116 replies to this topic

[Rielesh]

I am sorry I disagree I put about 1500 hours in GW 1(and much more in other mmorpgs) ... there's been always 1  - 4 viable builds for every class my main is / was warrior I never seen most skills for my class because of 4 meta builds and lots others skills were pretty much worthless when I finished my hall I got about 10 builds for my class but 1 was raptor farming other deep another one urgosz ...
I did legendary skill hunter in and played few classes to max lvl but I must say lots of skills in gw 1 felt like they been put there just to take place some got great effects but it was too weak or too much energy consuming or too short just not viable or It did not have synergy with other skills ...

gw 1 requires skill? what do you mean? assasssin soloing dungeons that some other struggled with party of 8 not because of skilled assassin but because that spell was such imbalanced or ritualist soloing and farming with spirits while going afk? that was skill? when you got in dungeon only because you been in good guild or paid for run because you were not class that could do something in speed clear?

Edited by Rielesh, 28 August 2012 - 11:15 PM.

[tarquin]

Darkobra, on 28 August 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

You say that GW 1 = skills, but did you not see PVP and PVE after the second year of the game coming out? Everyone was using the same wiki build and the same 8 skills on their class anyway. So it really was mashing either way! I have seen no difference between the two!

after the second year of the game coming out....   seems unfair to say the game didn't work if it only failed after two years.

i played in the first year, and guildwars required more brain function and strategy than any other action game i've ever played.  even high level starcraft turns out to be a cookie cutter routine, being a test of focus and control rather than strategy.

guildwars was the only game where after you were beaten by a team, you would actually analyse their build and carefully adjust your own build/setup to counter their build.

for a while my guild ("The Wrong Guild") was pretty successful in the hall of heroes, but eventually we broke up because it felt like the skills and powerful builds in the game were being constantly nerfed and 'dumbed down' too early, without giving sufficient time for people to make counter builds  (most of our success came from being innovative and countering the flavour of the month builds).

every 'balance' patch would cause something else to become OP, therefore a lot of the competitive players left....  it's a waste of time to play a game when the 'strategy' is trumped by dev hotfix every couple of weeks.


anyway, my point = don't even compare GW and GW2.  totally different games...  i'm looking forward to playing GW2, but still angry that it's called GW2 when the only similarity is that the game is set in the world of tyria and made by the same dev team...  talk about misleading.

[Wrassler]

deteknician, on 28 August 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

I'm about 34 hours into GW2.  Only playing one character, a Sylvari Ranger I think she's level 28.  I hope some of you that have gotten further in the game will tell me I'm wrong here.


I'm having fun playing but I don't think the skill system is as good or as deep as the original GW and that was the only reason I loved GW and dropped WOW.
It seems skills don't really matter, they all pretty much do some damage and you just mash whichever one is available.  There's no energy (on my Ranger at least) to make you think as what you really need to cast first.  In GW if you took a random 8 people put them in a dungeon they'd be dead within 15 seconds.  But because the game was based on skill and strategy rather than gear, everyone had a fair chance of figuring it out, but most people just wanna mash 1234 1234 and most people failed.  Every decent gamer did research, what kind of mobs you have in dungeon/area X,  is there a lot of degen? interrupts? enchantment removal?  is mostly casters or melee?  Then you make a build that deals with those issue.  If there's enemies that remove enchantments then don't bring enchantments, or better yet, bring skills that punish removing enchantments.  If there's a lot of crazy melee you bring skills that slow down attacks, or something like:

Spitefull Spirit " EliteHex Spell. For 8...18...20 seconds, whenever targetfoeattacks or uses a skill, Spiteful Spirit deals 5...29...35shadow damage to that foe and all adjacentallies of that foe."  Does GW2 even have hexes, enchantments, removal, shouts, attunements? or is it all just "you do x damage" "you do y damage" "you do x damage faster".

In GW some elite dungeons would kill a party of 8, again in 15 seconds, but some people figured out a set of 8 skills that would let them solo farm those dungeons.  They figured out how, with the same exact stats and gear as everyone else,  they could farm an area that would kill a random party of 8.  This would NEVER happen in WOW and I assume GW2.  I really miss this part and hope GW2 gets a little deeper later on.  I don't want to be able to mash all the skills on my bar and do fine.  Right now the game is too easy for me but more importantly it does not require much thought.  

