|
But it took Anet like 4 years to figure out the balance between interrupts and the skills that they were interrupting.
You Say that like it was a long time. Took Starcraft Broodwar around the same amount of time to balance.
In guildwars 2 they just said "screw it" to actually trying to balance a very fun mechanic and got rid of active interrupts entirely. As far as I know you will still be able to knock someone down as they are casting a skill or hit them while they are dazed to interrupt a skill, but there will not be an attack skill or a spell which interrupts targets in the sense that there was in guildwars 1.
We have not seen all the skills yet, and since ANET knows the history of Interrupts in their own game, I'm sure they've come up with something to better it. Since they are balancing for weapon sets, classes, AND races I'm sure there is a good mix. What they probably did was mix it between a few interrupt abilities and changing a few skills that apply a condition that can be removed. So there will be a balance of interrupt abilities and condition removal abilities.
If that wasn't bad enough their philosophy on decentralizing healing and damage and distributing it around to every character sounds like the dumbest shit I've ever heard. There will be no single target healing or protection skills, no interrupts, only two weapon sets, and half of your skill bar is fixed based on your weapon. There is also no bodyblocking, which ruins the art of chiizu dancing entirely. Don't get me wrong, I will buy Guildwars 2, but I think it's PvP will not be as good as GW1's PvP.
You don't know weather or not interrupts will be in the game or not. It may not work the same way, but as far as I know there has been no mention of interrupts information yet. .As far as bodyblocking, that might be determined at the mobility system of characters and how skills affect mobility for the races and classes.
|
I think the extent of interrupts will be knock down spell, probably slow moving meteors that can interrupt skills if you just stand there without noticing. (my opinion no factual basis)
|
This isn't a direct reply I know, but I think interrupts/knockdowns are an intergal part of the strategy in an mmo. Without it, you simply rely on the basis of who can do more damage faster, balanced with who can take more damage, and that gets boring fast with only those variables.
|
Norn Week has started!
http://www.arena.net/blog/norn-week-begins
For those who don't know much about the Lore, here is a backstory they have posted on that link:
They come from the land of the ice and snow—the norn! A valiant race of shape-changing barbarians, the norn are one of the five playable races in Guild Wars 2. This week we’re going to get within axe-throwing distance of the norn on the ArenaNet Blog with posts full of lore, art, screenshots, audio clips, fiction, and more. On Thursday, Feb 24th, we’ll be updating the GuildWars2.com norn page with a brand new video featuring the Shiverpeaks, the norn hunting grounds.
The norn, who first appeared in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, are a larger-than-life race of shape-shifters who revere the Spirits of the Wild. Driven from their homeland in the distant north by the rise of Jormag, the Ice Dragon, the norn resettled in new hunting grounds further south.
So what makes the norn so…norn?
Aside from their size and their ability to shape-shift into a powerful half-animal form, norn are defined by their unique worldview. They value glory and deeds of valor above all – they’re just built that way. ““…The norn get famous or die trying…”The norn get famous or die trying,” says Lead Writer Bobby Stein.
“They are by their nature a race of optimists,” says Jeff Grubb, Continuity and Lore Designer. “While humans have a long history, and it feels like their best days may be behind them, the norn project a positive outlook, even though they have been driven from their homeland.”
“Many of the races in Guild Wars 2 come from a background of displacement,” says Lore and Continuity Designer Ree Soesbee. “However, where other races see their tribulations as losses, the norn see it as a challenge, a chance to overcome adversity and reach greatness.”
Ree Soesbee continues, “The norn are absolutely not ‘big humans.’ They have their own culture, their own ethics and morality. A norn seeks to master herself and drive her own body and soul to greatness through constantly testing her own physical limits.”
As you’ll see this week when we take a closer look at the Wayfarer Foothills area, a norn player in Guild Wars 2 will have a completely different experience than a human player. “The norn starting experience is tonally very different from the human one,” Bobby Stein says. “The happenings in Wayfarer Foothills, while dangerous, are more about hunting and celebration rather than outright war.”
