I'm a little concerned about player longevity at the cap, particularly for PVE players.
Everytime I worry about that, I remind myself that the alternative is probably a more traditional "grind and brag" formula for endgame - which I'm absolutely tired of, and I try to have some faith that ANet can pull off something different and maintain interest. If they can, it will probably be their most important "innovation" of all.
1.) Mounts. I don't know if anyone's mentioned it or not, but I think mounts would improve the game. They would be largely unnecessary, but would be an excellent option for people who wanted to explore the world without quite as much reliance on Fast Travel. It's not surprising that GW2 would employ the travel method that ANet brought to the MMO world, but I think land mounts would also spruce things up for people who just like to ride around and explore or get to point B without a cold loading screen. Flying mounts are obviously off the table, however, since they would require a lot more development time and would potentially spoil certain areas of the game.
2.) Open world PVP. No, GW2 does not need Open world PVP, but I was reading the posts of people who think it's necessary. First of all, since there are no "good" or "bad" factions, it's unlikely that typical overworld PVP will ever be done the way WoW does it, but I'm actually more excited about the idea of The Mists as a giant zoned PVP game than I ever was about ganking/being ganked while questing. I imagine it as the Abyss from Aion, only not gear-dependent, hollow, and basically terrible. There will be a vast battleground to hide in, explore, form groups or defend objectives, all constantly available. It will offer much more comraderie than "Asmo ganked me at 34:45, someone get him!". I think open world PVP is evolving. Even SWTOR doesn't do it the old way, and I for one think it's great.
Of course if you still think WoW's formula is the bee's knees, you're more than welcome to roll on a PVP server in Azeroth, but you might be missing out.
Can someone post some videos of this fast paced combat? I've watched a bunch of videos on youtube and it doesn't look a lot different that things I've seen before. If you do post a video, find some from something like, Age of Conan WoW or Aion for example, and show me where it's so much faster, cause I'm not seeing it.
Also, as to the original poster, I really don't like the non use of the trinity. A lot of folks may and to each their own, but I like having a role. I like being a healer, I like tanking, I don't like DPS. Just saying, not eveyone's excited about that one. I also need a game with open world pvp. I've heard this will absolutely not have it. I don't want instanced guild battles.
As highly praised as this game is, especially by a lot of people who have not played it is ridiculous. I really can't wait til it comes out so I can start seeing the "this game sucks" post..lol.
Master 10k did a great job of showing you, it is pretty fast paced, I think the more impressive point about the combat is the movement and dynamics involved. Every caster isn't just standing around in the game, they have to move and play. And you don't quite have the full grasp of GW2's lack of trinity system. what it means is the player can choose which roll to fill, not that he is all of them simultaneously. Depending on your weapon set, your utility skills, heal, and elite, the game offers you the chance to play however you like, either support, damage, or control. If you aren't happy about the non trinity, then you just don't know enough to know its just a more flexible version of the trinity so you aren't lftank or lfhealer wasting your time. Thats really the difference here.
And this isn't sandbox bro, if you want that go find a game that advertises it.
Concerning your last point, why would you want to see a game fail? bad for the industry, further roots us in the lack of innovation this past decade has seen. By the by, GW2 won't suck, we've already seen what its capable of, it might not be for everyone and therefor be unapealing to them, but I think just the sheer granduer and quality of the game removes that possibility. That could be my bias talking but, just saying, I don't think SWTOR is bad, jsut isn't my thing. (I appologize for bringing in irrelevant games but I wanted to nip the Fanboi comments in the bud)
Regarding the combat, I still don't see much different, not saying it doesn't look fun, but I've played just about every mmo there has been, and it doesn't look that unique is all. Also, I still see casters and rangers standing still to attack, then run... Not that different then most games out. Like a fire Mage in wow.
Now to your point, it doesn't kill the "holy trinity" is just makes it more versatile? Ok, so it is still there as I see in the videos. It sounds more like ffxiv, where I can switch my skills/class by switching gear, while still maintaining more basic skills. They don't lock you in to a class.. if that's the case, it sounds ok.
And also, I don't want to see it fail, never said that once. I'm not that kinda guy. I'm just sick of seeing post from GW2 enthusiast shitting on every other game out, when the large majority of them have not even played the game. Just because I want to see the "this game sucks" Post doesn't mean I want it to fail. I just like seeing how fast a community turns on a game upon release. Happens in EVERY game I've ever seen on here.
So that last post got me thinking. If, like you say, the roles are still there, but you can choose whom to fill it as you're not locked into a class/role..... how does this eliminate the holy trinity? It's still there.... Perhaps they've just taken out the dedicated healer role? So they just disrupted the trinity?
Like I said, and I don't think I'm alone....I like having a dedicated class that I can learn and excel in. I like being a dedicated healer and keeping my group alive. Making a name for myself with my healing skills. Is that wrong? Should I want the demise of a "trinity"?
I don't see how a lack of dedicated roles in a game makes it better? And as to not locking you into a role, or letting you switch, that sounds ok, but once people start locking themselves into the roles, the trinity comes back.
So that last post got me thinking. If, like you say, the roles are still there, but you can choose whom to fill it as you're not locked into a class/role..... how does this eliminate the holy trinity? It's still there.... Perhaps they've just taken out the dedicated healer role? So they just disrupted the trinity?
Like I said, and I don't think I'm alone....I like having a dedicated class that I can learn and excel in. I like being a dedicated healer and keeping my group alive. Making a name for myself with my healing skills. Is that wrong? Should I want the demise of a "trinity"?
I don't see how a lack of dedicated roles in a game makes it better? And as to not locking you into a role, or letting you switch, that sounds ok, but once people start locking themselves into the roles, the trinity comes back.
Holy trinity is eliminated in a way mobs react in battle. Tank cannot hold aggro in gw2, mobs usually attack the weakest (lowest armor rating for example), or the one that does most damage to them. You cannot play gw like wow for example where tank goes in, takes aggro, keeps threat high so he gets all hits, healer stays back and heals everyone. Now you can't heal others, you can't take all aggro (no pure tanks), that leaves what? Anything but not holy trinity!
Regarding the combat, I still don't see much different, not saying it doesn't look fun, but I've played just about every mmo there has been, and it doesn't look that unique is all. Also, I still see casters and rangers standing still to attack, then run... Not that different the. Most games out. Like a fire Mage in wow. Now to your point, it doesn't kill the "holy trinity" is just makes it more versatile? Ok, so it is still there as I see in the videos. It sounds more like ffxiv, where I can switch my skills by switching gear, while still maintaining more basic skills. And also, I don't want to see it fail, never said that once. I'm not that kinda guy. I'm just sick of seeing post from GW2 enthusiast shitting on every other game out, when the large majority of them have not even played the game. Just be ause I want to see the "this game sucks" Post doesn't mean I want it to fail. I just like seeing how fast a community turns on a game upon release. Happens in EVERY game I've ever seen on here.
It's not necessarily even being about being unique, it's about creating the best game they can. For instance, they've even admitted they were inspired by Borderlands when they created the Downed State. It doesn't have to be totally original. Putting their own spin on it and incorporating it into a AAA MMO is more than enough.
As far as tying skills to weapons goes, that came about for two reasons; GW1's way of having 8 skills from 2 professions was a balancing nightmare, and also there were people that were terrible at it. This system is easier to balance for one thing. It also makes it impossible to totally gimp yourself, while still allowing more skilled people to get more out of it.
Going back to the videos, you're just not going to see everything in videos when it comes to the combat system. Things like that there's no ally targetted skills just aren't going to stand out unless you're looking for them. Or that each profession is totally viable at both melee and range.
I was going to comment on the part about the holy trinity but I see you've made another post about that so I'll just respond to that specifically.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Regarding the combat, I still don't see much different, not saying it doesn't look fun, but I've played just about every mmo there has been, and it doesn't look that unique is all. Also, I still see casters and rangers standing still to attack, then run... Not that different then most games out. Like a fire Mage in wow.
Now to your point, it doesn't kill the "holy trinity" is just makes it more versatile? Ok, so it is still there as I see in the videos. It sounds more like ffxiv, where I can switch my skills/class by switching gear, while still maintaining more basic skills. They don't lock you in to a class.. if that's the case, it sounds ok.
And also, I don't want to see it fail, never said that once. I'm not that kinda guy. I'm just sick of seeing post from GW2 enthusiast shitting on every other game out, when the large majority of them have not even played the game. Just because I want to see the "this game sucks" Post doesn't mean I want it to fail. I just like seeing how fast a community turns on a game upon release. Happens in EVERY game I've ever seen on here.
Well if the combat was just like every other MMO out there, then please point me to another MMO with a Mage-like class, as mobile and as versatile as the Elementalist, ArenaNet has create for Guild Wars 2. Because the reason I cannot enjoy current MMO combat is because it is full of stupid limitations. Like always feeling weak if you want to create a hybrid character, or being rooted in place by cast-bar skills or skill animations and not being able to avoid attacks (beyond simple LOS'ing and RNG). You can see from these 2 vids of devs playing the Elementalist, with fairly different builds, that the game lacks these stupid limitations and is better for it.