Another hint that this game is more mindless.  Can I see what skills an enemy is casting?  or does it just not matter anymore.  Is my Interrupting Shot just blind guess now or can I get a chance to react and interrupt that Meteor Shower.

You and many other GW1 fanbois simply dont understand the meta game yet in GW2.  There was a post complaining about how hard the first dungeon was and that it was just faceroll trying not to die and then someone came in and posted a long post explaining how threat works on different bosses, how cc rotation is  needed for different pulls, how he and his team swapped between almost every weapon they had available during the dungeon run and also between different sets of gear (hp stacking, power stacking etc) to make it easier etc.  The other people, like you, are likely just using one set of weapons, one set of utility skills you like, one set of gear, and complaining how the dungeon is button mash.

[Soothsayer]

IDarko, on 28 August 2012 - 04:57 PM, said:

PvE will always be like this. But i do not understand certain skill design choices. Thieves are about being evasive and agile. Yet, we have many skills that make us a tank. Take pistol whip for example. We use it, automatically dodge and deal loads of AoE damage (no player skill req.). I pistol whipped myself to level 61 so far and it's almost getting boring. Sure, some enemies still require a lot of dodging but with skills like this, mashing keys is actually viable.

Having that said, PvP isn't like this so i'm not too concerned.

Of course it's getting boring. You've rushed through to the final quarter of the game in a few days. Take a break for crying out loud

[tarquin]

Wrassler, on 28 August 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

You and many other GW1 fanbois simply dont understand the meta game yet in GW2.  There was a post complaining about how hard the first dungeon was and that it was just faceroll trying not to die and then someone came in and posted a long post explaining how threat works on different bosses, how cc rotation is  needed for different pulls, how he and his team swapped between almost every weapon they had available during the dungeon run and also between different sets of gear (hp stacking, power stacking etc) to make it easier etc.  The other people, like you, are likely just using one set of weapons, one set of utility skills you like, one set of gear, and complaining how the dungeon is button mash.

either you misunderstood the OP or you posted a buthurt generic response to what you interpreted as anti-gw2 post.

i can easily believe that thousands of GW1 fans are worried about the 'simplified' skill system in GW2.  the only good explanation is that they are different games.

if you want an example of how the skill system could be superior in GW1, just look at the incredibly innovative and diverse 'flavour of the month' builds which popped up every few months.  for a while it was the obvious elementalist spike damage builds which were successful, but then you saw awesome stuff like smiting builds, axe warrior deep wound spiking builds, unkillable ranger spirit/mana draining builds, 'i will avenge you!' warrior pet builds etc etc etc...  so much diversity and innovation was a joy to behold.

is the same innovation possible in GW2?  doesn't look like it...  you pick up your weapon and that's your capacity for innovation.


but i stress again - DIFFERENT GAME.  do not expect the diverse and innovative builds and you won't be disappointed.

[Wrassler]

tarquin, on 28 August 2012 - 11:42 PM, said:

either you misunderstood the OP or you posted a buthurt generic response to what you interpreted as anti-gw2 post.

i can easily believe that thousands of GW1 fans are worried about the 'simplified' skill system in GW2.  the only good explanation is that they are different games.

if you want an example of how the skill system could be superior in GW1, just look at the incredibly innovative and diverse 'flavour of the month' builds which popped up every few months.  for a while it was the obvious elementalist spike damage builds which were successful, but then you saw awesome stuff like smiting builds, axe warrior deep wound spiking builds, unkillable ranger spirit/mana draining builds, 'i will avenge you!' warrior pet builds etc etc etc...  so much diversity and innovation was a joy to behold.

is the same innovation possible in GW2?  doesn't look like it...  you pick up your weapon and that's your capacity for innovation.


but i stress again - DIFFERENT GAME.  do not expect the diverse and innovative builds and you won't be disappointed.

Still missing it.  your weapon is not the capacity.  You still have gear choices and utility choices which matter immensely in dungeons.  Also it's not pick up one weapon.  You have to know and use ALL of your weapons and rotate appropriate utility/gearing to match that.  Like I said most people are like you.  They enter a dungeon and go ok i got my axe and my power gear and my dps utilities why do we keep wiping herpa derp.

[Garnatian]

Depends on your profession/weapon choice.

[silentdecay01]

um How do you mash skills in gw2??? you must not be aware you press the key once and it works....and can set to auto,


.......all your skills but the first one has cool downs....you can't mash it unless you like to nerd rage and bash your head on the keys....


