What do you mean by it looks bland. Performing one role all of the time would seem a lot more dull than being able to peform mutliple roles depending on the situation.
No modern MMORPG has a "pure" healer class. Every healing class has skills that allow them to kill mobs so they have some level of solo ability (greater or lesser by MMO). The "pure" healer concept is based on end-game raising in some games where some players do nothing but stare at heal bars and "save the day" through heals/cures/buffs/etc.
The support roles in GW2 will allow for some of this while also allowing a more involved gameplay experience. That's a win/win for me personally.
Actually, I get the impression that they are spinning that there wont be a dedicated healer. In the end, I expect that people will build characters to be dedicated healers and that groups will search hard for these players.
If you're familiar with GW team combat mechanics when reading the information the dev statements, then you know the variety that can be possible in group setups. They've spread out the healing skills so that there isn't one dedicated healer class. Besides that, GW already showed that healing was just one viable group option, of the damage recovery kind, but there's also other kinds like damage protection and damage deflection that were totally viable and effective replacement builds.
In fact, GW was a great example of all kinds of different non-trinity team setups that were very effective, so that makes their talk about trying out different things with GW2's team possibilities not that hard to believe: it was already possible in GW, next to the more traditional team setups.
About GW2, a dev had commented already how he managed in his play runs to cope with a dungeon effectively with a full-elementalist team. I think the best way to describe GW2's team combat as far as we know for now, is that there'll still be all kinds of roles to fulfill in GW2, and that each class can switch versatile between different roles, but that you're not bound to traditional team setups; the mechanic that everyone has heal skills, that there's no traditional dedicated healer class and is forced to take along a heal skill and that everyone can revive anyone pretty much encourages non-tradition.
'The traditional model for grouping in MMOs relies on three roles for players to fill: healer, tank, and DPS (damage dealers). Players design their characters to fulfill one of these roles and rarely deviate from it while in a group. If you’re the healer, for example, you wouldn’t expect to stop healing until the dungeon is cleared. This model has been in place since the birth of grouping in MMOs, and very few games have seen success when they attempt to break away from it. Would ArenaNet dare desecrate this holy trinity—the most sacred relic of MMO-land? You bet your Charr they would.
Now, before defenders of the status quo begin screaming blasphemy and rioting in the streets, let me reassure you—ArenaNet isn’t on a crusade to destroy the healer-tank-DPS tradition entirely. Instead, it intends to transform it into something even more accessible and enjoyable. As Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum explains it, “We don’t want players to take on strict roles, but there are still roles that need to be fulfilled in combat… Every character is versatile, so it’s up to you to recognize what other players are doing, what the situation is, and react to it.” The developers still want players to tank enemies, restore health to their friends and tear through enemy flesh like tissue paper as they always have in MMOs. The big change is that they want each player to do all of those things, as the situation warrants.
Flannum describes his vision for the game’s combat as “controlled chaos fun,” adding that “in MMOs, combat gets really fun when things go wrong. When the tank goes down and you have to yell at the off-tank to grab the boss’s attention—that’s when things get exciting. Our combat makes that the constant state of things, so you’re always in an exciting situation… but we try to over-communicate visually what’s happening around you, so you always know what’s going on and it’s not just mass chaos.” It sounds good to us, but can they pull it off effectively?
I got to experience this “controlled chaos” firsthand during my playtime at ArenaNet’s HQ near Seattle, Washington. I was an Elementalist teamed up with an assortment of the four available classes as my allies. We ventured into a dark, foreboding swamp to take on The Shadow Behemoth, and let me assure you, the 12 story-tall demon certainly lived up to its name. Its health was split between its head and two massive, shadowy hands capable of rocking the earth beneath us, knocking us down.
We knew this boss would take coordination, and although none of us had chosen to be a “tank” or “healer” when making our character, it didn’t take long for the familiar shouts of “OK, I’ll tank him” and “I’ve got your back; I’ll heal you!” were shouted across the room as the warriors pulled out shields and the Elementalists switched to their water attunement, granting them healing abilities.
But I’m not the healing type, so I stuck with my dual-dagger fire setup which gave me powerful AoE skills. I had a ton of fun swapping between my attunements to fill different roles: I’d jump to my water attunement to freeze a lesser demon harassing our healers, then throw down a firewall in front of our Rangers so that their arrows caught fire en route to the boss (player abilities can combine together in hundreds of different, logical ways to produce new, unique effects), and blasted the boss’s face with a few fireballs of my own whenever I had some spare time.
It was going well—and then our healer died. In almost any other MMO, this would be a wipe; we’d all be dead. But we’re not so helpless in GW2. Our fallen healer is still casting spells at nearby enemies, Left 4 Dead-style.
Her Grasping Earth spell attacks and slows a nearby enemy. If she can kill someone within 30 seconds, she’ll pop back up to her feet and keep fighting (the time limit is drastically reduced if she’s downed repeatedly or continues to take damage).
We all pitch in to help our healer kill the nearby swamp demon and she’s revived; but now the tank has fallen. No worries—I pop Mist Form, which makes me temporarily invulnerable, sprint to the tank and revive him. He jumps to his feet, the healer caps off his health, and we’re back in business.
