Swagg.9236

As much as I enjoy learning and growing through conversations like these, the thought of how GW2 will probably never change is still probably going to sour in the back of my mind lol. It's not like my current path in life will ever have a high probability of intersecting with "game design" anyway, so it's best I just get over it. That said, thank you very much for this thread, and I'll definitely look into those concepts and the video.

Marketing and brand nomenclature are not game design.

The intention is pure, but everyone in this thread has absolutely no idea how much work would need to go into this game to make it a reliably engaging PvP experience. In fact, so much work would have to go into GW2 that the players would probably reject the effort outright on principle by virtue of how much GW2 would be transformed into something entirely different. What you have now is all you will ever get. GW2's bad reputation in the MMO community is ENTIRELY deserved. It was assembled using incongruent, grab-bag ideas within an unoptimized, outdated engine, and then all of its leadership and development team were either fired or jumped ship and scrubbed this whole project from their resumes by 2014. I'd love to praise and push this game as much as I wish I could, but the reality is that GW2 has a hard cap on how far one can flex agency in Tyria. You are all at the whim of recycled content shuffled periodically by mere patch notes, and that will never change at this point. It's one thing to wish for a "better GW2," but without a legitimate understanding of why GW2 fails, you'll probably do more harm than good by jumping on the "improvement" bandwagon that most GW2 players or salient voices would advertise.

This isn't about comparing one game to another; it's about combat design at its core. GW1, despite certainly being clunky, had a lot of depth to it precisely because the value of 1v1s was rather low in the grand scheme of combat: more often than not the team that coordinated its build designs and actions better was the victor, and there was a lot of grey area for player decision-making outside of just laser focus onto single targets. GW2, despite being "fast" has infinitely less depth than its predecessor precisely because all of that team-centric composition and execution was thrown out the window for one-man-army builds that sort of just roam around and pick the easiest fights to win. The incentives and values for fights and objectives are thrown way off from what they once were, and that's why you end up with "Haha, you can't play the game" moments in almost every scenario in GW2 regardless of which class you end up fighting: every "good" build in GW2 aims to deny its opponent's innate agency. That's generally unhealthy for a PvP's skill floor and ceiling; everything is compressed into flow-chart decision making rather than players looking for new strategies or insight. The fact that you actually would prefer "have [an] absolute blast playing 2 games and then rage for another 2" is the evidence of how flawed GW2's holistic design philosophy is: it's inconsistent; dependent on builds rather than player skill. That said, it's entirely your right to enjoy a binary interaction like that. You just have to be honest with yourself and everybody else about the reality of its shallow, low-effort nature.

OK, so now you're discussing hard counter interactions. Either somebody is going to get interrupted or the Mesmer is going to fizzle on his build's primary gimmick. That's the big issue with GW2 combat interactions: the "counterplay" in most cases is either excessive passivity or outright negating an opponent's efforts with little to no effort at all (often at instant speeds). Just because the interaction can go the other way against the Mesmer doesn't mean that it's an overall healthy dynamic.

Ranges are a lot more arbitrary in GW2 across all classes and weapon sets. Moreover, instant speed at 1200 range can easily come in from off-screen or be easily obscured and folded into other skills. GW1 forced players to make decisions and commitments with what they were doing at any given time whether it be activating a skill, baiting an interrupt or waiting for the right moment (or skill) to interrupt. In GW2, almost every skill is worth an interrupt because of how rotation-based the combat is, and being able to interrupt at instant speed means that a player is almost guaranteed to get a big return at any given time that the daze mantra is available to cast (because of how innately spammy GW2 is).

GW2 is far more spammy and less calculating than GW1. While, certainly, it's possible to be keen with particular interrupts using the Mesmer mantras, even just firing it off is enough to get huge returns in most cases (especially considering how rotation-based GW2 combat is). At least GW1 interrupts had to put Mesmers into the spell range of enemy casters as well; it's a lot more uneven here (and without the distinction between skill, spell, shout, etc in GW2, once again, it's far easier to get big returns by just throwing out an interrupt in GW2 than it ever was in GW1). Mantra interrupts aren't a unique or flavorful feature. They're just an overtuned and more annoying version of something that every other class already has and employs regularly.

