After stress test I realised that I don't like any of those "new awesome" ideas implemented in GW2. I am not sure whats the problem here, the game, or just my age/game experience.
Anyway, here is what I don't like: WvWvW - Thats biased, because I never liked that kind of PvP, but seriously - in every game it's just one big zergfest. Constructed PvP - where is my beloved quick match from GW1? Why it have to be 8 ppl AND game mode with capturing points of interests aka "arathi basin". Skills - I didn't have much time for this, but constructing builds feels extremely shallow compared to GW1 Classes - Why suddenly everyone is telling me that I don't want to play as healer? I do want
Don't get me wrong. I did play only for few hours, mostly checking PvP. I do have preorder and will try to like this game after release. I hope there is some "secound ground" in GW2 and PvP will be interesting enough to match GW1.
On August 13 2012 20:29 DnameIN wrote: After stress test I realised that I don't like any of those "new awesome" ideas implemented in GW2. I am not sure whats the problem here, the game, or just my age/game experience.
Anyway, here is what I don't like: WvWvW - Thats biased, because I never liked that kind of PvP, but seriously - in every game it's just one big zergfest. Constructed PvP - where is my beloved quick match from GW1? Why it have to be 8 ppl AND game mode with capturing points of interests aka "arathi basin". Skills - I didn't have much time for this, but constructing builds feels extremely shallow compared to GW1 Classes - Why suddenly everyone is telling me that I don't want to play as healer? I do want
Don't get me wrong. I did play only for few hours, mostly checking PvP. I do have preorder and will try to like this game after release. I hope there is some "secound ground" in GW2 and PvP will be interesting enough to match GW1.
WvWvW - Don't follow the zerg then? I've had a blast running around with groups of 5-10 fighting other groups of equal size or larger, pulling people away from the zerg to kill, capping smaller points. Of course i've also had great fun in the zerg fighting other zergs. sPvP - fair enough, i'm not so keen on the 8 people size either, i'd much prefer 5v5 to allow for casual tournament practice. As for capture points, i think it is to avoid those retarded matchups where you just couldn't kill the other team but wouldn't die yourself. Skills - I think it's pretty early to say that as they are still balancing, but from what i've seen there are multiple viable builds on most classes. I expect more will be discovered later. Classes - Yeah fair enough, personal choice. I'm neither for or against healers, its just a design choice imo.
Hopefully you can find something you enjoy on launch
I'm liking the fact there's no hardcore healers like say WoW pvp, instead every class can spec into supporting with minor healing and boons / conditions.
The heal spam thing was one of the main factors why WoW arena was never a spectator sport.
On August 13 2012 18:10 Vaelone wrote:humans, big humans, dog men, tree men and some ugly little things.
I won't even mention the fact that you simplified the races to give it criticism which you can do to anything ever created(yes, I'm aware that I just mentioned it), but please for the love of god, don't call a FELINE race "dog men". Thanks.
After having a closer look many inviduals of the species do look more like cat men than dog men, I'm sorry. Sup with the horns though.
Anyway not trying to shit on the lore/races and I may not have been entirely serious so lets just leave it there.
So this game is going to be all about PvP with a little big mass crazy PvP and with some amazing story And if you want to PvE because you dont like PvP you are stucked with few dungeons and some world PvE that is going to be like: Defend this city, kill this bear and go with this guy. That can be borring after some time :/ 2days ago I was all over this game now I have no idea if I want to play PvP in MMO
On August 13 2012 21:08 NIIINO wrote: So this game is going to be all about PvP with a little big mass crazy PvP and with some amazing story And if you want to PvE because you dont like PvP you are stucked with few dungeons and some world PvE that is going to be like: Defend this city, kill this bear and go with this guy. That can be borring after some time :/ 2days ago I was all over this game now I have no idea if I want to play PvP in MMO
No one has experienced the end-game pve yet, we should wait and see.
On August 13 2012 20:29 DnameIN wrote: After stress test I realised that I don't like any of those "new awesome" ideas implemented in GW2. I am not sure whats the problem here, the game, or just my age/game experience.