In GW2, anyone is able to revive another player as an innate interaction (“We wanted lots of opportunity for things to not only go wrong, but for players to reverse what went wrong,” explains Flannum), which led to some pretty miraculous daisy-chaining of resurrections that brought our team back from the brink of disaster to finally defeating the giant swamp boss after 10 minutes of intense, fast-paced action that kept us thinking on our toes the entire time.'
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I just need to get my hands on the game. I'm definitely buying it. I am not excited by what I read there. Maybe it'll be more fun in practice than what I am thinking of.
I just need to get my hands on the game. I'm definitely buying it. I am not excited by what I read there. Maybe it'll be more fun in practice than what I am thinking of.
That's usually the case with games. I can't think of one game where I got really excited by watching others play. Although I will say I thought the Shatterer entrance was the coolest boss entrance I've seen in a game (by just watching).
I was also the designated healer for my raiding days in WoW and for my group of homies that played mmos with me. But I can honestly say that it got boring for me. Being a healer mean being more observant and sitting in the background watching bars. I for one have found more joy from being part of the action. I welcome GW2 and their no healer policy. I cannot wait to dive in.
That seems to be the route that SWTOR is taking as well. I guess it's just a matter of "wait and see" as to how fun the support classes are without the full time healing factor. I can't for the life of me see the appeal in hiding in the back and staring at bars, but I'm sure glad it appeals to some people!
Well... not gunna lie, it appealed to me just fine. Matter of fact I loved it when I was in WoW. It felt like you were god. Especially if you were really good, you would have everyone's life's in your hands and some of the best feelings in my life still come from those TBC raids that just before we would be about to down a boss, we would start to wipe, all the healers started to die and I along with my usual druid buddy would be the last 2 healers in the raid fighting to keep everyone and ourselves alive.....
Was good times.... good times.
But anyway, I'm all for this new style Anet is bring us. I can't wait to play it and enjoy the difficulty the mechanics brings to us.
Agreed. I loved my Monk in GW and my Priest in WoW. There's definitely an ego factor involved in healing because your actions affect the success or failure of a run in a very immediate way, that few other classes (arguably perhaps a WoW tank) can match. It is a little dull though because 90% of the time you just get into position and start focusing on healing bars. But you're absolutely the center of attention. Everybody drops everything to come to your aid when you get in trouble and nothing happens without your participtation. Most of the time, you're the star of the show ... at least that's how it can feel.
That being said, I'm looking forward to saying goodbye to the holy trinity. I'd prefer people to stand out for their actions on the battlefield when measured against their equals, rather than one person being more important than another based soley on their class/profession.
Healing was a nice head trip, but I doubt it will hold a candle to what GW2 has in store (fingers crossed).
I think those people who like nothing else but healing probably won't enjoy the game. However, if you enjoy other supportive activities I'm sure there is a role for you. Think of it as having more group synergy instead of having one or two group members being drastically more important then the others.
This is why i loved my Pally in Vanilla WoW... you couldn't main heal... you couldn't main tank... but you were still useful as hell to have in a group. You backed up the tank, you stepped in to help when the main healer was falling behind... you boost everyone in the group, and you're there to save the day. A support class designed correctly can be amazingly satisfying.
It's ashame the WoW population couldn't grasp this concept. The current version of WoW is designed for simple minded people who don't understand what a hybrid truley is.
I freaked myself when they said no "dedicated" healer, but looking at their stand on this genre in general I'm hopeful there still will be good support classes.
That said I would very much like them to hurry up and announce said class to allay my fears because all I'm seeing so far is DPSers...
I freaked myself when they said no "dedicated" healer, but looking at their stand on this genre in general I'm hopeful there still will be good support classes.
That said I would very much like them to hurry up and announce said class to allay my fears because all I'm seeing so far is DPSers...
The necro actually have some support potential and so does earth ele.
It happened actually that we used necro as a healer in GW, the wells are very useful support.
I freaked myself when they said no "dedicated" healer, but looking at their stand on this genre in general I'm hopeful there still will be good support classes.
That said I would very much like them to hurry up and announce said class to allay my fears because all I'm seeing so far is DPSers...
The necro actually have some support potential and so does earth ele.
It happened actually that we used necro as a healer in GW, the wells are very useful support.
The Ritualist was also a support character in GW, and as we have already seen, many of the rit skills have become part of the GW2 necromancer.
Also, as Loke said, the ele is also great support: the earth attune provides survival buffs while the water attune provides heals; ANet has also mentioned on occasion of "being able to surround an ally with an orb of air to prevent enemy projectiles," so the air attunement my provide damage negation as well.
I've played many different healing classes over the last few years and I'm actually looking forward to the ability to hybridize my two favorite class types together. I always said that if I could have made a resto warlock I would have loved it. This style of combat sounds very cool. Obviously, we'll have to wait to see it before truly passing judgement, but I am excited to have more different choices on one character, without delving into the "everyone can do everything" mode. Of course, the real issue isn't if all classes can damage, heal, tank, etc, so long as they do them is drastically different ways.
