GW2 would be a different game if we remove stacking gameplay

[mizaru.1385]

I enjoy the combat in GW2 but i absolutely hate stacking.

 

Without crazy stacking, range classes would be more viable rather than the "stack cos we can outheal and outblock everything" for almost every combat encounter.

What do u guys think about the stacking gameplay? Are there any other ways we can do to make it more varied like maybe more position related skills for classes? (back attack more dps for certain skills etc)

 

Edit: Ok since collision is a nono, lets change this topic to ways to make the combat more involve/varied for positioning instead of just stacking for heals/mights/buffs

[Lexi.1398]

In fact, it'd be such a different game that melee range would become straight up impossible for most in open world events, and theyd have to rebalance the combat system completely and make ranged weapons much better, all boons/healing apply to a much larger range, leading to a balance in instanced content where you can avoid any melee range mechanics by doing the far superior ranged methods...so overall, i'd not like this, not to mention the body blocking when looting chests, getting access to highly contested enemies (idk if you've ever been on a full dry top farm map, but good luck tagging the rare beast without a mount as is). Social awkwardness is annoying enough as is...you ever done cliffside with that instbaility? That experience is the most body blocking i'd ever like to experience (even if we couldn't push our friends off of things, you can still be blocked from going somewhere.)

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"mizaru.1385" said:

> I enjoy the combat in GW2 but i absolutely hate stacking. What if we implemented the old GW1 body blocking collision detection or something similar?

>

> Without crazy stacking, range classes would be more viable rather than the "stack cos we can outheal and outblock everything" for almost every combat encounter.

> This would make combat more engaging and positioning would become more interesting. What do u guys think about the stacking gameplay?

 

Ranged classes are just fine though. Your build doesn't really affect if you are "Ranged" or "melee", with the only exceptions being Ranger Longbow and Mesmer Greatsword, but even for those it's just the auto attack.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Increasing the range of support might work out better. Extension of buff-range and heal-range. Allow healers to quick-resurrect allies in range, without leaving your position. There are not many classes which increase damage with increasing range. Simply because it is not supported. Engineer, which is basically a class with mostly range options even has traits that reward you for playing **not ranged** and the trait-line is called **Fire Arms**.

 

 

 

 

[Zephire.8049]

And then the raid wipes because someone was in your way so you couldn't dodge, or you can't access the bank because there's already 5 people surrounding each NPC, or WvW finally gets a major meta shift because all it takes is people body-blocking the entrance with a squad of people to buff and heal them to stall pushes until one side gets bored. Or how about how people will simply form a ring around where new players spawn and then AFK like that so new players can't actually play. The human spawn point after the intro mission had to be changed because it used to be in the building but people would use tonics to make it look like the door was blocked and people assumed it was.

 

And that was without collision.

 

Collision doesn't work in an MMO because it's difficult to code efficiently with so many players and variables, increases the stress on hardware (you think a WvW blob causes lag now?), and people will use it to harass and troll others. And as previously mentioned, collision would effectively make melee too risky to use more than one or _maybe_ two of and most groups wouldn't take any melee. And stacking would happen anyway because the issue isn't with player collision or the lack thereof, the problem is that buff ranges tend to be small so everyone needs to stay withing 300 units otherwise they'll miss out on buffs and/or healing.

 

Collision wouldn't make things interesting, it would just make it annoying and frustrating.

[Taril.8619]

Ranged builds suck.

 

Enforcing more player collision so that people HAVE to play ranged builds because they literally cannot enter melee range due to collision won't make them suck any less, they'd just be mandatory in order to obtain any rewards via contribution (It's already mostly like that for OW content anyway, where if you don't have good ranged attacks to tag mobs, you'll find that every event enemy is insta-deleted by the 50 people who did have range)

 

The issue with ranged builds is that there is such little support for them and their weapons. While instead, everything is focused towards improving melee, including many "Ranged" weapons (Warrior LB wants to be up close to hit with all 3 shots of Fan of Flames. Guardian Scepter wants to be up close to stand in the Symbol while it hits enemies. Engie Rifle wants to be up close to maximize Blunderbuss and Jump Shot damage as well as Pistols wanting to be close for Blowtorch. Ranger Axe wants to be close to hit with all 5 projectiles of Splitblade and Shortbow wants to be close to hit with all 5 projectiles of Poison Volley, Thief Pistol/Dagger combo wants to get close to use Shadow Strike to enable Repeater usage... Heck even Mesmer gets benefit from being in melee with GS due to being able to have Mirror Blade bounce to them and grant them Might instead of their Clone/Ally even with an auto attack that benefits from range)

 

This doesn't even touch on the fact that a lot of the support for a build, including secondary weapon sets, will themselves be melee focused to boot (For example, a Ranger wanting to use Longbow will swap to... A melee weapon? Outside of a LB + LB Quick Draw build)

 

If you want to see more Ranged builds, there would need to be more benefits for being ranged (That also need to outweigh the benefit of stacking in melee and getting stacked with AoE boons and fields and finishers and AoE healing, otherwise said "Ranged" builds will still end up stacking in melee). Of course, being careful about the flip side where if ranged becomes too good, you start just getting everyone stacking _at range_...

