GW2 seems pretty bad, but

[Swagg.9236]

what exactly makes it bad? If I personally had to say it in a single word: Movement (or rather, the lack of it).

GW1's movement restricting mechanics like Crippled and percentile-based movement speed reduction had a purpose because people in all PvP modes generally had numerous, various, and specific places to go for victory conditions, and striking targets in motion often came with bonuses considering how (very nearly) every skillbar action locked players into a stationary animation. In fact, these victory condition locations were often so specific and intertwined with map mechanics (such as in the case with GvG or AB), that entire builds were designed and consistently used just to control movement and support one's team. However, Crippled in GW2 is more like a random, impotent nuisance or unjustified, anti-fun mechanic because nobody has any place to go but the 3 points in Conquest; and most people who go from point to point regularly either do so with scripted movement abilities, targeted teleports, or often just cleanse movement-restricting conditions. Chilled mostly falls into the same line; while the speed reduction on skill recharge does occasionally come into play, it's mostly just a movement snare and, more often than not, arbitrarily comes baked into skills that are almost always guaranteed to be used for purposes other than strictly applying Chilled. Most importantly, there's no reason for Chilled or Crippled if everyone is just going to dance around a 240 radius point while 240+ radius damage ticks are constantly pulsing, flickering and exploding all over it while anyone from either side are simultaneously present. And on top of all this, it's almost asinine to consider rewarding anyone for "striking a moving target" in GW2 because there is no real reason for anyone NOT to be constantly moving and simultaneously committing actions. At the very least, Immobilized prevents a target from dodging (a tangible effect that can have an impact on combat regardless of location), but as a standalone debuff, it's again something that is more often baked into rotations rather than it being the core focus of any given skill or build.

Moreover, by making the points of contention so small in the Conquest mode, GW2 is doomed to a crippling dependence on homogeneous damage-mitigation effects that more or less compress the entire game and all of its classes into a single type of offensive build: the block/evade attacker. Revenant, Weaver, Thief, Guardian, Engineer are the most similar; they generally rely the most on attacking while simultaneously evading or pulsing passive damage. They are mostly just doing PvE rotations in PvP because it is so effective. Necromancer more or less plays exactly the same except it doesn't evade, rather relying on having double the health of every other class to last just long enough to participate in a fight. The only other builds which seem to vary from this formula are the "support" types (i.e. Healbreaker, support Ele, Firebrand if people still use it), however, these builds are truly the most solitaire-like of all in GW2: doing little more than watching the minimap, support is mostly just a game of cooldown whack-a-mole with little to do about positioning or timing. Since the offensive builds are always going to be grinding out rotation damage so long as they have access to their evade/block chains or point-wide damage applications, Conquest quickly becomes a mosh pit; and the only survivors are the players who are using the exact same, rotation-based playstyle (with maybe one other guy serving as a battery to keep the PvE chains churning). There is no creativity or expression. There is no player development; just a bunch of patch-note addicts waiting for the next number shuffle.

What this collectively means is that raw movement (WASD keys) really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Players run side-node decaps not because they have "really good movement," but because they have teleport skills, stability, and/or knock-back attacks (or, at least, that mild amount of sub-division was the case at one point, but now it works if even they're just running the generic, one-man-army build and decide to waddle toward a side-node point during a lull in a match). Movement on capture points doesn't matter whatsoever because all players on a contested point are guaranteed to get hit if they aren't passively mitigating the firestorm of damage with their builds' built-in evades, blocks and "invulnerability" periods. So now comes the question: In a game in which damage can't really miss (it's either aimed for you or its area of effect is so wide that it covers the entirety of the average capture node), and movement doesn't really matter since it's all pre-determined by build rather than raw, player input, how is anyone supposed to be able to tell who is really good at the game? If we take away the classes, and the particle effects, and the builds, who is doing anything truly unique, and if we find something different, how wide of a gap really is that difference between the "super top big boi metaking" and the average person who just boots up GW2?