As for the holy trinity, you seem to be mistaken. I'll use the example of Rift. In Rift, they have the Soul Tree system, where you're giving an ample amount of variety in the way you can play a class. Like I can create a Warrior that does both melee and range DPS very well (like so), but can also tank well (as such). The Warrior cannot do both things at the same time, because these are different specs that I can only switch between out-of-combat, but it can still perform these very different roles. Now the thing about Rift, is that even with this variety, the game's combat mechanics still conform to the Holy Trinity of "Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer". So as a tank I taunt all the mobs, make sure they only attack me, as I barely take any damage and that pretty much sums up what I do. That's the Holy trinity in a nut-shell; where you have 1 of those 3 strict roles (some MMOs add support & CC to the mix), you perform your role and that's what you do.
The thing about Guild Wars 2 is that, no matter how I look at it, the game just doesn't support such a system. Izzy said something similar; "Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it." And quite frankly, just by looking at the skills you can mix an match, you'll eventually understand that it is simply not possible to build a viable tank or healer. You cannot build a character that's impervious to damage and can hold aggro, when there's no threat mechanic or any aggro generating skills. You cannot build character that just heals their allies, because it is impossible to fill up even half of your skill-set with ally heals and all the ally heals are weak regen buffs that can't keep anyone up. Well I could go on but I simply cannot be bothered and none of us will understand for full implications of this until we actually do a dungeon run. But allow me to leave you with a post, from someone who has actually completed a Guild Wars 2 dungeon run on explorable mode.
1.) Mounts. I don't know if anyone's mentioned it or not, but I think mounts would improve the game. They would be largely unnecessary, but would be an excellent option for people who wanted to explore the world without quite as much reliance on Fast Travel. It's not surprising that GW2 would employ the travel method that ANet brought to the MMO world, but I think land mounts would also spruce things up for people who just like to ride around and explore or get to point B without a cold loading screen. Flying mounts are obviously off the table, however, since they would require a lot more development time and would potentially spoil certain areas of the game.
2.) Open world PVP. No, GW2 does not need Open world PVP, but I was reading the posts of people who think it's necessary. First of all, since there are no "good" or "bad" factions, it's unlikely that typical overworld PVP will ever be done the way WoW does it, but I'm actually more excited about the idea of The Mists as a giant zoned PVP game than I ever was about ganking/being ganked while questing. I imagine it as the Abyss from Aion, only not gear-dependent, hollow, and basically terrible. There will be a vast battleground to hide in, explore, form groups or defend objectives, all constantly available. It will offer much more comraderie than "Asmo ganked me at 34:45, someone get him!". I think open world PVP is evolving. Even SWTOR doesn't do it the old way, and I for one think it's great.
Of course if you still think WoW's formula is the bee's knees, you're more than welcome to roll on a PVP server in Azeroth, but you might be missing out.
agreed, I can see why GW1 doesnt need mounts but I think GW2 could really use them.
So that last post got me thinking. If, like you say, the roles are still there, but you can choose whom to fill it as you're not locked into a class/role..... how does this eliminate the holy trinity? It's still there.... Perhaps they've just taken out the dedicated healer role? So they just disrupted the trinity?
Like I said, and I don't think I'm alone....I like having a dedicated class that I can learn and excel in. I like being a dedicated healer and keeping my group alive. Making a name for myself with my healing skills. Is that wrong? Should I want the demise of a "trinity"?
I don't see how a lack of dedicated roles in a game makes it better? And as to not locking you into a role, or letting you switch, that sounds ok, but once people start locking themselves into the roles, the trinity comes back.
The first thing that people need to understand is that there's nothing magical about a Trinity in gameplay. It's easy to think of systems which would require fewer or more roles. If mobs hit so hard and the game was designed such that every encounter required a dedicated debuffing class, that would be a Quaternary. If there were no healers and everyone just regenerated if they didn't get hit for a few seconds, that would be a Binary, or perhaps even a Unity.
There's no standard definition of Holy Trinity but for me, it means a game like WoW. Or rather, at low levels or the early days of games like WoW or EQ, you just have classes that can do different things. They can tank, damage, crowd control, or heal all to varying degrees. You can have encounters which can be pretty freeform in group composition. Maybe you can have a weak tank but need a healer and an offhealer. Maybe you have two tanks juggling the mob. Maybe you kill it so fast you don't really need healers. Whatever. It's only when you get to the high end, where specialization becomes mandatory that to me it becomes a Holy Trinity game. In a game like WoW, if you're a DPS, that is literally all you do. Every single decision is based around maximizing your DPS. Sure, you might occassionally CC a mob, or there might be some oddball encounter where you're actually the tank, but in 99% of cases, if you're DPS, you're DPS. You might have a dual spec and another set of gear that lets you be a Tank for some other encounter, but you're one or the other.
Two of ArenaNet's goals are to make their game more social, and to make combat more active. Their various methods for trying to get rid of this Holy Trinity serve those goals.
For the social aspect, ArenaNet wants to let you play with your friends, regardless of class. They don't want you to have to turn someone away because you need another class. Or force someone to play the healer they don't want to.
As far as active combat goes, getting rid of ally targeting puts less of an emphasis on health bars. They want you to react to what is happening on the screen. Buffs stack in duration, not power, so they're never really wasted. If you see someone getting hit, you can always do a party or ground based spell without worrying if someone else is also doing it.
The holy trinity too is limiting. You have tank, healer, 3 DPS. It's static. You don't have DPS or healers worrying about taking hits because they literally can't. They just have to do their rotations to be successful.
With GW2, that pure power to specialize won't be there. Your self heal is the best heal, but it's not a complete heal and it's on a long cooldown. The other thing too is that because they aren't rigidly defined, anybody can take a skill which does anything. A person can skew their build towards controlling the mob, but someone else might take a knockdown or a trap to assist you. The encounter will be won by being able to apply all your groups' skills together in a way that gives you a chance and then being able to react to the changing circumstances of the battle.
As far as making a name for yourself, you'll still totally be able to. Instead of being a dedicated healer, you could be control or support. Things like setting up cross profession combos will endear yourself to your groupmates. Being able to come up with a good strategy. Being situationally aware so you rez people when they're down, or keep your knockback in reserve to save someone in trouble are going to get noticed. And the best part is you'll be able to play whatever. If you want to take your Guardian to the dungeon, or your Necromancer, or whatever, it'll be fine. People will want the player, not the class.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Leave it to cali59 to explain things in a more refined way. Yet don't you get tired of constantly constructing these pristine walls of text, only to construct another, when more misguided individuals comes by?
Cali, Master...it's no use. this is all the ammo they have left and they're gonna stick to it.
Yeah, I know but that person seemed like they were just honestly asking a question, rather trolling to get a response. Unless he/she was some new breed of ninja troll of deception. ^_^
I do understand what you're saying in that there will be no "specialized classes". But again... There are some (a few at least) people like me who do prefer to be a specialized class. Obviously, the answer is that we just won't play this game. Which is fine. I'm just trying to get the point accross to the rabid gw2 fans that this "no holy trinity" deal is only a plus if you prefer that type of gameplay. Most of you seem to, and that's all good. I don't, so I won't play. You're not wrong for not wanting it, and I'm not wrong for liking it.
I just feel like without the specialized characters, the fighting will be a mess of just running around and spamming your skills. Which is what I see in a lot of the videos. You can dislike the "trinity" all you'd like, but there is a reason classes with specializations were made in the history of RPG's (dating back to DnD as far as I remeber, anything before that was before my time..lol) and I happen to like it. If you don't, you don't. I want to be a tank. I want to be a healer. I don't just want to be dps with different abilities. This will appeal to some, but may loose it's appeal quickly. Just saying... my opinion is just that, and opinion. Not worth much..lol
Cali, Master...it's no use. this is all the ammo they have left and they're gonna stick to it.
Yeah, I know but that person seemed like they were just honestly asking a question, rather trolling to get a response. Unless he/she was some new breed of ninja troll of deception. ^_^
lol, I'm certainly no troll. I hold little allegiance to games. They're just games and I don't like "plating a flag behind them so to say. I like what I like when I like it and do a lot of jumping. My theory always is, if I like it, I'll play it, if I don't, I won't. I'm really just trying to understand this game. It has a lot of love going around. I do appreciate the responses, the more I learn, I can make a more informed decision.
I do understand what you're saying in that there will be no "specialized classes". But again... There are some (a few at least) people like me who do prefer to be a specialized class. Obviously, the answer is that we just won't play this game. Which is fine. I'm just trying to get the point accross to the rabid gw2 fans that this "no holy trinity" deal is only a plus if you prefer that type of gameplay. Most of you seem to, and that's all good. I don't, so I won't play. You're not wrong for not wanting it, and I'm not wrong for liking it.
