering, not the boring, you can do only one role brain dead fest the rest of it is.

Yeah, I had plenty of "your gear isn't up to the encounter" and some "your guild-mates are idiots" stuff, but overall things were mostly boring in a Role Based game.

Until everything went to shit and it's time for my warlock to tank or my boomkin has to raise the tank and heal him or something. Versatility and running like a pansy had their places in too many runs-gone-bad.

---------- Post added 2013-03-11 at 02:52 PM ----------

Well, there is that class singularity. Or as I term it; "DPS with options"

Though I don't think it is a function of the trinity-less combat. It's more that Arena.net make terrible encounters in Guild Wars 2. Frankly.

That is the root of the problem. Arena.net's dungeon and encounter designs are terrible.

I wouldn't say "terrible", but "needs improvement". I think a lot of the world encounters simply don't scale well. The mechanics to Claw of Jormag aren't super-complicated, but they exist. When there are so many people that you can't see most of them and lag kills more than the mechanics, it is more about the scaling of the encounter than the design, IMO of course.

I mean, the troll in Queensdale is a good example too. Not that the encounter has much to it, but people just stand there and die, zerging the encounter rather than worrying about the mechanics.

[namelessone]

-Dynamic Events
-No holy trinity
-Dodge system
-Downleveling
-Skills defined by Weapons
-Combo Fields
-Downed State (probably connected to "no holy trinity")
-Multi-Guild system
-GW2s take on RvR
-Skill and Build system
-sPvP "Lobby"
-Cosmetic progression
-etc.

I'm going to do my own take now.
Dynamic Events
- Hit and miss. Some events don't feel dynamic at all, more like repeatable quests. Many events aren't dynamic at all, as they lack any meaningful long-term impact on the world. I think dynamic events would work a lot better if they were increased in scale (at least in lower/mid level zones) and were mixed in with classic quests that gave more story exposition.

No holy trinity
- I like the idea of experimenting with class abilities and encounters to find a different approach. That being said, you can't really remove the ROLES from mmo groups, unless you make all characters exactly the same. In the end, there will still be strengths and weaknesses, depending on build. This seems to be the issue GW2 encountered - classes don't feel diverse enough, but still end up having roles. It could have been implemented better.

Dodge system
- Love dynamic combat, HATE dodge mechanic. Specifically, I hate the idea of dodging as a skill with cooldown. I'd much rather have fights based on actual movement of my character - positioning, avoidance, etc etc. Furthermore, I don't understand why "dynamic combat" is always described as innovation in GW2. Moving out of AOE is pretty old concept.

Downlevelling
- Good idea, if it was optional. I should be able to choose whether or not to downlevel. Wouldn't be that hard to implement either.

Skills defined by weapons (also Skill and Build systems)
- I like the idea where you get to make your own "build" by combining different equipment/ability groups. In reminds me of EVE and Secret World. I think it's a good compromise between complete freedom (which tends to create cookie-cutter classes) and rigid classes ala WoW.

Combo Fields
- Interesting in theory, although it requires to keep too much information in your mind, so it's hard to utilize properly. But then, it has no negative sides, so it's a good feature overall, it makes the game a bit richer.

PvP stuff
- I don't PvP, so I have really nothing to say.

[Wonka]

I have a question on how having down-leveling being optional would work? Except for hearts and personal story there aren't really any personal quests in GW2. If someone shows up at the event your doing and they have chosen not to be down leveled how would the game react. Would the mobs scale to make it a challenge for the high level character or would the player come in destroy everything and leave. I know that there is no mob tagging but for the players in the zone that are the correct level to do the event, they would have the same problem as a low level character running to Orr and not being able to get credit.

The other option is that maybe the player is always max level unless they run across an event. That way players could still go through low level zones and ignore or one shot anything that dares stand in their way but not unbalance the event system.

[namelessone]

I have a question on how having down-leveling being optional would work? Except for hearts and personal story there aren't really any personal quests in GW2. If someone shows up at the event your doing and they have chosen not to be down leveled how would the game react. Would the mobs scale to make it a challenge for the high level character or would the player come in destroy everything and leave. I know that there is no mob tagging but for the players in the zone that are the correct level to do the event, they would have the same problem as a low level character running to Orr and not being able to get credit.

The other option is that maybe the player is always max level unless they run across an event. That way players could still go through low level zones and ignore or one shot anything that dares stand in their way but not unbalance the event system.

How it works in all the other games that have levels? Yes, high levels CAN run into lowbie zone and just kill everything, but they just don't really do it. There's nothing in WoW to stop a level 90 to go into Barrens and just kill all mobs, but I never saw that happening, not on a massive enough scale to disrupt gameplay anyway.