Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by Purgatus

Position is vital for lots of reasons in GW2:

 

1) Your abilites will go off regardless of range, and may not hit. If you are out of range of a Direct Damage skill, it will go into cooldown with no effect.

2) enemies have directional and conal attacks that can be evaded with good positioning.

3) AoE is Prevalent. Walls, Cones, Domes, etc. Many of these have direct effect effects on the enemy movment so proper placement is important or can obstrute attacks meant for allies

 

 

Your answer is concise and analytical, thank you. It tooks less than a minute to read while giving lots of relevant information. It is that kind of posts that are good in a forum, which is why I think linking to a video is a bad way to go in comparison.

 

I am very intrigued in knowing exactly how positioning works in connection with the aggro-system. I've seen statements/videos claiming/showing/implicating that it does matter but no specifics with numbers and probabilities. 

Thank you. In the TERA forum, as I just made an acount, and my posts are low, my opinion is not worth much. lol. (though I fully expect it as I am belittling that game somewhat)

Aggro does indeed seem to factor distance.

Say a Thief pulls aggro from a Guardian. The guardian can lay down a wall of warding preventing the mob from getting to the Thief and another character could close in and get aggro.

I almot forgot one other crucial thing, Combo Attacks.

Laying down certain skills is imperitive to createing effective combinations. Correct placement of a Guardian symbol, for example, would mean the difference between a volley of shots doing damage and a volley of shots doing damage and clearing debuffs on the character in the mob's face.

Originally posted by darkehawke

i do not know of any flanking or rear attack bonuses

Thief has a few of these. These two traits:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Critical_Chance

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Stikes

Pair with this sword/dagger combo skill:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Strike_(dual_skill)

Not sure about other classes, though there may be a few.

Originally posted by Phrame

Originally posted by darkehawke

i do not know of any flanking or rear attack bonuses

Thief has a few of these. These two traits:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Critical_Chance

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Stikes

Pair with this sword/dagger combo skill:

 

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Strike_(dual_skill)

 

Not sure about other classes, though there may be a few.

Rangers with shortbows get a bonus to damage wen attaking from the sides, also the longbow deals more damage the farther you are.

Originally posted by Banisco

Rangers with shortbows get a bonus to damage wen attaking from the sides, also the longbow deals more damage the farther you are.

The last one seems a bit strange. There is obviously no physics reason for this, so it isn't a realism thing, and I would have thought, gameplay wise, it would be more dynamic to make shorter distances yield more damage.

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

Originally posted by Banisco

Rangers with shortbows get a bonus to damage wen attaking from the sides, also the longbow deals more damage the farther you are.

The last one seems a bit strange. There is obviously no physics reason for this, so it isn't a realism thing, and I would have thought, gameplay wise, it would be more dynamic to make shorter distances yield more damage.

It's already been confirmed. The further your're away from your opponent, the more damage you do on your long bow. Check on wiki or youtube videos or guru forum. The dev there confirmed it.

Originally posted by asianbboy101

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

Originally posted by Banisco

Rangers with shortbows get a bonus to damage wen attaking from the sides, also the longbow deals more damage the farther you are.

The last one seems a bit strange. There is obviously no physics reason for this, so it isn't a realism thing, and I would have thought, gameplay wise, it would be more dynamic to make shorter distances yield more damage.

It's already been confirmed. The further your're away from your opponent, the more damage you do on your long bow. Check on wiki or youtube videos or guru forum. The dev there confirmed it.

No - I wan't saying it was any different. I have seen this said by the devs too. I was just meaning that it seems a strange design decision. But then I haven't played the game yet, so maybe it is unfair to say...

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

No - I wan't saying it was any different. I have seen this said by the devs too. I was just meaning that it seems a strange design decision. But then I haven't played the game yet, so maybe it is unfair to say...

The mesmer great sword attack is like that too, where the further away you are, the more damage the beam does.

I don't see why it's that strange of a design decision (Even if it doesn't make much physics sense)  It means that those particular weapons, there is a clear advantage to being further away, with diminishing returns the closer you get.  If everything was more powerful closer up, people would just stand toe to toe no matter what weapon it is they were using. :)

There is also the issue of threat.  Proximity is one of the factors in deciding whether or not a mob is going to choose your face to turn into ground beef or not.

Originally posted by Shoju

There is also the issue of threat.  Proximity is one of the factors in deciding whether or not a mob is going to choose your face to turn into ground beef or not.

This ^

Thread (or more accurately aggro) is determined not only by proximity, but also health (players with lower HP will get attacked more often), as well as damage output (characters doing more damage will tend ot get attacked more often). All of this is constantly calculated throughout the fight, so if you are a squishy caster type, you may want to make sure that you are positioning yourself so that either a more durable class can intercept attacks aimed at you, or so that you can deal damage as well as buff / support allies via cross-class combos.

There's a lot of examples, & I feel this explain this fairly well in the video where Anet plays a mesmer (can't seem to find it for some reason). Basically, in that example he starts playing w/ a thief. He would constantly position himself so he was not only avoiding the big Ettin attacks, but also so he could knock those attacks away from his allies, or so that if they did try to attack him it would miss the thief.

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

Originally posted by asianbboy101

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

Originally posted by Banisco

Rangers with shortbows get a bonus to damage wen attaking from the sides, also the longbow deals more damage the farther you are.

