Combat is Broken Beyond Tweaks And Must Change

[Echostorm.9143]

These balance patches have only been effective at upsetting at least half the population every few months.   There are underlying issues that have been growing and festering for years.

Where we are:

Everyone has to stack up, even if you have ranged weapons, and perform mindless rotations to keep buffs, heals and dps up.  We are bland gamer macro balls.  No reacting, just repeating.

 

What we can change.

Buffs don't need to be hard. In other games most buffs are an afterthought, something you do when you log on or before a raid.  Buff to play, don't play to buff.

Heals shouldn't all be restricted to a tight proximity, why have ranged weapons at all if you have to be shoulder to shoulder with the healer at all times?  Make group heals that heal the group no matter where they are.  Without buffs to worry about, healers can react to the fight that is happening; healing, shielding and cleansing when it makes sense and getting in some of their own hits when it doesn't.

DPS should be reactive and nuanced not long spammy mindless rotations.  An auto attack that is most of your damage and situational attacks that rely picking the right moment, stuns, taunts, ripostes, blocks, power hits.

 

We should be hitting keys when it makes sense, not because they are the next in a 30 step list.

We should be swapping weapons because the fight has radically changed from melee to range or aggressive to defensive not because it's part 2 of our 5 part 30 step rotation.

These kinds of reforms also lower the barriers to disabled and older gamers who still want to be useful players in the group.

[Mell.4873]

This is such a superficial understanding of the combat and why people play certain things/roles.

Any one of your suggested changes would probably break PvE even more.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Acanthus.8120]

28 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Any one of your suggested changed would probably break PvE even more.

Explain how.

[Kalocin.5982]

44 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

This is such a superficial understanding of the combat and why people play certain things/roles.

Any one of your suggested changed would probably break PvE even more.

I don't understand this? FFXIV has healers that mostly DPS and buffs on a 2 minute cycle. Nothing broken there and it's currently the most popular MMO with dynamic boss encounters. You can put your fingers in your ears all you want but nobody wants to play boon ball.

[Mell.4873]

23 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

Explain how.

Mechanics are balanced around stacking so if you removed the need then, a lot of Raid/Strike bosses would be reworked. Most Bosses force you split to make it more difficult so what now?

What about WvW, do we have invincible swarm of players or a ball. If you say let's stacking stays in WvW then do we have a split between game modes; wouldn't that just creation confusion.

None of these suggestions address the problem you are trying to solve and make it worse.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Mell.4873]

3 minutes ago, Kalocin.5982 said:

I don't understand this? FFXIV has healers that mostly DPS and buffs on a 2 minute cycle. Nothing broken there and it's currently the most popular MMO with dynamic boss encounters. You can put your fingers in your ears all you want but nobody wants to play boon ball.

That would just homogenize the MMO genre, GW2 is unique because it has the Trinity placed in DPS, Alacrity and Quickness.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Kalocin.5982]

11 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

That would just homogenize the MMO genre, GW2 is unique because it has the Trinity placed in DPS, Alacrity and Quickness.

They made a meme about this on Reddit you know

[Hotride.2187]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

That would just homogenize the MMO genre, GW2 is unique because it has the Trinity placed in DPS, Alacrity and Quickness.

Just that you had the option/necessity to not always stack made WoW instanced pve more interesting than GW2 instanced pve.

[Polar.8634]

This might work for PvE but will break wvw and pvp. Healers which can los and heal everybody sounds not fun. Plus I agree with above, gw2 does not need to copy other MMO. 

There are lot of bosses where ranged is useful to DPS something far from stack without moving, or keeping DPS while doing mechanics, it has advantage already .

[Doggie.3184]

1 hour ago, Kalocin.5982 said:

I don't understand this? FFXIV has healers that mostly DPS and buffs on a 2 minute cycle. Nothing broken there and it's currently the most popular MMO with dynamic boss encounters. You can put your fingers in your ears all you want but nobody wants to play boon ball.