You only press the keys once to active and its auto for the first one.......then u use your other skills when its best and you press the key once....mashing wont make it anyfaster dunno what kind of drugs you on

[ScoutMATH]

the only thing that you have to mash in guildwars 2 is the first skill. but it has its equivalent in gw1. stoning and flare.

[StormDragonZ]

It's unfortunate I'm one of the few people in GW1 that very rarely even glanced at the meta builds flavor of the month. If people didn't accept me for what I felt comfortable doing and using, I'd just use heroes that complimented me and what I used.

In GW2, it will get to the point you will have to get out of "the comfort zone" and start thinking logically and not what seems to be the flavor of the month... at least I think it will...

... I hope...

[Vsin]

I think it's because you're a Ranger.  I'm also a Ranger, and with the exception of the Sword you basically mash everything on cooldown because, well, there's no reason to hold onto this stuff.

Longbow?  2 is now a damage boost at every range except 1000+, 3 is vulnerability, 4 constantly when kiting, 5 is AoE only.  Shortbow?  2 every cooldown, 4 every cooldown for bleeds, and 3 every cooldown if you're kiting.  Torch?  Burn and Burn.  Greatsword?  12 mash, 3 to close in and don't touch 45 unless something bad happens.  Speargun?  1234 mash or you lose damage.

However, I've made it less boring by using weapon swapping.  Stuff like opening with Sword/Torch, throwing down Torch 5, then backing off and pelting with a Shortbow for tons of condition damage.

[Alaroxr]

lv 37 Guardian BWE1-2
lv 32 Guardian BWE3
lv 46 Guardian currently

42 current hours played
120 hours played from the betas

It gets much harder and more skill based, especially in Personal Story, dungeons, and the lv35+ zones. sPvP is also obviously not mashing, unless you want to lose.

[tarquin]

Wrassler, on 29 August 2012 - 12:23 AM, said:

Still missing it.  your weapon is not the capacity.  You still have gear choices and utility choices which matter immensely in dungeons.  Also it's not pick up one weapon.  You have to know and use ALL of your weapons and rotate appropriate utility/gearing to match that.  Like I said most people are like you.  They enter a dungeon and go ok i got my axe and my power gear and my dps utilities why do we keep wiping herpa derp.

i don't see how equipping a 2hander from your backpack or selecting a viable utility from a small pool of restricted skills makes it more innovative than gw1.

is the ability to innovate or customize extremely diverse builds superior?  well, not necessarily.  however - you don't seem to understand that it's a fair reason to be worried about GW2 if you're a fan of GW1.  therefore you should have more tolerance for such concerns, instead of calling 'herpa derp' and making both yourself and the gw2 community look like kids.

[Treble]

tarquin, on 29 August 2012 - 01:59 AM, said:

i don't see how equipping a 2hander from your backpack or selecting a viable utility from a small pool of restricted skills makes it more innovative than gw1.

is the ability to innovate or customize extremely diverse builds superior?  well, not necessarily.  however - you don't seem to understand that it's a fair reason to be worried about GW2 if you're a fan of GW1.  therefore you should have more tolerance for such concerns, instead of calling 'herpa derp' and making both yourself and the gw2 community look like kids.

You should totally go back to GW1. We won't miss you.

[murasamune]

deteknician, on 28 August 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Yes, this is what made it fun.  It's like Magic.  You have 8 skills, in a group of 8 you have 64 skills.  It should matter what they are, if you take time and plan out your build you should be rewarded.  Right now I feel like it doesn't matter which skills you have on your bar, there's no point in making choices, whatever you have it's fine.

it just sounds like you prefer the old system. and that's fine, gw servers are up and running. see ya

[Dominique de Lombre]

There's plenty of customization. Most people are looking at the skills. It's the traits that are the customization. For example, GoEH (elementalist heal w/ buff depending on attunement) un-traited gives the base heal plus regeneration while attuned to water. With the right traits I can make that skill give me twice the regen buff and remove 2 conditions. And that's just one example. I can make my staff AoE fields bigger, recharge skills faster, increase bleed damage on Earth. All these things DRAMATICALLY change the way I play and the output of my damage. My skills are just hollow shells waiting to be customized and it's awesome!

[LavaSquid]

I only play GW2 and I know nothing about the skill system in GW1, I am a mesmer and I don't think GW2 is "mash" (at least not for mesmer). Maybe you should try other professions before making a conclusion?