[Avatar.3568]

The movement is what this game (+the combat but movement is part of it, so good, if you want not beeing able to walk like in gw1 play gw1

[Shao.7236]

Those who are good at the game are those who dare exploring.

The "super top big boi metaking" judged by the people who actually played the game for a living when it was a thing are considering them b-tier at best, not because they can't be any better but because they are all the same metaslaves with no identity or motives to craft some sort of meaning that makes them actually stand out other than their name reflecting the same low effort gameplay that everyone still encourage for whatever reason.

If it had to be said, there's actual fun to be had with the average vs "super top big boi metaking" because you're not tied to fight the inevitably nerfed trends.

The excuse of "its the best options, why even bother for anything else" is irrelevant given there's always some cheese to be found somewhere, although I wouldn't rule out that occasionally some stuff is definitely too weak. (Rev shortbow used to be too good, it's balanced now.)

In GW2 there used to be a lot of broken stuff, the easiest was usually kept under the spotlight until nerfs started to kick in, now you can see on all the meta websites that there's more non meta builds than there is meta but also those that are effectively not overpowered but just braindead in general to play for the win, you can still beat them but it's gonna take more effort compared whatever you use that isn't it.

Most of whats left over is the outliers that for so long have been broken in regards to not having a dedicated pvp team(now we do), it's still a long process but today theres more variety than there ever was. Thanks to the pace being slowed down, I would consider it a bad thing but to those who think it is still. It's just as noobish to finish a fight in 2 seconds compared letting the gameplay be more welcoming towards all sorts of players.

Putting some thought and interactivity was the best thing that happened to GW2 for a while, back which wasn't a year still, the game had very one sided conflicts and little to no actual lasting fun like now.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"Swagg.9236" said:GW2 seems pretty bad, but, what exactly makes it bad? If I personally had to say it in a single word: Movement (or rather, the lack of it)....So now comes the question: In a game in which damage can't really miss (it's either aimed for you or its area of effect is so wide that it covers the entirety of the average capture node), and movement doesn't really matter since it's all pre-determined by build rather than raw, player input, how is anyone supposed to be able to tell who is really good at the game?

So...this here is actually just not a valid, logical conclusion to draw because the initial boundaries that you are setting for the point your trying to prove is flawed. This game is based on the idea of making and playing builds. So the question your asking is inherently biased against this design... because essentially what decides if you are good at the game is how good of a build you can create, and how well you can play that build.

So it's not the players fault that build variety is so spectacularly low that it's obvious to pick out the most optimal strategies...that's a balance problem. Shadowform mechanics happen to be a useful mechanic in this game mode, and thus more players will align with these types of mechanics when creating their builds... If those are the ONLY mechanics that work in the game mode...then guess what, that's all you're gonna see.

The problems with gw2 is not a simple one word answer...there are many issues that are subtended from bigger issues, and those from even bigger issues. The problem you are pointing out is just one aspect of even larger aspect and so on...

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

The reason why you dont see more build creativity is because builds need to fulfill roles in conquest. Top players understand how all the classes skills and traits work, where synergies are, and what situations they are useful, and the meta is formed by testing everything and finding what works best. The main problem with pvp is power creep and bad class design. Low skill players can be more effective by playing low skill floor meta builds. High skill players can push meta builds to their limits making non-meta builds practically useless.

For conquest objectives and mobility, the main problem is we are still in a stalemate meta where side node fights are endless and require a +1 or teamfight rotation to end.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

i don't understand what your post is about. the objectives are different so the builds will reflect this. is conquest build limiting and inferior to gw1? most that played gw1 would agree.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Seems pretty bad cuz it ..........

[Reklus.2093]

was that a modern term paper?

