Should breakbars be removed?

[Glider.5792]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:

@Mantheren.5428 said:I am not a fan of break bars, never have been. I prefer the crowd control skills to actually do the crowd control effects they were meant for. Not be repurposed to break a bar.

Yeah that would Be so much fun to perma blind every boss /s

Time for deepfreeze meta to come back ;)

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I don't want deepfreeze, I want MOA !!!!!

[Rauderi.8706]

@Khisanth.2948 said:No. This game needs more Mimics :PEspecially at the end of jumping puzzles (where folks park). :3 :skull:

[Turkeyspit.3965]

Why remove them? More should be done to inform new players about the mechanic; something similar to the NPC that teaches you about dodging at each of the starter areas.

[Carighan.6758]

@maddoctor.2738 said:Break bars are a fine mechanic. And to whoever selects the first choice: yeah let's go back to the boring stacks we had before break bars

Because obviously that has to be the solution. Can't have an actually decent system, has to be Bad System A vs Bad System B.

[Rauderi.8706]

They also scale way out of proportion to the player population, at the high end they're almost impossible to break.Nah most players just don't know how to break it. Scaling would be fine if most would participate in breaking the bar.

Someone hasn't done or seen the math. Past the sweet spot of 5 players on the typical champ, the Defiance burden per player increases with the number of players. Additionally, soft CC loses effectiveness in proportion to the Defiance increase. A full complement of soft CC does 363/sec out of several thousand. Not a problem with typical bosses who leave it up passively, but mostly useless for bosses that have small windows (Vinetooth).

Point is, scaling makes it a mathematical problem where more people equals more effort per person.

If soft-CC scaled, say 1x per 10 players, at 40, a full complement would do 21% of the bar per second. ...which feels a bit overtuned, but would be great in those short-window fights. So probably closer to about +5% per player, which is about 16% per second with a full set, at 40 players. 15% at 50, 12% at 100, so it's still decreasing over group size, but at least it's not 5%/4%/2% respectively.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Rauderi.8706" said:

They also scale way out of proportion to the player population, at the high end they're almost impossible to break.Nah most players just don't know how to break it. Scaling would be fine if most would participate in breaking the bar.

Someone hasn't done or seen the math. Past the sweet spot of 5 players on the typical champ, the Defiance burden per player

increases

with the number of players. Additionally, soft CC loses effectiveness in proportion to the Defiance increase. A full complement of soft CC does 363/sec

out of several thousand

. Not a problem with typical bosses who leave it up passively, but mostly useless for bosses that have small windows (Vinetooth).

Point is, scaling makes it a mathematical problem where more people equals more effort per person.

If soft-CC scaled, say 1x per 10 players, at 40, a full complement would do 21% of the bar per second. ...which feels a bit overtuned, but would be great in those short-window fights. So probably closer to about +5% per player, which is about 16% per second with a full set, at 40 players. 15% at 50, 12% at 100, so it's still decreasing over group size, but at least it's not 5%/4%/2% respectively.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_bar only has scaling information for a small set of champions but of that small set the scaling is terrible.

Base of 600, +180 per person at more than 5 people. So it starts at 120 per person then increases to 130, 137, 142, ... until 192 for a full squad which is a 60% increase.

[Ardid.7203]

Since they will never allow players to CC bounce big bosses around, breakbars are a really good solution. They can add more effects or tweak them to make them better, but as a base system, they are great.

If you remove breakbars, you wouldn't get a more easy an casual gameplay. You'll obtain a more boring and stupid gameplay. Keep them.

[Gudy.3607]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:Why remove them? More should be done to inform new players about the mechanic; something similar to the NPC that teaches you about dodging at each of the starter areas.

This. The game needs to do a better job of teaching about what a breakbar is and how to break it. A tutorial, say in the starter areas, would not be amiss, similar to those dodge tutorials. More importantly perhaps, skills which do breakbar damage should clearly show how much they do in their tooltips, either as a flat damage (for hard CC) or as damage per second (for soft CC).

[yann.1946]

@Mantheren.5428 said:I am not a fan of break bars, never have been. I prefer the crowd control skills to actually do the crowd control effects they were meant for. Not be repurposed to break a bar.

How would you make it that cc on bosses isnt overpowered or useless?

[kharmin.7683]

@Dante.1763 said:Saddly a vital mechanic that can actually prevent an event from succeeding(see serpents ire) should be explained at least in a basic fashion.I agree, but by level 80 a player should know this mechanic. IMO, the problem is more due to the instant level 80 that new players use to skip all of the content to get to the end game and then don't understand these things.

[SnowHawk.3615]

The game is too casual as it is. "I have to actually time my skills? UGH TOO HARD."

[Cynder.2509]

Breakbars are fine (even though it's my personal opinion that I liked the ones before HoT more than what came after) but we do need a better tutorial for them that explains the mechanics to noobs.

[Javelin.7960]

@Turin.6921 said:That is why everyone is ignoring it so often and keep spamming autoattacks. It is already too casual.

This right here. The problem with breakbars is that way too often in open world content, a casual player can just plow through, ignore the bar and win anyway. These are almost always the first breakbars a new player encounters.

The game is training people to ignore breakbars.

[Haishao.6851]

I still think that if the breakbar flashed and CC made a distinct sound when used on it, it would make people learn very fast about them without the need of a tutorial.

The breakbar could appear in a more "spectacular" way instead of just turning teal. When anet made the game, they wanted people to focus on what's going on in the world instead of the interface, so when an important interface change happen, it needs to grab the attention.