[Rashy]

Probably mentioned already, but ... huge balancing issue to have 100s of skills. Infinite combinations (excluding dual professions, which makes the number even larger), trying to balance them all is flat-out impossible. There's already plenty of variety with weapon swapping, utility combinations and traits.

Besides, general PvE might be button mashing, but I seriously doubt Explorable dungeons can be done that way. If you blow off all your cooldowns without planning/timing, you're going to end up dead. Knowing when to use skills helps.

[Ragnadaam]

I laugh at the people that are insanely clingy with GW1's skill system; especially the ridiculous rose colored glasses they have on while being clingy.

Guess what, number of skills =/= complexity or diversity. That game was LOADED with GARBAGE skills, a large portion of them were never touched. Eventually the entire game became about checking a wiki for the few builds that were good for your setup, and ignoring all the chaff.

This game is more focused on quality, and balance, over quantity of fluff that gets outdated, or never used. And it will be better for it.

Additionally, I'm sick of people not using the term button mashing correctly. And if you attempt to play this game that way you're bad, period.

Edited by Ragnadaam, 29 August 2012 - 04:06 AM.

[Red_Falcon]

deteknician, on 28 August 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

I'm about 34 hours into GW2.

Does GW2 even have shouts?

deteknician, on 28 August 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

I'm about 34 hours into GW2.

Does GW2 even have shouts?

deteknician, on 28 August 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

I'm about 34 hours into GW2.

Does GW2 even have shouts?

If I was Anet I'd gladly give you the money back along with a "please come back on 32th December".

Hope you don't need 34 years into real life to notice there is no 32th December.

Edited by Red_Falcon, 29 August 2012 - 04:14 AM.

[phani_kaushik]

GW2 is created with casual players in mind, which would be easier for them to handle and much more easier for veterans too, obviously. Too many skills etc confuse casual players (like me ), so instead they made the system simpler with similar effects so everyone is on same level rather than categorizing as "noobs" and "veterans". Everyone is at equal advantage. I wouldn't say its just button mashing though. I play elementalist and fire attunement most of the times as its meant to be the offensive attunement. Now I wouldn't use Lava font on a melee/moving target. It works amazingly on static targets with continuous burning. Meteor shower is heavily useful when there's a huge mob or boss, useless against single enemy or those with less than 50% hp. It works, but no point, you're just wasting a spell on something lesser difficult instead of saving it for a larger threat. I switch to other attunements under water to use lightning cage, my fav which stuns the target enemy(ies) and switch back to fire for more damage. In fact I find GW2 skills especially with weapon/element/utility switching and the combos to be more fun compared to GW1. I guess its only getting used to GW1 system that might make some users feel GW2 is lacking, but over time it'll turn out to be fun.

[Metameta]

Not sure I agree at all playing Engineer.

I have to stay at range and I have several skills that will help push enemies back, at the same time laying bombs and such if they should come towards me.

[Wrassler]

From 29 August 2012 - 01:59 AM:

i don't see how equipping a 2hander from your backpack or selecting a viable utility from a small pool of restricted skills makes it more innovative than gw1.

is the ability to innovate or customize extremely diverse builds superior?  well, not necessarily.  however - you don't seem to understand that it's a fair reason to be worried about GW2 if you're a fan of GW1.  therefore you should have more tolerance for such concerns, instead of calling 'herpa derp' and making both yourself and the gw2 community look like kids.

if theres anything more annoying than wow fanbois its gw1 fanbois complaining that gw2 is not gw1.  ANet has already stated numerous times why there arent as many skills in gw2.  To paraphrase it's because balancing is a bitch and majority of the skills didnt get used anyway in gw1 and only created a perception of a deep complicated system to those who had no clue what they were doing while everyone else was just using cookie cutter build a, b or c

Edited by Wrassler, 29 August 2012 - 04:31 AM.

[Ardeni]

Ah, this topic again. I feel that people should realise that even when there is no energy, you can't just spam your skills mindlessly. It might work in low level pve on normal mobs (or perhaps normal mobs in general, I'm only level 29) but once you get a bunch of mobs or a veteran mob (or several of them) you really need to start thinking when you want to use that cripple or that stun. Using aoes in these situations also matters. You can't just launch all your attacks on the target if you want to be effective (and if you're against 2 veterans + 3 normal mobs, you sure do want to be effective). As a ranger I also need to consider my traps and other utility skills quite carefully in these situations. Figuring out multiple uses for skills is a good idea - traps, for example, can both be used as aoe skills in a crowd when they release straight away or as a true trap (you just wait until the mob comes to the trap area, trying to predict its movement). This thinking is even more required in dungeons and in bigger boss fights. When it comes to world bosses, perhaps smashing the buttons in order to deal most damage is the best way to win, but then there are often other things that you have to consider such as killing healing totems or avoiding red circles.

