I am wary of a Monk, though it depends on what they do with it. A pure healing class was a mistake in GW as it became essential for every party, and there should never be an essential class.
Now every class has its own healing option, if they once more overlay that with a pure healer... well, I worry.
Levelling was an essentially pointless mechanic in GW. Skill gathering was really what it was about. There was some talk of dumping levels. If they are in, they had better have a purpose.
Hmmm, true. Perhaps they'll keep the Monk in some manner, but diversify it a bit. Because I really cannot see them getting rid of the profession entirely, but they do seem to be moving more towards being able to take care of yourself on your own. And the Protection Prayers line is something fairly unique to GW, I can't see them getting rid of it entirely.
And true as well. Leveling itself was pretty unimportant, and was basically meant to be "okay, you're level 20, you've figured out how to play the game now, have fun". I'm more interested in how they'll handle attributes and gaining skills and stuff, and how they're going to do the weapon skills.
2 soldier classes, im thinking Warrior/Dervish(paladin type) hybrid and a Warrior/Paragon(full soldier) hybrid. Could also be Warrior/Ranger Hybrid because they mentioned warriors using guns to damage enemies from range. And since dual profs are out it leads me to belive they've combined aspects of profs from the first.
3 scholar classes. Elementalist, ritualist/necro hybrid of somesort, and Monk. The monk will stay sometimes you need a dedicated healer.
3 adventuring classes will be Ranger, Assassin and a new one. Probably a fast moving rifle weilder of somesort, makes sense i suppose, probably Hunter type of class.
Couldnt be more excited about this game.
No Mesmer in your list there, Juk3n. Which is not to say in any way that you are wrong; just a convenient way of me asking- do we think they will drop the Mesmer? It had the advantage of being a distinct class compared to other fantasy games, but to my mind had the disadvantage of being essentially a class that made things more boring as it stopped things from happening.
I really hope they do not drop the Mesmer profession. I know in GW right now they're working on an update to Mesmers to make them more viable on their own (which is good, I love the profession but they're admittedly difficult to play).
I do worry it'll be dropped entirely, though, since it is such a distinct idea and doesn't really fit into any other profession, and since there's only three scholar professions, that's likely that there's only three casting professions (since scholar/light armor = magic, more likely than not).
Originally posted by Ushgarak
No Mesmer in your list there, Juk3n. Which is not to say in any way that you are wrong; just a convenient way of me asking- do we think they will drop the Mesmer? It had the advantage of being a distinct class compared to other fantasy games, but to my mind had the disadvantage of being essentially a class that made things more boring as it stopped things from happening.
I don't think they'd fklat out drop such a unique take on a video game spell caster, there really is nothing like it in any MMO. I personally love the idea of a mesmer, but by the number of profs they mentioned, i can't fit it in. Theres a bit of a hierachy in fantasy games and in Guild Wars and mesmer fits great for an enemy, they can cause havok. But for PUG's they were a bane to alot of players.
We know they'll keep the holy trinity. Warrior-Elementalist-Monk.
That combination alone can complete the game.
They'll keep the DeathMonk(Necromancer) because minions are also part of fatasy rpg.
UNLESS..
AH-HA. ive got it, they have probably given mesmer a buff, heres my theory. Theyve made mesmer into the 3rd Adventurer class. The REAL spell casting/weapon user Invisible Weapon Master maybe. Medium armor and can cast spells. That would be a cool take on the mesmer.
Like I say, counterspells are boring. One person blows a power on a mighty fireball, another blows a power stopping it. Net result? Nothing happens. That's no good.
How are you suposed to show the Mesmer off?
Here's the Warrior, making his mighty hammer sweep, smashing foes away
Here is the Elementalist, bringing forth great energies and burning foes to a crisp.
Here's the Mesmer. Note how nothing is happening? Yup, that's him doing what he does!
