Guild Wars 2

So when people said they wanted some end-game challenge, I don’t think they had getting insta-gibbed in mind.

Yesterday, it was the awful jumping puzzle in Lornar’s Pass- I’ve had to put up some fights thru a few puzzles, but falling nearly to your death only to get finished off by a griffon is rage-inducing. And if they didn’t kill you, they’d definitely break the stupidly fragile bomb you’re supposed to carry to the end, so the cycle just ended up switching between being griffon food and simply being screwed.

Today it’s the new island- if the first untouchable underground worm doesn’t kill you, it’ll snare you so the next one DOES kill you. Downed state is a joke, because their buddies are gonna swarm all over ya- I often wish there was a ‘Just END It’ button in downed state. Then there’s areas you can’t even RUN thru- the regular mobs will tear you to shreds with ranged abilites. I’m used to running Orr- hell, I’ve gotten pretty good at dodging over-armored zombies. I even kinda take pride in my lil Asuran engi’s running ability. But this place kills me with minimal effort.

These aren’t the only places. And I know I’m not the only one with this issue- several reviews I’ve read have complained about the game’s many one-shots or no-escape scenarios (every time I run into an accursed thief in WvW, for example). Being insta’d in a dungeon is annoying enough, even when your party has your back; it simply shouldn’t happen in world gameplay, where you are often going solo. I, for one, want REAL challenges, ones that at least give me a fighting chance before killing me, not impossible headaches. NONE of this content is worth the lousy rewards the game currently doles out, and even WITH good rewards, it still wouldn’t be what I call fun.

I bought this game to play with a RL friend, but then he got a job and I’m trying to make the most of this with my current guild. And the (lack of) balance between challenge and reward is only ONE area of concern/annoyance. PLEASE, Anet, give me a reason NOT to regret blowing $60 of birthday money on this crap when I coulda gotten Skyrim.

Yup the new area is Orr all over again, only much worse.

Another observation- I used to be able to solo most veterans, even on my semi-squishy engi. Some where a bit of a challenge, but most were definitely doable. I even two-manned a champion the other day with a random ranger while exploring Dredgehaunt; again, a challenge, but an enjoyable and still-winnable one.

This new island? I just saw an entire group- five people- slaughtered by a SINGLE VETERAN KARKA. The regular mobs are bad enough- five stacks of confusion from a single drake, regular karka hitting like bricks, not to mention whole PACKS of them being thrown at you in events- and Ive heard the champions are even worse; having seen the opening event and how long it took for the zergs to bring the big guys down, I’m inclined to believe that. I’m loathe to even GO to the island, because I spend more on repairs than I make doing the events. If I were earning endgame-level rewards in exchange, I wouldn’t mind, but as we all know, Anet doesn’t do rewards very well.

Seriously, Anet, what kind of sado-masochists do you people employ? I generally enjoy a challenge, but this is no fun at all. Keep us soloists in mind next release…

The thing that gets me the most is there are huge problems with the combat with the mobs there. I am one of the few people who play thief PVE. I use my thief because she has the best escape abilities. If they had actually done testing on the Karka they would have known before this content was launched that they can see directly thru any stealthed or cloaked ability right off the bat with their aoe, barbs, and web attacks. What’s worse is they specifically target you if you are stealthed.

The second thing is this. There are NO resources here. WHERE are all the resources? Seriously. There’s like 3 nodes of the stuff we need for end game gear. There’s not a single recipe for chef that gives MF from the fruit on this island. The resources like Orchalcum and Ancient wood are almost nil. The drops here are horrendous, the mf doesn’t help a bit.

An example of problems with mf. We need clarification on what stacks and what doesn’t. We need clarification on what it does because I’ve estimated (if everything stacks) that I have at any guild run thru a zone 278% total mf and almost nothing drops off anything. This is your plan for horizontal progression? keeping people from getting the items they need to salvage for the parts to either sell or make their armor?

For example, gossamer cloth. It’s nearly impossible to get any and it’s even worse to try to buy it.

And concerning the new content. Why are these chests specifically setup to require that we buy them first to get them going? Sure we can create them only AFTER we get an ingredient only found inside one of these boxes! No one else finds this to be an issue? And don’t tell me it’s in the fractals whatever happened to not having to play a single dungeon, where did that go out the window with the rest of the manifesto? I as a gathcraftsplorer should not have to set foot in any dungeon for anything. That’s why I was attracted to your game because your manifesto promised us we shouldn’t have to do that to progress.