[UrMom.4205]

Only tweak is some bosses the scaling of the break bars are busted. Other than that it's a great system. The main issue is new players don't know about them. There needs to be more break bar tutorial things in the starter zones and in silver wastes (think the dodging thing in the starter zones).

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Dante.1763 said:Saddly a vital mechanic that can actually prevent an event from succeeding(see serpents ire) should be explained at least in a basic fashion.I agree, but by level 80 a player should know this mechanic. IMO, the problem is more due to the instant level 80 that new players use to skip all of the content to get to the end game and then don't understand these things.

Actelly not fully alot of veterans does same

[Gehenna.3625]

@Turin.6921 said:Its of the last mechanics that keep things at least a bit interesting in open world. Its already pretty easy in open world. Most breakbars can easily be ignored and still win which it a big mistake most of the time. That is why everyone is ignoring it so often and keep spamming autoattacks. It is already too casual.

Which is one of the main reasons I said rework because as it is currently it's clearly not doing its job. I mean what's the point of mechanics if you can ignore them? Of course the downside would be that ArenaNet will have to find a way to educate people better about this in game (but I'm sure that can be done) instead of relying on people pro-actively deciding to watch a video or something to find out what this bar is that they've been ignoring all that time...

[otto.5684]

@"SnowHawk.3615" said:The game is too casual as it is. "I have to actually time my skills? UGH TOO HARD."

Or even use skills beyond AA lol. Man breaking bars is such an easy and obvious mechanic. I cannot fathaoum how people still have issues with it.

[Rauderi.8706]

@otto.5684 said:Or even use skills beyond AA lol. Man breaking bars is such an easy and obvious mechanic. I cannot fathaoum fathom how people still have issues with it.

It's almost as if paying attention is something some people don't do.

Like how when players say they don't perceive any impact from their CC skills. Or that they didn't notice the blue bar. Or how there is little to no feedback with the current system. Or how when it was released, there was a big announcement and veterans know to look at the wiki, but newer/returning players missed that information and ANet hasn't been doing enough to make the mechanic obvious.

And it's lol funny because there's so many Longbow 4s obviously 1111ing their way through boss fights, because they're mashing all their skills, but OK, it's just 1111.Which means the larger reason breakbars are difficult for zergs to coordinate is because the skills are on cooldown, likely because the player hasn't been coached properly, with, I'unno, a tutorial or something.

[bigo.9037]

breakbars are too casual. make the breakbar regenerate faster when it's not being CC'd so groups have to coordinate their CC to get the bar down otherwise it will regenerate if people just casually use their CC every now and then. make the game harder, not easier. easier game will drive everyone away. anet will not get more money by catering to people that barely play the game and want everything on easy mode.

[Edelweiss.4261]

I don't like breakbars, but to remove them for "more easy and casual gameplay" seems silly. Rather, I think that breakbars make fights uninteresting. Instead of making control interesting, they made it just breakbar dps. I wish they'd keep the breakbar, but also allow control effects to actually control.

[Glacial.9516]

I think breakbars are mostly fine as is. The few problems I have with them are...

1. Soft CC is mostly negligible. This is compounded if others are also applying soft CC since as far as I know they stack duration and not intensity.
2. The breakbar period is sometimes very short. This means that if you don't know the boss and that the breakbar phase is coming up, you may not have time to swap to all of your CC. I find this is especially true with Elementalist (and Engi?) where you will need to swap to several attunements (or kits) and use Frost bow, which is quite slow and clunky to equip and drop in the first place.
3. The time between breakbar phases doesn't always align with your CC skills. Sometimes you will have your hard CCs ready for one phase but then not for the next and often only by a few seconds too. Not a big deal in most cases (and adrenaline mushrooms and alacrity certainly help) but it can be if your group is struggling to CC as it is.
4. They seem to scale terribly. I know it's probably a result of many players not using CC at all, but it's incredibly disheartening to use all of your CCs (while others are, too) and the bar barely drops to 70%. Conversely I've had times where I was slow and the boss's bar is already broken as I start to CC. It makes it very difficult to determine just how useful my own personal CCs are to the group (though this is a Zerg issue more than a breakbar one). I feel it's a much more satisfying mechanic when playing alone or in small groups which allows me to adjust my build accordingly to take more or less CC.

That said, these are pretty minor and I greatly prefer the breakbar to defiance stacks.

I suppose what I'd like is more feedback on how strong the enemy breakbar is and how much breakbar damage our skills are doing. Adding breakbar damage to the tooltip display may go a long way.

[Dante.1763]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Dante.1763 said:Saddly a vital mechanic that can actually prevent an event from succeeding(see serpents ire) should be explained at least in a basic fashion.I agree, but by level 80 a player should know this mechanic. IMO, the problem is more due to the instant level 80 that new players use to skip all of the content to get to the end game and then don't understand these things.

No, it isnt, if they leve up to 80 by playing nothing but core pve which is where players usually start they have almost no reason to know what a breakbar is because most of the mobs in core tyria dont have breakbars outside of champions which are few and far between. Ive seen just as many players who have been playing for years not understand CC and just as many as just started who dont. The difference? the new players are willing to learn if shown, the older players think they know everything, hence the mandatory tutorial.

[battledrone.8315]

@otto.5684 said:

@"SnowHawk.3615" said:The game is too casual as it is. "I have to actually time my skills? UGH TOO HARD."

Or even use skills beyond AA lol. Man breaking bars is such an easy and obvious mechanic. I cannot fathaoum how people still have issues with it.

it is almost like they are different persons, with different skills and different tastethe fact that most people can(and will ) ignore it makes it a failurethe fact that you only can see from your own perspective makes you a-------