Should breakbars be removed?

[clark.5839]

I believe that the break bar system is a good one, however, I think it is also good to mix things up every once in a while. It would be good to have break bar tweaks, scaling fixes, etc.

[Mea.5491]

Keep them, add breakbar tutorial and breakbar damage info to skills with cc effects.

[Urud.4925]

Without the breakbars the gameplay would be more boring. I see no reason to remove them, but I think that they should be explained better to new players.

For example adding a "CC" as icon/abbreviation to the skill's description (like, in blue for soft CC, pink for hard CC). It's not clear for a new player what is a CC skill: Launch? Slow? Cripple? Chill?

And most important: how can they test how much it's their strength? Launch usually have its value reported in the description, but to compare other CC (especially if they pulse) is not always easy without a dummy train, and entering the PvP lobby to fight the lord (while other mobs also attack you and other players also interfer with the fight) it's not the best way.

 

(recycled image from another thread: [CC notation](https://image.ibb.co/eEFdLc/Untitled.png "CC notation"))

TL;DR: keep the mechanic, but add a clear notation on the skills' description and put some dummy train with a breakbar in some easy spot of the PvE maps.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Carighan.6758" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > Break bars are a fine mechanic. And to whoever selects the first choice: yeah let's go back to the boring stacks we had before break bars

>

> Because obviously that has to be the solution. Can't have an actually decent system, has to be Bad System A vs Bad System B.

 

I don't see anyone voting to remove them, to propose such a "decent" system.

[otto.5684]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > @"otto.5684" said:

> > > @"SnowHawk.3615" said:

> > > The game is too casual as it is. "I have to actually time my skills? UGH TOO HARD."

> >

> > Or even use skills beyond AA lol. Man breaking bars is such an easy and obvious mechanic. I cannot fathaoum how people still have issues with it.

>

> it is almost like they are different persons, with different skills and different taste

> the fact that most people can(and will ) ignore it makes it a failure

> the fact that you only can see from your own perspective makes you a-------

 

You know video games are supposed to be an “interactive” experience and games do have a learning curve. GW2 content requires the user to do more than just “attack,” by design.

 

Adding more explanation tools to help new players would be nice, but we cannot just strip content mechanics cuz new players need time to learn them.

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"otto.5684" said:

> > @"SnowHawk.3615" said:

> > The game is too casual as it is. "I have to actually time my skills? UGH TOO HARD."

>

> Or even use skills beyond AA lol. Man breaking bars is such an easy and obvious mechanic. I cannot fathaoum how people still have issues with it.

 

And I cannot fathom how people can misspell some of the simplest words. :p

[Odokuro.5049]

I voted to keep it as is, because the breakbar adds a, "Challenge". when it comes to fighting mobs in PvE. I enjoy using my bar-breaking skills, and insist others learn to utilize theirs instead of mashing 1 on the keyboard.

[SnowHawk.3615]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > @"otto.5684" said:

> > > @"SnowHawk.3615" said:

> > > The game is too casual as it is. "I have to actually time my skills? UGH TOO HARD."

> >

> > Or even use skills beyond AA lol. Man breaking bars is such an easy and obvious mechanic. I cannot fathaoum how people still have issues with it.

>

> it is almost like they are different persons, with different skills and different taste

> the fact that most people can(and will ) ignore it makes it a failure

> the fact that you only can see from your own perspective makes you a-------

 

the fact that you have to censor yourself but still resort to name calling makes you what then? breakbars are a dumb feature, but anet added them regardless. "pressing skills other than 1 too hard!"

 

[perilisk.1874]

> @"yann.1946" said:

> > @"Mantheren.5428" said:

> > I am not a fan of break bars, never have been. I prefer the crowd control skills to actually do the crowd control effects they were meant for. Not be repurposed to break a bar.

>

> How would you make it that cc on bosses isnt overpowered or useless?

 

I'm sure there are lots of things you could do, though maybe they have their own downsides.

 

You could track, e.g., resistance to each type of hard CC separately, so that the actual effect is applied rather than a general stun (which is part of the psychological problem with breakbars, I think. If a bunch of Mesmer use Signet of Humility, they'd feel better if the boss turned into a Moa rather than just getting stunned). Downside is that it would be hard to balance since some CCs would impossible to pull off (too rare) and others would be spammed (too common). So, you could make bosses start more vulnerable to CC, but rapidly gain resistance each time they get hit with a CC. But then, CC becomes less and less effective through a long fight, and is overpowered for a short one.

