Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: This post is gonna sound negative, and for that I apologize. Guild Wars 2 is a good MMO and one of the most feature rich MMOs I have ever seen at launch. Events are a nice touch, and the world feels more alive than any other MMO I’ve seen.

I’ve been staring at this reply window for some time now, trying to figure out exactly why I’m not really enjoying GW2 anymore and figuring out what exactly to write… It’s not easy for me to accept that this is not the sequel I was hoping for.

Why did I play GW1 for 1500+ hours? Because I liked the gameplay! I didn’t play it for the promise of better looking armor. I played it because of the challenge. If I wanted to complete the Nightfall campaign 2 people and a hench, I could, and we did. Was it easy? Nope, but it was fun because of the challenge. No other game could deliver that!

Initially I was very excited when I heard about the combat system in GW2. “A combat system based around dodging and timing your attacks? Count me in!”. In reality it’s not what I hoped for. It sounds good on paper, and heck it was fun enough for a while, but it lacks depth. I feel pigeonholed into the same role over and over. My thief was pretty much designed for direct damage, bleeding and blinding, and thats pretty much it. I can’t escape that constraint.

In GW1 the player gets to be creative. In GW2 the class designer gets to be creative.

“But in GW1 everyone used the same ‘flavor of the month’ anyway”. Yeah but isn’t that happening here? Aren’t people using the same small collection of builds anyway (and it’s physically impossible for many unique builds to exist in GW2).

I haven’t been to Orr yet, and at this point I’m starting to doubt it will ever happen, because I’m simply bored with the combat system. I think the amount of zerging in the game is a symptom of a combat system that just isn’t very well designed.

I’ll end my rambling whining post with 2 quotes:
Colin Johanson: “I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.”
To me, GW2 is pretty much also played this way, you just add “and then I dodged!” to the end of the quote.

Mike O’Brien: “Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 …”
… except a deep combat system, that gave endless replayability and flexibility to last for years, which was the one thing I truly loved about GW1.

Forgive me readers… I know that was a negative read, but I felt I needed to say it.

TLDR; Combat system lacks depth to keep me entertained anymore. Game doesn’t feel like a true sequel to GW1; it feels more like another MMO with Guild Wars lore.

" Game doesn’t feel like a true sequel to GW1; it feels more like another MMO with Guild Wars lore."

This is probably the best way I have seen this sentiment expressed. I agree wholeheartedly. This game doesn’t seem like a sequel, but rather a different game entirely using the lore and the world. I like GW2, I am yet to be in the disillusioned position as the OP, but this would be my only gripe.

I don’t disagree with you. It’s a very different game with a familiar setting. I do miss the many levels of customization available in GW1. Still, I expect I’ll be playing this game for a while, regardless.

i want to hijack this well structured thread, derail it a bit and say that this game has so much potential still every day im thinking that exploiters and bots are getting away, its discouraging for us who havent found an exploit, lets take for example the precursor.

over 300g in TP, it only encourage people to buy black market gold because we all know that black market gold its way better than buying gems, why Anet doesnt release the precursor recipes? why let exploiters amass more and more gold while US the legit gamers have to deal with the insane amount of gold sink this game has.

it feels discouraging, atm i have mixed feelings about this game.

in case any of the so called fan boys come here and say “if you dont like just leave” NO! i wont, i love this game as much as you do, but there are so many things that should be addressed.

Nicely put. I feel the same way and there’s a lot of game mechanics and marketing that unfortunately reek of a MMO rushing to be mainstream instead of a niche title. GW2 is an excellent MMO, though it could and should be so much more.

GW1 was a niche title, though it spawned a very devoted following. GW2 needs to be able to do the same. For the record, by ‘devoted’ I don’t mean rabid fan-boys, but players who enjoy the game and offer feedback and criticism where required.

Yeah, it’s not the same experience. I chalk it up mostly to design progression just not being the same. Once you get your skills, that’s it. The skills you use in the tutorial will be the ones you use at level 80, and perhaps the entire game depending on your preferences.

