Dear Anet, does skill flavor still hold up to your standard?

[eldrevo.1746]

One of the biggest reasons I love GW2 so much is the sheer amount of work, love and attention to detail put into player's skills and flavor about them. The voice lines on using skills, receiving boons and conditions, custom animations on almost every skill in the game also unique to some races, incredibly well done icons and even unique skill range indicators we use for ground targeting... You know, that sort of stuff.  It makes the combat feel alive, it makes the professions and elite specs feel unique and powerful. 

On release, GW2 had set a very high bar in terms of quality and flavor, then only raised it with HoT and PoF... But then something seemed to change.

I won't get too deep into EoD elite spec design that feel cheaper than that of PoF (consider amount of thought and effort put into stitching Soulbeast together and then look at Untamed), it may be a topic for another time (please please please give next expac's specs more love). Right now I wanna focus on flavor. Mainly animations and voice lines.

Remember how rich core animations were? And how in HoT most of elite specs had a whole bunch of brand new animations and effects, sometimes up to a insane amount (I see you here daredevil)? Well, now it's mostly reuse, be thankful if your spec has at least some new moves and handn't ripped another older spec of their unique stuff (I see you here vindicator). For rant's sake, when I saw the newest Kneel changes, I was both happy but also 'Please, tell me you'll add a proper crouch walk animation later and not leave it like that.' Anet, I really hope you will. Some later animations do not really stend up to the standards you've set up earlier.

Then there are voice lines. Remember how important they became from the game's first days? All these memes about outrunning a centaur, feeling six feet tall and showing this rose's thorns? Remember how none of the new boons added since release got their voice lines? There's quite a lot of them now, from quickness and alacrity to resistance and resolution. The latter is a special sore spot, because we got rid of retaliation for that, only substracting from the current amount of chatter without adding anything back. Anet, my rose called, she wants her thorns back 😞

Then there's skill flavor, crucial to feel the fantasy behind your character. Remember the times Firebrands had to charge their mantras? Usability wise, it sucked, I don't miss that gameplay at all. But with the charging remove, guess what was also gone? Right, a cool animation and a set of lovely unique voice lines! There is a ton of ways to reintroduce both (from making the charging useful i.e. pulsing effects like tempest overload to adding a chance to activate the voice line on using a mantra charge), and it's sad that they were just gutted instead. Anet, I'm happy to see the positive trend of getting the fun stuff back, can we have this too?

The next thing is less significant but still feels like a downgrade. Remember pressing Hammer 5 or Function Gyro on Scrapper and seeing a unique ground targeting area? Staff 5 or Longbow 5 on Dragonhunter? Scourge Shades? Citadel Bombardment on Renegade? Basically each Elite spec having their own emblem on all ground targeted skills? Forget that, we still have Virtuoso using Mesmer's art on elite, same for Willbender F2 and Dragonhunter. Anet, please. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but details do matter.

Do you have any skills or flavor you'd like to have back? Let's discuss or just rant because that's what forums are for after all 😛

 

P. S. Forgive me if this post ended up too negative. I love GW2 and I feel like its direction is doing better than ever lately, huge respect to everyone responsible for that. I just want to be sure the game keeps up to its own standards and we'll have quality stuff ahead (as well as maybe having some good stuff back from the void).

[Cait Sith.4650]

I agree with you, and I have nothing to add. Just wanted to show some appreciation.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

I don’t think Anet cares anymore about that part of the player experience. This has been witnessed by the hack and slash mentality of professions updates the past 18-24 months.  Perhaps it’s that the developers don’t care or perhaps the company they work for isn’t going to adequately fund them to continue to make the game comparable to the quality of PoF and earlier era content.  
 

Since the second half of IBS the bulk of content released has been lacking in many ways. They don’t even excuse it as they did during IBS and the announced launch of EoD.  At this point in time I wouldn’t expect to get anything better than what we got with EoD. 

[Bunny.9834]

Flavor died when the main focus is now numbers and "balance". 
 

Everything now is focused on making sure everything and everyone can do every role. 

 

It went from Chess to Checkers. 

[Serephen.3420]

On 11/19/2022 at 4:37 AM, eldrevo.1746 said:

One of the biggest reasons I love GW2 so much is the sheer amount of work, love and attention to detail put into player's skills and flavor about them. The voice lines on using skills, receiving boons and conditions, custom animations on almost every skill in the game also unique to some races, incredibly well done icons and even unique skill range indicators we use for ground targeting... You know, that sort of stuff.  It makes the combat feel alive, it makes the professions and elite specs feel unique and powerful. 