Important facts: 1. Free to Play games are poorly made. 2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals. 3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE. 4. Community is more important than you think.
Separate Tank/healer/dps = scripted combat. Execute the script or fail.
All can damage/control/support = active, changing combat. There are no roles... the situation determines the role you change in to, and that's likely to change a few times during the fight.
Stop thinking that this is the Lich King. Healers go here, tanks there and there, dps over here, when this happens do exactly this or die...
Throw away the script.
Thats kinda what turns me off about the system. Instead of each person having their defined role, everyone is just a DPSer killing the mob as fast as they can then bragging about how much more DPS they did at the end of each fight. I'm sure many will love it, just look at how many people only want to DPS in WoW.
Instead, you get this: (From the PC Gamer write-up, a worthy read)
'To explain how blurry the lines of class distinction can become during a fight, Flannum tells a story from play testing: “Players are capable of taking care of themselves and filling different roles… For example, there was a time when one of the dungeons when we were play testing it, a couple of the other designers and I were going through and we had a group consisting of two Warriors and a Ranger, and we were going through and we were actually supposed to have five people, but we couldn’t get a group together so we ended up with three. We fought this boss encounter that was a little overbalanced at the time where it was, this is why we test things. But we ended up getting through the boss encounter when groups of five people couldn’t. We did it through really smart use of our abilities. The other two designers were very good players. I’m not going to say I’m a good player–I mostly got through by playing with them. So what we ended up doing was we had this system where I was the human specced as a Warrior to do ranged damage and had a bow and rifle, and the Ranger was speced to do range damage. And we had this one Warrior who would do things like he would get attention of the bad guys, try to kite them by hamstringing them. I would use barrage to cripple them, and then we would basically try to keep their attention, ping-ponging between the three of us, and none of us were obviously support-oriented, but we were able to use all the tools we had at our disposable in order to win the fight… We had to recognize when the Ranger, who was a little bit squishier, had gotten the attention of the boss, and we had to recognize that ‘Ok now the Ranger is going to get his attention, the Ranger might even go down, and it’s up to one of the Warriors to grab his attention away when the Ranger goes down, the other Warrior can go resurrect him.’ What ends up happening is you get these things were you don’t have these really rigid group dynamics where you go into it ‘You are the tank, I am the healer.’ What ends up happening is that the situation changes moment to moment and you have to react to how the situation is changing, and we hopefully give every player a bunch of tools in their toolbox to react to different situations.'
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
You completely failed to understand what happened. They were using control skills and were self-supporting in addition to doing damage. Instead of being in the boss' face, for example, they were using cripples to prevent damage in the first place. They all have self-heals, this is a given. This wasn't three dps burning through, this was three people using tactics to beat a difficult encounter.
Self-healing and the ability to rez each other IS the support and healer roles for this example. Control is the damage mitigation. The fight was about tactics, not everyone doing a single set role.
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
You completely failed to understand what happened. They were using control skills and were self-supporting in addition to doing damage. Instead of being in the boss' face, for example, they were using cripples to prevent damage in the first place. They all have self-heals, this is a given. This wasn't three dps burning through, this was three people using tactics to beat a difficult encounter.
Self-healing and the ability to rez each other IS the support and healer roles for this example. Control is the damage mitigation. The fight was about tactics, not everyone doing a single set role.
Very good description here.
I think a lot of people are really missing the point as to how this will really change combat and make it more dynamic.
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
You completely failed to understand what happened. They were using control skills and were self-supporting in addition to doing damage. Instead of being in the boss' face, for example, they were using cripples to prevent damage in the first place. They all have self-heals, this is a given. This wasn't three dps burning through, this was three people using tactics to beat a difficult encounter.
Self-healing and the ability to rez each other IS the support and healer roles for this example. Control is the damage mitigation. The fight was about tactics, not everyone doing a single set role.
Sounds too easy to me. If three people can do 5-man content and one of them admits to not being very good, then there is something wrong.
Tactics like taunt/kiting are nothing new and are not somehow more interesting or more fun than previous systems.
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
You completely failed to understand what happened. They were using control skills and were self-supporting in addition to doing damage. Instead of being in the boss' face, for example, they were using cripples to prevent damage in the first place. They all have self-heals, this is a given. This wasn't three dps burning through, this was three people using tactics to beat a difficult encounter.
Self-healing and the ability to rez each other IS the support and healer roles for this example. Control is the damage mitigation. The fight was about tactics, not everyone doing a single set role.
Sounds too easy to me. If three people can do 5-man content and one of them admits to not being very good, then there is something wrong.
Tactics like taunt/kiting are nothing new and are not somehow more interesting or more fun than previous systems.
You did note that by using good tactics they were able to overcome the fight that 5 man groups couldn't, right? I don't know how you got the impression it was easy... because they succeeded?
