The (dis)engaging combat of Guild Wars 2 (WvW&PvP focus)

One of the central aspects of this game is the combat. You fight various monsters and players with differing strategies and make tactical decisions like when to attack or to retreat. At least you should do this. The game should promote and maybe even enforce this to prevent players from gaming the system.So what makes great combat?Choices matter. Pressing 4 or pressing 9 should make a difference. The last thing you want in a game with dynamic combat is button mashing. It should have a controlled for the player readable combat flow giving the player an opportunity to react. Character customization via stats should influence the play style of the character and should always be notable. Trait choices should enhance the character in a meaningful way.Fairness. The player should never feel cheated by the game because it used unfair tactics against him. In a fight the player should have the ability to fight back. Nothing should be able to kill a character if the player can’t react to it. Also should the player be able to interfere with the enemies battle plan to make for an engaging combat experience. This also means that there should be combat in the first place. This is the reason for this thread: the “disengaging combat” of Guild Wars 2.

So the basics for an enjoyable combat experience is the existence of combat in the first place. This is where the problem lies in my opinion. It seems like we have mostly a high mobility and burst meta now. The “combat” interactions we have too often consist of 3 types of gameplay:1) Burst. Not going in your favor? Retreat and retry.2) Fight. Not going in your favor? Retreat and retry.3) Fight while offering next to no counter play. Not going in your favor? Retreat and retry.

Let’s take a look again what makes great combat, shall we?1) The ability to fight back often doesn’t exists in this scenario. You have mainly 2 choices: Negate the burst attempt and wait for the next one or die. Character customization often doesn’t matter because it feels like 1000 toughness or vitality (double the base value) won’t make a difference. You go 100-0 in seconds anyway.2) Here you at least have the opportunity to fight the enemy. As long as you are in the disadvantage, once you get the upper hand the enemy just escapes and tries again until he is victorious. This is just exhausting and robs you of any feeling of pride and accomplishment you got by outplaying the enemy.3) You just feel cheated. Choices don’t matter. All you do doesn’t do anything anyway. You could go afk and it would make no difference.

None of this interactions is enjoyable. But all have one thing in common: the disengaging. Mobility is important in a dynamic combat but it should never invalidate the combat and it’s outcome but this is the situation we have now. So what could be done?1) Remove all mobility. Welcome back to 2000s static MMOs.2) Nerf all mobility in the game. This wouldn’t fix the problem (Who would prevent the chaining of mobility to achieve the same effect? It would only shift more towards style 1 & 3) unless you go completely go over board and we are back in the realm of option number 1.3) Leave it as it is. Just powercreep all defences. We had plenty of this in the past years and I think many players agree with the fact that we had enough powercreep.

Or

4) Specialize mobility. What do I mean with this? Simple. The problem we now have comes from the fact that all mobility in this game is too flexible. Back in 2013 there was a movement skill with the same problem: Ride the lightning. Some may remember the treatment. They doubled the cooldown and it only gets halved if you hit a target. This skill has now a more clear identity. It should be used as an engage skill but can be used as a disengage skill. I would take this a whole step further. All movement skills (with the exeption of teleports) gain roughly double the cooldown (just an example) and a damage portion. If the damage portion hits a target the cooldown halved. For thieves this means higher initiative costs and refund on hit to prevent mobility spam. Teleports get an assigned purpose and are treated equally should they serve for engage. If you want to go even further you could even add a penalty for missing some mobility skills (like preventing the use of other mobility skills) to prevent chaining of mobility skill. This still enables mobility in combat but allows for counter play and makes it harder to just reset again and again. Both things which make great combat: counterplay and well, the existence of combat in the first place.

NOTE: Yes, I'm aware of the other problems of combat in GW2 like the damage, boons and conditions, balance of strength utility skills/elite, traits etc. Please keep the discussion focused on mobility as the topic of balance is far too complex for one post/discussion and I would like to discuss the problems one at a time. Thank you.

There's far more wrong with the combat than just the mobility of it though... Actually I'd say mobility is the least of the combat's problems right now, as all the other classes have pretty great mobility both for engagement and disengagement. In most cases unless you're trying to chase a Mesmer or Thief, you can catch up even if they try to run away.