In pvp the situation is a whole lot different. Players tend to be harder to kill than any mob and those who mindlessly spam their skills usually die in 10 seconds without making me lose more than 1-3k hp if they encounter me in 1v1. Then 1v1 matches against advanced players can take up to two minutes (this was my record in BWE1 with my mesmer against some warrior).

[Ryan Longstride]

Completely agree with OP. The skill system in GW1 was amazing and WAY ahead of it's time and honestly i don't think anything like it will ever be made again. It's extremely sad to have to say goodbye to this ridiculously amazing gameplay feature just because other features of the game didn't satisfy it's creators. With all this said i still enjoy playing gw2.

Darkobra, on 28 August 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

You say that GW 1 = skills, but did you not see PVP and PVE after the second year of the game coming out? Everyone was using the same wiki build and the same 8 skills on their class anyway. So it really was mashing either way! I have seen no difference between the two!

Anyone worth anything didn't use those cookie cutter builds. Also most people modified those builds to suit their needs for what they were specifically doing, which proves the point of the OP.

[flint11]

Others may see it as dumbing down, but I see it as streamlining. I was like you once too, unsure how the removal of enchantments/hexes and what not into just Boons/Conditions was the right move.

However, what I came to realize is that they actually came up with a pretty genius way to go about it. By condensing the effects and making everyone pull from the same pool it also makes it easier to balance across the board. I also once thought that the skills would seem bland with just these two categories..but they actually proved by compounding boons/conditions in different manners, you have a lot of potential for interesting skills. A skill that applies Chill + Poison and a skill that applies Weakness + Poison are similar yet they still are different.

And lets face it, some skills were essentially overlaps (exact copies even) and while the depth was extremely cool. Bringing enchant removals just for those Boon Monks, hex/condition cleanses just for those. It also meant that the game was increasingly hard to balance with each new xpac adding a huge influx of skills. This compounded with the fact that there were simply too many combinations to account for with secondary professions became the reason why GW1 was great, it also became its downfall.

Also true to its more action-oriented design. Instead of watching out for cast bars for specific kicks, you watch for animations. Study the animations of the healing skills and in time you will know which to interrupt, if you can't do this then they made the UI clean for you for no reason. Also if you spam everything on CD then mash 1 as opposed to using it at opportune moments, then you're gonna have a bad time.

Edited by flint11, 29 August 2012 - 05:42 AM.

[Tevesh]

Low level content has been dumbed down cause of the whine. The pve difficulty ramps up in 30+ solo content and in 40+ group instances.

[LavaSquid]

Red_Falcon, on 29 August 2012 - 04:13 AM, said:

If I was Anet I'd gladly give you the money back along with a "please come back on 32th December".

Hope you don't need 34 years into real life to notice there is no 32th December.

haha I don't think he can earn enough skill points to unlock all those utility skills within 34 hours, give him another chance

[Winter3333]

deteknician, on 28 August 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

Only playing one character, a Sylvari Ranger I think she's level 28.

I played longbow ranger too in beta, they become boring in pve after a while, your bear tanks, you mash buttons.
I am on different cahr now, it's nothing like it.
Change your weapon or class and get to lv +30, thing are becoming intresting here.

[Katsuragisama]

Tevesh, on 29 August 2012 - 07:04 AM, said:

Low level content has been dumbed down cause of the whine. The pve difficulty ramps up in 30+ solo content and in 40+ group instances.

Sucks for those poor mobs at 30+ then...  I've been farming away in a cave for venom sacs and destroying ettins.  I could mash keys all day long, and maybe win.  Or I could tap 1 a couple times, perfectly time a Lotus Death Blossom to evade the ettin's attack, land behind him, cloak & dagger followed up with a backstab.  It's awesome, it owns mobs.

But if I sit there just mashing the 1 key for my normal attack, that ettins going to smack me to the ground.  It's tactful if you want it to be.  it's a button masher if you dont want to think about it and maybe get your head smashed in by an ettin's club.  I'd rather not though, so I'm going to play tactically.