In addition to a plethora of wild game and powerful creatures, norn characters adventuring in the Shiverpeaks will encounter the jotun, a race of fallen giants; the dredge, former slaves who claim the lost homelands of the dwarves; and the Sons of Svanir, norn who revere the Ice Dragon. There’s no shortage of opportunities for norn to prove themselves.
Ree Soesbee says, “If you can thank the spirit of Griffin even as you kill one to feed your family; if you instinctively know the difference between a playful brawl and a deadly battle; if you’d climb a dangerous mountain just because someone said it couldn’t be done—then you might want to play a norn.”
|
|
|
|
|
Norn definitely have an interesting flavor but the silvari are still me favorite, waiting for their week.
|
Norn = tauren philosophically?
|
On February 17 2011 05:10 Jonas  wrote:If that wasn't bad enough their philosophy on decentralizing healing and damage and distributing it around to every character sounds like the dumbest shit I've ever heard. There will be no single target healing or protection skills, no interrupts, only two weapon sets, and half of your skill bar is fixed based on your weapon. There is also no bodyblocking, which ruins the art of chiizu dancing entirely. Don't get me wrong, I will buy Guildwars 2, but I think it's PvP will not be as good as GW1's PvP.
It seems you are just used to what they are trying to get rid of. I have a couple points to make, so let's start with their "philosophy on decentralizing healing and damage":
-Why is that so bad? Why could it possibly be the "dumbest shit I've ever heard". I think it will be quite the opposite. The game will be much more dynamic, without a cookie cutter formula that everyone will be following, every game. People will serve more than one role, so in fact it should require MORE skill (pun not intended). I'm not claiming it's truly the greatest thing ever, as I have not played it, it could possibly suck, but to jump to conclusions just because it's different than what you've been doing for years....
- They have knockdowns and stuns, which for the most part are interrupts. You can't say they have "no interrupts". Also, just because it was a crucial part of the previous game doesn't mean this will suck.
- Only two weapon sets? Are you sure you're not confusing that with "You can only have two sets at once"? There are many, many weapon set possibilities for each class. To be able to switch between them will be really big. There will be a huge amount of choices to choose those skills. The way you put it it sounds like a player will only have two choices for half his skill bar. In reality, it is very different. It's not a way of restricting the player, it's actually a way of the game to become more dynamic, with switching between weapon sets (which again let me say is a lot better than how you put it).
- Let me say again what I said before. I'm not claiming it will be the best game ever, because I haven't played it yet, but your objections are just unfounded. It seems you just don't like change, and if there is any, you assume the worst.
|
A surprising amount of familiar gw names popping up in here.
|
We have members who've played competitive Guild Wars, WoW, Warhammer, Team Fortress 2, Dota, and many other games. All looking forward to GW2, and hoping our different backgrounds will allow things like our theorycrafting to really shine once more details come out.
I've played FPS's mainly before deciding to look for a MMO to learn to get good at, that being GW2, and I'm both nervous and excited to see if my experience can transulate to the MMO plane.
I'm pulling for the big guys from the MMO background to help me with managing my skill bar.
|
No, he meant "You can only have two weapon sets at once." As opposed to four, plus whatever shields, etc. in your inventory.
I'm not sure I'd go as far as Jonas has, but I'm sympathetic to his concerns. I liked gvg because it was a lot like a CCG. Huge numbers of skills to choose from, complete freedom in builds, go and find something and make it work. ANet is intentionally moving away from that. They said it's like forcing people to build non-shitty decks, but of course that also means that you can't build decks that are intentionally shitty in some respects in order to gain advantages elsewhere.
I understand why they're doing it. It's hard for new players to pick up. Secondaries, skills from three campaigns and an expansion. It's a lot. And it's hard to balance. There's a reason CCGs keep the pool of legal sets relatively small. (And there's a reason I like Magic's vintage format the most.) But they're removing a ton of build freedom. They've taken out secondaries. They're heavily restricting six of the ten skill choices (five from your weapons, one heal).
