What you really want is legible combat.

[Swagg.9236]

Less teleports in general, offensive teleports replaced by leaps, a possible GCD on teleport usage, more ground-targeted AoEs or linear cascade attacks (i.e. rev hammer 2), smaller AoEs, shorter duration AoEs, WAY MORE ammo system attacks to counteract AoE reductions, less weapon bar blocks/evades, no more blocks/evades on attacks, everybody now gets more dodges (endurance totals possibly tied to profession/armor weight).  Honestly, you could probably delete an entire weapon bar skill slot, and end up with a better canvas to establish this kind of design by function and opportunity cost than trying to fill five slots per weapon combination.  You'd probably have to do something drastic to the state of auto-attacks, though, since they're mostly just over-tuned filler/fodder right now rather than something that really compliments the holistic flow of any given weapon set to which they're attached.  Blind and aegis are also dumb.

I'm not saying that GW2 is going to change, and I'm not saying that I am going to fight for GW2's PvP (because it's a lost cause).  I'm just putting out an observation based on how people play GW2's PvP, eternally complain about it, yet continuously lobby for the exact same """design"""" decisions which sunk them into the hole that the game is in right now.  You'll never have a thriving population because GW2's PvP has a deceptively low skill ceiling which suppresses creativity and denies any emergent gameplay; it is impossible to shoutcast PvP from more than a wavetop viewpoint; PvP is entirely antithetical to the average or new, curious spectator (because none of it will make any real sense); and, despite its stunted skill curve, the gameplay is esoteric enough (due to all of its glut of passive, risk-mitigating gimmicks), that a new player's first experience on it is almost certainly skewed toward a bad impression.

If you think that adjusting numbers will save a class or "balance" a build, you're so far off the target that you're basically shooting the other people next to you at the range (which is probably what it feels like for anyone who just wants to have fun but keeps seeing all of these people crying about how GW2 PvP is fine but just needs X nerfed or Y buffed).  You're all trapped in your own ivory wizard's tower.

 

Edit:  Oh yeah, this game should've had a map editor, like, 8 years ago lmao.  It doesn't seem difficult to use, and anyone can tell that even the anet devs abuse it regularly in awful ways (just go to the Silverwastes and check out the stretch scaling on any of the bigger rocks in the area).  Adjusting stuff on old Skyhammer looks like something that anyone with a little bit of free time could do.  If players could just make their own maps, then even this game's current combat could maybe improve a tiny bit by virtue of more jump tricks and no-teleport spots present all over the place.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Swagg.9236

[Last Crab.6054]

Sounds like you want a new game.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

No thanks, I like my teleports thank u very much and fit the theme of my class just fine.

[Swagg.9236]

2 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

Sounds like you want a new game.

Most people do looking at the game's condition lol, although, to be perfectly honest about it, the things discussed above aren't that far off from what everybody else does with their nitpicky, onesie-twosie number cuts and increases now.  Only real difference is whether or not there's anyone left at anet who could actually deliver on an increase in ammo skills or changing something from a laser beam to a ground-targeted AoE.

1 hour ago, Psycoprophet.8107 said:

No thanks, I like my teleports thank u very much and fit the theme of my class just fine.

Defaulting to "theme" as the justification for your class is that same core problem.  It's not just the devs at this point; it's the players who also think that flavor should define the function of a class and not the other way around.  Whatever you're playing, it's just a knock-off rogue.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Swagg.9236

[Nightcore.5621]

Guild Wars 3 🙂

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Automatic knee-jerk backlash and confused reacts on a reasonable and well thought out post.

No one said that delivering a complete overhaul of the combat was at all likely, or even on the cards. It is still a valid observation whether or not you agree with it.

Readability is one of the cornerstones of good competitive combat, be that in skill animations, models, audio cues, or other visual effects. Over the years GW2 has become more difficult to read, not only with multiple professions getting more instant offensive teleports, but also some skill using recycled animations from other skills. Just addressing this won't fix all the problems, but nor will just tweaking numbers up and down ad infinitum.

Maybe what we need is a new game, but that's not the point, it's just a discussion about someone's point of view.

[Curennos.9307]

I teleported through a wall yesterday to kill a thief on my team's home node and help a teammate. It was funny, but I probably shouldn't be able to do that on an untamed ranger. That said, a 900 range teleport is very strong and part of untamed's kit, and even if it's converted to a 900 range leap there might still need to be compensation elsewhere for those kinds of changes.

[ccccc.4963]

Learn the game or stay freelo 

[Leger.3724]

6 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Automatic knee-jerk backlash and confused reacts on a reasonable and well thought out post.

No one said that delivering a complete overhaul of the combat was at all likely, or even on the cards. It is still a valid observation whether or not you agree with it.

Readability is one of the cornerstones of good competitive combat, be that in skill animations, models, audio cues, or other visual effects. Over the years GW2 has become more difficult to read, not only with multiple professions getting more instant offensive teleports, but also some skill using recycled animations from other skills. Just addressing this won't fix all the problems, but nor will just tweaking numbers up and down ad infinitum.

