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GW2 combat vs. WoW combat
TacoShank
Member UncommonPosts: 23
in Guild Wars 2
Alright, so I personally I find it hard to get into a lot of MMO's because of the tab-targeting combat systems that they always seem to use. I don't know why, but it's really boring to me so I end up quitting most MMO's very shortly after trying them. I especially dislike games like WoW that promote using certain skill rotations, so I really hope this is not the case for GW2.
What I'd like to know from you guys who have gotten into the beta weekend is: How different is GW2's combat system from standard tab targeting MMO's like WoW? Yes I've read tons about the game and I'm aware of the dodging, and more action-oriented features. However, I'd like someone who actually got a feel for how the game plays to tell me about their experience. Is the combat closer to Tera? or WoW? Was it fluid and strategic? Or was it button mashing one skill, and following a skill rotation?
Anyway you can describe it just give it a shot, because everything I've seen and read hasn't provided me enough evidence to warrant a pre-purchase yet, and I'd really love to enjoy an MMO like this.
Thanks!
Edit: Okay just to be clear I'm looking for a descritption of your personal experience with the combat, not the marketing lingo and buzzwords that I've already seen.
Comments
There is a gigantic difference between melee and ranged for tab targetting so we have to separate it.
Let's deal with melee first. Basically the tab targeting means almost nothing to melee. You can fire off a skill at any time. If nothing is in range you simply miss. The only thing tab targetting really does for melee is make you face your target when you execute the skill (I think). Also melee attacks will hit whomever they hit. A wide swing hits more then an over head slash.
For ranged, since there is no crosshairs, tab targetting is essenital. The two main things to realize is that a) almost nothing is auto hit except certain "beam" attacks and b) different projectile move different speeds.
So for ranged you can run out of the way of a projectile. But its much easier to do so against a slow moving caster projectile than it is against a fast moving bullet. And if something is in the way you will hit that instead. Also shooting some one running parallel to you is much harder than shooting someone you are chasing. Lastly I don't think there is any good way to "lead" your target.
Essenitally GW works alot like playing a game like Darksiders not like playing an FPS and Tab targetting is like the camera lock when using ranged.
1. Tab target does NOT mean auto lock on. Some abilities still lock, many do not. Almost NO melee abilities do.
2. Almost all abilities are "hit what's in my path". That means a sword swing can hit up to 5 targets (5 is the aoe cap) if they are close enough. An arrrow can hit someone else that walks into its path, etc.
3. Even lock on abilities can be dodged with proper timing.
Those were to your question about tab-targeting. Combat is somwhere in the middle between wow and Tera, closer to tera I think. No GCD, fast-paced, positioning is a HUGE deal. I felt it was more strategic that ANY MMO I've played, including Tera. Tera still tended to rely on building a rotation and repeating it.
And I have a term for people that just randomly mash buttons: "The guys on the forums griping about how often they die"
From: Ten Ton Hammer
“Guild Wars 2 eliminates the tab-target-auto-attack scenario and challenges you to think on your feet (or think off your feet if you’re downed but not dead). For starters, tactical positioning matters in Guild Wars 2--you’ll have to dodge, block, flank and use other maneuvers to be the most effective in combat. Not only that, but you’ll be able to play off other characters engaged in the same fight".
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I'll keep this simple...
GW 2 is Tera with no animation locks and aiming via mouse
Tera has good lengthy anims
GW 2 simple anims nice visuals
Tera and GW 2 both action
GW 2 how ever is a hybrid
I'm not saying which one is better
Truth be told you can in fact play both without touching tab button like I did. I didn't touch the tab key at all while playing both.
If you like using tab target combat you can do so in GW 2. if you like auto attack you can if you wish do so in GW 2.
That's just being honest and to the point with facts.
Oh and Tera combat is not bad nor is GW 2 BOTH bring something new I assume far as combat.
Advice to haters toward either game, live life, both game can prosper both are action, both require skill.
Take care and enjoy yourselves.
I bring tera as an example for this thread because GW 2 is different from WoW in terms of usage with fighting, I.E you press 1 you swing no need to target just like Tera, and if you swing in front and hit targets it'll hit what ever your sword touches. Meaning that one swipe in GW 2 will hit w/e it swipes not [just] what your targeting.
GW2 is more akin to Tera in that regards than it is WoW. Though GW 2 is a hybrid with more action in it.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Okay, well I knew about how the melee skills hit in an arc and how the ranged skills can miss and all of that. I guess more of what I was asking was if you just use the same arc swing attack over and over for a melee-centric character or if you need to use your skills in a more tactical way.
Especially for WvW I've seen footage of people using the same attack over and over again and doing pretty well. Now maybe once everyone learns how to use things it will be better, but to me it still seemed like the first skill was being mashed a lot.
A+. I like your style! Thank you for attempting to quelch the flames.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
The way it works is your "1" attack....the basic swing of your weapon...is an auto-attack essentially. For most melee attacks it's actually a chain of three swings, one or more of which usually have some special effect.
