As a player coming from fighting games and action games, MMO combat has always felt really bad to me.
GW2 is a bit more actiony than traditional MMOs, but I don’t think it really captures the mechanics that make fighting/action games work well.
One of the big things that’s missing from combat, is a strong connection between risk and reward, offense vs. punishment.
In a fighting game, there’s a naturally flowing tradeoff between offense and vulnerability. (To make things deeper, the most critical vulnerability is being predictable.)
I can do nothing and block all day, and I will be very safe. However, it’s impossible to defend perfectly, so eventually I will be whittled down, especially if the opponent feels no threat and is free to do whatever he wants to crack my shell.
In order to perform any sort of offense at all, I have to leave my shell and make myself open to attacks. And in order to perform more powerful or useful attacks, I often make myself more vulnerable to more powerful attacks. (eg. a heavy attack takes longer to recover, which means it can be punished with slower, heavier attacks before I can block in time.)
However, a fighting game model (where getting hit will result in your character being stunned) probably wouldn’t work in an MMO, because of multiple players on both sides.
So we need to find another way to create vulnerability when attempting offense
At the moment, there’s a pretty weak link between offense and vulnerability in this game. Even if I blow all my offensive cooldowns in my spike combo (and you dodge), I still have 2 dodges and all my defensive cooldowns available. The only exception might be Thief’s Initiative mechanic, which I will take inspiration from.
My idea: Link offense, dodging and defense together via the Endurance bar.
Basically:
- Reduce damage of autoattacks dramatically. Autoattacks are now the “jabs” of the game ie. safe and weak.
- Every weapon set has at least 2 very powerful attack skills, that require & consume one bar of endurance when used.
- Powerful defensive skills (esp. those that grant evade, invul, heal, etc) also require & consume one bar of endurance. Dodges still consume one bar.
- Increase number of endurance bars to 4.
- The most powerful attacks work similarly to Dragon’s Tooth: they are difficult to land on a mobile player. But at the same time, they also work similarly to 100 Blades: they root you in place for a while (cancellable via dodge.)
- Reduce all forms of passive healing.
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With this idea, I’m hoping to connect Reward (doing damage to the enemy) with Risk (running out of endurance and being unable to use dodges/defensive skills.)
I’m hoping for fights to slow down (less spam because your powerful attacks leave you vulnerable) but also more intense – when a mistake is made, it can be punished severely and end the fight.
This sounds like a big change that will never, ever happen, but I think the serious flaws in GW2’s half-MMO/half-Action combat cannot be resolved without some fundamental changes. I hope the designers will think courageously and deeply on these issues.
Feel free to discuss my particular suggestion, or your own thoughts on the mechanics of Risk vs. Reward in combat.
Edit: Further thoughts in this post:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Offense-vs-punishment-risk-vs-reward/3010633