 

But yeah, start with making range have actual support that makes it not trash (As of right now, all that exists is the autos on Ranger LB and Mesmer GS and Ranger's Farsighted and Lead the Wind traits) as well as including more ranged weapons that don't have skills that are optimized by being in melee.

 

Try to make the builds themselves not suck so that people are more inclined to actually use them as opposed to trying to do something like add janky collision to force people into these sucky builds.

[Westenev.5289]

I think if buffs were cast over a wider area, maybe set to banners or ranger spirit distance as a baseline, players would have more room to spread out. This would help immeasurably, because it would mean you have the option of not standing inside the parties AoE abilities, which can get so bad that I often can't see the bosses attack warnings.

 

I don't think collision would solve the problem.

[TPMN.1483]

This is the most stupid idea - if you want to look at how it works check out social awarkwardness in fractals. It is still one of the most hated instabilities and the constant pushing other people about is annoying.

 

The DPS difference of ranged vs melee on most classes is a factor of x3-x10 (thief, guard,warrior,revenant etc) and would also make WvW near impossible to play.

 

 

[EmmetOtter.8542]

Stacking is a necessity due to how cleanse, healing and boons work in this game. Targeting a specific friendly is impractical as there is no ability to target specific party members from the party frames and cast on that individual. As a result everything is AOE cleanse/heal/boon and this will always force individuals to stack instead of spread out for their own optimal positioning.

[mizaru.1385]

ok, seems like collision is not the way to go. I've edited the post and the title to reflect. Ways to make the gameplay more interesting and stacking less of a need would be a good topic for the devs to think about.

[LadyKitty.6120]

Easy solution: bring tempests as might/furybot/healer and every dps plays chrono or scepter firebrand for self-quickness. =)

[ledernierrempart.6871]

the way to go is to get rid of AOE limitation. if you could hit any number of foes in one AOE people will naturally stop stacking depending on the situation.

[Taril.8619]

> @"mizaru.1385" said:

> ok, seems like collision is not the way to go. I've edited the post and the title to reflect. Ways to make the gameplay more interesting and stacking less of a need would be a good topic for the devs to think about.

 

Well... The most straightforward way to reduce stacking (Outside the necessity that is 99% of combat being melee focused) would be to reduce the availability of small radius AoE effects.

 

This can be done by either increasing AoE radii to the point where people can be positioned wherever and still receive the benefit, or by outright removing certain AoE effects (Which in of itself can be done via outright removal, or via converting certain effects into offensive only ones, such as Symbols, Wells, Fields etc)

 

Beyond that, there would then need to be more support for ranged combat. More effects that boost power while being some distance away (Traits, Sigils, Runes etc), more support skills that can be used at range, more attacks that aren't dumb multi-projectile cones etc.

 

In addition, you could add in more support for positional bonuses, especially kits that utilize multiple positional bonuses. Right now, we have Thief's Backstab and Ranger's Shortbow having Rear bonuses and some garbage Sigils providing Flank bonuses. Could utilize more things so that moving around a target provides more optimal output I.e. Rear bonuses, Flank bonuses, Frontal bonuses. Potentially having skills that provide different effects depending on the positional.

Though, this sort of stuff is harder to accomodate in GW2 due to the way that aggro works (Or doesn't, in the case of OW where it often feels like anyone can get targeted at any point for no reason)

 

There's also the possibility of adding in enemies/attacks that deal more damage the more targets are hit (Either scaling damage per target in its area, or some form of AoE that causes targets hit to also do a secondary AoE hit around them). The trick with this would be to try and balance it so that it couldn't just be tanked via mass Boon/Heal spam in an area... (Which is part of the problem, there's greater availability of AoE healing and AoE Protection/Aegis application these days, thanks to certain E-Specs farting out boons/combos as their shtick)

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"mizaru.1385" said:

> Edit: Ok since collision is a nono, lets change this topic to ways to make the combat more involve/varied for positioning instead of just stacking for heals/mights/buffs

 

Since you changed the topic, I will answer this edit. Stacking does make combat MORE involved as you need to be aware of where your team members are, move with them, stay in range for buffs, effects and of course revives. Meanwhile, if we make combat more "varied" as you say, environmental and positional awareness will become meaningless, making combat less involved and more boring.