Maybe what we need is a new game, but that's not the point, it's just a discussion about someone's point of view.

It feels like with the general Guild Wars 2 community the feeling of being someone significant in the scene overrides stuff like this. The game should stay the same even with a tiny playerbase because they are good at this game.

It seems to be a fear maybe they won't be relevant in this new game or with radical change. Maybe they're not actually that good but rather a stubborn holdout of a dead game mode. 

I can certainly understand that fear.

 

[jdawgie.1835]

6 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Readability is one of the cornerstones of good competitive combat, be that in skill animations, models, audio cues, or other visual effects. Over the years GW2 has become more difficult to read, not only with multiple professions getting more instant offensive teleports, but also some skill using recycled animations from other skills. Just addressing this won't fix all the problems, but nor will just tweaking numbers up and down ad infinitum.

I made a long rant not that long ago - that essentially said this. Original GW2 pvp was significantly slower, more readable, and movement was much more hampered. In the old days spvp maps felt huge tbh. 

@Swagg.9236 His take is not that hot - its fairly accurate to what original gw2 was on launch for pvp. 1v1s were awesome then. TBH I really miss those days. 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

19 hours ago, Swagg.9236 said:

Less teleports in general, offensive teleports replaced by leaps

What is an 'offensive teleport'? You mean teleports that actually require a target and are not ground targeted (i.e. are not shadowsteps)?

Really, then what's the difference between something like JI and Crashing Courage? One requires target, one doesn't...both hit hard, and both teleport/shadowstep.

[Hotride.2187]

Me reading the first paragraph, thinking of how leaps just dont like to connect if the sun, moon and basically every large enough rock in the solar system dont align well enough...

Yeeees, add more leaps, remove teleports, that is totally not gonna make the games pvp look like an even bigger clown fiesta.

Fix tracking on leaps first. Though I doubt anything big is going to change in the combat anyway.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Hotride.2187

[Swagg.9236]

1 hour ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Me reading the first paragraph, thinking of how leaps just dont like to connect if the sun, moon and basically every large enough rock in the solar system dont align well enough...

Yeeees, add more leaps, remove teleports, that is totally not gonna make the games pvp look like an even bigger clown fiesta.

Fix tracking on leaps first. Though I doubt anything big is going to change in the combat anyway.

OK, that's a fair point.  Leaps are trash, and Guardian GS 3 will often literally turn you 180 on a target and fling you off in the exact intended direction.  If GW2 wasn't a mega spaghetti mess, then maybe leaps wouldn't have such a problem.  I'd imagine it's likely due to how player movement is so erratic nowadays between superspeed, swiftness, knock-backs, teleports.  Then again, my favorite instance of leap inconsistency is when using Sanctuary's bump (which has to be, like, 100 units at most) to snare a target into a window where a leap SHOULD land, and then the GS 3 leap will simply kickflip 360 me like I'm some kind of cross between a boomerang and a ping-pong ball.  If leaps weren't trash, then ask the question:  How bad would it be for us to lose a bunch of teleports in exchange for leaps?  You can at least weapon-swap cancel leaps for some extra distance or trick jumps.  Teleports are so boring.

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

What is an 'offensive teleport'? You mean teleports that actually require a target and are not ground targeted (i.e. are not shadowsteps)?

Really, then what's the difference between something like JI and Crashing Courage? One requires target, one doesn't...both hit hard, and both teleport/shadowstep.

That's a fair question.  I mean to say any teleport that has an attack tied to it, or one which generally lends itself to chaining an attack.  JI is a great example of a cheesy one because it's basically just Guardian Steal except without 14 different passive trait bonuses loaded into it.   It's still terribly gross to fight for the sake of legibility, and nobody who gets caught by it will ever feel like they were within some kind of engaging PvP exchange.  Sure, can you pop a few buttons to negate that user's JI pop?  Sure, but then who's having fun?  The point is that, by design at this point, GW2 is anti-engagement.  There is generally only going to be one person having fun in a PvP engagement, and nobody who loses is going to feel like they have something to learn or change in most cases.  Often, the best solution to losing any given match-up is to just be more passive in the next engagement (which isn't fun to play, and it isn't fun to watch).  This passivity eventually grows so stifling that sometimes the best way to play PvP is to avoid a lot of PvP entirely by just walking around fights and going to points or getting some random map objective first.

[Swagg.9236]

11 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Automatic knee-jerk backlash and confused reacts on a reasonable and well thought out post.

No one said that delivering a complete overhaul of the combat was at all likely, or even on the cards. It is still a valid observation whether or not you agree with it.

Readability is one of the cornerstones of good competitive combat, be that in skill animations, models, audio cues, or other visual effects. Over the years GW2 has become more difficult to read, not only with multiple professions getting more instant offensive teleports, but also some skill using recycled animations from other skills. Just addressing this won't fix all the problems, but nor will just tweaking numbers up and down ad infinitum.

Maybe what we need is a new game, but that's not the point, it's just a discussion about someone's point of view.