I just feel like without the specialized characters, the fighting will be a mess of just running around and spamming your skills. Which is what I see in a lot of the videos. You can dislike the "trinity" all you'd like, but there is a reason classes with specializations were made in the history of RPG's (dating back to DnD as far as I remeber, anything before that was before my time..lol) and I happen to like it. If you don't, you don't. I want to be a tank. I want to be a healer. I don't just want to be dps with different abilities. This will appeal to some, but may loose it's appeal quickly. Just saying... my opinion is just that, and opinion. Not worth much..lol
And yet again, your preconceptions are what allow you to falsely judge this game. Just because the game has no trinity doesn't mean there's no strategy involved. It just means that a different form of strategy is require, like in an RTS game or a fighting game. In your typical trinity-based MMO, if your met with a pack of tough mobs what do you do? The tank would pick them up, the damage dealers would nuke them down and the healer would make sure everyone is healthy and that is what happens all the time.
Well here's a quote of such a basic encounter in Guild Wars 2. Spoiler alert... no spamming of skills were involved:
"My party consisted of a warrior (me), 2 eles (my brother and a dev from content design), a guardian and an engineer (both played by 2 more devs from content design). We came upon a room filled with little spiders. And these weren't just any little spiders. They were vicious little shits, let me tell you. Anyway, we rolled up to a ledge that was raised up above the room where the spiders were located, with a staircase that led down to them. I had my long bow equipped, so I fired an explosive arrow down on them and they all came swarming toward us. Before we could even come up with a strategy, they swarmed and completely annihilated us. After rez'ing back up, we went to that ledge again but discussed a strat this time.
The strat discussions we had was not so much, "you do/be this or that" but rather, "Hey, I have this ability. I'll throw this down after you do that thing you said you could do." Obviously we needed a tactic that would involve killing them before they reached us, since we had discovered (the hard way) that taking them head on was suicide. So, just as I fire my AoE explosive arrow to get their attention, the engineer throws down a sticky grenade of some kind on the ground in front of the stairs. As they swarm toward us they all got slowed in the sticky goo and we started lighting them up. The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows, and the engineer sat just out of their reach, using his flamethrower. The guardian stood side by side with the engineer, holding a torch in his offhand blowing awesome blue flames at them. Then as the goo let up, the guardian threw down his barrier at the base of the steps, stopping the spiders in their tracks as we continued firing down range at them. Just as they closed in on us, I threw down my elite banner and sent them all flying back down the stairs. At that point the sticky grenade was back up and they got slowed just as we finished them off.
An important note: If any or all of us attempted to "tank" that... failure my friend. Failure.
When the little spiders were cleaned out, the big spider boss showed up. Our first time fighting it, the guardian and I both went running in. Squash... it one-shot me. Then it turned to the guardian and one-shot him. One of the devs who designed the dungeon was standing over my shoulder and goes... "uhh... ya, you don't wanna be in melee range of that guy." So we changed our strat completely. It was all about using ranged abilities and continually dodging out of the spider boss' poison spit that it kept spitting ALLL over the room.
Honestly, it was so much fun! Knowing that every fight was NOT going to follow the defunct and boring structure of tank/heal/dps made every step forward an exciting adventure of tactical discovery."
I really don't mind that you have a preference for Trinity-based group combat in MMOs. But there's no reason to debase what Guild Wars 2 is trying to achieve with it's non-trinity combat, just because it's different. The fear of the unknown is a common problem amongst us humans and is something we must overcome.
I do understand what you're saying in that there will be no "specialized classes". But again... There are some (a few at least) people like me who do prefer to be a specialized class. Obviously, the answer is that we just won't play this game. Which is fine. I'm just trying to get the point accross to the rabid gw2 fans that this "no holy trinity" deal is only a plus if you prefer that type of gameplay. Most of you seem to, and that's all good. I don't, so I won't play. You're not wrong for not wanting it, and I'm not wrong for liking it.
I just feel like without the specialized characters, the fighting will be a mess of just running around and spamming your skills. Which is what I see in a lot of the videos. You can dislike the "trinity" all you'd like, but there is a reason classes with specializations were made in the history of RPG's (dating back to DnD as far as I remeber, anything before that was before my time..lol) and I happen to like it. If you don't, you don't. I want to be a tank. I want to be a healer. I don't just want to be dps with different abilities. This will appeal to some, but may loose it's appeal quickly. Just saying... my opinion is just that, and opinion. Not worth much..lol
And yet again, your preconceptions are what allow you to falsely judge this game. Just because the game has no trinity doesn't mean there's no strategy involved. It just means that a different form of strategy is require, like in an RTS game or a fighting game. In your typical trinity-based MMO, if your met with a pack of tough mobs what do you do? The tank would pick them up, the damage dealers would nuke them down and the healer would make sure everyone is healthy and that is what happens all the time.
Well here's a quote of such a basic encounter in Guild Wars 2. Spoiler alert... no spamming of skills were involved:
"My party consisted of a warrior (me), 2 eles (my brother and a dev from content design), a guardian and an engineer (both played by 2 more devs from content design). We came upon a room filled with little spiders. And these weren't just any little spiders. They were vicious little shits, let me tell you. Anyway, we rolled up to a ledge that was raised up above the room where the spiders were located, with a staircase that led down to them. I had my long bow equipped, so I fired an explosive arrow down on them and they all came swarming toward us. Before we could even come up with a strategy, they swarmed and completely annihilated us. After rez'ing back up, we went to that ledge again but discussed a strat this time.
The strat discussions we had was not so much, "you do/be this or that" but rather, "Hey, I have this ability. I'll throw this down after you do that thing you said you could do." Obviously we needed a tactic that would involve killing them before they reached us, since we had discovered (the hard way) that taking them head on was suicide. So, just as I fire my AoE explosive arrow to get their attention, the engineer throws down a sticky grenade of some kind on the ground in front of the stairs. As they swarm toward us they all got slowed in the sticky goo and we started lighting them up. The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows, and the engineer sat just out of their reach, using his flamethrower. The guardian stood side by side with the engineer, holding a torch in his offhand blowing awesome blue flames at them. Then as the goo let up, the guardian threw down his barrier at the base of the steps, stopping the spiders in their tracks as we continued firing down range at them. Just as they closed in on us, I threw down my elite banner and sent them all flying back down the stairs. At that point the sticky grenade was back up and they got slowed just as we finished them off.
An important note: If any or all of us attempted to "tank" that... failure my friend. Failure.
When the little spiders were cleaned out, the big spider boss showed up. Our first time fighting it, the guardian and I both went running in. Squash... it one-shot me. Then it turned to the guardian and one-shot him. One of the devs who designed the dungeon was standing over my shoulder and goes... "uhh... ya, you don't wanna be in melee range of that guy." So we changed our strat completely. It was all about using ranged abilities and continually dodging out of the spider boss' poison spit that it kept spitting ALLL over the room.
Honestly, it was so much fun! Knowing that every fight was NOT going to follow the defunct and boring structure of tank/heal/dps made every step forward an exciting adventure of tactical discovery."
I really don't mind that you have a preference for Trinity-based group combat in MMOs. But there's no reason to debase what Guild Wars 2 is trying to achieve with it's non-trinity combat, just because it's different. The fear of the unknown is a common problem amongst us humans and is something we must overcome.
Ok, I read precisely what you wrote....and read the story. So a sticky grenade was thrown to slow the spiders... (CC) and then everyone spammed spells until the mobs died. And I quote : "The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows and the engineer sat just out of reach using his flamethrower". That fight really didn't sound that AMAZING. Now... you can make any battle in a game sound good by explaining it in a fun way, but what you just wrote comes down to a CC and spamming of Meteor Shower, Rain of Arrows and a Flamethrower.
You're also immplying that games with the trinity have no strategy involved.. just tank pulls and cause damage. There is a lot of stategy of knowing how to pull, knowning how much your healer can handle and how much damage you can take. You also have to know you DPS and CC'ers and what they're abilities are. I'm not saying that this game won't have strategy, but even from what I just read, it was a CC and spamming damage spells. Don't try to make it sound better with flashing writting and story telling. I'm sure it will have the same issues with pulling that trinity games have. But without a healer, there will be more pulling and running around trying not to die.. I saw that in the videos. Just because people have roles, doesn't make it boring in MY opinion.
The trinity was made for people who like doing certain things. I like to keep the group safe and take the damage. Can't do that in GW2.. I like to heal the group and keep them alive... can't do that in GW2... All I'm saying is that by eliminating these roles, to SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME, limits the game by telling me I can't play the way I like. I can't play a Tank. So, I won't play the game. It's not your problem and I know you don't care that I won't be playing and I don't expect you to, just trying to say that what may be a plus for you is a huge MINUS for others.