Honestly, this has been one of the most fruitful discussions about my feelings on GW2 that I've ever had. The particular vocabulary and theoretical examples that you've put forward in this thread are exactly the kind of verbiage that I'd been lacking. Up until now, it had just been examples and comparisons, but to know that there is a specific field of thought which deals specifically in the sort of problem that I feel plagues GW2 is very interesting. As for the single biggest detractor in the thread, I think the issue with confusing "removal of elements" with "homogenization" stems from the belief that one needs to physically see and read the exact outcome of certain inputs in order for there to be understanding of interactions. Accepting or defending the idea that patch notes (particularly those in GW2--which often amount to little more than numerical value changes) have a direct impact on gameplay "skill," is to utterly abandon player agency in favor of... I'm not even really sure what to call it--"analysis of individual elements"?? Maybe that's the big issue with the PvP philosophy of GW2's salient playerbase voices: they often equate the ability to discern individual elements' respective effectiveness within a simple system as the sign of skill rather than considering the idea that less elements with higher interactivity and depth could provide more outlets for player expression and overall agency. Again, it's probably more of a game design problem than necessarily a people problem: it's hard to deny that GW2, if played seriously and at long enough length, effectively teaches its players to think only about the effectiveness of individual elements with similar, key effects; discarding most everything else to irrelevancy. For instance, there's no real sense in considering how fun it might be to control space with [Throw Mine] when you'd never impact the field as much as just having passive stability, near-perma superspeed, quick-recharge and lethal AoE spam, or protracted invulnerability. Again, I'll just reiterate what I said earlier about why I think GW2 has never seen a lot of growth or high population retention over the years; it's not because the game was intentionally designed to be "drop in, drop out," but rather that the average video game consumer is... legitimately just... too good for GW2. It doesn't challenge people.

I'm actually far more for heterogeneity than the opposite. I just think that, if you need to have filler in between your role-defining abilities, said filler might as well have as little impact on the outcome of fights as possible in order to keep the emphasis on decisions made with unique role-based capabilities (or be rolled into the unique playstyle of a class). For instance, I think that the Mesmer should have probably had Portal strapped to the F-bar rather than isolated as a utility because it's such a unique ability which (at one point) completely defined the class (particularly in PvP). Shatters and clones never really felt like they established any particular playstyle options (aside from just generic DPS), and spatial or temporal manipulation would have been a much better direction to take the baseline of that class, allowing damage skills to be made in support of that unique mechanic rather than just having a bunch of similar skills all forcibly jammed into a flat box that barely ever had room for Portal at all. I'd prefer role paradigms like those exhibited in Team Fortress 2, Risk of Rain 2, or even Dark Souls 3 (the latter being an interesting way to allow for customization toward generalist builds, mix-up builds or even support builds if one is trying to work as a coordinated team). Risk of Rain 2 is more a case of auto-attacks being filler that can be modified into lethal force over time while the other two do a good job of throwing out auto-attacks entirely; relying more on resources (ammo/reload/weapon swap times in TF2 vs Endurance in Dark Souls) to balance the array of attacks that any player has access to at any given time. After that, it just comes down to making sure that each role (or class) is well-defined by its unique capabilities (either via movement options, resilience to damage, support, raw damage, range, or a combination of various aspects). I've had people argue against these sorts of comparisons with "No, those are different genres, and therefore those ideas can't be applicable to GW2," but I'd argue that the Thief's flexibility in attack choice does enough to prove otherwise. GW2 relies too heavily on scripted movement and attacks; it tries to straddle a line that is probably best left as a dividing line: tab-target vs free-form aim. In doing so, it kind of dooms itself to a conflict of identity, and it really has trouble excelling at anything while failing to provide room for roles to naturally grow out of fundamental design principles.

Drawbacks create playstyles. All GW2 releases are direct-upgrades and clones, so all its PvP scene ends up producing is bloat by the end of the day.

I actually wish that all damage in this game scaled based on range to target; in all cases, it would be better if up-close damage hit a maximum value while long-range damage fell off toward a minimum value. At least that way, you would have the opportunity to apply long-range pressure, but burst would always need to occur within melee range; it incentivizes activity at risky ranges, which in turn drives interactions rather than encouraging off-screen sneak-attacks. Then again, teleports unfortunately exist and they already circumvent the risk of approaching or escaping a target, so even something like that might not be a good way to fix anything without considering a holistic redesign of how combat resolves.

