HOW do you think new underwater combat will work?

[hugo.4705]

I hope that they will really boost damages! I feel so weak with my engineer and his harpoon not even talked about my weaver! Perfect on ground but underwater...

I'm very Intrigued and impatient to see how they will fix the underwater fights! And if it definitely change our life, maybe thinking about more underwater maps.

And if underwater is still kitten after that, then thinks about another way to create underwater maps like "simulating" water, basically the whole map is underwater, but you aren't swimming: You are stuck on the sea floor, walking but have a low gravity effect... So you can still use your on-ground skills.

[BobbyT.7192]

I very much doubt that it I’ll be anything significant, they would have mention a bit more than that. I know were waiting for more information to come out, but they would have given us more than just “ hey we got a thing”.

I think you all are getting your hopes/fears up

[TheQuickFox.3826]

The current underwater combat is fine with me as well, but improvements are always welcome.

I don't think anything of it yet. I'll just wait and see.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> The current underwater combat is fine with me as well, but improvements are always welcome.

> I don't think anything of it yet. I'll just wait and see.

 

Fine for what? PvE? Literally anything is fine for PvE.

 

In PvP and WvW its horrendous with half the skills not working and the other half doing pathetic damage. Some classes are basicly immortal underwater because other classes dont have the damage to kill them, whereas above water the same get roflstomped.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> > The current underwater combat is fine with me as well, but improvements are always welcome.

> > I don't think anything of it yet. I'll just wait and see.

>

> Fine for what? PvE? Literally anything is fine for PvE.

>

> In PvP and WvW its horrendous with half the skills not working and the other half doing pathetic damage. Some classes are basicly immortal underwater because other classes dont have the damage to kill them, whereas above water the same get roflstomped.

 

Probably yes. But we will need much more viable underwater content to get these skills some real usability. In PvE I am more than 95% of the time on land, and WvW more than 98%. (estimated)

[steinnovels.9675]

I have always found underwater combat to be lackluster when compared to normal on land combat. No matter which profession, weapon, kit or skill, it takes far longer to defeat a single enemy than when you are above water, and forget about dealing with swarms of enemies, you will be dead long before you can take them all out. The underwater weapons also under perform compared to above water weapons. The only improvement I have seen before this up coming update has been the ability to use Holosmith skills underwater and even that has not been that great of an improvement. I hope that the changes improve the situation for everyone and make being underwater fun instead of a tedious chore.

[Durzlla.6295]

> @"Samnang.1879" said:

> i hope @anet make all skills work... otherwise theres no point of these changes...

>

> i mean a chronomancer whose wells (all of them) dont work underwater... whats the point of bringing chronomancer then? LOL?

 

Not a single Druid glyph works underwater, and ours aren’t even ground targeted...

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

most mmo don't have underwater combat. in fact most mmo water just insta kills you. they need to fix uw combat for the simple reason is that the deep sea dragon is where? most likely deep in the sea.

[joneirikb.7506]

> @"hugo.4705" said:

> I hope that they will really boost damages! I feel so weak with my engineer and his harpoon not even talked about my weaver! Perfect on ground but underwater...

> I'm very Intrigued and impatient to see how they will fix the underwater fights! And if it definitely change our life, maybe thinking about more underwater maps.

> And if underwater is still kitten after that, then thinks about another way to create underwater maps like "simulating" water, basicly the whole map is underwater, but you aren't swimming: You are stuck on the sea floor, walking but have a low gravity effect... So you can still use your on-ground skills.

 

Now I'm kind of imaging that you can swim as is up and down, and then land on the bottom and walk as above ground, just a bit slower. On one hand it might be interesting, on another hand, it would also feel really dull. To run around with a greatsword and hammer on the bottom of the sea.

 

But I don't think this update will bring anywhere near this much change.

 

On another topic entirely, this thread is reminding me that the only place left in the game without power creep is water! I should relally learn to appreciate that a bit more ;)

[DarcShriek.5829]

It will probably be pretty deep

 

[Leo G.4501]

I think the biggest thing is not to get your expectations too high. The changes likely won't be night and day and after the patch, underwater combat is instantly the bee's knees. Things will likely be incremental with the next patch being the first step to improvement.

