Why do players dislike water-fight?

[Haco.1546]

Yesterday, I was wondering where and how the new expansions could go and be and I remembered I was reading about Unending Ocean. As I like aquatic combat I soon imagined a redesigned water fight as one of the novelties of this expansion. So I would like to know other people's opinions about this: Why do players dislike water-fight? What would you change?

What would increase?

[Hannelore.8153]

A good start would be for them to stop disabling most of your skills underwater for no discernable reason. The whole way that skills are handled underwater is just very bad and needs a complete redesign from the ground up to make your land skills always be available in some way.

[Zedek.8932]

How is an "underwater thief" supposed to work?

I am neither a fan of muffled sounds nor delayed movement. All of them is against Thief and against Deadeye even more.

 

Excelsior.

[Dawdler.8521]

Lol because underwater weapons and skills are kitten broken and have been for 6 years. Some classes become nearly immortal (rangers), others get so crippled that they cant even fight.

[Curunen.8729]

Some classes (eg revenant) are at a severe disadvantage, and some classes as Dawdler said are ridiculously powerful.

 

Personally I do enjoy underwater simply because Mesmer Trident and Spear are beautiful weapons with beautifully designed skills.

 

For pve it would be nice to see more underwater zones as those are some of the coolest areas in the game.

[Vavume.8065]

I've always liked the underwater aspect of this game, it's something they started off doing very well and differently from other MMO's I had played, for me it all started to go wrong when they stopped making underwater weapons for Black lion tickets, it was pretty much a signal that they were not interested in improving or expanding what we can do underwater. I would like to see underwater weapons changed however, some classes are far more powerful than others and some are not even finished, looking at you revenant... a better solution would be give everyone the same underwater skills, based on the underwater weapon you are using, allow everyone to use all 3 underwater weapons and it would be far more balanced.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

To my knowledge ANET gave up seriously balancing water comber like 2 or so years in. I mean, I think the [air static](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Cage "air static") underwater is still uncapped for ele trident! (They specifically went around capping off the CC skills to about 1-10 people depending).

 

Also vertical combat looks like a mess with all particles. So they'd have to reduce it underwater too...

[Tails.9372]

It's not fun, at least if I'm not on my holosmith. The ability to use photon forge underwater is the only saving grace when it comes to underwater combat for me which is kind of a bummer considering that I generally like underwater themed maps from an aesthetic point of view.

[Dewsitine.3645]

Yeah I hope they come back and revisit to haul over the underwater portions since deadeye's abilities can't be used underwater and I don't see a reason not too. Also if i remember, rev class has most of its abilities restricted when it comes to underwater for some reason.

[Khisanth.2948]

Terrible synergy. For example trying to generate life force while underwater is like a drowning person desperately gasping for air because both weapon sets suck for that. Reaper can make it better but requires specific traits.

[OtterPaws.2036]

The problem I have with underwater combat is less so the combat part and more so the "being underwater" part.

Being able to see out to the dark depths in the distance gives me massive anxiety.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Also, without the ground to use as a reference point, it is really hard to judge distances.

[Hannelore.8153]

> @"Dewsitine.3645" said:

> Yeah I hope they come back and revisit to haul over the underwater portions since deadeye's abilities can't be used underwater and I don't see a reason not too. Also if i remember, rev class has most of its abilities restricted when it comes to underwater for some reason.

 

Elite specs in general have such a hard time underwater, its been so poorly thought out and implemented since HoT.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Curunen.8729" said:

> Some classes (eg revenant) are at a severe disadvantage, and some classes as Dawdler said are ridiculously powerful.

>

> Personally I do enjoy underwater simply because Mesmer Trident and Spear are beautiful weapons with beautifully designed skills.

>

> For pve it would be nice to see more underwater zones as those are some of the coolest areas in the game.

Haha yeah...

 

Get into underwater combat with a mesmer, pop all 5 weapon skills, swap and pop the next 5 skills. By this time the autoattack torpedo of an engineer has *maybe* reached its target and done 500 damage.

 

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

Change is scary.

[Sarge shot Grif.6450]

Underwater combat has been dead in the water (yes, that was on purpose) for years and they only touch it with a 20 foot stick when they absolutely have to. I'd personally love to see a big patch to fix it and introduce some new areas that utilize it but I'm not getting my hopes up.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

- The most important issue: People can neither use their weapons, nor most of their utility skills underwater. This breaks most builds. Playing a build with broken synergies (or even without synergies) feels bad. Revenant is currently the worst class for underwater having only 1 weapon and 2 legends working, which relates to 0 choice.

- - Solution: Make underwater versions for all utility skills. Add more underwater weapons to provide the same synergies that land weapons have.

- When GW2 first launched, underwater was crowded and mobs had too much cc. The bad reputation hasn't gone away since.

- - Solution: Most of the re-balance has already been done. Obviously ANet has to make sure to not repeat past mistakes like adding too many mobs or too much cc. Besides that it's important to make players experience this underwater 2.0 or else the old stigma will stick forever.