 

Another approach would be to introduce some sort of more complex instability mechanic so that different CC types have different uses in bringing a boss to a stun phase. For example, replace the solid breakbar with a sort of sine wave traveling across the bar over time, representing the boss's "balance". It starts with a very low amplitude, and the goal is to push it outside of the vertical edges of the box to trigger knockdown/stun. Then, give different types of CC different effects on this bar. Just tossing ideas out there:

* Up: Hard CC effect (e.g. Launch) that increases wave amplitude if it is above 0, but does nothing if it is below 0 (to prevent trolling, shouldn't let players actually take away BB progress)

* Down: Hard CC effect (e.g. Knockdown) that increases wave amplitude if it is below 0, but does nothing if it is above 0 (to prevent trolling, shouldn't let players actually take away BB progress)

* Angle: Hard CC effect whose impact is determined by the relative position of the player and enemy, and the wave angle. If the player is directly in front of the enemy, it is most effective when the wave is at the top. If directly behind the enemy, it is most effective when the wave is at the bottom.

* Spike: Hard CC effect that very, very briefly reduces the vertical size of the box, to help get a stun when the wave is close to its maximum or minimum.

* Slow: Soft CC effect (e.g. Slow) that lowers the frequency of the wave, making it easier to time CCs for maximum effectiveness. Boss scaling should reduce the duration of this and other soft CCs (and vuln, but not damaging CCs).

* Amplify: Soft CC effect that increases the impact of hard CC hits.

* Lock: Like current breakbars, the wave would tend to lose magnitude over time. Soft CC with the Lock effect (e.g. Chill) reduces or eliminates this breakbar regen, to maintain progress.

* Extend: Soft CC effect that makes stun phases longer.

* Weaken: Soft CC effect that boosts the damage increase during stun phases.

[Rauderi.8706]

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> And I cannot fathom how people can misspell some of the simplest words. :p

 

That 12-year tutorial wasn't working, I guess. :P

 

> @"perilisk.1874" said:

> You could track, e.g., resistance to each type of hard CC separately, so that the actual effect is applied rather than a general stun (which is part of the psychological problem with breakbars, I think. If a bunch of Mesmer use Signet of Humility, they'd feel better if the boss turned into a Moa rather than just getting stunned). Downside is that it would be hard to balance since some CCs would impossible to pull off (too rare) and others would be spammed (too common). So, you could make bosses start more vulnerable to CC, but rapidly gain resistance each time they get hit with a CC. But then, CC becomes less and less effective through a long fight, and is overpowered for a short one.

 

It's shouldn't be too hard (but I'm not a dev-coder so what do I know :P) to tweak the system a bit so that hard-CC (including fear) goes straight to the bar but have other soft CC perform differently or gain temporary immunities that divert resisted effects to the Defiance bar. There are lots of bosses where there's no reason not to allow Cripple at least some of the time, for example. Or if it misses via Blind once, it gains several seconds of immunity (going to the bar) before it can miss again.

 

The hard part of trying to allow hard-CC is it either gets wasted (like with the old Defiance stacks) or it gets abused. I can understand having a big meter that takes up several Disable hits for that. But soft-CC gets swept under that system as well, making those relatively useless, when that's where a *lot* of active damage mitigation comes from. Slow helps time dodges and reduces enemy dps, blind avoids hits entirely, cripple makes kiting easier, etc. The all-or-nothing Defiance method we have now removes tactics we should be using.

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

Just learn how to do it. Its not hard and there is plenty stuff online to see what profession cc skills are. Its probably dumb of me for posting this here cause im sure most of the people who do not cc are probably not here in the forums anyways.

[DiabolicalHamSandwich.8756]

I understand the game is more on the casual side, but come on. At some points you have to draw the line.

[Kas.3509]

The only thing about breakbar I hate is that when some events basically require you to break the breakbar to be able to complete it (Joko and his grieving followers event in the new map).

I start it, I do it up to 30-40% of his life. 3 new players come, breakbar scales. we fail because they don't use CC at all and their dmg is poor and I can't do enough for 4 players obviously.

I felt pretty bad then :/ Doesn't encourage grouping with other players. I can do it longer if they're weak but failing just bcs they came is sad.

 

I wish more bosses, champions, elites etc had more meaningful breakbars.

[Trise.2865]

After all the crying you people had to do to get the mechanic in?

 

Yes.

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > I would prefer some kind of coloring scheme or hatchwork scheme to be able to identify the type of break bar and its strength. But, not a completely rework or removal. They're good for the game, but there's no consistency.

> All breakbars work the same outside the endeffect and strenght.

> ...