You can leave that running all you want but you NEED to use your other skills tactically, or you will die. You've probably seen a few repeated in wvwvw Either because they're a little overpowered (meteor storm?) or people not knowing what they're doing. Good players put more thought in, and you can see the difference.
This is a snip from Gaiai_Hunter here on the forums. It is about the best I could find for an example of what you might be looking for. I know I kinda mutilated the cut and paste but he has a good grasp on the mechanics behind the game and not just your basic button masher.
GW2 takes a different look at it (I said different, nothing about easier or harder) - there is one solid attack, the number "1" skill and all the others can be more effective if used in the proper circumstance or can be worse if used in the wrong circumstances - In a rotation sometimes you have to use subpar skills just because it is slightly better than doing nothing. Aditionally many skills concern positioning, blocking attacks, or granting boons (buffs) and debuffs (conditions).
In the end, even in games with a ton of skills available at all times, it boil down to just use 5 or 6 most of the time since all the resources just prevent you to use all those skills (and lets face it many of the skills are only useful in a few special circumstances). So in fact GW2, despite only having the cooldown resource might force a player to actually use more skills during a combat with their weapon swapping and profession mechanics because all these skills do something usefull, most if not all the time, and are required for you to survive and kill the targets (early levels this isn't true of cource).
Everyone isn't self sufficient - they are self sufficient for shorts periods of time. Big difference.
One needs to manage their health, deal damage, control the enemies, dodge and be able to hold the aggro for a few seconds. So basically one is doing all the roles that in other games are split in tank, healing and dps.
Exactly how having to perform all the roles is easier than perform a single role?
For example playing as a warrior in one of those events about killing the drake broodmother, I started by going and bashing her, then she start attacking me and my focus shifted to stay alive mode while other people pounded on her. Then someone else caught the broodmother atention, so I was able to regain my health while ressurecting a downed player and go again deal damage and then drew the broodmother attention from the other player that was starting to take a beating.
In that simple early level event, I "tanked", I dealt damage, I dodge some of the broodmother attacks and got out of the way of her breath attack, I ressurected someone, I crippled the broodmother allowing an injured player to escape and I managed my health bar. I still had to assure I was facing the broodmother and was in range to hit her.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
ArenaNet must have done a pretty good job, since Blizzard currently has Ghostcrawler's team redesigning combat that suspiciously looks a lot like Guild Wars 2. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised and disappointed with Mists of Pandaria.
The shark has been jumped.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Seen any good WvW footage floating around? I've found it pretty hard to find anything that is a display of a wider range of skills and tactics.
I'm not trying to sound like a "smartass" but just go to youtube and type GW2 PVP or GW2 WVWVW and you'll see what's highlighted in red.
There is some PVE videos that show the same. I'm about to hit the sheets but if you haven't found a video by tomorrow I'll bring in a huge list.
Also someone Amrjoco(I hope I didn't misspell your name bro) but thanks for the compliment.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Haha, yeah I know there is a ton of content on youtube. Was just wondering if he knew any good stuff off hand (If anyone knows of some good footage I'd be up for watching it. I'm bored out of my mind right now).
Also, thanks for that quote Amjoco, that was an excellent discription!
It's a big hard to find decent PvP and WvW videos because there are really no experts yet. But this video was really fun to watch and it really shows the difference between people who know what they are doing and those who don't, yet complain that the keep door takes an hour to bring down with autoattack. You know who you are.
The combat was, for the most part, very mobile and very fluid. There are a few cases where some animations interfered since the animation roots you for half a second, pretty rare but it can happen.
The combat was quite strategic once you start fighting mobs that are above lvl 7.
Basically below lvl 7 - you can simply button mash. Of course you also only have 5 buttons at best.
level 7 -15 - you have to start playing well tactically or you take too much damage.
level 15+ - not only do you need to worry about damage but things start doing sutff like stunning/knocking down and dodging your attacks.
You need have both timing in execution and syngery in effects to do well. A good player could take on something like 5 times the mobs that a bad player could.
The combat is essentially nothing like WoW's IMO.
But at the same time I would not classify as being that close to a game like Vindictus or Dragon's Nest (I have not played Tera). Many action games rely on very short term staggers on attacks to make the "beat em up" possible, ie. you make sure you always move and press the attack.
In GW2 if you attack and 0.5 second later your enemy attacks you both will take damage (barring other effects). In many action games that split that you attacked ahead of time would interrupt them. In GW2 you would need to have interrupted them with something that explicitly interrupts.
While GW2 is mobile, it is not like Dragon's Nest. In that game I could run through an entire dungeon and Flawless everything with a combinatoin of dodge/teleports and staggers. And some fight would be against 10-20 opponents.
GW2 does not quite work this way, it has some elements of it but no attacks staggers and a limited ability to just dominate with dodge etc. You can flawless something in guild wars but its all through explicit use of certain skills and synergies and possibly some kiting.