A far bigger issue is the amount of passive triggers and boon-spam. The amount of passive procs allows for recklessness beyond measure, and you might as well throw any caution to the wind until it procs because it will carry you. The amount of boon-spam and stability prevents interesting counter-play. Not to mention the horrid chaining of utter invulnerability to the point where some classes can have 10 seconds of damage nullification.

Since you mention Thieves, you basically neuter them with your solution. Thieves do not have staying power, that's why they often concede defeat and run away. They simply can't brawl it out openly. In most cases if you catch a thief they drop, instantly, because they're about as durable as wet tissue-paper. They wish they could stand and fight, trust me that would make things interesting, but Anet delegated the class to a +1 role and has since refused to give it any sort of staying power which forces it to utilize it's main intended defense: Stealth... Which is another problem with the game entirely, the abundance of it.

I'm not saying more interesting ability interaction is a bad idea, though.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Since you mention Thieves, you basically neuter them with your solution. Thieves do not have staying power, that's why they often concede defeat and run away. They simply can't brawl it out openly. In most cases if you catch a thief they drop, instantly, because they're about as durable as wet tissue-paper. They wish they could stand and fight, trust me that would make things interesting, but Anet delegated the class to a +1 role and has since refused to give it any sort of staying power which forces it to utilize it's main intended defense: Stealth... Which is another problem with the game entirely, the abundance of it.

I know. But this could be a step in the right direction for the thief. It might force a better balance for the thief, giving options for extended staying power. Away from burst to more interesting fights for both sites where the outcome depends on skill.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:There's far more wrong with the combat than just the mobility of it though... Actually I'd say mobility is the least of the combat's problems right now, as all the other classes have pretty great mobility both for engagement and disengagement. In most cases unless you're trying to chase a Mesmer or Thief, you can catch up even if they try to run away.

A far bigger issue is the amount of passive triggers and boon-spam. The amount of passive procs allows for recklessness beyond measure, and you might as well throw any caution to the wind until it procs because it will carry you. The amount of boon-spam and stability prevents interesting counter-play. Not to mention the horrid chaining of utter invulnerability to the point where some classes can have 10 seconds of damage nullification.

I agree with you on this and I might be touching on this subjects in later discussions. But for the moment I want to focus on one aspect at a time as balance as a whole is far to complex to discuss it in all its nuances in one post.

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:I know. But this could be a step in the right direction for the thief. It might force a better balance for the thief, giving options for extended staying power. Away from burst to more interesting fights for both sites where the outcome depends on skill.

Well then, putting the other issues aside, and assuming one thing leads to another, I'd be all for it.

I agree with you on this and I might be touching on this subjects in later discussions. But for the moment I want to focus on one aspect at a time as balance as a whole is far to complex to discuss it in all its nuances in one post.

Well as I said I am all for more interesting ability interaction, the idea of cool-down reductions on skill contacts is among them and penalties for misses is pretty nifty for certain ability types.

... It would require SO much work though if they wen't this route. Then again, that is what they're getting paid to do... I assume.

What's wrong with the combat IMO is the ability to oneshot others at low risk and very often low skill level. If you want the combat to be interesting make it interesting not a dodge my 1shot fest.

@sitarskee.5738 said:What's wrong with the combat IMO is the ability to oneshot others at low risk and very often low skill level. If you want the combat to be interesting make it interesting not a dodge my 1shot fest.

My latest encounter on my Warrior:Running from Bravost to Durios. Put in combat by Mesmer from behind w/Greatsword skills. Downed before I could even get off my 1/4 sec cast heal. Went to /sleep, died before I hit enter

Logged off to go PvE...

@sitarskee.5738 said:What's wrong with the combat IMO is the ability to oneshot others at low risk and very often low skill level. If you want the combat to be interesting make it interesting not a dodge my 1shot fest.