Just becasue I don't like the game you've decided to plant your flag behind, you don't have to come at me. I've said from the beginning that this is just MY opinion. You don't have to like it, listen to it, or respond to it.
I do understand what you're saying in that there will be no "specialized classes". But again... There are some (a few at least) people like me who do prefer to be a specialized class. Obviously, the answer is that we just won't play this game. Which is fine. I'm just trying to get the point accross to the rabid gw2 fans that this "no holy trinity" deal is only a plus if you prefer that type of gameplay. Most of you seem to, and that's all good. I don't, so I won't play. You're not wrong for not wanting it, and I'm not wrong for liking it.
I just feel like without the specialized characters, the fighting will be a mess of just running around and spamming your skills. Which is what I see in a lot of the videos. You can dislike the "trinity" all you'd like, but there is a reason classes with specializations were made in the history of RPG's (dating back to DnD as far as I remeber, anything before that was before my time..lol) and I happen to like it. If you don't, you don't. I want to be a tank. I want to be a healer. I don't just want to be dps with different abilities. This will appeal to some, but may loose it's appeal quickly. Just saying... my opinion is just that, and opinion. Not worth much..lol
The combat system is like any other part of the game. If it appeals to you, it appeals to you. If it doesn't, it doesn't. If you want to have a dedicated role in a holy trinity system, then this might not be the game for you. That's fine with me. I don't push like everybody needs to love this game. I only try to explain it to people who want to learn about it.
The only thing I would comment on in your post is the line I highlighted in orange. The thing is that with GW2, you have a limited skillbar. You can't be a dedicated healer/tank, but you can try to focus your build on control or support by choosing certain weapons, utility skills and traits. And to do that, you have to give up the ability to do other things.
For instance, look at these three Warrior builds (also these don't even take into account traits)
Control (Mace/Shield and Hammer, utility skills control mobs)
Support (Warhorn for group buffs, some vulnerability and control skills, utility skills are group buffs)
Damage (Ranged damage, utility skills are personal buffs)
I've skewed them to be pretty much as focused as possible on one aspect or the other, but the beauty of the system is that they don't have to be. A secondary weapon or a utility skill can be swapped before combat so that you have that key ability you're going to need for that critical moment in the fight.
I've thought for ages now that GW2 really needs a high quality video of 5 developers taking on a difficult boss with commentary of the play by play. I think if they did that it would do a lot towards laying people's fears to rest about what the group dynamics are like.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I do understand what you're saying in that there will be no "specialized classes". But again... There are some (a few at least) people like me who do prefer to be a specialized class. Obviously, the answer is that we just won't play this game. Which is fine. I'm just trying to get the point accross to the rabid gw2 fans that this "no holy trinity" deal is only a plus if you prefer that type of gameplay. Most of you seem to, and that's all good. I don't, so I won't play. You're not wrong for not wanting it, and I'm not wrong for liking it.
I just feel like without the specialized characters, the fighting will be a mess of just running around and spamming your skills. Which is what I see in a lot of the videos. You can dislike the "trinity" all you'd like, but there is a reason classes with specializations were made in the history of RPG's (dating back to DnD as far as I remeber, anything before that was before my time..lol) and I happen to like it. If you don't, you don't. I want to be a tank. I want to be a healer. I don't just want to be dps with different abilities. This will appeal to some, but may loose it's appeal quickly. Just saying... my opinion is just that, and opinion. Not worth much..lol
The combat system is like any other part of the game. If it appeals to you, it appeals to you. If it doesn't, it doesn't. If you want to have a dedicated role in a holy trinity system, then this might not be the game for you. That's fine with me. I don't push like everybody needs to love this game. I only try to explain it to people who want to learn about it.
The only thing I would comment on in your post is the line I highlighted in orange. The thing is that with GW2, you have a limited skillbar. You can't be a dedicated healer/tank, but you can try to focus your build on control or support by choosing certain weapons, utility skills and traits. And to do that, you have to give up the ability to do other things.
For instance, look at these three Warrior builds (also these don't even take into account traits)
Control (Mace/Shield and Hammer, utility skills control mobs)
Support (Warhorn for group buffs, some vulnerability and control skills, utility skills are group buffs)
Damage (Ranged damage, utility skills are personal buffs)
I've skewed them to be pretty much as focused as possible on one aspect or the other, but the beauty of the system is that they don't have to be. A secondary weapon or a utility skill can be swapped before combat so that you have that key ability you're going to need for that critical moment in the fight.
I've thought for ages now that GW2 really needs a high quality video of 5 developers taking on a difficult boss with commentary of the play by play. I think if they did that it would do a lot towards laying people's fears to rest about what the group dynamics are like.
I do appreciate your explainations, unlike the other guy, you at least don't have a mean tone..lol.
Like I said, this just obviously isn't the game for me and I know that now. I do like dedicated roles such as healer and tank. I just don't understand when that became a bad thing..lol. Thank you for your time Cali. I really do hope the game does well. When games do well, they force other developers to make a better product.
If anyone has a "mean tone", it's probably because you obviously don't know enough about GW2 to judge it by your own posts, and they're tired of the misconceptions. Do you actually see the strategy in WoW videos, reflecting the "skill" of the tank or healer? No, unless you're playing, all you see is skill spam. I played WoW for 5 years, I know that videos have little bearing on actual gameplay, and GW2 is no different. To say that you can't defend your fellow players is just ignorant, and likely why anyone would view your premature judgments as annoying. As a Guardian or earth attunement elementalist, for example, you simply have to work to get in between the attacking mob and whoever has drawn its attention. One thing you cannot do, is hit a "TAUNT" skill and have it inexplicably be drawn back to you as if you insulted its mother. The game requires more strategy, not less, since the skills don't do half of your work for you.
Healing is a different story. If you want to play whack a mole with different colored bars, no, GW2 is not for you.
If anyone has a "mean tone", it's probably because you obviously don't know enough about GW2 to judge it by your own posts, and they're tired of the misconceptions. Do you actually see the strategy in WoW videos, reflecting the "skill" of the tank or healer? No, unless you're playing, all you see is skill spam. I played WoW for 5 years, I know that videos have little bearing on actual gameplay, and GW2 is no different. To say that you can't defend your fellow players is just ignorant, and likely why anyone would view your premature judgments as annoying. As a Guardian or earth attunement elementalist, for example, you simply have to work to get in between the attacking mob and whoever has drawn its attention. One thing you cannot do, is hit a "TAUNT" skill and have it inexplicably be drawn back to you as if you insulted its mother. The game requires more strategy, not less, since the skills don't do half of your work for you.
Healing is a different story. If you want to play whack a mole with different colored bars, no, GW2 is not for you.
Wow, things were going well til this post. I didn't say you couldn't defend other players. Just said you couldn't be a dedicated tank. Which as far as I've seen, is true. You can take damage from others in other games without being a tank and just drawing aggro.. can't ya? And yes, I do see the skill in videos with good healers and tanks. Shame you can't.
Now, accordding to you. There is no skill to playing a dedicated healer. Got it. Thanks for the lesson. So Guild Wars 2 is the greatest game and all the rest are.... let me make sure I get this correct... boring battles due to a trinity with wack a mole healers and tanks who's skills do their job for them. Well. I suppose all the other games can just close their doors. We're all wrong. We should be playing this!
You are the essense of what I have seen in the other game forums taking about this game and the reason a lot of the people aren't liking Guild Wars 2 fans. Instead of just thinking that what you like is just the best out there and everyone else is wrong... try taking my stance... which is... Although Guild Wars 2 may be a great game and I wish it all the success in the world... it's just not the game for me. So I'll move on. I'm not saying it will be bad, just not for me.
I think you should just let Cali be the spokesperson. Some of you give the game a bad arrogant name. Just because you like the mechanics doesn't mean everyone will. We're all entiled to our opinions.
Ok, I read precisely what you wrote....and read the story. So a sticky grenade was thrown to slow the spiders... (CC) and then everyone spammed spells until the mobs died. And I quote : "The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows and the engineer sat just out of reach using his flamethrower". That fight really didn't sound that AMAZING. Now... you can make any battle in a game sound good by explaining it in a fun way, but what you just wrote comes down to a CC and spamming of Meteor Shower, Rain of Arrows and a Flamethrower.
You're also immplying that games with the trinity have no strategy involved.. just tank pulls and cause damage. There is a lot of stategy of knowing how to pull, knowning how much your healer can handle and how much damage you can take. You also have to know you DPS and CC'ers and what they're abilities are. I'm not saying that this game won't have strategy, but even from what I just read, it was a CC and spamming damage spells. Don't try to make it sound better with flashing writting and story telling. I'm sure it will have the same issues with pulling that trinity games have. But without a healer, there will be more pulling and running around trying not to die.. I saw that in the videos. Just because people have roles, doesn't make it boring in MY opinion.