- The 3D environment is confusing for some players.

- - Clever map-design turns the 3D environment into a layered 2D environment without players noticing.

- Movement underwater feels slow and sluggish.

- - Underwater mounts and a good set of movement abilities can help. Animations need to be changed to shorten acceleration and deceleration and make the character feel more responsive underwater. Maps need to have more caves and low ceilings since movement in open spaces feels especially slow. This also helps simulating a 2D environment and reduces the risk of a player getting ambushed from an unexpected direction.

[Dewsitine.3645]

It would be nice if they start putting those changes alongside with episodes release which will then accumulate to a big patch that introduces the new expansion pack with a majority of it taking in underwater and cave system. Though I would then wonder if they will put it behind the expansion pack or release a similar item of gliding but for under water purpose like you need this mastery to explore the crushing depths that contain, idk, bikini bottom city.

[MikeL.8260]

To be honest i see nothing wrong with underwater combat, its handled very well in GW2, can't really think of a game that is doing it better. I wouldn't mind seeing more of it in the future as long as it stays out of the PvP area.

[Mea.5491]

Underwater skills feel weak and the options are restricted. Other than that, I love swimming/underwater combat in MMOs and GW2 does it well (even if it's neglected).

[Curunen.8729]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"Curunen.8729" said:

> > Some classes (eg revenant) are at a severe disadvantage, and some classes as Dawdler said are ridiculously powerful.

> >

> > Personally I do enjoy underwater simply because Mesmer Trident and Spear are beautiful weapons with beautifully designed skills.

> >

> > For pve it would be nice to see more underwater zones as those are some of the coolest areas in the game.

> Haha yeah...

>

> Get into underwater combat with a mesmer, pop all 5 weapon skills, swap and pop the next 5 skills. By this time the autoattack torpedo of an engineer has *maybe* reached its target and done 500 damage.

>

 

From an aesthetic point of view mesmer Trident auto attack is visually beautiful with the music.

 

But yeah for Mirage, Trident ambush is batkitten insanely powerful - stun on auto attack! xD I love getting people into the water in wvw. If underwater combat was more prevalent in wvw or if they brought back maps like old Capricorn then surely this should be nerfed. It's much easier to land than sword ambush daze because it's instant hit.

 

And spear ambush is pretty insane with the blink teleport on target, combined with spear 2.

[Dashiva.6149]

Underwater _enviroments_ in GW2 looks good and is more engaging than in most other mmos I've experienced, and I would certainly want to see more. When it comes to _gameplay and combat_ however I feel a big disconnect from how the game plays normally. It feels sluggish in a strange and uncomfortable way.

 

Arenanet has proved they can do interesting things with threedimensional combat and movement in the air (gliders, aerial combat skills and griffon), so I feel like there is potential for cool stuff to be made with a _new_ approach to future underwater content.

[Astralporing.1957]

The problem is timing. When the game was rushed to completion ahead of schedule, many parts suffered because of it and were released in unfinished state. Underwater combat was one of those things. And, unlike some more important things that they simply _had_ to continue working on (like, for example, the _game engine optimization_), underwater was not considered to be essential enough to be placed at the top of the work queue. There were always more important problems to be worked on. And so it has also become a part of the game that many _players_ tried to avoid. Eventually Anet just decided that it's better to pretend this part of the game simply doesn't exist.

 

And thus the first rule of underwater content was born (which is, of course "Do not talk about underwater content")

[Oglaf.1074]

The biggest problem is that it exists separate from main combat. The weapons often don’t work too well with the build you’re running or you simply hate the move set. Add to the fact that there are tons of skills that simply don’t work underwater. It just is more of a chore and a nuisance than a fun experience as a result.

 

If they were rework it (which they should if they ever intended to add more serious underwater content) is to allow your land weapons to be useable underwater, and make sure that all skills work underwater is a must - my Necro never sets foot in water because it despawns, and puts on cooldown, his Flesh Golem.

[Hannelore.8153]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> The biggest problem is that it exists separate from main combat. The weapons often don’t work too well with the build you’re running or you simply hate the move set. Add to the fact that there are tons of skills that simply don’t work underwater. It just is more of a chore and a nuisance than a fun experience as a result.

>

> If they were rework it (which they should if they ever intended to add more serious underwater content) is to allow your land weapons to be useable underwater, and make sure that all skills work underwater is a must - my Necro never sets foot in water because it despawns, and puts on cooldown, his Flesh Golem.

 

Many people have also been pushing for spear, trident and harpoon gun to be useable on land (e.g Warrior parry spear, Engi grapple). The idea would be to give more skills and weapons to all classes on land while giving a consistent skill set to underwater combat by sharing it; builds could then specialise in this kind of thing. However doing so would be a massive undertaking and would likely only happen as part of an expansion if at all.

 

Alot of the skills sets on these weapons are *good*, they just miss balance and QoL passes due to being water-exclusive.