The purpose of the Mesmer is a great thing. The whole "counterspell" concept is something that I adore and I firmly believe it should be used in more roleplaying games more often. Mages whipping fireballs and Warriors swinging axes is grand and all but it is getting stale for me. I mean, are we to say that Yoda is boring simply because he counters Sidious' lightning and stops that?
I mean, you could show the Mesmer off in your own right. I think it's a matter of personal taste. One may think it is boring and tasteless to have such a class whereas someone may think that an entity capable of tearing down powerful magic is something to behold.
Nowhere was I talking about their power. But the point of a class is not to make it powerful, but to make it interesting in a gameplay sense. Counterspells are very boring in a gameplay sense. The Yoda comparison is false- first of all, that WAS dramatic, but depended on it being a film narrative; it would not work in game. Secondly, people remember Yoda foremost for his power and wisdom, not his counters (which were, in any case, effectively offensive in of themselves)
Stuff should happen. A net result of 'nothing happens' is useless. It is exceptionally tedious to have your own mighty efforts fizzle. Counters should be dynamic, not just shutdowns. Ice can counter fire- great. But just a flat "this counters any spell"- poor. Meanwhile, everything else a Mesmer did just overlapped into the Curses portion of Necromancers.
It's also a balancing nightmare- vast amount of Guild Wars skills have had to be designed around the possibility of interruption. It's too much of a headache for a fundamentally boring ability.
Originally posted by UshgarakStuff should happen. A net result of 'nothing happens' is useless. It is exceptionally tedious to have your own mighty efforts fizzle. Counters should be dynamic, not just shutdowns.
Stuff should not happen. How do you win PVP games? By Enemy monks spells NOT HAPPENING. How do they not happen? A Mesmer. "A net result of nothing happends" means that , that those eles over there just Failed to pull of a spike killing your monk. Thank your mesmer.
Subtle actions should exist aswell as the big grand ones. What exactly are you trying to show off when you play Mesmer? You don't have to have a Big Flashy Meteor Storm, to get satifaction out of playing a spell casting class. I know that when i play with my Mesmer Guild mate through a mission and we come up against a certain type of enemy, that this mesmer will be the most important part at this point.
Being Flashy doesn't go hand in hand with being useful. Shall we get rid of a blocking mechanic beacause "swords should hit" "a net result of a sword swing missing is useless" lol.
And as for making it "interesting from a gameplay sense" Everything in the game cannot be suited for everyone. I love playing a Warrior, i hate playing a Monk. No amount of Flashy Monk effects will make m want to play a monk. Some people love playing Mesmers the way they are, Id take a damn good Mesmer on my team anytime. They're a specialist class. But that also means that unfortunatley they are overlooked alot of the time, but really because they fit into theor own little niche they are prolly the most powerful and balanced class in the entire Guild Wars universe.
ps, when you say counters should be dynamic, not just shutdown...what exactly do you mean? give me an example of what you'd like to see implemented.
Meanwhile, everything else a Mesmer did just overlapped into the Curses portion of Necromancers.
Ehh, not really. A few of the hexes are similar (combine Backfire and Empathy and you basically have Spiteful Spirit, and Visions of Regret is also pretty similar), but while Mesmers are very hex heavy they do tend to be quite different than Necro hexes. Even when we do leave the interrupts out, there's still basic punishing people for acting, energy denial, the ability to cause conditions, slowing people down, health degeneration, and just straight up exploding things.
My Necromancer uses Curses, and my Mesmer is a hexer because I don't have the reflexes to accurately interrupt. And my Mesmer is generally much more fun to play, and they are very different in how they play.
The thing with Mesmers is that they're not a very PvE-oriented profession; they're really designed more for PvP.
(and as 'boring' as it may be, don't tell me that interrupts didn't make the Crystal Desert a hell of a lot easier to deal with! 😛)
but really because they fit into theor own little niche they are prolly the most powerful and balanced class in the entire Guild Wars universe.
