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Is ranged/melee balance even necessary?
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
I've seen a lot of complaints centered around ranged/melee balance in GW2. For example, "ranged can't finish people in downed state, so melee has an advantage" or "ranged rules WvW because anyone trying to melee will get destroyed."
But, to tell you the truth, I really don't think that ranged/melee balance for all situations really matters that much in GW2 as compared to other games. You see, in other games, classes were generally ranged or melee exclusively. So there really couldn't be any scenarios where ranged or melee had the clear advantage. Because if they did, then you were stuck. This often caused problems in large-scale PvP where ranged nearly always had a pretty large advantage...melee classes were stuck as being second rate in several games because of this.
In GW2 however, every class is both potentially ranged or melee (or at least very close to melee). So I really don't think it's that imperative to balance ranged against melee...a savvy player will just treat ranged/melee capability as a situational tool. Using ranged when appropriate, and melee when appropriate.
Thoughts?
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the game hasn't even been released and people are complaining about class balance. At the moment nobody is even close to using the classes to their maximum potential so there's not much of a point in discussing whats balanced/unbalanced.
So you want to force everyone to have one melee and one ranged weapon?
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Hmm I don't think it needs balancing, so much as people need to get used to how combat in GW2 work's. Sure certain weapon/spec combo's will work better in certain situation's, but that almost alway's happens.
Don't know if I've ever played PVP in an MMO where one side wasn't stronger at some point. I do think there needs to be some sort of balance in the combat mechanic otherwise you will have battlefields full of people spamming the exact same attacks.
WvW is imbalanced.
Anet stated that - they will try to give everyone options and they will try to make matches interesting for everyone involved.
But it will never be balanced.
Currently playing: GW2
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Way I see it people just need to pick a profession, try all weapons and find ones that they find fun to play, be that ranged or melee. Someone might be warrior, and for example use longbow / rifle, and someone else might use 2h mace / sword and shield. It's all about trying everything and picking what suites your play style IMHO.
A lot of these complaints are due to ignorance more than anything else.
Can't finish an enemy from ranged? Sure you can. You just can't do it w/ the F key, unless you use a skill like 'spectral grasp' to pull them to you.
There are 2 ways to finish a player. 1 is by damaging away their downed health bar, the other is by the finishing mechanic. Depending on the situation, one may be more viable than the other. If there's a character at range that you just can't get close enough to finish, just damage away his health. Many of the ranged classes even have some AoE that are particularly useful for this (i.e. Elementalists can Drop a meteor shower, lava font, or dragons tooth to deal massive damage, and persuade enemies to stay away).
As for ranged / melee balance, it is important, but it's fairly even the way it is currently (as seen in BWE3). Melee weapons should do more damage, because they can't generally stay in range long enough to keep that damage going, and so suffer a lot of dps drops. Ranged can constantly attack, and so their damage is generally lower, but more sustained. It works out just fine.
Also, as you mention, this is weapon range balancing, not class balancing. There are no ranged or melee classes. Every class can do both. It's interesting that people still tend to think of certain classes as one or the other though.
I did not pvp yet, but is it the case that ranged are unable to finish people in downed state, or they just have to close the distance in order to do so? I could see that being annoying if a ranged player needs to spam damage like a NPC to finish off another player, but the fact they could do so from 1,200 range seems balanced enough if this is the case.
As to range ruling WvW, that would follow from my experiences in every other massive pvp scenario. They usually reduce down to contests of who mistakenly overextends too much. Ranged weaponry definitely trumps melee in such cases, but strategic flanking usually gives melee focused players a useful avenue. Like you mentioned though, every class has available to them both melee and ranged choices so there is not much room to complain about not being prepared for the situation one finds themself in.
I've noticed the damage from melee skills to be higher than ranged options for the mesmer class. That makes sense to me given the extra utility fighting from afar provides. I'll remain happy with the metagame range/melee balance as long as there is a trade-off between damage and utility.
No...it's situational. You have to equip yourself for the situation you are in. If you are in sPvP, and are planning to defend a small area, then 2 melee weapons is perfectly viable...I did this a few times with my warrior and was fairly successful. OTOH, if you know you are going to be doing long sieges in WvW, then two ranged weapons with lots of AoE would be appropriate.
And if you don't really know what situation you are in, then a melee and a ranged weapon are good choices because you cover all your bases.
The point is that ranged/melee is just a tactical choice in GW2, it's not a permanent decision like it is in other MMORPGs.
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For anyone interested in the sPvP meta, I'd strongly suggest watching some of the sPvP vids put out by some of the better guilds. Most notably team Paradigm has a few where they actually explain their setups, why they chose the weapons, skills, and traits they did, and how they use them in different situations.