It’s not just combat, but also how rewards and goals are very spaced out. In GW1 you might set a goal of gaining all profession skills, which would take a while but you’d be getting new skills almost all the time. You might also decide to collect various sets of armor, and after a month, have a couple already. Personal goals in GW2 are fewer to choose from and require far more grind, so you end up committing five times the effort and money towards things. And of course, there was no mystic forge in GW1 where 50% of the art assets were hidden and required 100 gold to buy a piece. Also, everything wasn’t designed to vacuum your money away in GW1. Loot rewards were also satisfying enough to make you feel good about what you did to get it. GW2 obviously has very big problems respecting its own players.

The way progression and effort-reward works in GW2 just leaves some of us feeling very unsatisfied and irritated, as the game doesn’t keep reinventing itself as you play the way GW1 always did. GW2 just keeps doing the same thing and expecting you to commit large amounts of time and money to it.

Really, all we needed was to be able to jump. I’m not entirely kidding. I do, however, enjoy GW2 for what it is, but – and I’ve said this elsewhere on these boards – I really wish there were places in GW2 that I could look at and say that, yes, I recognize this spot. This very spot. Right here. My GW1 character stood right here and said, “How long until Mad King Thorn shows up again?”

The thing that makes GW2 inferior to GW1 -IMO- is that GW2 doesn’t have a soul, it feels extremely generic to me. Maybe they tried to stretch themselves too far with the new races being included; I’m not sure what it is, its hard to put a finger on it. The world of GW2 is beautiful and grand, but the feeling of the game overall is bland. Almost all of the personal story line characters speak in this monotone, as if the voice actors arent acting at all, they are just reading lines.
In GW1, if you killed a boss the loot table seemed improved over that of normal mobs, not in GW2, the loot table for them is worse. I get a little more bored with GW2 every time I open a chest or loot a boss that took 10 minutes to kill. I could go on, but Im starting to bore myself just thinking about it. OK, have at me fanboys in knights armor.

The one thing that I can complain about the battle system, really is the skills. Coming directly from GW1 where we had hundreds of skills and months of gathering resources to have them all in order to get unique and diverse builds, I already had mainly all basic skills after..well, a few hours of playing the game.

Why aren’t skills based around type of weapon AND model? Why don’t swords have different skills? Other than that, the combat system is great! But I think we are spoiled with the huge number of skills available in GW1 and ANet should have offered some more than they did.

Well, the game is good, theres no doubt.
But the game just sucks at the end… Nothing to do and all that stuf…
And its sad to see the news post on official website about improvments only at spvp.
Spvp is just a LOL we dont want that.

I think that they need to come out with a mini expansion within the first 6 months, and show that they can make this game interesting. Sadly, I doubt that this will happen, as they are probably spending most of their time fixing bugs and figuring out how to force us to spend money in the cash shop.

Yes, a content add-in or something is very necessary at this point since a lot of players are loosing interest and NOT in the long run but also in the short run. I can’t speak for myself since I’m still at level 49 (don’t have much time to play daily) but I can understand all the flaws players are pointing.

ANet tried to make the game for appealing to the general public, different from other MMOs and also different from GW1, but that last part is what is making the difference between and epic game and a good game!

Chackan.2813:

Why aren’t skills based around type of weapon AND model?

I actually thought that it is that way when I first learned about GW2. That you could have different swords for different purposes like bleedings, direct dmg or mobility.

That was a letdown when I learned it’s nothing like I imagined it. ^^ Well, and later on the trait system was introduced which made me even more skeptic.

I can’t say that the system is terrible but it certainly is a step backward from GW1.

And yeah, GW1 had such a huge amount of freedom. Things like the 55hp builds. That was some outside of the box thinking!

I won’t say that GW2 is a step down from GW1 (combat wise), only the lack of diversity, because the rest (dodging, etc) is spot-on!

If I am comparing GW2 to any other MMO then I agree with you. Even though top and FOTM builds always exist, more options always can lead to interesting things and the next FOTM.

GW2 is not currently (we have no idea where they will take the build system and even GW1 didn’t have everything it has now available day 1) have many options when it comes to build. When I tried to play an elementalist I just couldn’t get into it because no one weapon combo appealed to me thru all attunements, and there was no weapon swap. But then I look at my Warrior and as long as I have any of the 2H weapons equipped I’m happy as a clam. To me the 2H weps synergize really well with the available utilities and it suits my game play.