If you ask me, it be WAY better if all the weapons shared the same, basic, low-impact auto-attack across all weapon types (i.e. every staff basically either had a single, generic melee attack or a Fireball-esque ranged attack). Auto-attacks are filler; they shouldn't consistently determine how combat resolves. If somebody found a way to stack up effects onto a single auto-attack instance for a huge hit, then that's a bit difference (since it involves investment and a bit of risk), but ultimately, there's no reason why this game even needs to have auto-attacks at all. You could easily just give every weapon a couple of good attacks with high cast-times, short-cooldowns and maybe some resource mechanic to balance them. Auto-attacks, as they are now, are far too oppressive to warrant their spammability; and honestly, if you neuter them, it's questionable why they would even exist at all that point. There's basically no middle ground. It'd be better if they just didn't exist (or at the very least, didn't take up a skill-bar slot). I wouldn't mind the rest of your hypothetical weapon bar, though.

"How about when when FB was nerfed and DH was buffed did all those symbolbrands stay in FB?" This line right here is your biggest fault. You say "stay in FB" as if the spec itself is what primarily governs player effectiveness in PvP; therefore you, by doing so, help make MY OWN ARGUMENT about how using an out-of-combat menu is the principle measuring stick of "player skill" within the active elements of GW2 PvP. If your game's combat paradigms are so brutally wrenched left and right by mere patch notes, how can you argue that this game really provides any space for player agency? What room is there for creativity if you yourself are going to so blatantly hold up patch notes as the reason why people abandoned an entire spec (or at the very least, a supposed major aspect of an entire spec)? And what does that say about the players themselves--the people who establish and propagate the GW2 PvP metagame? If they're so willing to just go along with the patch notes and shift into some other set of passive bonuses to achieve the same, prior goals, maybe they are afraid of change? Maybe they're satisfied with being told how to play by some faceless developer? Maybe they don't want to imagine what it would be like if they had the power to use aggression and creativity in order to surprise somebody with a different way to use the same skill that they had just used a brief moment ago? I was starting to write a novel to reply. If that other guy replies again, maybe I'll let him read it, but suffice to say, you don't need time to see what GW2 gameplay is at its core. Moreover, there is a fundamental issue with the "You have to play X for Y hours in order to truly understand/appreciate/have fun with Z" argument. You're going to lose players; and the ones you retain have probably already been there for a long time because they don't feel like moving on or exploring different frontiers. The people who have played GW2 for ages rely on a façade: the game's own esoteric obfuscation of combat with instant abilities and passive triggers that make it seem like combat is more than players following a rotation.

Had to step out for a week on work, but I wanted to continue this conversation a bit. I did have a chance to play the beta specs for a bit on Tuesday and shortly on Friday, and it was kind of just as I had assumed/feared on both a gameplay and a community response level. A few of the biggest glaring issues: - The builds I ended up formulating for "effective" use of the new specs generally never considered the new weapons. - The three new specs are extremely similar: crash into a target with a stream of skills hoping to down it before they get focused (which, honestly, could define the rest of GW2 PvP). They really bring no new mechanics or perspectives to the table; only a different color of the same flavor. - The seams are beginning to show and split amid conversation in the PvP lobby. As anecdotal as it is, I think it's interesting to note how a number of people are outright dismissing the specs; and, by the end of the week, ranked PvP had effectively voided itself of all new spec presence (with a number of cases in which players using the old builds telling people with beta specs to change class). It really demonstrates the one-dimensionality of GW2 as a PvP medium. There's no point to change anything or try anything new if it's not going to be just a clear, direct upgrade. - Made a healer build for the Willbender (which ended up being just the typical "healer" weapons and traits for regular guardian specs except with the Willbender line for extra movement). One of the hilarious aspects was that the Willbender adept traits are SO BAD for healing, that I legit just went into PvP foregoing those three options entirely, and the build still accomplished what I intended. Then, after explaining it to someone, I had somebody else tell me I was playing the game wrong despite achieving my goal. So, the above is all very anecdotal, but it seems to show Anet as willing to continue the trend that they've (perhaps justifiably) built for themselves. I want to say this as non-judgmentally as possible because I don't intend to insult anybody with a comment but rather just get across a point about the kind of game that GW2 has apparently always been (or at least the one which it has become): GW2 (especially its PvP) is a very low-energy, low-population scene because most people who play video games are too good for GW2 (and therefore, don't play it), and the people who keep playing consistently (i.e. they take GW2 seriously at its face value) are satisfied with (or fooled by) low-effort (yet artificially protracted) interactions masquerading as complex systems. Anet has built their altar to mediocrity, and it certainly has its cult; which is why I don't think anything will ever change: it's not just a matter of how the developer is pumping out the same product ad nauseum, but there's now also the playerbase dimension of this product line which actively encourages and consumes it. Beyond just the playerbase's mentality however, there's also the case of how most of the original dev staff has basically scrubbed their resumes of this game when they jumped ship (or were fired) early on in the game's lifespan (probably best push-pinned to around 2011-2013). After all, there's probably a good reason why it took Anet N I N E Y E A R S to bring GW2 up from D I R E C T X 9 (9) (NINE) to JUST DIRECTX11 (something not even slated until later this year apparently); most likely the case is that they have no staff left who can untangle the bird's nest of code without breaking things (evidenced in things like the Deadeye hitbox glitch when that class got introduced or the current instance of the weaver barrier bug). It's not only pathetic, but it also shows that nobody within the developer staff either knows how to overhaul the engine or is willing to put in the work to do so. That, more than anything else, really stagnates this game into the forumla that it has relied on since 2014.