FFXIV gives so much freedom to just enjoy the battlefield. I main Summoner and Scholar and as long as I'm not running into enemy attacks I can stand wherever I want to and nuke the enemy from range and heal allies easily. Not only can I stand wherever I want to; I can choose to run and jump all over the place while I'm attacking just for the hell of it while always being in heal and buff range. If you were to stack on top of someone in a dungeon they'd probably move to the side so they can see themselves. People instinctively spread out at various distances majority of the time because that sort of freedom is allowed, plus everyone looks cool~ don't wanna hide that. 😎

[Echostorm.9143]

27 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

FFXIV gives so much freedom to just enjoy the battlefield. I main Summoner and Scholar and as long as I'm not running into enemy attacks I can stand wherever I want to and nuke the enemy from range and heal allies easily. Not only can I stand wherever I want to; I can choose to run and jump all over the place while I'm attacking just for the hell of it while always being in heal and buff range. If you were to stack on top of someone in a dungeon they'd probably move to the side so they can see themselves. People instinctively spread out at various distances majority of the time because that sort of freedom is allowed, plus everyone looks cool~ don't wanna hide that. 😎

Yes please!

[itspomf.9523]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

That would just homogenize the MMO genre, GW2 is unique because it has the Trinity placed in DPS, Alacrity and Quickness.

Guild Wars 2 was unique because it DIDN'T have a trinity until CMC and Co. came in and changed that, hard.

[Jash.3104]

3 hours ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

These kinds of reforms also lower the barriers to disabled and older gamers who still want to be useful players in the group.

Thanks for making this post. I'm a disabled player and before these recent balance changes I was able to comfortably contribute to most roles in group play between Scrapper and Mechanist. Gameplay was fun and reactive now it's just a clunky mess which makes it very very difficult for me to properly contribute.

I've since quit playing this game as Engineer has been my main since release and I'm not interested in switching to any other class when the balance of this game is so unstable, lacking any coherent balance philosophy and completely ignores the fun factor when making changes. 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Jash.3104

[Mell.4873]

Just now, itspomf.9523 said:

Guild Wars 2 was unique because it DIDN'T have a trinity until CMC and Co. came in and changed that, hard.

I made a post recently and it describes how GW2 meta has always involved Boons. Any class that had access to more was the preferred meta pick in every team.

Even back at launch Warrior had the best spread of boons with Shouts/Banners taking them as a group meant permanent Might, Fury and Regeneration uptime.

[Peter.3901]

9 hours ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

Buffs don't need to be hard. In other games most buffs are an afterthought, something you do when you log on or before a raid.  Buff to play, don't play to buff.

 This would make the game 1000x better, playing a character just to smash keys to buff in micro seconds isn't desired by anyone and shouldn't be a thing.

 

 

9 hours ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

Heals shouldn't all be restricted to a tight proximity, why have ranged weapons at all if you have to be shoulder to shoulder with the healer at all times?  Make group heals that heal the group no matter where they are.  Without buffs to worry about, healers can react to the fight that is happening; healing, shielding and cleansing when it makes sense and getting in some of their own hits when it doesn't.

DPS should be reactive and nuanced not long spammy mindless rotations.  An auto attack that is most of your damage and situational attacks that rely picking the right moment, stuns, taunts, ripostes, blocks, power hits.

 

We should be hitting keys when it makes sense, not because they are the next in a 30 step list.

We should be swapping weapons because the fight has radically changed from melee to range or aggressive to defensive not because it's part 2 of our 5 part 30 step rotation.

These kinds of reforms also lower the barriers to disabled and older gamers who still want to be useful players in the group.

As a main ranger i can't agree more, i always ask myself why i use ranged weapons if in the end i need to be in melee range for ofensive or support roles.

 

9 hours ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

These balance patches have only been effective at upsetting at least half the population every few months.   There are underlying issues that have been growing and festering for years.