Anyway, here is what I don't like: WvWvW - Thats biased, because I never liked that kind of PvP, but seriously - in every game it's just one big zergfest. Constructed PvP - where is my beloved quick match from GW1? Why it have to be 8 ppl AND game mode with capturing points of interests aka "arathi basin". Skills - I didn't have much time for this, but constructing builds feels extremely shallow compared to GW1 Classes - Why suddenly everyone is telling me that I don't want to play as healer? I do want
Don't get me wrong. I did play only for few hours, mostly checking PvP. I do have preorder and will try to like this game after release. I hope there is some "secound ground" in GW2 and PvP will be interesting enough to match GW1.
WvWvW - Don't follow the zerg then? I've had a blast running around with groups of 5-10 fighting other groups of equal size or larger, pulling people away from the zerg to kill, capping smaller points. Of course i've also had great fun in the zerg fighting other zergs. sPvP - fair enough, i'm not so keen on the 8 people size either, i'd much prefer 5v5 to allow for casual tournament practice. As for capture points, i think it is to avoid those retarded matchups where you just couldn't kill the other team but wouldn't die yourself. Skills - I think it's pretty early to say that as they are still balancing, but from what i've seen there are multiple viable builds on most classes. I expect more will be discovered later. Classes - Yeah fair enough, personal choice. I'm neither for or against healers, its just a design choice imo.
Hopefully you can find something you enjoy on launch
on sPvP - remember random/team arenas from guild wars 1? if only they had those in gw2 for those who want to jump in and smash someone's face for 5 minutes. and yes, i remember those arenas that just go on forever.....teams with 4 monks, 2 teams with 2 monks each (and 2 dps) and so on and forth.
on Classes - i played monk in gw1, restor druid/disc priest in WoW, so having no 'healer class' in gw2 is a new thing for me (especially being really shit at dps, the only other role i played was tank - warrior gw1, prot tank/feral druid wow), gonna be a learning experience here.
on WvWvW - as chaokel already mention small groups of 5-10 people, if you're more of the solo player like i am, you could roam about killing Sentries, killing unguarded dolyak, harassing/possibly killing stragglers/single players. every bit helps.
On August 13 2012 21:08 NIIINO wrote: So this game is going to be all about PvP with a little big mass crazy PvP and with some amazing story And if you want to PvE because you dont like PvP you are stucked with few dungeons and some world PvE that is going to be like: Defend this city, kill this bear and go with this guy. That can be borring after some time :/ 2days ago I was all over this game now I have no idea if I want to play PvP in MMO
You're really jumping the gun here. You should wait and actually play out the game and see how it turns out. I myself actually was first interested in the game for the PvP but after playing a lot of PvE and getting into indepth dynamic events and bosses it was really fun. It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Give it a chance before you blow if off so quickly. I had a lot of fun in the last beta weekend and the more i played into my story line and the farther i Lvled the more fun the game became. I got to experience something new in MMO's that isnt there in any others and it was a good one.
On August 13 2012 21:08 NIIINO wrote: So this game is going to be all about PvP with a little big mass crazy PvP and with some amazing story And if you want to PvE because you dont like PvP you are stucked with few dungeons and some world PvE that is going to be like: Defend this city, kill this bear and go with this guy. That can be borring after some time :/ 2days ago I was all over this game now I have no idea if I want to play PvP in MMO
Except we have no clue what end game pve is other than what the devs say and they have said its nothing like that.
I fundamentally disagree with the removal of the "holy trinity" so-to-speak. There's nothing wrong with a character being a dedicated healer or tank, the issue arises when a class is a dedicated healer or tank. Historically, there has been issues with tank/healers being underrepresented and hard to find when you need them, but that is a problem with the individual game. There are many ways to make playing a tank/healer character rewarding and allow them to clear content just as easily as a dps-class (albeit slower). A prime example was SWTOR shortly after it came out. The game was a failure, no doubt, but there was no shortage of tanks or healers even without a dual-spec feature because A) Tanks/Healers could still solo or quest as a group and B) You could level through PvP and upgrade your gear exclusively through PvP.
I like Tanking. I like Healing. I like GW2, but I'm not sure if these homogenized jack-of-all-trades classes will have me sticking with the game for an extended period of time.
I've been in the beta since the first closed invite only beta many months ago and I've played every beta weekend thus far.