No gameplay will change. Why is a random sprinkle of impotence any better than literally nothing? All of your buttons are still doing exactly the same thing as before; just some are doing less numbers. Nothing is changing.

And now every "good" build just plays like cele ele. Anet dev team always bringing what the GW2 playerbase demands: catering to the lowest common denominator.

Yes, I think the biggest hurdle isn't even actually implementing any sort of ideas anymore but rather whether or not anybody would support a change that would up-end the excessive simplicity of GW2 from beneath the playerbase that now ardently expects it. GW2, clearly even during its early developmental era, was certainly more on a path of flavor and style over substance. The Thief is still probably one of the biggest pieces of evidence: a class that doesn't fit in with any others in the game, operating on an entirely different combat paradigm compared to everything else; consistently either extremely overpowered or impotent depending on the state of the metagame; probably developed more as a showcase for a marketable gimmick (stealth) than with a purpose within a holistic array of roles (particularly because of how easily it is replaced by other classes/builds that basically just do what it does nowadays). This isn't to criticize Thief on its own respective design (initiative still allows for probably the most creativity in playstyles for the game), but it demonstrates how Anet probably just drafted up a bunch of professions willy-nilly and grab-bagged the final product rather than truly using any sort of foresight to craft an emergent system from disparate elements. The released product was fundamentally flawed. Even in its early stages, it was fraught with bloat (I'm sure people probably still remember the staff ele PvE DPS meta). Yet, at the same time, the fact that the early game's clear trend toward auto-attack metas in PvE (like, straight up, the Warrior DPS rotation was auto-attacking with axe mainhand) was kind of the point at which the game could have been saved from mediocrity. If you ask me, had anet leaned into movement, positioning and timing as the thing to build player skill in the game (more fights like the Molten Duo for instance) rather than buffing/nerfing already existing skills, we might have seen the opportunity for more emergent gameplay to form. However, the condition update and HoT effectively killed any sort of hope for that reality. If you ask me, GW2 is doomed to a claustrophobic skill ceiling for the rest of its lifespan. Nobody expects complexity, and in fact, they will aggressively argue against its implementation. You'll never see people band together and say something like "You know, what, yeah, just make a single, compressed weapon set out of Elementalist scepter/dagger MH/dagger OH/sword" (because not only could anybody do this, but it'd be a super fun weapon set with a lot of crazy abilities). Instead, the GW2 playerbase will argue to the death that Warrior mace OH deserves to exist despite it contributing absolutely nothing to any gameplay interactions; also that, instead of compressing and culling, [Tremor] should just deal 11k if it hits so that it can finally be "good" (or something silly along those lines). Edit: I also understand that I'm getting pretty vitriolic by this point, but it's just the way things get with this playerbase. I don't think the people who take this game seriously at any level truly grasp how little they understand about this game's design and fundamental problems when they constantly screech about "balance" this and "balance" that. This game is beyond balance. It needs to be FIXED, however, considering the sort of work that this game needs in order to develop a complex PvE/PvP paradigm, it'd almost certainly be easier to just make an entirely different game.