Where we are:

Everyone has to stack up, even if you have ranged weapons, and perform mindless rotations to keep buffs, heals and dps up.  We are bland gamer macro balls.  No reacting, just repeating.

If devs could think about the actual game design, this wouldn't be a thing.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Peter.3901

[Hashberry.4510]

2 hours ago, Peter.3901 said:

Everyone has to stack up, even if you have ranged weapons

I can’ t say the current solution is great, but it seems this is how ranged is balanced vs melee in this game. Other approaches just make ranged weaker compared to melee, here the option ( given meta dps pressures, its no real choice) to stay ranged and be able to dps through some mechanics that melee cannot is available, but will result in boon loss for ranged.

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Just that you had the option/necessity to not always stack made WoW instanced pve more interesting than GW2 instanced pve.

WoW is not GW2.  Tanks are able to control enemy movement and positioning.  DPS and healers can't avoid huge amounts of damage via dodging and taking care of themselves.  Melee and ranged DPS have challenges designed for them.

What are we going to do when supports can just cover the entire field from wherever they are?  Either we'll have to contrive tanking mechanics for every non-stationary boss in the game or melee DPS will become effectively useless as the obvious strategy will be for everyone to spread out and attack from range.  Bosses will go after random targets, only to have them use dodges and cooldowns to avoid going down before kiting away while the boss ineffectually lumbers toward the next target and melee DPS lose half of their damage trying to chase them around the room.

The OP makes valid criticisms, but these are not simple changes.  They would require reimagining GW2 group combat to accommodate the full trinity.  Simply extending the range of all support and healing is not feasible.

[Leo G.4501]

7 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

FFXIV gives so much freedom to just enjoy the battlefield. I main Summoner and Scholar and as long as I'm not running into enemy attacks I can stand wherever I want to and nuke the enemy from range and heal allies easily. Not only can I stand wherever I want to; I can choose to run and jump all over the place while I'm attacking just for the hell of it while always being in heal and buff range. If you were to stack on top of someone in a dungeon they'd probably move to the side so they can see themselves. People instinctively spread out at various distances majority of the time because that sort of freedom is allowed, plus everyone looks cool~ don't wanna hide that. 😎

Blackmage main here.

FFXIV had it's own slew of problems, imo. Instances PvE is it's strong suit, anything outside that is literal sleep-worthy. Even the story battles get mundane because of the lack of variety in combat, movement and effects. That and any job will be identical to those of the same job. 

Some things it does do right: they have very different kits for PvE and PvP. Rather than this kitten skill split that will often times screw one mode over the other. And emote system. Healers feel intuitive as well. 

But it's dumb to compare different MMOs. They have drastically different mechanics. Both games differ and exist simultaneously so you can play whatever you feel in the mood for.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

8 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

FFXIV gives so much freedom to just enjoy the battlefield. I main Summoner and Scholar and as long as I'm not running into enemy attacks I can stand wherever I want to and nuke the enemy from range and heal allies easily. Not only can I stand wherever I want to; I can choose to run and jump all over the place while I'm attacking just for the hell of it while always being in heal and buff range. If you were to stack on top of someone in a dungeon they'd probably move to the side so they can see themselves. People instinctively spread out at various distances majority of the time because that sort of freedom is allowed, plus everyone looks cool~ don't wanna hide that. 😎

Sooooo. You can just stand there, by yourself? No need to interact with something combat related? 

Idk man, but this sounds extremely boring. 

 

[Darkk.3018]

20 hours ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

These balance patches have only been effective at upsetting at least half the population every few months.   There are underlying issues that have been growing and festering for years.

Where we are:

Everyone has to stack up, even if you have ranged weapons, and perform mindless rotations to keep buffs, heals and dps up.  We are bland gamer macro balls.  No reacting, just repeating.

 

What we can change.

Buffs don't need to be hard. In other games most buffs are an afterthought, something you do when you log on or before a raid.  Buff to play, don't play to buff.