[Swagg.9236]

@""Stand The Wall.6987"Your supposition about how "conquest is just inferior to gw1's mode variety" might actually be a strong focal point. In retrospect, my original post probably wasn't that focused. If anything, I probably decided to say something like "The reason why GW2 is so bad is because its manual movement is so sluggish and underpowered," because playstyle diversity in GW2 is HEAVILY bottlenecked due to a combination of the PvP Conquest mode and the overall shallowness of build options. I just figured that, at least if you're going to keep the game super smooth brain and limited in gamemodes, the least you could do is make movement somewhat valuable. There are a handful of different angles from which one could approach in order to vastly improve GW2's skill ceiling; I just chose to hang onto "movement" as the principle means of doing so.

@"Avatar.3568" said:The movement is what this game (+the combat but movement is part of it, so good, if you want not beeing able to walk like in gw1 play gw1

Movement in GW2 is more "free-flowing" because nearly every action can be used while moving. However, movement in GW2 isn't "good" because it doesn't generally carry a lot of value (especially in PvP). Nobody gains anything for hitting a target in motion, and using WASD will never get you where you want to be in a manner fast or efficiently enough compared to using a skill that moves your avatar for you. If you can't teleport or chain some scripted movement skills (or cover your WASD approach with a bunch of damage/effect negation), you will never melee-engage a target quickly enough or escape any bad situation. Nobody in GW2 considers manually running a good form of in-combat movement. It is absolutely not a good thing. Even in a game as clunky as GW1, movement had huge value particularly BECAUSE it was so limited by skill actions.

@"Shao.7236" said:Those who are good at the game are those who dare exploring.

How much exploring is there to be done within the scope of something as well-mapped as GW2's metagame? Compared to patch note drops, how much do "off-meta" or "counter-builds" truly emerge and rise to a point at which they are relevant? Most importantly of all, how many of these "off-meta" or "counter-builds" are things that have any significant depth or variance to their playstyles? For instance, how about the emergence of things like the old "De-cap Engineer?" What depth is there to that build's usage? What of "Healbreaker:" the build which amounts to pressing warhorn barrier generation on cooldown while doing the equivalent of GW1's "Infuse Health" with no downsides, no cast-time and more or less on command since the recharges are collectively low and cost no resources? How do anti-meta builds display any sort of true creativity or innovation when they are only made in order to counter a meta which, in and of itself, is already frustrating and one-dimensional? The act of finding a counter hidden within a motley selection of odd skills and traits may, in itself, display some level of creativity, but ultimately that thought process is driven by an incredibly narrow-minded environment which is enabled by a singular, one-dimensional, metagame: "never intentionally risk anything while engaging." No matter how cool or creative someone's build appears, if it finds consistent success in the GW2 metagame, it is actively contributing to the domination of the generic, one-man-army playstyle that everyone already has to use.

[Kickpuncher.8109]

GW2 pvp is a joke

[Burnfall.9573]

@"Swagg.9236" said:what exactly makes it bad? If I personally had to say it in a single word: Movement (or rather, the lack of it).

GW1's movement restricting mechanics like Crippled and percentile-based movement speed reduction had a purpose because people in all PvP modes generally had numerous, various, and specific places to go for victory conditions, and striking targets in motion often came with bonuses considering how (very nearly) every skillbar action locked players into a stationary animation. In fact, these victory condition locations were often so specific and intertwined with map mechanics (such as in the case with GvG or AB), that entire builds were designed and consistently used just to control movement and support one's team. However, Crippled in GW2 is more like a random, impotent nuisance or unjustified, anti-fun mechanic because nobody has any place to go but the 3 points in Conquest; and most people who go from point to point regularly either do so with scripted movement abilities, targeted teleports, or often just cleanse movement-restricting conditions. Chilled mostly falls into the same line; while the speed reduction on skill recharge does occasionally come into play, it's mostly just a movement snare and, more often than not, arbitrarily comes baked into skills that are almost always guaranteed to be used for purposes other than strictly applying Chilled. Most importantly, there's no reason for Chilled or Crippled if everyone is just going to dance around a 240 radius point while 240+ radius damage ticks are constantly pulsing, flickering and exploding all over it while anyone from either side are simultaneously present. And on top of all this, it's almost asinine to consider rewarding anyone for "striking a moving target" in GW2 because there is no real reason for anyone NOT to be constantly moving and simultaneously committing actions. At the very least, Immobilized prevents a target from dodging (a tangible effect that can have an impact on combat regardless of location), but as a standalone debuff, it's again something that is more often baked into rotations rather than it being the core focus of any given skill or build.