Yes, the damage is too much. But mobility is the priority imo. Why? How do you want to balance the combat itself without even having the fundations for it? If you have no real combat, just burst and run, you can't properly balance the damage for combat itself, because like I said there is no combat. Fixing mobility somewhat forces at least some form of combat. The absurd damage gets even more obvious this way and should be fixed next. We absolutly don't need 20k hits with 19k base health pools. That sure has to be fixed.

@"TwiceDead.1963" said:There's far more wrong with the combat than just the mobility of it though... Actually I'd say mobility is the least of the combat's problems right now, as all the other classes have pretty great mobility both for engagement and disengagement. In most cases unless you're trying to chase a Mesmer or Thief, you can catch up even if they try to run away.

A far bigger issue is the amount of invisibility, teleports and instant cast abilites. They offer no counterplay and allow you to reset a fight indefinitely after you made a mistake. Combine that with heavy burst (e.g. thief/mesmer) and you have exactly the kind of gameplay that drives people away from this game.

And while you are talking about thief not being able to "brawl". Daredevil has extreme "brawl" potential while having more evade/block uptime than a warrior has invicibilites. Skills like bandits defense alone are enough to make a daredevil a brawler.

As 1 rule no game let ranged atacks outbursts melee ones. the only class that is balanced in that sense is rangers. they do great damage at a distance, but they can not "run" enough unless they are very very skillful.

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:...they can not "run" enough unless they are very very skillful.

Lightning Reflexes:700 -> turn around -> swoop (GS): 1000 -> swoop (merge): 1200. 2900 units total in like 2 seconds. This is exactly what I mean. Also don't forget the initial 1500 range (for a 4400(!) range gap). This counts definitly as too much disengage potential (and 4 button presses is not high skill imo).

Yes, there is a lot of mobility in the game. Yes, characters that can withdraw/reset can make for less (or not) interesting fights for their opponents. I respect that the OP wishes to discuss GW2 combat piecemeal, but I think this is misguided. The real issue is that there are too few opportunity costs to have that mobility. Thus, we see highly mobile characters with high burst damage, lengthy (by GW2 standards, anyway) invulnerability frames and several other useful options all in the same build. A good opportunity cost system would mean having to make significant sacrifices to have that amount of mobility. I don't think that reducing mobility as the OP suggests is necessarily a bad idea, I just believe that a true fix for the issues with GW2 player versus player combat has to be holistic. Don't nerf mobility across the board, make it so that choosing that degree of mobility means a significant sacrifice in at least one other aspect of the build.

As far as WvW goes:

They should make toughness and vitality worth more as stats, and dial it back on how effective condi & boons are. Re-introduce a condi/boon cap. And probably reduce target cleave as well (not everything needs to hit 37 enemies with every ability)

This would increase TTK, and with a longer fight comes chances for counterplay. Would also make a 1shot down not possible.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:Yes, there is a lot of mobility in the game. Yes, characters that can withdraw/reset can make for less (or not) interesting fights for their opponents. I respect that the OP wishes to discuss GW2 combat piecemeal, but I think this is misguided.

It simply makes for easier more focused discussion without it going all over the place. But yes, it sure has it negatives.

The real issue is that there are too few opportunity costs to have that mobility. Thus, we see highly mobile characters with high burst damage, lengthy (by GW2 standards, anyway) invulnerability frames and several other useful options all in the same build.

Yes, Holo comes to mind. It sure needs access to 7sec invulnerability on top of great damage, sustain and mobility. All on somewhat low cooldowns that is.

A good opportunity cost system would mean having to make significant sacrifices to have that amount of mobility. I don't think that reducing mobility as the OP suggests is necessarily a bad idea, I just believe that a true fix for the issues with GW2 player versus player combat has to be holistic. Don't nerf mobility across the board, make it so that choosing that degree of mobility means a significant sacrifice in at least one other aspect of the build.

I'm with you on this... but: How realistic is a basically complete rework of all professions? I don't think we will get this. This why I want change step by step. It is much more likely we get it this way.

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

A good opportunity cost system would mean having to make significant sacrifices to have that amount of mobility. I don't think that reducing mobility as the OP suggests is necessarily a bad idea, I just believe that a true fix for the issues with GW2 player versus player combat has to be holistic. Don't nerf mobility across the board, make it so that choosing that degree of mobility means a significant sacrifice in at least one other aspect of the build.