Heals shouldn't all be restricted to a tight proximity, why have ranged weapons at all if you have to be shoulder to shoulder with the healer at all times?  Make group heals that heal the group no matter where they are.  Without buffs to worry about, healers can react to the fight that is happening; healing, shielding and cleansing when it makes sense and getting in some of their own hits when it doesn't.

DPS should be reactive and nuanced not long spammy mindless rotations.  An auto attack that is most of your damage and situational attacks that rely picking the right moment, stuns, taunts, ripostes, blocks, power hits.

 

We should be hitting keys when it makes sense, not because they are the next in a 30 step list.

We should be swapping weapons because the fight has radically changed from melee to range or aggressive to defensive not because it's part 2 of our 5 part 30 step rotation.

These kinds of reforms also lower the barriers to disabled and older gamers who still want to be useful players in the group.

The game has never been this. You should find a different game. 

 

Your suggested changes all dumb down the game. No need to care for buffs, no need to care for positioning, no need to care for skill rotations. Please, the game has never been in this. You should find a different mmo if you hate the fundamental combat system of gw2. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Darkk.3018

[Greyrat.2378]

2 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Sooooo. You can just stand there, by yourself? No need to interact with something combat related? 

Idk man, but this sounds extremely boring. 

PvE mechanics take care of that.
While GW is slowly getting there in terms of interesting mechanics that players need to do, FFXIV is miles ahead when it comes to raids/trials etc.
It's also way more flashy when it comes to skills and their animations, so designing combat around stacking like in GW makes very little sense.
It's far from being perfect but it's also very different type of approach.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

4 hours ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

PvE mechanics take care of that.
While GW is slowly getting there in terms of interesting mechanics that players need to do, FFXIV is miles ahead when it comes to raids/trials etc.
It's also way more flashy when it comes to skills and their animations, so designing combat around stacking like in GW makes very little sense.
It's far from being perfect but it's also very different type of approach.

Who needs flashy skills when we can have boring af skills to please the Benchmark Bros. 

Signed, a salty Arc Divider fan

Edited July 19, 2023 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Echostorm.9143]

6 hours ago, Darkk.3018 said:

The game has never been this. You should find a different game. 

 

These changes all dumb down the game. No need to care for buffs, no need to care for positioning, no need to care for skill rotations. Please, the game has never been in this. You should find a different mmo if you hate the fundamental combat system of gw2. 

No, they make it less spammy and takes you from being a human macro to actually focusing on mechanics and reactive combat that takes skill not just muscle memory.  But we agree on one thing, I am looking for a new MMO and I think I'm not the only one.

[Echostorm.9143]

8 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Blackmage main here.

FFXIV had it's own slew of problems, imo. Instances PvE is it's strong suit, anything outside that is literal sleep-worthy. Even the story battles get mundane because of the lack of variety in combat, movement and effects. That and any job will be identical to those of the same job. 

Some things it does do right: they have very different kits for PvE and PvP. Rather than this kitten skill split that will often times screw one mode over the other. And emote system. Healers feel intuitive as well. 

But it's dumb to compare different MMOs. They have drastically different mechanics. Both games differ and exist simultaneously so you can play whatever you feel in the mood for.

It isn't dumb at all and that isn't very nice to say. I've been playing MMOs since M59 in the late 90's and they all take ideas from each other and change over time.  It's a virtue to learn from others and admit that your ideas can be improved on. 

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

No, they make it less spammy and takes you from being a human macro to actually focusing on mechanics and reactive combat that takes skill not just muscle memory.  But we agree on one thing, I am looking for a new MMO and I think I'm not the only one.

Guild Wars 2 is extremely casual with its end game being some of its weakest content. You are better off essentially leaving and returning when you see something that you are personally interested in. 

For me I love class balance, so I normally return for that. I don't really care for personal story so I normally remain absent during that content drop.