Moreover, by making the points of contention so small in the Conquest mode, GW2 is doomed to a crippling dependence on homogeneous damage-mitigation effects that more or less compress the entire game and all of its classes into a single type of offensive build: the block/evade attacker. Revenant, Weaver, Thief, Guardian, Engineer are the most similar; they generally rely the most on attacking while simultaneously evading or pulsing passive damage. They are mostly just doing PvE rotations in PvP because it is so effective. Necromancer more or less plays exactly the same except it doesn't evade, rather relying on having double the health of every other class to last just long enough to participate in a fight. The only other builds which seem to vary from this formula are the "support" types (i.e. Healbreaker, support Ele, Firebrand if people still use it), however, these builds are truly the most solitaire-like of all in GW2: doing little more than watching the minimap, support is mostly just a game of cooldown whack-a-mole with little to do about positioning or timing. Since the offensive builds are always going to be grinding out rotation damage so long as they have access to their evade/block chains or point-wide damage applications, Conquest quickly becomes a mosh pit; and the only survivors are the players who are using the exact same, rotation-based playstyle (with maybe one other guy serving as a battery to keep the PvE chains churning). There is no creativity or expression. There is no player development; just a bunch of patch-note addicts waiting for the next number shuffle.

What this collectively means is that raw movement (WASD keys) really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Players run side-node decaps not because they have "really good movement," but because they have teleport skills, stability, and/or knock-back attacks (or, at least, that mild amount of sub-division was the case at one point, but now it works if even they're just running the generic, one-man-army build and decide to waddle toward a side-node point during a lull in a match). Movement on capture points doesn't matter whatsoever because all players on a contested point are guaranteed to get hit if they aren't passively mitigating the firestorm of damage with their builds' built-in evades, blocks and "invulnerability" periods. So now comes the question: In a game in which damage can't really miss (it's either aimed for you or its area of effect is so wide that it covers the entirety of the average capture node), and movement doesn't really matter since it's all pre-determined by build rather than raw, player input,

how is anyone supposed to be able to tell who is really good at the game? If we take away the classes, and the particle effects, and the builds, who is doing anything truly unique, and if we find something different, how wide of a gap really is that difference between the "super top big boi metaking" and the average person who just boots up GW2?

Great question, there are no way to tell who is really good anymore because of Guild Wars 2 removal of Profession core roles and their unique identity. Giving Professions equal access to The Holy Trinity archetype through shared designs, mechanics, skills, sigils, runes, ingredients etc.. are what widens the gap and hinders their uniqueness as to what differences of what they have offer to their roles

Examples:

Elementalist Profession excel equally in Tanks, Healer, DPSWarrior Profession excel equally in Tank, Healer, DPSRevenant Profession excel equally in Tank, Healer, DPS

'The main job of the healer is, and it is often argued that the only job of the healer is, to keep the health up of all party/group members. As stated above, a good healer will often be able to compensate for the lack of proficient tanking.'

'The main job of the tank is, and always will be, taking the attention off everyone else. This is done through the agro generation, as well as taunts. While this character will be doing damage to the mob/boss, that is often far less than a DPS.'

'DPS: These are the damage dealers. Their main, and arguably only job, is to remove the health from mobs/bosses, in the quickest and most efficient manner possible'

The Holy Trinity allows different Profession reasons to excel in different ways while enforcing their roles at the same time and assuring their identities remain intact to their core

-Mesmer Profession-Thief Profession sharing similar roles....should be Forbidden-

(i hope i make sense)

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@"Swagg.9236" said:Your supposition about how "conquest is just inferior to gw1's mode variety" might actually be a strong focal point.

i didn't say that but i agree with it.