The last one seems a bit strange. There is obviously no physics reason for this, so it isn't a realism thing, and I would have thought, gameplay wise, it would be more dynamic to make shorter distances yield more damage.

It's already been confirmed. The further your're away from your opponent, the more damage you do on your long bow. Check on wiki or youtube videos or guru forum. The dev there confirmed it.

No - I wan't saying it was any different. I have seen this said by the devs too. I was just meaning that it seems a strange design decision. But then I haven't played the game yet, so maybe it is unfair to say...

There's a certain logic to it. A longer shot with a REAL longbow would have a longer drop phase (remember, arrows in the real world travel in an arc). Since velocity increases over time as an item falls (up to terminal anyway), the longer an arrow falls, the more velocity it has when it lands, hence more damage.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

No - I wan't saying it was any different. I have seen this said by the devs too. I was just meaning that it seems a strange design decision. But then I haven't played the game yet, so maybe it is unfair to say...

There's a certain logic to it. A longer shot with a REAL longbow would have a longer drop phase (remember, arrows in the real world travel in an arc). Since velocity increases over time as an item falls (up to terminal anyway), the longer an arrow falls, the more velocity it has when it lands, hence more damage.

No. Unless you are really tall and shooting ants on the ground, the gravitational effect cancels out. The arrow has to go up as much as it goes down, so the increase in potential energy (and decrease in kinetic energy and thus speed) on the way up cancels with the decrease in potential energy (and increase in kinetic energy and thus speed) on the way down. Gravity is a conservative force. In fact, the arrow should slow down due to air resistance, making the damage less for further away targets.

Originally posted by atziluth

Since targeting is not necessary positioning is important in at least one simple aspect... not getting hit while hitting your target. Considering some hits can 1 shot or take 90% of your health... not being in the area of the swing will be very important. Other than that I have not heard of or seen any bonus to flank or rear attacks. However, they might be added or could be in the game, but no one has talked about it. 

One of the reasons dodge is so important and of course watching for visual cues as to what your opponent does.

Originally posted by TheYear1500

Originally posted by atziluth

Since targeting is not necessary positioning is important in at least one simple aspect... not getting hit while hitting your target. Considering some hits can 1 shot or take 90% of your health... not being in the area of the swing will be very important. Other than that I have not heard of or seen any bonus to flank or rear attacks. However, they might be added or could be in the game, but no one has talked about it. 

Your thinking of Tera not GW2.  NO shots take 90% of someone health or can 1 shot anything.  

The huge bosses can. :)

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

I am very intrigued in knowing exactly how positioning works in connection with the aggro-system. I've seen statements/videos claiming/showing/implicating that it does matter but no specifics with numbers and probabilities. 

Proximity is one of several factors that determine aggro. It seems to be the most basic one, but it can be overruled by other factors.

Here's one of the more interesting examples of how aggro works (and changes): veteran mob fight

Around 0:26 the group starts fighting a veteran mob. Early in the fight, the mob seems to follow the rule of attacking whatever is closest to him. After a while, the ranger pisses him off so much though that he starts ignoring targets around him and goes after the ranger.

I hope this helps as it is quite recent:

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/guild_wars_2/b/pc/archive/2012/04/13/guild-wars-2-video-preview.aspx

Wells, Marks, cones of effect, extra damage from sides and rear attacks, weapon attacks only hit if the weapon graphic does, ranged attacks damage changes with range, Line of Sight, destructible objects, greatly varying ranges on many attacks, etc.

Position is important in GW2 - the Arenanet team put in abilities that can be used 'on the run' for a very good reason.... and you can hit an attack button and see 'out of range' without a visual indicator that you were in the first place on the button - you have to judge it....

Throw Combos into the mix and position is king....

.... great stuff in my opinion....

Anyway who thinks the game is a button mashing no-brainer is going to have to wise-up real quick in their first few hours of combat in the game....

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by Terminus-Est

No - I wan't saying it was any different. I have seen this said by the devs too. I was just meaning that it seems a strange design decision. But then I haven't played the game yet, so maybe it is unfair to say...

There's a certain logic to it. A longer shot with a REAL longbow would have a longer drop phase (remember, arrows in the real world travel in an arc). Since velocity increases over time as an item falls (up to terminal anyway), the longer an arrow falls, the more velocity it has when it lands, hence more damage.

No. Unless you are really tall and shooting ants on the ground, the gravitational effect cancels out. The arrow has to go up as much as it goes down, so the increase in potential energy (and decrease in kinetic energy and thus speed) on the way up cancels with the decrease in potential energy (and increase in kinetic energy and thus speed) on the way down. Gravity is a conservative force. In fact, the arrow should slow down due to air resistance, making the damage less for further away targets.

The real reason is to give weapon choice more meaning. Look at the mesmer greatsword, for example. It's their ranged weapon, and skill "1" does more damage the further away you are. There's also a supplimental skill on the greatsword which knocks foes back, you can trait for cripples to be added to clone shatters, etc. It encourages a variety of play styles. If you want to be a long ranged sniper type in GW2, the longbow for the ranger will be your choice, but for closer in you'll want the shortbow or a pair of axes. If you want to melee as a ranger, try the greatsword for example. In a nutshell, it takes away the "I do the most damage at close range regardless of weapon choice" thing.