Guild Wars 2

Guildwars 2 has 8 professions, the romantic overview of what each class is supposed to do is detailed in the official site’s class description.

However, we veteran players know that this information is not entirely correct. I can imagine that a player coming to this game from a role-based system may believe a class does one thing, only to be met by disappointment when they discover the class role they selected is nothing like it was advertised to be.

Developers of Guildwars 2 claim that there is a certain set of criteria and purpose each class is supposed to meet, but this information has been kept veiled from us.

While I understand that the developers want there to be flexibility in classes for Guildwars 2, there needs to be more communication about what the role constraints of a class are and what its target aspects are supposed to be.

This is to provide guidance to both old and new players on how to better play their class and how they can expect their class to contribute to a group setting.

This is to avoid another situation like the ranger, where the current playstyle of the ranger as an attrition class is noted nowhere prior to the CDI. Players who put alot of effort into the ranger believing that the ranger would have certain capabilities (archer playstyle) are told now being told they are playing the class wrong by the devs.

Players are sinking a great amount of time and money developing their classes and are given no direction as to what the limitations of their class are. Some players may not even like the playstyle of their class once they figure it all out -which they are forced to do on their own due to TERRIBLE communication and guidance from the devs on how to play this game.

Other games have clear descriptions of class capabilities and some are even nice enough to add a difficulty rating to certain classes to warn new players.

Granted there can still be sandbox elements to guildwars 2 classes and roles but DIRECTION IS NEEDED BADLY. One of the reasons I’ve been unable to get people I know to stick to this game was because of the above reasons.

Right now gameplay in guildwars 2 is a hotbed of confusion and conflicting ideas. When people get to endgame the realize that the game is actually very shallow and only a few things really work (mass aoe tagging for bags and dps dps dps dps dps dps).

I agree. The initial vision for many of the professions has proven to be completely untenable in the actual game.

As a result, the Devs would do well to change their visions for several of the classes to match the real play of each profession in the game.

But!

The Devs have also insisted that they will not change their visions, and continue to try and force the various professions into the pre-beta idea. Which, in turn, further makes those classes unviable in the game.

But hey—at least there’s the Warrior. He’s still alright.

I think the class descriptions were made during a term where the devs really had no idea how things were going to turn out. High end PVE and PVP kind of took a mind on its own.

That said, something that the game has been lacking sorely is a tutorial. From starting to play all the way to endgame, there’s no real guide or instruction to the games deeper mechanics. Instead, GW2 has opted for a “give the player tools slowly” kind of method, and expect people to learn either by being taught, or by looking up information on their own.

Problem is, players don’t know what they don’t know. So when it comes to things like combo fields and finishers, skill evades and blinds, conditions and tick thresholds, as well as boon radii and grouping, the average player is truly left in the dark. It is no wonder that so many players just hang back and shoot from afar. To them, zerkers meleeing an enemy is like some bizarre wizardry.

There needs to be something in-game to explain this. Like, a story mission or an instance where an NPC plainly tells you about how conditions work (tick rates and stacking), how combo fields and finishers work, how dodges work, how boons work, how melee weapons work. Just something to tell players “Yo, there’s all this stuff you need to learn!” instead of leaving it to jaded players to explain.

GW2 is a wonderful game that has got out of ANet’s hands in terms of balancing since a long time ago. Somehow, the response from the game’s developer in managing glaring issues that are, or impact, balance is altogether much too slow.

Stated intentions to make (specific and otherwise) changes to the game can and have taken many more months what is required. In the interrim, build diversity is stifled, players may leave because they interpret a slow, or weak, response to perceived balanced problems as incompotence or indifference, even if neither is true, and an negative atmosphere is fostered both between community and developer and within the community (those who benefit or capitalise on perceived imbalances may be viewed with contempt by others).

There is a rigidity in ANet’s approach which is undermining their ability to keep up with the various metas and many aspects of many classes are notoriously under utilised. For example, in the upcoming feature patch, we’re assured Guardian is fine and is receiving slight adjustments at best, mostly QoL orientated. Yet, who runs Spirit Weapons? A whole type of Utilities is ignored by the playerbase, bar occasional Shield of the Avenger. I mostly play PvE and I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw the Sword, Hammer or Bow summoned.

In the above example, I, as a caretaker of my own product, would see this as a distressing balance issue. Since 3 skills that are dismissed from the outset of any build are a source of underlying, unintended weakness for the class – if we base our thinking on the concept that every profession skill available to every profession is a viable contender in at least one viable build.

Classes are slowly being boiled down to their constituent parts, and reinterpreted by the player base, mostly because of these problems. Warriors aren’t weapon masters, they’re masters of self-sustain. Rangers aren’t unparalleled archers, they’re buff providing melee damage dealers. The guiding hand of ANet should have intervened a long time ago – even if half of every classes problems come down to changes made since launch. An impartial update every 3, 6, 12 months is not enough to mitigate unforeseen balance problems, reversions of mistakes and serves to dishearten a generally happy player base.

Shine some light on this thread!

I was really hoping that Anet would have enough leeway to reinvest in their own product in terms of staffing and content production, but I really get the feeling that management is following the NCsoft pump and dump model.