Of course, that's not the whole story. You get to bring more skills in GW2 than in GW, both because you start with ten and because you get to bring more weapons. Eles get attunes. And so on. I think it'll still be fun. But after being given a huge sandbox full of toys and being told to go make whatever build you could think of in GW, GW2 feels streamlined in necessary but disappointing ways.
I'm still looking forward to GW2 a ton. I'll still switch over immediately, and I think I'll enjoy it. I'm just sad to lose some of the Magic (pun entirely intended). And I will say, as a lifelong mesmer, I'm more worried about the lack of hexes and energy denial than I am about the lack of interrupts. Interrupts are the most boring form of disruption. Punishing people for playing the way they want to play, or making them completely incapable of doing anything--these are what I play a mesmer for. I hope they've found a way to let me keep that up.
|
Ahh, I see, thanks for the correction.
I think the main point is what ArenaNet themselves are trying to do, as we can only guess how it plays out atm. I don't think they are doing all this stuff to make it easier to pick up, and that's really the whole reason (I think) our opinions differ. I think they just want to be more experimental with all the MMO concepts. Sure, doing that, they are closing many doors, but they are opening many at the same time.
Mesmer without most of their hexes/intetrrupts/energy denial. I'm agreeing with you, that sounds pretty bad. But they will replace them with something, and I have a fair amount of faith in Anet. But let's think about a warrior for a minute. Most of his skills (usually) would apply to his weapon, and, sure you could change in mid battle, but what are sword skills going to do for an axe when he is 12 in sword mastery? As I said, having 5 skills tied to the weapon appears (and does) close doors technically but it's also opening huge possibilities. Instead of a build consisting of 10 skills, it will consist of 5+5+5+1.
|
Well, 5+5+4+1, really.  (Edit: And one of the 4 has to be elite, but that's hardly a restriction at all when virtually every GW build used an elite.) But yeah, it seems like what they're trying to do is give people more, but also more tightly controlled, options in combat. That's not necessarily a bad thing. And I do think that ANet are a bunch of good developers, who will end up producing a good game.
As for making things easier, I was working mainly from this quote.http://www.arena.net/blog/nine-gw2-follow-up-questions-with-eric-flannumIf you use the CCG paradigm to explain our skill system, we went from a system with almost no deck building restrictions in Guild Wars to one that has some necessary and sane deck building restrictions in Guild Wars 2. The new system is much friendlier to new players and to those players who either aren’t interested in the deck building aspect (or are just not that good at it)
Flannum continues with this:but it still allows advanced players to come up with literally hundreds of combinations to trash their opponents with. One of our designers did the math and the possible number of combinations is in the millions. This system also allows us to more easily balance the game and maintain that balance. And I don't doubt that there will still be lots of build flexibility. It's just that that's consistent with there being less than in GW. Indeed, having less flexibility in some directions (and maybe more in others) is, here, quite explicitly their intent: Less completely unrestricted flexibility means fewer ways to badly screw up and much easier balancing. (They pulled secondary professions to give them more control over players' options, too, at least in part. See http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-two/.)
Again, I don't mean this to be an indictment of ANet or GW2. I'm definitely not complaining about the direction GW2 is taking, because I like what I've seen overall, and I suspect they couldn't have easily kept everything I liked in GW while still going in this direction.
|
I think this is one of those things best to be discussed when the game actually gets tested. The entire concept of switching out weapons mid-combat, let alone changing skillsets doing so, is something that I dont think any MMO player has experience with on this scale. I mean sure, in WoW you could switch from dagger/dagger to sword/sword for instance, but you didnt have much of a different method of attack doing so.