Classes I've tried:
guardian- really fun and seemed really powerful. my build didn't do a ton of damage but I had a lot of control and I seemed invincible. Seemed almost OP.
theif- didn't play enough to get an accurate assessment.
mesmer- same as theif though I felt a bit 'weak', could be that I'm bad.
elementalist- I *seemed* as though I'd be powerful but in the end I didn't feel like I did all that much. Perhaps I was using a poor build or my teammates didn't utilize everything I brought to a fight. I overall felt rather weak even though my skills seemed to be extremely good.
warrior- This class seemed the most straight forward and easy. The first 3 arenas I did I didn't even die. It was faceroll like 10-0, 13-0, 12-0. I used a few different combos from 2h/gun, d/w/gun, and 2h sword/2h mace. This class was remarkably easy to be effective to the point it almost felt like cheating.
My dilemma is most of the players in the beta (myself included to some degree) are extremely bad. I don't feel I have a full understanding of what each class is capable of and what we can expect to see. Are casters truly underpowered right now? Are warriors really that faceroll OP that anyone can destroy on them? I have a lot of experience in MMO PvP, from DAoC to being on top WoW arena teams during the WoW Esports heyday. I just can't put my finger on what class I want to play.
My heart says elementalist, my brain says warrior or guardian. Vastly different roles, but roles I usually enjoy.
[edit]
*bonus round*;
One major factor in my decision is that I will mostly be playing this game casually because my girlfriend wants to play it. I will stick to dota2 for my main competitive game. My girlfriend is playing a Necro 100%. What would you all suggest would be the best synergy with a Necro (mostly PvE with her with some light PvP).
On August 14 2012 01:22 crms wrote: I'm so confused on what class to role.
I've been in the beta since the first closed invite only beta many months ago and I've played every beta weekend thus far.
Classes I've tried:
guardian- really fun and seemed really powerful. my build didn't do a ton of damage but I had a lot of control and I seemed invincible. Seemed almost OP.
theif- didn't play enough to get an accurate assessment.
mesmer- same as theif though I felt a bit 'weak', could be that I'm bad.
elementalist- I *seemed* as though I'd be powerful but in the end I didn't feel like I did all that much. Perhaps I was using a poor build or my teammates didn't utilize everything I brought to a fight. I overall felt rather weak even though my skills seemed to be extremely good.
warrior- This class seemed the most straight forward and easy. The first 3 arenas I did I didn't even die. It was faceroll like 10-0, 13-0, 12-0. I used a few different combos from 2h/gun, d/w/gun, and 2h sword/2h mace. This class was remarkably easy to be effective to the point it almost felt like cheating.
My dilemma is most of the players in the beta (myself included to some degree) are extremely bad. I don't feel I have a full understanding of what each class is capable of and what we can expect to see. Are casters truly underpowered right now? Are warriors really that faceroll OP that anyone can destroy on them? I have a lot of experience in MMO PvP, from DAoC to being on top WoW arena teams during the WoW Esports heyday. I just can't put my finger on what class I want to play.
My heart says elementalist, my brain says warrior or guardian. Vastly different roles, but roles I usually enjoy.
[edit]
*bonus round*;
One major factor in my decision is that I will mostly be playing this game casually because my girlfriend wants to play it. I will stick to dota2 for my main competitive game. My girlfriend is playing a Necro 100%. What would you all suggest would be the best synergy with a Necro (mostly PvE with her with some light PvP).
Wow I had to double-check to make sure that I didn't write this post. I did get experience with as many classes as you, but your bonus round is consistent with my situation word-for-word. My girlfriend also wants to play a Necro and is more of a casual player. I've gotten my competitive MMO bug out of my system over my many years of WoW, I have no illusions about being the best of the best in GW2. As a result, I'll probably pick a class that seems fun to me and will work well in tandem with her character, rather than what I think is strongest.
On August 14 2012 01:22 crms wrote: I'm so confused on what class to role.
I've been in the beta since the first closed invite only beta many months ago and I've played every beta weekend thus far.
Classes I've tried:
guardian- really fun and seemed really powerful. my build didn't do a ton of damage but I had a lot of control and I seemed invincible. Seemed almost OP.
theif- didn't play enough to get an accurate assessment.
mesmer- same as theif though I felt a bit 'weak', could be that I'm bad.
elementalist- I *seemed* as though I'd be powerful but in the end I didn't feel like I did all that much. Perhaps I was using a poor build or my teammates didn't utilize everything I brought to a fight. I overall felt rather weak even though my skills seemed to be extremely good.
warrior- This class seemed the most straight forward and easy. The first 3 arenas I did I didn't even die. It was faceroll like 10-0, 13-0, 12-0. I used a few different combos from 2h/gun, d/w/gun, and 2h sword/2h mace. This class was remarkably easy to be effective to the point it almost felt like cheating.