Where the tactical play is new is the fact that, unlike WoW for example, you don't have scripted encounters. You don't have Blizzard providing the fight and the strategy to beat it to high end guild in Beta, you don't have the guilds perfecting the strategy in Beta then posting videos on the web for everyone else to copy or fail when it goes live. Every fight is different, period. The same fight with different people will play out differently simply because everyone has different tools in their box. There's no more "we need two tanks, taunt off each other at three stacks" crap. No more "LFG, Need two healers to go GS 6300+ only" crap.
Not everyone will be able to handle this, true. Not everyone can think on their feet and simply do better when told to stand over there, pew-pew away and move out of fire. Some people follow strategies, some people create tactics.
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
You completely failed to understand what happened. They were using control skills and were self-supporting in addition to doing damage. Instead of being in the boss' face, for example, they were using cripples to prevent damage in the first place. They all have self-heals, this is a given. This wasn't three dps burning through, this was three people using tactics to beat a difficult encounter.
Self-healing and the ability to rez each other IS the support and healer roles for this example. Control is the damage mitigation. The fight was about tactics, not everyone doing a single set role.
Sounds too easy to me. If three people can do 5-man content and one of them admits to not being very good, then there is something wrong.
Tactics like taunt/kiting are nothing new and are not somehow more interesting or more fun than previous systems.
You did note that by using good tactics they were able to overcome the fight that 5 man groups couldn't, right? I don't know how you got the impression it was easy... because they succeeded?
Where the tactical play is new is the fact that, unlike WoW for example, you don't have scripted encounters. You don't have Blizzard providing the fight and the strategy to beat it to high end guild in Beta, you don't have the guilds perfecting the strategy in Beta then posting videos on the web for everyone else to copy or fail when it goes live. Every fight is different, period. The same fight with different people will play out differently simply because everyone has different tools in their box. There's no more "we need two tanks, taunt off each other at three stacks" crap. No more "LFG, Need two healers to go GS 6300+ only" crap.
Not everyone will be able to handle this, true. Not everyone can think on their feet and simply do better when told to stand over there, pew-pew away and move out of fire. Some people follow strategies, some people create tactics.
GW2 is for the tactician.
I'm sorry but if 3 people can complete 5 man content, it doesn't sound like anything spectacular to me. Since I started playing MMOs back in 1999, I've seen people use 'unusual' tactics to defeat content. Druids and Wizards quad kiting, Shamans slowing/dotting, Necros fear kiting...people using their abilities to defeat content that would have been otherwise impossible without tactics.
If 5 people use the 'right' tactic, do you not think they will plow thru it faster than 3 people using the same tactic?
I'm sorry but if 3 people can complete 5 man content, it doesn't sound like anything spectacular to me. Since I started playing MMOs back in 1999, I've seen people use 'unusual' tactics to defeat content. Druids and Wizards quad kiting, Shamans slowing/dotting, Necros fear kiting...people using their abilities to defeat content that would have been otherwise impossible without tactics.
If 5 people use the 'right' tactic, do you not think they will plow thru it faster than 3 people using the same tactic?
Well, we'll have to agree that we see it differently. I see three people figuring out how to defeat the encounter where groups of five were failing to be rather spectacular. it implies to me that they have a better grasp of the combat system in GW2 (which is dramatically different than current MMOs) and were better at adapting to the situation, using the tools at hand, developing good tactics on the fly and succeeding. Can five do it faster than three? Who knows. Five people will bring different things to the table and may require totally different tactics to succeed. Five warriors and rangers? Perhaps, however we also need to keep in mind that the fights scale based on the number of people, perhaps the three were aided in their fight by a little scaling down as well.
But that's the beauty of it... we don't know. There's no script for guaranteed success. Every fight will be different.
I'm sorry but if 3 people can complete 5 man content, it doesn't sound like anything spectacular to me. Since I started playing MMOs back in 1999, I've seen people use 'unusual' tactics to defeat content. Druids and Wizards quad kiting, Shamans slowing/dotting, Necros fear kiting...people using their abilities to defeat content that would have been otherwise impossible without tactics.
If 5 people use the 'right' tactic, do you not think they will plow thru it faster than 3 people using the same tactic?
Well, we'll have to agree that we see it differently. I see three people figuring out how to defeat the encounter where groups of five were failing to be rather spectacular. it implies to me that they have a better grasp of the combat system in GW2 (which is dramatically different than current MMOs) and were better at adapting to the situation, using the tools at hand, developing good tactics on the fly and succeeding. Can five do it faster than three? Who knows. Five people will bring different things to the table and may require totally different tactics to succeed. Five warriors and rangers? Perhaps, however we also need to keep in mind that the fights scale based on the number of people, perhaps the three were aided in their fight by a little scaling down as well.
But that's the beauty of it... we don't know. There's no script for guaranteed success. Every fight will be different.
I'm glad you are excited about this new system, I will just have to wait til launch and see it myself before I jump on the bandwagon. I've seen and heard similar stories ever since I started playing MMOs. At first what seems like really complicated and challenging content becomes trivialized after a few people figure out the tactics.
I'm glad you are excited about this new system, I will just have to wait til launch and see it myself before I jump on the bandwagon. I've seen and heard similar stories ever since I started playing MMOs. At first what seems like really complicated and challenging content becomes trivialized after a few people figure out the tactics.
