Guild Wars 2

I used to play World of Warcraft. I wanted to play Guild Wars but it wasn’t released in my country so I didn’t. All i know is that is a pvp-oriented mmo. I was able to buy Guild Wars 2 and I enjoy this game very much. However, in my opinion this game isn’t pvp-oriented at all. Here are some of my thoughts towards the game.

• sPvP:
  The thing about GW2’s pvp is that it’s combat oriented.
  Take a look at WoW’s battlegrounds. There are different kinds of objectives: capture-the-flag, conquest and assault. In Strand of Ancients you and your opponents take turns attacking and defending a keep and see who spends less time. It’s a whole lot of fun. Rift has king-of-the-hill pvp which was also new and interesting for me. All the maps in GW2 are small, conquest maps with 3 capture points. Even the new maps released in updates so far are all the same deal. Anet seems to love it, but I’m getting absolutely sick of it.
  This wouldn’t be so bad if there is strategy and teamwork involved, but there isn’t. In WoW’s Arathi Basin, which is also conquest, people communicate and work as a team to win. People rarely talk during matches in GW2.
  I don’t blame them because I don’t remember how much extra rank points you get for winning. The game doesn’t give penalties to player who leave either.You actually sometimes get transferred to the other losing side and lose. Victory or defeat doesn’t mean much in sPVP, so it’s really all about the combat.
  There are tournaments in sPvP, but winning them don’t get you anything you can’t get otherwise. Last time I checked you don’t get legendary weapon skins, or unique armors, or gem items, or “anything special” from tournament chests.
  WoW’s combat isn’t as sophisticated as GW2’s, so it’s arena isn’t well received, but at least there’s a distinction. Players who enjoy combat and those who enjoy teamwork all have their homes with different rewards. I thinks GW2 should do the same.

• WvW:
  WvW has a similar problem with sPvP: not rewarding.
  This is what you do in WvW: you join a zerg, get some supplies, run around the map, capture towers and keeps only to be recaptured, occasionally killing or being killed. About 2 days after reset, which place your world would come is pretty much determined. After a week the WvW resets and you fight different worlds. The game doesn’t tell you which place your world comes(although it’s usually obvious), or whether your world tiered up or down. It doesn’t even give you a chest for participating, it just resets.
  It does give you medals for killing but c’mon, no way WvW is all about combat like sPvP. Zerg vs zerg is not about skill, it’s about the numbers. I just don’t get why Anet made winning or losing just as meaningless as sPvP.
  There are other problems with WvW. Stonemist Castle is hard to capture but doesn’t give you a whole lot of points, or a special buff, just a keep worth of points. Towers and camps are hard to defend so no one does it only zergs. There can’t be a zerg defending every tower, so they just keep getting captured over and over. I’m sure that’s not Anet’s intention, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many useless upgrades. They should make towers and camps defendable by only a few players against zergs, or make them uncapturable for an hour after capture, or something.

• PVE:
  On the other hand GW2’s PVE is great. The leveling process is much better than WoW’s. Events make the world interactive and fun to travel, skill point challenges sometimes surprise you, vistas are pain in the kitten yet rewarding. Crafting is fun because of discovery.
  What I like the most is dungeon. There are no tanks because enemies hit randomly. There are no healers, but people go down and players “heal” them. Also, every profession have support skills and can DPS. That plus the evade system equals exceptional dungeon experience.
  People say the game lacks end-game content. It may be true, but even if you maxed out your gear there’s still a lot to do. Because every profession is unique, people start new characters. And, there are guild missions, and new content every month.
  There are some problems to the PVE though, Anet still can’t make level 80 players explore low level zone like exploring high level ones. The difficulties and rewards are not comparable, and people still crowd in Cursed Shore, which was or maybe still is a karma farm. Maybe they should make the events there as hard Grenth and add some super hard events. That ought to bring the zone back to life. Maybe make world bosses harder too.

That’s about it, pls comment!

I agree with most except:

“Maybe they should make the events there as hard Grenth and add some super hard events. That ought to bring the zone back to life. Maybe make world bosses harder too.”

There is a reason why most servers haven’t done Grenth in months. Grenth is stupid tough. And making it super hard is not enough to make people come back.

You need to make it REWARDING.

Go look at the Karka Queen. That chain is tough and long, and they even reward you two rares. But that alone is not rewarding.

