Feedback:User/Kuby8388/Skill Spams, Cooldowns, & Skill Traits

Skill Spams, Cooldowns, & Skill Traits
User	Kuby8388
Categories	Mechanics

Username Correction: Kuby8388

[LAST UPDATED: 1:28AM PST - 20 JUNE, 2012]

[I was confused as to where to put some of them.. so I decided to just post them all here under 'mechanics'. I sincerely apologize for doing so :( ]

This post will include suggestions for everything from CD to skill casting to skill traits. Due to that fact, I'll keep my all my suggestions simple and straight to the point as much as possible.

Background Check: I am hardcore RTS player who is into MMOs these days, and I can see myself liking GW2 and bringing all my friends into GW2... if I can find some common ground of interest with you guys: the developers at Anet. Of course, my below comments will sometimes be bias to RTS more than the MMO perspective, but I do still try to find the middle-ground, as best as I can.

EDIT: I saw this link today - http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

And I like to just input that, fun is very subjective and inflexible when it has to do with skill mechanics - some people prefer playing things simple, others like it complicated. So when I'm making the suggestions below, I do try to not change the skill level you've got right now for PVE(which is quite perfect), instead my goal here is trying to suggest some "features" which would expand the spectrum for 'fun' in this game.

Let's begin.

Suggestion Overview (How to Read Into my Suggestions)

Not a great writer, get's off topic frequently so I have to stay organized. Each topic will have a concern paragraph for indicating reasons of my concerns, followed by a list of either one or both of the following things:

1) Suggestions on PVE combat mechanics - becoming more 'dynamic' (same range of gameplay difficulties, with more 'mechanical interactiveness' which is what I think the "PVE combat mechanics" lack in this game - and even though the mobs do get stronger and the dynamic events do get more worldly-interactive (it's good that they do), the combat mechanics could use more 'unpredictable flavors' and include more dynamics or features).

2) Tips on some of the skill mechanics & cool-down mechanics in GW2 (I say 'tips' because I forgot to record down the exact numbers in the last BWE, so I'm calling them 'tips' because they aren't 'solid facts with numbers' which I know are extremely helpful for the devs. to pin-point a problem, my apologies :(... in fact, most of my suggestions don't have numbers, simply because a mechanics is more heavily built around the idea and not numbers IMO))

Skill Spams

(Dedicated to PVE)

Concerns:

Especially in PVE, players skill spam (auto-attack is a skill technically) far too much than 'necessary' (might sound confusing at this point, but please continue reading). The weapon skill damage is far more effective and important in combat than the weapon skill effects. Snare, stun, slow, are probably the only three weapon skill effects which would become extremely useful when you do skill-manage them, as well as dashing skills (ie. avoid/catch mobs). But of course, a mob is not agro'd on you 24/7, especially with the big bosses in medium to small group dynamic events. While you are given a lot of time not being focused, that time is often spent spamming either your auto-attacks or your most lethal damage skill at the mob(s), and that creates the most common cases for spamming in PVE. (the issue is far less severe in PVP, especially playing against good players or with an organized team).

Suggestions:

• Lower the base damage for auto-attacks & increase burst/dps skill damages but also their's CD (both PVP and PVE)
• Increase power of skill effects (ie. stun, snare, slow, poision, bleed, etc.) on non-allies unit(only if they are mobs, therefore this bonus doesn't effect PVP players), by either a) slightly increasing their skill effect duration or b)decreasing their CDs (I would say b) is the more effective choice between the two).
• Slightly increase mobility of melee mobs (balance out the extra increase of skill effects duration).

• Melee Mob's attack gets a crit based on a certain hit count, meaning for example (reminder, it's about the idea!): a player can not tank more than 3-4 hits continuously from a mob without receiving a critical or knock down blow "on either the mob's 3rd or 4th hit". This means saving your defensive skill effects for when the mob is doing its big crit animation which players can see coming his/her way, and must immediately react somehow to it. Upon successful avoid/block, this player who the mob had its agro on, gets rewarded for evading the big blow with some bonus damage on his next attack.

[A Comment on the Last Suggestion]

Range Mob's attack is fine the way it is, since players can only flank the slower-moving melee mobs ( I figured this out in the last BWE, and it just made combat extremely boring, and you can actually do that to a lot of melee mobs in the game ).

Cool-Downs

(Dedicated to PVP)

Concerns:

A) Skills are missing CD time in the description.

B) Some Cool-Down modifications required (See suggestions below).

Suggestions:

1) Cool-Down Skill Features:

• Cool-Down Time should be indicated in the skill description (recalculated after skill traits are added)
• In RTS, it is often that your teammate asks you "hey dude, when is your ult up?" - and then its like in GW2 "hey dude.... oh never mind I forgot, there no timer" [the dialogues are just for humor, don't be mad! :D]. Anyways, this missing feature should be there in the future when PVP gets competitive (probably something that's done after skill traits).