 

The best way to avoid stacking is by having actual mechanics that require different positioning for party members. For example, during the fight of Underground Facility, someone has to go up to pull a lever, so full team stacking doesn't work. When fighting Sabetha, some members of the group need to go up and destroy the cannons. The idea is not to "punish" stacking, but instead split the group with mechanics. And never by increasing boon/heal range, that would simply make combat a joke as you will be able to yolo around circle strafing from far away and still get everything, that's how you make combat LESS involved, not MORE involved.

[Teratus.2859]

Stacking is always going to be a thing in gamers like this, outside of greatly spiking AoE damage I don't see any way it'll change.

 

And yeah Collision is a big nono lol

Far too easy to abuse that to annoy people.

[Dawdler.8521]

# Player collisions

*and*

# Friendly fire

 

Nuff said.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"mizaru.1385" said:

> I enjoy the combat in GW2 but i absolutely hate stacking.

>

> Without crazy stacking, range classes would be more viable rather than the "stack cos we can outheal and outblock everything" for almost every combat encounter.

> What do u guys think about the stacking gameplay? Are there any other ways we can do to make it more varied like maybe more position related skills for classes? (back attack more dps for certain skills etc)

>

> Edit: Ok since collision is a nono, lets change this topic to ways to make the combat more involve/varied for positioning instead of just stacking for heals/mights/buffs

 

It's a side-effect of the non-trinity design. No support for healing in the UI or in the skillset. All we have are area effect heals. We have no tanks and no threat either. So the only way they seem to have found to get around stacking mechanics is to contrive encounters that force splits. For example, the first raid boss forces splits and has a "tank" role where the player with the highest toughness is the target and is able to move the boss around the field.

 

I suppose the fact that it worked great outside of organized group play was justification enough for the choice before raiding/fractals were even on the radar. But for organized play they basically removed two key roles and replaced them with nothing. Now they have to try to design encounters that work for trinity gameplay...but without the tools to do so. The result is pretty meh, imo.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> # Player collisions

> *and*

> # Friendly fire

>

> Nuff said.

 

So, now that we aren't stacking, what is stopping the boss from running around 1-shotting people? How do you keep your squishy all-out DPS classes alive if they've given up their self-sustain to maximize damage? And if you force them to play more balanced builds designed to withstand the boss without support, how difficult is that encounter really going to be? You'll have people soloing raid bosses on the first day because there's nothing in the design (outside of contrived mechanics that require multiple players) that can allow for the boss to be strong enough to just take people out without support (because again, you didn't want GW2's version of "support" which requires stacking because we lack the UI and skillset to do it any other way - by design!).

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Taril.8619" said:

 

> In addition, you could add in more support for positional bonuses, especially kits that utilize multiple positional bonuses. Right now, we have Thief's Backstab and Ranger's Shortbow having Rear bonuses and some garbage Sigils providing Flank bonuses. Could utilize more things so that moving around a target provides more optimal output I.e. Rear bonuses, Flank bonuses, Frontal bonuses. Potentially having skills that provide different effects depending on the positional.

> Though, this sort of stuff is harder to accomodate in GW2 due to the way that aggro works (Or doesn't, in the case of OW where it often feels like anyone can get targeted at any point for no reason)

I've been enjoying core ranger with sword/dagger for exactly this kind of positioning (open world PvE). It would be nice for other professions to have similar options.

[Hannelore.8153]

> @"EmmetOtter.8542" said:

> Stacking is a necessity due to how cleanse, healing and boons work in this game. Targeting a specific friendly is impractical as there is no ability to target specific party members from the party frames and cast on that individual. As a result everything is AOE cleanse/heal/boon and this will always force individuals to stack instead of spread out for their own optimal positioning.

 

This is incorrect, you can click people in the party to select them and using your skills on a selected ally does fire towards them. This is needed for certain elements of the game like instant cast, and support skills with tiny areas like Druid CA #1. If you have lock target and don't master this, your support skills always travel towards the enemy, which is manageable in PvE but not in WvW.

 

(Although some people still prefer to manually ground target even if its slower, since it allows leading your target.)

 

It's just that most people aren't trained for this because its unnecessary most of the time. But if skills were added that required player targetting ,people would pick it up pretty fast (muscle memory is a beast), just like they do in most games.

[EmmetOtter.8542]

Yes. You are correct. Thank you.

 

 

[lokh.2695]

I don't mind stacking, never have tbh.

[Quench.7091]

I kind of mind stacking, but I don't know how they could address it. Even when AoEs hit heavy, I've seen people stack and just simply move out at once. The only thing that I think could work would be to introduce mechanics that cannot be countered outside of not standing next to another player. Maybe a plague style mechanic that bounces between players until it expires, which it wouldn't until they move away from each other. The issue with this is that it's basically the Corrupt Blood effect from WoW. Gotta be careful with such a mechanic.

[Trise.2865]

So stop doing it? Grow past First Order Operation strategies and learn new and better ones.