Now, if only I had the hope that ANet would do something. Sadly, I don't think so, not unless we see a groundswell of complaint that just does not seem to be forthcoming.

Meanwhile, no matter what, necromancer nor its specializations can even try to disengage.

The cause of this is a lot of things, and only one (power creep) is actually fixable without a complete re-design of the game.

So they should do that. Fix the power creep. No more 1 shots, then we can get back to the good old fashioned problems that make GW2 pvp suck, like condi spam.

@Ferus.3165 said:

@"TwiceDead.1963" said:There's far more wrong with the combat than just the mobility of it though... Actually I'd say mobility is the least of the combat's problems right now, as all the other classes have pretty great mobility both for engagement and disengagement. In most cases unless you're trying to chase a Mesmer or Thief, you can catch up even if they try to run away.

I agree on these three as well.

And while you are talking about thief not being able to "brawl". Daredevil has extreme "brawl" potential while having more evade/block uptime than a warrior has invicibilites. Skills like bandits defense alone are enough to make a daredevil a brawler.

No they really can't.No they really don't.

If they could, people would be bringing thieves for you know, actual brawls and the thief would actually stick around. As you may have observed, thieves do not stick around. The class is designed around wholly active defenses and baiting opponents invulnerability chains to put them on cooldown, but it really has no tools to help it sustain a beating for 6 to 10 seconds straight, which is why they always run away in the meantime and is why their escapes are on a short cooldown.

This is great for WvW where you have all the time in the world and food is forced to cross a large open space completely at your mercy. This is TERRIBLE for organized team-fights where the objective is to hold down a point because the amount of AoE, disabling area-denial and invincibility procs + boon-spam all chain into one-another, making the Daredevil play the floor is lava for the duration.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:There's far more wrong with the combat than just the mobility of it though... Actually I'd say mobility is the least of the combat's problems right now, as all the other classes have pretty great mobility both for engagement and disengagement. In most cases unless you're trying to chase a Mesmer or Thief, you can catch up even if they try to run away.

A far bigger issue is the amount of passive triggers and boon-spam. The amount of passive procs allows for recklessness beyond measure, and you might as well throw any caution to the wind until it procs because it will carry you. The amount of boon-spam and stability prevents interesting counter-play. Not to mention the horrid chaining of utter invulnerability to the point where some classes can have 10 seconds of damage nullification.

Since you mention Thieves, you basically neuter them with your solution. Thieves do not have staying power, that's why they often concede defeat and run away. They simply can't brawl it out openly. In most cases if you catch a thief they drop, instantly, because they're about as durable as wet tissue-paper. They wish they could stand and fight, trust me that would make things interesting, but Anet delegated the class to a +1 role and has since refused to give it any sort of staying power which forces it to utilize it's main intended defense: Stealth... Which is another problem with the game entirely, the abundance of it.

I'm not saying more interesting ability interaction is a bad idea, though.

So a thief, mirage, soulbeast and even spellbreaker going through miles and miles if things get hairy is more or less okay in your book? It’s cancer and makes me puke on how cheesy these classes and even some others like holo are.

Good thing we DO have better pvp games out there as MMO were never known for having a good balance and good pvp. But holy cow it’s pretty bad around here.

@Scar.1793 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:There's far more wrong with the combat than just the mobility of it though... Actually I'd say mobility is the least of the combat's problems right now, as all the other classes have pretty great mobility both for engagement and disengagement. In most cases unless you're trying to chase a Mesmer or Thief, you can catch up even if they try to run away.

A far bigger issue is the amount of passive triggers and boon-spam. The amount of passive procs allows for recklessness beyond measure, and you might as well throw any caution to the wind until it procs because it will carry you. The amount of boon-spam and stability prevents interesting counter-play. Not to mention the horrid chaining of utter invulnerability to the point where some classes can have 10 seconds of damage nullification.