Same with the engineer as all of the weapon combos there I love so I don’t need swap and can tinker around with my utilities and have found many enjoyable combos there.

Keep following the game and hope to see you back as the patches and expansions will hopefully expand on the combat builds/options.

Combat is not bad but challenge mobs give and events bosses is rediculous simple and weak and with zergs its even more simple. When i walk around orr im not feeling one bit of thread all mobs are easy and even some champions you can solo.
About cheaters and gold sellers this will be downfall of GW2 if arenanet not come up with good solution.
Hope in future it will all improve after all ive bought the game already but im not spending one dime more as long all cheaters and goldselllers can keep going and no bans for exploiters is no respect for legit players.

I think the op is spot on, GW1 != GW2. Even at lunch GW1 had numerically and “realistically” more combinations to build your character. Depending on your class GW2 seem to have even less “working” skill/trait combinations than the archaic WoW. I pretty much have exactly 2 “builds” i like, one for PvE one for WvW and except for minor tweaks, i don’t see any reason why i would change those. In GW1 i never had “a build” i was constantly changing class and skill combinations, this is completely absent in GW2.

Btw i just looked at the WoW-MOP, skill-system change and it looks like its even less restrictive than the weapon/trait system currently in GW2? It seems u can pick whatever talent/skill and “glyph” u like now, without any restrictions?

I especially don’t like the tiered trait and “shoehorned” minor trait system, let me pick what i actually want and not what a game designer “thought” is good for me. In my build i rarely need any of the minor traits at all, they seem like waste of points.

There are many things I miss about GW. My main in GW is a Mesmer, and I loved that class because it was complex, required tracking many different variables at once, and needed to change dramatically depending on circumstances. I had Energy to keep track of, I had to know what Hexes I’d laid on which enemies (and GOD do I miss Hexes!), I had to watch my own health (Monks make mistakes), not to mention keeping track of which enemies were safe to go after.

My main in GW2 is also a Mesmer. I enjoy playing her, but I agree with OP that gameplay overall is a much more shallow experience than in GW. I’m a lifelong action gamer, so dodging attacks and such came easily to me. Once I figured out how the mechanics work… well, that’s it, isn’t it? Swapping weapons to get at different skills and such is mildly interesting, but most of the skills feel like the ones I never put on my bar in GW… only I have to put them on my bar, because they’re all the skills there are.

I like the movement-based combat of GW2, but the Skill system of the original game was greatly superior. At the very least I feel there should be 2-3 skills selectable for each weapon slot. There just isn’t enough flexibility to provide the level of depth and flexibility that GW had.

Tell me about it.

<—- Long-time GW1 player,
8000 hrs+
4 Gwamms: ele, necro, mesmer, warrior
50/50 HoM
Loves both PvE and PvP

GW1 = skill-bar wars (can’t spam much because energy is an issue)
GW2 = spam-dodge wars (lack of skills, infinite energy pool)
Tera = best action combat (you didn’t see this coming?)

Read the rest of my feelings about GW2 here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-GW2-as-successful-as-you-hoped/360631

lv54 now and two weeks in on my first toon. i played gw alot, and i must say im impressed so far with gw2. do i like the skill/combat more than gw? ,not necessarily, but i’ve had nothing but a fun time playing so far. granted im only 2 weeks in, but so far it feels alot like gw did originally with the lore, maps, music, skill names etc…

My question to the community is this scenario:

Imagine this is your first MMO. Imagine you’ve never played GW1, or WoW, or EQ etc. You have no basis for comparison, this is your first experience with this kind of game.

Ok, in that mind set? Now answer this: What do you think of the game?

It seems like your problem is the Thief, not GW2 itself.
I ensure you other classes have many possible setups, it’s just that Thief is bad for PvE period.

I have 80 Warrior 80 Guardian and trying to level Thief but I just can’t get myself to do it.
Too squishy (d/d) or too boring (blindspam).