2) Cool-Down on Skills: (IMO cool-down time for skills should be as follow)

• Increase the overall Cool-Downs of all the skills (I fell like the skill casting in this game feels 'spammy'.... you have barely any CD for auto-attack (not even manual aim in perspective for a FPS game). That really has now skill in doing what so ever, and I can't find see how anyone would find that fun over long periods of time. By saying this I'll probably have over-emphasized the point here already, but honestly - throwing aside CD and manual aim is something that I can not for the life of me see why this is in a game like GW2. Sorry, I really am trying to see this from all sides, but can't find the word 'fun' in there anywhere).

Anyways getting back to managing skill CDs in GW2, here's an example of what happens when you balance CD to your favor (different balancing factors for MMOs skills I'm sure, but the goal is just the same, ie. achieve whats happening in the video below - the things you'll want to look for here as a referance for GW2 PVP , are skill positioning, TIMING, player positioning, teamwork, creative moves, and how playing 'desperate' brings out the true nature of competition. enjoy):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_evyam0eHs

(Please watch the tower defense at 2:55 - my point here is that by having proper CDs numbers, it makes casting a skill 'once' extremely important as to "where you cast the skill or who you cast the skill on & your own position when casting" - that's how & why RTS games and FPS games have been more competitive in PVP than MMOs in the past: in other words, the two most important things are 1) skill/aim & precisions 2) CDs (in fps that is reload time, or the vulnerability state in both RTS & FPS). GW2 lacks balance in how much stuffs you can do between when your in vulnerability state and when you're not - auto-attacking is a terrible way to spent your down time doing, especially when it is auto-target..... and I'm suggesting, that - this can be fix by coming up with a more 'clever CD system' [ I challenge y'all to put on your thinking caps Anet :)] )

[OPTIONAL TO READ #1A CD DESIGN RE-PRECAUTIONS]

• Burst skill!... of course, should have, if not the longest, then among one of the longest Cool-Downs in the game.
• DPS skill should have the longest "duration of cast period". If this is not true, and a DPS skill has short duration, then it's damage/second would be similar to the damage/second of a burst spell. It would just be two skills - one looks like a DPS, the other looks like a burst, but they are just the same as putting one stat on two different animation skills.

[OPTIONAL TO READ #1B -Why Damage/Second matter a lot for DPS & Burst]

The usual advantage of DPS over burst is that after a burst spell is used on a DPS player, the DPS player can still continues to dish out damage: therefore, this becomes a matter of time under damage. Short period of time favors a burst, and a longer period of time favors a DPS. However, the problem/concern is there is no "early-game & late-game" in GW2 (it's an MMO), so this is where the balancing needs to happen (somewhere around 'mid-game). In addition, having a DPS not beating a burst in long fights or a burst beating a dps in a short fight, would result in the fact that the DPS and Burst - neither nor really is fulfilling the DPS role OR the Burst role. [No secret that this is tough to balance]

[SOMETHING THAT'S EASILY IGNORED ABOUT SKILL DELAYS]

• A stun is best when it is a projectile, or in other words a stun is best when it has the slightest delay before it takes effect, which gives the player a chance to do something before he gets stun for several seconds (Is this part of CD? Technically no, but when I said Cool-Down, I often consider the whole delay spectrum in a skill. Sorry if that was sort of confusing, but this is just something that when implemented - brings a whole new 'flexibility' into the game)

Clarification for 'flexibility': For example, a stun that is guaranteed to take effect once it is cast on someone, is very hard to nerf, because it is highly debatable amongst especially the PVP players. Games like League of Legends changes the hero's stun 2-3 times a year, imo that's just too time consuming. The best way that I've seen this problem been 'resolved' is how Dota2 does it - implement a flexibility where the player who is about to get stunned has some chance to fight back before he/she gets stunned anywhere from 1-7 seconds (if its close to the higher value like 6 seconds, that's usually the heavy stun, but if it's lower like close to 1 sec, it's usually a duration effect ie. stunned for 3 seconds every 7 seconds). Anyways, I would recommend you guys do this, because now a player could have a chance to go invisible or get his tanky spell up or set fire around himself to protect himself from melee weapons. This might sound like a huge nerf to stun, but it honestly isn't. Just think, 6 seconds of getting nuked on by 3 people - I would trade heavy nerf stun for that any day.

Skill Traits

Concerns:

Save you time for reading. I actually haven't played around them enough to be able to give any feedback on it.

[MARKED: TO BE DONE NEXT BWE]

Suggestions:

So far, certain traits needs to be balanced... (that's it for my feedback, sorry :$..).

Best of luck to all the Anet Devs. As a gamer, I respect you guys for your talents , creativities, ambitions, and will to revolutionize the gaming industry - together as a group of collective individuals who strive for excellence and nothing short of it.

Sincerely,

Kuby.

19 June 2012