[Maikimaik.1974]

I just hope the next expansion isn't going to be underwater.

If they mess that update up... well I think you know how "good" the expansion is going to sell.

[InvaGir.9158]

> @"Arden.7480" said:

> I think this patch is about adding specializations skills for the underwater combat. Or maybe you will not be able to stack up the burning under water because it denies the basic nature's laws. :D


 

[Celldrax.2849]

Oh how nice it would be to use rev facets underwater...

[Arden.7480]

> @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > I think this patch is about adding specializations skills for the underwater combat. Or maybe you will not be able to stack up the burning under water because it denies the basic nature's laws. :D

> 

>

 

Screw logic! :D

[Arden.7480]

> @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > I think this patch is about adding specializations skills for the underwater combat. Or maybe you will not be able to stack up the burning under water because it denies the basic nature's laws. :D

> 

>

 

Screw logic! :D

[perilisk.1874]

Hoping that they

1) Add completely separate build tab for UW build, and completely swap it on entering/exiting. Maybe even put all UW stats on the aquabreathers, like PvP gear. Maybe, maybe, even have slight trait differences on the UW tab.

2) Add an underwater specialization for each profession (only usable in the UW-specific build tab), to (a) have an excuse to rework class mechanics that suck underwater, and (b) ensure that there is at least one set of utilities that works well underwater. Also, as a point sink.

3) Rework water combat in general to focus on mobility and velocity rather than position. In particular, that means minimizing melee combat (given that range is hard to ascertain without landmarks) and focusing more on action-cam style ranged combat. Basically, apply what they learned with gliding and mounts to really polish the movement, and maybe place less emphasis on trying to make a land-combat paradigm work underwater.

[InvaGir.9158]

> @"Arden.7480" said:

> > @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > > I think this patch is about adding specializations skills for the underwater combat. Or maybe you will not be able to stack up the burning under water because it denies the basic nature's laws. :D

> > 

> >

>

> Screw logic! :D

 

Hey, Just saying...

Everything is possible in a fantasy world :p

[Arden.7480]

> @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > > @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > > > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > > > I think this patch is about adding specializations skills for the underwater combat. Or maybe you will not be able to stack up the burning under water because it denies the basic nature's laws. :D

> > > 

> > >

> >

> > Screw logic! :D

>

> Hey, Just saying...

> Everything is possible in a fantasy world :p

 

Yeah, that you can also burn Balthazar- the (fallen, but still) god of fire. ;D

[Orpheal.8263]

I've written several concepts, propsals and suggestion over the years about this .. now it seems Anet has finally found the time and ressources to take on the project of "Make Underwater Gameplay great again"....

 

The balancing patch itself won't be definetely the big game changer.. it will be just only a drop of "water" onto a burning hot stone...

But its at least finally the neccessary step into the right directino that is needed to prepare hopefully this game for the bigger upcoming overhaul that this game needs for all of it's UW related game content, which we already have and especially for which we will most likely receive in the future of either beign part of upcoming living world patches or even more likely the next third expansion, which I guess will be the next expansion focus on underwater content since the very moment ANet revealed with the last living world patch now such a huge area of the unending ocean, which wasn't seeable before of that patch, where the world map wan't expanded to show us this big territory at all - and it would have been a completely pointless action, if ANet in fact doesn't have any plans on making content for the unending oncean as part of explorable UW maps for either the LW season 4 or as part of the next expansion.

 

Underwater gameplay consist in my opinion of 3 most important pillars, which need to get overhauled and expanded, or by the way added, cause one of those important pillars so far doesn't exist, but needs definetely to be added, to make underwater content great again and in every single aspect of concept around underwater gameplay better, than the current version of what we have now:

 

Pillar 1: Underwater Combat Balance & Combat Mechanics, Controls &Camera Play

Pillar 2: Underwater Content

Pillar 3: Underwater Character Progression

 

Pillar 1 is the part, where ANet can most likely prepare the most things with a Balance Patch and do significant improvements by fixxing the many smaller issues of the underwater combat mechanics and balance, which are all thigns, which shouldnt stand in the focus for what is to come with an expansion, which should focus itself onto Pillars 2 and 3, because thats in th end the pillars, which give players a reason to buy the expansion.