Since you mention Thieves, you basically neuter them with your solution. Thieves do not have staying power, that's why they often concede defeat and run away. They simply can't brawl it out openly. In most cases if you catch a thief they drop, instantly, because they're about as durable as wet tissue-paper. They wish they could stand and fight, trust me that would make things interesting, but Anet delegated the class to a +1 role and has since refused to give it any sort of staying power which forces it to utilize it's main intended defense: Stealth... Which is another problem with the game entirely, the abundance of it.

I'm not saying more interesting ability interaction is a bad idea, though.

No. I'm saying high mobility is just a consequence of other factors. It used to be that only thieves were the runners, this has since extended to every class out there except for necros. I don't think this is fine.

And yeah, it's pretty bad.

I've maintained for years that class balance in PvP is hampered fatally by abilities that cannot be balanced properly. How does one balance stealth or CC for example? I've played PvP in other games like Aion Online for example. There they have a ranger class that has the longest range of all classes (longbow of course), it has speed boosts in their skill range and perma stealth AND stunlock. So a ranger in open world PvP especially (rifting) could just pick a target while being invisible and shoot them from a range that none could equal with a stun and keep doing that. The effect is that the target is stunned the entire 5 seconds of the combat and dies without being able to see the enemy coming or doing anything at all in the combat.

If other players would notice this ranger being there and start hunting him/her then the ranger still has the speed boosts and stealth to get away. I don't even know if today this has been fixed because they were never interested in fixing that balance.

This is of course an extreme example but also in games like SWTOR there are some classes like the Operative that have stealth and can sleep people for long periods of time and when you break the CC with a CC breaker they can simply come back and do it again. Also they can stealth while in combat and effectively escape and oh they have heals as well as well as multiple CCs in their skill range.

It became clear to me that things like speed boosts, CCs and stealth are very powerful but aren't ever really balanced in properly. Because how does a pure DPS class that doesn't have all of that compete? Exactly, he needs to get lucky and burst the other person down before they can stealth out or break away from you with speed or CCs. Of course a lot of this is hidden in group combat because you have team mates but in reality there are some massive advantages to non-DPS and non-Defensives that are just impossible to balance. How does one balance Mesmer portals for example?

So my point has always been that particularly because of these types of skills and not every class having them, PvP in MMOs in particular is never balanced and never will be. I do agree that it's an issue, however, I do not expect this to be changed ever for two reason: First because, as I already said, there are abilities that not all classes have equally that are not balanceable and second, because I think it's part of game design to have imbalanced classes because it does frustrate people and pushes them to try harder or play more. And the flavor of the month rotation is just a way of doing that and giving other classes a highlight period where they can pwn.

I suppose it sucks but it's also the main reason why I stopped playing PvP in general. Unless everybody has the same skill set and gear, it's not really PvP. It's like having a cycling contest and then you see some opponents having motorcycles and you're like: hey, why do they get a motorized vehicle and I don't? That's not fair!

Well, that's MMO PvP for you in a nutshell.

Idk if I pvp on an MMO (rare times I dare do that) if I find it being really bad, hint hint it always is, I don’t « try harder or play more » I simply switch to pvp focused games for a better experience

@sitarskee.5738 said:What's wrong with the combat IMO is the ability to oneshot others at low risk and very often low skill level. If you want the combat to be interesting make it interesting not a dodge my 1shot fest.

Yeah but classes that have ways of not getting one shot are called unhealthy or cheap and in turn everything will be boring and the same and bunker will ruin the game if damage was lowered.

@Blocki.4931 said:

@sitarskee.5738 said:What's wrong with the combat IMO is the ability to oneshot others at low risk and very often low skill level. If you want the combat to be interesting make it interesting not a dodge my 1shot fest.

But lowering the damage is important to end the powercreep. Yes, bunkers will rise for some time but they should also get nerfed. Like I said, no need for 20k hits with 19k base health pools. If the damage stays this way there will never ever be a chance for balance and only more powercreep. We don't need more powercreep. Higher TTK should be the goal, but well this topic is not about damage.