My dilemma is most of the players in the beta (myself included to some degree) are extremely bad. I don't feel I have a full understanding of what each class is capable of and what we can expect to see. Are casters truly underpowered right now? Are warriors really that faceroll OP that anyone can destroy on them? I have a lot of experience in MMO PvP, from DAoC to being on top WoW arena teams during the WoW Esports heyday. I just can't put my finger on what class I want to play.
My heart says elementalist, my brain says warrior or guardian. Vastly different roles, but roles I usually enjoy.
[edit]
*bonus round*;
One major factor in my decision is that I will mostly be playing this game casually because my girlfriend wants to play it. I will stick to dota2 for my main competitive game. My girlfriend is playing a Necro 100%. What would you all suggest would be the best synergy with a Necro (mostly PvE with her with some light PvP).
Wow I had to double-check to make sure that I didn't write this post. I did get experience with as many classes as you, but your bonus round is consistent with my situation word-for-word. My girlfriend also wants to play a Necro and is more of a casual player. I've gotten my competitive MMO bug out of my system over my many years of WoW, I have no illusions about being the best of the best in GW2. As a result, I'll probably pick a class that seems fun to me and will work well in tandem with her character, rather than what I think is strongest.
Ha! Yes, I'm very MMO'd out myself. I have no delusions to be a top player this time around. Hopefully one of these fine TL-GW2 folks can help us out.
Here's some insight about the game and the PvP aspect/classes in general.
As they say, the game didn't really have an Open-Beta, so it will probably go through some patches before finding balance.
The game rely also more on observation than GW1 in the sense that you now have to know what weapons your enemy is wearing since it changes its skills. It is the same with spells animation, because you can't tell what spell is being casted. Thus making the dodges very important.
All of this is already setting a skill cap relative to every class.
On August 13 2012 05:45 sob3k wrote: So guys, I followed all the dev blogs and stuff and was pretty excited about this game. Then I read the threads after the beta was released and people seemed to be a bit disappointing with the end product...not that it was bad but it wasn't amazing.
Its been a while since then. What are your guys's current opinions on the game?
Is it awesome? Would you recommend buying it without reservations to a pretty picky RPG buff?
It depends on what you're expecting. I was extremely hyped for the game, but when I got the beta, it turned out to be a completely different game than I expected and I was very disappointed. I will play the game anyway (I mean, I already bought it), but it will definitely not be the new awesome MMO which I expected, it will just be some casual time-wasting with a friend.
What I was disappointed with was, among other things: * Combat feels button-mashy, especially in PvE. Unlike WoW where you optimize rotations etc (which is easy, but satisfying), in GW2, you basically punch buttons. I don't think there's a place for this kind of combat, it should either be like WoW (optimized rotations) or RaiderZ (action RPG, like monster hunter, where blocking with a shield and rolling actually works well). * The PvE over all is very bland. I expected dynamic content which really makes an impact, but that's not what you get at all. Instead, you get big areas with "points of interest" where you do the same thing over and over, which is very tedious. You basically "help" a key character by doing "good" things in an area, which can range from clicking on things on the ground, to fighting stuff. This is actually WORSE than wow style quests, because you don't really get any story in GW2, it's just an area with problems which you help out with, where as in WoW, the basic quests are like that (kill 10 wolves style) but more advanced quests chain etc. The dynamic events are better, but the impact they make on the world was far overstated by arenanet, and it just feels like "Oh, I came in time for the random bear attack event, which I've already completed twice). * Skills are boring, at least for the classes I've played. Cast fireball, cast blind, throw rocks. You have very few skills up at a time, and while you can switch weapons (and sometimes stance, like elementalist), you get more of the same. It feels like you have the skills of a MOBA character, but without the interesting ones.
Overall, the game just doesn't feel satsifying to me and the world isn't believable, the story feels very weak. The game LOOKS great, the art direction is great, and exploration is fun because of that fact. I also lack experience in PvP, which is definitely the biggest aspect of the game, so I can't speak for that.