[otto.5684]

Would not the title make more sense that GW2 sPvP is bad? And it is not bad on its face value. Pre Feb infamous patch, it was pretty good. And conquest does work well. After the Feb patch it still is not bad, but for someone like me who played the game for years, post Feb it is vastly inferior to what it was before.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@otto.5684 said:Would not the title make more sense that GW2 sPvP is bad? And it is not bad on its face value. Pre Feb infamous patch, it was pretty good. And conquest does work well. After the Feb patch it still is not bad, but for someone like me who played the game for years, post Feb it is vastly inferior to what it was before.

Yeah they done messed up

[Swagg.9236]

@Kickpuncher.8109 said:GW2 pvp is a joke

Truth.

[Swagg.9236]

@"Burnfall.9573" said:Examples:

Elementalist Profession excel equally in Tanks, Healer, DPSWarrior Profession excel equally in Tank, Healer, DPSRevenant Profession excel equally in Tank, Healer, DPS

'The main job of the healer is, and it is often argued that the only job of the healer is, to keep the health up of all party/group members. As stated above, a good healer will often be able to compensate for the lack of proficient tanking.'

'The main job of the tank is, and always will be, taking the attention off everyone else. This is done through the agro generation, as well as taunts. While this character will be doing damage to the mob/boss, that is often far less than a DPS.'

'DPS: These are the damage dealers. Their main, and arguably only job, is to remove the health from mobs/bosses, in the quickest and most efficient manner possible'

The Holy Trinity allows different Profession reasons to excel in different ways while enforcing their roles at the same time and assuring their identities remain intact to their core

-Mesmer Profession-Thief Profession sharing similar roles....should be Forbidden-

(i hope i make sense)

You not only made sense, but you're probably the only person in this thread who honed in on what was supposed to be the most important part of that stupid wall of OP text. The problem generated by the lack of established roles and unique playstyles in GW2 is, in fact, SO BAD, that people have looped all the way back in on themselves by creating terms like "bruiser," "duelist," and "side-noder" in order to desperately delude themselves into thinking that a class or a build isn't basically the exact same playstyle and set-up as every other "metagame level" option in GW2. Players who hold ANY investment in GW2 will fight this point to the death because without it, they lose all credibility regarding things like skill level or "competitive history." If people really do face the reality of how GW2's metagame is so cripplingly dependent on patch notes more than player innovation, development and creative expression, it becomes very hard to justify or place value in anyone's accomplishments in PvP.

And, it's not like a game needs to hold itself to a super-strict holy trinity in order to implement class roles or unique playstyles, but GW2 has nothing at all when it just tries to blend everything into a single playstyle mush of identical mechanics that are just arbitrarily tossed to random classes based entirely on flavor.

[Swagg.9236]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"Swagg.9236" said:Your supposition about how "conquest is just inferior to gw1's mode variety" might actually be a strong focal point.

i didn't say that but i agree with it.

I also agree, but I still think that there's a lot more to the hypothetical situation of "GW2 PvP is really good now!" than just the addition of a bunch of different game modes. It's just hard to make anything that demands people to play in unique or different manners when most classes can just face-tank all PvP effects while also negating positioning and timing by teleporting up through suspended bridges, through walls or across varied terrain heights. Players NEED vulnerabilities or they NEED to just be able to outrun everything manually. At least in the latter case, it can be possible to see who used their movement "properly" or "more efficiently" in the midst of everyone just doing PvE rotations. It's still not a great scenario, but it at least has a skill ceiling that would exist in the third dimension.

I mean, for instance, how do you make Jade Quarry fun if everyone has ground-targeted teleports or tab-target teleports that can go through surfaces? Why would you need hexes like Seeping Wound or ranged attacks? Couldn't anyone just appear on the carriers and kill them? Why wouldn't anyone just run that single build (shrinebombers not withstanding)? Why run Melandru's Shot when you could just teleport? That's kind of the situation with GW2: movement and positioning don't really have the value that they used to, and I don't think that more game modes could fix that.