Guild Wars 2

Take a moment to experience your results first hand. What I mean is, play your own game sometimes. Play it as though you’ve never heard of it in your life. The actions you take may seem good on paper, but in reality its causing distress. There are many more things that needs to be fixed other than class balance.

Lets take rendering for example… It took me a few weeks but I realized that every environment is made out of thousands of shapes, clumped together like that weird ball in Katamari Damacy. My computer has to process all of those shapes into 3D models including NPCs, animations and other player while constantly updating actions made in real time. The draw distance is astounding and my computer has to process that too.

Just recently, we were fighting the Priestess of Dwayna while getting ripped apart by the massive amounts of adds. There were 12 of us who just came from Grenth after he tore all of us a new one twice in a row. For some reason, while I was at Dwayna I was downed and found myself inside the second topmost step. What got me was that I was on top of the third step which was pretty much the same disc I was in except that it was larger. This was the most recent incident of it’s kind, not the first.

Everyone has to constantly process all of that while every special effect fills the screen and players move around. Instead of using the Magic Nerf Bat (MNB) to appease the QQ militia, use could it on the extra shapes. Cut out all of the extra crap I will almost never see or stand on. Turn those clumped shapes into 1 and hollow it out. Maybe that would cut the amount of processing power needed and help suppress lag/rubberbanding.

Another thing the devs can do that could help better improve everything would be to really get in there and play the game as though you never worked for Anet. Get in there as a undercover newbie, make some friends, join a guild, listen to everyone’s personal gripes and for gods’ sakes don’t get caught. Think about the things you personally like and dislike, even glitches and minor crap you know everyone else puts up with.

If I was a dev and I was reading that paragraph (^) right now, I would. It would be refreshing to get a new perspective of the game that I work on. It takes 2 weeks to level to 80 if you know how to do it (do everything). During that time I can settle into my main, try other builds, mess around with my friends, etc.

One of the things I would look at is the combat system because who doesn’t want an epic battle, amirite? Some of the classes have weapon combinations that are good while others are lacking. I understand that GW2 is trying to get away from the Holy Trinity but it’s harder than it seems.

You can’t make dynamic battles off of stupid AIs. If you want dynamic battles, then make dynamic AIs. Things like CC, support (healing and boons) and tactical selective killing (my favorite) should all draw aggro. You know how dangerous one person can be to a group if they exhibited any one of those 3 effectively? Very freaking dangerous. If enemies switched targets and constantly avoided you because you were singling them out, it would make the game more dynamic especially if that same enemy kept drawing/losing you into their zerg and then started attacking the guy off to the side who was spamming CC while you are finding other targets. Target Prioritization is the son of Aggro. Picture that scene for a minute and imagine how fun PvE would be with that. You wouldn’t need to buff mobs into 1-hitters or generate a zerg rush that all target one guy at a time with more dynamic AI.

For class balancing, instead of using the MNB on that one seemingly “OP” build that everyone cries about, you could instead select a few builds nobody uses and modify them so they can combat that one build’s strengths while exploiting its weaknesses and still have room for versitility. “Omfg those classes are now OP!”…. More unused build modification. Eventually every build will have some purpose.

Farming can be solved with addition better than subtraction. By that, I mean more lvl 80 zones. Right now, in order to meet my challenge and material needs, my choices are: Southsun and Cursed Shore :|. Both contain mobs that I normally avoid because they scare the living poop outta me (Vet Karka+ and Champion God Pirate+). It would be nice to have some place to go that is somewhat profitable besides Cursed Shore. This brings me into my next gripe that involves the MNB.

Math Warning
Farming = grinding + materials.
Farming + MNB = :c

You will always have a kind grind in MMOs. It is unavoidable. People are willing to nolife the things they want and they will no matter what. Super shiney purples are very tempting but not when it takes months of grinding to get it. Yeah maybe some people who casually play for 2 years straight could get everything they need but that rarely is the case. Competition which is part of nature is what drives people to sacrifice so much for that one weapon. Hitting their ability to attain it with the MNB has a better chance of killing any desire to own one than bumping them in the direction you want. Either way it takes a legendary amount of nolife to obtain a Legendary Weapon. Note how pathetic that sounds…

Not alot of people have that luxury or can afford that much nolife. Others can nolife for that long but refuse to do so because they don’t see any personal profit in it. 3-24 months of labor (and pain) for an ultra-pretty sword they may or may not be able to use is not that appealing.

This Legendary concept swam through my mind a while ago: Legendary Weapons tend to be original and one-of-a-kind in RPGs. What if at some point through our story, our characters could obtain the broken remains of what was once a powerful weapon that was destroyed alongside some forgotten hero? This weapon could be customized (with kittenloads of special/regular materials) and grow into the weapon that could only be told of in the legend it carved for you.

Everything from its name to special effects, stats, abilities and appearance (possibly special attacks and abilities) can be added so long as it has already absorbed the necessary materials. It should take about as long as it takes to get a Legendary but it has to promise more than just another ultra-pretty weapon with flashy everything and a so-so stat boost from an exotic. It really has to be special (and practical).