Overall, I'd say it's up to your expectations. You might love it or you might be disappointed. Watch a bunch of videos of people playing it, maybe try it at a friends house... or just gamble and buy it, there's no subscription fee so it's not a big investment.
Some of this I agree with, others I don't.
Button mashing does seem viable in the early game with weaker enemies as well as in clusterfuck situations like in WvW or when there are a ton of players zerging a dynamic event. However, it becomes increasingly inefficient as you start fighting more difficult enemies and more skillful players who know what they're doing when managing cooldowns, dodges, and conditions. As enemies get harder in higher-level areas, you pretty much have to know what you're doing or else you die much more easily than in the lower-level areas.
The "points of interest" are merely placeholders to draw players into areas where dynamic events happen. Indeed, they are kinda boring and fill the low-level areas, but you can often kill two birds with one stone and finish them by participating in a nearby dynamic event that overlaps with the point of interest's quest requirements. Also, these points of interest start disappearing the farther you get into the game, with emphasis gradually shifting to bigger and more frequent dynamic events until the end game when it's completely dynamic events.
And I think dynamic events become a lot more interesting as the zones progress. There are even some chains of dynamic events that form their own small story arch as each dynamic event gets completed, some gradually escalating into an epic end-event to the chain such as a big boss battle. The events aren't actually that random and do follow a small storyline that you can witness if you hang around the NPC characters. Also, I think there was a lot of content that never surfaces because it was almost impossible to fail a dynamic event with so many players in the last BWEs, so I never was able to see what changed when an event was failed.
Also, I do think some classes are more boring than others. I tried the Elementalist for a few levels but wasn't blown away by its skill-set. However, I did have a substantial amount of play time with the Engineer, and that class definitely felt really cool and fun. The rifle and pistol skills felt interesting, and a lot of the utility skills also felt pretty fun. It was fun switching between the grenade, bomb, and flamethrower skill sets, and planting down different turrets was also pretty interesting. And there were a lot of other skills that I never even got to due to how short the BWE was.
I personally think a lot of complaints are due to the starter areas being too easy and arguably too dull as a result. You can button mash and still get results in the easy zones, which isn't indicative of later zones where you need to know what you're doing. The points of interest are emphasized too much when they are just glorified map markers for nearby dynamic events, which themselves aren't as interesting in the starter zones as they are in later zones. And I assume that some of the higher-level utility skills are pretty fun but are hard to reach when it's a bit dull to grind through lower-level zones with more boring spells in order to reach them.
I personally had a lot of fun during the beta weekend, which is rather surprising for me since I usually get bored by MMOs.
On August 14 2012 01:05 ZasZ. wrote: I fundamentally disagree with the removal of the "holy trinity" so-to-speak. There's nothing wrong with a character being a dedicated healer or tank, the issue arises when a class is a dedicated healer or tank. Historically, there has been issues with tank/healers being underrepresented and hard to find when you need them, but that is a problem with the individual game. There are many ways to make playing a tank/healer character rewarding and allow them to clear content just as easily as a dps-class (albeit slower). A prime example was SWTOR shortly after it came out. The game was a failure, no doubt, but there was no shortage of tanks or healers even without a dual-spec feature because A) Tanks/Healers could still solo or quest as a group and B) You could level through PvP and upgrade your gear exclusively through PvP.
I like Tanking. I like Healing. I like GW2, but I'm not sure if these homogenized jack-of-all-trades classes will have me sticking with the game for an extended period of time.
That is only one issue about the "holy trinity" dynamic. Rift had it where numerous classes could spec to heal, tank, dps, etc., but it still has the issue of every group requiring X healers. That's bad from a game design perspective IMO. It automatically makes groups larger than they have to be, e.g. if a group requires X tanks and Y healers there would be no effective group smaller than X + Y. It is also harder to balance engagements, I'll use PvP as an example since it is easiest to explain. Healers have to be balanced so that they can outheal more than one players DPS, otherwise there would be no point of having healers. So any group that faces a group with more healers will be at a significant disadvantage since essentially that healer has the effect of more than one player. This causes most strategies to revolve around "kill/disable/whatever the healer." You can also run into a lot of stalemate scenarios where all DPS is outhealed. This has happened time and time again in every single MMO I can remember.