Picture the variety and strategies that can be involved with switching weapons. Ive read most of the posts, and the general vibe im getting is they are limiting the skills, therefore limiting the available options of builds/strategy (correct me if im wrong). But what I see is completely the opposite, you could start a battle with one entire skillset only to flip things upside down for your opponent switching to a different strategy. It could be as simple as a buff -> switch -> damage, or much more involved, such as a dagger shadowstep/stun, switch to sword ->high burst dps ->switch dagger -> use evasion/stealth techniques.
There will be limitations for sure, such as a cooldown, but the thought of such strategy is wonderful.
|
The complexity will come from the different combinations of the two sets of weapons EACH player users as a WHOLE, not so much on the individual player itself.
Ya...skills may be limited when it comes to looking at the self, but they are more focused on the team aspect and how people work together.
If five players, each with different race/class combination and each with two sets of weapons, were to battle against another team...indivdually their options may be limited but overall they have ALOT of strats they can pull off on the fly. This is done by having 1 or more players switching their weapon set, and employing a different strategy based on the weapon sets OVERALL they are using.
Basically skills may seem limited on a individual player, but in a group the number of options for Strategies will be numerous and on the fly. You don't have to stick to a few strats in mid-combat and stick to it. Battle, I believe, will have a heavy focus on controlling gameflow in order to win.
|
On February 25 2011 01:04 Obelisk7 wrote:
We have members who've played competitive Guild Wars, WoW, Warhammer, Team Fortress 2, Dota, and many other games. All looking forward to GW2, and hoping our different backgrounds will allow things like our theorycrafting to really shine once more details come out.
I've played FPS's mainly before deciding to look for a MMO to learn to get good at, that being GW2, and I'm both nervous and excited to see if my experience can transulate to the MMO plane.
I'm pulling for the big guys from the MMO background to help me with managing my skill bar.
For a while I made the builds for ScaR (a top 50 GW1 guild) so i guess you are referring to me.
The Decentralized healing would an imbalanced impact on the game for these reasons.
1. Spike builds
In GW1 most guilds ran one form of a spike (large amount of damage in a short time) or another. These were mostly ranged attacks with a few mele here and there. So far in GW2 it was previewed that there would be a hit/miss targeting system for spells, figure cross-hairs in FPS or ability placement in RTS. This makes it so that most spells would have an AOE damage rather than a one time effect. Combine this with every character having some healing or another there just isn't enough damage to spike out a person.
2. Pressure builds
This strategy was preferred by most upper mid level guilds (200-1000 range) because it didn't require the timing that a spike did. This relied on spreading out damage, which if characters have the amazing self heals that were previewed they can keep themselves alive if they are smart about it. The way that guilds stopped pressure in GW1 was to designate another person as a flag runner and use the runner as a support healer. The third healer hard countered the pressure build so additional healing here should serve the same purpose, i don't see it being an option at all.
3. Split builds
This is the option that i see happening in GW2 a lot especially in the early game (possibly a later transition to spike once people can learn aim perfectly) since it will rely on personal healing and personal skill the most (something which would take a while to reach a limit). Here is where the healing method shines most. GW2 allows for a counter split, if they send 2 mele to split you can now send 2 counter mele to defend without worry. This adds a new strategy aspect not viable in GW1 where a mele split required either a healer or a mele on defense to tank damage and to backline.
|
On February 25 2011 17:21 NoobieOne wrote:
1. Spike builds
In GW1 most guilds ran one form of a spike (large amount of damage in a short time) or another. These were mostly ranged attacks with a few mele here and there. So far in GW2 it was previewed that there would be a hit/miss targeting system for spells, figure cross-hairs in FPS or ability placement in RTS. This makes it so that most spells would have an AOE damage rather than a one time effect. Combine this with every character having some healing or another there just isn't enough damage to spike out a person.