On release, GW2 had set a very high bar in terms of quality and flavor, then only raised it with HoT and PoF... But then something seemed to change.

I won't get too deep into EoD elite spec design that feel cheaper than that of PoF (consider amount of thought and effort put into stitching Soulbeast together and then look at Untamed), it may be a topic for another time (please please please give next expac's specs more love). Right now I wanna focus on flavor. Mainly animations and voice lines.

Remember how rich core animations were? And how in HoT most of elite specs had a whole bunch of brand new animations and effects, sometimes up to a insane amount (I see you here daredevil)? Well, now it's mostly reuse, be thankful if your spec has at least some new moves and handn't ripped another older spec of their unique stuff (I see you here vindicator). For rant's sake, when I saw the newest Kneel changes, I was both happy but also 'Please, tell me you'll add a proper crouch walk animation later and not leave it like that.' Anet, I really hope you will. Some later animations do not really stend up to the standards you've set up earlier.

Then there are voice lines. Remember how important they became from the game's first days? All these memes about outrunning a centaur, feeling six feet tall and showing this rose's thorns? Remember how none of the new boons added since release got their voice lines? There's quite a lot of them now, from quickness and alacrity to resistance and resolution. The latter is a special sore spot, because we got rid of retaliation for that, only substracting from the current amount of chatter without adding anything back. Anet, my rose called, she wants her thorns back 😞

Then there's skill flavor, crucial to feel the fantasy behind your character. Remember the times Firebrands had to charge their mantras? Usability wise, it sucked, I don't miss that gameplay at all. But with the charging remove, guess what was also gone? Right, a cool animation and a set of lovely unique voice lines! There is a ton of ways to reintroduce both (from making the charging useful i.e. pulsing effects like tempest overload to adding a chance to activate the voice line on using a mantra charge), and it's sad that they were just gutted instead. Anet, I'm happy to see the positive trend of getting the fun stuff back, can we have this too?

The next thing is less significant but still feels like a downgrade. Remember pressing Hammer 5 or Function Gyro on Scrapper and seeing a unique ground targeting area? Staff 5 or Longbow 5 on Dragonhunter? Scourge Shades? Citadel Bombardment on Renegade? Basically each Elite spec having their own emblem on all ground targeted skills? Forget that, we still have Virtuoso using Mesmer's art on elite, same for Willbender F2 and Dragonhunter. Anet, please. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but details do matter.

Do you have any skills or flavor you'd like to have back? Let's discuss or just rant because that's what forums are for after all 😛

 

P. S. Forgive me if this post ended up too negative. I love GW2 and I feel like its direction is doing better than ever lately, huge respect to everyone responsible for that. I just want to be sure the game keeps up to its own standards and we'll have quality stuff ahead (as well as maybe having some good stuff back from the void).

Pretty much all catalyst animations 😅

[Kodama.6453]

Oh boy, that list is quite long for my beloved engineer. Here we go:

Trait Icons/Names

Many traits got changed over the years, but unfortunately Anet just kept the old icons or names for them, so they are not thematically appropriate anyore.

• Thermal Vision: The icon still shows a perforated can on top of someone's head. Made sense when the trait was still called Skilled Marksman, but now with it being focused on increasing condition damage when you burn foes and the theme of thermal vision.... not fitting anymore. Maybe change it to the head of someone with a flame in it, implying that we see the heat this person radiates and aim for that.
• Juggernaut: Honestly, not sure what this icon even is supposed to represent. Maybe make it an engineer standing in flames with a flamethrower.
• Soothing Detonation: Name made sense when the trait healed whenever you use blast finishers, but now it's on toolbelt skill usage, which has nothing much to do with detonations. Change name to something like "medical tools" or something.
• Emergency Elixir: Icon still shows a shrinking figure, relic from when it used to use a minor elixir s. Now it gives barrier and protection instead, so maybe change it to an elixir flask with the protection symbol on it.
• Adrenal Implant: I am not sure, but is this icon supposed to be armor? If so, why? Change it to an actual implant instead.
• Kinetic Accelerators: Still a lightning icon, leftover from it being Final Salvo, which made gyro explosions daze enemies with a lightning combo field. Change the icon to an actual gyroskope (not our skill type, but actual gyroskopes used in technology).
• Applied Force: Icon still shows a gyro with boots.... made sense (even if it's a meme icon) when it gave stability on gyro usage and was called Stabilization Core. But now it is increasing power damage from might and grants stability based on might stacks. Change icon to something similar like Object in Motion or Mass Momentum, showcase the momentum theme of this trait.