Is this a thief complaint in disguise

@Gehenna.3625 said:I've maintained for years that class balance in PvP is hampered fatally by abilities that cannot be balanced properly. How does one balance stealth or CC for example? I've played PvP in other games like Aion Online for example. There they have a ranger class that has the longest range of all classes (longbow of course), it has speed boosts in their skill range and perma stealth AND stunlock. So a ranger in open world PvP especially (rifting) could just pick a target while being invisible and shoot them from a range that none could equal with a stun and keep doing that. The effect is that the target is stunned the entire 5 seconds of the combat and dies without being able to see the enemy coming or doing anything at all in the combat.

If other players would notice this ranger being there and start hunting him/her then the ranger still has the speed boosts and stealth to get away. I don't even know if today this has been fixed because they were never interested in fixing that balance.

This is of course an extreme example but also in games like SWTOR there are some classes like the Operative that have stealth and can sleep people for long periods of time and when you break the CC with a CC breaker they can simply come back and do it again. Also they can stealth while in combat and effectively escape and oh they have heals as well as well as multiple CCs in their skill range.

It became clear to me that things like speed boosts, CCs and stealth are very powerful but aren't ever really balanced in properly. Because how does a pure DPS class that doesn't have all of that compete? Exactly, he needs to get lucky and burst the other person down before they can stealth out or break away from you with speed or CCs. Of course a lot of this is hidden in group combat because you have team mates but in reality there are some massive advantages to non-DPS and non-Defensives that are just impossible to balance. How does one balance Mesmer portals for example?

So my point has always been that particularly because of these types of skills and not every class having them, PvP in MMOs in particular is never balanced and never will be. I do agree that it's an issue, however, I do not expect this to be changed ever for two reason: First because, as I already said, there are abilities that not all classes have equally that are not balanceable and second, because I think it's part of game design to have imbalanced classes because it does frustrate people and pushes them to try harder or play more. And the flavor of the month rotation is just a way of doing that and giving other classes a highlight period where they can pwn.

I suppose it sucks but it's also the main reason why I stopped playing PvP in general. Unless everybody has the same skill set and gear, it's not really PvP. It's like having a cycling contest and then you see some opponents having motorcycles and you're like: hey, why do they get a motorized vehicle and I don't? That's not fair!

Well, that's MMO PvP for you in a nutshell.

Very nice breakdown of PvP but I think one thing could actually help: Not allowing all professions to do everything perfectly at the same time. That's what I try to achieve here: bring all aspects the game down to a reasonable level, step by step (we will never get a complete oberhaul in one patch). Most skills and traits are completely overloaded with effects. We don't need a skill or trait to do 3 different things. If everything does 1 or 2 things balancing should be easier because you don't have to account for 123456 possibilities. Another thing which makes PvP a mess are too powerful and longlasting effects. Stunlock should never be possible. Interruptspam shouldn't be possible. Completely ignoring a defensive mechanic for 10 seconds shouldn't be possible. All things we have in the game. Tone everything down. Then you might be able to achieve a somewhat balanced PvP. Not every profession needs to be the king of CC, damage and sustain at the same time. CC should be rare and used wisely to interrupt keyskills and not everything you do. I want to start with mobility to at least get some combat into the game and then we can start fixing the combat itself.Also not every class needs access to everything to be balanced. That's what actually starts the whole mess. A class can have a weakness, that's okay but it should be compensating in other areas for the weakness. There are just some thing you should combine with extreme care. Mobility and damage for example. There is no real way to make this balanced (as long as the mobility isn't bound to a purpose) as it can completly negate anything. Mobility in general should be highly bound to specific things as it is (like you said) an extremly potent aspect of every game. My stance on stealth is the following: Engage tool, temporary defense. It should never be more. Allow classes with stealth the advantage of picking fights and starting them but they should never be able to just disengage if they have comitted to a fight. If they kitten up they go down. Simple as that. They don't even have to be the greatest damage dealers (I don't know why games only do the stealth + burst combo). Give them CC or other controll options (boons rip, heal denials etc) to be more of a tactical class. Something like this has value in PvP. But well, we might never get this. So the only thing we can try is to tone down the game and stop the powercreep.