The trinity was made for people who like doing certain things. I like to keep the group safe and take the damage. Can't do that in GW2.. I like to heal the group and keep them alive... can't do that in GW2... All I'm saying is that by eliminating these roles, to SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME, limits the game by telling me I can't play the way I like. I can't play a Tank. So, I won't play the game. It's not your problem and I know you don't care that I won't be playing and I don't expect you to, just trying to say that what may be a plus for you is a huge MINUS for others.
Just becasue I don't like the game you've decided to plant your flag behind, you don't have to come at me. I've said from the beginning that this is just MY opinion. You don't have to like it, listen to it, or respond to it.
Seriously!?
For one, please tell me how I can spam a skill that's currently on a 30 second cool down. Pro tip... you don't. You use such a skill when necessary and then follow it up with other appropriate skills. Really sounds like you don't understand the basics of combat when you spew crap like that and I'm sure you must understand at least that much. And the example I just gave was in contrast of a basic mob pull in your standard MMO, which is handled in a more rudamentary way.
I wasn't even trying to devle into the more complex boss mechanics, because believe me... I've done it all in my experience playing Rift (doing all the 5-mans, 10-mans and 20-mans). I've enjoyed my time tanking (sort've), damage dealing (with my mage) and healing (with certain specs). The issue with trinity games is that they have to come up with some of the most arbitary mechanics to make things even remotely challenging. Like this is considered one of the toughest bosses in Rift Tier 1. It doesn't even look remotely difficult, because of how uniform it is, but it's one of those excecution encounters where failing to execute the encounter in the way it is intended usually results in failure. The problem is that the encounter will always be the same and will get stale and boring, making it easy for an experienced player to turn their brain off and go on auto-pilot. Aleast in GW2, a change in the party composition will result in a change in tactics and not automatically result in failure.
Anyway, I did enjoy my experience playing Rift, and even enjoyed some of my time raiding, yet I'm not blinded by the fact that the holy trinity is a flawed and lazy design that's been around too long. You may enjoy it for what it offers and I don't have a problem with that... I just think it's about time for something different that actually works.
Ok, I read precisely what you wrote....and read the story. So a sticky grenade was thrown to slow the spiders... (CC) and then everyone spammed spells until the mobs died. And I quote : "The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows and the engineer sat just out of reach using his flamethrower". That fight really didn't sound that AMAZING. Now... you can make any battle in a game sound good by explaining it in a fun way, but what you just wrote comes down to a CC and spamming of Meteor Shower, Rain of Arrows and a Flamethrower.
You're also immplying that games with the trinity have no strategy involved.. just tank pulls and cause damage. There is a lot of stategy of knowing how to pull, knowning how much your healer can handle and how much damage you can take. You also have to know you DPS and CC'ers and what they're abilities are. I'm not saying that this game won't have strategy, but even from what I just read, it was a CC and spamming damage spells. Don't try to make it sound better with flashing writting and story telling. I'm sure it will have the same issues with pulling that trinity games have. But without a healer, there will be more pulling and running around trying not to die.. I saw that in the videos. Just because people have roles, doesn't make it boring in MY opinion.
The trinity was made for people who like doing certain things. I like to keep the group safe and take the damage. Can't do that in GW2.. I like to heal the group and keep them alive... can't do that in GW2... All I'm saying is that by eliminating these roles, to SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME, limits the game by telling me I can't play the way I like. I can't play a Tank. So, I won't play the game. It's not your problem and I know you don't care that I won't be playing and I don't expect you to, just trying to say that what may be a plus for you is a huge MINUS for others.
Just becasue I don't like the game you've decided to plant your flag behind, you don't have to come at me. I've said from the beginning that this is just MY opinion. You don't have to like it, listen to it, or respond to it.
Seriously!?
For one, please tell me how I can spam a skill that's currently on a 30 second cool down. Pro tip... you don't. You use such a skill when necessary and then follow it up with other appropriate skills. Really sounds like you don't understand the basics of combat when you spew crap like that and I'm sure you must understand at least that much. And the example I just gave was in contrast of a basic mob pull in your standard MMO, which is handled in a more rudamentary way.
I wasn't even trying to devle into the more complex boss mechanics, because believe me... I've done it all in my experience playing Rift (doing all the 5-mans, 10-mans and 20-mans). I've enjoyed my time tanking (sort've), damage dealing (with my mage) and healing (with certain specs). The issue with trinity games is that they have to come up with some of the most arbitary mechanics to make things even remotely challenging. Like this is considered one of the toughest bosses in Rift Tier 1. It doesn't even look remotely difficult, because of how uniform it is, but it's one of those excecution encounters where failing to execute the encounter in the way it is intended usually results in failure. The problem is that the encounter will always be the same and will get stale and boring, making it easy for an experienced player to turn their brain off and go on auto-pilot. Aleast in GW2, a change in the party composition will result in a change in tactics and not automatically result in failure.
Anyway, I did enjoy my experience playing Rift, and even enjoyed some of my time raiding, yet I'm not blinded by the fact that the holy trinity is a flawed and lazy design that's been around too long. You may enjoy it for what it offers and I don't have a problem with that... I just think it's about time for something different that actually works.
Master don't get so worked up by ignorance bro,
Just let time tell it, people have choices, hopefully he'll choose to play it and see, he's about to counter the post with something that most likely is what he wants to believe, not facts and it's only opinions you know.
A lot of people hate it when new mmos get very hyped up, and will try to be the outlaws of the hype because everyone is used to hyped games failing so they beleive any hyped up game mainy one that has it's own goal,to fail, an it's more so it's more so a "wait and see attitude." something everyone should have, I'm only confident that for once they changed something only because when I went and tried it out my naysaying attitude bit me in the ass ha ha, boy was I ever wrong about GW 2 but eh to each their own I mean I'm sure this game will have a good launch and it managed to get the responsive combat and abilities correct, that's the only thing I don't mind when people try to copy WoW, it has the most smoothest combat ever and I was happy as hell when I found an MMO to do that without having auto attack. Only a few had smoothnest, Rift did mainy with mounts makes PVP much more enjoyable, AoC did as well.
But yea I'm just going to leave it at that yall enjoy yall selves.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
I've thought for ages now that GW2 really needs a high quality video of 5 developers taking on a difficult boss with commentary of the play by play. I think if they did that it would do a lot towards laying people's fears to rest about what the group dynamics are like.
Yeah. That's the one thing I do hope ArenaNet takes from Bioware, with how they demonstrated their flashpoints, before people got a chance to try them out. That and a WvWvW preview would be ideal.
Ok, I read precisely what you wrote....and read the story. So a sticky grenade was thrown to slow the spiders... (CC) and then everyone spammed spells until the mobs died. And I quote : "The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows and the engineer sat just out of reach using his flamethrower". That fight really didn't sound that AMAZING. Now... you can make any battle in a game sound good by explaining it in a fun way, but what you just wrote comes down to a CC and spamming of Meteor Shower, Rain of Arrows and a Flamethrower.
You're also immplying that games with the trinity have no strategy involved.. just tank pulls and cause damage. There is a lot of stategy of knowing how to pull, knowning how much your healer can handle and how much damage you can take. You also have to know you DPS and CC'ers and what they're abilities are. I'm not saying that this game won't have strategy, but even from what I just read, it was a CC and spamming damage spells. Don't try to make it sound better with flashing writting and story telling. I'm sure it will have the same issues with pulling that trinity games have. But without a healer, there will be more pulling and running around trying not to die.. I saw that in the videos. Just because people have roles, doesn't make it boring in MY opinion.
The trinity was made for people who like doing certain things. I like to keep the group safe and take the damage. Can't do that in GW2.. I like to heal the group and keep them alive... can't do that in GW2... All I'm saying is that by eliminating these roles, to SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME, limits the game by telling me I can't play the way I like. I can't play a Tank. So, I won't play the game. It's not your problem and I know you don't care that I won't be playing and I don't expect you to, just trying to say that what may be a plus for you is a huge MINUS for others.
Just becasue I don't like the game you've decided to plant your flag behind, you don't have to come at me. I've said from the beginning that this is just MY opinion. You don't have to like it, listen to it, or respond to it.
Seriously!?
For one, please tell me how I can spam a skill that's currently on a 30 second cool down. Pro tip... you don't. You use such a skill when necessary and then follow it up with other appropriate skills. Really sounds like you don't understand the basics of combat when you spew crap like that and I'm sure you must understand at least that much. And the example I just gave was in contrast of a basic mob pull in your standard MMO, which is handled in a more rudamentary way.