I would say rewarding and hard, otherwise it would still be farming

Interesting, but as to your first point, you’re comparing SPvP to Battlegrounds in WoW. Which are two completely different things. If anything, SPvP is more like Arenas in WoW, while WvWvW is like Battlegrounds in WoW. Two completely different things that you can’t compare.

szqec.5762:

This is what you do in WvW: you join a zerg, get some supplies, run around the map, capture towers and keeps only to be recaptured, occasionally killing or being killed.

No. Thats what you do. Please don’t generalize like that.

szqec.5762:

• PVE:
  On the other hand GW2’s PVE is great. The leveling process is much better than WoW’s. Events make the world interactive and fun to travel, skill point challenges sometimes surprise you, vistas are pain in the kitten yet rewarding. Crafting is fun because of discovery.
  …
  Maybe they should make the events there as hard Grenth and add some super hard events. That ought to bring the zone back to life. Maybe make world bosses harder too.

First of all i like what you said about how there is no communication in GW2 pvp compared to WoW battlegrounds. Of course that means less trolling and griefing but it also means less participation and team work when it comes to strategy. I just realized that when i do pvp even though im surrounded by other players it pretty much a solo experience, for me anyways.

Your comment on leveling being great I couldn’t agree with you more! I loved all three parts of the Personal story – my Asuran personal story, my Vigil personal story and even the Traherne personal story was interesting(though i still hate it was more his story than mine). Events are fun and yes Skill points often do really challenge you! Those are wonderful surprises. however you didnt mention heart missions which are a personal favorite for me, easy to jump into and varied.

Your last statement about making world bosses more challenging is a tough nut to crack. How do you make a boss fight challenging and engaging when world bosses and dungeon bosses hit like trucks(and no class is meant to be a meat shield or healer). In Molten Facility and the recent AR dungeon what they are doing is making the environment itself your actual enemy. Constant mobility and awareness are required to defeat the boss. Its a good direction to follow and i hope they continue though personally i feel these kind of fights would be even more exciting if there were more defining roles instead of full dps or guardian lol

Thanks for your thoughts by the way.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Interesting, but as to your first point, you’re comparing SPvP to Battlegrounds in WoW. Which are two completely different things. If anything, SPvP is more like Arenas in WoW, while WvWvW is like Battlegrounds in WoW. Two completely different things that you can’t compare.

I think sPvP is more like battleground in that you have an objective other than killing and you keep reviving until the match ends. But anyways the point is that the game only offers combat oriented pvp which I’m not all that into.

Jrunyon.3012:

szqec.5762:

This is what you do in WvW: you join a zerg, get some supplies, run around the map, capture towers and keeps only to be recaptured, occasionally killing or being killed.

No. Thats what you do. Please don’t generalize like that.

Of course there’s a lot more to do like fighting on your own, using trebs, repairing, fighting mobs, gathering, and so on. But the big goal of WvW is still about getting points right?

Fairymore.8609:

szqec.5762:

• PVE:
  On the other hand GW2’s PVE is great. The leveling process is much better than WoW’s. Events make the world interactive and fun to travel, skill point challenges sometimes surprise you, vistas are pain in the kitten yet rewarding. Crafting is fun because of discovery.
  …
  Maybe they should make the events there as hard Grenth and add some super hard events. That ought to bring the zone back to life. Maybe make world bosses harder too.

First of all i like what you said about how there is no communication in GW2 pvp compared to WoW battlegrounds. Of course that means less trolling and griefing but it also means less participation and team work when it comes to strategy. I just realized that when i do pvp even though im surrounded by other players it pretty much a solo experience, for me anyways.

Your comment on leveling being great I couldn’t agree with you more! I loved all three parts of the Personal story – my Asuran personal story, my Vigil personal story and even the Traherne personal story was interesting(though i still hate it was more his story than mine). Events are fun and yes Skill points often do really challenge you! Those are wonderful surprises. however you didnt mention heart missions which are a personal favorite for me, easy to jump into and varied.

Your last statement about making world bosses more challenging is a tough nut to crack. How do you make a boss fight challenging and engaging when world bosses and dungeon bosses hit like trucks(and no class is meant to be a meat shield or healer). In Molten Facility and the recent AR dungeon what they are doing is making the environment itself your actual enemy. Constant mobility and awareness are required to defeat the boss. Its a good direction to follow and i hope they continue though personally i feel these kind of fights would be even more exciting if there were more defining roles instead of full dps or guardian lol

Thanks for your thoughts by the way.

Asura story is kinda cool, but the dragon and end-of-the-world story is …. cliche. Not to mention Traherne’s voice acting is terrible. Still, the story is a good retreat once in a while when your’e starting to get sick of exploring.