 

That's an absurdly wrong statement.

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> Some breakbars are intended for interrupting skills.

 

"SOME" breakbars? You just said that all breakbars are the same. Make up your mind.

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"Magnus Godrik.5841" said:

> Just learn how to do it. Its not hard and there is plenty stuff online to see what profession cc skills are. Its probably dumb of me for posting this here cause im sure most of the people who do not cc are probably not here in the forums anyways.

 

The thing is that most of the time this mechanic can be completely ignored...you'll kill it anyway, just might take a bit longer and in places where it does need to be dealt with usually some people are doing this...so most people are never pushed to learn it. I'll be honest with you. When I saw this thread I had to look up what break bars were and so I watched a couple of videos and now I get how this works.

 

Think about that...this thread peaked my curiosity to the point where I looked it up but playing the game didn't. And that's the reason I think it needs to be changed. Not taken away but made more significant as to create an actual need for people to learn it. I saw the same in SWTOR where in so-called Story Mode (easiest mode) they ripped out a bunch of boss mechanics and a lot of remaining mechanics can simply be ignored so that you can just go in and tank and spank. So people don't learn anything and then when they go to the next mode they fail miserably because the difference in difficulty is so big.

 

The problem is that the fights where you do really need to mind the break bar, the game doesn't tell you what the issue is. So a lot of people that just tag along with the event bosses have no idea why it went wrong...if it went wrong. And when people are shouting for CC and half the people or more don't do it, it's because they do not understand what's going on.

 

I will say that I purposefully play this game as a casual and this is why I haven't gone in depth into the combat system because overall the combat system doesn't inspire me much. To me this is still a dodge/ress/auto-attack game and that covers the vast majority of the PvE content here. You have to understand though that if there is a mechanic that is used regularly but can be ignored most of the time, it's not a useful addition to the game. Better to take it away where people can ignore it.

 

I mean what are those mordremoth mobs again that take no damage unless you break that bar? I see them in Dragon Stand and well I did wonder why they were invulnerable and how to undo that, but then someone always does so I don't have to worry about it. After seeing those videos I imagine it's the break bar mechanic that does this.

 

And though I do think that there are casual players that come to the forum, I also know that most players in general never do. So why have ignorable break bars and no explanation in game about it when it does matter? A lot of people just go into the game and want to play and not have to get online courses on how to do this or that. I think that's just the reality of it. I think that for important boss fights there could be hints popping up for people that engage there the first time to quickly explain the mechanic so people are at least aware of them. That already could help a lot. And really if you can just ignore them, either take em away or make them matter. That's my view on it.

[Miellyn.6847]

> @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > Some breakbars are intended for interrupting skills.

>

> "SOME" breakbars? You just said that all breakbars are the same. Make up your mind.

 

All breakbars get reduced instantly by hard CC and over time by soft CC. All breakbars take the same damage from the same skills and conditions.

The only thing that changes is the strenght and the result of breaking the bar. But the mechanic itself is always the same. There is not a single breakbar that is negative when you break it. Most of the time you want to break it as soon as possible. The only exception that I remember right now is Gorseval. But that is a raid encounter and this is part of a specific strategy.

[flog.3485]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > Some breakbars are intended for interrupting skills.

> >

> > "SOME" breakbars? You just said that all breakbars are the same. Make up your mind.

>

> All breakbars get reduced instantly by hard CC and over time by soft CC. All breakbars take the same damage from the same skills and conditions.

> The only thing that changes is the strenght and the result of breaking the bar. But the mechanic itself is always the same. There is not a single breakbar that is negative when you break it. Most of the time you want to break it as soon as possible. The only exception that I remember right now is Gorseval. But that is a raid encounter and this is part of a specific strategy.

 

Well not breaking the bar for the meta events in tangled depths when fighting the chacks and the final step of Dragon’s Stand is also highly recommended.

[Batel.9206]

So, I've only recently (within the past four days) gotten into Heart of Thorns. Up until now, I had only the vaguest idea of what a breakbar even is and what it does and how I can...well, break it.

 

Enter Heart of Thorns. Where many, many, MANY things have breakbars.

 

...I love it. It's frustrating at times, but it's a good challenge. I like being forced to learn how to play better, and getting into new types of combat and figuring out mechanics. I'm still fuzzy on exact specifics, but that's how I learn: by doing things firsthand (and failing at them sometimes).

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > Some breakbars are intended for interrupting skills.

> >

> > "SOME" breakbars? You just said that all breakbars are the same. Make up your mind.