 

What ANet has to do in my opinion under Pillar 1 is fixing all the many smaller issues with the UWCS, which lead essentially to the fail of that content and Anet stopping supporting it completely for the last 5 years

 

1) Merge Harpoon Gun and Rifle together under Rifles, remove obsolete Weapon Types!! This makes Rifle then for all Classes that were able to use Harpoon Guns, but no Rifles under the Core Class baseline, leading automatically to also the overhaul of the Deadeye Spec, exchanging it out with a complete new Spec, what is in the end naturally Balancing Work , when a Weapon, that was formerly useable by a Class only via Specialization becomes now due to Balance Work and Mechanic Overhauls baseline and new Skilsl with a Replacement Specialization are to be added which need to be balanced around the existing Classes.

 

2) Do the same with Trident and Staff, to remove the second and last complete ovsolete Weapon Type of this game finally.

If there is a Class, which could use before of this merge tridents, but no Staves, then this change will make Staff for that Class baseline.

 

3) Make Spears officially the Polearm Weapons, which can be used from now on under water as like on land for some chosen Classes as part of balancing these Classes, which were before of that patch already able to use Spears under water, which are nearly already all of them - so Warrior, Guardian, Revenant, Thief, Ranger, Mesmer and Necromancer - if you make Spear useable on land, this must be naturally balanced as well - which belongs to the work of a Balancing Patch to add also new Skills, which can help balancing the class by just giving it more Build Diversity though the new added skills, while eventually later then also via new E-Specs for the other Classes, like for the Elementalist

 

4) Add more Build Diversity/better Balance for Underwater Combat, by making the choice of weapons for the Classes broader, via adding Sword, Daggers, Mace, Axe, Shield,

Warhorn, Focus and Torch also to the possible underwater weapons... cause if you can fight with a big clunky spear in both hands underwater, then you can fight under water also with daggers in your hands!!! Or with a Mace and a Shield ...cause all of that won't disturb you at swimming under watter, no more or less than wielding a big heavy and unhandy spear there ....

 

5) Give Underwater Combat as part of the Balance Patch to balance the classes for underwater combat all their very own sets of Underwater Trait Lines, which are all specifically designed for the classes in underwater combat, which switch automatically over from Land Traits being in usage to Water Traits, the very moment you dive under water

 

6) Remove as part of the Balance Patch all Skills from the game, which don't work under water and replace them with new and balanced skills either, or rework the skilsl, which currently can't work under water, so that they can do work there with little changed mechanics and new skill names, like what you did essentially with the Tornado Skill from the Elementalist, switching it underwater to Maelstrom. this is the kind of DYNAMIC SKILL DESIGN WORK, which all skilsl should have for underwater Combat and all skilsl, which don't fit intio this kind of skill design work, just need to be removed and replaced with new skills, which can work under this skill design concept.

After the balance Patch there should be under no class no single skill anymore, which doesn't work anymore the moment you touch water!! This was from begin on the biggest design flaw of the whole underwater combat system leadign literal to it being a fail from begin on, because you make a underwater combat systme, in which classes were literally punished for going into water- like the scaredy cat like Thief, which lost essentialyl all of its important gameplay aspects and like half of all its build diversity when you go with this Class into water - thats what I call literally a total skill design DESASTER!!

 

7) Give players better UI mechanics in underwater gameplay, which indicated the player, from which direction you get attacked, if from behind, from abobe, from below ect. by adding Damage Signals on the screen , like red/orange (for color blinded chooseable in options) damage flashes on the borders of the screen, so if you get attacked from above, a damage flash signal will appear on the upper side of your screen, if you get attacked from below, then it appears down on your screen, if you can attacked from behin, it with flash in the middle of the screen, so that you allways visually know, from where you get attacked, which is one of the main reasons, why many people dislike underwater combat, together with the clunky camera

 