I wasn't even trying to devle into the more complex boss mechanics, because believe me... I've done it all in my experience playing Rift (doing all the 5-mans, 10-mans and 20-mans). I've enjoyed my time tanking (sort've), damage dealing (with my mage) and healing (with certain specs). The issue with trinity games is that they have to come up with some of the most arbitary mechanics to make things even remotely challenging. Like this is considered one of the toughest bosses in Rift Tier 1. It doesn't even look remotely difficult, because of how uniform it is, but it's one of those excecution encounters where failing to execute the encounter in the way it is intended usually results in failure. The problem is that the encounter will always be the same and will get stale and boring, making it easy for an experienced player to turn their brain off and go on auto-pilot. Aleast in GW2, a change in the party composition will result in a change in tactics and not automatically result in failure.
Anyway, I did enjoy my experience playing Rift, and even enjoyed some of my time raiding, yet I'm not blinded by the fact that the holy trinity is a flawed and lazy design that's been around too long. You may enjoy it for what it offers and I don't have a problem with that... I just think it's about time for something different that actually works.
Master don't get so worked up by ignorance bro,
Just let time tell it, people have choices, hopefully he'll choose to play it and see, he's about to counter the post with something that most likely is what he wants to believe, not facts and it's only opinions you know.
A lot of people hate it when new mmos get very hyped up, and will try to be the outlaws of the hype because everyone is used to hyped games failing so they beleive any hyped up game mainy one that has it's own goal,to fail, an it's more so it's more so a "wait and see attitude." something everyone should have, I'm only confident that for once they changed something only because when I went and tried it out my naysaying attitude bit me in the ass ha ha, boy was I ever wrong about GW 2 but eh to each their own I mean I'm sure this game will have a good launch and it managed to get the responsive combat and abilities correct, that's the only thing I don't mind when people try to copy WoW, it has the most smoothest combat ever and I was happy as hell when I found an MMO to do that without having auto attack. Only a few had smoothnest, Rift did mainy with mounts makes PVP much more enjoyable, AoC did as well.
But yea I'm just going to leave it at that yall enjoy yall selves
First to Master, in the story you presented... there were only a few skills mentioned. If, like you say, they are on a 30 second timer.... and they were the only ones mentioned... what was the guy doing while waiting? I would assume there's no auto-attack, so ..... I'm just going off what you presented, I don't know the skills obviously, but they were the only ones mentioned. How long was that fight against some spiders? Either way...
Aparently, you guys are reading what I'm writting.. which is fine I spose. I said... the game is obviously not for me. Not saying it's bad, and I do wish it success, it's just not for me. What it comes down to is that I like dedicated classes. So... I move on. There no ignorance at this point and I don't need to hear any more. No dedicated healer, no dedicated tank... that's all I cared about. You have done a wonderful job of informing me of the game and I hope you love it!
Why should it be an insult to you that I don't like the game? You think getting rid of the locked in roles is good based on your playstyle.. I don't care for it based on my playstyle. It's an agree to disagree area. I'm not coming back with any anger or misrepresented facts... I just don't like it. My opinion. That's all. That's what I've been saying for the start.
But your opinion that the trinity system is "flawed and lazy" is just that.. your opinion, not a "fact". And I'm not blinded, I just prefer the trinity. You're actually saying what I think and like to play is incorrect by saying that your beliefs are "fact".
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Everytime I worry about that, I remind myself that the alternative is probably a more traditional "grind and brag" formula for endgame - which I'm absolutely tired of, and I try to have some faith that ANet can pull off something different and maintain interest. If they can, it will probably be their most important "innovation" of all.
Also, I was thinking two things.
1.) Mounts. I don't know if anyone's mentioned it or not, but I think mounts would improve the game. They would be largely unnecessary, but would be an excellent option for people who wanted to explore the world without quite as much reliance on Fast Travel. It's not surprising that GW2 would employ the travel method that ANet brought to the MMO world, but I think land mounts would also spruce things up for people who just like to ride around and explore or get to point B without a cold loading screen. Flying mounts are obviously off the table, however, since they would require a lot more development time and would potentially spoil certain areas of the game.
2.) Open world PVP. No, GW2 does not need Open world PVP, but I was reading the posts of people who think it's necessary. First of all, since there are no "good" or "bad" factions, it's unlikely that typical overworld PVP will ever be done the way WoW does it, but I'm actually more excited about the idea of The Mists as a giant zoned PVP game than I ever was about ganking/being ganked while questing. I imagine it as the Abyss from Aion, only not gear-dependent, hollow, and basically terrible. There will be a vast battleground to hide in, explore, form groups or defend objectives, all constantly available. It will offer much more comraderie than "Asmo ganked me at 34:45, someone get him!". I think open world PVP is evolving. Even SWTOR doesn't do it the old way, and I for one think it's great.
Of course if you still think WoW's formula is the bee's knees, you're more than welcome to roll on a PVP server in Azeroth, but you might be missing out.
Regarding the combat, I still don't see much different, not saying it doesn't look fun, but I've played just about every mmo there has been, and it doesn't look that unique is all. Also, I still see casters and rangers standing still to attack, then run... Not that different then most games out. Like a fire Mage in wow.
Now to your point, it doesn't kill the "holy trinity" is just makes it more versatile? Ok, so it is still there as I see in the videos. It sounds more like ffxiv, where I can switch my skills/class by switching gear, while still maintaining more basic skills. They don't lock you in to a class.. if that's the case, it sounds ok.
And also, I don't want to see it fail, never said that once. I'm not that kinda guy. I'm just sick of seeing post from GW2 enthusiast shitting on every other game out, when the large majority of them have not even played the game. Just because I want to see the "this game sucks" Post doesn't mean I want it to fail. I just like seeing how fast a community turns on a game upon release. Happens in EVERY game I've ever seen on here.
So that last post got me thinking. If, like you say, the roles are still there, but you can choose whom to fill it as you're not locked into a class/role..... how does this eliminate the holy trinity? It's still there.... Perhaps they've just taken out the dedicated healer role? So they just disrupted the trinity?
Like I said, and I don't think I'm alone....I like having a dedicated class that I can learn and excel in. I like being a dedicated healer and keeping my group alive. Making a name for myself with my healing skills. Is that wrong? Should I want the demise of a "trinity"?
I don't see how a lack of dedicated roles in a game makes it better? And as to not locking you into a role, or letting you switch, that sounds ok, but once people start locking themselves into the roles, the trinity comes back.
Holy trinity is eliminated in a way mobs react in battle. Tank cannot hold aggro in gw2, mobs usually attack the weakest (lowest armor rating for example), or the one that does most damage to them. You cannot play gw like wow for example where tank goes in, takes aggro, keeps threat high so he gets all hits, healer stays back and heals everyone. Now you can't heal others, you can't take all aggro (no pure tanks), that leaves what? Anything but not holy trinity!
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My Guild Wars titles
As far as the combat goes, it does look different to me. This is one of the first videos I saw of the game, and being able to cast while moving and dodge is extremely clear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iNrTmxDgMck#t=210s
It's not necessarily even being about being unique, it's about creating the best game they can. For instance, they've even admitted they were inspired by Borderlands when they created the Downed State. It doesn't have to be totally original. Putting their own spin on it and incorporating it into a AAA MMO is more than enough.
As far as tying skills to weapons goes, that came about for two reasons; GW1's way of having 8 skills from 2 professions was a balancing nightmare, and also there were people that were terrible at it. This system is easier to balance for one thing. It also makes it impossible to totally gimp yourself, while still allowing more skilled people to get more out of it.
Going back to the videos, you're just not going to see everything in videos when it comes to the combat system. Things like that there's no ally targetted skills just aren't going to stand out unless you're looking for them. Or that each profession is totally viable at both melee and range.
I was going to comment on the part about the holy trinity but I see you've made another post about that so I'll just respond to that specifically.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Well if the combat was just like every other MMO out there, then please point me to another MMO with a Mage-like class, as mobile and as versatile as the Elementalist, ArenaNet has create for Guild Wars 2. Because the reason I cannot enjoy current MMO combat is because it is full of stupid limitations. Like always feeling weak if you want to create a hybrid character, or being rooted in place by cast-bar skills or skill animations and not being able to avoid attacks (beyond simple LOS'ing and RNG). You can see from these 2 vids of devs playing the Elementalist, with fairly different builds, that the game lacks these stupid limitations and is better for it.
- Elementalist Gamescom PvP
- Elementalist G Star PvP
As for the holy trinity, you seem to be mistaken. I'll use the example of Rift. In Rift, they have the Soul Tree system, where you're giving an ample amount of variety in the way you can play a class. Like I can create a Warrior that does both melee and range DPS very well (like so), but can also tank well (as such). The Warrior cannot do both things at the same time, because these are different specs that I can only switch between out-of-combat, but it can still perform these very different roles. Now the thing about Rift, is that even with this variety, the game's combat mechanics still conform to the Holy Trinity of "Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer". So as a tank I taunt all the mobs, make sure they only attack me, as I barely take any damage and that pretty much sums up what I do. That's the Holy trinity in a nut-shell; where you have 1 of those 3 strict roles (some MMOs add support & CC to the mix), you perform your role and that's what you do.