Yes. Get this game in the players hands and we'll see how intricate and amazing their system is. Players have a tendency to figure out the best possible way to do things over time which might crush this "more open" system under their scrutiny.
Tactics like taunt/kiting are nothing new and are not somehow more interesting or more fun than previous systems.
You did note that by using good tactics they were able to overcome the fight that 5 man groups couldn't, right? I don't know how you got the impression it was easy... because they succeeded?
Where the tactical play is new is the fact that, unlike WoW for example, you don't have scripted encounters. You don't have Blizzard providing the fight and the strategy to beat it to high end guild in Beta, you don't have the guilds perfecting the strategy in Beta then posting videos on the web for everyone else to copy or fail when it goes live. Every fight is different, period. The same fight with different people will play out differently simply because everyone has different tools in their box. There's no more "we need two tanks, taunt off each other at three stacks" crap. No more "LFG, Need two healers to go GS 6300+ only" crap.
Not everyone will be able to handle this, true. Not everyone can think on their feet and simply do better when told to stand over there, pew-pew away and move out of fire. Some people follow strategies, some people create tactics.
GW2 is for the tactician.
"Tactics" in MMORPGs are really just plans players make so that each of them has a defined role to play. If a tactic for 3 people is, try and gain aggro with DPS, then when you die, the 2nd person gains aggro while the 3rd person rez's the first, all you are doing is switching off a tank/DPS role with one dedicated support. If you slice it any other way, you are just giving players a different "role" to play in the "tactic" you are using.
By utilizing said tactics, with the right skill set, you could probably complete any number of group quests with less players in different games as well. I think it may be slightly more accessible considering you will have a wider range of abilities ::in GW2:: , but whichever way they are manifested in each class (meaning what abilities should be coupled together for viability) will play a really big part in multiplayer gameplay.
What worries me is the scaling of, pretty much everything. If you are playing a 5 man encounter with 3 men and it scales the 5 man encounter to be possible for 3 men, it just seems much less rewarding if you complete it knowing that the encounter that would normally take 5 people scaled to be easier for your group. I've done group missions in many games like CoX, FE, and many other games that required a full team, but for whatever reason we were left with less and we still pulled it through. That kind of feeling, knowing that we did what seemed "impossible" is what makes encounters like that worth it.
If I went into every group match knowing full well that even if we go in that match with 3 characters when 5 is normally "required" but its okay because it "scales" it just loses not only the excitement of doing something unconventional, not only the accomplishment of doing what "couldn't be done" but you also get left with wondering why you should even bother with a 5 man team at all if it doesn't get any easier and 3 people are quicker and easier to round up than 5.
Tactics like taunt/kiting are nothing new and are not somehow more interesting or more fun than previous systems.
You did note that by using good tactics they were able to overcome the fight that 5 man groups couldn't, right? I don't know how you got the impression it was easy... because they succeeded?
Where the tactical play is new is the fact that, unlike WoW for example, you don't have scripted encounters. You don't have Blizzard providing the fight and the strategy to beat it to high end guild in Beta, you don't have the guilds perfecting the strategy in Beta then posting videos on the web for everyone else to copy or fail when it goes live. Every fight is different, period. The same fight with different people will play out differently simply because everyone has different tools in their box. There's no more "we need two tanks, taunt off each other at three stacks" crap. No more "LFG, Need two healers to go GS 6300+ only" crap.
Not everyone will be able to handle this, true. Not everyone can think on their feet and simply do better when told to stand over there, pew-pew away and move out of fire. Some people follow strategies, some people create tactics.
GW2 is for the tactician.
"Tactics" in MMORPGs are really just plans players make so that each of them has a defined role to play. If a tactic for 3 people is, try and gain aggro with DPS, then when you die, the 2nd person gains aggro while the 3rd person rez's the first, all you are doing is switching off a tank/DPS role with one dedicated support. If you slice it any other way, you are just giving players a different "role" to play in the "tactic" you are using.
By utilizing said tactics, with the right skill set, you could probably complete any number of group quests with less players in different games as well. I think it may be slightly more accessible considering you will have a wider range of abilities ::in GW2:: , but whichever way they are manifested in each class (meaning what abilities should be coupled together for viability) will play a really big part in multiplayer gameplay.
What worries me is the scaling of, pretty much everything. If you are playing a 5 man encounter with 3 men and it scales the 5 man encounter to be possible for 3 men, it just seems much less rewarding if you complete it knowing that the encounter that would normally take 5 people scaled to be easier for your group. I've done group missions in many games like CoX, FE, and many other games that required a full team, but for whatever reason we were left with less and we still pulled it through. That kind of feeling, knowing that we did what seemed "impossible" is what makes encounters like that worth it.
If I went into every group match knowing full well that even if we go in that match with 3 characters when 5 is normally "required" but its okay because it "scales" it just loses not only the excitement of doing something unconventional, not only the accomplishment of doing what "couldn't be done" but you also get left with wondering why you should even bother with a 5 man team at all if it doesn't get any easier and 3 people are quicker and easier to round up than 5.