8) Rebalance especially the Downed Underwater Skills, extremely especially the extreme overpowered rally potential of the Ranger's dumb Pet, which ressurrects WAY TOO GOOD.. it can even outheal the damage of several players easily once the ressurection speed of it has grown to the maximum, giving rangers underwater essentially a completely overpowered guaranteed rally, while you have NO CHANCE to stop the pet whyever from rallying its downed master, cause you can#t kill off the will ,while it rallies the player, cause out of a sudden you cant attack the pet anymore while it rallies the player, you cant stop it at all, you can pump the downed player full with tons of CC spam, it wont stop the dum pet for rallying its downed player for sure ... which is super frustrating, which you have a battle with a ranger and al he needs to do is making a save jump intpo the water when hes about to die, just to get rallied for sure by the pet as long they dotn get overwhelmed by too many players to outdamage the already overpowered heal aspect of the pet. Pets should ressurrest much slower and weaker than players and their rally speed should definetly not become any faster at all over time that they can outheal the burst attacks of multiple players easily to a kind of guaranteed rally!! Pets need to become targetable, so that you can kill them off or cc them to stop them for healing their downed masters

 

Thats the best Anet can do in my opinion for Pillar 1 as part of a Balance Patch that is focused on the removal of obsolete weapon types, spear as land weapon/new skills that come together with these changes/E-Spec Replacement for Deadeye and a neccessary addign of own underwater traits for all classes and changes to skilsl to make them work all under water and the required balance changes that need to be done by doign these thigns in combination with adding more possible useable weapons underweater to give us under water a similar build diversity, than what we have on land, so that underwater combat become more interstign and not so "boring" with its currently only 3 useable weapon types.

 

With Pillar 2 comes then underwater content, that is about the Expansion:

- Cantha Maps/UW Maps

- DSD Story

- Underwater WvW Map as 3rd Borlderland "Tropical Islands Borderland"

- Underwater Guild Hall like kind of Atlantis inspired with a GH map, that can SINK underwater and RISE UP again out of the water

- New legendary gen 2 spear

ect.

 

With Pillar 3 comes then the content, what ANet can do about Underwater Gameplay so that players have the feeling of having Character Progression

- Adding exotic, ascended, legendary Aqua Breathers

- Adding underwater related legendary Rings maybe as part of some kind of SUNKEN TREASURE in some kind of GHOST SHIP or so full of DSD minions as well to continue this way the implementation of legendary accessoires

- Adding Underwater/Water related Masteries for Underwater Exploration (Propulsions) Swimming, Diving, Fishing Gathering Job/ together with Chef 500 for nice new fishing related cooking recipes, Underwater Mounts and the simple improvement of turning Skimmers into the first underwater Mounts to become able to use them also while you are under water to get this way quicker out of water if you want

ect

 

I don't expect much of the balancing Patch ,it will end up most likely only in damage number changes, bug fixes and trivial changes to the skils as usual, what anet is doing basically permanently for 6 years, but the list up things here are just in my opinion the things, which need to happen, to make Underwater gameplay as great as possible for this game to make it a blast, which will throw everyone who dislikes currently UW content out of their socks, if these things would be done. And that in the right convincing way, so that underwater cobmat will make for everyone with all classes fun again.

 

A complete no from me and absolute disagreement do I have personally with underwater exclusive Elite Specs..that would be imo a total NO GO, lets not go there, that would make definetely the game worser. E -pecs are for everywhere, not only specifically for UW usage, or on land. A third expansion surely will get its next set of E-Specs again, but they shouldnt be designed around uw content. That would be in my opinion clearly the wrong way to handle the 3rd E Spec set.

[Crise.9401]

To be realistic, there is (so far) no indication that there will be "new" underwater combat. In that they are calling this a balance patch, not a revamp. Though the community is doing fine job looking past that.

 

So what we are most likely get are number tweaks, at most I'd expect some trait reworks to account for underwater right now, but still mostly numbers no mechanics adjustments. If this was going to be something big then why underplay it like they have, at the same time why give an advance notice at all? If I was into speculation then I'd probably say they wanted to make this blog post to try and soften the "why are you wasting time on underwater balance, no-one cares or rather fix issue X before you waste time on it" effect or just to measure player reaction in advance somewhat.

