Guild Wars 2

I would like to first say that I like GW2. I think the game has much promise, and many things were done properly. However, I also believe that their are things that where done poorly, and while some of this post might have a “should have been” feeling to it, most of the ideas can still be implemented. This post also may end up a bit long, as I am trying to cover a lot of ground, as well as implementing ideas that I have spoken to others about..

GAMEPLAY

The actual feel of combat in GW2 is one of the best I have played to date. Its fast, action oriented and impact-full, but can be boring at times due to its simplicity. Due to the limited amount of skills/weapon attacks, once you find something that works, it can become repetitive. Changing specs to favor other weapons or skill sets is time consuming. This could be changed by adding additional trait set-ups and armor sets.

The lack of a trinity(T3) dependency system is interesting, but at the same time changes a lot about the game. The T3 system kept groups balanced and dependent on each other. You needed the tank to take a beating so dps could go to work. The healer kept people alive when they made mistakes. I am not saying the GW2 system should be scrapped and revamped to a T3 system, but some of its traits should be implemented somehow. Maybe a greater dependency on a class that can take blows and draw bosses away from the more vulnerable members of the group, or maybe a greater role for those who can heal/support the rest of the group. Yes I know you CAN fill these roles, but I feel like a dependancy on these classes to build better communities and guilds is missing, but I will talk of that later.

I also feel like the penalty for death is not high enough to keep encounters challenging. Older games caused you to loose the fight, experience, gold, etc when you died. GW2, you loose a bit of money to repair. Your party doesn’t even miss you much, since your gone for about 15-20 seconds in a run-back. Sadly, WoW had the best balance imo, if you died, you lost money to repair, yes, but your party also lost a fighting member. Once everyone died, you wiped, and started over. Fustrating, yes, but not an end of the world moment. I feel like GW2 should shift more towards that sort of difficulty, and make death meaningful in a dungeon at least.

SOCIAL

I think GW2 dropped the ball big-time in the social aspect of the game. Yes, you can join multiple guilds, and do all sorts of content with other people around, but there is never the feel of a group, guild or community.

The multiple guild joining is a joke. Everyone seems to have formed a guild, and then join 4 others either looking for more online players, or to do different aspects of the game. 1 guild for PVE, 1 guild for PVP, 1 guild for dungeons, etc. Why GW2 doesn’t have alliances like GW did is beyond me. Setting up the social aspect to join a guild with your friends, so you have a “private” setting for yourselves, and then joining the larger alliance to get group stuff done works so much better than this joke of 5 guilds.

The guild itself is also not much needed atm in GW2, except for maybe a set group of players to WvWvW in, so you can create your own Zerg. The T3 system (mentioned b4) helped shape guilds around groups of players to focus on dungeons and raids. Without a need for such positions filled, you can pug any 4 other players to do things. PVP is the same way, and doing large events, like DE’s and WvWvW basically come down to Zergs anyway, that there isn’t much need for a guild.

STORY

The story has been on of the most disappointed part of GW2 for me. When watching videos prior to release, the mention of personal story and the effect it would have on your whole game play experience made it sound like it would dominate much of what your character does. In fact, it does not. You have two “chapters” that follow your choices, then a generic chapter with slight choice, followed by a solid generic chapter, then a second generic chapter with slight choice, then a mainstream storyline (yes, that was a bit rough to say, but I do not want to spoil anything for anyone). While this cannot be changed, and I will not go into the what it should have been part, there are ways to help make your choices matter again. Once you clear the set story arc for each race, it should open up smaller stories for each zone in the game. The smaller stories should be based on WARNING:SPOILER the choice of order you picked, as they all have some part to play in Tyria. This could also be an impetus to bring high level players back to lower level zones, if only for a smaller bit of time.

I am sorry this was so long, and there is much more I could have put in and typed, but these are the major points of issue I saw and potential ways to address them.