I've never seen anybody adopt this sort of mindset before with regards to GW2's holistic design philosophy (if one even really exists anymore), and I think it boils down to that key word: emergence. GW2 doesn't really feature any sort of emergent gameplay whatsoever; all of the potential is trapped within the sum of the game's parts. There are so many dead-end mechanics that either have no synergy with each other, or stash all of their synergy with other isolated, incongruent gimmicks like a single trait. Combat in GW2 constantly comes down to a simple numbers game--patch release to patch release--to determine the metagame's top dogs rather than somebody accidentally discovering some engine quirk or a handful of people just pushing an singular system element to an extreme that nobody thought viable. Incongruency is probably the biggest sin of GW2's design. It's the reason why the game has so much bloat, and it's the reason why elite specializations were probably the final nail in this game's coffin when it comes to innovative design and player-participation in emergent gameplay. Elite Specs DO NOT build off of any sort of universal skill floor. Everyone is so excited about new ones coming out, but the question should be: "How do my skills as a Guardian transfer into playing Willbender?" The answer is that they DO NOT in any form whatsoever. GW2's metagame (particularly in PvP) is a constant demonstration of the Galapagos Effect: everything is so incongruent with other elements of gameplay, that it's like every build is just trapped on its own little archipelago. This is why new Elite Spec drops tend to either be completely worthless or entirely overbearing on the current gameplay ecosystem. Due to the innate isolation of all gameplay elements in GW2, any new additions are going to compete with them in a binary "It's better or it's worse" paradigm. There is no natural development or emergent identity to come from any sort of interaction between new and old content. To sum up my thoughts of GW2 after playing it for so long, I've developed a few truths about this game: - It never needed more than 3 classes (and that's a shame because I enjoyed playing nearly all of them consistently in GW1). - It always needed drastically less skills per build; refocus roles by culling the homogenous versatility featured in every single "good" GW2 build (even removing the weapon swap is on the table for this if you ask me). - Traits were a mistake (they just cloud combat legibility with passive effects; makes combat an esoteric experience that has to be parsed by new players via JUST READING mountains of tool tips or third-party sites rather than just playing the game). - GW2 has always desperately needed a way for players to create or modify content (particularly for PvP). If this playerbase had access to a map editor and some assets, there probably would have been dozens of different decent maps by now, a good handful of fun meme maps, and potentially even some outright new modes which could have seen more success that 3-point conquest. - GW2 definitely needed to find a way to make WASD matter in combat; relying on movement scripts (often tied to attacks) was one of the fastest ways to kill emergent gameplay.

To be brief since I kind of wanted to read some of the new stuff in this thread, yes, less is more, but it can't be left out in a vacuum; "less is more" is true within the context of interacting systems present in GW2. GW2 doesn't feature a lot of unique or role-defining mechanics, therefore, each class has A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF OVERLAP when it comes to what any single one of them can contribute to a party. This is why we have such rabid competition and number crunching when it comes to questions like "What is the best DPS, Support, etc in raids": all the classes kind of do the same thing, so people get extra feisty about their preferences because they are mostly grounded in flavor rather than function or playstyle. It means that people's intentions, efforts and opinions are easily invalidated by cold, unfeeling calculations based entirely on patch note releases. There is no room for creativity or expression in GW2 because it's smothered by incongruent bloat. GW2 IS TOO SHALLOW to support 9 classes with 20-30 buttons per bar. Eighty percent of this game's skills all roughly do the same thing. There is no justifiable reason for this game to feature so many active (and especially passive) options. If anything, you would see an emergence of true roles, draw-backs and playstyles if you just culled the game down to 3 classes, each with a flexible skill bar of maybe 8-10 slots total. However, I refrained from throwing down that statement from the outset because I absolutely knew it would probably garner a knee-jerk reaction regarding the act of "removing/cutting content." A lot of the GW2 playerbase at this point has been conditioned to think in a certain way, and it's very difficult to break away from the habit of "more is better" after one has known nothing but life inside of a shiny, flavor-gilded sarcophagus entombed in a pyramid of bloat.

One basic QoL improvement that should have been something thought about during the game's launch followed by a bunch of half-hearted or worthless changes that don't really impact the gameplay of GW2 in any way; and before anybody cries about how a Scourge nerf is good (or bad), you have to recognize that adjusting numbers up and down is not going to change how the class actually plays: you will still be pressing the same buttons to do the same exact thing; the numbers will just be slightly different now. GW2 is ruled by patch notes rather than player innovation.