 

It is highly unlikely we will see any major changes, balance patch is still a balance patch, we have a good idea of what sort of changes the balance team can do in the live development side (i.e. outside expansion packs) and generally that does not include mechanics, unless expansion is just around the corner and they are already in the mode where their job is to make preparations for that (highly unlikely, considering PoF came out fairly recently and we know this season of LS will have at least 5 episodes, likely more).

 

It is just weird thing for them to suddenly come out with in general with that advance blog post... they should know the player base is incapable of tempering their expectations. So far there is no indication that it will be anything more than a balance pass on existing underwater skills, I think it even references current skills specifically somewhere.

 

It is, at this time, far more likely that they realized that they are running out of excuses to not have any or very little water on maps... e.g. such as being in a desert or the jungle or having the ocean be boiling hot... the list goes on. Or the story is going to a place where manufacturing such rationale simply wouldn't work I mean they can't just pull a Lake Doric every time there is established to be a lake in an area of the world for example.

[derd.6413]

it's a balance patch and not a complete rework. so exactly the same with better skills

[Orpheal.8263]

I absolutely can temper my expectations.

I just like only to brainstorm and think about things with that current content can be improved and to write them down and potentially discuss them, if there are people to be found which like to discuss the mentioned things ;)

 

But I know as well too, that we will most likely receive nothing mores but just the stereorypical number changing patch by Anet, which we all know how they look like and most likely change either nothing, or have kind of the issue, of making things rather worser, than better of what we have had before, when we look back into the past of balance patches.

That the balance patch is some kind of preparation, or how people do like to say here - a "precursor" of something bigger and greater to come, is in the end nothing more or less, than just own personal speculation, that can be eventually discussed, or not, if there are no interested people in that kind of topic.

 

By expecting only the stereotypical standard, will be the the end a bigger chance, that you get positively surprised, should anet really do more, than their standard patching process, nor will you be disappointed in the end, when they basically did exactly only, what you expected from them that they will do from our shared 6 year old experience of their Balance Patches.

 

We will see all together the results soon™ xD

 

[Rajani Isa.6294]

I just hope they fix the issue of being screwed if you hit the surface of water. It’s annoying (and has killed my character) to all of a sudden have all your skills disappear.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"Orpheal.8263" said:

> But I know as well too, that we will most likely receive nothing mores but just the stereorypical number changing patch by Anet, which we all know how they look like and most likely change either nothing, or have kind of the issue, of making things rather worser, than better of what we have had before, when we look back into the past of balance patches.

 

Of course you will get only minor changes - number tweaks, possibly some small scale skill changes like we have seen in other profession skill changes. In this case the weapon(s) they are adjusting are the underwater ones, rather than land ones.

 

Nothing has significantly changed about underwater combat, or the engine, to suggest that any more major change is coming: all the structural problems are inherent in adding a third dimension to GW2 combat, rather than in anything specific to "underwater"; flying combat has the same set of problems and pains. Notice that aside from the Bloodstone Fen stuff we still fight exclusively on the ground, and enemies that "fly" do it by standing on an invisible stool, not anything else?

 

 

As to the later half of your comment, that it will do nothing, have issues, or make things worse, that is ... well, no change makes people happy, and balance changes are the worst for that: if you get them right, the things you changed feel indifferent, just like everything else. Congratulations, all that work for nothing noticeable at all!

 

Add to that the tendency of people to ... over-value things they can see or measure, and undervalue things they can't, and you get a recipe for the perception of disaster regardless of the reality: if things are balanced, people will fixate on changes in damage output that are literally in the noise for excellent players in the best conditions, let alone more average players, and use those to claim that something is "the best" option.

 

So ... I don't think your argument is really supportable in fact, but it absolutely is in popular perception. Because people can't really measure performance effectively in the real world in most cases - for example, [with actual numbers](https://www.gw2raidar.com/global_stats "with actual numbers"), taking a Necro Reaper into raids with you is going to be absolutely fine (50th percentile, and 80th percentile, in the main bucket of DPS output), but ... popular perception, not so much, y'know?