Thats just my take on it though.
Dungeons do not scale, events do. Doing a dungeon with 3 people is only possible if a) the characters are high level (although your level will scale down but your level will still be relatively high and you still have all your equipment, skills, traits etc) or b) the players are good.
Comments
What do you mean by it looks bland. Performing one role all of the time would seem a lot more dull than being able to peform mutliple roles depending on the situation.
No modern MMORPG has a "pure" healer class. Every healing class has skills that allow them to kill mobs so they have some level of solo ability (greater or lesser by MMO). The "pure" healer concept is based on end-game raising in some games where some players do nothing but stare at heal bars and "save the day" through heals/cures/buffs/etc.
The support roles in GW2 will allow for some of this while also allowing a more involved gameplay experience. That's a win/win for me personally.
If you're familiar with GW team combat mechanics when reading the information the dev statements, then you know the variety that can be possible in group setups. They've spread out the healing skills so that there isn't one dedicated healer class. Besides that, GW already showed that healing was just one viable group option, of the damage recovery kind, but there's also other kinds like damage protection and damage deflection that were totally viable and effective replacement builds.
In fact, GW was a great example of all kinds of different non-trinity team setups that were very effective, so that makes their talk about trying out different things with GW2's team possibilities not that hard to believe: it was already possible in GW, next to the more traditional team setups.
About GW2, a dev had commented already how he managed in his play runs to cope with a dungeon effectively with a full-elementalist team. I think the best way to describe GW2's team combat as far as we know for now, is that there'll still be all kinds of roles to fulfill in GW2, and that each class can switch versatile between different roles, but that you're not bound to traditional team setups; the mechanic that everyone has heal skills, that there's no traditional dedicated healer class and is forced to take along a heal skill and that everyone can revive anyone pretty much encourages non-tradition.
The PC Gamer hands on preview has a nice piece about it:
'The traditional model for grouping in MMOs relies on three roles for players to fill: healer, tank, and DPS (damage dealers). Players design their characters to fulfill one of these roles and rarely deviate from it while in a group. If you’re the healer, for example, you wouldn’t expect to stop healing until the dungeon is cleared. This model has been in place since the birth of grouping in MMOs, and very few games have seen success when they attempt to break away from it. Would ArenaNet dare desecrate this holy trinity—the most sacred relic of MMO-land? You bet your Charr they would.
Now, before defenders of the status quo begin screaming blasphemy and rioting in the streets, let me reassure you—ArenaNet isn’t on a crusade to destroy the healer-tank-DPS tradition entirely. Instead, it intends to transform it into something even more accessible and enjoyable. As Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum explains it, “We don’t want players to take on strict roles, but there are still roles that need to be fulfilled in combat… Every character is versatile, so it’s up to you to recognize what other players are doing, what the situation is, and react to it.” The developers still want players to tank enemies, restore health to their friends and tear through enemy flesh like tissue paper as they always have in MMOs. The big change is that they want each player to do all of those things, as the situation warrants.
Flannum describes his vision for the game’s combat as “controlled chaos fun,” adding that “in MMOs, combat gets really fun when things go wrong. When the tank goes down and you have to yell at the off-tank to grab the boss’s attention—that’s when things get exciting. Our combat makes that the constant state of things, so you’re always in an exciting situation… but we try to over-communicate visually what’s happening around you, so you always know what’s going on and it’s not just mass chaos.” It sounds good to us, but can they pull it off effectively?
I got to experience this “controlled chaos” firsthand during my playtime at ArenaNet’s HQ near Seattle, Washington. I was an Elementalist teamed up with an assortment of the four available classes as my allies. We ventured into a dark, foreboding swamp to take on The Shadow Behemoth, and let me assure you, the 12 story-tall demon certainly lived up to its name. Its health was split between its head and two massive, shadowy hands capable of rocking the earth beneath us, knocking us down.
We knew this boss would take coordination, and although none of us had chosen to be a “tank” or “healer” when making our character, it didn’t take long for the familiar shouts of “OK, I’ll tank him” and “I’ve got your back; I’ll heal you!” were shouted across the room as the warriors pulled out shields and the Elementalists switched to their water attunement, granting them healing abilities.
But I’m not the healing type, so I stuck with my dual-dagger fire setup which gave me powerful AoE skills. I had a ton of fun swapping between my attunements to fill different roles: I’d jump to my water attunement to freeze a lesser demon harassing our healers, then throw down a firewall in front of our Rangers so that their arrows caught fire en route to the boss (player abilities can combine together in hundreds of different, logical ways to produce new, unique effects), and blasted the boss’s face with a few fireballs of my own whenever I had some spare time.
It was going well—and then our healer died. In almost any other MMO, this would be a wipe; we’d all be dead. But we’re not so helpless in GW2. Our fallen healer is still casting spells at nearby enemies, Left 4 Dead-style.
Her Grasping Earth spell attacks and slows a nearby enemy. If she can kill someone within 30 seconds, she’ll pop back up to her feet and keep fighting (the time limit is drastically reduced if she’s downed repeatedly or continues to take damage).