>

> All breakbars get reduced instantly by hard CC and over time by soft CC. All breakbars take the same damage from the same skills and conditions.

> The only thing that changes is the strenght and the result of breaking the bar. But the mechanic itself is always the same. There is not a single breakbar that is negative when you break it. Most of the time you want to break it as soon as possible. The only exception that I remember right now is Gorseval. But that is a raid encounter and this is part of a specific strategy.

 

I've been told that for the Chak Gerent it's also a bad idea. Something about it becoming stronger when you do that.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > > Some breakbars are intended for interrupting skills.

> > >

> > > "SOME" breakbars? You just said that all breakbars are the same. Make up your mind.

> >

> > All breakbars get reduced instantly by hard CC and over time by soft CC. All breakbars take the same damage from the same skills and conditions.

> > The only thing that changes is the strenght and the result of breaking the bar. But the mechanic itself is always the same. There is not a single breakbar that is negative when you break it. Most of the time you want to break it as soon as possible. The only exception that I remember right now is Gorseval. But that is a raid encounter and this is part of a specific strategy.

>

> I've been told that for the Chak Gerent it's also a bad idea. Something about it becoming stronger when you do that.

 

Times like this I wish there were still good commanders...

 

Gerent runs around like a freak, dropping death donuts everywhere and dodging attacks. But, when he goes into slam dance mode, he's stationary and doesn't drop anymore of those death donuts. This makes him easy to DPS at this phase.. The AoEs are easier to avoid than you'd think. The only dangerous part of slam dance is that sometimes Gerent will fixate on a player that runs around even freakier, causing his tail slams to become unpredictable.

 

As far as good bars vs. bad bars, there are a few occasions where you'll avoid breaking. Gerent is one, Gorseval is another. Personally I also avoid breaking the Sand Giant, since the only thing it does is cause the Sand Giant to instantly transition into a different attack. Siaxx is another strange example, where prolonging his break bar until the very end gives you a lot of free DPS when Social Awkwardness isn't an instability.

[cesmode.4257]

I think they are a fine mechanic. They give purpose to CC in PVP. The only change I would recommend is an alert or some notification to the player after a certain amount of time, or some visual, letting them know that they need to apply CC to break the bar and do max dmg.

 

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> > > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > > > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > > > Some breakbars are intended for interrupting skills.

> > > >

> > > > "SOME" breakbars? You just said that all breakbars are the same. Make up your mind.

> > >

> > > All breakbars get reduced instantly by hard CC and over time by soft CC. All breakbars take the same damage from the same skills and conditions.

> > > The only thing that changes is the strenght and the result of breaking the bar. But the mechanic itself is always the same. There is not a single breakbar that is negative when you break it. Most of the time you want to break it as soon as possible. The only exception that I remember right now is Gorseval. But that is a raid encounter and this is part of a specific strategy.

> >

> > I've been told that for the Chak Gerent it's also a bad idea. Something about it becoming stronger when you do that.

>

> Times like this I wish there were still good commanders...

>

> Gerent runs around like a freak, dropping death donuts everywhere and dodging attacks. But, when he goes into slam dance mode, he's stationary and doesn't drop anymore of those death donuts. This makes him easy to DPS at this phase.. The AoEs are easier to avoid than you'd think. The only dangerous part of slam dance is that sometimes Gerent will fixate on a player that runs around even freakier, causing his tail slams to become unpredictable.

>

> As far as good bars vs. bad bars, there are a few occasions where you'll avoid breaking. Gerent is one, Gorseval is another. Personally I also avoid breaking the Sand Giant, since the only thing it does is cause the Sand Giant to instantly transition into a different attack. Siaxx is another strange example, where prolonging his break bar until the very end gives you a lot of free DPS when Social Awkwardness isn't an instability.

I suppose these are all boss fights that a lot of people will never or rarely encounter or just disappear into the masses and ignore the shouts for CC or stop CC. I mean, I like the concept of it but I'm not sure if it's current implementation really adds to the game overall when most people just ignore it. I like your description of the Gerent fight though :)

 

> @"cesmode.4257" said:

> I think they are a fine mechanic. They give purpose to CC in PVP. The only change I would recommend is an alert or some notification to the player after a certain amount of time, or some visual, letting them know that they need to apply CC to break the bar and do max dmg.

>

I don't PvP so forgive my ignorance on the topic. I would've assumed that in PvP you wouldn't need such a mechanic since you can affect players directly who don't have the usual immunity to them...or did you mean the fort bosses in WvW?

 

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I put rework- but only in that the breakbar values of skills should be rebalanced.