The thing about Guild Wars 2 is that, no matter how I look at it, the game just doesn't support such a system. Izzy said something similar; "Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it." And quite frankly, just by looking at the skills you can mix an match, you'll eventually understand that it is simply not possible to build a viable tank or healer. You cannot build a character that's impervious to damage and can hold aggro, when there's no threat mechanic or any aggro generating skills. You cannot build character that just heals their allies, because it is impossible to fill up even half of your skill-set with ally heals and all the ally heals are weak regen buffs that can't keep anyone up. Well I could go on but I simply cannot be bothered and none of us will understand for full implications of this until we actually do a dungeon run. But allow me to leave you with a post, from someone who has actually completed a Guild Wars 2 dungeon run on explorable mode.
agreed, I can see why GW1 doesnt need mounts but I think GW2 could really use them.
@Master10k TY for that post. Good read.
Base on the previews, they can improve by providing an Open Beta or Release date.
Otherwise, I dunno how I can even remotely judge a game that isn't out.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
The first thing that people need to understand is that there's nothing magical about a Trinity in gameplay. It's easy to think of systems which would require fewer or more roles. If mobs hit so hard and the game was designed such that every encounter required a dedicated debuffing class, that would be a Quaternary. If there were no healers and everyone just regenerated if they didn't get hit for a few seconds, that would be a Binary, or perhaps even a Unity.
There's no standard definition of Holy Trinity but for me, it means a game like WoW. Or rather, at low levels or the early days of games like WoW or EQ, you just have classes that can do different things. They can tank, damage, crowd control, or heal all to varying degrees. You can have encounters which can be pretty freeform in group composition. Maybe you can have a weak tank but need a healer and an offhealer. Maybe you have two tanks juggling the mob. Maybe you kill it so fast you don't really need healers. Whatever. It's only when you get to the high end, where specialization becomes mandatory that to me it becomes a Holy Trinity game. In a game like WoW, if you're a DPS, that is literally all you do. Every single decision is based around maximizing your DPS. Sure, you might occassionally CC a mob, or there might be some oddball encounter where you're actually the tank, but in 99% of cases, if you're DPS, you're DPS. You might have a dual spec and another set of gear that lets you be a Tank for some other encounter, but you're one or the other.
Two of ArenaNet's goals are to make their game more social, and to make combat more active. Their various methods for trying to get rid of this Holy Trinity serve those goals.
For the social aspect, ArenaNet wants to let you play with your friends, regardless of class. They don't want you to have to turn someone away because you need another class. Or force someone to play the healer they don't want to.
As far as active combat goes, getting rid of ally targeting puts less of an emphasis on health bars. They want you to react to what is happening on the screen. Buffs stack in duration, not power, so they're never really wasted. If you see someone getting hit, you can always do a party or ground based spell without worrying if someone else is also doing it.
The holy trinity too is limiting. You have tank, healer, 3 DPS. It's static. You don't have DPS or healers worrying about taking hits because they literally can't. They just have to do their rotations to be successful.
With GW2, that pure power to specialize won't be there. Your self heal is the best heal, but it's not a complete heal and it's on a long cooldown. The other thing too is that because they aren't rigidly defined, anybody can take a skill which does anything. A person can skew their build towards controlling the mob, but someone else might take a knockdown or a trap to assist you. The encounter will be won by being able to apply all your groups' skills together in a way that gives you a chance and then being able to react to the changing circumstances of the battle.
As far as making a name for yourself, you'll still totally be able to. Instead of being a dedicated healer, you could be control or support. Things like setting up cross profession combos will endear yourself to your groupmates. Being able to come up with a good strategy. Being situationally aware so you rez people when they're down, or keep your knockback in reserve to save someone in trouble are going to get noticed. And the best part is you'll be able to play whatever. If you want to take your Guardian to the dungeon, or your Necromancer, or whatever, it'll be fine. People will want the player, not the class.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Cali, Master...it's no use. this is all the ammo they have left and they're gonna stick to it.
Leave it to cali59 to explain things in a more refined way. Yet don't you get tired of constantly constructing these pristine walls of text, only to construct another, when more misguided individuals comes by?
Yeah, I know but that person seemed like they were just honestly asking a question, rather trolling to get a response. Unless he/she was some new breed of ninja troll of deception. ^_^
I do understand what you're saying in that there will be no "specialized classes". But again... There are some (a few at least) people like me who do prefer to be a specialized class. Obviously, the answer is that we just won't play this game. Which is fine. I'm just trying to get the point accross to the rabid gw2 fans that this "no holy trinity" deal is only a plus if you prefer that type of gameplay. Most of you seem to, and that's all good. I don't, so I won't play. You're not wrong for not wanting it, and I'm not wrong for liking it.
I just feel like without the specialized characters, the fighting will be a mess of just running around and spamming your skills. Which is what I see in a lot of the videos. You can dislike the "trinity" all you'd like, but there is a reason classes with specializations were made in the history of RPG's (dating back to DnD as far as I remeber, anything before that was before my time..lol) and I happen to like it. If you don't, you don't. I want to be a tank. I want to be a healer. I don't just want to be dps with different abilities. This will appeal to some, but may loose it's appeal quickly. Just saying... my opinion is just that, and opinion. Not worth much..lol
lol, I'm certainly no troll. I hold little allegiance to games. They're just games and I don't like "plating a flag behind them so to say. I like what I like when I like it and do a lot of jumping. My theory always is, if I like it, I'll play it, if I don't, I won't. I'm really just trying to understand this game. It has a lot of love going around. I do appreciate the responses, the more I learn, I can make a more informed decision.
And yet again, your preconceptions are what allow you to falsely judge this game. Just because the game has no trinity doesn't mean there's no strategy involved. It just means that a different form of strategy is require, like in an RTS game or a fighting game. In your typical trinity-based MMO, if your met with a pack of tough mobs what do you do? The tank would pick them up, the damage dealers would nuke them down and the healer would make sure everyone is healthy and that is what happens all the time.
Well here's a quote of such a basic encounter in Guild Wars 2. Spoiler alert... no spamming of skills were involved:
"My party consisted of a warrior (me), 2 eles (my brother and a dev from content design), a guardian and an engineer (both played by 2 more devs from content design). We came upon a room filled with little spiders. And these weren't just any little spiders. They were vicious little shits, let me tell you. Anyway, we rolled up to a ledge that was raised up above the room where the spiders were located, with a staircase that led down to them. I had my long bow equipped, so I fired an explosive arrow down on them and they all came swarming toward us. Before we could even come up with a strategy, they swarmed and completely annihilated us. After rez'ing back up, we went to that ledge again but discussed a strat this time.
The strat discussions we had was not so much, "you do/be this or that" but rather, "Hey, I have this ability. I'll throw this down after you do that thing you said you could do." Obviously we needed a tactic that would involve killing them before they reached us, since we had discovered (the hard way) that taking them head on was suicide. So, just as I fire my AoE explosive arrow to get their attention, the engineer throws down a sticky grenade of some kind on the ground in front of the stairs. As they swarm toward us they all got slowed in the sticky goo and we started lighting them up. The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows, and the engineer sat just out of their reach, using his flamethrower. The guardian stood side by side with the engineer, holding a torch in his offhand blowing awesome blue flames at them. Then as the goo let up, the guardian threw down his barrier at the base of the steps, stopping the spiders in their tracks as we continued firing down range at them. Just as they closed in on us, I threw down my elite banner and sent them all flying back down the stairs. At that point the sticky grenade was back up and they got slowed just as we finished them off.
An important note: If any or all of us attempted to "tank" that... failure my friend. Failure.
When the little spiders were cleaned out, the big spider boss showed up. Our first time fighting it, the guardian and I both went running in. Squash... it one-shot me. Then it turned to the guardian and one-shot him. One of the devs who designed the dungeon was standing over my shoulder and goes... "uhh... ya, you don't wanna be in melee range of that guy." So we changed our strat completely. It was all about using ranged abilities and continually dodging out of the spider boss' poison spit that it kept spitting ALLL over the room.
Honestly, it was so much fun! Knowing that every fight was NOT going to follow the defunct and boring structure of tank/heal/dps made every step forward an exciting adventure of tactical discovery."
I really don't mind that you have a preference for Trinity-based group combat in MMOs. But there's no reason to debase what Guild Wars 2 is trying to achieve with it's non-trinity combat, just because it's different. The fear of the unknown is a common problem amongst us humans and is something we must overcome.
Ok, I read precisely what you wrote....and read the story. So a sticky grenade was thrown to slow the spiders... (CC) and then everyone spammed spells until the mobs died. And I quote : "The 2 ele's were dropping meteor showers, I was using my rain of arrows and the engineer sat just out of reach using his flamethrower". That fight really didn't sound that AMAZING. Now... you can make any battle in a game sound good by explaining it in a fun way, but what you just wrote comes down to a CC and spamming of Meteor Shower, Rain of Arrows and a Flamethrower.
