Feedback:User/Ilr/Archived Suggestions/Maneuverability!

Archived Suggestions/Maneuverability!
User	Ilr
Categories	Resolved feedback

Introduction

The Topic of "Bunny-Hopping" is hotly contested among Gaming communities and the addition of a 3rd Axis (and Jumping or Charr Rocket Launchers) to this Sequel could definitely put it in that Territory.

My suggestion is: GO WITH IT

Even if it means allowing players to start activating skills mid-air.

Details

It's a lot like the recent Primal Rage debate. Many players thought it was a stupid way to play the game and just as many also thought it made those venues a lot more fun. The point is, there will always exist a huge rift between PvP'ers over Twitch VS. Equality.

• In many cases, the "Equality" players already have a mathematical advantage over the twitchers in the form of a more highly optimized Build & Gear, so all they're really QQ'ing about is a debatable loss of that deciding advantage when Twitch players are allowed to be Twitchy

...but that's not the only facet of this debate...

• A.d.d. or too much caffeine isn't always an Advantage either. Many times it makes you do impulsive or stupid things so playing twitchy isn't always an instant win like Build Minmaxxing is.
• Most players CAN however agree that Timing is indeed a measure of skill. And a lot factors relating to timing can be accentuated with MORE maneuverability options ...including higher velocities with very specific rules to make positioning a larger factor.

What kinds of rules? Mostly physics rules....Fairly simple ones too, IE: even simpler than the current "condition" mechanics present in GW1.

• The current max velocity of any player in GW1 seems to suggest a speed of somewhere around 35-37.5 M/P/H in real-life. That's not Fast enough, and GW2 could do better b/c these characters will not be mere humans -- they will be exotic humanoids or humans with advanced spells or alchemy.
• Running with an advanced speed boost should put them over 55mph just to keep the combat from feeling sluggish like other MMO's... with a Velocity "soft-cap" near 70mph for the most extreme run bursts
• Optimizing our Maneuverability is already said to be a feature by reports that Class-specific Armor values will be replaced with Armor Types instead that will no doubt affect Maneuverability (similar to how Armor of Earth works already) in order to limit the velocities of heavily armored players. That is an excellent start!
• Losing the ability to block or evade as effectively while having higher Armor Values however should also be considered, as anyone who's faced the original Distortion Rangers or the current GvG Mindblasters could tell you...
• Losing a varying amount of Velocity ANYTIME they are Jumping should also be part of the rules too though. Or at the very least, they should be prevented from jumping faster than they are running. ...this is a tricky one because most Physics Engines all have a flaw in their design where they either allow players to move faster in-the-air because they interacted with a collision or knock-back effect, or they simply keep moving at a heightened velocity in the air when they're supposed to be suffering from a Snare(or Hex) meaning they're only fully affected by "slows" when touching the ground.
  • Inconsistencies like that must be prevented at all costs, otherwise "gameable" metas will pop up that have very little to do with strategy OR positioning. On top of that, all the no-skill Kiting Tank Mages making up a majority of this game's remaining PvPers will chase off all the new players GW2 is supposed to bring in and the cycle of inbred Metas will just continue.
    • Necessary to this tangent, atleast some of these rules will need to apply to PvE as well to keep those same players from exploiting the Ai and turning difficult Boss Encounters into no-risk turkey-shoots.
      • Global phsyics rules governing how effective skills should be at high velocities or when used in mid-air can also be applied. For instance all ranged attacks that require Line of Sight could suffer a range penalty between 1%-50% scaling up with the Caster's velocity when activated and could also suffer a damage penalty when activated mid-air. Spells that are used Offensively AND Defensively(like healing) and don't require Line of Sight could suffer even greater scaling-down with those same rules.

ಠ_ಠ ...However it's done, moving at a greater speed should definitely make spiking harder to pull off and harder to prevent, but it shouldn't make it impossible and it definitely shouldn't interfere with positioning.

Further Considerations

---There is one one key exception here though... NO &%@#ING SUPPRESSION!... I cannot emphasize that enough. Making the game automatically "Snare" a player for ANY period of time just because they activated a skill or got hit with a normal attack, totally sucks 100% of the fun out of every kind of encounter imaginable and is probably one the worst and least inspired ways to attempt to make "AoE" skills effective. So let's write that one off automatically and assume that 75% of the PvP'ing market will not come back to PvP or even buy this game if Suppression is a regular part of Combat. (75% is not a random number BTW, It's an actual statistic taken from the last game that tried to "balance" its PvP that way and I've got the NcSoft Financial Reports to prove it).

...if keeping AoE's and Melee attacks effective is really a concern, then a few simple functions could be added that scale-up either the damage dealt or the radius of the epicenters against "light-armor" Targets moving at high velocities. ...scaling factored of course by whether or not they're on a direct collision course with the source of the damage, allowing for even more positioning skill to come into play against players who think running around like a chicken with it's head cut off is the most valid way to stay alive...
(ProTip: it's Not).

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