GW2 is currently so bloated and homogenous that its excess of skills is what prevents players from developing any sort of innate complexity in the base gameplay. If you remove all of the skills that are basically already copies of each other, you are opening GW2's windpipe to let it breathe for once. Putting risk back into the game is what would instantly develop a significant skill ceiling for PvP interactions. As it stands, GW2 PvP is super reactive, passive and operates on fixed, internal timers rather than on-the-fly intuition and creativity.

Flavor is not function. Flavor, therefore, should not govern function. Immersion is something that comes after the gameplay is actually good.

And if it didn't say "Damage: 3," it also wouldn't CC, wouldn't need to inflict conditions, and just leave a pulsing, linear AoE on the ground (and also probably have a 5s CD with 3 ammo count which recharges individually every 10s); and then that would be basically the main source of all outgoing damage on that player's bar. Yeah, sure. That actually works decently.

Unless anet is willing to entirely rip up their garbage systems (effectively admitting that they've designed a bland, shallow game), you aren't going to get anything but more of the same layered on top of this base layer of boring. For instance, everything that the Virtuoso does already exists in the game; just because anet decided to copy-paste already-existing skills onto a player weapon bar, change some values, and then add a lot of purple particle effects to it doesn't mean that you aren't straight-up getting recycled content marketed as "new features." Remember that the "taunt" mechanic existed in an asura starter zone as a kitten joke since 2012; but the devs sounded so proud when they were showing that off when spoiling the Revenant.

No, I think I agree with you, and I think we're touching on the same vein. The concept of a "fun or good game" is sort of embedded in a fine balance between how much a player feels like they have control over their avatar and how much their individual inputs return satisfaction. It's kind of like... the differences and compromises in player freedom between two ends of a spectrum that goes from INHUMAN APM on one end with GODLY READS AND MIXUPS / "HE JUST GOES IN AND FLICKS EVERYONE" on the opposite side. If I had to give examples, I'd say to pick your poison: Smash Bros. Melee / Gunz: The Duel or Dark Souls / Team Fortress 2. On one end, we have a blinding flurry of inputs for the sake of intense, one-with-the-player avatar movement; and although there is not a lot satisfaction to be found within individual inputs, because the volume of actions is so dense, it's possible to translate real-time thoughts into gameplay (the sacrifice is that people who play these games just get literal carpal tunnel syndrome). At the other end, we have games designed around a slower rhythm of action with the most consistent big rewards only coming from actions which are inherently risky via action impact generally only yielding high impact when within the range of an enemy attack. (the sacrifice in this game design is generally movement is clunkier or more restrictive in order to infuse risk, committal and logical follow-throughs for each action taken). If you were to ask me, GW2 had a legitimate chance at being something very similar to Dark Souls (I don't keep using this as a rabid fan of the series, but rather because I see distinct similarities between Soulsbourne games and GW1's baseline gameplay along with what might have been a logical progression of the franchise). In GW1, players were often locked in place during combat; the game was SUPER CLUNKY, but by forcing all players to remain stationary while taking actions, it made people consider the timing of certain skills (or influenced the design of skills altogether i.e. Bull's Strike, Melandru's Shot, etc), range footsies, and team coordination/positioning. If GW2 kept GW1's emphasis on stationary action, it would have also naturally created another modifier state for combat (i.e. "Skill does [bonus] if striking a target in motion/standing still."), but as it stands, people in GW2 just kind of run around in circles while spamming whatever they want and most skills that root players often provide passive damage-negation. Personally, I wish GW2 would have a stronger dichotomy between in-combat and out-of-combat movement: OOC movement would be fast and flashy with lots of easy-input movement that provided a lot of unique freedoms in height access, jump arcs, and mid-air movement; however IC movement would be a lot more restrictive and paced around heavy-hitting skills with legible wind-ups. The (maybe impossible) cherry on top would be a tie-in between the two like an engine overhaul which would allow a certain conservation of momentum which might boost certain skill damage based on current travel speed. Add in the ability to use most skills in mid-air, and you would have a super cool way to initiate most combat: boost speed with crazy movement chains/combos and then flow into a big-hitter skill that would get boosted damage because the user is moving at 200 sanics/second through the air. It would add to the skill ceiling without being entirely overpowered because the attack skill would still have a fair wind-up (but it would be a consistent tactic in PvE).