You're also immplying that games with the trinity have no strategy involved.. just tank pulls and cause damage. There is a lot of stategy of knowing how to pull, knowning how much your healer can handle and how much damage you can take. You also have to know you DPS and CC'ers and what they're abilities are. I'm not saying that this game won't have strategy, but even from what I just read, it was a CC and spamming damage spells. Don't try to make it sound better with flashing writting and story telling. I'm sure it will have the same issues with pulling that trinity games have. But without a healer, there will be more pulling and running around trying not to die.. I saw that in the videos. Just because people have roles, doesn't make it boring in MY opinion.
The trinity was made for people who like doing certain things. I like to keep the group safe and take the damage. Can't do that in GW2.. I like to heal the group and keep them alive... can't do that in GW2... All I'm saying is that by eliminating these roles, to SOME PEOPLE LIKE ME, limits the game by telling me I can't play the way I like. I can't play a Tank. So, I won't play the game. It's not your problem and I know you don't care that I won't be playing and I don't expect you to, just trying to say that what may be a plus for you is a huge MINUS for others.
Just becasue I don't like the game you've decided to plant your flag behind, you don't have to come at me. I've said from the beginning that this is just MY opinion. You don't have to like it, listen to it, or respond to it.
The combat system is like any other part of the game. If it appeals to you, it appeals to you. If it doesn't, it doesn't. If you want to have a dedicated role in a holy trinity system, then this might not be the game for you. That's fine with me. I don't push like everybody needs to love this game. I only try to explain it to people who want to learn about it.
The only thing I would comment on in your post is the line I highlighted in orange. The thing is that with GW2, you have a limited skillbar. You can't be a dedicated healer/tank, but you can try to focus your build on control or support by choosing certain weapons, utility skills and traits. And to do that, you have to give up the ability to do other things.
For instance, look at these three Warrior builds (also these don't even take into account traits)
Control (Mace/Shield and Hammer, utility skills control mobs)
Support (Warhorn for group buffs, some vulnerability and control skills, utility skills are group buffs)
Damage (Ranged damage, utility skills are personal buffs)
I've skewed them to be pretty much as focused as possible on one aspect or the other, but the beauty of the system is that they don't have to be. A secondary weapon or a utility skill can be swapped before combat so that you have that key ability you're going to need for that critical moment in the fight.
I've thought for ages now that GW2 really needs a high quality video of 5 developers taking on a difficult boss with commentary of the play by play. I think if they did that it would do a lot towards laying people's fears to rest about what the group dynamics are like.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I do appreciate your explainations, unlike the other guy, you at least don't have a mean tone..lol.
Like I said, this just obviously isn't the game for me and I know that now. I do like dedicated roles such as healer and tank. I just don't understand when that became a bad thing..lol. Thank you for your time Cali. I really do hope the game does well. When games do well, they force other developers to make a better product.
If anyone has a "mean tone", it's probably because you obviously don't know enough about GW2 to judge it by your own posts, and they're tired of the misconceptions. Do you actually see the strategy in WoW videos, reflecting the "skill" of the tank or healer? No, unless you're playing, all you see is skill spam. I played WoW for 5 years, I know that videos have little bearing on actual gameplay, and GW2 is no different. To say that you can't defend your fellow players is just ignorant, and likely why anyone would view your premature judgments as annoying. As a Guardian or earth attunement elementalist, for example, you simply have to work to get in between the attacking mob and whoever has drawn its attention. One thing you cannot do, is hit a "TAUNT" skill and have it inexplicably be drawn back to you as if you insulted its mother. The game requires more strategy, not less, since the skills don't do half of your work for you.
Healing is a different story. If you want to play whack a mole with different colored bars, no, GW2 is not for you.
Wow, things were going well til this post. I didn't say you couldn't defend other players. Just said you couldn't be a dedicated tank. Which as far as I've seen, is true. You can take damage from others in other games without being a tank and just drawing aggro.. can't ya? And yes, I do see the skill in videos with good healers and tanks. Shame you can't.
Now, accordding to you. There is no skill to playing a dedicated healer. Got it. Thanks for the lesson. So Guild Wars 2 is the greatest game and all the rest are.... let me make sure I get this correct... boring battles due to a trinity with wack a mole healers and tanks who's skills do their job for them. Well. I suppose all the other games can just close their doors. We're all wrong. We should be playing this!
You are the essense of what I have seen in the other game forums taking about this game and the reason a lot of the people aren't liking Guild Wars 2 fans. Instead of just thinking that what you like is just the best out there and everyone else is wrong... try taking my stance... which is... Although Guild Wars 2 may be a great game and I wish it all the success in the world... it's just not the game for me. So I'll move on. I'm not saying it will be bad, just not for me.
I think you should just let Cali be the spokesperson. Some of you give the game a bad arrogant name. Just because you like the mechanics doesn't mean everyone will. We're all entiled to our opinions.
Seriously!?
For one, please tell me how I can spam a skill that's currently on a 30 second cool down. Pro tip... you don't. You use such a skill when necessary and then follow it up with other appropriate skills. Really sounds like you don't understand the basics of combat when you spew crap like that and I'm sure you must understand at least that much. And the example I just gave was in contrast of a basic mob pull in your standard MMO, which is handled in a more rudamentary way.
I wasn't even trying to devle into the more complex boss mechanics, because believe me... I've done it all in my experience playing Rift (doing all the 5-mans, 10-mans and 20-mans). I've enjoyed my time tanking (sort've), damage dealing (with my mage) and healing (with certain specs). The issue with trinity games is that they have to come up with some of the most arbitary mechanics to make things even remotely challenging. Like this is considered one of the toughest bosses in Rift Tier 1. It doesn't even look remotely difficult, because of how uniform it is, but it's one of those excecution encounters where failing to execute the encounter in the way it is intended usually results in failure. The problem is that the encounter will always be the same and will get stale and boring, making it easy for an experienced player to turn their brain off and go on auto-pilot. Aleast in GW2, a change in the party composition will result in a change in tactics and not automatically result in failure.
Anyway, I did enjoy my experience playing Rift, and even enjoyed some of my time raiding, yet I'm not blinded by the fact that the holy trinity is a flawed and lazy design that's been around too long. You may enjoy it for what it offers and I don't have a problem with that... I just think it's about time for something different that actually works.
Master don't get so worked up by ignorance bro,
Just let time tell it, people have choices, hopefully he'll choose to play it and see, he's about to counter the post with something that most likely is what he wants to believe, not facts and it's only opinions you know.
A lot of people hate it when new mmos get very hyped up, and will try to be the outlaws of the hype because everyone is used to hyped games failing so they beleive any hyped up game mainy one that has it's own goal,to fail, an it's more so it's more so a "wait and see attitude." something everyone should have, I'm only confident that for once they changed something only because when I went and tried it out my naysaying attitude bit me in the ass ha ha, boy was I ever wrong about GW 2 but eh to each their own I mean I'm sure this game will have a good launch and it managed to get the responsive combat and abilities correct, that's the only thing I don't mind when people try to copy WoW, it has the most smoothest combat ever and I was happy as hell when I found an MMO to do that without having auto attack. Only a few had smoothnest, Rift did mainy with mounts makes PVP much more enjoyable, AoC did as well.
But yea I'm just going to leave it at that yall enjoy yall selves.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Yeah. That's the one thing I do hope ArenaNet takes from Bioware, with how they demonstrated their flashpoints, before people got a chance to try them out. That and a WvWvW preview would be ideal.
First to Master, in the story you presented... there were only a few skills mentioned. If, like you say, they are on a 30 second timer.... and they were the only ones mentioned... what was the guy doing while waiting? I would assume there's no auto-attack, so ..... I'm just going off what you presented, I don't know the skills obviously, but they were the only ones mentioned. How long was that fight against some spiders? Either way...
Aparently, you guys are reading what I'm writting.. which is fine I spose. I said... the game is obviously not for me. Not saying it's bad, and I do wish it success, it's just not for me. What it comes down to is that I like dedicated classes. So... I move on. There no ignorance at this point and I don't need to hear any more. No dedicated healer, no dedicated tank... that's all I cared about. You have done a wonderful job of informing me of the game and I hope you love it!
Why should it be an insult to you that I don't like the game? You think getting rid of the locked in roles is good based on your playstyle.. I don't care for it based on my playstyle. It's an agree to disagree area. I'm not coming back with any anger or misrepresented facts... I just don't like it. My opinion. That's all. That's what I've been saying for the start.
But your opinion that the trinity system is "flawed and lazy" is just that.. your opinion, not a "fact". And I'm not blinded, I just prefer the trinity. You're actually saying what I think and like to play is incorrect by saying that your beliefs are "fact".
Amazing.