You are welcome. i played to almost level 9 as a warrior in the BWE and I am still doing like you searching videos and learning. The gameplay from my experience is much different than WoW. You have to pay attention! The system is very unforgiving and challenging, making it imho the best game to come out in a long, long time.
If you are a fan of mmorpgs and you are on the fence you should just get the pre-purchase. It's $60 which is pretty common for a video game these days. Good luck in your video search and I hope to see you in Tyria.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Yeah, it also means other things, things you have to be careful about.
For instance, I was in PvE and I fired a shot with a gun and my target sidesteped and I ended up aggroing the guy 30 feet behind my target...I died a horrible, horrible death.
And whenever a projectile says it pierces, you have to be aware of this same issue (necro staff for example)
Anyways...OP...To answer your question, using tab to target is nice, but I didn't really use it at all during the weekend. I kind of just clicked on my target, as most of my abilities with my necromancer's staff were ground targetted and I found it easy to just use my mouse to select my targets when I needed to.
The big reason I say GW2's targetting isn't going to make it more or less like WoW type MMOs is because, in the end, you aren't focused on a DPS rotation or threat or whack-a-mole with health bars...you are doing what you can with the tools you have to keep yourself alive during a fight, whether that be kiting or buffing or controlling...all of it works.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Awesome feedback guys! Although there have only been a couple opinions on here so far, the general consensus seems to be pretty positive, and I like what I hear. I'm not too short on money so I'll probably end up prepurchasing to get into the next beta.
Thanks for your opinions!
thats pretty much it
I can't speak about WoW (played it for a very very short while back in 2005), however I've played Rift for a longer period of time and I really can't compare the two games as far as combat is concerned. The overall feeling is very different.
I played a warrior in GW2 to level 20 and I feel I've only scratched the surface of what it could be. The main difference for me is that the combat requires pretty much my whole attention. I never got that from Rift (or pretty much any MMORPG I've ever played unless it was in PvP). The feeling that you have to be on your toes the whole time if you want to stay alive even at lvl 8-9 in PvE was pretty awesome. I have to admit though that for a while I was wondering whether the warrior is really the class for me. And then when I got to around lvl 9-10 something clicked and I started doing much better. Until I entered the lvl 15 zone and the mobs there handed my a$$ back to me. xD
It's definitely not button mashing. Different weapons (weapon combinations) are suitable for different playstyles and different situations. You have to also observe and know the enemies you're facing. Fighting against the bandits in the level 15-25 area is very different from fighting the Ettins in that same area. You have to know when you need to dodge, what abilities to block, when to back out and then jump back into combat. I got around 30+ hours of gameplay (mostly PvE with my warrior) and I already have weapon combinations in mind I want to try out the next time I get my hands on the game. It really isn't about rotations or maxing your DPS. It's more about positioning and not being caught in a bad situation without means to retreat.
There's also the different synergies between the different classes and supporting each other. Playing with my sister (Ranger) was very different from playing with some random guy (Guardian) I met along the way. I'd try to keep track of when he has used his blocks for the heavy Ettin attacks and his dodges and I'd try to blind enemies that are targeting him when I know he won't be able to avoid a hit. This also included me jumping in close combat (I was mostly using my longbow at the time) so the Ettins on his back which he couldn't keep track of would target me instead until his skills recharge.
Then there was one of the DEs where we had to take back a camp overrun by centaurs with a group of random people. I tried using my standard tactics with my longbow (playing at range was much easier for me at the beginning), but the problem was that pretty much everyone doing the DE was using the same strategy. And kiting in that particular situation with enemies on all sides didn't turn to be that good of an idea. People would kite, aggro more and more mobs and then would have to back out in order not to die and this would reset our progress. I figured we need a front line and switched to my 2H Hammer. Turned out it was a much better tactic, because of all the control my hammer provided. I also picked a Banner that provided toughness and vitality to allies and I'd leave it somewhere close to the general position of the other players in the back, so they'd have an easier time with the ranged enemies on our flanks.
And this is not even taking into consideration stuff like the cross profession combos.
All in all, I have much left to learn. Gotta work on that weapon swapping more. xD
In regards of Tera, I would still say you can't compare Guild Wars 2 and Tera's combat. Combat is a area where Tera really as a very big advantage. Especially because Tera is 100% synchron like a shooter. With a normal ping you will have absolute no delays. If I move my char on one PC in TERA and I look at another PC, there is absolute no difference - even your facing is totally accurate. I haven't seen this in any MMO as of yet. I only know this precise behaviour from shooters like Counter Strike etc. And I also think thats what makes combat in Tera so stunnning - also the animation totally fit your actions - in GW2 the combat animation are not really fluid - its ok, but not stunning... and there is a delay in all of your actions... so it will be hard to do "true action combat" in gw2...
You may enjoy other one over the other, but the combat is definately better or at least more exact and "true action like" in Tera!
Currently playing: Archeage
Waiting for: Black Desert