We all pitch in to help our healer kill the nearby swamp demon and she’s revived; but now the tank has fallen. No worries—I pop Mist Form, which makes me temporarily invulnerable, sprint to the tank and revive him. He jumps to his feet, the healer caps off his health, and we’re back in business.
In GW2, anyone is able to revive another player as an innate interaction (“We wanted lots of opportunity for things to not only go wrong, but for players to reverse what went wrong,” explains Flannum), which led to some pretty miraculous daisy-chaining of resurrections that brought our team back from the brink of disaster to finally defeating the giant swamp boss after 10 minutes of intense, fast-paced action that kept us thinking on our toes the entire time.'
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I just need to get my hands on the game. I'm definitely buying it. I am not excited by what I read there. Maybe it'll be more fun in practice than what I am thinking of.
That's usually the case with games. I can't think of one game where I got really excited by watching others play. Although I will say I thought the Shatterer entrance was the coolest boss entrance I've seen in a game (by just watching).
Agreed. I loved my Monk in GW and my Priest in WoW. There's definitely an ego factor involved in healing because your actions affect the success or failure of a run in a very immediate way, that few other classes (arguably perhaps a WoW tank) can match. It is a little dull though because 90% of the time you just get into position and start focusing on healing bars. But you're absolutely the center of attention. Everybody drops everything to come to your aid when you get in trouble and nothing happens without your participtation. Most of the time, you're the star of the show ... at least that's how it can feel.
That being said, I'm looking forward to saying goodbye to the holy trinity. I'd prefer people to stand out for their actions on the battlefield when measured against their equals, rather than one person being more important than another based soley on their class/profession.
Healing was a nice head trip, but I doubt it will hold a candle to what GW2 has in store (fingers crossed).
It's ashame the WoW population couldn't grasp this concept. The current version of WoW is designed for simple minded people who don't understand what a hybrid truley is.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cloudsol/
I freaked myself when they said no "dedicated" healer, but looking at their stand on this genre in general I'm hopeful there still will be good support classes.
That said I would very much like them to hurry up and announce said class to allay my fears because all I'm seeing so far is DPSers...
The necro actually have some support potential and so does earth ele.
It happened actually that we used necro as a healer in GW, the wells are very useful support.
The Ritualist was also a support character in GW, and as we have already seen, many of the rit skills have become part of the GW2 necromancer.
Also, as Loke said, the ele is also great support: the earth attune provides survival buffs while the water attune provides heals; ANet has also mentioned on occasion of "being able to surround an ally with an orb of air to prevent enemy projectiles," so the air attunement my provide damage negation as well.
I've played many different healing classes over the last few years and I'm actually looking forward to the ability to hybridize my two favorite class types together. I always said that if I could have made a resto warlock I would have loved it. This style of combat sounds very cool. Obviously, we'll have to wait to see it before truly passing judgement, but I am excited to have more different choices on one character, without delving into the "everyone can do everything" mode. Of course, the real issue isn't if all classes can damage, heal, tank, etc, so long as they do them is drastically different ways.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
Instead, you get this: (From the PC Gamer write-up, a worthy read)
'To explain how blurry the lines of class distinction can become during a fight, Flannum tells a story from play testing: “Players are capable of taking care of themselves and filling different roles… For example, there was a time when one of the dungeons when we were play testing it, a couple of the other designers and I were going through and we had a group consisting of two Warriors and a Ranger, and we were going through and we were actually supposed to have five people, but we couldn’t get a group together so we ended up with three. We fought this boss encounter that was a little overbalanced at the time where it was, this is why we test things. But we ended up getting through the boss encounter when groups of five people couldn’t. We did it through really smart use of our abilities. The other two designers were very good players. I’m not going to say I’m a good player–I mostly got through by playing with them. So what we ended up doing was we had this system where I was the human specced as a Warrior to do ranged damage and had a bow and rifle, and the Ranger was speced to do range damage. And we had this one Warrior who would do things like he would get attention of the bad guys, try to kite them by hamstringing them. I would use barrage to cripple them, and then we would basically try to keep their attention, ping-ponging between the three of us, and none of us were obviously support-oriented, but we were able to use all the tools we had at our disposable in order to win the fight… We had to recognize when the Ranger, who was a little bit squishier, had gotten the attention of the boss, and we had to recognize that ‘Ok now the Ranger is going to get his attention, the Ranger might even go down, and it’s up to one of the Warriors to grab his attention away when the Ranger goes down, the other Warrior can go resurrect him.’ What ends up happening is you get these things were you don’t have these really rigid group dynamics where you go into it ‘You are the tank, I am the healer.’ What ends up happening is that the situation changes moment to moment and you have to react to how the situation is changing, and we hopefully give every player a bunch of tools in their toolbox to react to different situations.'
Oderint, dum metuant.
That article addresses my main concern with the system. 3 DPS characters can complete 5 man content without any support or healer roles. So why would anyone want to bring a support class if you can just get 5 DPS to plow thru content?
