[Suggestion] Please allow all weapons and their respective skills to be used in underwater combat

[Lenneth.7642]

Understand that Anet has just reworked underwater combat not too long ago which has been a great QoL changes to improve the speed and fluidity of underwater combat. Nevertheless, I still believe the main issue for why players are not enjoying underwater combat lies somewhere else. As for me, this is how I feels...

 

For one, underwater combat are strictly locked underwater combat weapon (Spear, Harpoon, Trident) which sometimes very limiting and does not synergy well with the build/traits we played for the ground combat. For example, I loved a fast paced D/D thief combat on the ground, I will have to change my play style when using spear underwater which is a slower weapon which I don't like and immersion breaking. Also, in WvW, players normally avoid underwater combat due to been forced to change into underwater weapon which skills is totally different and the usual combo and synergy, they built for the ground combat doesn't work well when forced to change into underwater weapons.

 

With that, to make underwater combat fun, why not allow all weapons and it's respective skills to be used underwater? Some tweak might be necessary but I believe it already have some great example how some skill can be tweaked to work well underwater (looking at Engineer grenade kit).

 

If I can still play D/D thief or maybe Greatsword/Hammer warrior underwater I will be more than happy to jump into water for combat without breaking the immersion of the build I enjoyed playing on ground combat.

 

For the current underwater weapon, I believe Anet can rework it in the following ways:

1) Retain underwater weapons so that if some of the players loves the current skills still can used in underwater. So, it will be an option for players to pick underwater weapon or retain normal weapon when jumping into underwater combat.

2) Rework the underwater weapons. I will love if they allow some classes to use spear weapon on the ground with. Trident and speargun should either combine it as spear weapon and rifle respectively or retain as separate set of weapons.

 

Those above are just my 1 man thought, if Anet decided to bring tons of underwater content in the next Expac, then I really hope they will consider this option.

[joneirikb.7506]

Couple of technical points against this idea for thought:

 

* The vastly different modes of movement 2d vs 3d movement creates some weird situations, and makes a lot of skills very difficult to work with.

* Example how to use necro staff UW, when 4/5 skills are placable AoE's, in water you can just swim over them.

* Guardians Sigils for example, sword 2 teleports you to target, dump a sigil on the ground, should the sigil become a sphere in the water? (more art, looks weird, and could easily end up spamming more effects in a big zerg battle)

* There is a multitude of more directions in a water fight (3d movement), making tab targeting almost required to work for anything like range attacks, leaps etc.

* Guardian GS2 the spin, should it now become a spinning ball ? or ok to let people swim under/over it to avoid ?

 

 

Basically, it would still require to rework nearly every single weapon skill to make this work. The water weapons was likely a way to get around/away from this, to make own dedicated limited set of weapons, to simply not have to deal with this. I mean, just imagine the balancing nightmare we already have in the game, if you also have to balance every single skill with UW and normal mode as well :p

[Lenneth.7642]

For your first 3 points, I believe it is natural for enemy to have option to swim over since underwater is 3D battle anyway. Guardian or necro mark can have less visual effect underwater to prevent too much visual noise (which already have a lot of smart example currently, Elementalist underwater Boil skill for example).

I don't understand your 4th point, there already have a lot of range attack and movement skills for current underwater weapon. I don't see any issues to have other range or movement skill implemented here.

Your argument sound like people cant walk around the current guardian GS2 spin skill on the ground combat? What's the different between swim over it compare to walk around it?

 

Overall, some smart rework might be necessary, but I believe the paid off will be huge if underwater doesn't break the immersion, synergy with traits, and more fluid.

[joneirikb.7506]

The more tab-targeting or targeting you need in general, the more awkward weapons become underwater. We have the same on land as well, but to a much lesser degree. So any weapon designed for UW should preferably have less direct targeting (this also means aoe's which is pretty problematic in water in general). So yes you could make Necro staff work in water, but the effect would be that everyone would hate it, because 4/5 skills are placable aoe's.

 

They would have to rework a lot of skills, and at some point I think they would hit a limit to how many variations they could get of similar skills, and to some extent it would make the same weapon feel "different" from land and UW. Just look at a bunch of the utility skills that have water versions, like traps, becomes some weird things floating in mid water instead, and affects different areas. It basically changes the skill into something different. The end result most likely would end up with a very different feel on the same weapons.

 

And the point with the Guardian GS2, is that you might as well replace it with a 1 target skill at that point, because the chances of getting more than 1-2 players in the same X/Y/Z coordinates are pretty low. Since you have a whole another dimension that people can spread out to. It would effectively make Greatsword which is one of guardians best weapons for hitting multiple targets act like a single target weapon.

 

Just take a look at Warriors GS, and try to change its skills over to UW. It gets pretty awkward, you'd either have to change how the skills worked, or you'd get the most silly weapon in the game as the warrior "runs around" in the water in various angles up and down. If nothing else it would completely break any kind of immersion watching those moves in water.

 

Other weapons like Warriors 1hand sword would probably convert pretty simple, but would still need all new animations for all attacks, and that cost alone is probably enough reason for ANet to not want to do this. Considering the water weapons have worked well enough for 6 years.

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

Spear, trident and speargun just makes sense for underwater. That is reason enough to say no to the others. How silly would it be seeing a hammer swung underwater.

[Dreadshow.9320]

So instead of allowing all weapons uw give all classes a uw spec for the uws weapons they are allowed.

[Fenom.9457]

They are adding more utility skills to water, in most recent patch and of course the blood in the water one

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I don't think it's likely that ANet will add 16 more weapons, and new underwater-sensible skills to go with them. That would be in the same ballpark of complexity as adding between 9 & 27 specializations, increasing the amount of work needed to be done with each new expansion, with each new balance patch.

[NoiseRen.2403]

3d breaks mechanics for 75% of the normal weapons skills.

And using weapons like pistols and rifles underwater is just plain illogical.

[zerorogue.9410]

AoE's area is already spherical.

The idea of putting the weapons underwater would be a good idea. Underwater combat should modify combat, not be it's own version of it.

 

This would require Anet to use a filter, instead of generating new content. Essentially write some rules on how skills are used underwater that apply to all skill types.

For instance making target aoes apply at your level(essentially an invisible plane at your feet that you cast the aoe on.) Actual aoe fields really just need a bubble then play the same effect in the center. Most effects can work in midair or be just billboards(ground image always faces camera.)

[SmirkDog.3160]

The Revenant's Demon Stance has an AoE ground targeted utility skill that, when used underwater, just puts it where you are or makes it an AoE effect based around you. It's already a thing they've done, so that's not really a good argument against allowing certain weapons and skills underwater.