Now I understand that since that's how it has been in MMOs for so long some people have focused and filled that healer niche and really enjoyed the specialization that brought, but I think from a game design perspective there are better mechanics than watching player's health bars and healing them. From what I've seen in GW2 so far you should be able to play heavy support characters which will be more interactive and dynamic.
On August 14 2012 01:05 ZasZ. wrote: I fundamentally disagree with the removal of the "holy trinity" so-to-speak. There's nothing wrong with a character being a dedicated healer or tank, the issue arises when a class is a dedicated healer or tank. Historically, there has been issues with tank/healers being underrepresented and hard to find when you need them, but that is a problem with the individual game. There are many ways to make playing a tank/healer character rewarding and allow them to clear content just as easily as a dps-class (albeit slower). A prime example was SWTOR shortly after it came out. The game was a failure, no doubt, but there was no shortage of tanks or healers even without a dual-spec feature because A) Tanks/Healers could still solo or quest as a group and B) You could level through PvP and upgrade your gear exclusively through PvP.
I like Tanking. I like Healing. I like GW2, but I'm not sure if these homogenized jack-of-all-trades classes will have me sticking with the game for an extended period of time.
I agree about the holy trinity thing,I actually wrote an article on team legacy about issues with guildwars 2 before i even played it and they seem to be holding true from what ive played unfortunately.
Ok well this is a pretty big deal. Basically arena-net has this idea that they can remove the holy trinity and make the game work. Well lets look at the reasons behind doing this, basically the point they make, the only justification i might add, is that it's often hard to find the role your lacking, ie a tank or a healer. But they COMPLETELY fail to address all the advantages it gives. and what will make up the loss of these advantages. Firstly, having played many MMOs, missing a role isn't that big of a deal, i didn't find it ruined my experience of any MMO I've played, sure it was very frustrating at times, but when you take into account the sheer amount of time i put into these games it wasn't a very frequent problem. Breaking it down into the two sides of the game, pvp and pve:
Firstly it's effect on pve. If i compare it to world of warcraft, the 5 mans could be a bit frustrating to find a tank or healer, this was TBC when i used to play, this was largely caused by the lack of classes that could play tank/healer and the general fact that you had to take the gear that suited your main spec/play style, ie most players opted for maxing their dps gear and ignoring the fact there class could dps/heal even if it could, and blizzard failed to implement anything to gear up offspecs and dual spec came into the game way too late. If you look at how blizzard executed the holy trinity it was horrible. They were far too few tanking and healing glasses at the start of the game, even in tbc only druids and warriors could tank, and only warriors really bothered tanking because they couldn't really dps. While EVERY class had a dps spec. and people wonder why there were too many dpsers. They also didn't implement any hybrid classes, by hybrid im not referring to classes with multi specs (ie shaman) but a class that was capable of say, dpsing and healing at the same time. Also raiding was a joke, your tank needed the best gear and all encounters encouraged having mainly one tank, with a few off-tanks in your pocket on some encounters. And going back to 5 mans, lets not even talk about how unintuitive the looking for group system used to be, or non existent as the case was pre-tbc.
So what's my point about world of warcraft? well basically that blizzard made it actually difficult for themselves by not addressing the problems i listed and yet the holy trinity wasn't really a massive problem on forming groups anyways.
Lets now look at what you REMOVE by getting rid of the holy trinity in pve. Well for a start your stripping a layer of complexity off the game, having to rely on your allies to achieve your goals is somewhat diminished. And to those that are no doubt about to point me to the whole "arrows shot through fire" synergy they have talked about, well isn't this just another hidden version of the holy trinity? at the end of the day the holy trinity is a system that forces teamwork and synergy and dependence on others, so unless they implement so much synergy your just as dependent anyways and so you have just created a holy-not trinity- but actually an ugly mix, then you've gone full circle. Let me explain this. Ok you might not get "lf1m healer last spot" for 5 hours, but you might get something equally worse, were you get "lf1m "insert specific glass last spot" because you need that classes synergy to have enough dps/survivability so either they are removing your dependence on allies and lessening synergy, which is a bad thing in a sociable game imo, or they are actually replacing it with something worse! Think about it, if synergy is just the holy trinity, all you need to find is a healer, a role that many classes can fill in other games, but if the synergy comes from each individual class then there will always be a specific class thats wanted for a role that other classes can't fill. So there are 3 outcomes, either theres is less synergy and dependence on your allies, not something i look forward too, they find a good balance, and replace the holy trinity with basically another version of itself, which would be very hard to achieve, or they go too far and make you MORE dependent on specific classes, rather than 3 roles that multiple classes can fill.