I wouldnt count spike builds out yet, im sure there are going to be skills along the lines of lightning, and guns, for example, that provide instant damage (perhaps a smaller amount) than projectile skills and weapons. We'll see about this however.
|
On February 25 2011 10:05 irninja wrote:
I think this is one of those things best to be discussed when the game actually gets tested. The entire concept of switching out weapons mid-combat, let alone changing skillsets doing so, is something that I dont think any MMO player has experience with on this scale. I mean sure, in WoW you could switch from dagger/dagger to sword/sword for instance, but you didnt have much of a different method of attack doing so.
Picture the variety and strategies that can be involved with switching weapons. Ive read most of the posts, and the general vibe im getting is they are limiting the skills, therefore limiting the available options of builds/strategy (correct me if im wrong). But what I see is completely the opposite, you could start a battle with one entire skillset only to flip things upside down for your opponent switching to a different strategy. It could be as simple as a buff -> switch -> damage, or much more involved, such as a dagger shadowstep/stun, switch to sword ->high burst dps ->switch dagger -> use evasion/stealth techniques.
There will be limitations for sure, such as a cooldown, but the thought of such strategy is wonderful.
I'm not sure who you're replying to here, but I want to be clear that I'm not disagreeing with most of what you've written. In fact, I pretty explicitly said a lot of this. But there are two different issues at stake here. One is why they've removed certain types of build flexibility. The other is whether the game will still be fun, either because they've added other types of flexibility, or because of something else, or whatever. You're only addressing the latter here. I can't speak for anyone else, but I was addressing the former. I think I made that pretty explicit, too.
As for the things that you and NoobieOne are getting into, I definitely think that it's too early to tell there. For spiking, we don't know how much damage will be possible, or how easy it will be to miss/avoid projectiles. We don't know whether self heals will be better than a good infuse, or whether guardians (or anyone else) will be able to preprot effectively. With a higher focus on mobility, we don't know how adrenaline spiking will work. For pressure, with no hexes and fewer conditions, we don't know how it will work at all. (I agree that there's cause for some concern there, with the strong self heals and the lack of traditional (in GW1) pressure, but I don't think there's any more cause for concern than there is with the fate of dom mesmers. We know the old tools are gone, or at least lacking, but we don't have anything like a comprehensive idea of the new tools yet.)
For that matter, we don't know what the structure of gvg will look like at all, do we (except that it'll be 5v5)? I don't think we've heard about any objectives, or anything like that. I can see splitting being effective if you take GW2 characters and put them in GW1 guild halls, but presumably they won't do that. I mean, Izzy isn't that bad.
And remember, they're going to rebalance for pvp. Maybe self heals will have to be weaker, or prots will have to have lower cooldowns, or projectiles will have to move faster, or something.
At any rate, I think that we definitely know too little to be able to say much of anything about effective strategies. I'm a little worried, because gvg is basically my favorite pvp in any computer game ever, and GW2 is different. But they've told us almost nothing about pvp.
|
Yes but i'm sure that those spells will be harder to aim and can be prevented. Good balanced spike builds took a while to develop and any of those lightning bolt/gun combos would probably be almost cheesy (yes cheesy play would work for the first while like it did in SC2 but it won't be good for a while) I think that it will be mostly balanced builds for a while that rely on some spikes but nothing that can't be prevented by normal healing. Plus i though someone said it would be in capture the flag format and I was recently looking at some vids for capture the flag on other games and they all relied on individual people going their own ways. If the maps are designed well enough then they would probably have multiple routes to the enemy base where a few spliters can easily go and get the flag. The spike builds in GW1 relied on the watchtower moral boost in order to win and then hopefully with moral they can push up the fount before any split takes out their single defender. Eventually a balanced spike developed that can counter splits and spike out targets at the same time. The cheesy spikes that I think were described (DPS spikes) can't actually defeat splits since their damage (at least in GW1) was only barely enough to kill the strongest people, so if it was forced to split up with more than one person the build would fail. Unless they keep the watchtower mechanism then spikes won't be able compete in this format since forcing a split in 5v5 is much stronger than forcing a split in 8v8 (loose 1/5th of damage instead of 1/8th)
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