In sPvP (much more than in WvW), your weapon choice tends to be much less about ranged vs. melee, and much more about what skills you have available, and how they synergize. This is almost the opposite in WvW, as WvW is much less about your own personal build, and much more about how effective you are in mass-scale situations. As such, it's much more common to have a melee + ranged dual spec, whereas in sPvP it's more about getting the skills to fit your current role.
ya, i found the thief, warrior, mesmer, and guardian all did just fine melee in WvW so long as you don't play too poorly. it was a lot of fun running into crowds of enemies and unloading lots of melee burst damage on them and running back out.
not too difficult if you have your auto targetting off and use your weapon/utilities properly to avoid all the lockdown and damage they will try to throw at you. in that situation as well you can end up tanking a lot of damage for your side for 5-10 seconds, that alone can have a big impact.
i find those complaining about melee in WvW either must have never tried it, or didn't try it enough to learn to use it effectively.
fighting on the outskirts of a fight and baiting/stunning outliers was just fine as a melee as well..
maybe these classes are the only ones it really works with? i'm open to that.
who cares who stomps who first in sPvP? did i contribute to my team?
The big thing is Nobody is restrickted to be only playing meellee or ranged. They can play what they like or what they feel most powerfull, no matter if it is or not.
This means that perfect ranged/mellee range is not needed, just reasonable close balance, that it is actual personal skill that is the main thing.
This is very different from games where classes is stucked in one range, and suffers or benefit totall dependent on the current range/mellee balance in that game (stupid WAR and their lack of understand the gamemechanics involving mellee is still making me angry about balance)
I agree and this is great. In some games I just wonder why the heck my class is so limited that it wouldnt make any sense considering immersion or "getting the jerb done" perspective. In a world where guns exsist, I guess a warrior who does not carry a rifle is an idiot? Well, maybe it's not that black and white, but I love the fact that I can shoot effectively even if I prefer melee as a warrior.
I like class based games more than freeform character building/progression in fantasy setting, but I also expect to have variety within my chosen class, considering this, GW2 looks very nice to me.
It's a beta. Things go wrong such as class balance. That's what beta is for,,,, to vent issues so they get looked into. Why play beta if you don't try to improve the game? You are a waste or beta slot honestly.Philosophy of MMO Game Design
In a game with no true Ranged or Melee classes, the responsibility for choosing your arsenal must be in the player's lap. The developer must ensure that all classes are viable in PvE and against each other, something that Anet has managed to do admirably, thus far.
But, to answer the question: yes, obviously balance is necessary. Not between classes, but between roles and weapons.
To reply to the OP, they don't need to be perfectly balanced, but you need to have it so that both the ranged and melee gameplay styles are sufficiently viable for variety to bepreserved.
Variety is important to provide (at least an illusion of) choice...and yes, I admit there always will be arguments about optimal builds etc. Variety of roles, playstyles and viable weapon choices is also important to make it so that there's an element of unpreditability when facing a new foe.
As for me, I'm going for a hybrid melee/ranged mesmer, so not so much of a choice on that charcter, but my engineer will surely prefer to be at range, the way I envisage him.
An engineer has no melee abilities unless they use their tool kit. It is a ranged class. Their weapon choices are rifle, pistol, and shield. The shield has no melee damage powers.I found the melee and ranged balance to be pretty spot on after level 25ish, but prior to that melee seemed to have a much easier time, IMO.
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My view on things is that Anet gave us the option to choose the best weapon according to the situation.
For an example long bow for Rangers isnt viable in 5v5, they can always change to melee/short bow and do good honestly and that goes to many classes. Depends on how you build your char.
It's true that WvW isnt balanced, but how can u balance it? It's nearly impossible imo, it depends a lot on numbers/money from my experience but balanced or not it's FUN and i guess that is what counts in the end of the day.
In structured PvP and in PvE, its pretty balanced. Melee generally does more damage and has more survivability to counter the fact that they have to get close up and personal with opponents.
Unfortunately, in WvW this is a problem due to Sieges. Melee players dont really have a place when you are attacking, or defending a keep/castle etc, whereas ranged players can attack players on the walls, or defend from the walls.
A good argument is that every class has ranged options. Warriors have rifles and bows, guardians have staffs and scepters, but not everyone enjoys playing ranged......
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Of course it needs to be balanced, too much pew pew pew, which this game has quite a lot of and what do you have left? A bad shooter trying to be an mmorpg. This is one of my concerns with this game, along with eight utility dps classes, and a cash shop. I am going to try it because i am desperate for an mmorpg to not suck, but they've got a lot of possibility for epic fail in this game, and fan boy jumps down your throat for mentioning it, or parroting anything that doesn't add up to "WOAH GW2 IS LIKE JEBUS"
I think that about balances out with all the GW2 fans getting told they're stupid for daring to be optimistic, or for enjoying something that another person doesn't, or being told they can't see a P2W cash shop if it punched them in the face.
Seriously, I'm pretty sure 90% of the point to MMORPG.com is to look down on people who disagree with you. The other 10% is uh... I dunno. Complaining about video games, I guess.
Melee is fine.
I got to 31 mainly using hammer.
What they gotta do is not have the "in combat" speed reduction while you're using melee.
The problem isn't the skills, it's that enemies hit too high, and have massive AOE damage.