You completely failed to understand what happened. They were using control skills and were self-supporting in addition to doing damage. Instead of being in the boss' face, for example, they were using cripples to prevent damage in the first place. They all have self-heals, this is a given. This wasn't three dps burning through, this was three people using tactics to beat a difficult encounter.
Self-healing and the ability to rez each other IS the support and healer roles for this example. Control is the damage mitigation. The fight was about tactics, not everyone doing a single set role.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Very good description here.
I think a lot of people are really missing the point as to how this will really change combat and make it more dynamic.
Sounds too easy to me. If three people can do 5-man content and one of them admits to not being very good, then there is something wrong.
Tactics like taunt/kiting are nothing new and are not somehow more interesting or more fun than previous systems.
You did note that by using good tactics they were able to overcome the fight that 5 man groups couldn't, right? I don't know how you got the impression it was easy... because they succeeded?
Where the tactical play is new is the fact that, unlike WoW for example, you don't have scripted encounters. You don't have Blizzard providing the fight and the strategy to beat it to high end guild in Beta, you don't have the guilds perfecting the strategy in Beta then posting videos on the web for everyone else to copy or fail when it goes live. Every fight is different, period. The same fight with different people will play out differently simply because everyone has different tools in their box. There's no more "we need two tanks, taunt off each other at three stacks" crap. No more "LFG, Need two healers to go GS 6300+ only" crap.
Not everyone will be able to handle this, true. Not everyone can think on their feet and simply do better when told to stand over there, pew-pew away and move out of fire. Some people follow strategies, some people create tactics.
GW2 is for the tactician.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I'm sorry but if 3 people can complete 5 man content, it doesn't sound like anything spectacular to me. Since I started playing MMOs back in 1999, I've seen people use 'unusual' tactics to defeat content. Druids and Wizards quad kiting, Shamans slowing/dotting, Necros fear kiting...people using their abilities to defeat content that would have been otherwise impossible without tactics.
If 5 people use the 'right' tactic, do you not think they will plow thru it faster than 3 people using the same tactic?
Well, we'll have to agree that we see it differently. I see three people figuring out how to defeat the encounter where groups of five were failing to be rather spectacular. it implies to me that they have a better grasp of the combat system in GW2 (which is dramatically different than current MMOs) and were better at adapting to the situation, using the tools at hand, developing good tactics on the fly and succeeding. Can five do it faster than three? Who knows. Five people will bring different things to the table and may require totally different tactics to succeed. Five warriors and rangers? Perhaps, however we also need to keep in mind that the fights scale based on the number of people, perhaps the three were aided in their fight by a little scaling down as well.
But that's the beauty of it... we don't know. There's no script for guaranteed success. Every fight will be different.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I'm glad you are excited about this new system, I will just have to wait til launch and see it myself before I jump on the bandwagon. I've seen and heard similar stories ever since I started playing MMOs. At first what seems like really complicated and challenging content becomes trivialized after a few people figure out the tactics.
Yes. Get this game in the players hands and we'll see how intricate and amazing their system is. Players have a tendency to figure out the best possible way to do things over time which might crush this "more open" system under their scrutiny.
"Tactics" in MMORPGs are really just plans players make so that each of them has a defined role to play. If a tactic for 3 people is, try and gain aggro with DPS, then when you die, the 2nd person gains aggro while the 3rd person rez's the first, all you are doing is switching off a tank/DPS role with one dedicated support. If you slice it any other way, you are just giving players a different "role" to play in the "tactic" you are using.
By utilizing said tactics, with the right skill set, you could probably complete any number of group quests with less players in different games as well. I think it may be slightly more accessible considering you will have a wider range of abilities ::in GW2:: , but whichever way they are manifested in each class (meaning what abilities should be coupled together for viability) will play a really big part in multiplayer gameplay.
What worries me is the scaling of, pretty much everything. If you are playing a 5 man encounter with 3 men and it scales the 5 man encounter to be possible for 3 men, it just seems much less rewarding if you complete it knowing that the encounter that would normally take 5 people scaled to be easier for your group. I've done group missions in many games like CoX, FE, and many other games that required a full team, but for whatever reason we were left with less and we still pulled it through. That kind of feeling, knowing that we did what seemed "impossible" is what makes encounters like that worth it.
If I went into every group match knowing full well that even if we go in that match with 3 characters when 5 is normally "required" but its okay because it "scales" it just loses not only the excitement of doing something unconventional, not only the accomplishment of doing what "couldn't be done" but you also get left with wondering why you should even bother with a 5 man team at all if it doesn't get any easier and 3 people are quicker and easier to round up than 5.
Thats just my take on it though.
Dungeons do not scale, events do. Doing a dungeon with 3 people is only possible if a) the characters are high level (although your level will scale down but your level will still be relatively high and you still have all your equipment, skills, traits etc) or b) the players are good.
'No more sitting back and spamming a couple of buttons.'
have we played the same game man? you clearly have never tried the main aspect of the game - pvp.
more specifically monk in pvp. that shit was hardcore. couple of buttons? what a joke.