Now the big one, pvp. This may surprise some people, but i believe this is actually where it will effect the game the most. One brilliant thing that the holy trinity provides in this situation is an easily identifiable distinct 3 roles in pvp. The healer/support, who supports his friends, the tankish class, that runs in and soaks the dmg while pissing people off, and the damage dealer, who's as weak as a wet sponge, but then eats your face off in half a second given the tank. What you do by removing this is merging the classes closest. THIS IS A MASSIVE PROBLEM, why? Because of balance, balance, balance. The holy trinity slaps balance's game ruining, lack of diversity enforcing, uglyness, in the face. Again, im going to use wow because its the mmo ive had the most experience with, but i have played others, infact a lot of others including GW 1. Blizzard's only option to balance the classes was basically to merge them into one in pvp, especially the healers, what this means is without the distinct roles of the holy trinity your going to get even less diverse classes or unused ones if you want a balanced pvp. It's actually incredibly difficult to balance something and keep it diverse, as shown with sc2, obviously perfect balance would require perfect symmetry, but balance negligible enough for most even high level players not to notice imbalance but still retain good diversity (see BW) is actually incredibly hard to achieve, and the holy trinity helps a lot with diversity. Trying to make a bunch of dps classes all diverse will be VERY hard if not impossible.
And just some closing notes on the thing as a whole, my favourite role in mmos has always been tanking and healing, which guildwars 2 wont actually let me do, they assume that everyone plays tanks and healers because they are forced to, but I for one actually enjoy both dedicated roles more than dpsing. It just doesn’t make sense to remove aggro mechanics, reactive healing and essential interrupts in pvp on healers and claim this will improve the game. Lets not forget the skill created by interrupts and monks heals in GW1, that’s now gone. My point being, leave the holy trinity in the game, and deal with the single problem of finding a healer/tank in a team fast, rather than create a headache of problems to solve one small one.
I'm for the removal of the holy-trinity. And I personally believe this is neither right or wrong, it's just preference and I'm too bored to make a list of why it's my preference. For me, using it or another system is one of the core design of an mmo. Both have pros and cons. The whole game is designed around not having them much like a game like WoW is designed around them.
Wanting them is not asking for a small feature, it's asking for an almost totally different game.
Don't forget you can still spec in one way instead of another. But yeah you cannot dedicate yourself to one role and the tank role is 100% gone.
I am planning on playing with a real life friend, who has his own guild set to go. However, my friend will put more emphasis on pve, where I care more about pvp. If anybody would like to get a squad together for wvw and spvp, send me a tell. The plan is to play on fort aspenwood right now, but this could be changed if it made sense to do so.
I can't help but feel that all these unwavering advocates of the trinity system are trying to hang on to some remnants of past familiar territory, afraid to acknowledge and embrace change.
Sure, it works. It might be flawed, it might have it's own perks, but it works. As far as discussions go that's about a solid of a bottom line as it gets.
Do you know what else worked? 9 weapon slots and non-regenerating health. That didn't stop Halo and CoD from dominating the shooter market for almost a decade. Just because a mechanic is different, doesn't necessarily mean it's better or worse. It's just different, it's just apples and oranges.
So it makes me very wary when off of about less than 10 days playtime (most of which are low level content, or an undeveloped PvP metagame), people are making grandiose assumptions and declarations that the game won't work, will get boring, will fail, because etc etc blah blah holy trinity. Maybe it's just a tad premature?
The idea that removing the trinity is like removing a layer of complexity is also a bit misleading. In fact the statement itself is a bit fallacious due to the loaded word "remove". GW2 isn't really removing the trinity, it's just replacing it with something else. Is it better? Not necessarily, but nobody at this stage will know for sure, because it's simply too early to tell.
I've always looked at GW2 pvp combat as more of Dota-esque than WoW-like. Five core skills, fun utilities, and fights where knowing when to use your skills always triumphs over blowing your cool downs whenever you get the chance. Personally that's my kind of combat.
EPT