Skill Models and Animations

How Turrets got handled with their models is a kitten shame. Look with what Rifle Turret actually got advertised in artwork: Engineer Promotional Artwork. Also the icon of the skill shows a totally different turret than how it actually looks like.

The biggest insult is, a way better model for the rifle turret which is at least somewhat similar to what was advertised exists in the game.... Here is a screenshot I made

Also back when they reworked the mortar into a kit, they just slapped the mortar barrel on a standard rifle skin. We got told back then that this is just a placeholder model and they will update it later to give it a completely new model. That promise was made in 2015.... more than 7 years ago at this point.

Skll Icons

Mechanist signets got handled quite lazily in my opinion. They just slapped symbols of other existing skills into a signet frame and called it a day. Even if they did that to spare time, they could have chosen icons with a more technological theme....

For example, the healing signet using the ankh symbol (which is so cliche for healing skills, too). Could have been made a wrench or something.

Overclock signet got the hourglass from the mesmer elite skill. Could have used the icon from excessive energy in the tools trait line, would feel more approriate for me.

 

[Doggie.3184]

Their animation team has done a lot of great work for the game but hasn't been dishing out enough new body-animation stuff over the years. (also extends to emotes 😣)

Warrior Gunsaber animation is painful to look at. It coulda had cool Samurai animations but nope. Spellbreaker's first 4 dagger animations are also super boring.

Vindicator is fun but the utilities are just... there. Nothing special visually and I'm not sure what they have to do with the legendaries other than the elites. Nobody could jump in GW1 so the jump dodge mechanic is kinda funny considering that. And ofc reused Greatsword animation and Reaper's unique animation stolen. 

Mesmer should toss daggers around like they're doing a circus performance or martial arts.

Specter is swinging a Scepter around like an axe. The sound effect isn't appealing. Shroud animation is nothing special and doesn't even use legendary effects like Necro's.

Ranger Unwashed theme overall is just visually unexciting~ so much so that people wanted the aura deleted. Hammer is all recycled animation with green stuff attached to it and just doesn't feel cool cuz of it. Spores vanish too abruptly after exploding and it feels jarring.

Necromancer gets giant green pants and shoes aura and it's just unwanted, lol.

Uncustomizable green Jade Mech eyesore with only one robot choice.

Catalyst is Captain Planet. Lotsa recycling XD

Guardian Willbender uses Daredevil skills ;u

(Then there's the criminal neglect of not tweaking animations to make them useable in water so Jade Mechs can't swim even though Siege Golems and Golemancer Rune Golems can and Specter has no Wells and a broken Shroud skill that didn't get it's animation fixed.)

I know Ele is about to get another Shatterstone animation tweak without tweaking the sound effect to match it again. XD

Edited November 26, 2022 by Doggie.3184

[Kodama.6453]

Another addition, since I am running elixir gun quite often lately:

Acid Bomb

That puddle looks disgusting. And not in the good chemical way it is supposed to, I mean it looks outdated and just bad. We have amazing animations in the game already which could get used for this skill instead. For example, there are these chemical fields from the attacks of Nicabars copter in Drizzlewood.

[prototypedragon.1406]

The gem store takes priority above all else sadly.

[Doggie.3184]

On 11/25/2022 at 11:56 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

I know Ele is about to get another Shatterstone animation tweak without tweaking the sound effect to match it again. XD

And I was correct. The sound effect is even more out of sync with the animation now. Just raise the tempo in Audacity or something XD

Ugh, it makes me cringe when I use it because of the sound effect, lol.

[Kodama.6453]

Newest addition:

Rifle Burst

There is really nothing bursty about it anymore. Instead of 2 shots quickly after each other, it is just 1 shot now with kinda a delay on the first cast. Also doesn't deal high damage to deserve that name.

[eXruina.4956]

On 11/28/2022 at 3:39 PM, prototypedragon.1406 said:

The gem store takes priority above all else sadly.

more cuddly cat!! we want more!!

[DarkSoul.2348]

100% agree above all it makes me happier than if my spec it the best in the game tbh. It's why I play also.