In PvP, maybe. Not so much in PvE, which they clearly were not designed for. There's going to be a skill update soon, though, to make them more viable in PvE
But the principle that 'Mesmers cast stuff on people that messes them up" is identical to Curses. Obviously the details differ but it is the exact same principle- it is a large overlap.
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Juk3n, you are massively missing the point there. That mentality has only evolved BECAUSE mesmers are in the game. It's self justifying and that doesn't count. Take Mesmers out, and it wouldn't matter that counterspells were not there. If they had never been there, no-one would have thought it was a hole in the game.
You have to take a more objective view of these things. Meanwhile, the fact remains that interrupts are frustrating and no fun at all for the person affected, the point remains that mesmers make balance difficult, and the point remains that dynamic gameplay (I gave an example above already) is more interesting. Gameplay as a point of quality is not as subjective as you make out. Trying to call them balanced is hilarious- they've been a massive headache to the design team.
You say 'stuff should not happen'- that total gibberish. Obviously stuff happens. That's true of every game, ever. Zero-sum game mechanics, though, are poor ones. And to be sure, a game is publicised and sells on the strength of stuff that happens. You want to make use of powers. You want to interact with the environment. You want dynamic strategies. Things that simply get in the way of this stuff happening should not be welcome. Of course, you show you are missing the point again by trying to use blocking as an example. Blocking should never be absolute (hence why Shadow Form has been nerfed), but standard attacks are common and repeatable enough to make a blocking mechanic work just fine.
And to Peach- again, you only need interrupts there because they had to base the damn game around interrupts being available. It's this self-justifying mechanical nightmare. The very fact that, similar to a monk, a decent mesmer is close to essential in many areas speaks volumes about the problem- once you have balanced everything on the idea that interrupts exist, suddenly if you DON'T have them you are in serious trouble.
If you have ever tried to design game mechanics yourself, you run into these issues almost immediately, and the maxim soon becomes 'defence is boring'.
But the principle that 'Mesmers cast stuff on people that messes them up" is identical to Curses. Obviously the details differ but it is the exact same principle- it is a large overlap.
Then you can say the same about every offensive spell in the game. Obviously the details differ, but it's still casting stuff on people to mess them up.
And Shadow Form is still pretty much god mode, even with the nerf to it. It just requires a bit more to keep it up.
Mesmer is not the only profession that interrupts, anyway. Rangers do that as well, simply with a bow instead of magic, and tend to be slightly more effective because there's less of a recharge on them. The big thing about Mesmers that makes them less interesting is the fact that so many of their spells just have insanely high recharge times.
And while yes, as a player, being interrupted sucks (stupid Dredge with their stupid Wild Blow interrupting me casting AoHM while vanquishing yesterday...grr...), getting the crap pummeled out of you does as well.
There's probably not a single place in the game where interrupting is actually necessary. I mentioned them making the Crystal Desert easier, but it certainly wasn't a requirement to get through there - I had far more trouble with all of the conditions that stuff there can cause than fighting Hydras. They can be nice in certain places (another Mesmer issue - you really have to know the areas and the mobs in them to play one effectively), but nowhere are they actually really needed.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
You have to take a more objective view of these things. Meanwhile, the fact remains that interrupts are frustrating and no fun at all for the person affected,
well duh!
Thats kinda the point, the GW system is based upon it's combat. Not just casting but anti casting. Knockdowns are frustrating and no fun if your on the recieving end. But what buffs did you have in place for such an event? Is your team prepared for the instances? It's a tactical game, with genuine split second timing for alot of skills. It's a great mechanic and should be in the game. It's where the tactics and skill come into play.
GW is a game with counter spells, and ofcourse they're not fun when used on you, but everything is counterable and adapting to them is where we get our challenge from.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Like I say, counterspells are boring. One person blows a power on a mighty fireball, another blows a power stopping it. Net result? Nothing happens. That's no good.How are you suposed to show the Mesmer off?