The worst part is that I could've said this, but then you'd just get a bunch of people dogpiling their echochamber confirmation bias opinions onto that post because it'd just be me telling them to look into a mirror with nobody else on the line to support.  It's actually tragic how that's how it is:  GW2 will never change because it's kept the way it is due to confirmation bias.  Anytime that anyone wants to legitimately critique something, it's often the "git gud" or "go play another game" or "you didn't design it, though lmao" response.  There isn't any real engagement; there never has been any engagement.

I wouldn't even call this game great when it launched (and that's often the timeframe that so many people like to refer as the golden age).  I tried pretty hard to believe that this game had a PvP future up through 2014, but it never happened, and it only went completely down into the abyss the second that direct upgrades launched with the first expansion.

I do at least appreciate that you can pump the breaks and take a step back to have a more holistic perspective on this topic, though.

[Last Crab.6054]

14 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Automatic knee-jerk backlash and confused reacts on a reasonable and well thought out post.

No one said that delivering a complete overhaul of the combat was at all likely, or even on the cards. It is still a valid observation whether or not you agree with it.

Readability is one of the cornerstones of good competitive combat, be that in skill animations, models, audio cues, or other visual effects. Over the years GW2 has become more difficult to read, not only with multiple professions getting more instant offensive teleports, but also some skill using recycled animations from other skills. Just addressing this won't fix all the problems, but nor will just tweaking numbers up and down ad infinitum.

Maybe what we need is a new game, but that's not the point, it's just a discussion about someone's point of view.

There are far simpler topics to discuss that would be better serving to the current game, and by the way, most of these points are self-serving.

A new game would be a faster and more likely way to get what "they" want.

This is a recycled post by the same player on the same topics, and guess what, they don't resonate with many people.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

9 hours ago, Swagg.9236 said:

The worst part is that I could've said this, but then you'd just get a bunch of people dogpiling their echochamber confirmation bias opinions onto that post because it'd just be me telling them to look into a mirror with nobody else on the line to support.  It's actually tragic how that's how it is:  GW2 will never change because it's kept the way it is due to confirmation bias.  Anytime that anyone wants to legitimately critique something, it's often the "git gud" or "go play another game" or "you didn't design it, though lmao" response.  There isn't any real engagement; there never has been any engagement.

I wouldn't even call this game great when it launched (and that's often the timeframe that so many people like to refer as the golden age).  I tried pretty hard to believe that this game had a PvP future up through 2014, but it never happened, and it only went completely down into the abyss the second that direct upgrades launched with the first expansion.

I do at least appreciate that you can pump the breaks and take a step back to have a more holistic perspective on this topic, though.

Mostly because combat readability is a valid point. There is a reason some competitive games do much better than others and it's usually in ways that aren't immediately apparent. Often described as "game feel" GW2 gets this right in some areas, but lacks in others. For example the instant teleport stuff might feel pretty good to the player using them, but it doesn't to the opponent, and there needs to be balance. Playing needs to feel actively fluid and intuitive, but so does your passive reading of situations and opponents moves. The latter is made more difficult with instant teleports and different professions sharing recycled animations for completely different actions.

I also agree with others that asking for change here when many disagreed in the past is unlikely to illicit any action, or even a different response. Which is unfortunate.

The forums are sadly something of an echo chamber, which we just have to deal with, since calling it out will only attract more of the same negative reactions and naysaying of otherwise perfectly constructive comments.

6 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

A new game would be a faster and more likely way to get what "they" want.

Swagg even said they don't expect change, nor would they fight for such, just offering an observation on more of the same old arguments. I even agree with you that at this stage a new game might be the best option for a lot of people. But when you've sunk thousands of hours into something you tend to care at least a little.

6 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

This is a recycled post by the same player on the same topics, and guess what, they don't resonate with many people.

While this may be true, this could be the first time seeing it for some. I certainly couldn't tell you if or when I ever saw this specific take on the topic.

[Swagg.9236]

11 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

There are far simpler topics to discuss that would be better serving to the current game, and by the way, most of these points are self-serving.

A new game would be a faster and more likely way to get what "they" want.

This is a recycled post by the same player on the same topics, and guess what, they don't resonate with many people.

The "simple topics" likely allude to the things that ultimately generated the game state that nobody seems to really enjoy right now.  Sure, people play GW2, but it never seems like anyone is truly enjoying it.  Winning doesn't always feel fulfilling, and losing never feels like it offers anything on the back-end.  Why else would that be the case except if combat itself has such a cluttered and esoteric design that all of the most important interacts are generally hidden from players on first impression for no explicable reason at all?  Legitimately, if attacks just didn't evade, block, immobilize or blind while leveraging massive damage (or if teleporting players didn't simultaneously inflict CC), you could solve maybe 50% of this issue off the cuff without any further investment.

Recycled post?  What if GW2 were a game intentionally marketed as a "drop it whenever and pick it up again whenever you feel like it" kind of experience?  Holy smokes, that would be craaaaaazyyyy.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Swagg.9236