Melee Classes Survivability in Group PvP Needs Addressing

...and I seem to be unable to find any acknowledgement this issue is being looked at. Based on our experience so far with class and pvp balance, stat stacking, past TTK issues, I'm frankly a bit concerned about the general problems we keep running into at this stage.

The first issue I see in the group setting is that only 3 out of 8 base class archetypes are melee centred, and 1 of those 3 is built around stealth. That means melee users are almost always outnumbered and out kited.

If you ever played MMOs with a decent grasp atm melee - range balance and compare them to Ashes will notice straight away that group pvp plays out differently. The line of contact between opposing groups is really limited, and usually just consists of a tank or few tanks fishing for easy chain pulls. Everyone else is just waiting for someone to get out of position so they can be punished for it, before they rotate and wait for major cooldowns. Coming from something like Return of Reckoning or even GW2 WvW, this feels really weird and undercooked on the fundamental level.

From the competitive pvp perspective it got so bad that any guild interested in pvp is quite likely to refuse you if you want to run a fighter or rogue in large pvp setting.

This isn't healthy for the game, pvp balance or gameplay variety.

Melee class survivability in large group setting seems to be the core issue. For obvious reasons melee classes cannot just be granted flat damage mitigation buffs, as this would negatively affect balance in 1v1, and small group pvp settings.

Potential solutions have been discussed multiple times across different social media channel.

I personally like the most the idea of introduction of passive talents which conditionally increase melee class physical and magic mitigations. This would work as a multiplayer, so basically 1 enemy player would increase mitigations by 5%, but then 5 in certain range around the player would increase it by 5% * x, where x is the number of enemy players in the engagement range (lets say 30 meters). I'm sure a lot of us have seen these ideas in other games, not even necessarily just MMOs. Numbers here are obviously nothing else but placeholders. This stuff should be crunched and balanced by the actual game designers.

Other approach I have liked would be far more time intensive as it would require melee archetypes to get far more ranged based abilities.. So these classes can play more of melee/ranged skirmisher role, but with all this ranged damage pressure I doubt this would be enough by itself.

It's just sad looking at fighters and tanks basically auto-attacking in group fights and waiting for that one perfect opening.

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Noaani

SmileGurney wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

SmileGurney wrote: »

Volgaris wrote: »

I don't like the idea of giving melee classes more range abilities, I think that's a cheap way out. I'd argue a better solution would be enhancing the skills from the tree to have different affects on players than on mobs. This helps so you're respecing for PvE to PvP to PvE all the time for one. And secondly you can adjust the skill as needed to balance either PvE or PvP without throwing the balance of the other off. PvP and PvE gameplay is just so different.

They might want also start with the melee combat in general. A lot of tanks, fighters and rogues, nevermind other classes simply don't see a reason to use melee auto-attacks in pvp or even pve.

I mean, that is probably by design.

The game originally wasn't even going to HAVE an auto attack.

The fact that it is in but not necessary is the compromise that was made. If you want to do damage, you need to use an ability.

I'm talking about dps comparison between auto-attacks and ability damage. I'm talking about staying up close and not missing melee attacks.

And I am telling you it is probably by design that auto attack is nearly worthless - since it wasn't even going to exist.

Lets assume they fix the issue you have with auto attack. In your opinion, what should they then do to make it worthless?

They have to do something, because the idea last time they talked about it was that it needs to be in the game for semi-techical reasons, but they dont want it to be something players rely on.

So, rather than telling us all what they need to do to fix it, tel us how you think it should be made near useless, and why changing it from one form of near useless to another form of near useless is worthwhile.

SmileGurney wrote: »

Birthday wrote: »

Guys intrepid aren't ****. I appreciate the vent OC but this is well known and easy to see. Understand it's alpha, nothing as you see it currently will be the same as in full release.

"Guys, it's only alpha" is certainly a take. I have seen plenty of niche MMOs which ignored early stage "obvious" player feedback and launched in that broken state anyway.

I've seen more games fail/suffer due to listening to players than fail due to not listening to players.

Also, I assume you are talking about the alpha testing you have done that you can't talk about because it never happened, right? That alpha testing?

Your perception of an alpha test is so far out of proportion for what an alpha is that there is literally no way you have ever participated in one. Your perception of an alpha test is literally that of a beta test.

Chicago

To be honest melee have way more survivability than range right now

The two ranged classes, ranger and mage are the two weakest classes in the game, I know this post is focused around group PvP but if you give melee more survivability they will be just unkillable in small scale PvP, there needs to be some balancing done but it's sort of pointless until we hit level 50

SmileGurney

Chicago wrote: »

To be honest melee have way more survivability than range right now

The two ranged classes, ranger and mage are the two weakest classes in the game, I know this post is focused around group PvP but if you give melee more survivability they will be just unkillable in small scale PvP, there needs to be some balancing done but it's sort of pointless until we hit level 50

Not really, if this is done smartly. If they get a mitigation buff scaling with number of enemy combatants near by you can easily make it close to null value in small scale pvp, whatever 1v1 or small group pvp.

Noaani

SmileGurney wrote: »

Chicago wrote: »

To be honest melee have way more survivability than range right now

The two ranged classes, ranger and mage are the two weakest classes in the game, I know this post is focused around group PvP but if you give melee more survivability they will be just unkillable in small scale PvP, there needs to be some balancing done but it's sort of pointless until we hit level 50

Not really, if this is done smartly. If they get a mitigation buff scaling with number of enemy combatants near by you can easily make it close to null value in small scale pvp, whatever 1v1 or small group pvp.

But this also makes the godlike against masses of enemies.

Also, if something was done to make melee more effective in large scale PvP, something else needs to be done to make them less effective in small scale PvP.

It would be horribly unbalanced if melee in general were king of small scale PvP, and on an equal footing in large scale. They need to either be roughly equal in both, or ahead in one and behind in the other.

Right now they are ahead in one and behind in the other.

Chicago

Noaani wrote: »

SmileGurney wrote: »

Chicago wrote: »

To be honest melee have way more survivability than range right now

The two ranged classes, ranger and mage are the two weakest classes in the game, I know this post is focused around group PvP but if you give melee more survivability they will be just unkillable in small scale PvP, there needs to be some balancing done but it's sort of pointless until we hit level 50

Not really, if this is done smartly. If they get a mitigation buff scaling with number of enemy combatants near by you can easily make it close to null value in small scale pvp, whatever 1v1 or small group pvp.

But this also makes the godlike against masses of enemies.

Also, if something was done to make melee more effective in large scale PvP, something else needs to be done to make them less effective in small scale PvP.

It would be horribly unbalanced if melee in general were king of small scale PvP, and on an equal footing in large scale. They need to either be roughly equal in both, or ahead in one and behind in the other.

Right now they are ahead in one and behind in the other.

Kind of have to agree with this!

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