Here's the Warrior, making his mighty hammer sweep, smashing foes away
Here is the Elementalist, bringing forth great energies and burning foes to a crisp.
Here's the Mesmer. Note how nothing is happening? Yup, that's him doing what he does!
that shows you've missed the point of the mesmer. They guy playing the mesmer is prolly having a great time, he knows he's just shut down an enemy ele and maybe saved the entire team, i cant get my head around what exactly your problem is with them.
"show the mesmer off" meaning what? a big purple explosion when the interrupt? it's a lame argument dude. It's ANETS challenge to balance a game around being skillfull and quick with interrupts and skill/spell timing. They did an alright job imo. It's the mechanic they've based there combat on and if ya dont like it...
No, that not at all true about offensive spells. That's a very vague and weird comment,. Offensive spells have dozens of different ways they work and interact- and the principle here is entirely different as it is not as if attacking people is a niche that should be restricted to one class.
Getting the crap pummelled out of you is, again, fundamentally different to having your stuff countered. The first makes you feel powerless and is boring. The second comes from being outplayed, from making a mistake or from being outnumbered. That's just gaming. Interrupts, in contrast, can actively ruin your playing experience.
Rangers do it incidentally, and it is not their most appealing qualitry. Mesmers are part dedicated to it and illustrate the issue. Rangers are not a balancing problem. Mesmers are.
There are enough places where interrupts are a dramatic force multiplier that you are simply screwing yourself over by not making use of as to make the concept an issue.
Honestly, several of you are not thinking straight about how game mechanics work and how the affect the entire design of a game. The insane situation that skills reached in GW is one of the reasons they started over.
Originally posted by Juk3n
well duh!Thats kinda the point, the GW system is based upon it's combat. Not just casting but anti casting. Knockdowns are frustrating and no fun if your on the recieving end. But what buffs did you have in place for such an event? Is your team prepared for the instances? It's a tactical game, with genuine split second timing for alot of skills. It's a great mechanic and should be in the game. It's where the tactics and skill come into play.
GW is a game with counter spells, and ofcourse they're not fun when used on you, but everything is counterable and adapting to them is where we get our challenge from.
that shows you've missed the point of the mesmer. They guy playing the mesmer is prolly having a great time, he knows he's just shut down an enemy ele and save the entire team, i cant get my head around what exactly your problem is with them?
"show the mesmer off" meaning what? a big purple explosion when the interrupt? it's a lame argument dude. It's ANETS challenge to balance a game around being skillfull and quick with interrupts and skill/spell timing. They did an alright job imo.
No, still not thinking straight. You cannot justify it on the grounds that one person is having fun at another's expense- that's VERY poor gaming. If you say the point of the mesmer is to irritate and reduce the gaming quality time of a player, you have messed up ideas about good games. You cannot justify bad mechanics on good tactical interplay either. In any case, I firmly believe the game tactics would be much improved without any interrupts.
Like I say, mesmers have always been a balance nightmare for the team and the fundamental purpose of counterspells is a mistake in an action game of this sort.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
No, still not thinking straight. You cannot justify it on the grounds that one person is having fun at another's expense
welcome to COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER lol
are you kidding me? That can be applied to any competitive multiplyer game ever made dude, seriously. It's called tactics, you don't want to get interrupted? Bring a hex breaker, spell breaker, faint out his interupt with a skill you don't need right at that minute.
If your spell gets interrupted and that causes you to not want to play the game anymore then lol. You obviously don't like the system , don't play it. But you can't call something a faulty mechanic because it hinders your personal progression through a certain part of a game, thats poor logic ESPECIALLY in this case. How would Any warrior EVER beat an elementalist if there were no interrupts? How would ANYONE ever overcome an elementalist without the use of spell stopping skills/spells? Not having fun, because your tactic is getting countered is for kids dude, there is no justification.